Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Hi everyone, we've been back in the UK now for nearly 16 months. During 12 years in the USA I didn't think I ever really felt homesick but it wasn't until I was back that I realised that I had been. We've moved to Somerset, an area where neither of us had any history or association, it's proved to be a great decision. We purchased a home sight unseen (only via facetime), which we're very happy with, and we've been welcomed with open arms and are fortunate enough to have wonderful neighbours.

The stress of the moving back process, plus pandemic travel, plus cat transportation has now passed (it stayed with us for quite a while), and with the warm spring we're currently enjoying we've been able to get out and about a bit more exploring our county, and it's outstandingly beautiful. This was our last move, and that in itself feels like a great comfort.

We've got a great local doctors surgery, efficient NHS (yes! I was surprised too after all the negative comments I'd read), 10 minutes walk from the "High St", choice of 5 supermarkets and two great chippies to choose from. Our favourite chippie knew our names and remembered our regular order after the first three weeks of being back :heart:, only a small thing, but made us feel great lol. We are a small town of only 9500 people, but our facilities are fantastic.

I recognise of course, that being newly retired, I'm living my best relatively stress free life! It would be entirely different if I had to look for work and endure 40 hrs in the office with a busy commute. However, for us, it's been the best decision ever to return!

Lastly, a word of thanks to all the forum experts who answered questions when asked. Much appreciated.

Best wishes to all.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Good to hear your story. We've been looking at Somerset too, among other places, but for now I need to be on a good train line and within, let's say, a 90-minute journey of London. We want to be in a town large enough and live close enough to shops that we don't have to be car-dependent (after years of that in the US).

Glad you are settling in nicely.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

So good to read of your pleasant return. Being able to come back and fit in is how it is meant to be.
Thank you for letting us know how well your decisions and hard work manifested as retirement in a nice place in Somerset.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Hi LiW,

We take the Great Western train from Castle Cary to Paddington whenever we go to London , takes a little over 90 minutes on the fastest route but quick enough to enjoy a day in London every now and then. The main thing is the cost, but you can sign up on their website and make the most of any deals they have going. Good luck with your return!

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Thank you. I need to go to London for work once a week, and possibly other days, plus travel to multiple locations around England so need to be on a good train line.

The most complicated thing is still our cat! But we are going IAG/British Airways, self-service which brings the cost within reach, and then a very reasonable fee on the UK end for the agent to get the animal through customs and then deliver him to our Air BnB..

Now all we need is to find a rental in the tightest market ever :blink:

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Great post, thanks! Glad things are going so well.

NHS, yes, seems to be the luck of the draw. My sister and BIL, in their 60s and 70s in Sussex, have various health issues and always report good experiences in terms of minimal wait times for seeing specialists, and meeting friendly, interesting doctors & nurses! (It helps that the two of them would draw anyone into revealing their life histories.)

We lived in Minehead in Somerset for many years. Lots of beautiful places to visit pretty easily, Exmoor, Quantocks, seaside places, Exeter. Quite rainy there, though!!

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Thank you so much.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Yes, Somerset is wonderful. I really enjoy seeing the stone houses, traditional architecture etc., so much better than the hundreds of plastic siding properties I had become used to. Indeed all of the places you mentioned are outstanding. That, and being referred to as "my lovely" in the shops is priceless.
I agree about the NHS being subject to the luck of the draw - my 83 year old mum lives in Berkshire and she doesn't get the same level of service at all.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

I live in Berkshire and have never had an issues with the NHS, quite the contrary. So it seems it's even more location specific than counties!

Hope you continue to enjoy life in Somerset. :)

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

We moved back to the UK from Victoria, BC last July. Despite the COVID issues at the time and big headaches with not getting our belongings from Canada until November (we moved into our new house in July!) we have settled very well in Cornwall. We were originally from Kent but being newly retired we had the freedom to pick and choose were we lived. We brought our 17 year old son back with us but our 21 year old daughter stayed behind in Victoria to further her studies, mainly due to a new boyfriend and the 3 year foreign student issue if she came back to study in the UK.
My wife and I wanted a place by the sea and didn't have to continually rely on a vehicle in our everyday lives (drive about once a week usually to go to the supermarket). Property prices where rising rapidly but we managed to secure a property in Looe before arrived despite all of the carnage in the Cornwall property market at the time. Our sea and harbour views from our deck are amazing, we have great neighbours and were we very quickly accepted into the community which was so nice considering we were so unhappy in Victoria.
My son manage to secure an apprenticeship chef at the local pub the first time we visited and has been attending the City College in Plymouth and my wife works 2 days a week at the local pharmacy. I laze around most days doing DIY and a bit of fishing. Life is good and virtually stress free.
It's nice to be able to get public transport (buses and trains) rather having to rely on a car to get around, something we could not easily do in Canada.
Do we have any regrets? The main one being exchange rates, when we moved here last July and got $1.74 rather than the $1.55 today!!! Apart from that we don't miss Canada at all but do have all of those fond memories of things we did there. It is so good to be back home and enjoying life to the full.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

I love reading posts like this, as my wife and I are planning to move back to England soon. We've lived in California and Arizona for the last 42 years, having moved here in 1980. I had to go back to Brighton in 2020 for a while, to settle my late sisters estate. It was then that I realized I wanted to go back and live. I hadn't been back once in all that time. I'm so pleased to see that most people here are happy to have moved back "home", and we are looking forward to doing it too. We're looking at the Isle of Wight or the west country.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

How exciting! Keep us posted Kevin.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Gosh - you've lived here all this time and only went back in 2020! That is surprising (to me anyway). You will see a lot of changes. That said - there have been so many changes here in the US since I came here in 1990 (and not all of them for the good) Hope it all works out for you! Those two areas you are considering are really beautiful.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

I live in Taunton, it's not a huge town, but does have all the facilities you will need, yes excellent hospital as is my GP surgery, we do have a county cricket ground, just over the river from us, and a good railway service.

Re: Back home, and it's heaven!
 

Yes, we never went back once. After working a few years for a man who became a kind of mentor to us, we were able to start and run businesses for most of the time we've been here, and never had a chance to go back. My parents came out many times to see us, and my wife's parents moved to New Zealand. They came here as well. All but my wife's mum are gone now. We go to New Zealand once a year to see her and my wife's sister, except recently because of COVID.
In July of 2020, I received a text from a cousin of mine who lives in France. She heard through some other family members that my sister had died in Brighton. As her only living relative it fell to me, to go back and sort out her estate. We lost touch many years ago and hadn't spoken for probably 30 years. Well, she was a hoarder and a hermit, and didn't leave a will, so I had to go to Brighton, get a solicitor to do the probate, get a house clearance company to empty the house, and it turned out to be a huge ordeal, what with the pandemic. Her body wasn't found for 8 weeks, so you can imagine (hopefully you can't) the stench in that house. The Police had broken down the front door, and removed what was left of my sister, and I had to get a hazmat team to come in and remove her bed, and mattress, bedding etc. Horrible. The neighbors became concerned when the smell coming from the house was really strong and called the police. I had to give DNA at Brighton police station to show that I was actually related to my sister, and attend the inquest which only lasted an hour, because of the circumstances. It was pretty much cut and dried. She took a massive amount of sleeping pills and left a message on her phone telling of her wish to die. She worked at Sussex university, and local hospitals most of her life, and we were able to inherit all of her private pensions. We sold the house in Brighton, and paid all the inheritance tax which was owed. I let the house clearance guy keep everything in the house. There were things left over from 4 generations who lived there. There was no trash, but a lot of arts and craft materials, hundreds of DVD's and thousands of books. A 4 story house full of "stuff". My great grandparents bought that house in 1900 for three hundred pounds, then it was handed down through the years, and my sister ended up with it. My parents or grandparents never mortgaged it, or took out loans on it, so It was free and clear. My mum was born in that house, and died there too.
Anyway, I went to Brighton on my own and stayed on the seafront in a guest house. When I wasn't trying to sort out house clearance company, or a real estate company to sell the house, or going through my sister's papers to see how she lived, and a thousand other things, I walked around Brighton and Hove like I did as a teenager. It was GREAT !!!! I thoroughly enjoyed myself, despite the circumstances. The only huge difference I noticed was that there were way more people, mostly students. Most of the shops were different, but the skeleton of the place is completely unchanged. Same pubs, same streets, same seafront. There were a lot of homeless people which is a real shame. The temperature was high 80's low 90's, which never happened when I was a lad. 75 degrees and that was the end of the world.........except the summer of 1976. Even some of my favorite hang outs were still operating. I actually cried with joy when I was walking through some of the streets where my girlfriend and I used to go 45 years or so ago. I must have looked really silly as a 60 year old man with tears running down my cheeks. It was a very emotional trip for me. More than I could ever have imagined when I stepped on that plane in Las Vegas. I really had no idea how I would react.
I met my wife Lisa, in Brighton in 1977 and we were married in Las Vegas in 1981. She was 16 and I was 17 when we met. She's from Brighton as well. I'm 63 now and she is 62, and we live in Meadview, Arizona, about 100 miles from Las Vegas. We have a daughter and son-in-law who started of in California, married in Las Vegas, then to Colorado, and now his work has moved him to Florida. We're now retired having sold our last business, and now we are planning our return to England. I used to go to Cornwall and The Isle of Wight a lot as a kid, on family getaways. Sometimes just for the day, and sometimes for a week or so. I loved it so much, and now we'd like to move to one of those places. I have had enough of living here in the desert, and want to be near the sea again. Arizona seems to get hotter and hotter every year, with less and less rainfall and winter storms coming in from the Pacific. In 1983, Lake Mead was full to overflowing, and it was a spectacular sight to see the water coming over the spillways. Now, we live 5 minutes from Lake Mead, and it's less than 30% full, a truly sorry sight. We lived in Orange County, California between 1980 and 2005, but moving back there is unthinkable now. I have a very strong feeling that I have to go home. I can't explain it but it's on my mind all the time now. We are starting the process by selling a lot of stuff we'll never need again. I don't think it'll be a walk in the park, but we have to do it. Lisa is in the same frame of mind, and can't wait to get back either. When I was back there, I ate so many sausage rolls and Fish and Chips, and ice cream from vans along the seafront, It's amazing I don't weigh 400 lbs!!!