It’s been an awfully long time since I last posted on the blog, for which I apologise. We’ve been getting used to life back in the UK, and it turns out all that leaves us with precious little time on our hands! In the new year, I hope to find more time to keep the…
Year: 2015
Moving Back to the UK: Five Good Things
Throughout all of last week, I kept snoozing a task to write a post about some of the good things about moving back to the UK, to balance out my previous post about things we were missing about Portugal. Ironically, the main reason I didn’t get the post written was that I went down with…
Five Reasons to Miss Portugal
The time has come for yet another post about the things I’m missing about living in Portugal! Before I start, I should make clear that in all honesty I’m not really missing The Algarve that much anymore. We’ve all become very used to the UK being “home” again, but there are still some specifics that…
Portuguese Wine: The Rescue Parcel Arrives
I’ve already moaned before about how much we’ve been missing Portuguese wine since moving to England again. Well, last week, thanks to the valiant efforts of several family members, our problems on that score came to an end. Thanks to a family road trip to the UK and some spare vehicle space, we were reunited…
Reverse Culture Shock – In Reverse
Much is said about “reverse culture shock” when expats move back to their former countries. As I said in my last post, my wife and I have spent plenty of time missing Portugal after our return to England, sometimes to the point of feeling truly homesick. So, with this is mind, it was perhaps a…
Missing Portugal…
I woke up missing Portugal today. It didn’t help that when my wife opened the blind this morning it didn’t really get any lighter in the room! After a weekend of weather that was sunny enough for sunburn, today we have wind whistling through the house, and a sky so grey it looks like a…
Never Take Portuguese Weather for Granted!
Just time for a quick post today; I’m currently on a plane on the way to a business trip and have a spare few minutes. Last night I was chatting to another expat in Portugal who will soon be moving back to the UK. We are largely happy with our own decision, so I said…
Some More Random “Moving Home” Observations
We’ve been back in the UK a couple of months now, but everything still seems rather alien! In my last post I was perhaps a little negative about the Portugal we’d left behind, so I’m going for some more balance this week. Life in the UK has been good, but with an undulating backdrop of…
A Few Reasons why we Left Portugal
Just a quick post today, but one that I’ve really agonised about writing. Last time I posted, I was discussing our mixed feelings about being back in the UK, and alluded to a certain sense of homesickness for Portugal. I’m pleased to say that (for now at least) the homesickness has abated. Right now I…
Blowing Hot and Cold
It’s far too early to say whether or not our decision to move from Portugal back to the UK was the right one, but we’re being asked the question an awful lot already! All I can therefore do is tell you how we’re feeling about it right now – and to put into context how…