The things that make the UK so great (in my opinion)

While I called myself a Londoner in a previous post, I don’t think that’s really fair to say. We’ve only lived in the city for two years and I read that in order to call a city home, you have to live there for at least seven years… so I guess you could say we’re ‘Londoners in training’.

That said, in the two years we’ve lived ‘across the pond’, there are some aspects of the UK that I’ve really grown to love and appreciate. The below list isn’t a round-up of the major perks to living in London, rather they’re small details that are easy to overlook but deserve an appreciation post (in my opinion).

UK Strawberries

This is our THIRD summer in London, and despite (what felt like) the entire world warning us of the less-than-stellar weather, London summers have been so good to us. Actually, London weather in general is my favourite of all the places we’ve lived. Because London is nestled in southern England it’s actually quite sunny and warm in the summer months. While winter can get a bit rainy, it feels like a small price to pay compared to the blizzarding winters of home. I genuinely believe this weather is what makes British strawberries SO delicious. Vibrant, fragrant and delightfully crisp, strawberries in the UK are on a whole other level. Admittedly, in North America, I’d rank strawberries as my least favourite fruit, but since living in the UK, I can’t wait to get my hands on the summer berry. Opening a crate of strawberries rewards you with the immediate waft of sweet fragrance, reminiscent of park picnics, strawberry-garnished prosecco and warm summer months.

Toastie bread

Literally. This is a thing. No Villaggio or Ben’s here. A nation obsessed with ‘sarnies’ (seriously – there are entire supermarket aisles dedicated to sandwiches in the UK), it’s no surprise they’d have a bread made solely for toasties (or grilled cheese sandwiches as we call them in North America). And guess what? Toastie bread really is the best bread for making a sandwich (not counting fresh bread from the bakery) – especially if you’re stuffing it with gooey cheese and grilling it in a buttered pan.

Architecture

I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere quite like London, and while I’ve spoke a lot about about my favourite parts of London in the past (you can read those recaps here, here and here), the big smoke is one city where you climb out of the underground and are immediately in awe of the buildings towering over you. Even to this day, I still can’t help but marvel at the grandiose combination of gothic and medieval architecture in central London (I can feel my British friends rolling their eyes from here). I’m often the last person in our group, slowing down the rest of the pack to take in the sights. Just last month we went to Shoreditch to catch up with friends (after almost four months apart due to lockdown!) and I had literal butterflies as the overground rolled into the central cityscape. That said, I can also really appreciate the quaint architecture outside of the city. I love the brick houses, stone cottages and mews that can be found in most British towns. You’ll be hard-pressed to find the vinyl siding of North American suburbs here.

UK Tomatoes

My first job in the UK was in food marketing and I’m incredibly thankful as it taught me a lot about food economics and the UK’s strict focus on eating local. A concept that is still considered a novelty in most North American cities, in the UK, you can pop into any supermarket and you’ll find most products are marked with the region they come from (and sometimes even the farmer’s name!). That aside, tomatoes are another vegetable I didn’t love outside of its usual sauce and soups formats on my home continent. In the UK, tomatoes just taste different. Sweeter with a firm skin, they’re so delicious I could eat them as an apple here. In fact, I’ve become such a fan that I’ve started making sauces from scratch just to make the most of this new-found favourite.

Slang

Before we moved to the UK, I’d daydream about our life in London, romanticising the British accents. Two years in and it’s still one of my most favourite accents but that’s mostly down to the slang and pronunciations of words. While I’ve never heard anyone say ‘cheerio’ (as Brits so often do in North American television), the slang here is really clever. Impossibly polite, Brits have some of the best insults (see: wheelie bin (garbage bin) to describe someone they don’t like, or grim to describe a situation that’s not quite right). For me, it may come down to the pure drama of the British vocabulary. I love words like vile, scrummy and chuffed. It’s almost like you can feel the words, and as someone who has always had a flair for the dramatic, I can really appreciate the descriptive language.

Pubs

Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing quite as refreshing as a pint or Pimm’s in a pub garden in the summer, but one of my favourite pub traditions in the UK is the selection of crisps (potato chips) to snack on with your pint. When you’re in a traditional pub, it’s nothing to see packets of crisps strung up behind the bar and people sharing the ripped-open packs at tables. If you’re looking for the full experience, swap crisps for pork scratchings and make sure you remove the front of the bag to give everyone a fair selection of the snacks. That’s the true British way.

Gardens and flowers

Could I be more like my mother? As a kid my greatest pet peeve was going for walks with my mom and her stopping us every few blocks to admire neighbours’ flowers. Now, I’ll strategically plan my runs so they end/begin near my favourite flowers, trees and gardens. When I’m walking the dog in the morning, I often return home with a camera roll full of photographed roses, hydrangeas and (my personal favourite) wisteria when it’s in season. I now understand why it’s called the English Rose – Brits know how to grow roses. I’ve never seen flowers so big, bright and healthy in my life. The UK also has a cherry blossom season which just might be my new favourite season (as a Halloween obsessive this is truly shocking). It is such a treat seeing the streets lined with pink trees and sidewalks peppered with pink petals. We may not get much snow, but this brief season makes up for it with picturesque beauty.