sallysimmons

As one of the lower classes I always knew that word, but I never saw it written down before. In my head, I always spelled it 'sharabang.' Just goes to show what I know.

SomersetGirl

And that's exactly how it sounds!!

ann m

alipally

For me, most of my culinary urges have been satisfied.... (been back for 7 weeks now) But in order of desirability here they are....
Thick cut, dry cured applewood smoked back bacon, on French stick (baked with French flour) with Tesco Finest pork and bramley apple sausages.

Roast Organic shoulder of pork with crackling (Aussie pork always tasted miserable) with my Auntie's Roast potatoes, and parsnips

Cadburys Dairy Milk, with a cup of proper Tetley tea.

Curry!

Now I'm looking forward to the changing seasons; buds appearing on the trees as they slowly turn bright green, Daffodils, Bluebells, Tulips. British hanging baskets full of brash, brightly coloured annuals.... Green lawns on every front garden in the summer.
Weekends away on the train to London.
An easter trip to Cornwall!

Laura_Jayne

Haha, absolutely!!

jemima55

allypally, bit dopey this morning, read that as hanging baskets full of trash and thought the country had gone downhill! Lol!

brookel

don't forget cadburys mini eggs are out now too! (as well as the beautiful flowers OP already mentioned)

My family and I -OH and two kids 6months & 3 yrs- are in the middle of getting PR, and reading this thread has definitely given me food for thought.

Although we can't wait to make the move we know how lucky we are here in England and we love our life here...I'm hoping that because we aren't running from the UK we will be able to enjoy Canada and all of it's differences.

I have read previous posts about how dire the UK is and how some people are desperate to leave, whereas I see our move to Canada as a huge adventure that if we want to, we don't have to leave.....

To be honest though I don't know how I'm going to go on without Cadbury and Galaxy chocolate.....

sallysimmons

That's definitely the best attitude! We were like that too. I had nothing against England - I just wanted to try something new. I did find it hard at first but we settled in relatively quickly. Of course now I want to go home and so it's hard to remember that it all was very exciting at first. Now for me the adventure will be moving back!

Good luck

geeandtee

I can't wait for the bluebells.
We've been back 7 months after 8 years in Arizona. I'm not even tired of the rain yet. I love it - the sound, the smell, the feel. It's bliss.
The snowdrops are out here and the crocuses, a forsythia across the road is beginning to flower. I check our little garden every day to see what's coming up and I'm looking forward to heading to the garden centre to buy plants.


The first thing we ate was a cheese and pickle sandwich.
For tea that night, I went to the chippy. Hubby had cod and chips and I had pie and chips with Daddies sauce. Well worth the 8 year wait.

I think I've burned through everything on my list too:
Pie and chips
chicken tikka masala
Roast pork with crackling
Lamb chops with heaps of mint sauce and new potatoes
Chocolate digestives

etc. etc.

SomersetGirl

Hi Brookel, we emigrated from UK to Canada 30 years ago and for exactly the same reasons as you mention, and mostly don't regret it. There were a few things I did regret, not being able to spend more time with my parents before they passed away being the main one.

We've had a fantastic time in Canada, both had good careers, nice lifestyle, weekends at the lake, made some good friends and overall enjoyed a good standard of living.

Now that we've both retired, we've decided that we need more to do with our leisure time, and more diversity of people and places. Also, neither of us are really keen on winter, so leaving behind 5 months of snow and cold is a big incentive.

Everyone has a different experience when they emigrate and different reasons for wanting to move back, so have to do what's right for you. Having said all of that, even though we are Canadian citizens, in my heart, I've always always felt British.

Cumbrian Lass

Hi Brooke
what part of Canada are you moving to?
we have been here 10yrs and have no regrets,although its never felt like HOME....it almost feels FAKE really.But now cannot wait for our new adventure....going back to a different part of the UK.....roll on selling the house !!!!!!
good luck with your move

brookel

Thank you for your replies,

Sallysimmons, good luck with your new adventure in moving back to the UK, I hope it all goes smoothly for you...it's interesting to see that although you (& OP's) have enjoyed Canada there is that draw to go "home" whether it be after a couple of months, years or decades.

Somerset Girl, I don't really know how we'll go on missing our families, at the moment we aren't letting ourselves think about that too much, particulary as we're taking our girls so far away from their grandparents. It must have been very difficult for you being so far away from your parents and family for so long, so much will have changed here in the UK in the last 30 years it really will be an adventure returning I'm sure.
It's good to hear that you're still a Brit at heart

Cumbrian Lass, we're planning on moving to Vancouver.
We were initially thinking of Kits as that's where we've stayed before but some OP's on a different thread suggested we look a bit further out to get a bit more for our money...(renting not buying) so we've been looking at Port Moody too. Good luck with selling your house, fingers crossed it happens soon for you...

We're still waiting to do our meds so pretty sure we won't be going this year anyway, everything just takes so long with CIC.

We'll be renting our house out in the UK when we go, think I might post the details on here when it's time!

I'm so pleased I've discovered this forum, I think that when we eventually get to Canada I'll be visiting BE daily to get my British fix ;-)

HK2UK

In no particular order

• staying at parents and getting my meals cooked etc!
• catching up properly with friends
• weather spoons
• greggs
• fish and chips
• tescos etc (the idea of massive aisles is novel to me now )
• clothes shopping (I struggle with the sizes here as they're smaller)
• load up on vitamins and OTC stuff like paracetamol (its $$$ here)
• newspapers/magazines (would be nice to read stuff that isn't mostly business/finance news YAWN!)
• TV, films and music will be interesting to see what's current
• FRESH air and the weather (bar the winters )
• SPACE - will be nice to go out without it feeling like party all the time
• language - will be nice to not struggle at all
• ovens - I think I'll just want to eat oven food for half my time when I visit as ovens are uncommon here

Bevm

I could have written that, but we'd already escaped winter to Victoria.

Brookel, anyone emigrating should bear children in mind. If they grow up in Canada, they'll probably stay in Canada. In our case it hasn't made a huge difference because with us in Victoria and them in Ottawa, it's no big difference being here -- still 5+ hours of flying and lots of money to visit -- but it illustrates that in Canada the kids can end up thousands of miles away, which means not that many times together.

It can be hard to appreciate the enormous breadth of Canada until you've experienced it.

Bev

mrsmcgoo

ooooh yes and all of the above - been here in NZ for 10 years now - I so want to go back - too expensive here - kiwis being ripped off left right and centre - I so miss the spring flowers (silly I know) and still can't get used to Christmas sunshine! Unfortunately no hope of us going back permanently yet, as i have 2 teens 1 at college and 1 wanting to go to college and a 6 yr old (who is not a problem). I'm also an only child with aging parents in Uk.
Oh I could go on for hours about how much I want to go back - silly the things you miss - but these are the things that make us what we are....