To ask if you love living in London, or if you moved and are happy in your new home?

[Londonmamabychance]

Moved to back to my native country (In Europe) five months ago with my partner and our two children (2 and 4). Lived in Lonodn for eight years, and in the UK as a whole for 15 years.

I MISS THE UK SO MUCH!

And I especially miss London. We struggled over the decission whether to try our luck in my home country for years (partner is from another European country), but eventually the (usual) list of reasons made us decide to move: 1) Couldn't afford to buy near the centre, and both had jobs in central London, so would've had to move further out and both commute to our jobs, making picking up children difficult and commuting of course is not great. Were living in a rented flat which was in a lovely location but not great condition 2) I was stuck in my job, hated it but could not see any other options which would allow me to pick up the kids in time, as my partner could never get out of work before 6-7 (media industry, impossible) 3) not happy w the local schools and not in catchment for the good ones, hard to find decent housing in a reasonable price range near the good schools 4) generally long working hours and stress and exhaustion 5) missing my family and wanting my children to be close to their grandparents and cousins. &) wanted a garden.

But since leaving, life has not been easy. My partner has a job, but I am still unemployed, we are in not great temporary accommoddation, and I feel we have not settled properly at all. Kids are loving their childminder/kindergarden, but even that hurts me, because I think we will have to move to another city for me to get work, so will have to uproot them again.

And I miss London SO MUCH!

I miss, first and foremost, all my amazing, supportive and fun friends, Biriths and international alike. And hanging with them spontanously and frequently.

I miss the city itself, the buzz, the people from all over the world, the shops from everywhere, the culture, the museums, the theatres, even miss the bloody busses and the tube which I used to hate. I miss being able to be one of a big crowd, people not knowing you, and also, people knowing you in your local area, bumping into friends and knowing the local shops.

I miss feeling part of a metropolits and centre of the world.

I miss British humour and your politeness and even shit bread and I miss Sainsburys. I miss the Guardian and I miss BBC, I miss Grazia and I miss Waterstones and Waitrose and even Tesco.

I miss the NHS and cheese straws.

I have to stop because the list is too long adn illogi al, guess I just feel homesick for a country that became my home over so many years that I now no longer feel at home in my own country.

All I'm looking for is someone to tell me how they got over homesickness for the UK and/or London, or if they didn't did you go back? Or tell me that actually living in London with children is really shite, unless you're quite well-off. Or just be honest and tell me how lovely London still is, and that we should just hurry back before Brexit slams the door in our faces.

Sorry you feel this way, happy to send you some cheese straws but they are easy to make with the right cheddar!

Personally, I haven't got kids yet but I don't think I can afford to stay in London and have them :( cost of childcare, lack of good schools in areas that we can afford to live in, no family support, lack of flexibility with work.

xx

I love london so much I will never move. Well only to a different part as Im not keen on the area I live, but love london anyway.

I'm so sorry op. I don't suppose this is at all helpful for you but I know I would miss London hugely if I moved away and that's what stops me from selling my house and buying something 20 miles outside of London for half the price. I moved away (within the UK) for 2 years and could not wait to get back! I really do feel for you.

I think you’ll just get used to it. And then the next time you come back you’ll say
OH MY GOD. This place is so stressful

But I have to say, if I leave for too long I crave coming back to it. It was your normal. Now this is your new normal. Find things that you love about your new place.

Some things I don't miss about London, in case it helps:
Having to hand over over half my income to my landlord every month for frankly shoddy housing
Buses that are supposed to be frequent but actually aren't
Weird black snot from the tube
The constant background noise
The diseased pigeons
Being woken up by police helicopters in the night
The price of a pint

Lots of the things on your list you can get elsewhere in the UK. Have you considered Scotland? Glasgow even has a tube!

I left London in 2011 to live in a lovely small town in Scotland. I couldn’t hack it, I was bored, I couldn’t work out what people did with themselves there. So I returned to London in 2016, love it, and have no plans to leave again.

I love living in London. DH and I were in a tiny flat near the centre before, which I found quite stressful due to the lack of space, but we have recently moved to a house in zone 3 and love it. For me it's the best of both worlds - I'm about 11 minutes on the overground train into central London, but also have a good amount of space at home and a garden, which I love. It's also very peaceful compared to central!

I adore living in London - yes it's noisy, dirty and overcrowded, but the endless amount of culture, places to go and things to do on your doorstep are just unbeatable. I think you should move back OP!

I am a European who lived in London for 15 years and moved to another European country a few years ago. I love and miss London.

For the first couple of years here I felt homesick after London but I wouldn’t move back now. If I won the lottery I would buy a holiday flat in Central London and visit often.:-)

I still miss the British humor, the energy of the city, the shopping, my hairdresser and the city itself. I always lived in Central London and took advantage what it had to offer. I don’t miss the NHS that treated me diabolically during my miscarriage, the long working hours and commute on the tube.

I think that it’s normal to feel the way you do as you have been uprooted from familiar life and your support network. Keep plugging away trying to build a life where you are and review in a few years. You might find that there are many benefits in living where you are or might decide to move elsewhere.

I love London but my husband doesn’t and for that reason eventually we will move out - probably to Brighton or possibly Edinburgh (although less likely as very far from both sets of parents).

Have you considered relocating within the UK? As a previous poster has said, there are lots of other places that would give you the benefits of the UK experience but a better quality of life!

Problem is there’s nowhere on earth quite like London BUT we moved for many of the same reasons as you when DS was little back to our small home town in Europe and it took me 2 years to settle. That was 12 years ago. No advice; it just takes time is my experience.

Why not just come back to London, but live further out? As long as you're close to a tube / train station, you're 'on the grid', and you've got London at your disposal. That's my theory, at least. I'm out in the wilderness of Zone 5/6, but I still get 24 hour public transport, can get my buzz of heading into the centre, but still get out to the coast when I want to. And it's very good out here for raising kids (Richmond Upon Thames). Good schools, good local community.

I could have written your post word for word last year. What has helped me settle down in my new country is buying our own house (outright, the same amount of money would hardly be enough for a deposit in London), starting a vegetable garden and getting some farm animals which has always been my dream. It also helps that childcare is free here and it's a much more child friendly country which makes life much easier. If I was you I would try to get a job, do things that you like which you wouldn't have been able to do in London and try to concentrate on the positives. Re-evaluate in a country of years.

I was forced to move out of London in 2010. It broke my heart. I haven't recovered yet, and I'm not sure I ever will. I'd go back tomorrow if I could afford to do so.

• a couple of years

I hated living in London, people were so rude and it was just such a rush constantly I hated it. Moved to Bristol and already in love with it!

I lived in London for 20 years, which included when the DC were young. Moved just outside 12 years ago and like it better.

I have access to countryside, people seem less aggressive and there is more space in every sense.

That said, I go into London for work or to meet friends a couple of times a month, so I feel like I can dip in when I want to.

Lived in London all my life - retired fifteen years ago and moved out approx 50 miles - love my current home and garden but still miss London. Would go back in a heartbeat - just need to win the lottery to be able to buy a property.

I moved out of London in 2017 and haven't missed it for a minute! I worked in the City and being pushed up against people's armpits on the tube, constantly being pushed and shoved and the useless transport got very boring, very quickly. I'd live in SW London my entire life when I made the move to Manchester and I wouldn't consider going back for love nor money. I don't know what I'm missing that everyone else loves about it!

I’d never raise children in London (moved out and commute in now). It is dirty and not safe (I would happily let young teens out by themselves where we live now). Londoners in general though are great. There are so many different kinds of people in such abundance it’s always possible to find someone tolerable. Not much diversity (read that as people who aren’t boring AF) where we live but then again we aren’t at a life stage where we are socialising like mad.

I grew up in London and I miss some things like the ease and cheapness of the tube and buses but couldn’t live there again, too built up and too expensive .
I live in Hertfordshire now and don’t know how I put up with London traffic for so long !
Yes we have traffic but it’s nothing like the A40!

Thanks for all your input! Haven been considering moving back but further out, but feel we havenøt tried for long enough to make a home in our new country. I think those people who said I should try for longer and then re-evaluate are right. Also, the advice to focus on doing things I couldn't do in London is great, I think I've been making the mistake of trying to recreate my Lonodn life, and that is just impossible. Instead, i should go out in nature more, which I have in abundance here, and spend more time with my family, one of the reaons I moved back.

I think London is great if you can live in a nice and Safeish area and have friends relatively local . We live in Bath now , love that too as we have a lot going on but small enough to actually be able to meet up with people after work who aren’t rushing to get the train etc .

All the reasons you gave for moving out of London are the reasons we moved 20 years ago. Give it time. Once the children are at school, you'll soon get to meet many more people. I didn't work for the first six years and initially I did feel I was muscling in on established friendships, not having been a part of any NCT (or equivalent experiences), but that's all now changed. I now have work colleagues, know the neighbours much better than I would have done in London, book group friends, friends through various sporting activities, friends of friends, as everything is so much more compact. Only problem is that you have to be polite to everyone you meet, as you're bound to meet them again through another connection, like when I was introduced to a very important person in a partner organisation who I realise I already know as our boys used to play football together. In a smaller place than London, this happens a lot. Also, our house is bigger, garden larger, air cleaner, no reason not to go to the local state school and we can still go to the theatre in London and get home by train - Sadlers Wells to my sofa in less than an hour and three quarters.

Give it time and enjoy visits back to London in the meantime.

Hilarious, you're right, I know. I guess my issue is also that the country I've moved back to - let's just say it's one of the Nordic countries - is quite provincial and closed minded. There are lots of great things about Nordic countries - egalitariansim, great welfare state, organic food everywhere etc., - but I think any smaller country is just bound to be more closed minded. I find that so hard to deal with after living around mainly open-minded people for so many years. It's harder to find your tribe in a small place, that's the thing. But I suppose towns outside London can also be more closed-minded, maybe only very large cities tend to have lots of open-minded people, or maybe I'm wropng, i only ever lived in one UK town outside London, and that was when I was a student, so don't think that was really representative of life there.

OP - your tribe is there somewhere. You'll find it.