Re-set Sunday.

 Diary,15th of November, 2020.

It’s Sunday again, these weeks of waiting, staying indoors, and trying to find ways to encourage creativity, fly past, whereas the plans I had to fill the gaps that have opened- up due to lack of employment- remain in the ‘planning’ stage. The ‘never to be done’ tray of my idler brain. 

The lack of planning leads me to panic because of days and weeks racing by without anything to be shown for it, had to be taken on, head-on. These past three days I have tried to plan a schedule and keep to it. 

The morning would be spent ‘out and about’, the afternoon divided between writing, reading, and my podcast. The evening was left for the idle consumption of Netflix ‘Scandinavian-crime’ series or other such time fillers.

This planning has worked and made me feel more contented this weekend. 

The morning plan today was to visit ‘The British Shop’ called Stone Manor, not far from Brussels. The drive would only be about forty minutes on a traffic-free Sunday morning, it sounded a ‘fun’ thing to do. 

I’m not the usual ‘ex-pat’ Brit, there isn’t a lot I ‘miss’ from the UK, except the ‘banter’ between friends where most British humor finds its roots, and banter can’t be found on the shelves of food stores. Going to the British store was a huge step for me, the self-indulgence of driving all that way to buy food that I didn’t miss, for prices I could really do without, seems a strange way to spend a rainy autumn Sunday, but I convinced myself I might find some inspiration there. 

I don’t really ‘get’ the whole ‘ex-pat’ thing, why do we white immigrants get to call ourselves anything other than an immigrant? I chose- voluntarily- to live in Belgium, so why would I cling on to reminders of the place where I was born? I mean, the UK is only a short flight or drive away, and it’s not as if Belgium is a totally ‘otherworldly’ culture. Yet we cling, we cling on to reminders of our past, our identity. 

Wherever we came from, we immigrants, no matter how happy we are to live in our new adopted country, struggle with the feeling of not totally belonging, never totally being part of our surroundings, there is always that piece of us that isn’t ‘from here’, we are doomed to live in a sort of cultural purgatory.  

I love living where I live, there are tens of shops representing every corner of the globe, I can be on holiday just by going shopping on a Saturday morning. 

Eastern European bread, Turkish vegetable and fruit store, tea from Sri Lanka, there are no limits to the different foods and spices available. 

Yet there I was this morning, in a British shop near Brussels, a very busy shop, at first I was very distant and cynical, but after a few minutes I felt like an over-excited child, packing my shopping trolley with Scones, Crumpets, British cheeses like Stilton and Red Leicester, Marmalade, Linda McCartneys vegetarian pies and even Marmite the vilest of spreads ever (but I love it). Suddenly I was once again an Englishman, swept back to my youth, memories came flooding back of having (homemade) scones at my Grandmother's house or having Marmalade on toast before setting off for school. 

For the next few days (I’m greedy) my kitchen cupboards will be my cultural reference point, maybe the food will help me define who I actually am. 

I probably could never fit back into the UK after all these years just as I will never feel 100% at home here. It is not a case of being ‘torn’ between two cultures or identities, immigrant or ‘ex-pat’ is my identity and reference point. 

Destined never to feel really settled or at home wherever I am, there is always the nagging doubt, or the temptation to pull up sticks and move back to where I came from. When anybody asks what Nationality I have I usually say ‘British/Belgian now, especially today, this evening … Belgium plays England at football, I’m hoping it’s a draw or that ‘my team’ win, whichever team that is.