Pregnant and moving to Norwich

[takethatlady]

Hi! I'm hoping you can help me and DH think about where to live in Norwich :)

I'm 18+3 weeks pregnant and I work as a lecturer at UEA. DH is a secondary school teacher (history) and we currently live in Cambridge. I commute to UEA, which is knackering.

When the baby is born we want to move to Norwich, so that when I go back to work after maternity leave I am near campus. DH loves Norwich (he's been a lifelong Norwich fan even though he grew up in Kent, so he can't believe his luck that his wife works in Norwich ). He is looking for a new job in the area, though nothing has come up yet.

Anyway, we can't sell our house in Cambridge (£25k negative equity) so we're renting it out. We'll get about £800 a month in rent for our house and would like something comparable (2 bed house/garden flat) in Norwich for around £600 a month, maybe a little more.

Could you advise us on where are the good areas to live? I've only been working at UEA a short time and haven't got to know the city as well as I'd like. I'd like to live as close to UEA as possible (the baby will be going to nursery on campus 3 days a week). I've heard that Eaton and Cringleford are nice, though they're not on the bus route from UEA. The Golden Triangle looks great but expensive.

What about Three Score? Is it nice or horrible (it seems cheap and very convenient, which makes me wonder what the drawbacks are)? Is West Earlham okay? Is it worth looking at areas like Thorpe St Andrew/all the Victorian terraces just north of the city centre, or is it going to take me hours to schlep across the city to get to work each morning?

Any advice greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I can understand why you want to drive. I know a lot of colleagues (I worked at the sru) gave up on driving because of the parking problems/charges and traffic issues. Plus the bus deal is really good value if they still do it. Once dd was 6 months I cycled again.

Sorry if you've said but will you be using the UEA nursery? Is it still subsidised for students but not for staff?

Oh really? That's really good to know about the issues of driving. I drive now and I think the parking situation is a bit better - it can be tricky to find a space if you get there after 9 but it's fine before that. £1.06 a day though! Feels quite a cheek to be charged to park in your own workplace!

Yep, we'll be using the UEA nursery. That's one of the biggest reasons for moving. We could stay in Cambridge and the baby go to nursery near my husband's school, and we keep thinking maybe that would be easier. But I know I would absolutely hate to leave her and drive all that way 3/4 tdays a week, and it's much easier for me to rearrange a seminar or a meeting than for DH to get out of work (he's a teacher and his school is pretty mental about time off.) Plus we both really liked the nursery and instantly felt she would be safe there - because the staff are permanent employees of the university you obviously don't have the same high turnover issues, etc, that you can sometimes get at other places.

Plus, and this is a big big plus, the nursery is subsidised by a salary sacrifice scheme. I would pay full fees (about £6k for 3 days a week 45 weeks a year) but before I pay tax/national insurance/student loan. Which effectively means I would save almost £3k a year in taxes, and halves the cost of childcare. That will make a massive massive difference to us!

I still think DH going an hour on the train every day would be better than 1hr 15 in the car and us having to buy a second car. Especially to a small grammar school rather than a big bonkers comprehensive where behaviour management is physically draining. But it's swings and roundabouts either way because he'd have a heck of a lot of new planning etc to do in a new job, and that might be unrealistic with a commute and a newborn ...

Oooh I have another question (am I trying your patience yet? )

Is Thetford really a complete shithole? Is any part of it nice? In many ways it's the perfect solution if my DH stays in his current job because it means we'd both have to travel but neither of us very far. But all I read about it is B-A-D...

House prices on Rightmove seem to bear this out. I'm looking at a 4-bed detached Victorian house that is practically a mansion compared to ours, and it's £179995 ... eeek.

PS - fimbo on reflection I think you were right and both the new options were just too difficult. Colchester still in the air, but probably it's just adding more difficulties into the mix ...

Really wouldn't moved to Thetford. There are nice houses in some parts but it seems to be a dumping ground currently for foreign nationals. Not that thats a bad thing but there was a massive brawl in the town centre a couple of years ago and it just makes me . .

I know someone who is in Great Hockham which is not that far from Thetford.

I have inboxed you btw about a job!

\link{http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32232095.html\Nice?}

Oooh thanks I'll go and look!

Just drove through Great Hockham on my way home and it looked lovely :) Couple of gorgeous properties there, too ...

Thanks - that's what I thought about Thetford. Just wishful thinking it would have turned into somewhere lovely overnight :)

\link{http://greathockham.org/default.aspx\here}. The person that I know that lives there, bought a shop and converted it into a house! .

There is also a place called East Harling. I have no idea what it is like though or about schooling.

My friend's husband is a teacher and he lives in Brum during the week, leaving early Monday morning and coming back Friday straight after school. My neighbour does something similar. Could you do something like this until your dh got a job closer? My friend's husband stays with friends.

I am realising how difficult we are being as I go through this thread ha ha. Our requirements are clearly too precise! But there is no way on earth that DH would spend weeknights away - he wouldn't do that if it was just me and him, let alone with the baby (and tbh, I think I probably need him around!). Am in no way judging people who do that, but DH would feel he was putting work before family and would rather quit his job and work in Tesco's in Norwich LOL. I have to say, as fussy as he is about jobs, the fact he feels this way is one of the things I think is lovely about him ...

Drove through Harling/East Harling too, which also looked lovely - very picturesque and pretty (like Great Hockham). Plus there is a train station there, which is useful. Thanks for the website tip! I think if it was a nice house and a pretty village I could deal with being a bit isolated - it feels easier to me to do that than to move to a crappy town in the middle of nowhere just because there are a few more amenities.

From Great Hockham and East Harling it's an hour's drive for DH and half an hour for me, which feels doable ...

I think one of those two are you answer tbh.

With regard to spending week nights away, I wanted to move back to Scotland and my dh to stay here during the week, he got so upset he cried. He is 6ft 2 and big, have never seen him cry before, I felt awful!

Fecking MN destroyed my very long post

fimbo your DH sounds cute and lovely . I definitely think that with a newborn baby and in a new area where we barely know anybody we're going to want to be together as much as possible, and DH has always wanted to be a father so he'd really feel he was missing out not to be there. Plus I don't know what the be-jeesus I'm doing so I need to share the responsibility with him !

I think you're right - both these places seem like good options. It means neither of us has a really short commute but neither of us has a hellish one either, and they're so pretty, well-served and well-connected that they seem like lovely places to bring up LOs. Something about Attleborough just made me feel uneasy. I like living in a city (albeit a small one) so I know it might seem weird that a village is preferable to a town, but something about small towns makes me feel really claustrophobic. Plus both these villages are close to the A11, close to train routes, and half an hour closer to our families (in Kent) and friends in London than Norwich. I think I'll take a trip there with DH next weekend, if we can.

fimbo I owe you about 50 of these for all the amazing and generous help you have given me. You have helped so much! And more for all the other people who have replied to me on this thread - thank you so much for answering all my questions! I hope everyone in Norfolk is equally lovely!

You are more than welcome TTL. I know what it was like when we moved here from Scotland, oh to have had Mumsnet way back then, we were so clueless and even Rightmove didn't exist.

Meg Bussett's (think she may have put in an appearance somewhere along the line) parents also live in Kent! We were there a couple of weekends ago. Canterbury is so lovely. We frequent Bluewater and Ikea on a weekly occassional basis

Oh dear that made me sound like I stayed with Meg's parents! You get my drift!

coming late to this because I missed your Friday posts. I live near Long Stratton so know this area quite well.

Pulham Market is nice enough - biggish village (small compared to Wymondham/Attleborough). Travel time to Norwich very much depends on time of day - bottle neck is Long Stratton (which might eventually get bypassed but don't hold your breath). I would say allow 35 mins to UEA in good traffic, longer if Stratton is snarled up.

Again driving south along the A140 to the A12 is not the fastest - blanket 50mph speed limit and often slower when busy.

Diss is not a bad town - preferable to Attleborough and has good schools (I think the High is well thought of).

East Harling is a bit like Pulham - big village. I wouldn't relish driving from there to Colchester every day - no easy route down to the A12 - would probably have to go through Diss which is a bottle neck (and no prospects of a bypass as far as I have ever heard).

Another option round that way would be Kenninghall. It is a bit further from the A11 though.

By the way - East Harling - there is a station but I don't think the trains stop very often - they usually stop at Wymondham, Attleborough and Thetford.

Thanks throckenholt that's brilliant info. Actually DH wouldn't be going to Colchester, he'd be going to his current job in St Ives in Cambridgeshire (if he went for and got the job in Colchester we'd move to Norwich, somewhere near the station, and he'd get the train ...)

I think a weekend in Norfolk is definitely in order!

PS - that's good to know about Diss, too, and about driving times especially (35 minutes in good traffic way too long - I'm reckoning 30 minutes is long enough with a baby each way, otherwise there's no point moving at all ... we live in Cambridge now and I drive to UEA)

Just to clarify, there are now two options on the table.

1. (By far the most likely.) DH stays in his job in St Ives and drives there. I drive to UEA and we live somewhere in the middle, but nearer to UEA as the baby is coming with me. Current possibilities - Attleborough/surrounding villages; East Harling; Great Hockham.

1. (If DH bites the bullet, and if he even got the job, so unlikely ...) we move either to Norwich near the station, or possibly Diss, and he gets the train to Colchester and I drive to UEA.

Neither option perfect, but neither option terrible either, I'm thinking.

I live North City (Silver Road area) and don't find it depressing at all. In fact I moved in with my boyfriend here having lived in the Golden Triangle for a few years and prefer it round here, I just find it a little less pretentious and when I lived off Unthank Road I was kept up all night by bloody students! Haha! It takes me 10 minutes to walk into the city centre and the primary schools round here are lovely. Sprowston High School isn't too far away and is a pretty good school (I'm a high school teacher at a Norwich school so know the reputations). All in all I wouldn't rule it out if I were you, and it is much cheaper that GT.