It’s the Small Things by Karen McCully

My dear readers, today I have a beautiful guest post from Karen, a fellow blogger that blogs at Breastfeeding in England . She also runs her own business at http://www.boobiemilk.co.uk/. Beautiful underwear and accessories meant for all nursing mums. With no further mumbling for me I present your her post as part of the Life in UK meme:
I lived in Baltimore, Maryland USA from 2003 to 2010.
I grew to love it there, we bought our first house there, and had our first baby there (William 2008). I had my dream job, and we had a pretty good life, but something was missing. When we were expecting our second, my husband finished his PhD and was offered a job in London (UK not Canada). We decided to move back to the UK to be close to family. Living away from family is easy when you are young, but having kids changes things. Family has become more and more important to us, and gosh, my Dad didn’t even meet William until he was 11 months old.
We were lucky and found a buyer for our house and touched down in the UK with twenty suitcases between two snowstorms just before Christmas 2010.
We are enjoying our time in the UK. The kids are having an amazing time with new friends in new schools. My Dad has fallen head over heels for Ellie who he adores and is proud to have seen every day of her life. My husband is being challenged in new ways in his new job in London, and I have found a new career at home running my own business.
However, it is the little things that you miss, like going shopping after 4pm on a Sunday or seeing a movie on Christmas Day. I recently needed some large plastic boxes. An easy item to find you may think? Back in the US, I would walk or drive over to Target and spend $2-5 per box with lid in an array of colours, shapes and sizes. Back here in the UK it’s not so easy. Firstly, I looked online and decided that TescoDirect had the sort of thing I needed. They were out of the boxes I wanted but had something very similar. Twenty minutes wait turned up boxes that didn’t have lids. The next destination was Homebase which provided one choice. Of course, on making my way to the checkout I discover that the lids cost as much as the boxes! I look at the cashier “Seriously?” Yes, you have to pay additional for the lids. I didn’t keep them for long and returned them when I found something more suitable and cheaper. So, four trips, three shops and two days later I find the boxes I want for over twice what I would have paid in the US.
I won’t even go into our shopping trip for an infant car seat with a three day old, but you can imagine. Do Americans just want more? Do they expect better and get it? I know I sure do miss great customer service when clothes shopping, it’s hard to find someone to even say Hello to me in Sevenoaks sometimes. I want to talk, I want things brought to me when I ask, and I expect a goodbye when I leave the store, but that’s another post altogether.
I never thought I would miss anything about the US, and it turns out I do, who’d have thought?
Karen McCully
Wife to Ryan (2002), Mother to William (2008) & Ellie (2011) and Director of BoobieMilk Ltd, fitting and selling nursing bras all over the South East of England and beyond.

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