All you incomers - please tell me something great about the UK

[MaisietheMorningsideCat]

2 sets of neighbours have emigrated recently, and are due back for a visit soon. One has gone to Switzerland where apparently everything is so clean, people so polite, great weather, great scenary blah blah, and the other to Australia - weather fantastic, great beaches, people so friendly, so many opportunities, huge house blah blah blah.

Apart from Britain being so tolerant , please tell me something (anything!) else about this country, and why you love it, because I'm thinking of being away somewhere when they arrive back to bore us all with their stories of their fabulous new homelands and do the usual "I could NEVER move back to the UK".

[abitlostandconfused]

Living in Australia, the good things about the uk are:

The NHS.

M&S and ASDA

Some of the weather. Some days in Perth during last Summer were 40 plus making it horrid to sleep in!

No horrid spiders.

TV. I'd give anything to pay for my TV licence again. I also miss Sky.

[abitlostandconfused]

ooooh and Heat Magazine.

[MaisietheMorningsideCat]

Ahh, Heat magazine - lovely. Am I the only one who goes to the doctors early so that I can catch up on my celebrity gossip courtesy of the Heat magazines that they have in the waiting room?

[LouIsOnAHighwayToHell]

Maisie - my doctor only has triathalon, cycling and Country Life magazines. I have started reading the Richard Scary books now. That's as close to gossip that we get.

[ninedragons]

Another ex-London Aussie here.

I LOVED the lack of cockroaches. Fabulous! Spiders don't bother me but cockroaches really give me the shits to the bottom of my soul.

And the seasons. England on a summer morning or Scotland on an autumn afternoon are literally how I imagine Heaven would be if it existed. I was fascinated by deciduous trees when I first moved to the UK - the seasons are so clearly delineated.

Georgian architecture. The sense of history. I was watching a repeat of the Antiques Roadshow recently and Geoffrey Munn was getting all excited about a gold Saxon ring someone had found in his back garden. Australian history is obviously very different and I realise it must be just as exciting to find a 50,000-year-old Aboriginal painting on a rock, but just imagine, digging up a Saxon treasure in your own garden!

And at risk of sounding like that stupid bint Gwynneth at the Oscars and descending into a long, blubbering list, the people. I made so many friends-for-life in the UK.

[OrmRenewed]

I live here.

You can't say that about anywhere else

[usuallydormant]

What I miss most are the weekend newspapers and sitting having a nice pub lunch reading them. Am Irish, lived in London and now France and demand visitors pay a uk newspaper tax when arriving. No way of replicating the Sunday roast in a nice beergarden though...

[PestoEatsBallotPapers]

Chelsea Flower Show

Badminton Horse Trials

the Boat Race

Wimbledon

all fun events

Am sure there are loads more, but those were off the top of my head.

Would also like to agree with others regarding great country pubs

[MaisietheMorningsideCat]

My GP also has What Car? and the National Geographic - obviously Heat is far more interesting

I second the country pubs - nothing nicer than sitting outside with a big drink of something cold and delicious, with warm sunshine on your face.