to miss London....

[gottomakeaquiche]

Hello all.

DH and I lived in London for 15 and 20 years, both heading their after our studies (we didn't know each other then). I was 24 and planned to be there only for 5 years - yeah right! It was a hard place to live but I knew it well, along with all its plusses and minuses.

We met, got married and had babies (nice). We lived in a great part of town and had all our mates around us..growing our babes up in and around the parks swaffing lattes as we pushed buggies and talked about what we were doing that weekend, etc etc. It was a fantastic time but I always wanted to sample family life in the countryside, it was kind of on my bucket list having come from the country/small city in the country.

So..DH got made redundant, we got stupidly broke and decided this was the time to make the break and move out of London closer to home and family. DS and DD are 6 and 3 so good times to do it.

It's been a tough couple of years but we are now feeling more settled in the village that we live and have made some pals here...not that connection that you feel immediatly to new pals that you meet in London (why is that?) Anyway, work for DH has continued to be frustratingly tough with little work about. That I can handle (sort of) as he is now working at anyjob going just to get the money in - phew we got there in the end.

My question is this..does anyone else miss living in London? I hated it and loved it at the same time. I hated the aggression on the streets and I love the safety and 'niceness' of living out of it, for me and my children. I loved the bubbling opportunities everywhere and miss that sense of anything being doable. I hated the gazillions of people and love the ease of where we live now...its just that I'm a bit lonely inside for those other crazy nutters that I used to find all over my old city - I suppose that is to say my true best mates...

Thoughts most welcome.

TheBride - your pre children life sounds just like mine was! Those were the days . . .

London is great, but it costs a lot to get the space and the nice area required which makes it more enjoyable.

Just to sidetrack for a minute - the black snot thing is from using the tube. If you mostly cycle or use the bus then you don't get it.

I was just going to ask what was this black snot thing of which you speak and I've lived in London for over 15 years and never experienced it.

Rarely get the tube, so that'll explain why.

Yes! I had black snot after using tube. Thought it was just me. Stuck to thr bus after that.

Yanbu I get that you are missing London, but I live in suburbia close to London and miss my home town terribly, I don't think it's a longing for a certain place because obviously they all change, it's more a longing for a place where you were happy.

I long to move back up north, but I would probably moan once I got there. Even if you moved back, it wouldn't be the same, you long for a certain time in your life, not a physical place.

"Unreasonable to miss London"?

I have been to London twice.

When I was fifteen, on a school trip and when I had passed my finals and went for the graduation ceremony, aged twenty five.

Without wishing to offend any Londoners here, I absolutely hated the place. I was so glad to get back home to Cornwall.

pendeen that really made me laugh :)

I like your frankness.

'You don't want that for your kids, surely?'

Can I be the first to say... that is pathetic.

Dunno about pathetic - it's each to their own, but it's certainly very narrow minded.

World class museums for free, fabulous parks, open spaces, city farms, marshes and rivers, theatres, being able to choose from 50 different films showing any one evening, an incredible mix of cultures and races generally getting on, a depth and variety to life that you can't get anywhere else in the UK?

Yes, I want that for my kids and that's why I live in London.

It is pathetic to want clean air for my kids? Tell me exactly, how is that pathetic?

Rosebud - my comment about not wanting that for your kids was directly related to the air being so dirty you get black snot. I'm not sure that really comes across in Fanjo's post.

Where I live we have an almost new award winning museum, we have more open space than we know what to do with, we have 'real' farms that you can visit and feed the animals on, we have a theatre that, admittedly doesn't play the same thing for months or even years on end, but thats okay. We can only watch one film at a time, so I;m not worried about a choice of fifty. We have no gun crime that I am aware of, little knife crime. We have a mixture of races that enjoy life here. We don't have any problems with rush hour traffic. We also have a community spirit that is regarded by the people that move here as one of the main things that is lacking from city life, people that say they are busier and more involved with local events than they ever were when they were living in close proximity to a city.

There is life north of the Watford Gap. Not existence, as people seem to believe, but life. It's not for everyone, certainly, but it is no worse than life in London. And it is certainly much cleaner and we have no need for a congestion charge.

I've lived on the oustkirts of London now for two years. At first I was terribly homesick but now... well, I can't see myself leaving for a while.

I'm a teacher and I'm often struck by how unappreciative the kids are of just how AWESOME London is. I grew up in Glasgow and that was the biggest city I had ever seen until I moved here - we literally viewed flats for two days and then moved. I was gobsmacked by the place. It's enormous. The trains are huge, the escalators are huge, the tube is amazing. I love the history of the place. I feel like a complete country bumpkin, which is weird considering I come from what I always considered to be a 'big city'.

I'm not sure whether I want to raise kids here... some days I do and some days I don't. We'll see what happens. I always thought I'd do what my mum did, and buy a house in the same part of Glasgow as the rest of my family, send my kids to the school I went to, live in a nice three-bed semi-detached ex-council house. Coming to London has changed my perspectives on everything.

It's funny that people mention how nice it is to get away from the crime when they leave London. For me, it's nice to get away from the crime in Glasgow. I feel safe walking around here on my own. I always thought our little corner of Glasgow was nice and safe - it seems less so, now, when I go back. I know that parts of London are bad too, but there's a different mood in the city in general.

Don't get me wrong, I love Glasgow, it'll always be my home and I'm proud of where I come from. I suppose coming to London has just exposed some flaws that I never really saw before.

"World class museums for free, fabulous parks, open spaces, city farms, marshes and rivers, theatres, being able to choose from 50 different films showing any one evening, an incredible mix of cultures and races generally getting on, a depth and variety to life that you can't get anywhere else in the UK?"

I suggest that you perhaps visit a few UK cities before you making sweeping, and untrue statemants like that. Then you will appreciate that London doesn't have the monopoly on free museums, parks, open spaces, museums, cultural diversity, theatres etc.

Try Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, York, Edinburgh or Glasgow for a start. We have real farms where I live and real open spaces where you can't see any buildings at all, yet only half an hour away I can shop in a thriving, cosmopolitan city centre, lunch in Harvey Nichols, shop for exotic ingredients, visit one of many cinemas or theatres and visit one of many free National museums. We have top (Russell Group) universities, history galore, stately homes, a myriad of ethnic restaurants to eat in, no congestion charge and houses (near excellent schools) that we can afford to buy.

Unfortunately you are conforming to the stereotype Londoner who thinks the world stops at the M25. My family live in the London area, where I grew up, and they are more parochial than most people I know.

I agree it is pretty poor to make out that parents who live outside of London are providing a superior upbringing for their children based on some tenuous opinions on what constitutes 'fresh air'.

We all have our own values and make our own choices about how best to bring up our children. I would argue that my children have a fantastic life in London. We have a garden, we are close to half a dozen amazing parks (including the wonderful Hampstead Heath), we walk a lot and use public transport loads, which I personally think is a lot healthier than the car-reliant lifestyle a lot of country dwellers lead. London is not all filth and crime, and it is ridiculous to suggest so.

These are just my choices and my opinions. You may disagree. But I do think that all this 'leaving London for the kids' stuff is entirely subjective. My own opinion is that there is no better place to grow up, offering so much opportunity, than a major world city and London is one of the best in the world.

Bunbaker, I love all the cities that you mentioned - I absolutely adore York and Manchester in particular - but not one of them is on a par with London. i don't mean that London is 'better' than any of them (that would just be opinion), but London is a world class city - much, much bigger and more varied than any other city ion the UK. that is just a fact. It doesn't mean you have to like London, but you cannot compare London to Leeds. It's like comparing New York to Albany.

Oh for heaven's sake.
Mumbrane, the op has moved out of London. I was coming up with what I thought was a positive about where she is now, by using ONE negative about London. It wasn't a comment to all parents that are in London. It was a comment to the op.

Move on now please, nothing to see here!

Well it was a stupid comment

Black snot comes from regularly using the tube. I've lived in London for years and rarely do. My snot is very clean.

We moved out of London so that the kids could have a more relaxed upbringing in the country. They have. DH and the kids loved the new home from day one whereas it took me ages to adjust. I still get a rush of nostalgia for London whenever I go back (which is several times a year) and feel that it's my spiritual home: the smells, the sounds, the buzz, the possibilities. But I strongly suspect that this is more to do with nostalgia for my youth than for the place.

I was born in London, grew-up there, went to uni there and still live there now having raised, well almost, the 3 dc's here. I've lived in all over London in my 39 years and know it so well yet can still get lost and still discover new things weekly- I love that.

London really is my home, I travel a lot for work and just generally I never feel other cities are as good. Now I live in Stoke Newington which is not far from where I grew up Bow/East Ham. I love it, sometimes yeah I want to murder someone on the tube or think why does this passage have to stink of piss everyday or cry with frustration at having sat in roughly the same place for an hour due to traffic but when I really think about it I couldn't live anywhere else.

A few years ago DH and I decided moving out of London might be good, our eldest 2 were becoming teens and I was pregnant again, so friends of ours have a little house in the country in a not too rural area, we intended to stay for a month or 2 to find a house etc. Lasted 3 weeks. I was trying to cook and couldn't get half the ingredients which being used to Ridley Road Market was shocking. The cinema was showing the same few films the whole time, Mac counters did not exist and good coffee was impossible. It was all same places same faces, never would I leave again.

Yes we chose to bring the dcs up here in dirty rough London, although have never had this black snot thing everyone is talking about like its the black death. But my dcs are tough, independent I read the teen boards on here and think my 5yr old has more streetsmart than some teen living in the country. They people from all races and walks of life. I think living in London has prepared them for life better than most places could.

"being used to Ridley Road Market was shocking. The cinema was showing the same few films the whole time, Mac counters did not exist and good coffee was impossible. It was all same places same faces"

I guess that (as someone not having been brought up or staying any length of time there) it's what you get used to that makes you miss things, and so not having had them, I don't crave them. I suppose you appreciate some of the differences, though 'appreciate' doesn't describe it... find 'intolerable' maybe!

Frankly, it is one reason why people outside London sometimes get a bit peeved at the London-based media, some of whom treat anywhere outside the M25 as being the end of civilisation as they know it, and then you get the 6-finger jokes and so forth from some comics.

"I read the teen boards on here and think my 5yr old has more streetsmart than some teen living in the country" in a way that's sad, too. "living in London has prepared them for life better than most places could" true, and it is one reason why those outside sometimes feel wary about their teens visiting, or considering whether to move back to UK and settle in some cities (given crime and violence are not found only in the capital, but seem more likely in cities than more rural areas).

I think the "grubby" way I felt on visits to London can be explained by my using the tube every time, and it has tainted my view a little. However, I think the "they're missing out" attitude flies over my head - and seeing it as intolerable may be the norm, so I am glad not to have "missed" it one bit :)

Well it looks like you either love it or hate it .

I was raised in the countryside and as soon as I could I ran away to London to study. So did my DH. We've both lived all over the world but returned to London in 2003, never to have left.

We're raising our DD here. We're lucky where we live in that there are two OFSTED-rated outstanding schools and we're in catchment area for them and an outstanding/good school too. It's not a yummy-mummy area so again I say, we're very lucky.

Love it so much here, so many things to do each weekend, the buzz, the people and (again lucky) we have a house and garden so I don't see us leaving soon. And we are surrounded by so much parkland.

Admittedly we're not central London but zone 2/3 border.

God, I just love this city so much.