6 British Things All Foreigners Need

I am very passionate about my stupid umbrella. By the time I shared my suggestions for life in the UK in 2022, I’d been here for six years, and I was still using one my mum had given me. I wanted to say it was about twenty years old. Whatever its exact age, I loved it.

Tea was another thing I wanted to keep on hand, even though I was more of a coffee person. And for somewhere to spend time outside the house, I thought having a local pub was very special. Those were three of the things I wanted foreigners to know about life here.

A tea I actually liked

I loved taste-testing food and drink in the UK. There was so much that I was still working my way through it after years of living here, and tea was one of the things I thought worth trying early on. When I’d tested popular British tea brands, I’d surprised myself by discovering that I loved Yorkshire Tea.

That hadn’t suddenly made me a tea person, but I always had a box of Yorkshire on hand. In the cold, dark, wet winter weather, there were few things I found nicer or more comforting than a hot cup of tea. A hot cuppa, if you will.

There was also the question of guests. If I offered someone a cup of tea, it was fairly important to have some tea in the house. My suggestion was to taste different ones, work out which you liked, and keep that around. A little sugar and milk might be useful, too, depending on how often you had people over.

The case made my umbrella useful

The long, walking-stick-style umbrellas looked cool, but I thought they were a hassle. Mine was a small collapsible one that fitted inside its own case. It was tiny, light and didn’t take up much space, so it lived in the bag I took everywhere.

Say I got off the train and it was pouring. I could take the umbrella out, open it and run to wherever I was going, perhaps a cafe. Once I arrived, I could fold the soaked umbrella back into its case, zip it up and put it in my bag. The inside of the case would get wet, while the other things in my bag stayed dry.

Then I could take it out again for the journey back to the train and leave it open to dry at home. The same idea worked when I was taking a bus. I didn’t want to be holding a wet umbrella for the whole journey when I could pack it away instead. That little case was why I got so enthusiastic about it.

In my experience, rain here could arrive very suddenly. I wasn’t saying that it rained every day, whatever everybody liked to say about the UK. I just liked always having the umbrella with me because sometimes I didn’t know when I’d need it.

Finding a local pub

I was more of a village person, and local pubs were one of my favourite things about that life. I thought of them as community spaces where you could hang out, meet people, socialise or even read a book. They were wonderful places to spend time, even if you didn’t drink much.

A local didn’t have to mean the pub closest to the house. I suggested trying different places and choosing whichever you liked most. If you went often enough, you could get to know people, the landlady or the bartenders, and they could get to know your drink. I found that idea very comforting. It made you feel part of your town or village, part of the group.

I still thought it was worth trying as many places as possible. I was enthusiastic about sampling pubs in much the same way I was enthusiastic about taste tests. Try things once, try them twice. Having your own local was special, but there were other places to try as well.

Watch my original video about tea, my umbrella and finding a local pub.