Notes to self: It’s time to book some flights

It doesn’t happen very often, but this week it’s struck hard; I’m homesick. I haven’t been back to the United Kingdom in nearly three years and this week, out of nowhere, I’ve got all nostalgic.

Let me stress to you how unlike me this is; I always tell people the only thing I miss about the UK is my family and friends. The thought of expensive trains, identikit high streets and wearing everything I own because it’s so cold and wet doesn’t appeal. Until now, oddly. All that stuff is making me go bleary eyed and sentimental.

Perhaps it’s the winter clothing coming into the stores — I have no idea why they sell that kind of stuff in Bangkok — or perhaps it’s because summer is over and my thoughts immediately go to Christmas. Christmas just isn’t Christmas in the heat. Apologies for mentioning the C word so early in the year, I know how much it upsets some people.

Anyway, yesterday, I was dreamily poring over woolly leggings, stroking huge fluffy jumpers dreamily and even contemplating buying some boots, despite the hair-frizz inducing humidity outside.

The day before that I spotted a copy of a trashy UK celebrity magazine in Starbucks and swooped on it and clutched it to my chest like it was a long-lost ancient manuscript.

I ordered a super large coffee and, with glee, flicked through each page in awe; wondering who on earth everyone in the photos were. There were four page spreads on people I’d never heard of, who were apparently stars of hit TV shows I had no idea about. I read it with the same fascination you do when you first move to another country; who are these people and why should I care about their boring love lives, diet, style?

Of course, despite the fact I didn’t know anyone in it, I stealthily tucked it into my bag and dashed away with the stolen mag so I could devour it at leisure later in the day.

This isn’t normal behaviour for me. Usually I am as interested in celebrities as I am in the lives of anyone else I’ve never met; ie not at all (unless it’s Tom Cruise, who I have a bizarre fascination with due to the fact he’s an absolute nutter).

I think I was so fascinated by this terrible magazine because it made me realise just how much I’ll feel like a foreigner in my own country. As well as not knowing any of the present TV shows or celebrities, I’ve forgotten other things I used to not even think about; whether you sit in the front or the back seat of a cab in the UK, how much a coffee is and where on earth people get lunch when there’s no street food to buy.

I’m also totally out of the loop on what’s happening in my town. I saw a photo of a crane pulling down my Middle School a few months ago and I felt both heartbroken (it was a lovely school and the place where I had my first major crush on a Portuguese boy called Oliver) and disgruntled that nobody had told me. Apparently the club I used to frequent every single weekend and briefly worked in had closed down too.

I suppose you feel as though where you grew up will always stay as it was, especially when you grow up in a small town and when you see it changing, you have a desire to go back and see if it’s still home. Even if Bangkok is the city I love, I’ll never be a local here (I still get people laugh and stare at me every day here, thanks to my white blonde hair and skin so gleaming white you can’t look directly at it).

There’s nothing else for it; I need to book a holiday back to the UK where my dazzling skin tone goes unnoticed (and can largely stay concealed under the three jumpers and coat that are essential in the UK) and where I can smugly tell people I have no idea what TOWIE is. Time to book some flights.