8 Things I Miss About Living in London… This Week

A luteal-phase love letter to a city I left on purpose

I talk a lot about how great it is to live in New York City, but I must be honest with you - I’m feeling a bit sad this week. I am experiencing FOMO because Europe is having a heatwave, despite knowing it’s hell on earth living in a London flat with no AC when it’s too hot. I also feel like everyone in the world is currently in the South of France and I want to be in the South of France. Never mind that the last time I went there my gold jewellery was stolen and I kept muttering under my breath, “I think I don’t like it here as much as I used to…” Can you tell I’m in my luteal phase?

There are lots of things I miss about living in London — The NHS, living near friends who’ve known me for 20 years, people being paid a living wage so you don’t need to tip every single person who so much as breathes in your direction… Below is my exhaustive list of what I miss about London this week.

1. Having a washing machine in my apartment by default

I would like to know how many millennials were brainwashed into thinking doing laundry in a laundromat is fun and sexy because of the Josh Hartnett and Shannyn Sossamon led 2002 romcom 40 Days and 40 Nights. This film also romanticized living in San Francisco and being a web designer… hmmm sounds familiar, I didn’t base my college location and choice of major on this at all.

Moving to NYC is the first time in my life I’ve had to leave my house to do my laundry and you know what? I absolutely hate it!

At first it was sort of fun because I didn’t have a job yet. 4 years later it’s a chore I put off for as long as possible because I own an absurd amount of underwear. Every 2-3 weeks I wheel my laundry cart over to Lavanderia Express and spend about 3 hours there being annoyed about it and occupying around 6 machines simultaneously. Tell me why hours of uninterrupted scroll time on my phone at the laundromat doesn’t give me any dopamine? I think it’s because I’m trapped there.

Sure, I know I could drop it off and pay someone to do my laundry but I’m too much of a control freak for this. I could move to an apartment that has in-unit laundry, but I don’t want to move! I’d rather complain about it, and when life gets hard I just think to myself… someday you will have a washing machine again Jade. Dream big!

2. M&S

I miss M&S Food so much that I choose my hotels in London based on proximity to an M&S. When I visit I walk around taking photos of the shelves as if it’s a museum.

@scorpionicsaviourI love me an m&s #marksandsparks #britishhumour

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

3. The milk

I miss being able to buy small bottles of milk. The milk in America is weird and doesn’t spoil for weeks. It doesn’t ever go bad, but somehow smells ‘off’ to me the moment it’s opened. I tried so many different milks to find a good one and this is the best - but the only shop in my neighbourhood that sells it only sells it by the half gallon. As a result I have so much milk. Sometimes I have to bake cookies just so that the milk doesn’t go to waste.

4. Channel 4 and the BBC

When I’m back in Europe the ads on TV seem like high art in comparison to the barrage of drug and political smear ads here. I really long for the days when I didn’t have drug jingles stuck in my head 24/7. If you’re wondering which is my favourite, it’s 🎶 control means EVERYthing to ME 🎶 woah-oh-oh-oh! 🎶

I pay to remove commercials from every streaming service I have but still somehow know all the jingles. Does everyone in America have plaque psoriasis? What even is plaque psoriasis?

5. The Tube

I don’t miss the Central, Bakerloo, or Piccadilly line - but the Lizzy line might just be the most perfect public transport experience in the world. The Crossrail project disrupted almost my entire 15 year stint living in London — from beloved bars and venues being knocked down (RIP Astoria 2) to my bus (the 55) being on diversion for over a year. I am bitter that the Elizabeth line only opened a month or so before I emigrated! It’s not fair!

The tube also has escalators galore. The NYC subway has sooooOOOoooooo many stairs, and I am lazy!

6. The Eurostar

I miss knowing that I could hop on a train to Paris on a whim. Yeah, I did only do that 3 times in 15 years, and it was never on a whim, of course it was planned months in advance… but just having the option feels so nice.

In NYC I find myself constantly googling stuff like “city break near NYC no plane no drive car”… it’s not the same.

7. Boots

I miss being able to buy my toiletries without ringing a little doorbell 10 times because all of the products are locked up behind plexiglass. I haven’t impulse bought a bronzer or nail polish for years because of this… and that’s just not right.

8. No Roaches

I had never seen a roach IRL until I moved to NYC.

The 1996 film Joe’s Apartment had done a great job of anthropomorphising them for me so I am blessed to be not terrified of them but I still don’t want the little creatures in my apartment.

Living in an older apartment makes you catch yourself saying things like “Well I only see 1 or 2 a year so it’s not an infestation” or “they’re just passing through” or “they crawl out of the walls to die in my apartment, there’s no food for them here… I don’t cook!”

They’re really hard to kill you guys! If you want to know how I do it, I use my Swiffer Sweeper with kitchen roll wrapped around it to bludgeon them to death. It requires a level of force that shocked me.

One shouldn’t be too negative… here are three things that I prefer about NYC currently.

1. You’re allowed to buy more than 12 ibuprofen at a time

Oh how I love to be allowed to buy the 360 pill bottle of Advil without getting special permission from the pharmacist. Still, I do have to ring the little doorbell and wait for someone to unlock them from pill prison.

2. Ok I do agree about the ice thing actually

It didn’t happen after one year…

It didn’t happen after two…

… but after three years, on a visit back to London, I started thinking, “God they really give you hardly any ice in your drink here.”

3. Plastic bottles

The annoying thing where plastic bottle caps stay permanently attached and hit you in the face every time you drink happened after I moved abroad. So now it’s a little surprise that I’m met with each time I visit.