Anyone homesick?
 

Anyone moved to USA from UK and gotten homesick after a number of years? :(

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I think I posted in wrong forum...Apologies!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

No, this one works.

Anyone who tells you they have never been homesick is a liar, plain and simple. We ALL miss certain things about the homeland, friends, family, etc., but the difference is, most of us move on! It doesn't pay to dwell on it and there are only two options - get over it or go home!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Yes. I think most people do get homesick at some point. Are you feeling homesick? It can take you by surprise when you feel homesick after a long time of being okay.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I agree, it can suddenly appear from nowhere. I find I don't miss people as much as I miss landscape and older houses. Also good museums and art galleries, stately homes and castles. But it's more about accepting that I made the move for valid reasons and I have to get my fix for history when I go back for a visit. It does help that I am very happy here with my American husband, I think if the move had gone horribly wrong I would be more homesick than I am. Never any point in thinking 'if only'

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Homesickness and missing things are not the same. You can miss things without being homesick.

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Do you investigate American history? It is quite fascinating and spread throughout all 50 states.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I agree. I miss a few things occasionally, but have never been homesick, not least because "here" is home now. :)

Maybe it's tougher being an immigrant couple/family, as opposed to being a transatlantic couple? :unsure:

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

It goes in waves depending on circumstances. For example, some people can feel homesick initially and eventually get over it (or at least appear to). This might mean taking a few trips back to the UK or even a return to the UK for a while (to get that out of their system) before possibly leaving again. Once the initial honeymoon period in a new country is over, some people get homesick when they realize they have settled into the rat race in their new country and things are not as novel as when they first arrived.

For some people, trips back to see family and friends can make the homesickness even worse. Missing major family events can contribute too - e.g. weddings, funerals, birthdays, graduations, births of new family members etc. It can also be difficult when parents and other older relatives get older and become less independent or even ill.

Often new parents will become homesick when they realize that friends and family aren't around to see their kids grow up and help out with babysitting and other child-raising chores.

So I don't think many people ever really get over homesickness even if they think they have - unless they really have no ties to family and friends in the UK and also don't miss the lifestyle. Homesickness can arise at any time often in response to life changes.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I do and it is quite fascinating. I have been to Jamestown and Williamsburg, so very interesting. But my real love is Medieval history and I adore Tudor buildings, don't get much of either of those here

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

There are actually Americans who follow British history and form clubs and groups that anyone can join. You can find them on Facebook and other social media outlets. I belong to the Richard the Third Society here in NYC. A lot of eccentrics but very nice, educated people who are extremely knowledgeable about medieval history. Far more than myself!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Absolutely. I would love to be able to take a walk above Malham Cove once in a while, but I am certainly not homesick!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I had to change my Windows desktop background as it turned out that was what was making me more homesick than anything else - it was a picture of my little terrier during a sunny day ascending multiple munros up near Crianlarich - the two things that were hitting me were A) the mountains - the lack of these are my main issue with Ohio and B) the freedom to walk the dog off-lead in parks and trails (and indeed anywhere I can walk) - here, there's a few reserved "dog parks" where dogs are allowed off lead but outside of those, dogs should be on lead at all times.. I used to take my dogs down to the local park and let them off to throw balls/sticks around, as well as climb the munros & corbetts with them and I find the leash laws here very constricting.

I still feel that the mountains are what will decide whether I end up staying here or not - if the company okay for me to work from home in another state (one with mountains) then great, otherwise I may just end up moving back home.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I miss the TV back home, TV in the US is appalling.

I also miss baked beans, bad.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Both of those can be fixed relatively easily! :)

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I've been playing around with various TV systems, meh, its a lot of cat and mouse.

I found Heinz Baked beans in ingles $2.39 a tin - ouch.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

By any objective measure most TV is pretty bad. We dropped all regular TV service about four years ago, and suffice with an occasional dip into Netflix and Amazon prime, but even then only for an hour or two one or two Friday evenings each month. It has taken me almost a year to reach the end of the third series of Breaking Bad. At this rate I will need something new to watch in 2018. :lol: .... Maybe I will try Fringe again, but I didn't find the first three episodes very compelling. :unsure:

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

42 months and counting does that answer the question!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I so agree about the lack of places to walk a dog off lead. I really don't understand why it's not allowed here. I am dogless at the moment and thinking carefully about getting another, but the thought of it always being on the lead isn't filling me with joy!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Taking the opposite point of view, I have had some bad experiences when walking my dogs (leashed) in the woods, and having loose dogs come charging up and jumping on me and my dogs. The owners' inevitable response, "Oh, I didn't think I'd meet anyone." Duh, it's a lovely Sunday afternoon -- you're the only one who thought it would be nice to walk in the woods??!! So I am very much in agreement with dogs being kept on the leash in a public place.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

We enjoy taking the inlaw's dog to a fenced dog park

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Homesick? Not at all.

Missing anything? Not really. The worst bit of moving over here was the time when steveq and the boys were in the "new place" doing all the new things first without me while I was back in the UK sorting out all the stuff from house and factory.

State College is definitely home now, the UK is somewhere we used to live.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I agree with the earlier comment about missing stuff without being homesick. Whilst watching the AJ fight on Saturday, I was thinking how great it would be to be home in a pub watching the fight, but I don't feel I've ever really got homesick. In fact, I've only been here 4 years, but would probably be homesick for California if I moved back to the U.K.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I am people sick. Mum, sisters, family. It's costing me a fortune to travel back 3+ times a year. I am headed back for the second time this year, this weekend...I was Ok ish until my husband died three years ago. Now feeling a bit lost.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Interesting responses. I've been here years and wasn't homesick at all until I went back to visit last year with my 4 year old who was born over here and whom everybody in the UK had not met in person. My Dad in particular really bonded with her and was so upset when our visit came to an end. I felt like everyone was/is missing out on her growing up. I don't really have any friends over here and no-one other than my spouse, he has no family.

I also find the location and humidity of where we live to be hard to deal with at times. No-one here gets my British sense of humor either. So sometimes I miss my own culture and the familiarity of it and certain foods. It's a downer that it is so far and so expensive to visit more than once a year and no-one other than a sibling is willing/able to travel to see us. However, as someone else mentioned, if I were to move back, I would probably miss being here too.

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I agree. I like dogs, and we had a couple when I was a child, but too many American dogs have been weaponized. A recently retired neighbour and her husband were persuaded by their son-in-law, who is a cop, that they "needed a dog". ..... Enter a bloody great Alsatian (it started out as a puppy) but barks like crazy every time it sees anyone or anything on any bit of the road it can see! :frown: Another neighbour has a pit bull for heaven-only-knows what reason. :rolleyes: It got out once and chased little Miss P. Then I chased it, and it wasn't quite so brave after all! :lol: That said a cowardly pit bull could still easily kill a child. :(

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

In 11+ years I have felt homesick once. Last week a UK friend posted some pics on FB of an event they went to. For some unknown reason it really hurt and I wondered what the hell I was doing not living there. Woke up next morning fine and over it. I did wish I was in the UK in 2012 but that was because of the Olympics and Jubilee and it looked great. However I didn't have the money to fly over for 2-3months and I do have a tv so it was all good. :D

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

To let your dogs run free in a fenced, managed dog park where you expect other dogs to be off the leash would seem to be sensible. However, given the variety of predators or unfriendly wildlife a dog could meet while off the leash and out of sight in "the woods" I would think twice about letting dogs run free if I were a dog owner.

Last night our cat was, inadvertently, out overnight and was fine this morning, if a little cross (incandescent!), but on looking out the suet feeder is no longer on the pole so we may have had a black bear through during that time (we are less than a mile from state game lands). From the local roadkill I know there are skunks and raccoons, as well as opossum and groundhogs (not predators for cats, but I guess they could give a nasty bite in self-defence). There are other indoor/outdoor cats in our neighbourhood, but I haven't seen any out on a regular basis at night later on.

BTW Smokey is definitely not homesick - he thinks Pennsylvania is wonderful with more "snacks" available, if he can be bothered, and is certain that living in a wooded subdivision is much more desirable than an urban terraced house.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Anyone who lets their dog run free on wooded land without wearing one of these is inviting tragedy. :(

http://www.whiskersandwaggles.com/Pr...Vest-2-380.jpg

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

My problem with the only dog park I have been to here is they seem to be very sterile, just areas of open shortly mowed grass. My last dog loved sniffing around trees and shrubs and areas of long grass and was always bored with just walking round plain mowed grass.

We are moving house this year (hopefully), and my ideal house would have come with a few acres of land so that I could make my own dog park, with interesting things for the dog. Unfortunately, I can't afford that type of place. So it will be back to walking on lead everywhere.

As I have always trained my dogs to stay in eyesight of me, I have never worried about them being out of sight on walks. I always have big dogs too, so less likely to be worried by the smaller predators. But, Unless you get an Anatolian Shepherd dog, I think I would always be worried about meeting a bear on a walk!!!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

I used to take my dog with us onto my boat, back in UK. I had a lifejacket for it and when we got in the tender - an inflatable - to go up the river to a pub, I would get the lifejacket out and my dog would look so miserable. He knew he would get soaked sitting at the front of the inflatable and he hated it! I think he also thought it wasn't attractive!!!

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Attachment 127661

Of all the things we worried about leaving behind when we decided to go ahead with relocation not being able to allow to dogs to run free never occurred to me.

This is our usual 2 mile walk. It absolutely stunning at this time of year. I will be very sad not to be able to give our little canine pals this same freedom :(

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

now that picture made me a bit homesick - just don't see that type of path, that type of light, or those hedges here. I miss having a dog too....

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Ooops sorry :o
I know I'm going to miss it though. Everyday I go out in it I am grateful.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Ohh don't be sorry - it also happens every time I watch something like Midsomer Murders - as I said at the very beginning of this thread, it's landscape and old houses I miss. But I hadn't thought about that light!!

I think you will miss it, and I think you are right to go out as much as you can before you move. I look back now and wish I had spent more time walking my dogs before I moved, rather than all the sorting stuff.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Attachment 127662

How about this?


I'll stop now :starsmile:

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Absolutely stunning. I am sure there are parts of America that have similar views, and 'just as good but different' views but there is certainly nothing like either of those 2 pictures near here. Those far reaching views of fields, hedges and woods are amazing. We have talked about seeing if we could spend a few months a year back in UK, probably a pipe dream, but I wouldn't mind having that as my life.

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

That's taken on the Ridgeway of the Vale of the White Horse - you can see the corner of the chalk horse in the picture. I don't imagine we're going to views like that near the burbs of Philadelphia

Re: Anyone homesick?
 

Interesting. I thought TV shows in the UK generally weren't the best. I can see how growing up with it though, you get used to it. The main thing I liked was that there were no medicine commercials.

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Oh yes I know exactly where that is. Yeah don't think there are chalk horses in Philadelphia. However, there is a giant clothespin sculpture there!!

https://www.usc.edu/schools/annenber...mages/806.html