An expat at home

So, we embarked on our odyssey this year, travelling light with just one suitcase so we had plenty of space to bring back our purchases and having e-mailed everyone to let them know we were coming.

The first rude reminder that I wasn’t in Turkey was the difficulty of making plans to meet up with people. I understand that they are busy and can’t drop everything when we arrive but it seems you need to book to see some people weeks in advance, while others work so hard they are just too tired to socialize. It makes me think they might have lost the balance between work and play and it’s hard not to make comparisons with Turkey, where you are welcomed as a visitor wherever and whenever you turn up and begged to stay as long as you can.

I have noticed this difference before when British people who have settled in Turkey have complained that Turkish friends drop in without prior notice. It is rude in Turkey NOT to visit people -- especially after major events like births and deaths and while you might call to let them know to put the tea on, it is not essential. I admit that after my first son was born and I was struggling with the unfamiliar demands of motherhood, a baby who had to be fed with a spoon and woke every two hours through the night and the heat of August, I found the stream of guests a little stressful. Since then, however, I have wholly accepted the custom and mostly enjoy impromptu visits, which is maybe why I find myself a little peaked by British rules of social engagement!

Still, plenty of people were very welcoming and we got to catch up with a lot of them. We also visited many interesting places, from the Docklands Museum and Tower Bridge in London to Mother Shipton’s Cave in Knaresborough and Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The thing that surprised me with these was the variation in admission prices. While the Docklands Museum is free and Tower Bridge cost a very reasonable 10 pounds for the three of us, St. Paul’s Cathedral was going to cost over 20 pounds -- we visited Westminster Cathedral instead. The Pleasure Beach is expensive but we booked online for a discount and paid 20 pounds per person for wristbands that allow unlimited rides all day. By comparison Ripley’s Believe It or Not! -- a museum-type attraction of the amazing and the bizarre from round the world -- would have cost 66 pounds for the three of us; I was amazed without even entering! Thankfully, in these days of the Internet, you can find out in advance the admission price -- and often get a discount online too.

Shopping also seems to have become a complicated business in the UK. In almost every store when I went to pay I was asked if I had a loyalty card of some sort. When I replied that I didn’t, I was usually asked if I wanted to get one at which point I usually volunteered the information that I live abroad as an excuse for being a shopping troglodyte. Even paying became a problem as I couldn’t work out which way to put my card in some of the machines. Luckily my children are smarter than me!

At one of the big supermarkets I was asked the intriguing question, “How many bags did you bring?” After repeating the question and seeing my look of bewilderment, the girl at the checkout obviously thought I was slow and, taking pity on me, explained that they gave money back to customers bringing their own shopping bags. The children were very keen to try the self-checkout desk but I thought this would be beyond our capabilities!

I’m sure I am beginning to sound quite incapable, but I used to manage to do all of these things easily. Now, even buying a train ticket seems complicated and I never did gather whether I needed to pay for my 10-year-old, who seemed to go free on the bus in London but still needed a Travelcard!

Another thing I could no longer get used to was the general level of stress and aggression. In a big store, we saw a woman shopper screaming and hurling hangers at the shop assistant and another arguing with the security guard because the alarm had gone off and he had asked to look in her bag. And I don’t even want to start on the loud and defiant teenage girls on the bus whom nobody dared to ask to keep quiet!