iaink

LOL, I dont consider Ive given up anything i might miss. I consider that my improved quality of life is largely the result of having "gone rural"

If there is anything in the big city that I cant find in the nearby town that I might want from time to time, major concerts or sporting events, its all still there and easy to reach by car or train in a couple of hours.

Madmac

Same sh*t, shinier bucket.

dbd33

But you can't walk to the pub on a whim. You can't walk to a choice of restaurants. Living rurally means giving up some spontenaity.

iaink

Yes, thats true for sure, but then I never much went to bars when I lived in town anyway, and dont eat out all that often anyway so driving when we do is not a major hardship. In short the benefits (nice view, nice community feel, no crime, no stress, no thronging masses of humanity) for me outweigh the negatives (more driving, all be it in less trafic) overall.

ann m

Life is good, but life was OK before. Same size house - but no mortgage at this end (mentally liberating, no two ways about it) - which in turn has allowed me to work as little or as much as I want. But my working versus no mortgage just cancel each other out, so we are no better off financially (on a day to day basis).

Feeling on a bit of a downer at the moment. We both seem to lack direction and motivation right now - not sure why - possibly just the time of year, or we've hit that "got everything sorted here, now what's next" stage, or most likely, it's our working lives which are not right.

Children happy here, but were happy in UK. Great sets of friends and activities, but miss extended family. I miss comfortable friendships.

More space and light and general feeling of well-being. No January blues with regard to the depressing damp weather, but I might have a touch of the "more snow" blues this morning

Ski'ing has been a new activity for all of us, and three out of the four of us are pretty proficient now ( ). Husband plays football (soccer!) and has done a paragliding course here, and I am doing a gardening course and joined a choral group. The kids dance three nights a week, and we have some good quality family time together. We live in a beautiful place.

Do we have a good life? Yes, most certainly, and I count my blessings.
Do we have an improved life? I'm not so sure.
Did I expect an improved life. Yes.

Sleeping_Beauty45

Thank you for the replies so far, very interesting reading.

Our situation is wierd in that we will be doing exactly the same as we do here (self employed) but over there and we are moving from suburbia here to suburbia over there.

Rental is more expensive there than our mortgage here but over there we will have a basement to work from there so when we put our current business premises rentals into the mix it works out about the same.

I hope that we do manage to achieve a better quality of life, it feels like a pretty big move not to achieve an improvement, if not for us, but for the kids.

iaink

I honestly think that happier, more relaxed parents = happier kids.

Making the move to make the kids lot better when you are not convinced its going to make you happier makes little sense to me, but having said that one of the things I like about Canada is how much there is for kids to do, and the kid friendly attitude of most places.

Sleeping_Beauty45

Its not that I'm not convinced, I was more than convinced when we were out last year on the reccie but I've slept (a bit) since then and that is the trouble with this horrible long drawn out process. You lose sight of what it is that made you "click" all that time ago. Not sure that makes sense?

I know when we were out there we had that overwhelming feeling that it was a better place to bring up children, I just don't know if we have glamorized and romantasized it all (are those even words??)

MikeUK

For me its access to the facilities such as the ROM, Science centre, Zoo, sporting events, ethnic foods, diverse fashionable shopping, when I want them
I like to live in the modern world

On the countryside, I can cycle into the countryside in 10mins and be in the Niagara Escarpment by car in about 15mins
I also enjoy the countryside

I’m not willing to give one up to the detriment of the other

Almost Canadian

We feel very similar to this. I took a huge step backwards career wise to come here and, even when I am done with the whole requalification thing, I do not believe that my professional life will be anything like as interesting as it was in England. Strange as it may seem, I find that my working life here is too laid back - no real challenge.

Whilst being laid back outside of work is certainly a better thing here, I do miss the cut and thrust of the English working day.

I find that, life outside of work is great, life at work is pretty dismal. We had a good life in England and haven't swapped a terraced two up, two down for a mansion here.

We love the open spaces and we love the general lay out of the part of the world we now live in. We were not regulars at our local pub so don't miss that aspect and we do like the lack of visible alcohol on a daily basis (teenagers, broken bottles etc).

Overall, life is very similar and we believe that life is what you make it anyway.

MikeUK

For what it’s worth my wife 'the Canadian' has an overwhelming feeling that the UK is the better kid friendly place
Partly due to the seasons being more conducive to playing outside all year round, and that due to the time she spent working in a UK school when we lived there, she prefers the UK more academic approach to school, than the Canadian more rounded (holistic) approach
She wants to move back


Me I don’t see any real difference

Sleeping_Beauty45

Now the problem with where we are is the rain, it rains and rains and rains some more just when you think the sky must surely be dry.

My kids go to a fabulous school here and for that we feel very fortunate but then we pay dearly for it. If they were at the local schools it would be very different.

Interesting that your wife wants to move back here, maybe we are all looking for some ideal rather than finding it in our own situations??

ann m

That is probably the crux of the decision for 80% of this board's contributors

MikeUK

After 7 years here.......
Rain doesn't need to be shoveled at 6am to get the car out to get to work,
it doesn't require special tires to drive safely on,
it goes down the drain on its own
it doesn't pile up on your lawn all winter

you don't get billed for watering your grass with rain

Tracie107

UK v Canada

worked p/t - Now stay at home mom
3 bed semi - 5 bed detached
financed 2 cars - own 2 cars outright
hubby worked long hrs - now works 8-4.30pm home by 5pm
2hr drive to work M25 - 30mins max to work
credit card debt - No debt
No money after bills - Extra money to enjoy shopping
No savings - Quite a bit of savings
couldn't afford to have 2nd baby - NEW BABY ON THE WAY
Hated UK - Love Canada!!!