chutley

I appreciate your advice, you're right, you can't eat the scenery.

But you can enjoy it, whether that is driving an open top car through the lakes, walking in the hills or spinning down them on my MTB.

We can enjoy the slower pace of life. Hopefully get involved in the community - might join a Mountain Rescue Team - and make some friends in the community. We currently live in the Suburbs of Newark which is neither close to the sea, nor the mountains. And we want to live somewhere that has both - hence the original idea to go to BC.

We don't mind that it is 97% white - so are we. We are happy to be around people who are as English as the soil they work. Nor do we mind if it takes time to become accepted into the community - you get out of it what you put in.

As to work, well Mrs Chutley will find a post as the Environment is the flavour of the month and is not likely to go away. I'll find something - even if it meands a commute for a while - military blokes have a mixed golf-bag of skills and a pension to ease the transition.

Whilst I like Dartmoor, we're not going to go south - too congested, property far too expensive. Our hope is to go somewhere that is less busy, has a slower pace of life and where we can buy a house - nothing grandious - but with a plot bigger than a postage stamp to gain some peace from the incessant noise of life - power-drills, lawn-mowers, kids on trampolines etc.

If we have to put up with the rain, well that's what goretex is for. The majority of my family live in Wollongong in Australia and I wouldn't swap with them as I just don't do day-after-day of boiling hot.

I've driven the A66 and I agree, it is a tad spicy. But I suspect that the mountain roads in BC would be equally interesting.

So the challenge is now for Mrs Chutley to finish the MSc, and get a job up North. Then find a house, then the old Commando-Chutley can join her when the days of derring-do are finished. They need postmen up there too!

Unless we can't resist having a punt when the Visa letter comes through. That's the trouble at this stage of life, there's just too much choice!

sans

It sounds to me like you have made your decision And thats the hardest bit, you had way too many doubts about leaving ( in my opinion ) and for all the right reasons............So wishing you all the bestest Luck

Anyway had you of gone to BC, to get Mountains and the sea....you would of had to be pretty close to Vancouver and it poors and poors there.

geeandtee

Sounds like you've made up your mind!
In that case, I'd recommend Appleby or some of the villages around there. We used to live in Kirkby Thore, which is at the foot of Cross Fell. It wasn't bad, as Cumbrian villages go, there was a village shop/post office, a pub, a church, a chippy (although the chips were crap, they bought them from Aldi in Penrith).
We didn't have any trouble being accepted into the village, probably because hubby made a beeline for the pub and got to know everyone!!
I think, if circumstances had been different, we would probably had stayed, but hubby worked in horse-racing and there wasn't much else in the way of jobs up there for him.
Good luck with what ever you decide, it is a beautiful place.

hudd

Hi Chutley

I was offered several management jobs in Cumbria supporting Sellafield site and decommissioning programmes. Is your wife MSc in Environmental Heath or science. If she doing a MSc in Environmental Science I would look Sellafield jobs. My last role including contracts a Sellafield.
Look at organisations such as the NDA, BNG, AMEC, Studsvik, NUKEM, Babcock as they pay reasonable salaries compared to local wages.

We seriously looked at moving from Oxford to Cumbria, but we accepted a job in Kent. We found SE Kent quite reasonable for house prices.
We purchased a house in May for £180K on quarter acre plot outside Dover.Needs modernisation(1970's house).

We spent 8 years from 1997 - 2005 in Canada and my advice if you have a good profession and living standard in the UK, think twice about moving. You seemed to have made that choice.

I interviewed a guy from Cumbria for a Facilities Manager job in Canada. He turned the job down as he would only get 3 weeks holiday compare to his 7 weeks, also we offered poorer pension and lower salary. He view was that he could take 2 weeks holiday in Canada each year and stay in Cumbria and be better off.

hudd

chutley

Oh Lord. Our 90-day update letter has arrived today. That really is crunch decision time.

Do we go try Canada - to hell with the expense...?

Or stay and later risk regretting not having a go.

I used to be indecisive... but now I can't make up my mind.

AAAAAaaaagggghhhhhh.

iaink

Good for you, but for the record every canadian province has provincial healthcare coverage, so there is very much an NHS...it just doesnt cover dentistry or prescription drug expense for most people.

sans

You could always buy your place in Cumbria and go rent in Canada
Which ever you decide....Take care of your pennies

chutley

Well folks, I'm in Canada for 3 months on a Ski Instructor Course - a career break from the military. One month in now, and whilst the skiing is good, and doing something completely different from my 'day-job', I am learning much, much more.

I realise that Banff is a tourist town, but looking across the piste (!!) of Canada, I cannot believe how expensive it is. Groceries, cars, electrical goods, clothes are WAY more expensive than I remember on my last Recce in 2003. Property has gone through the roof, and wages just do not compare. Even if I discount the exchange rates, and think in terms of Dollars, it is still expensive.

Senior management executive jobs advertised at in Canmore Alberta for $53-58,000 - how on earth could you afford a decent property on that kind of money? Granted we could bring enough money from the UK to buy something reasonable outright, but the reality is that when you start earning dollars, stuf here is expensive.

Alberta is absolutley bloody freezing. The ski season runs from first week in November until the end of May. That's 8 months of winter. I love snowsports, but living in a fridge, shovelling snow, scraping the car would soon start to get very tedious. Haven't seen much of BC, but no interest in the Vancouver area as way too expensive and too much rain.

Even the skiing in Banff has been over-hyped. The ski-area is absolutely tiny compared to even an ordinary European resort and is 25 minutes drive from Banff. The public ransport to and from the slopes is in ancient buses, that only go every hour to an hour and a half!! They go every ten minutes in most European resorts.

So I'm going to enjoy my time here and continue to look at where I am through very untinted eyes. We are also back here staying in Kamloops on a 4-week house exchange in July. But I am now pretty certain that we would not have a better quality of life over here. I'm sure the wife will agree when she comes over and sees it for herself!

Even if the UK is in recession, it is still a much cheaper place to live and our disposable income will be higher which in turn will allow the overseas trips etc.

So anybody that has a chance to have an extended look before you leap... it is well worth it. I'm learning to appreciate some of the things I have taken for granted in the UK.

Time to start some serious recces of other places in the UK

cricket1again

I'm from Cumbria. I grew up on a farm in Silecroft, went to school in Millom, lived in Ulverston and worked in Kendal.
It really is a lovely place but as with all picturesque places, it has it's drawbacks. Job opportunities can be very limited unless you have a passion to become a sheep farmer or run a bed and breakfast. we did both, I 'd recommend neither, easy money but you are tied completely especially at weekends and holidays.

If you don't need to work and want to live there, I'd live near the largest town of Kendal in which case Cartmel, Ulverston, (I lived in Ulverston), and Kendal itself, are pleasant places to live.
My grandfather lived in Appleby, famous for it's gypsy horse fairs every year. This is near Shap and Penrith. These areas get the worst of the snow and bad weather so roads are soon blocked. You need a big freezer, boxes of candles, heaps of firewood and woolly knickers as well as a big shovel.

Good luck.

sans

Hey Chutley Nice to hear from you.....i have been wondering what you was upto and where you was at.

Good for you, for trying before you buy-in.......Its really the only way you could really know.
And it makes so much sense to judge whether you could live on, or even survive on the earnings over their......without dipping into your lifes savings, once thats gone its gone

My OH's works head office is at Kendal and he really likes it up there and would relocate in a minute if he could budge me
Take care Sans x

northernbird

It doesn't happen often but I am going to almost agree with Cricket. I would live in Kendal. Good sized town with good facilities and close to the M6 for good travel links. Oxenholme station for the West Coast Mainline to Glasgow or London. As someone who did the A590 through Ulverston on a regular basis while husband served his apprenticeship in Barrow I wouldn't live anywhere on that road. Lovely places but the road is hideous. I am from about 15 miles south of Kendal and there are some lovely places around Kendal and not far from the Lakes. If I had to return home and money was no object I would live somewhere like Kirkby Lonsdale.

newshoney

Until last year, the disparity in property prices and 2:1 exchange rate favoured the UK expats. And if that allowed you to be mortgage-free then a Canadian salary would certainly finance a good life. But things have changed massively and I think in your circumstances you have drawn the right conclusions for your family.

slidingbyee

SHHHhhhhhhhhhh Cumbria is my choosen place please dont make it fashionable with the Londonites - it remains one of the last great places

G586

who'd you thinks buys all the houses in the Lake District?

slidingbyee

I know, I know, but I'm talking about the outlying ares where simple folk like me can still exist, not Kendal, Windermere etc...