Love this!

I totally stole this from Elizabeth's blog and had to republish here. Really made me laugh and I suddenly realised that I've been living on this little island for almost 12 years! I've made some edits and added my own comments, highlighting the points that are particularly true for me. Enjoy!

You know you've been in England too long when...

1. You don't even bother looking out of the window when you get up in the morning to check what the day is like. You know it is overcast.

2. You believe that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are all good nights for drinking. Sunday day is also entirely reasonable.

3. You can't remember what 'customer service' means.

4. After a big night out you find yourself looking for a Curry house and not a 24 hour Taco Bell.

5. You start to accept queuing as a way of life.

6. More than three hours sunlight on summer days seems excessive. [In the summer, sunrise is around 4.30am and sunset isn't until around 9.30pm in high summer. I loved this before having Tobes but now it drives me crazy. So hard to convince him it really is bedtime when the sun is still shining.]

7. You always call soccer 'football' ... and you have a team ... and it's not Manchester United.

8. You don't think twice about buying a packaged sandwich. [English food always gets a bad rap but the sandwiches are great!]

9. A sunny lunchtime means searching for a patch of grass and stripping off practically down to your underwear.

10. You expect men to actually cut, comb and style their hair (using hair products) and to wear decent clothes. Jeans and a T-shirt are no longer socially acceptable. [I do love that J is a bit of a metrosexual. He's even started using Clarins! The Men's Line, of course.]

11. You think 40 quid for a haircut is quite reasonable. [We could probably have a holiday home for what I spend on my hair... and it's not even that nice!]

12. You start every conversation with Hiya or Alright.

13. You only just realise you have lost your sunglasses-you left them in Greece 2 summers ago. [I only buy sunglasses in Texas and when I get back to England I usually wear them until I forget that I have them. Just don't have that blazing sun problem in England very often. And, after living in Tokyo, I've developed a slight prejudice against sunglasses because in Japan only the yakuza gangsters wear them. But that's a whole other list.]

14. You start thinking English cuisine isn't all that bad after all, I mean, it's hard to beat a full English breakfast.

15. You are on to your 6th umbrella and your second overcoat. [Just counted the umbrellas in the hall... we have nine.]

16. You buy a disposable baby BBQ from Argos.

17. You realise your sunscreen is the stuff you originally brought from home with you. [Or the stuff we bought years ago for our last sunny vacation.]

18. A day at the beach means wearing the warmest clothes you own while standing on golf ball-size pebbles and the thought of swimming doesn't even enter your head. [And what about wind-breaks!! The first time I saw one I thought J was going to build us a tent.]

19. You actually say, "Sorted" or "its all gone a bit pear shaped". [Have to add 'pissed' (as in drunk), 'over the moon' and my personal favourite - 'bloody hell'.]

20. Wearing a suit in a pub is relatively normal attire. [Of course, it's where you go for a drink during your lunch break and for one for the road immediately after work.]

21. You have given up complaining about the Victorian-like banking services offered in the UK.

22. You have given up explaining why you are half an hour late to work as no-one notices or even cares. In fact - you may even join the one hour gossip session around the coffee machine before booting up your computer. [This doesn't really apply anymore but I used to love easing into my day by spending a good hour discussing what happened on Big Brother/Eastenders/Cold Feet the night before.]

23. Coming to work with a hangover is entirely accepted and indeed expected at least once a week.

My own additions:

24. You actually start to watch and enjoy an English soap.

25. Someone uses Cockney Rhyming Slang and you understand what they're saying.

26. Baked beans at breakfast is perfectly normal and, in fact, quite delicious.

27. Yoghurt is a nice snack any time of day and can be a casual dessert after dinner.

28. You have to have some blood tests and are unfazed by the need to drive to another hospital for the test and wait two weeks for the results.

29. Your children use words like 'whilst' and 'perhaps' and it seems perfectly normal.

30. You can name at least six different types of tea.