Moving back to London from suburbs

[carine23]

Hi mums
I need your advice and wisdom please!

We moved out of London to St. Albans 4 years ago to buy a house and start a family. The idea was to get garden, green space for kids, excellent schools and community etc.
We feel now we have all this but being foreigner (my husband is British) we miss the cosmopolitan aspects of London and most importantly opportunities to expose them to languages (so hard to find French speaking nannies for ex).
Also although in theory commute should be good, we both have to go to London at least 4 days a week and with 50 min to 1:20 each way , we feel we are missing out on kids and we are getting tired. Also we rely on thameslink so if any problem or delay we will miss meetings or most importantly bed time.

So we started considering London. But we feel crazy to do though and in theory we live in family heaven!

I would love to hear your opinion.
For example if we moved to hampstead we could get a 3 bed flat instead of our 4 bed house and massive garden. But we gain between one hour to 2 hours commute time a day and most importantly we could to work via tube bus taxi etc.

State schools in St. Albans seen to be better so we probably would need to go private. Little one is 3 so we might be too late for thst ?

Any advice or thoughts would be welcome.

Thank you

Laurie I don't live there so could easily have got this wrong but I've never got the feeling it's particularly diverse round that way? I don't think it would be any more (or less) diverse that St Albans.

If it's Farringdon and Tottenham Ct Rd, I agree with PP's. Move to Ealing and wait for Crossrail.

I would say South London is generally very diverse - at least as much as posho Hampstead 

Definitely more Europeans (German/Spanish/French) than Koreans though

I would agree with that broadly speaking but when I've visited round Greenwich way (not just the touristy bit) I've found it much more white British than, say, Peckham or Camberwell,

I'm sure you're right, just by virtue of it being more expensive

Depending on the budget but personally i'd consider Chiswick. Family friendly and a huge French community. They also have a brilliant (or so I hear) French school. The only thing that is a bit of a let down is the District line (god forbid there should be a leaf on the tracks)...

I would have loved chiswick but commute won’t be great I think :/

London state schools achieve better results than the national average

www.teachers.org.uk/expert-view/why-attainment-higher-london-elsewhere

Children do grow up in flats without spontaneously combusting. It's quite normal in most European cities....
Hampstead is nice. It is also extremely expensive. You could live somewhere else also nice for less money. But if you can comfortably afford a three bedroom place in Hampstead then go for it.

Was that to me *Carine23 (re Hampstead?) . It's a very pretty area of London. I could afford a flat there. It's full of very wealthy people - bankers and the like. I had my first couple of children there and all the mums were on a very different life track and budget to me. Not that that's a problem, but I prefer to be in a place with people with similar backgrounds to me. It also brought out the worse in me in terms of wanting to keep up with the jones's . I didn't cope well with all the massive wealth/consumption/holidays.

I still live in N London(near where I mentioned in my other post) and I love it. Very varied, vibrant and good state schools. Live there OP and cycle to work! It's a very easy bike ride.

Will your children go to the Lycee? If so, you want to be nearer South Ken. South Ken itself will be similar prices to Hampstead so if I were you, I'd buy a house a bit further out on a bus route to the Lycee.

I would definitely buy a house further out rather than a flat somewhere expensive.

@annanimity that’s one my concerns and that’s why I eliminated options like Notting Hill , Holland Park etc.
I don’t want to feel i need to keep up with much wealthier families and most importantly don’t want my kids to feel they don’t fit.
What do you say is the usual income of families live there? Are we talking millions ?

I will recheck the areas you mentioned. Tuffnel green was on our list. Is thst good?

My husband (brutish) is really not keen on pure French system so unfortunately lycee is not an option

@annanimmity sorry I couldn’t find the location you mentioned in n London. But whst you describe sounds lovely. Is it somewhere near Kentish town , tuffnek Park ?

I messaged you OP.

I’m surprised you find a lack of French Speaking nannies in St Albans. There are lots in and around the Milton Keynes area.