To want to emigrate?

[YaddaYaddaYadda]

I realise I'm going to sound like Victor Meldrew here, but I'm really questioning whether I want to bring my dd up in Britain. Quality of life isn't that great, everything's so expensive especailly childcare, house prices are ridiculous and I can't face the thought of trying to negotiate the system to get my dd into a half decent state school...

Riven - In the seven(ish) years I've lived in Scotland I've never had any name calling or real unpleasantness. It does get quite irksome during football tournaments when the Scots insist on supporting anyone but the English though That said, I live in Edinburgh and there are LOADS of English immigrants here.

Actually it was New Zealand I wanted to move to... But I don't think I'll ever manage to drag DH that far away from his family.

I used to have a job which involved moving people to live abroad.

The vast majority of people, however much they said they wanted to 'slow down', have a better quality of live or whatever, recreated their own lives all over again (so if they worked too hard, they'd take on 3 jobs and a franchise). Except it was much harder because of the culture/language and so on.

And all the people who wanted to move to Australia/NZ almost without exception were women with a very dysfuctional relationships with their mother, for which the other side of the world was the only cure...

Yadda, the weather is meant to be shite or, well, similar to the british weather...! I always imagined that it would be similar climate to Australia, but, nope, I was told this is not true!

As for living elsewhere...well, I am german and have lived over here for the past 13 years (well, with an 18 month interuption where we lived in gorgeous sunny Cyprus).
When I visit Germany, I start missing some British things (although Tea , well....Ostfriesen Tee is gorgeous and whilst not superior to the English tea, it is on par with it ), I do miss the British ways, the way people are, etc...the humour and all that and some foods.

When I am in Britain, there are some things I do miss (luckily the foods that I used to missvyou can now generally get over here), mainly the cleanliness of the environment and the parks and that children start school later....the Health care system used to be brill, but isn't as good now, but has still some good bits to it, but those seem to be on the way out .
However, something I do NOT MISS are the germans, lol...having lived over here for this long, my sense of humour seems to have changed and I don't like the uptightness of so many german people and the things they can get excited about (like people being to slow at tills and stuff...the little things)...!

There are times when I think oh moving to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland or whatever would be great...but I am under no illusion that life can catch up with you anywhere.

I did love living in Cyprus, but am aware that it wasn't really living in Cyprus. We were on an Army Base and it was before the Euro came over there....but I loved having 8 month of sun and stuff

Wow this isn't really relevant, but I wouldn't have known that you were German, or that Cory was Swedish.

YaddaYadda, imagine if you could persuade your best friend and her family and your parents and brother and inlaws etc to move to NZ as well?! If I had that much power influence, I'd do it! My big dread would be arriving in paradise and feeling lonely.

Liffey Kidman - I hadn't realised it until I read your post, but I miss the sarcasm too!

noonki - I know what you mean about the tea (what is Lipton anyway? It's not real tea! And the humour. Humour is so slapstick and childish over here

Liffey...I have been Brittefyed ....apparently I now speak german with an english accent, lol!

Oh, to those that say about language and if you don't speak it....whilst I did learn some , extremely, basic english, my english was very basic and I did not get good marks in school...this meant,that when I moved over here with my english dh, that I learned my english almost like an english child would, by speaking and listening and reading and being surrounded by it pretty non-stop!
Now, my english is , pretty good...but sadly I can NOT translate....I either think and therefore speak/write in english or in german...I can't seem to connect the two...
I don't think language needs necessarily be a barrier, you can learn it and, you should if you live in a different country (saying that, I never got past the veryy basics of greek and turkish )

Cory, I did not know you are swedish!

Fair Lady - I agree with you about the language. I am now fluent in the language here, and I didn't even speak one word of it when I firt came. I even work as a translator now! If you are surrounded by the language and you are willing to learn, you will be surprised at how much you can take in

fluffles, i've lived in scotland as well as canada, and agree with your points too, dd1 started school in P1 and had a fantastic start - but it's kind of my point - each country has good and bad areas, but it does depend on what you want. if we do end up living permanently in the uk, then we will def be heading out of the south...

(and dfaf - dd2 will start grade 1 in sept before her sixth birthday - so i guess it depends - just like in the uk - when your kids were born)

Fairladyrant, I get that too. How long have you been in Ireland, you almost have an Irish accent!

No, I almost have an English accent!!

Maybe I could do voiceovers with my bland please-all offend-nobody accent??

Alexpolismum, Unitl I could put a bit of a break on my own personality in this respect, I used to far too much time in Spain, saying, actually NO, I didn't mean it, it was a joke; their face [hmm, well ok not a joke, un poquito de sarcasmo??? still ok, forget it! please... By which time they'd written me off as a guiri con problemas. I did 'get' them by the time I finally left though. Nice timing!

YaddaYadda - we are emigrating to New Zealand in 6 weeks (if the visas come through in time).
My DH has been offerred a job there and having looked into the schooling and lifestyle we do believe it will be an improvement on what we can get in the UK. Its our crippling mortgage and our desire for more of an outdoor life that is prompting the move. Due to DHs work we have been restricted to living within commuting distance of London which has limited our options in the UK. Otherwise I think we would have liked Scotland as others have said.

exciting! I know they say the weather is similar but it's a warmer variety!

Also people have lovely big houses.

Brave. I wish I had the nerve! Was it hard to get entrance??

As we have already been offerred a job it shouldnt be to difficult but we have all had to have medicals and police checks etc;; in order to cplete the visas. So I dont think its the easiest place to get into but hopefully it will be worth it in the end. All very exciting and quite scary at the same time!

Complete - sorry keyboard very sticky and covered in jam and bits of toast

lol liffey...I heart the irish accent It's so beautyful

Me too!
Just need to pick a place..

We went, now we're coming back! My one piece of advice to anyone thinking of a move would be to go and spend a few weeks at least in the new place, and pretend you live there. Look at it from the point of view of where are the supermarkets? How much is the fuel? Do you like the style of houses available there? Do you need/want more/less liveliness in the place you want to live or is the new place too quiet/vibrant? Is it easy to get to work? Do you have a financial backup plan if you lose your job there? Do you have to pay for some extras like dental/healthcare/extra local taxes? Are the local schools good?

Basically all the things that you'd ask yourself about moving to any new area all apply, but people tend to forget them when offered a bit more sunshine!

lavendarbongo - I'm SO jealous! All this started because I discovered that what I do is on the NZ skill shortage list so we'd get extra points for my occupation and otherwise we're gonna have to stay living within commuting distance of central London... I've got family in NZ plus a couple of friends who are part way thru the process of emigrating there so we'd know some people out there. I spend a couple of months in NZ a few years ago and have incredibly happy memories, it's such a beautiful country and a better quality of life.

Kitbit - where did you go and why are you coming back?

Noonki and Liffeykidman - couldn't agree more about the tea.

We just left Spain - well Gran Canaria and are now in France. The French-in-laws use 1 tea-bag for 2
Oh and the French are rubbish at baked beans.

GC was okay for English essentials because of all the tourism but you had to put up with taxi drivers with banners in their cars saying
"immigration plus soft politics equals disaster"
nice when so many of the businesses are ex-pats/immigrants putting their life savings into the economy.

Hey ho - we're out of there and somewhere where you can claim back 85% of your childcare costs, busses are free and so are my French lessons.

yadda...sounds like you got it maped out and that you have a plan....if you can...GO FOR IT!
Apparently they are looking for OT's over in NZ....so who knows what we will do in the future...,well, once I am a fully fletched OT, if I ever get there, lol...

one word for you, WEATHER.
I can cope with just about anything knowing i will get a summer, Australia is far from perfect but at least you can get outdoors 8 months of the year.

I love Britain, but give me a life in Australia and I think there's little contest.

I think you need a DREAM. If that dream is emigrating, and it's keeping you sane, then that's great. My mum is ill, I say when she is gone I will leave and work in NZ. But I suspect when that happens it'll be when... something else. I still need that dream of "things could be better" though.