Buzzy--Bee

OK, I appreciate that this post is in danger of becoming an Australia vs UK debate, however I would like to post my impressions of my first visit back to the UK since I emigrated from West London to Melbourne with my wife and twin 2 year old daughters over 5 years ago.

We just came back from 3 weeks visiting England and there was quite a lot that surprised me.

My very first impression was that I was astounded how many people smoke in England. Young, old, middle aged, rich, poor, so many people smoke it is really noticeable. And while the advertising in Australia is along the lines of “don’t smoke, it will cause death by cancer”, advertising in England is all about making sure you put your fag out so you don’t cause a house fire. One follow-on from all this smoking is the massive amount of fag butt litter.

I had forgotten the visual impact of every house having white plastic windows.

I was surprised how clean and nice the kids playpark was near where we were staying. There was no broken glass and no outwardly visible graffiti. Unfortunately this was spoiled by one of my daughters stating she was upset by some writing she had found on the playpark. I asked her what it said and she replied “it says – Casey you are a ****ing bitch”. My daughter has never used this word before and we have never seen such explicit graffiti in Melbourne, just meaningless tags. Very disappointing.

Supermarkets in England, as we all know, are way cheaper and have far more choice. Or do they? They have far more choice in prepared and processed foods certainly, I didn’t see more choice in fresh food though, I think Australia definitely has the edge there. But supermarket shopping in England is hell on earth. You are bumped and jostled and banged by the sheer number of shoppers, people bashing you with trolleys, queueing for ages, wait for people to get out the way before you can choose something off the shelf, driving round and round to try and spot someone just coming out of a parking space. I would not choose to shop in an English supermarket again in my life.

Shopping for clothes is phenomenally cheap in England when you are converting from AU$, we did a lot of clothes shopping. Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush is incredible.

The cost of Transport is an art, not a science. We were given prices by National Rail Inquiries, TFL, the ticket machine and the man behind the counter of 60, 40, 18 and 12 pounds respectively for the same journey so we took the cheapest offer! Then we had to pay over 7 pounds to go a couple of miles on a bus! The trains are much faster, quieter and smoother in England, they swoosh instead of “clackety clack”.

Driving in the UK – 100kph does not feel as fast in England as it does in Australia, and we did go much faster at times, but we were very aware of how many more fixed speed cameras there are now than there used to be, and how people seem to be obeying the speed limits much more in England than they used to.

My kids were very surprised when I had to “pay and display” – “but why do you have to PAY to park the car Dad????”

Weather – mainly OK, although I never had that much of a problem with London weather, it was the winter early dark that used to depress me. But what was weird was the finding that 15 degrees in London didn’t feel as cold as 15 degrees in Melbourne. And people in England wear shorts and short skirts in 15 degrees. Nutters!

It was funny having to teach the kids not to touch stinging nettles, and seeing how enamoured they were with squirrels.

London was looking surprisingly clean and done-up. Our English friends said that this was just for the Olympics, even so, it was looking pretty good. And people were friendlier than I remember, people offered us seats on trains, talked to our kids, were generally very good-humoured.

But I did notice a lot more shouting and swearing in public. My children were upset by overhearing a man on the bus shouting into his mobile phone that he was going to “smash someones ****ing face in.” I heard several other instances of people shouting aggressively in the street.

Weekends - in Aussie we might take the kids to the beach, or to the park. In the UK people seem to take their kids to expensive theme parks of various sizes, pay a lot of money to get in, a lot of money for food/drinks etc and then come home and moan about the cost of it.

But I felt the only massive downside to life in England, one of the reasons we emigrated, and the biggest item to stop me wanting to live in England again, was the lack of space. There is just not enough room in English houses to live the lifestyles people live now. If you bang your elbow when you turn round in the shower, this is an indication your house is not big enough for your lifestyle. If you have to move the dining room table to eat a meal, this is an indication your house is not big enough for your lifestyle. if you have to sit on the toilet diagonally this means there is not enough room for you in your house. You have to squeeze your car in between others – I found I had forgotten how to parallel park with any degree of accuracy! People in the UK seem to put in an enormous amount of effort to build an extension that actually gains them a very few square feet more of space, like a porch or something.

One of my daughters summed it up well when I asked her if she thought she would like to live in England. She said “I don’t think so Dad, it’s too squashy!”

BB

Vash the Stampede

In all fairness, I have met Casey and she is a ****ing bitch.

chris955

An interesting post, it does show just how different areas are here, like anywhere obviously.
Thankfully the things you found arent an issue for us where we are. I always find it odd when someone says they were surprised or shocked that something was clean or people were friendly but we are all different I suppose.
As I say though it is interesting how different people can see the same place.
Glad you had a good time anyway, or I assume you did ?

chris955

When I used to take our eldest to karate at a local school I would sit outside the hall on the tables and inevitably end up reading the messages on the tables, it even made my hair curl.

KJCherokee

You telling me you don't ever have to pay for on-street parking or council car parks in Melbourne?

One thing that really got to me was the number of young (<30yo) people sleeping in doorways in central London. Australia has its share of homeless, but not so visible.

chris955

I did find the paying for parking thing a bit odd, along with a few other observations but as I said we are all different.

jothefw

Too squashy is a perfect description!

ukecadet

How is paying for parking odd?

Kapri

Paying for parking really p***es me off

In my local town it's 90p per hour in the multi storey. And they wonder why town centre's are dying!

I disagree with what people do at weekends though S.

We take our kids walking - plenty of lovely coastal and country walks here and it's rare for the weather to be so bad we have to stay in.
We go to a theme park on average once per year, if that.
Even when we went to Leeds a couple of months ago (big city, colder) we still went walking in the huge park there and plenty of other families were doing the same.
I appreciate that there are families who do as you describe, but not in my friendship group.

commonwealth

ukecadet

Try 12 bucks an hour.Thats what we have to contend with if you can't get a deal.

GarryP

Well, to be fair, if you are commenting upon living in London, its no surprise if its all squashed together - although I will agree that that is one of the reasons I prefer Oz - more McMansions.

Did you not find lots of boarded up/shut down shops on your travels. That was my memory of my last trip. So many shops that had gone out of business.

And getting the best ticket for Rail is very much an art, and one best done in advance. You didn't even have to play with split ticketing to push the price down.

Sherlock Holmes

To Buzzy--Bee,

Thanks muchly for that post. I've been here 6.5 years now and I have no yearning to go back even for a visit. Your post confirms what I had imagined for myself.

Can Brits negotiate roundabouts still? That's one thing I do miss!!

old.sparkles

Brits can negotiate roundabouts - its others you have to worry about. Vehicles giving way to the wrong direction is quite common and throws you when you expect the car infront to keep going cos its clear and then they stop and give way to the left , or fail to stop and give way cos you're entering from their right and they didn't look that way

chris955

I meant as if paying for parking was some sort of unique UK thing, sorry thought I was clear.