Fooferfish

LOL funny ay ? not like me at all, but last week i had some wierd dreams of my home town and the surrounding areas, Dorset is still strong in my mind, and last week i actually realy miss the place not so much the traffic or the ammount of people, but the area and now its getting warmer there and we would have been visiting all those coastal seaside villages, collecting fossils from the rocks at Kimmeridge bay, oh how i miss thos places, i miss the history to, dont know where and why this has come about ? even though we now live in an awesome house with countryside all around us and have achieved so much, that missing, dare i say it my old town ( home ) has crept back into my mind.

Anyone else had this after this long ?

pestman

My answer would have to be no to that.

However I reckon it's only normal to think back to where it was we came from.

My youngest two girls remember the UK with such skewed memories at times grasping onto the 'fantastic' things they used to do when in all honesty the place we lived was nothing like it!

Im not saying there wasnt a morsel of truth in their memories but the actual amount of time we spent doing such great things was minimal.

I do miss some of london life for sure but only things like going to a book shop and having massive choices there and then and paint choices of the shelf and so on. All of which are in the things department of my life.

Back then for us a trip to the coast was down to Brighton which when I was a kid took 50mins by car but as time went by went upto 1 and 1/2 hours half of them just getting to the M23!

NOW ITS A TEN MIN DRIVE!

Missing home I guess is what we will all do at some point but are we really missing the true home we left or the 'good times' we had there?

I will HAVE to go back soon not through choice but NONE of my family back there will EVER fly here for various reasons so with parents in there 70's now im resigned to wasting my dollars on a trip back there rather than a holiday this side of the world.

Might seem harsh to some to see a trip back by me to see my parents as a wate but thats how I feel sure good to see them but I will still leave again so for me memories of good times are enough. Horse for course I guess.

Maybe a trip back next year Nige leave the wife and kid/kids and we could do a road trip I show you London you show me Dorset! Heck if Dumb and Dumber can do it we got it made mate!

george

Genesis

Yes I miss loads about the UK. I just HATE the crowds, throngs and the jams. How do you get 45 years of a beautiful country out of your system? I guess some do but I will ALWAYS miss the UK, BUT that does not make me want to go back and live there. The reality of more years in endless jams, crowds and general overcrowdedness would drive me even madder than I am now. NZ is just fine and dandy and wonderful. I think almost every day how fortunate we are to be here.

owen

Can I suggest that after 5 years, the UK you miss doesn't exist...........

It happened to my sister, she was homesick with rose tinted glasses on. She went back for a visit and couldn't wait to return to NZ. She remembered why she has chosen NZ to be her home and that her UK had moved on without her. Maybe it would work for you too??!!

Genesis

It does. I miss NOTHING of the UK I left c2005. However I miss things that have been there for centuries, the old pubs, the old buildings, the villages, the british countryside and all the other wonderous aged things that make the UK such an awesome place for a vacation. I would live nowhere else right now other than NZ and I know why I left the UK and remember it well when we returned to see rellies back in 2007. This time we are going over the Uk winter for 7 weeks to enjoy a real xmas and have 5 star accomodation at a 1 star price. The beaches will be empty and so will the museums as the school hols in the Uk are for only 2 weeks. I enjoy walking on a windswept empty beach all wrapped up and then repairing to an old REAL british pub for some hearty lunch. We have chosen an extra week in Dartmouth over a week's stop over in Hawaii.

BEVS

Yes Nige.

But then we did both use to live in a really beautiful place with stunning countryside and beaches , coastal walkways + lots to see and do & historical places to visit, didn't we . It's OK to miss all that good stuff ,even if you have good stuff here too.

6 years for us now

When we've been back to help our parent's we've made a point on doing some of those good things you mention if we can. Places like Kimmeridge . Or out over to Old Harry rocks . Poke around a few of the old museums. Take a walk up Corfe Castle. Drive out to Lepe ,New Forest and look out over to the Isle of Wight.

Towns may be busier than in my youth. Places may be more crowded but some things like that just never, ever change do they.

I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't have tried harder to afford a small place out in the Purbecks somewhere.

Here is something to perhaps help those thoughts of yours and as you know I will never indulge in UK knocking of any sort. I just don't see the need.

Do you also remember the traffic jam on a summers evening trying to get back from Wareham through to the Bakers Inn round-about ? We used to simply stay out until it had cleared though , so no probs for us with no kids in tow.

Browner_

Dorset, Hampshire, Southern Surrey, and Sussex are great places, way more liveable places than NZ

Genesis

All very true. My sister lives in a chocolate box Devon village....beautiful. Until you want to get in the car and travel somewhere. Especially in summer. I lived there once in summer for 5 weeks. The A30 was gridlock. NZ wins hands down any day purely on the population front. If crowds, endless traffic jams and wall to wall humans do not phase you the UK is awesome.

pricklykina

I think it's totally normal foofer.
I've been here 11 years and it still gets me at times.
It's OK
It passes.
These days I'm grateful for the dreams. I dream a lot of my sick grandmother. I figure it's the only way that I can hang out with her so I'm happy for that. She's not sick in my dreams either so we have a great old time.
NZ is great, but home is home. I always say that you can't change where you are from. And why would you want to? Home helps to shape you and make you the person that you are. Home is more than traffic and crowds. It's that sense of knowing the rules, and the history, the nuances and the values.
You can adopt these in your new country, but you are never a native speaker of the new language so to speak.
That doesn't mean that we don't acclimatise become kiwis both on paper and in our brains. It's not that.

For some of us we will remain deeply connected to our home country, no matter how many years pass. Sure the place changes, it's certainly not the UK that I left, but there are more things the same than different. There are somethings that make us English that have existed for time immemorial and it's fine to honour that and miss that.

So in a long winded way Foofer, I say, accept that you miss home and you will continue to miss home because you had a good life there and you were lucky.


BTW...I'm from Norfolk...seems us rural folk miss home more?

Bo-Jangles

You know why? Everyone likes to paint a picture of the UK as being overcrowded, with cities wall to wall with people, crime, concrete and motorways; simply to justify their escape to NZ. It's really not so hard to find places in the UK that are equally the opposite, peaceful, rural countryside, beautiful rivers, canals, lakes and landscapes. It seems everyone who leaves the UK and heads to NZ forgets this and join on 'broken Britain' bandwagon. There are so many lovely small towns and villages that are not on the tourist maps, just normal everyday working places where life is centred around farming, fishing and local community.

Not so much different to NZ actually and like Bevs I often wish we had explored other options in the UK.

Robbo25

Been here coming up for a mere two years and have to say I am, struggling more and more each day, if I was honest I am really quite unhappy here right now, but hey one good week and all that!

Anyway, although born in England my family are Welsh and I have to say I really really miss North Wales, I never realised how much.

Stormer999

Quite true but trying to travel outside of your little oasis soon becomes a traffic nightmare.

pricklykina

Norfolk people don't travel so no worries there - I don't think that we're allowed out officially.
Last time I was home mum told me that the traffic had got proper dreadful. I said that I doubted that it was as bad as Auckland but she said that I should wait until I saw it at Lunchtime. She was right, in the town of 4000 people there were queues of, now, couples of cars. It took minutes to get down the street, I didn't know what to do with myself.

Stormer999

So, so true....what we really want in a situation like that is to go back in time not just body....nothing is ever the same. I went back to my birthplace in South Wales....different time zone I'm afraid.....just gangs and drugs and unemployment Where did my town go to? Is it a matter of only remembering the good times or is it a matter of not being there when the changes were taking place....instead of gradual change just one huge sudden chunk.
My father always said you cannot go back in life it's already gone.........Think I'll go for a beer...

love30stm

Yes I agree! I actually miss the crowds, nightclubs, shops, theme parks, old buildings etc....
But we have made our life in NZ now and I am kind of happy here lots I love here but can't say it's amazing living here just different, but I don't regret emigrating, but I guess Its normal to miss things we were used too.