People who moved to the UK, when did you finally feel like you called this place home?

10 comments

1. When you start working and realise you’re a slave without any time for yourself like anyone else trying to make it.

2. When the places here in the UK that I thought looked extremely shabby compared to what I was used to, now seem normal. When I was no longer surprised to see man-sized potholes, tiny lounge windows and low ceilings.

3. I am British but I have an analogy relating to moving from the South to the North.

   Here in Yorkshire, when one buyss fish and chips from a takeaway, the cabinet in which the cooked food is kept warm contains the leftover shards of batter which are called ‘scraps’ and you can have some free if you wish.

   Typically, locals are offered these, but non-locals have to ask.

   When I was visiting, I was never offered scraps, but after I moved into the area, suddenly I was! How did chippy workers know I was now a resident? I still had a non-local accent. This small detail made me feel accepted.

4. Moved to the UK when I was 18 for Uni. I’m 37 this year. Started really feeling like home in my 2nd or 3rd year of Uni when I started working part-time in a bar.

5. “It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

   “How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.

   I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.”

   When someone asks you for directions and you’re able to provide them.

6. You’ll know you’re home when we no longer stone you in the streets.

7. I’ve been living in Scotland for almost ten years and I still call both my flat here and my parent’s flat back in my native country “home”. I think the fact that I didn’t grow up in the UK means it will never be 100% home to me, but I’m really happy here and am not planning to leave.

8. After around five years when flying back from my home country back to the UK it finally felt like coming home.

9. I moved to UK in 2006 and I felt it was my new home from the beginning. Unfortunately it changed in 2016. Now it’s just a place where I live and earn money.

10. Born and raised here and it still doesn’t feel like home to me after 22 years, still feel like I’m constantly trying to fit in or settle. Gonna need to either move or off myself at this rate 👍