It’s The Little Things
Whether you’ve moved two towns over, to the other side of the country or the other side of the world, there are always things you miss about home, no matter how happy you are in your new adopted place.
I miss…
1. Butchers, fruit and veg shops and bakeries, especially bakeries like Greggs. Here in Kuusamo, northern Finland, we don’t have a nice fruit and veg shop, or a friendly butcher. We don’t even have a bakery for your fresh bread and cakes, no rows of seasonally decorated gingerbread men lining a window or place you can pick up a quick pasty. All food produce is bought from the supermarket which takes the enjoyment out if somehow.
2. Low prices. Finland is expensive. Fresh fruit, veg and meat cost twice as much as the UK, children’s clothes are insanely priced (£20 for a pair of trousers for a toddler?) and anything to do with decorating or home improvement seems to come with a 300% tax. Seriously, how can the standard price of one roll of wallpaper border, throughout the town, be £20? I bought 3 rolls of the exact same border, including postage to Finland, from the UK for £12!
I understand that a lot of it is because Finland has such a small population, 5.4 million as apposed to the UK’s 60 million, and the cost of importing stuff, running businesses and all those additional charges that are added to products for sale, are so much higher per item as less is being sold to a lot less people. However, sometimes I think they just take the Michael.
3. Pubs. I really miss pubs. If there was one thing I could import from the UK it would be a decent English pub. Bars around here tend to open in the evening through to the early morning, often 4am, and are for drinking in. They are often dark, quite gloomy places that look much better of a night when packed to the rafters with people and, to me, don’t feel very welcoming. I long for a good Sunday lunch and a couple of pints in a nice pub, or a long lazy summer evening spent in the beer garden.
4. Cadburys chocolate. I cried a little inside when I learned about Cadburys buy out by Kraft but I’d settle for a bar of Kraft dairy milk if they’d start shipping the stuff abroad. (Was I the only one that breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t Nestlé that bought them out when they heard the news?)
5. Trains. Before you run screaming for the hills, I’m not a trainspotter, I don’t secretly have an anorak and flask stashed under my bed, but I do miss trains. We don’t have any, you see. Not around here. Our closest train station is 2 or 3 hour drive away and I miss the convenience of trains. Being able to jump on a train and be whisked at super speed to your destination, traverse the country without having to drive and get stuck in traffic. For all the Brits moaning about the transport system, I don’t think they realise how lucky they have it – try living without it for a while and you’ll see what I mean.
What about you, what do you miss from home or find hard to live without where you are now? If you’ve never moved away from your home town, what would you miss the most if you did?
I'm Heather, an ex expat, now back in blighty and living in Lancashire. Which is just like Lapland only less snowy...and stuff.
Although I'm only over the border I miss the scottish newspapers. I do read them online but I'm old and I don't feel I've read them till I've turned pages. I also miss Empire biscuits, so sweet they hurt your teeth, shortcake biscuits with jam in the middle, iced with a glace cherry on top, you get them at bakeries. Sweets like tablet and macaroon and MB bars, remind me of my childhood all missed. When I finally go and live in Turkey I'm sure I'll miss even more!
I do miss the newspapers. not to much the news but the act of actually
sitting down and turning the pages. funny isn't it?
Oh I miss a lot of things. Like you I miss the fruit and vegetables. They don't taste the same as here. There are other foodie things I miss, but I recently discovered a french supermarket online and placed my first order yesterday. Something silly, I miss the shower gels we have in France. I find shower gels quite limited here when we have a range of wonderfully smelling ones.
But I have to say, things have improved in the years I have been here. When I first came, I had to go into town to find a pot of Nutella (and I can't live without it). Other things, would be cafes with their sunny terrasses. Oh and restaurants, cheap, varied ones. Oh I miss that!
And bath bombs! here most people don't have a bath in their house, it's not
really normal, and so you cant easily find bath bombs and bth fizzes.
I love the cafe culture of France and Spain, I long top live somewhere with
that culture. It must have been quite a hard thing to lave behind.
“Its the little things” – a comment I used so often in my time as an expat. Love your post, a great glimpse into the day to day of life in Finland. The things I missed list became shorter the longer I was away but every visitor was asked to bring with them….Nestle Vanilla Coffee Mix, Haribo Starmix, British Chocolate, Oxo cubes & Children's mint toothpaste. When they arrived we would huddle around their cases until the goodies were handed over. So easily pleased.
MD x
To your points (I guess you've been away a while!) 1) Tesco now own all things so we too have a limited supply of butcher, bakers and candlestick makers 2) Ha, I suppose it's all relative but have you seen the cost of petrol here? 3) Pubs – you can buy a bottle at a supermarket for the cost of glass in a pub and thet all appear to be decorated with the same old books, bicycle and …ok – they are lovely on a lazy Sunday afternoon 4) I use homesick.com.au but britshcornershop.co.uk will ship you all the chocolate you need. I love it when we have a full stash of cherry ripes! 5) Stood on freezing cold platform with 200 other commuters whilst being told that the 4th train in a row is either cancelled/full/you can't board with your ticket : is not one to be missed!!! Like AuntieGwen we miss the local papers and have them posted to us when we can, and the footy – and the sun!!!
“I long for a good Sunday lunch and a couple of pints in a nice pub, or a long lazy summer evening spent in the beer garden.”
Hear, hear. I've never got over my love of pubs. And the Irish pubs in Paris just aren't the same.
What do I miss? The usual suspects:
Pubs, of course; steak and kidney pie; supermarkets (they're better than in France although France excels at the outdoor market); Marmite; Sunday newspapers that don't cost 5 euros; Brit TV; Brit sport on Brit TV; my UK family and friends; etc etc.
But I also enjoy living over here. If I had more money I'd Eurostar over for the occasional weekend.
Ooh must look up homesick.com.au I love Cherry Ripes! I miss the Kiwis, not the birds, the people. I miss the sense of humour and droll apppreciation of the ridiculous. I miss more than anything the beach and the sea and being able to walk past it every day! I miss balmy summer nights in Auckland with the ceiling fan cutting up the humid air. I miss long,inevitably boozy BBQs at friends. I find people don't invite you into their homes as much over here – is it because there's so many pubs? I miss fresh fish, green lipped mussels, Bluff oysters, fresh produce that doesn't go off after two days in the fridge, and fresh thick steak.
I miss the warmth, the sun, I even miss the wild storms that roll in over Auckland harbour.
Strange the things you miss.
Children's mint toothpaste! Yes! why can you only get toothpaste for kids in bubblegum flavour in so many places? It's the same here. Oxo, yes Oh and Birds custard powder and bisto granules. and suet.
that's so sad to hear about tesco taking everything over
Petrol here is about the same price as the UK usually. sometimes a little more.
thank you for those links – i shall go and drool over the british one now…
yeah, despite everything there's noway I'd exchange our nice warm sunny summers with the grey blandness of the UK again
It is funny what you miss, eh?
funnily enough, we have an irish bar too! i think it's an EU directive that all towns must have at least one! It's not the same though, not by a long shot. Oh, steak and kidney pie! ummm…. I miss the BBC, oddly. We had BBC entertainment for a while and it was great to be able to watch dr who and top gear and the like but it stopped working.
When I lived in Zambia I missed prawn cocktail crisps. Irrational, I know, but it is the little things that matter! And decent cheese: everything there was very plasticky. But, thankfully, there was Dairy Milk available
oooh, prawn cocktail crisps. Now that come to mention it! lol
Thank you for writing this post. The possibility of my OH and I moving abroad is getting slimmer and I was feeling quite disappointed about it but after this post I think I'm very lucky to be staying in my home country with all my home comforts
Although when I visit my parents in France I miss UK supermarkets, and I know my parents miss Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and Marmite because they ship huge amounts of the stuff back when the visit!
I miss the bumper Sunday papers and crumpets and real fluffy scones! OH, and the early spring flowers.
Pubs, and sunday lunches, -you've so hit the nail on the head. I keep promising my bf a sunday lunch and laze about in a pub garden, but somehow I just don't think he would get it. I also miss crumpets and sausages and decent bacon that doesn't look like its about to wrap itself around my arteries…. I also miss the english countryside – the concept of going for a walk here in southern finland is unheard of ( unless you like pavement and nordic walking poles…). Mini eggs at Easter and a decent clothes selection and variety of shops. Have just noticed that most of the things I miss are food related….
If I left my home in the UK for abroad I would certainly miss tap water, being able to drink straight from a tap is such a luxury that we take for granted. Looking back to things I regard as home comforts, I miss my granny's Raeburn heater, it didn't just heat the water and cottage but my teddy got warmed up for bedtime on it and my clothes dried on it, food was always bubbling away on it and we sat round it warming our feet/slippers/dressing gowns – that raeburn represented every home comfort to me and granny! from yappydog
I love living abroad but yeah, there are home comforts I miss. Crunchy not
cornflakes i adore! cant get them here tho
oh yes, the bumper papers of a sunday! and yes i miss spring flowers. Well
I miss spring really. We have melt rather than spring and its just not the
same
dementia skiing! lol. Of sausages that aren't these nasty Finnish things! I
miss them loads. Decent clothes would be nice. In Kuusamo there are two
clothes shops and then the supermarkets so everyone ends up with the same
stuff. Yawn.
ahh that raeburn sounds fab! We are lucky here i that we can drink the tap
water. It would be a really hard thing for me to live without
I miss my Mum and sister, they both live a 3 hour drive away. Ok, that probably isn't a long journey but I find it to be when I have to pack the kitchen sink and amuse little ones in the car for that long! My sister has two sons and I feel like I am missing out there, as she is with my three. I am lucky enough to have one sister just a few miles away. Jen.
A three hour drive is a tricky distance, isn't it? Its too far to comfortably go for a days visit. lucky that you have one close by though. i wish I had friends and family close by. thank God for the internet, eh?
I so agree about missing things. From region to region of the country, there are huge differences and I know exactly what you're talking about!
When i moved down to the south of England form Manchester there were things
i missed, Yeah, you don't have to go far to miss home, eh?
OK, things I will miss when travelling: The Guardian on Saturdays (you don't get all the supplements outside of UK), public transport (I really appreciate London's amazing network), Green & Blacks, Heat magazine (chortle all you like), really hot baths (cheap hotels only have showers), cold Christmas, decent and not so decent TV, the ability to get a proper coffee on every street corner (although some places will be OK for this), proper seasons with rain, snow, sun and lots of pretending the weather's nicer than it really is, blossom. Actually, I think I should stop clogging your comments and write my own post on this matter…
I've done that post before (http://glowstars.net/2004/08/things-we-miss-abo…) – a lot of food related items funnily enough.
I am yet to even taste Green and Blacks, not sure I want to if it's going to become another thing to miss lol. Come back and leave a link when you've written your post!
it's always food isn't it? lol
I moved away from New York for about 2 months a few years ago, and I missed too many things about New York:
1. the fact that I can get almost any type of cuisine here in the city at almost anytime of the day and night
2. that I can get around to any part of the city without having to drive
3. that I can go into a corner store in the middle of the night to get myself an ice cream sandwich
4. the convenience of everything
5. all the people
Convenience is one of the hardest things I've had to adjust to not having,
Here you're lucky to be able to get anything. ever. Or so it seems
sometimes. Seriously, if I wanted to go to town without driving, there is
one bus leaving my village in the morning and one coming back in the
afternoon – and they are the school buses. Anything outside of that and I'd
have to sell a vital organ to be able to afford a taxi. Yeah, sometimes i
really miss convenience.
M&S, Yorkshire tea, marmite, Shreddies, the Sunday papers, great pubs, friends, salt & vinegar crisps. We stock up on all these when we pop back to the UK. From the US I miss great coffee bars, fab shopping, sushi bars, space, choice and the idea that you can do anything and go anywhere.
salt and vinegar crisps…is England the only country in the world to make
them? It seems that way. How odd. I think the last thing on your list
deserves a blog post of its own – i'd love to hear more that mindset of
being able to go anywhere, do anything.
You've gone blue! I like it…. Anyway, i'm about to write a whole post about what I'm about to miss… and then probably another one in a couple of months time about what I actually do miss.
I like the fact you miss Greggs though – one of the things our new house is going to have is a Greggs…. because, get this, Mr Gregg used to own our new house!!!! How exciting is that?!
Speaking as someone who's about to do that move in reverse, I am DEFINITELY not looking forward to tablet! Weird Scottish abberation of a foodstuff in my opinion….
Nooo! that's cool! Will he pop round with pasties and gingerbread men?
I sort of glossed over it earlier cause i had no ideas what it was. can you enlighten?
I can definitely relate – however living in most parts of Africa, when you are from a developed country, you tend to miss things like guaranteed electricity and running water.
Having said that, I miss bagels and fast food places (scary but true – it's amazing what you start to want when you know you can't have it!). I miss seasons – here it's constant summer – hot hot hot. I miss parks and shopping malls and 24 hour places…
I miss being a 20 minute drive from family (now it's about 24 hour ordeal).
I guess we all miss things and people and places but the longer we are away, we get used to what life is like where we are. Ghana does have it's upside – beaches, heat, palm trees, friends who own their own tropical islands, having a gardener and a cook and never having to look at dirty dishes or ironing…
Ooh Cadbury's chocolate I could not live without and I live in constant fear of evil Kraft bigwigs messing with the sacred Cadbury's recipe or worse, going for cheaper ingredients to cut costs and extend their fat profit margins… ruining the world's best chocolate forever.
I think what I'd miss the most about living in a foreign country though is the english langauage. Street signs. menus, newspaper headline, timetables and just a casual nod and hello from the man in the street all delivered in a language I can understand without thinking… I'd miss that most of all.
I would definitely miss the pubs if I returned to the States! Most things that I can buy I dont really miss as I am happy to order online. I do miss American customer service. I miss the convenience society (and yet I love the fact that 'inconveniences' in the UK like so many businesses shutting down over Christmas mean you can actually relax for a week or so). I miss long summers.
I can't imagine life without any of those things!
They are taking the Michael. Ireland has an even smaller population than Finland – quality not quantity obviously – and while it is expensive it is not that (in italics) expensive. When I moved here from Wales I missed my hairdresser (now replaced), Boots (now here) and first class letters that arrived the next day – now of course we have email
You HAVE to open your own pub
Thats gotta be the next project 
moaning about the transport system, I don’t think they realise how lucky they have it – try living without it for a while and you’ll see what I mean.
Oooohhh look at the furore over the planes recently…. I can't WAIT until someone moans about transport now
I actually miss village life – I grew up in a village and hated every single last minute of it (especially as a teenager) – my parents knew what I'd done before I got home thanks to the “jungle drums”. But I'd love that type of security for my kids.
Your friends own tropical islands and you NEVER have to iron or wash up? I'll be on the next plane!
It is silly the things you miss though, like you say, is mostly because you know you can't have it. If i left here I would probably miss being able to go skiing whenever living really close to a ski resort. how many times i have actually been in the last 12 months? Once.
I used to miss the English language a lot. I big part of why I blog is to have contact with other English speakers, I sometimes start to forget the language, I find myself using pigeon English terms that are used a lot here or Americanisms that they use a lot. And if i don't blog for a few days i find my sentence structure going all to pot.
I imagine it must be a huge culture shock going form the American customer service to the English version.
the longer I am away the less i miss them. i haven't been back the UK for about 3 years…I do wonder if my impending visit will make me miss them more when i get back or will satisfy my craving.
I miss Boots. boots is (or at least was) an awesome shop.
Something that happens around here a lot is people leaving when they get old enough and then moving back once they have kids. The security of a village is a wonderful thing.
I would love to open a proper pub but I'd probably just drink all the profits.
But you have Marimekko….
I almost hate to this, but i really dont 'get' marimekko. it's ugly, for
the most part. *ducks for cover*
no!! heresy!! i have to confess to a marimekko obsession. in fact, i long to make a pilgrimage to finland just to pay homage!!
come on out!
tablet/toffee… It's sugary, buttery goodness in a crumbly shell.. It's basically like toffee, but crumblier. Pure tooth-breaking bliss!
Sausages. And fish fingers.
If I were to leave Scotland, I'd most definitely miss
1. The pub culture. Every time I tell my mom that I'm on my way to the pub for my lunch, she gasps and is shocked, because of the culture back in Finland. Especially in small towns.
2. The greenery. Everywhere I turn, there's a park. There's one here, there's one there, they are everywhere! Where are the parks in the middle of Helsinki?
3. Irn-bru. Seriously. I hated it when I first came over, but I fell in love.
4. the chavs. Because you always have to have someone you can make fun of!
From Finland there's very little I miss.. I'm fairly happy with my life over here and most of the stuff I do miss, my mom sends over every now and then
1. Salmiac. *sigh*
2. Fazer's chocolate *doublesigh*
3. Security. There was never a time when I had to kick a junkie off my front steps. I could go for a jog in the small hours of the morning if I wanted to. Nobody has complicated alarm systems. Living in a bigger city has made me more scared than I have ever been in my life. Because I can actually see that there are problems and I know what happens. Knowing that a man got robbed and murdered just around the corner from my house doesn't make things better.
4. The standard of living. If there ever was a rental flat with mold anywhere, it'd be soon off the market. Over here, if my flat is only 60% covered in mold, I'll take it immediately. Most rental flats are very old-fashioned and the insulation just isn't up to par…
5. cleanliness. OH GOD, SCOTLAND'S DIRTY! From the streets to (some of) the people. It's just disgusting!
xx
Iron Bru yum yum. i love iron bru! I've only ever spent a couple of hours
in Helsinki and we have plenty of green up here in kuusamo but I've just
realised another thing i miss – horizons. Everywhere you look here all you
can see is trees – I miss being able to look out over fields and actually
see where the land and sky meet.
The security and safety I would miss. Having to lock your door all the
time, even when you are in your house, and worrying about where to walk at
night – even though i grew up with it, it would really freak me out now.
Living in small-town Argentina now after leaving big-city Canada, I miss (among many other things):
- DIVERSITY
- good public spaces for families with little ones, like a library, for example
- cheap second-hand stuff, garage sales, thrift stores, etc.
- mushrooms, falafel, sour cream and bagels (not all together)
- my close friends
- not having to stand in line to pay every bill, get any information about anything, do any kind of paperwork, etc.
Ah yes, diversity would be nice. You dont get much of that in northern Finland either. The pain in the butt-ness that comes with paperwork in a country like Argentina must be maddening to live with.
The things I miss from the US: are fresh bagels with cream cheese & lox from a NYC deli; ice cream parlours; proper donuts (okay so far this is all food related!); Thanksgiving; large lakes where you can take out a boat; proper hot summers & snowy winters and wide roads that fit two cars properly. But some of the things you've listed above like cadbury's chocolate, trains, pubs, bakers etc are some of the reasons I love living here. Not sure about the cheap prices – wow Finland must be expensive!
It really is expensive here
you know, I'm so excitited about going on
trains again when I get to the UK. My kids have never even seen a train!