London

[User452734838]

I was in London earlier this week and it was manic. Everyone rushing around, tubes packed, people rushing down escalators when the tubes are 2 mins apart. Road noise, Sirens everywhere, People getting trains home at 7.30pm to commute an hour, people stood up on this train. As someone who only visits now and again on business it left me shattered and I was only there a day!

Is this just something you get used to in London? Is late working the norm? Travelling for what seems like hours either way to do a job?

It did feel alive though! Is this part of the attraction or is it a case of being born there and knowing nothing else?

I was glad to get back up North where the pace of life is so much less frenetic. We do have to put up with the awful weather though! It was definitely warmer in London 😂

Maybe you do just get used to it but I'm not sure what's so hectic about London really. The tube is rammed at rush hour but that's 20 mins of my day (not even every day as I work part time). My dd's school is 5 mins walk away - as is dd2's nursery. Most of their friends are within a short walk - the density of population means that most amenities are close at hand and the tube is an easy way of travelling outside of rush hour - my girls actively enjoy it and we read books together while we travel, which I can't do when driving. Getting out into the countryside is the biggest PITA as you have to get out of London first but actually most places are quite accessible by train if you have the budget for that - for example my mum lives 2 hours away on a direct line. Dsis is less than an hour away. I'm visiting one of my best friends in France next weekend who is less than 90 mins away.

I loved London when I lived there in my twenties, but I wouldn't live there now if you paid me! I've gone more and more rural since I moved away from London any more and don't think I'll ever live in a city again. I love the space, the fresh air and the lack of crowds and traffic where I live now (Cumbria). The weather is bloody awful though .

bananafish this is clearly bollocks: Every Londoner provided £3,070 more in tax revenues than they received in public spending
Some Londoners aren’t making any contribution. You mean ‘on average’ which in a city with such marked inequality means bog all, really. I suspect that figure will change as financial institutions relocate.

@cardibach I'm quoting the guardian - it's not my individual words! Of course it means on average - anything else would be patently absurd. The general point, made inarticulately by the guardian, who didn't specify what would presumably have been completely obvious to the average reader, is that every Londoner ON AVERAGE is in surplus

Blame their sub editors for the wording!

“My commute is currently 5 mins over the moors to drive DD to school. 5 mins back home”

One of the things I love about where I live is that my kids have never once been driven to school. It has always been within walking distance, or for a couple when teens, a bus ride. This has brought immense independence: they have walked to and from school alone (with friends ) from 9 onwards , can get independently to friends houses because the catchments are so small. Actually, I never have to drive my kids anywhere.

My rural brother, however , is like a non stop taxi.

But everywhere has a range of pros and cons.

I lived in London for a few years and now live up north but pop down every couple of months for work.

I love the fantastic pubs, dining, theatre, architecture, the general buzz of the place and I agree I’ve always found most people polite and friendly.

But I don’t miss having that pace of life full time. I don’t miss my long commute. And above all my standard of living is through the roof up north - my colleagues in London doing the same job get London weighting of about five grand but that’s just laughable.

My point, bananafish is that it is meaningless, whoever wrote it. It isn’t an endorsement of the wonderful ness of London, more a comment on huge and fragile inequality.

The best thing about London for me is that you don’t need a plan. Dh can never plan anything in (teacher) as weekends and evenings depend on meetings/parent evenings/marking load so for 14 years we never did anything much.

Literally we’d do something 3 or 4 times a year.

Now we’re in London because there’s always something to do we don’t need to plan, we just do it in the gaps.

So this morning we got up, jumped on a bus with the dog to see the Queen - it’s Sunday so got here in 25 minutes. Last weekend we both worked Saturday daytime and then at 7.30 walked 10 minutes with the dog to see Blackheath fireworks.

OK But I'm just back from Tesco having done my weekly shop.

I live surrounded by ancient woodland. 20 minutes to my city which hosts the biggest arts festival in the world, 10 minutes to wild coastline, 15 minutes to an international airport, 15 minutes to mountains.

My morning commute is hell....

I love to visit London but it is sooo fast and busy isn’t it? I’m not sure I could get used to it and it feels like theres no fresh air. Even the escalators are faster

demedtedma- how awful for you.

Stuck in traffic is awful.

It's dreadful speak. I was stuck behind a lone wandering cow once for 5 whole minutes

@speakout Edinburgh (which I assume you’re talking about) is the only city in the UK that can compete with London, imo. Full of culture, history and architectural beauty. I absolutely love it. DH and I were going to move there if we weren’t able to have children - still might some day!

But kaytee, the bits you visit aren’t the bits where any of us live. Being in London doesn’t mean being in Oxford Street and spending 8 hours a day on the tube.

I can go months without having to get on an escalator, and my house has 220 acres of woodland and commonland 250 yards one way from my front door, and 200 acres 400 yards from my front door in the opposite direction.
I live in Zone 2...

I live about as far away from London as you can get, now, but I have lived there and visited there and as far as I’m concerned it’s the greatest city on the planet.

After Melbourne.

Yes I have to say when people talk about visiting London and wanting to go to the lego shop and Hamleys in December I do think that sounds like hell - I haven't been to Oxford Street in years. I also find that now dd1 is at school I get more annoyed about the crowds in museums etc - I wish there was greater flexibility to "educate off site" now and again.

London is a series of villages

Islington, Highgate, Stokey, Wimbledon, Clapham - and urban villages like Dalston, Peckham, Brixton

Every neighborhood has its own character. Hamleys is only London to tourists, not people who actually live in London

Yes, many of the things that people say they dislike about London - the crush on the Tube, the crowds on Oxford Street - are things that Londoners actively avoid.

It's horses for courses. I like London but don't know any different. I just like the variation on offer. By that I mean the people, the places, things to do, food to eat. DH is from the country and when we visit I find it very samey. My SIL had always lived where DH is from gates London. Too fast, dirty, loud. It would be a dull place if we all liked the same things.

I know that @sparechange I just took the thread to be about central London

I'm from London (born and raised) and don't even notice any of the noise, crowds, traffic, etc. I don't live there anymore but when I do it just feels the same as always. Those things are the price you pay for living in an interesting city.

Agree completely more cheerful. I lived there for 7 years and never went anywhere near the touristy bits if I could help it. The magic of London for me was in the quiet corners, beautiful streets and the sense of being somewhere really special.