Some observations from my trip to England
Prices, heatwaves and toilet talk: not an exhaustive list of all the things I noticed in England.
You know the grass may always been greener on the other side, but is the grass softer? That’s the thing with New Zealand: its super soft grass. To this day, I remember the very first time I trod barefoot and sat on kikuyu - the grass commonly found in Kiwi domains and reserves. I was in Coromandel Town, in that little park, by the stream, across the road from that very rural Police station. The blades were thicker, the tufts intertwined, making it loftier. As my feet and behind made contact with the green lush, I immediately thought “Ooh, I could live here!”
That’s right, a life-changing decision to up-sticks and move 46% of the way round the world was based on a lawn’s feel underfoot. To be fair, it’s a pretty solid way of making life decisions. Especially when you consider one of my only memories of being barefoot on grass in England is the time I was goalkeeper at my brother’s football-themed 6th (roughly speaking) birthday party. For some reason, I ripped off my shoes and socks, then jogged a few paces backwards into the goal mouth, only for my feet to land in something canine and very, very squidgy. It coated the tops of my toes and I can still smell it to this day. Britain is culturally designed for the full-time shoe wearer.
The Land Of The Mushy Meadow became home, but so came years and years of questioning my new-found home’s grass colour. Super soft and shit-free, it maybe not, but was the grass in my birth country actually greener? (For the first time in this piece I don’t mean that literally!)
Twice the wondering boiled over and I hatched plans to move back to Blighty; only one time out of these two did I actually get there. I lasted eight months.
To me, Kiwiland is more than the feel of its lawns underfoot. We have beaches and mountains that I love to gawp at; it has become home not only to me, but my siblings and their families; and it offers the lifestyle I need in one small nation.
So, with that preface and my total bias in mind, here are some of my observations from my recent trip to England:
Its rubbish (not “it’s rubbish”). In our little corner of London - the southeast - there seemed to be a concerted effort to fill the streets with polystyrene. Not content with gutters and pavements clotted with autumnal leaf fall, the people of Woolwich and Plumstead seemed on a personal mission to add as much whiteware and television packaging to their streets as possible. Or perhaps their bins weren’t being emptied? Many public bins, right beside the River Thames, were crammed to the brim, their wares overflowing onto the footpath and into the river wild. Sad.
Prices were unpredictable. The often-touted sense that the UK is cheaper than NZ felt as dated as a chequebook. Mushrooms seem a good place to start. I saw them for £4.75 (NZ $9.80) per kilo, where they are $17-$20 a kilo in NZ. But then I saw a bag of crisps (chips) for £4 - that’s NZ $8.25 in today’s money. $8 for a bag of chips in a supermarket! I wanted to buy them, just to try, but when I found out the packet didn’t contain breakfast, lunch and dinner, my head overruled my heart. Two beers in my childhood pub - the Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich - came to more than £14 (NZ $28.80), putting paid to the years-long feeling that pubs are too pricey downunder. Budget eatery and Piers Morgan-sob-inducing pasty shop Greggs seemed to have held its prices tightly. A vegan sausage roll set me back £1.20 (NZ $2.48), while a soy flat white was £2.35 (NZ $4.85). Yeah, prices were all over the shop.
Talking of Greggs, the days when they served hot food seem to be over1. I bought sausage rolls from two separate outlets and each time they were cold. I figured it was some kind of sneaky cost-saving plot - turn the pie warmers off and make more money - however, if this article is accurate, it’s a tax loophole. Of course it is! I hope Piers has written a column on it.
Covid-19 weighs heavily on the national psyche. Whether it’s via the people who lost someone in the country’s catastrophic death toll, or the people still weirded out by the novel and previously unencountered incidences of ‘lockdowns’, there’s a shared feeling of dread and consternation over those times. Some of the conversations I had on the topic seemed to indicate an empathy or compassion towards people in New Zealand during our response. The reality that NZ spent months at a time without Covid in the community seems to have been pasted over by international media coverage of that one, long, final lockdown (in Auckland only).
There was no grass, only scorched earth. 35 degrees centigrade! 35 degrees celsius! Growing up, those were temperatures only a 48-hour drive to the south of France could provide. This year, I stepped onto the jet bridge at Heathrow and felt the same heat and humidity I felt on the jet bridge in Beijing. The heatwave start to my holiday was initially welcomed, as I sat [barefoot] in my parents’ front garden. However, once I started to travel further afield, I struggled to get water and would arrive in places as a parched fossil2. Public drinking fountains seemed non-existent. See: Covid-19.
Oxleas Woods. Looks hot, eh? As a coffee and water addict, the other public service I am often in desperate need of is a public toilet. If you haven’t been to New Zealand, you should come, if only to sample our rich and varied collection of public loos. We even have an award for the best one!3 In England, however, the peepee/poopoo provisions seem to be left to the private sector (or you can pay 20p for the right to pee in a royal park). It’s okay, though, as the rush of nostalgia I got from sneaking into a McDonald’s bathroom to use the ‘McShitter’ made me feel 18 again.
Well, this post began with an anecdote about poop and just ended on the topic of toilets. It’s fair to say that’s not how I imagined it would go. I’ll try to be better, promise.
If it all sounds a bit down on Britain, please know that I had a truly incredible time back on the northside. The curry was great, being a tourist in your own birth country is great, the catch-ups with family and friends were above great and UK Marmite (the original) is the best.
UK readers: I’ll bring you some kikuyu seeds in my luggage next time I’m back!
Or is the Mandela Effect at play and they never served hot food?
Happens to the best of us eventually, I suppose?
Bonus link, it turns out while I was away, TVNZ Breakfast held their own poll on this subject!
Having also just spent 7 weeks in the UK, yes to all of the above (especially Marmite).
At the risk of talking about politics, our version of democracy (MMP, voting in supermarkets in advance, no registration required until you turn up) is so much better than theirs (FPP, 5 year cycle, photo ID (newly) required to vote, voting day always on a Thursday, can only vote at one local polling place without significant hoop-jumping) and despite being disappointed by the election result in general I am very grateful for our system.