Moving from one end of the country to the other

[SunnySideDownUp]

DH and I are having initial discussions about moving from the South Coast of England up to Scotland - around Inverness. Has anyone else made a similar move?

We love being near nature and the sea, but we're keen to change the pace of our life, and have space around us. I'm reluctant because of the amazing weather down south! I'm not sure how I'd cope through the Scottish winters.

Also, my youngest has Down's Syndrome. I don't know what the health care is like in Scotland. My initial impression is that it'll be better than where we currently are, but we have a great DS community I don't want to leave.

The massive incentive, other than space and quality of life, is being able to trade in our house with a teeny garden, with a big garden! I love gardening, it's great for my mental health, and it would be fab to move from an allotment to a veg garden outside our back door.

Polytunnel for the veg, and you'll be fine.

I moved a couple of times when younger over 200 miles, but was single and did not have family. The main thing was that within a short space of time almost all the people I knew I had lost contact with (it was before social media and the internet). As for the OPs suggestion, I would not want to have the earlier winter darkness that comes from moving further north.

I’d have a look on fb for DS groups in areas you’re considering moving to. It might give you a taster of the local DS community.
You will notice a big change in temperature, I’d hire a self catering cottage for a fortnight to trial ‘summer’. You can tell people ‘it is much windier, colder, wetter’ but so many people just don’t believe you. Locally, we’ve seen English people ‘trapped’ after their move, because they find they can’t actually handle the long dark winters and incessant wind, but they then can’t sell their new home and afford to get back into the more expensive market back where they moved from. (Although, that’s happening less in the last ten/fifteen years because house prices have risen so much here)

We did a very similar move. Devon to Inverness. I have to say that I regretted it very much. So much so that we have moving back to Devon tomorrow! Inverness is a lovely city and the surrounding areas are beautiful. We have English accents and found that didn't matter at all. People have been very welcoming and friendly. We met some wonderful people here. The main thing for me has been the weather. I've really struggled with it. It is so cold here compared with the south coast and we get a lot of rain. Where I live, it is also very windy a lot of the time so lots of icy rain pelting at you in the winter. We have spent 3 winters up in Inverness and they were miserable. In Devon we spent lots of time out of doors and grew veggies etc. We didn't do that here. None of our plants survived the wind. We also found that because the weather is cold and wet a lot of the time, that we spent a lot of time indoors. Unless you live actually in Inverness itself, then you spend a lot of time driving to get to places and we found there wasn't that much for our young children to do. If you like skiing, kayaking, climbing or bike riding, then the area is good for that though.

Sorry to sound so negative. Inverness is a lovely place but we really did regret our move here.

I should add that we have done other long distance moves so it wasn't the fact that we'd moved away from family and friends. We are not from Devon originally, we're from the North of England so we don't have family there. Our family is quite far away and scattered tbh. The reasons we didn't settle in Inverness were mainly the long, dark and cold winters, the lack of things to do compared with Devon and the fact we spent so much time driving to get to places. We were used to not living in a town (we lived on Dartmoor before!) but the area around Inverness is quite 'empty' and not well populated so things tend to be clustered around the towns, for example I have young children so they like to go to soft play, especially when it is a wet and miserable day. Our nearest one is a 40 mile round trip.

No help with the move but I used to help run a group for adults with additional needs in our local town (Northumberland) Would it be worth doing some research into what facilities are available for your youngest DC? Are they main stream educated or do you need to look at schools?

Middle of England to middle of Scotland. It's a bit colder but hardly arctic! Also everyone knows it's going to snow, so there are always snow ploughs out on the main routes when it's forecast and generally the roads are cleared much faster because councils are prepared.

Re accents...well everyone knows I'm not from round here the second I open my mouth, but I had that in England too as I moved around a lot as a child and my accent doesn't really fit anywhere. Having said that, I had frequent snidey comments in the very backwards parochial bit of the Midlands I used to live in but literally only once since I moved to Scotland several years ago.

If Inverness feels a bit remote there are some gorgeous rural bits of central Scotland.

Thanks. I'm not worried about accents, I'm sure my kids will get local accents in no time.

My youngest is only 2, but at the moment, there's no reason to think that she won't go to mainstream - at least for infant school.

@Hippymama, that's my main concern. Everything else is manageable I think. My husband loves being outside, I don't think he's thought through staying in more.

For those rolling their eyes at my comments about being an incomer, I was speaking from experience, not prejudice, and I clearly said it’s not a problem, just something to bear in mind. I agree that this could happen in other parts of the UK too. OP asked a question and I answered from my own experience. It’s not a question of not feeling welcome or people not being friendly, so I apologise if anyone thought that’s what I meant.

Nite I wasn't having a go, I just wanted to say something because sometimes you get weird comments on here about Scottish people all hating the English and that's not been my experience at all. I agree that if you're not used to sticking out like a sore thumb it must be disconcerting!

Thanks moose. Yes, I wouldn’t want people to think they can’t feel welcome and make friends in Scotland. People don’t shout ‘remember Bannockburn’ at you in the street or anything like that!

Indeed. And, I’d go as far to say that the northern isles would be accepting of incomers (even if they are Scottish ;) )

Someone else suggested Northumberland and I agree with that. One major reason for me would be because I and soooo allergic to midge bites!

We moved from Norfolk to to Caithness, best thing we ever did. I miss takeaways though, we live quite remote now! We use a polycrub to grow veg, polytunnel couldn't stand up to the wind.