Don’t want to live in England anymore

[Orangeetree]

I have been in London for 19 years. First 10 to 15 years were ok but I am counting the years to live this country. The weather depress me and I feel we spend too much time indoors. We just been to Greece and it was lovely, we were in a lively village where kids and adults spend time socialising outside. The sky was blue everyday.

However our jobs are in London, kids are teens so we are not going anywhere until younger finish school; currently in year 8.

Do other people move abroad for similar reasons? How do they find settling in? Getting new jobs? Schools, etc?

Where are you from? Are they options?

Could you return to yours or your husband's "home continent".
To be fair, it did sound like you wanted to live in Greece.

Tbf London isn’t England. There are plenty of other places in England you could live and if it’s lively village life you want then you need to move to one. And your kids education wouldn’t be as disrupted.
Blue sky I can’t help you with 😎

we are raising our kids in UK and have to stay because of jobs. I am grateful for what we have but I am ready to move on. I don’t miss it when I am away and it doesn’t feel like home to me after nearly 20 years but I have a family to think of and is probably home to the kids as they are born and growing here.

Just wondering how you picked your username @caringcarer ?
I'm just thinking Ilikewritingsnideyill-informedcommentsonMN might suit you better.

What job do you propose to do?

Are you eligible for a visa?

Can you speak greek?

Are you living in cloud cuckoo land?

I would probably move out of London for a start.

Ah don’t feel bad OP you’ve had a lovely holiday and now it’s back to real life and it feels crap - I always feel the same after a holiday too and I only work part time in a fairly low stress job which I really enjoy doing !

Things I try and do is make sure we are making time to do family stuff at home , so make a few special teas in the week then play board/parlour games after , or do a burgers and movie night . We are also trying to see more of the UK so do some long weekends in different UK spots too that definitely helps banish the post holiday blues!

Nice 🙄

Brits can’t just rock up and live anywhere and like others have said it’s not so easy to get visas in US, Canada, NZ, Australia, EU. My parents’ neighbours in my home country are English and they spent north of £50k to get the visas/requirements to emigrate. It also didn’t happen overnight. You have to be very motivated and financially secure to emigrate.

I wouldn't write off the French school system. Foreigners get plenty.of help with the language. DD1 started French school in 2021 without a word of French. She%'s just had an offer from the Sorbonne!

It’s true though. The constant slagging off of Britain and droning on about how the rest of Europe is a utopia is tedious on this site.
It’s naive, and ill informed.

Life’s too short… go, you can always come back

I am grateful to England but The weather depress me. I can’t help the way I feel. It doesn’t impact the rest of the family in the same way. I grew up in the tropics. I was the one that made the decision to move here and I can’t just disrupt the whole family because of me. The weather doesn’t impact DH, oldest child seem to like it, youngest child will be happier in Australia where DH is from but they are born and growing in the UK so used to it. We can’t move as DH is not changing jobs at this stage of his career.

Well, I lived and worked in the UK for over 20 years and had a child there. I loved living in Oxford and then London, but when we left there for work reasons, I realised these places weren't England, and where we ended up living really didn't work for us, despite giving it all we had in terms of integration. DS only ever remembered this place, and would much rather not have left, but honestly, there are times when you need to prioritise yourself. I quit my UK job, and have been freelancing and working on fixed-term contracts since moving countries, and DS has had a fair bit of settling in to do. But, despite financial and career setbacks, it was the right move.

Is returning to either of your home countries an option?

Yep, I’m going there too it’s a great area for the outdoors.

I can’t just disrupt the whole family because of me

You can, you know. I did. Moving to the UK was originally my idea, too, and leaving was also my idea. I have no difficulty with putting my own wishes first.

Do other people move abroad for similar reasons? How do they find settling in? Getting new jobs? Schools, etc?

First of all, we moved in late 2020, during the Brexit transition period, so there will be more red tape now. However, your economic circumstances sound more favourable than mine were, so maybe it's swings and roundabouts.

Similar reasons - no. The cost of private renting forced us out of the UK.

Settling in - not easy at all, but if you have no choice you just get on with it. For us, this wasn't some middle class gap year, it was real life!

Getting new jobs - I knew this would be hard, because our minuscule budget meant we had to buy in a very rural area. I did the usual crap temp jobs that immigrants do - factory work, grape picking - and I'm currently teaching English in a middle school on the French side of the Swiss border, two hours away from home. They can't get the staff because everyone wants to work in Switzerland for three times the pay, so the only English supply teachers in this particular town are foreigners who haven't got the right paperwork to take a job in Switzerland: me and two Ukrainian refugees, basically.

Middle school: DD2, aged 11 when we moved, had to be taken out of her first (rural, far right) middle school because of xenophobic bullying. The authorities were helpful and she moved to a more urban, diverse school which is better. In the first school she did at least get one to one French lessons, and she speaks fluent French with almost no accent.

High school: DD1 joined a special class for foreign pupils (all refugees and non-white, apart from her). This was a good experience and she was able to go into mainstream lower sixth the year after. Now she is in the upper sixth and today she received an offer from the Sorbonne! (I'm so proud!)

Yes it does.

So you can’t move then?

Or do you want advice as per your op

Do other people move abroad for similar reasons? How do they find settling in? Getting new jobs? Schools, etc?

I moved from southernish UK to the Lake District - and it’s changed our whole quality of life!

This morning I met a group of ladies, all newcomers to the area within the last 10 yrs and we swam in Crummock water which is just incredible, quick hike through the fells, this afternoon heading to the beach, tomorrow going to go fell walking and hire a row boat.

Because house prices / rent / COL is so much cheaper up here we all have a much better standard of living.

I always imagined myself going southern med as love the sun, but I enjoy outdoors far more up here than I did living near London!

FGS. I find beaches very boring indeed but it's not hard to understand that some people adore them and spend as much time there as possible, even if they have lived in a seaside town for decades. Each to their own!

Btw, living in a landlocked region doesn't mean no beaches. People go to the shore of a lake instead, and it's a pretty similar experience if you just want to lie in the sun or paddle or do watersports. We stopped off at a lake near Dijon a couple of weeks ago and it was beautiful. In England, the kids only really went to beaches in North Norfolk, and they couldn't believe that there was such a thing as a "seaside" where it was't always freezing and blowing a gale!

I'm from a sunny country in southern Europe. Every time I visit I forget how bright the sun is, and how much I miss it. I also love the cafe culture. And being by the sea. HOWEVER - I am soon reminded of why I chose to live in London.

There is a real lack of diversity, even in the cities, and there's a lot of close-mindedness - I often overhear casual racism, homophobia, etc. That's the main reason I just can't live there. No amount of sunshine can mask that.

Secondly, it's v hard making friends there as an adult. A lot of people make their friends in school and keep them, and never bother to branch out - it's v tight knit. My mum, who still lives there, has always struggled making friends as she didn't grow up there (and she's a v social person).

Lastly, the level of bureaucracy is insane. Getting anything official done is like entering a Kafka novel. I am not exaggerating.

London IS grey. But it is colourful in so many other ways. And we appreciate the sun so much when it's out. I never even noticed it when I lived in almost-constant sunshine.

I live in Switzerland and bloody love it. The UK depresses me for the reasons you state and now the only thing that I miss are the people.

Brexit is an issue but if you have other passports, that could help?

Lots of people work in Switzerland and live in neighboring countries, although I don't.

It's expensive but a really wonderful place to live. We are all very happy here.

@Brexile we must be in the same region (ish), I am in Canton Vaud.