Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?
Posted: April 26th, 2017, 10:48 pm
And Brummies.
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That is true, but we are happy to try and move somewhere and put down new roots. I am used to doing this multiple times, so it's more uncertain for my partner to move away. But we decided you only live once, so we should try it now if we can get a better quality of life elsewhere.saechunu wrote:As social animals people naturally often wish to locate somewhere near to family, or near to friends or other connections or roots previously established.
If these are really of no consideration - and that may well be the case - then you have free reign to choose anywhere that fits your criteria.
However, I would think carefully about the above to ensure that's really the case to help avoid a costly mistake. It's not just expats who bail out from Oz or France after a few years but also plenty in the UK who gravitate back to an area they have connections with. I know of various people who've moved to a new location, ostensibly made a good success of it, but after a time returned to an earlier (original) location where the connections exerted a greater pull.
Considerably more I'd say. We lived in Bucks and Kent for 20-odd years before returning to Fife and I'd guess that without windchill it's easily 5 degrees on average. If you include windchill it's the difference between sitting out in the evenings and seldom if ever sitting out aside from a beer in the middle of a summer's day. Scotland's east coast is surprisingly (?) dry but definitely cold and windy.UncleIan wrote:The weather is colder up north, I had friends move back from London to Edinburgh and they reckoned it was on average 2 or 3 degrees colder. Or felt like it as the wind was colder or something. Anyway, enough for a bit of a shock to the system.
No doubt, although Western Scotland can be mild, if damp, and no colder than much of Eastern England.quelquod wrote:Considerably more I'd say. We lived in Bucks and Kent for 20-odd years before returning to Fife and I'd guess that without windchill it's easily 5 degrees on average. If you include windchill it's the difference between sitting out in the evenings and seldom if ever sitting out aside from a beer in the middle of a summer's day. Scotland's east coast is surprisingly (?) dry but definitely cold and windy.UncleIan wrote:The weather is colder up north, I had friends move back from London to Edinburgh and they reckoned it was on average 2 or 3 degrees colder. Or felt like it as the wind was colder or something. Anyway, enough for a bit of a shock to the system.
Agreed. Arts, culture, F+B are all things I consider to be requirements for us. We've saved hard for early retirement so now we will have time for such leisurely things, and there's no point moving out of London only to find we're constantly returning on trips to London to access such.BrummieDave wrote:All those options would match my 'dry and bright' not 'damp and dull' weather criteria and, as relatively wealthy towns generally, would all provide good options for the arts, eating and drinking, and also offer access to the great outdoors. Perhaps once you narrow it down to a 'favourite' and a 'reserve', have you considered using AirBnB and renting a place for a couple of weeks as a trial/pilot first?
I had to chuckle, it reminds of asking a Londoner when was the last time they visited to Tower of London or Changing of the Guard. IME you get a puzzled look usually followed by '[x]0 years ago on a school trip when I was 14' or similar. I used to work within 100M of the TowerOL, and we had frequent visitors from abroad. They were amazed that we were so close to it but most of us hadn't visited for decades. There's truth in the idea that if you can simply go somewhere, then you have little reason to as you can always go another timeElectronicFur wrote:For us it is a bit different as being near arts & culture aren't such a big issue for us. Currently we live in Surrey 35 minutes by train from London. But now that we're older we find we hardly ever go there. Just the occasional trip to a museum or activity with our son, or meeting friends for food or drinks. So we're only near London because my clients were all there. It's also why I slowly moved further out of London over the years.
I can see how a rural location works for you, good for you, it allows you a more objective perspective. It reminds me somewhat of the TV programme 'No going back', where people follow their dreams abroad. It works for some, but others get a rather blunt shattering of their dreams.ElectronicFur wrote:We have hobbies that we could do anywhere, and some like cycling, running and hiking that make a countryside location ideal. Like Bungeejumper the big outdoors does it for me, and my partner is not too fussed as long as she has a nice house, the commute to her hospitals is not too long, and can put down some roots. I would choose totally rural myself, I love total lack of noise, apart from my own noise. But being near a small town or part of a large village would be a requirement for the other half. If it was just me, I'd probably be in the mountains, or on a rural island in Scotland somewhere. Or maybe one in the Far East![]()
15 times, wow, you certainly are an expert then! I understand re: having options itself bringing challenges. What is that philosophical observation: 'There is no one as liberated as a slave, as only he is free of striving to fulfil his dreams. (...or something like that)ElectronicFur wrote:I hear what you're saying about having to fit in, but having moved 15 times now I'm used to it. At the moment the problem we have is that our search space is too large, as we don't have too many restrictions.
LOL, I like it. The countryside's not for everybody, that's for sure. I've been out in the garden this afternoon, planning to clear away an advancing jungle of ivy on ancient wall, and was stopped in my tracks by a blackbird singing its heart out, while also staring anxiously at my shears. Yes, there was a nest right in the middle, so bang goes that idea until August. And any time now the wild honey bee colonies in the chimney will start swarming and I'll have to call out the beekeeper man to fish the swarms out of the tree and take them away. Distractions,distractions. It never stops.DiamondEcho wrote:Being rather closer to nature means being more vulnerable to it – cold is colder, wet is wetter, mud is everywhere. And although country neighbours are generally kinder than urban ones, a quarrel in a village tends to be much longer-lasting than one in a metropolis. If you want the simple life, choose a tower-block. In country life, the reward - which can be very great - is not one of ease, but of difficulty constantly overcome.'[/i]
I've known a few. We had two with one neighbour that arose out of the blue. He was a 'weekender', a QC who lived in a $$$ area of London. [Yes, I'm being intentionally vague]. Within a year of him buying the place he'd started legal disputes about both access to our property, and a small patch of OUR land that he claimed should be his. Put another way, he tried to grab a piece of our land and when we didn't roll over then threatened our use of a shared access lane from the road to our drive-way. Imagine starting retirement in the country, an area you've lived in for 30+ years, then some flashy-gob turns up and you have to instruct your 'village solicitor' to defend yourself against this top-rank QC. You don't endear yourself in the community to behaving like that; as a 'weekender' he didn't care as he had no wish to become a part of the community.bungeejumper wrote:... I think he's probably overdoing it about the village feuds, though - I've only ever known one proper one in forty years, and that was because a bunch of very wealthy townies moved into my last village and closed a couple of the local footpaths. Otherwise, differences tend to get submerged pretty quickly IME (with the possible exception of parish councillors, who tend to be early-retired civil servants and who can hold grudges for decades). There was once a lively wife-swapping circle in our village (or so I'm told), but the traditional cousin-swapping is long gone.![]()
How we used to laugh at that QC-neighbour. He did indeed have a Range-Rover, and he took to careering around his small garden on Sunday afternoons so his immaculate car had sufficient quantities of mud on it, such that back in NW3 all his neighbours might envy him having been 'hard at work out on his country estate' - or idling at his country cottage as it actually wasbungeejumper wrote:The author might have added that there are reasons why country dwellers tend to drive battered old estate cars. You need the room in the back for the straw bales and the horsey gear, and there's no point in buying a new one because in no time it'll be covered in the same mud and scrapes as everyone else's. Range Rovers are more at home on the double yellow lines in Notting Hill. It takes all sorts. BJ
Slarti wrote:Somewhere close by Canterbury which should have all you require, including easy access to most of the rest of the country.
It is not as dry as here in Essex, but does have at least as good weather as most of the rest of the country.
Slarti
Nowhere is as dry as here in Essex as we are the driest part of the country, Mersea Island being the driest spot in the country.Imbiber wrote:Slarti wrote:Somewhere close by Canterbury which should have all you require, including easy access to most of the rest of the country.
It is not as dry as here in Essex, but does have at least as good weather as most of the rest of the country.
Slarti
Source ?
Hi EF,ElectronicFur wrote:I finally decided to move away from the rat race, and so we can move away from living near London.
Where would you choose and recommend?
We are still weighing up all our requirements, and what we're willing to trade off, but our only restriction is that it needs to be near the major hospitals, for partners work, and near a school for our 3 year old.
From our initial research, scenery and value for money seem to make Wales the most attractive.
Cheers,
EF
Yes, as a general rule the South-East is the warmest part of the mainland in the summer, and the South-West is the warmest in the winter.AleisterCrowley wrote:April seems to be warmer than May/June in the south east , unless I'm reading it wrong