I lived in Leicester ... taking a direct mainline express train I could be in the centre of London a shade under an hour ... way faster than most of the London population could get to the same location!

It's one of the reasons I never moved south

Granny Smith or Braeburn ?

I looked at being an Apple Certified Tech ... it's one exam, didn't look too tough ... I couldn't see any demand for it ... Apples never fail or experience problems

Not these days. There's work on Kings Cross / St Pancas tube station, and it has restricted entrances so it takes ages to get to the tube. The St P. people have to walk out of their station, round a building site and in the side entrance at Kings X. It's work for the new Channel tunnel station which will Eurostars to work north from St P. I looked at moving to Leicester way when I started commuting to London, as my parents now live in that area. House prices there have gone ballistic too. London commuters are now buying houses around there and in Kettering !

[QUOTE=Glaswegian]I'm starting to miss all of those people ... I could get to customers everywhere from London to Sheffield from Leicester in just over an hour ... the market was enormous. The UK population is only around 60 milltion ... are you counting the north of France too? QUOTE]

Sorry - I should have said London Ontario. I have contacted London's developemnt bureau and whilst the population is less than a million - I think its only 350,000 (not sure) it has been a hot spot for companies setting up pilot projects and is currently it seems growing. Hence my response from them that such an area always needs marketing people and we could do OK. But everyone needs IT of some sort and they do claim the access to 150 million which includes of course mainly the US. But you never know. We only need a small ammount of money to do OK.

Sh*t!! We knew that would happen!! That explains why the house prices have gone nuts. If we had hung on we would have made a fortune ... we sold a little terrace for 27K in 2000, they're selling for 80K nowadays!!

Then again, we haven't had he inland revenue breathing down our necks for that last 3 years ... I'm glad I missed that.

Same story in Peterborough with the fast train, you can be at Kings X in 45mins. A friend who bought a house there in 2001, sold it this year for double what he paid. So many people now have to work in London, what is considered commuter belt is madness...where next commuter services from Birmingham ??

What a negative thread ....

I thought that was already happening ....

Another set of two cents here...

The east is humid. and i know that was a big decision in us not settling there. but it all depends on your tastes...

I'm getting a permanent brick-shaped pattern on my forehead ... I need to move on to somewhere else in Canada.

Calgary hasn't lost it's small town mentality ... which is good and bad.

That's true......Apple does produce the best product on the market...but at least you be part of the winning team.....

My brother is 47, and suffered with it all his life, then 4 years ago moved to Tenerife, hey presto! no more asthma, at all, (not sure I would want to move there though!)

Just thought I'd share the story.

Apologies for missing this earlier ... I'll PM you

I worked for one of the "Big Six" accountancy firms as a manager for a while (2 years). Whilst I did earn OK initially, it took me a year to get the job and as soon as I was looking to move on and up I was blocked. Then the bonus stopped (10% of salary even though I exceeded all targets. Discretionary I was told..??) Everyone else that was in the local club got one. There were two significant promotions over my head in six months for no reason other than I did not speak a certain language that was highly represented in the client base. These other managers would use me to do the research and the transatlantic legal work...then someone else would get the credit. However... yawn....you know my story...whilst it has not worked out well for me, maybe BC is an option for you. You may find that the lifestyle you want for your family is here. I am sorry to read that things are not going well for you. I don't want to think that yet another highy qualified immigrant has joined the "Shafted" club.