I need some ideas. I’m doing a “swap” with some online friends, and my swap-ee is in the UK (Portsmouth, specificially).
She’s a knitter, so I’m going to get her a few things related to that - probably some yarn that’s difficult or impossible to get where she is.
What are some neat US items that are difficult to get in the UK? Or maybe just way more expensive in the UK than here.
A few caveats - try to keep suggestions low in price (around $10), and remember that it has to be shipped overseas, so nothing that’s really heave or won’t survive the trip.
I know she likes coffee & chocolate flavored things, too.
Proper yarn stores are as rare as hens’ teeth over here and department stores with a yarn section are becoming increasingly rare, so any nice yarn would probably be appreciated. Otherwise, maybe a nice knitting book by a US author? I can recommend Annie Modesitt’s “Confessions of a Knitting Heretic”, which is available from her website.
Maybe it does a roaring trade because it’s the only one for miles around?
I’m remembering a time in the '80s when knitting was fashionable and every town had at least one decent yarn shop. It seems to me that they’ve all disappeared. If I’m ever in Altrincham, I’ll know to seek that place out and re-constitute my stash!
If you’re ever in or near Rochdale or Oldham I think you’ll find an abundance of yarn stores in those places., for that matter any place near the Pennines should have them.
They were, many moons ago, the hub of the cotton and wool industries and I believe that the tradition of yarn selling stores still thrives there.
What I do in this exact same situation is buy something local, not just American. Do you have a college sports team (or anything else that’s famous locally). There’s always a souvenir shop that will sell candy in the shape of a mascot or some jelly beans in a plastic jar in the shape of the State Capitol. That’s the stuff you don’t see in the UK.
She’s in Portsmouth and you’re in Missouri? Near to St. Louis, by any chance? I think I would send her as much Saints-related stuff as I could lay my hands on.
Haha… for those watching in black and white, there is… shall we say… intense and excitable… rivalry between Portsmouth’s football team (‘Pompey’) and that of the nearby city of Southampton.
Southampton’s football team is known as ‘Saints’.
Therefore sending Saints memorabilia to a Pompey fan (even if the Saints in question are a different team in a different country) could provoke an amusing reaction (if by ‘amusing’, we really mean ‘hostile’).
Recipes for local foods. Or, if you’re feeling generous, mix together the dry goods for a recipe (like biscuits or peanut butter cookies or something) in a Mason jar and send that over with instructions like, “Just add milk, eggs, and water and bake in the following way…”
Ahh, OK! I was lost on the football thing - I’m not a big sports fan, and while I’m not sure about her, I’ve never known her to talk about sports much. Then again, most of the rest of us are American, so we might not be the group she’d talk about Portsmouth sports with.
I like the local food idea. I’m hesitant to send chocolate - last time I did that, I sent someone a chocolate St. Louis Arch that melted & didn’t look like an Arch anymore when it got to it’s destination. I’m not sure how warm it is in the UK right now, but it would probably melt on it’s way out of St. Louis. The recipe + dry goods would work, though. Especially if said dry goods are regional and not something she’d be able to pick up at her local grocery store.
Well if it isn’t an imposition I’m quite willing to help you out here.
F’rinstance, I could get your pal some yarn and mail it on, not chocolate because, and I’m not being snarky, our chocolate is a hell of a lot tastier than that of the USA. I know, I’ve been.
Things that are very expensive in the UK comapred with the US …I can think of many but one sticks in my mind, Maple Syrup.
I allus fetch some back home after a visit to America, bloody big jars of the stuff, drool
It’s entirely up to you, my e-mail address is in my profile if you want to write me.
Thanks for the offer chowder, but I actually DO have yarn on hand that I want to send to her. I’d like to package everything up together anyway.
I had no idea grape-flavored stuff wasn’t available in the UK. It just tastes like “purple” anyway, not really “grape”. Blackcurrent needs to be more readily available in the US, IMO.
It just occurred to me with the recipe thing that cooks measure differently in the UK —by weight, usually, where we often measure by volume. If you send a pre-measured jar full of flour, sugar, baking soda, etc., to be mixed by your friend with her milk, eggs, water, vanilla, etc., then just make marks on the jar: milk up to this line, water up to this line. Or whatever. Just makes it easier.
How about a bunch of blank postcards showing the local sights or things that you are fond of in your area? She can either send them to friends or use them as artwork at home.
Echoing the ‘don’t send chocolate’ plea. Really. We are used to something *quite * different from that which Americans call chocolate and it can be something of a shock to the system for the unprepared.
Both those products are blackcurrant-based