Soul Destroying House? Is this one?

[Lillipuddlian]

Hello, apologies in advance if this irritates anyone. My husband and I are dual Canadian/ British citizens. We currently live in Canada but are considered moving to the UK. The big push is climate and what my husband describes as "soul destroying houses with no character and no garden." Below is an example of the homes in our price range (350,000 UK)... this is very, very typical of housing near our jobs. Tell me your opinion, please! Are we picky, or is my husband right, these houses are soul destroying... (not an advertisement!)

premierottawa.ca/property/651-birchland-crescent/

BertandQueenieforever yes, the new builds especially! But even older houses often seem very similar to me, there doesn't seem to be as much variation in materials or layouts. I don't notice it as much as I used to.

I try not to compare a lot, as someone warned me against it when I first moved. They said that you'll just end up focusing on the negatives and felling unhappy, and I think I generally agree. I should say that overall I do like it here and don't regret moving. We don't intend to move back to the US but wouldn't rule it out entirely.

I do dislike the climate. Sorry! I'm sure that I'll get used to it in time, but it's been difficult for me. I was never someone who liked sunny days back home, so it was especially surprising that I found it so grim here. It's really affected me and I find myself searching the forecast for even a partly cloudy day, just for any bit of sun. I also miss air conditioning! Sure there aren't many days that you need it, but our place was unbearable last summer for more than a week. I also have really bad allergies and find I now have to decide between being perpetually sick or boiled inside in the summer.

I find most things a little less convenient. It's difficult to describe but everything feels like it takes just a bit more effort. I miss some products back home, stupid things like finding a decent lint roller. I miss larger houses and roads and having storage space at home. Yes you might not need the space of a large American home, but you get used to it!

People have been friendly, but it's different. In general, people feel a little more closed off, private, reticent. I miss people being unabashedly optimistic and enthusiastic, just enjoying life.

All this being said, I'm glad that I made the move. There's plenty to enjoy, and the "bad" isn't really that bad, usually it's just different. I love being surrounded by history. I love how close we are to so many countries. In some ways I identify more with the culture here. I like that people are less ignorant, more environmentally conscious, and that people enjoy walking. I don't miss the gun culture of the US.

I think there are advantages and disadvantages to living most places. And your happiness depends on your flexibility and priorities.

@Winterdown Ontario—both Southern (cities) and Northern (rural) so I got the full experience. I love the Niagara region and would probably live there if I were to live in Canada again, but not in any of the cities! The North is a bit too rugged for me and the winters are far too cold. Give me a trail and ice-cream stall any day! I hate camping too!

@LovesLaboursLost

Now that is a very interesting point.

We are chugging along here economically. From a national and personal perspective.

Husband has a salary that he can't easily have met in the UK. He has a lot of flexibility and works from 10 am until 3 pm and a bit in the evening. He can work from home and his commute is five minutes. Same company for 23 years now I think.

I keep telling him he is lucky but he is willing to trade it all for a crack at visiting a Railway Museum and growing tomatoes in a greenhouse (among other things).Tow paths. Rambling. Yorkshire.

My work is fantastic. I have complete flexibility and make my own schedule. I work about one day a week (or less) in hospital. This gives me a lot of flexibility with the children and I get paid a professional wage for the time I am at work and contribute to a pension.

We are in a fortunate position and have paid off our debts. This is not a brag, it is due to the salaries and cost of housing. We are savers and my husband had done well earlier on. It was him. He was clever. Me, not so much.

So it would be a very big risk trade it all in. I would never get the same type of job again (hospital professional) with the flexibility and he would never get the same salary and very unlikely the commute and definitely not the family flexibility.

That being said, we are really struggling with the life here from a cultural perspective. It's difficult to explain. There really isn't anything to do but make money, if that makes sense.

Finally, we have some money tied up in British pounds. We can't free it up because the pound is low post / pre Brexit. It used to be worth $2 Canadian... we can't touch it. So your post about the economy is very interesting.

My work, for example, would be NHS. I know they just got an injection, but the system would still shudder along. I work in patient flow, emergency room, etc.

sorry, that sounds a very spoilt perspective and I don't mean it that way at all... it's just that there is more to life than granite counter (worktops) and everything else they are trying to sell us here as "the good life". I don't have fancy worktops, by the way....

It's just that the rewards here are monetary, materialistic.

It rings hollow if it doesn't align with your values. Hope that makes me sound a bit less like a princess... / first world moaner.

@Chrys2017 you are hysterical. I think my husband would like you very much. I agree with you both.

Niagara has always been on my radar but I have never been.

Same company for 23 years now I think.

Would your husband's company give him a year's sabbatical? That would give you a chance to come over to the UK and rent a house, check out the job situation, get your fill of towpaths, museums and expensive coffee…

@Chrys2017

Yes, he has been granted that option. We were planning to be in the UK for the next Canadian snowfall in November / December.

He has to get this out of his system. He is here, in Canada, and he is miserable and needs to go home again.

@Chrys2017 he misses his idyllic childhood in Yorkshire where he spent the weekends with his grandfather, who grew tomatoes in a greenhouse and sold them 'down the pub.

He went to university in York, for crying out loud.

He isn't coping well.

For the start of his career, he lived in Maidenhead. That really, finally ruined him for life.

Niagara has always been on my radar but I have never been.

Do make sure you visit the Falls before you leave Canada... and read up about the 1912 ice bridge tragedy before you go (a unique piece of Canadian history that will make your visit all the more poignant).

Wherabouts are you located?

… especially in case you end up staying in the UK!

@Lillipuddlian what would be your budget in the uk? In your 1st post you mentioned £350,000 but in a later post $600,000. Is your budget the lower or higher figure in uk £ or somewhere inbetween. Im always up for house hunting online

Chrys2017 I am in Ottawa. Very dull. You would die of boredom here before anything else happened to you. Good for raising children, they tell me. Zzzzzz

On a long weekend (bank holiday) we get to the end of the road for a "day out" and don't know whether to turn left or right because there is nowhere to go, really.

Sometimes I launch the National Trust day out map app and have a little cry.

@ReinettePompadour

Our budget here in Canada is about 350,000 pounds. That's because above that the housing does not get better, just bigger and sillier and stupid and is a waste of money. We don't need a big silly house. I don't want to vacuum that and heat it and pay exorbitant taxes.

Our budget for the UK is higher because we have money locked up there that we can't access as Canadians. We have british pounds that we can't convert to canadian because of Brexit and the drop in the pound. So it's just sitting there doing nothing. In the good old days one pound would buy you $2 Canadian. We are waiting for that again but it isn't happening.

So we can put 600 gbp on a house in the UK, if we sold our Canadian property. That would buy you a lot of house in Canada but I know it isn't the same in England. I spend time on RightMove. lol. Too much time.

I don't want to be in London (can't afford it anyways) as I am not a big city person.

@ReinettePompadour

Our other option is to buy a holiday flat in the UK. We would keep our Canadian house here, which is turn-key, and spend the 8 weeks we get in the summer in the UK... we could then sink our money into buying a holiday flat instead of moving lock-stock and barrel, so to speak.

So if you see a nice holiday let, I would be interested in it and renting it out the rest of the year. The problem is which bit of England? Agh.

@ReinettePompadour I know this sounds like a good problem to have, but it isn't really because the husband is miserable and doesn't want to stay here. Constant discussions, some heated. Lots at stake.

Winterdown sorry, forgot to tag you in my last post! Also it sounds like you're both really interested in moving. Maybe it would help to talk to people currently working in the NHS in a similar job so that you know what to expect.

@Kismett thank you... the same type of work doesn't exist, so it would be bad for my career. I don't know what you call people who work "on call" or as "casuals" in the health service... per diem? I think only nurses work in this role in the UK. Anyway! Thank you for your response!

@Winterdown They're called agency staff. It's not just nurses, but the NHS is trying to cut back on agency staff use because of the exorbitant fees charged by the agencies.

This is a really interesting thread about the swings and roundabouts of moving abroad. I think it also goes to illustrate that nothing is perfect - you really need to be a glass half full person to properly enjoy it (i.e. look at the pros and turn a blind eye to the cons). To this I would also add that returning home after a long period away isn't always what you imagine it to be either (speaking from experience) - you can find you have been feeling homesick for a way of life that doesn't exist anymore.

@LillianGish great point. I try to explain to my husband that he is longing for an England from 20 years ago. Who didn't enjoy their university years? They were the best! He had freedom, no job, no children, no nagging wife... I digress...

You can never go home again. Luckily, I haven't had to make that move as I have always lived here. I don't fancy being caught in no-mans land in between memories and reality. I feel badly for him.

@LillianGish did you move away from England / UK?

@Lilliangish, Winterdown

That’s why I was the one to move. Despite my looong post a few back, I think I’m better suited to optimism. My husband has many strengths, but I think he would have had a harder time adapting. I see what Winterdown means about nostalgia, but I truly think my husband wouldn’t be as happy in the US. He would try for me, and I think he could be okay. There’s plenty he’d like! But he is British through and through and loves his grey, damp country. So I’m learning to as well.

I do think it’s about attitude as much as anything, and easier if you have other immigrants in your family.

If you think that house is soul destroying then you're going to have a rude awakening if you return to the south east of England

Winterdown are you the OP with a new name? We lived abroad for ten years (France and Germany) then went back to the UK for six years - now we are back in France. I found the move back to the UK the hardest because I went with certain expectations. When you move back you find not only has the country you left behind changed, but you've changed too. Funnily enough I found it much easier moving back to France although I was not looking forward to the move (having begun to settle back into the UK again) - I think it was because I had lower expectations and had forgotten just how much I love living here. As I said before, I think the best way to approach living abroad is to focus on the good things and try not to look back too much as you invariably do so with rose-tinted spectacles. I currently live in Paris and while I could reel off any number of shortcomings relating to small apartments, no garden and French bureaucracy there are many, many things I love about living here. Your holiday apartment for two months a year sounds like a good compromise. I'm not sure how thrilled your husband would be with the reality of spending two months in Yorkshire for the summer however - and I say that as someone born in Yorkshire. Definitely sunnier and bluer in my memory than in reality.

such an interesting thread! I'm in Northern California, and you'd need to add a 2 before the price of that house, to get anything remotely similar - if indeed, that was what you were looking to buy.

The longing and wishing and reminiscing of home never ends, sadly. I've been here for 37 years (!) and still miss the whole cultural bits of UK - the history, the 4 seasons, the holiday celebrations, the food, the proximity to everywhere else. The people. Always the people. It never gets better, or easier. I absolutely get your DH.

That longing will not go away. I've left it too late to move - now have DGC's who I could never be far away from. Don't let that happen to your family. Yes, I know our families grow and move away so nothing is guaranteed in the future, but if you can avoid this do it.

@LillianGish... yes, sorry, my username reverted to an old mn account. Sorry bout that... logs on differently on different device.

So you were born in Yorkshire! Ah!

I had to pause (and console myself) after you wrote that you lived in Paris. I would prefer France.

We live in a bilingual city and my children schooled in French. Brexit has shut that option down, unless I chase down my Spanish citizenship... Husband knows no French, German, Italian... I would prefer continental Europe to the UK. I would love France.

As for the Yorkshire summer, I am no fan. I enjoy our sunny, hot summers here. My husband detests them and tries to wear a puffy vest get up and long trousers in July... take the boy out of Yorkshire?

I suspect you married a Frenchman, then? Sorry for the assumptions (many).

@2018SoFarSoGreat My mother in law, who is almost eighty and lives in Yorkshire, has a routine where she pootles down to the town centre every day for a coffee in M&S. Not long ago she met another woman, same age, who returned alone to England from Oz. Alone. For good! At 80! She left the children and grandchildren, bought herself a bungalow in her hometown. I guess that England never does leave you and that the pull may be stronger, for some, than family! p.s. Northern California not a bad consolidation, good grief... California, Paris....