Butch Cassidy

Mainly stay from the northeast (and maybe southeast as well)

CalgaryBlade

Sounds pretty much like our experiences of living in London (in a well-to-do area too).

I'm surprised coming from Streatham you didn't feel more at home. Whenever I drove through Streatham it felt good to hear the clink of the central locking.

It sounds like you should have done more research.

We did and have happier, less stressed kids, work less and enjoy our free time much more.

Linda P

We seem to be on the same wave length! We just want a good place to raise our children and give them the best possible experiences in life!
Don't be fooled though ' things' seem to be very important here too!
I have met lots of lovely friendly people at my children's school and they have made me feel very welcome! but I still hear the familar conversations on "who's just bought what car" and "how could they afford that house on what they are earning" I think it's just human nature
As for your daughter being hurt, hitting is not tolerated at my children's school, at all. In fact you are not allowed to hit back if you are hit, this is something I will struggle with, as a child I too was bullied for a while because I did not stick up for myself.
Linda

jacki

I take it you've not been into Milton Keynes at night time then!!! :scared: :scared: :scared: I work as a Paramedic and get called to the victims of these 'mischivious' teenagers - believe me, they are not like my friends & I were at that age.

It is nice in the areas outside of MK though!

JoD

Hi - how long were you in Canada for before you decided to go home and where did you live? I'm in Canada at the moment and have been here since June last year with hubbie and daughter, but am feeling increasingly homesick and have been talking about maybe thinking of going back to the UK. We miss our families alot and living out here has made us realise what our families mean to us.

We have found that Canada is very work oriented, much more than we experienced back home and weekends are spent alone and lonely. I know there is so much more to do outside in Canada, but the winter does slow things down (we're not big skiers or skaters) and the countryside is beautiful, but so is the UK's. We're lucky to have a gorgeous detached house in a lovely area, but we are really missing the UK.

Good luck to all of you.

frankieforehead

We took the decision to have a better life just over 6 months ago, and to be honest it is hard to start a new life.
I regard us as joe bloggs...we both had well paid jobs, two new cars, a mortgage, and two kids.

Our children loved their school in canterbury, and like their school here, and supprisingly find the work easier, they spend most of the evenings now indoors as the weather and distance to friends houses dictates this, although they do have sleep overs at weekends. Sports wise everything is done in after school. In the summer though they were always out and about exploring, hopefully next summer will be the same. There are loads of things to do, but its always the case of hop in the car to get there.

We sold our house in the Uk over two years ago, and decided to buy out here, we could've opted for a mortgage free life, but haven't, instead have chosen to invest until we can say this is truely our home.
We rented, and the area we lived in the Uk wasn't exactly the best and we always could see groups of youths socialising and getting up to what bored teen ages get up to....But that happens every where when you live in close proximity to other people. Here we don't have that particular problem....why...because the parents have to drive them to be bored!!!!

We both have Decent Jobs, Mine pays well if I put in Overtime, if I don't, then it's about 5K (GBP) than what I was earning in the UK. My wife has opted not to travel so has taken a job in town, and has taken a huge drop in wages to what she was previously earning. and she hates what she is doing at the moment.

Finding decent friends has been a pain....although we have very good neighbours, I find some Canadians, especially where I work quite Anal...So for us having a nice social group of friends will take some time.

So is life for us any better......Some might say from reading above how could it be? Well we've adopted different interests, and spend a lot of time outdoors now, mountain biking, walking, skiing. We love where we live and We like having the space to move around freely in our own home, although we thought we had plenty back home, when we look back it was tiny. The cost of living is about the same although petrol is cheaper..the distances are greater, so it works out about the same as what we were paying in the UK. At the moment we are very happy, time will tell if we've made the right choice.

Rich_007

Interesting comment and one sure to light the blue touch paper !

I totally see where you're coming from, we have mingled with loads of different people of all sorts.

Personally so far I find that the professional people are generally more uptight, yes, "anal' and antsy, and they can look down their noses at the working classes, compared to the regular working class people, unfortunately, we live in a city where there is a snobbery element amongsty the hoi-polloi. Note tho that some of the professionals have been chilled out and humorous.

A few of the working class guys were really funny and we had no problems with the sense of humour, attitude, experience, life comparisons etc. We had a group consisting of a French Canadian, a Newfie new to BC, myself as a new immigrant, and an Anglo-Irish long-time immigrant and it was good fun, no problems and plenty of laughs. No-one has given me any crap for being an immigrant - maybe, due to where we live, because I'm white-anglo and can speak English ? Nicky has had only one hassle at work and that was from a French Canadian whom she won over after a few minor territorial spats and they are good working colleagues now

Anyways it's just another mish-mash and all part of the big long learning curve I guess. I'm happy to take 'em all as I find 'em, anal or otherwise.

Rich.