Will I be able to return to U.K. life

[Blippimakesyouhyper]

Have lived abroad for many years, travelled lots etc. We’re due to return to live in the U.K. after Christmas. Mainly due to wanting dc, 3 to be closer to grandparents and have British schooling.
The lifestyles are worlds apart, between both places, both places have their negatives & positives.
I just really thought about it the other day when we were attending a friends birthday party, nearly all dads were there too aswell as mums…it was a random Tuesday in the middle of the day. It was hot and sunny, cocktails, playing in the pool etc.
When we go back, we don’t have the same job flexibility as many do here and I can’t see Dh being off in the middle of the day and attending parties and so on.
Beginning to worry I’ll feel trapped and hemmed in

@Blippimakesyouhyper Ah, just seen you're in Portugal! Lots of similarities with Spain, I expect.

@Blippimakesyouhyper I used to live in Portugal although we're now back in the UK. I think there are a few things to consider - for example, do your kids have an EU passport and do you speak the language? Can you see yourself retire there? Do you live in the south i.e. Lisbon which by now is great though lots of kids still go elsewhere in Europe for university and jobs or the North and how conservative do you find it? I lived in the North and as a women, I wasn't all that keen. I was actually thinking whether the UK will increasingly become like Ireland or Southern Europe i.e. a country of out migration except that Brits have no where to go.

Depends where you live.
House prices in the SE are crazy, Restaurants, entrance fees, all hiked up.
This is not a situation on other parts of the UK.
Living in a less expensive location does not mean lack of facilities. Lots of places to live in the UK are amazing, and much more affordable than SE prices.

I agree with @speakout - I moved from south of England to Scotland when I was in my 20s for partly these reasons. But I think OP said she needs to be in the South to be near GPs. In which case, I do think you need a lot more money to have a comfortable lifestyle.

@liveforsummer What are the greater opportunities for kids? Really need to weigh it all up

@00865jkk In the South, Eu passport & speak the language. Have visited up North and like it but wouldn’t live there

Having moved from abroad back to the UK - especially in the south - if you have a family budget of 150-200k then it's fine but that also assumes you have a mortgage/deposit. Do you have 300-500k for a deposit. A boring three bed house in London in an ok area i.e. that is safe is 1mil plus. And yes Brits will tell you that its fine and what's wrong with only putting the heating on for an hour a day or scrimping on food or having no teachers to teach their kids or buying clothes second hand etc etc etc. They talk about houses because they cant just pay someone to do it for them - why not, who knows - i.e. too expensive. I never heard Europeans talk about DIY because they don't do it. Most Europeans don't move into old houses that are drafty, with poor insulation, etc etc etc and then spend half their weekends trying to patch them up. Portuguese solution for their old houses was basically to build lots of apartments that are much newer as soon as they got into the EU (often with the money from their kids in France or Switzerland and no Portuguese is going to choose living in the drafty old on over a nice apartment in the centre

The UK just got poorer/expensive - have a look at all the how much do you earn threads. You need a lot of money - which you may have and that's fine.

@lifesnotaspectatorsport Very similar lifestyle! You described a lot of similarities there, we often go over the border to Spain too…that’s another positive I didn’t include.
Do you ever get *Homesick? Or have moments of wanting to return?

I love that quaint expression "Up North".Where is "Up North"?

Watford? Birmingham? Hexam? Aberdeen? Orkney Islands?
The UK is a diverse place- it sounds very dismissive and arrogant to make such judgements. Blippimakesyouhyper you visited "Up North" and didn't like it?
Woud be funny if it wasn;t so sad.

@speakout the OP means North Portugal:)

Honestly, no I don't. But I've been away 7 years now (not all of it in Spain) and my 3 kids were born abroad. My old life in the U.K. is a closed chapter and it's not one I could really go back to anyway, as it would be so different with kids. The things I loved were all adult-focused: meals out, art galleries, dinner parties at friends' houses, holidays etc.

It's probably a factor that I moved around a lot as a child so no one part of the U.K. is really 'home' anyway, and my parents have passed away. So I don't feel a strong 'pull' to anywhere. Brexit also really turned me off and made me feel like I didn't belong.

It's great your kids have an EU passport. If we do stay here, I will definitely do that for mine.

I see now you are in Portugal so is perhaps a bit different to where I was as was on an island living in a holiday resort where tourism is the main source of employment. By opportunities I mean schooling (less intense and more creative) where we were it was all about literacy and numeracy. My friends that still live there were shocked how much topic work and creative learning mine do. Also mine have both turned out to be dyslexic which would not have necessarily been great for them there. The extra curricular activities offered by schools are worlds apart too. Here we spend time at museums, galleries, theatres much of which is free. There are childrens festivals, arts festivals, science festivals. We have beautiful scenery to walk/hike. My dc are keen horse riders and are starting to do this competitively in a way that wouldn't be possible there. Things like adventure playgrounds, go ape, stately homes, national trust, historic Scotland sites, mountain bike trails. Again, you may have all this but in an island 140 miles long we certainly didn't

The things I loved were all adult-focused: meals out, art galleries, dinner parties at friends' houses, holidays etc.

Tbf this is the things we love as a family and I mentioned in my op as a pull for my dc being in the Uk. My dc have dual nationality and have both passports

Why would you want British schooling? The government altered the curriculum to be more about rote learning and less coursework. My kids go to 'the best school in town' but it's all supply teachers and no homework as there's no staff. Teachers quit en masse over Covid.

It's a dismal lifestyle. Grey and cold and focused around being indoors on your own. You've seen the posts here - people hate kids, even their own, and frown upon playing out, playing outdoors, frown upon cycling with children, frown upon children in restaurants or up past 7pm. It's a deeply child unfriendly society. We have some of the worst child mental health in Europe.

Honestly I'd consider literally any other country. Being here is a prison sentence.

@liveforsummer My kids are 5, 2 and 2 right now. Those things for sure are not their scene! Maybe when they are older - although we can do all that here too.

I'm just in that phase of parenting where my pre-kids existence feels like another lifetime.

Just reading your posts, even the pool matter. Ok so I bet you're imagining being a kid and going to your local pool?

Don't bother - council cuts mean hundreds have closed and many towns lack even the most basic pool. We have to drive miles for private kids swimming lessons and the pool is kids lessons only. No free swimming.

There's a pool even further away where they could free swim but it has a very strict timetable. Adults only lane swimming all day apart from 4 til 5pm. That's it. That's your kids only option to have a swim. And the best bit? They just announced they're now closing to all swim sessions apart from lessons because there's 'a nationwide chlorine shortage.'

Swimming actually gets me really upset, as it's something I grew up with as a norm yet living here, to my kids it's a special treat, and I haven't been able to swim in years.

I don’t see this child hating society that some describe. People frown upon cycling with children, really?? Cycling is massive where I am, my 4 year old cycles everywhere, loads of parents do the school run on bikes, a bike park and tracks. Kids play out here, parks are always full, pub right by us with a huge playground always full of playing children. Honesty the negativity on mumsnet is ridiculous and seemingly full of hugely negative people! I love where I live in the U.K. OP, I’m sure you could find your place too. And while not as sunny as Portugal, the weather really isn’t miserable ‘most of the time’

Mine have the same age gap and it's stuff we've always done. Re the galleries ours have tons of kids stuff going on so it changed a little bit still a regular thing, friends had dc similar age so dinner parties catered for them, never had an issue with holidays - granted I only had one toddler at a time though so accept it's bound to be harder (although there's only one of me - a second adult might balance that out)

I don’t recognise it either. We live very rurally and have 7 pools local to us, three indoor and four lidos. People bike everywhere. Lots of outdoor pursuits and walking. Weather isn’t always great but everyone just puts on waterproof clothing and does it anyway! It’s a village so everyone looks out for the kids. They are out most days climbing, swimming, playing in the park. Local primary is fabulous. Local secondaries are very good, one grammar school is exceptional. I don’t recognise the U.K. @RainCoffeeBook writes about but it is a big country and not all the same everywhere you go. Same as all countries. I’ve lived abroad a lot. Some good, some bad.

I wouldn't move back if I were you. I lived in a different country most of the year to my parents. They lived in a different country to their parents. Sure relationships with grandparents can be a wonderful thing, but seems like you are giving up too much. You visit, they visit (for an extended period). Result.
As for UK education cannot comment on how where you live now.

I'll also add that the hospitals were bad before Covid and are shocking now. There are no ambulances, there's no social care system in place so the beds are blocked, staff keep telling the media that patients are dying of preventable conditions and dying because they're not being seen, but they just print the story and nothing happens. Waiting lists are so long people die or get significantly worse, not treatments. Few can afford private care here.

Same, we've got loads of swimming pools to choose from, standard swimming baths, those with flumes and wave machines - even a couple of outdoors ones although they are a drive, we have boating lakes, reservoirs for water sports, tidal pools. The sea. Yes it's cold in winter but it's not always grey, it's 27c today and that's the east coast of Scotland. Cycling is incredibly popular and there are lots of bike paths to enable it safely. You see kids as young as 3 whizzing along on family bike rides . As with you the parks are always full and the majority of pubs and restaurants are child friendly, many have outdoor spaces, some have play areas. No expectation to leave them at tea time. In this weather people will be in the parks with their dc til late in to the evening having a bbq, playing, adults having wine etc

Make a thread! Honestly the hysterics will come out and say having kids in bike seats is child abuse.

You sound like you have a cycling focused town which is good. Here we have no bike lanes, no paths, the park was sold off the developers and those rent a bikes got chucked in the canal and the business pulled out.

Maybe this highlights the inequality of the country too. Where one town has four lidos, we're 80 miles from the nearest one, and I'd have to drive about 40 mins to the next city to find a pool.

Pick a rich town and you might be ok. Get a Labour town, denied funding for over a decade, and you'll find life a lot more depressing.

Pick a rich town and you might be ok. Get a Labour town, denied funding for over a decade, and you'll find life a lot more depressing.

Doesn't sound like that's where OP is planning to live though. I'm far from Rich, I'm a single parent on a low income and deliberately chose somewhere with lots of opportunities (most of which are free) and not a Tory council in sight.

Honestly, I hear you (esp Gregg's and humour! Whenever we walk through Newcastle arrivals, it's Gregg's first!) And also the kindness of people in the North East. That's something else for me.

But... we are always cold when we visit now! The Geordie idea of warm and ours are now completely different.

The kids often comment on the litter and cigarettes. Right now we live in a country with four proper seasons, by a lake. The bilingual thing is very important to me.

British education is good, in that it is child centered, but the way the government are running down resources and teachers means (IMO) it's not an option. (I also have a SN child and the provisions here are marvelous).

I worry that our kids are 3rd culture kids and miss out on our wonderfully rich heritage, but they are gaining so much that they would otherwise miss out on.

Crime, safety... such an important factor.

I understand what you mean about family, esp aging parents. We have lost several expat families who have moved back for this reason.

But, as it stands, right now it is not enough to make me move back.

We are going to apply for citizenship so that the children will have full rights, without being reliant on our work permits.

If you do go back, it is a major life decision and will require a period of adjustment.