The UK 2026

Tomorrow will be a week since my daughter and I arrived in the UK. I’ve stopped referring to it as “going back” to the UK because I’ve probably now spent more of my life outside than in it.

This time last year St. George’s flags were appearing overnight all over the place. Looking at them now, they’re tattered, ragged, shit-stained, and a disgrace.

So much for pride.

My wife is in Australia with nine students, but next week she’ll bring over four older students and we’ll run our first ever UK homestay program. I’m not sure what to tell the kids about the flags if they mention them. Maybe that they’re a by-product of the World Cup, but I don’t think they’ll fall for that, or the truth: that there is an element of society in the UK, like anywhere else, that doesn’t like strangers.

The kids will have a great time, and my daughter is loving her time with her cousins and grandmother.

That’s all that’s important.

I’ve been catching up with family, visiting my father’s and grandmother’s graves, cycling around the neighbourhood I grew up in and taking solo walks in the countryside.

But apart from that, I don’t miss the UK much.