what I miss most about the uk

When I visit my family in Ontario, I miss my home and routine in England. That feels like a strange thing to say as a Canadian, but it’s true. I miss the ordinary things, including being able to walk out for a forgotten ingredient and get my morning coffee made without such a long wait.

On this visit, I’d been at my mum’s place for just over a week. I’m from a town in southern Ontario, rather than the countryside or a big city, and the comparison I’m making is between life there and the English town where I live. It isn’t a claim that every part of either country works the same way.

I miss being able to walk for one thing

In England, I’d sold my car a long time before this trip and was used to walking places. If I’d forgotten something for dinner, I could pop to Sainsbury’s on foot. In my Ontario town, I couldn’t walk to the shops, the post office, a bus stop or the train station. I wasn’t driving during this visit either.

That changed how I had to think about food. My partner and I weren’t particularly good at meal planning in England because we didn’t really have to be. We might decide what to eat for two or three days, then one of us would walk to the shop. I like getting out for the walk as well as buying the ingredients.

Back in Ontario, I was trying to write a proper list of meals and snacks, with everything needed for them. It wasn’t as simple as going back for the one or two things I’d missed. I found that frustrating, especially because I think about food a lot, and shopping this way had become such a normal part of my English routine.

The supermarket cheese was a noticeable difference

I also missed the cost and quality of the food I was used to buying. I love trying new foods and doing taste tests, and I find that very accessible in the UK. On this visit, even ordinary groceries from a budget shop felt expensive to me.

The cheddar was one example I’d written down. We’d bought a block at Walmart for eight Canadian dollars, and I thought it tasted plasticky compared with what I’d got used to in England. Four ordinary, non-organic chicken breasts had cost fourteen dollars too. Those were purchases from this trip, rather than a price guide for shopping there now.

I think Britain has really good cheese, including interesting local varieties that I can find in regular supermarkets. I wasn’t comparing fancy organic shopping with bargain food. At home I shop at places like Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, and I was talking about that everyday food and how much I liked it.

I didn’t want to trash Canada, but I had noticed the difference. Going grocery shopping somewhere else made the food I normally bought in England stand out. The cheaper, plentiful cheese was something I genuinely missed, along with the ability to walk out and get it.

I don’t want to do extra maths at the till

Before I got ill during the trip, my mum and I had gone to the mall for a wander. Looking at price tags reminded me that I needed to allow for tax on top, rather than treat the displayed amount as what I’d finally pay.

I always moan about this when I come back to Ontario. I get used to tax being included in the prices I see in England, forget about the difference, then have to remind myself on the next visit. I hate trying to add up my shopping while also remembering the extra amount. Clear final prices are a British habit I’m very happy with.

Six minutes is too long to wait for my coffee

My partner and I make morning coffee using a pour-over setup, both in England and when we’re in Ontario. There’s a cone and filter holding the grounds, and we pour kettle water over them so the coffee drips through. We even leave that equipment in Canada between visits.

A white V60 coffee cone resting on a patterned mug
An illustrative V60 coffee cone, rather than my equipment. Photo by Olgierd Rudak, CC BY 2.0. Unchanged.

The kettle is the frustrating part. In an experiment I thought I’d done the previous year, a litre of water took just over two minutes to boil in our English kettle. The same amount in the fairly new Ontario kettle took six minutes. That was my comparison of those two kettles, not a promise about every kettle in either country.

Waiting for it every morning annoyed me enough that I thought I’d have to change my coffee method if I moved back. It’s a small routine, but one I really missed doing the way I did at home. I wasn’t asking for the two countries to be identical, because that would make exploring them boring. I did, however, want my quicker coffee and my cheese.

Watch my full conversation about what I miss in the UK.