Fish n Chips 56

Hello June...

Im glad its all coming together for you, and Im glad you have no regrets.

You say everything is not wonderful and I can understand that, I think for alot of us the grass is greeener, once in our new home we forget our previous problems and focus on new ones.

Can you tell me what isnt wonderful about the Uk thru your eyes, we went back 20 years ago and parking fees and availability of spaces to park bugged the heck out of me, I previously lived in Wyoming where spaces seemed endless and free.

Will a mobile home be your new home or a temporary place to live?

Good Luck and have some Fish n Chips for me.

J.J

Hey F & C,

I'll start from the back and confirm the the Fish & Chips alone are worth moving back for - 3 or 4 times a week and a carry out bag of chips for the walk home after the pub. But watch for those styrofoam trays, they here cost us an extra 10p, while wrapped in paper is no extra charge.

We are also enjoying the closeness of our 'room' to the town center, a 20 minute walk, is most pleasant way of getting into town.
The mobile home is temp for a month or two, we have a perm home in 'the works'. The mobile is on a caravan touring and fixed site, very friendly, a bit in the sticks but quiet and relaxed, it hopefully will be a bit of a holiday for us - we got a deal on it and an open ended stay, unlike the beach resorts which are high priced and limited to 2 weeks max because it's holiday season.

The 'not wonderful' aspects are the things we see on the surface through the eyes of 'new arrivals' - grimy streets in town, public drunkeness, cussing in every sentence in public, rough looking eastern european youths prowling the streets and camping out on the internet terminals in the public libraries, over crowded roads, DH wanted a highway code to brush up on, he says the one I got him must for a foreign country cos it bears little resemblance to our experiences so far - a few days ago on a roundabout we were met by a car coming round the wrong way - but I must add, some drivers are polite and will let us out of a side road into a heavy stream. Yes, parking spaces are very full, it is tough to find any open slot in a town center.
Now, I make these critical observations in comparison of moving from affluent Cary NC USA, voted as one of USA's most desirable places to live, to Spalding Lincs, which is pretty much the middle of no where - so I dare say we may have made the same comparison if we moved from NC to somewhere less desirable within the US.

Car dealers are rather the same the world over, but we bought ours from a family dealer that DH's grandfather got his from so felt we were treated very well - a distant relation even !!. Insurance was a shock, 600 pounds for 1 year fully comp for DH alone because he has no discount for no claims. Internet enquiries came out a bit less but not knowing who is good or bad we played safe and got it through a reputable insurance agency. But then its equivalent as we paid $900 or so per year in US for the two of us with a clean record.

On the good side, locals are extremely cheerful, even while being miserable about the budget and the football etc, the fresh fruit and veg and bread in shops and markets is wonderful, (esp the fish says DH, eying the kippers and smoked haddock and fresh mackerel - and black pudding, yuck), countryside is as beautiful as ever, weather is fantastic , hot-ish days, cool evenings and mornings. And it is HOME!!

And for the pet lovers, the heathrow DEFRA people could not have been kinder to us or Charlie Cat. Because Charlie cannot share our room with us he is temp in kennels and again, the owner is fantastic with him, trying him on different foods and now advising us his fav so we know what to get him when he comes with us after this week.

jasper123

Denise you only have 5 weeks left huh, I have a week under 5 months to go before I leave,
You are so right in what you say that leaving is never going to be 100% easy for any of us, and Im sure most of us are going to experience a lot of melancholy, especially when we get real close to our departure date, me included,
Good luck on everything to you and your Husband Denise, try not to stress out too much, at least you have sold your cars and that is a very big step,
Rodney.

jasper123

Yes Lestagirl that is what I am going to do, start going through all my draws, thats where I put all those little things that people have given me or sent me from there vacations over the years, little things like postcards & letters & little presents, I have letters in a couple of shoe boxes that are over 30 years old mostly from my Mum, ---- and Dad when he was still alive, they will be going back with me,
Take care,
Rodney.

Mummy in the foothills

Yikes, what did you get when you sold the car? We had one fall off the trailer just round the corner from our house 20 minutes after we sold it, luckily Dh and signed all the pink slip paperwork and written in the time of sale etc so it showed they owned it for all of 20 minutes while they loaded it up and drove off.
I hope you can find some proof of transfer in all your stuff.

jasper123

J.J. just thought I would tell you about my experience when I sold a car a few years ago, I had an old cadillac and 6 years ago I traded it in for my present Hyandi accent, any way about a year after I sold the car to the dealership I got a letter from a towing company saying that I owe $895 for towing and storage fees for the old caddy, luckily I saved the bill of sale, and took my plates into DMV -----
But when I got this letter I went into dmv and they still had me down as the registered owner,
So this all worried me a lot, but DMV gave me a print out of the date that I turned in the plates, and so I took that and the Bill of sale into the towing companies local address here in Vegas and they gave me a letter stating that I was not the owner of the caddy when it was towed, ---- so I never heard another thing from them --- but I did put that letter with all the other papers and saved everything just in case I got another letter from them,
Rodney.

trottytrue

Took Gabby this morning for her Rabies Titre test. Its gone up in price. I shall have to look it up but this time it cost $185. I hope we dont have to pay that every 6 months to keep it up to date. He did ask did we want to wait but I thought what if the house sells and she does not have the test done then we would have to wait another 6 months. I shall call him tomorrow and find out.

Vitual tour people came in today and permanant for sale sign went up its in the area of St. Joseph.

J.J

Just a FYI on our car, we bought a discounted nearly new Demo car from the dealers, only 100 miles on it, VW Polo plenty large enough for the 2 of us, DH is only driver - I'm too nervous, is diesel and so far is getting 60 mpg average at avg. speed of 25 mph !!
We bought one so quickly after getting back because of the desire to house hunt and we have no family able or willing to run us around.
Cheers

DDL

Congratulations and thank you for sharing that info (along with all the other brilliant updates).

We've been wondering what type of car we'll eventually end up with over there. Tony had a Rover when we left the UK and loved it.

Although I lived in London for a year and a half when we first met, I've never driven over there. Here in America, I've been driving for 40+ years (ouch, it hurts to even see that in print ) but I'm not sure over there that I'll be able to "get it" with driving on the left, etc. Plus, I've only ever driven an automatic and don't want to learn how to drive a stick at this age, so if I'm going to drive over there, he will have to buy an automatic.

Good luck with the house hunting!

J.J

When car hunting , our family concern VW dealer was steadily busy, most others not (notably Toyota not), seems there is a glut of used vehicles after the trade-in discounts recently.
As for houses, estate agents and Sold stickers in window ads suggest that there is a fairly brisk trade, esp for the desirable locations, following the down market of a couple years ago.
TTFN

Fish n Chips 56

Hello JJ and thanks for the reply.

Fish n Chips 3 times a week, hahahaaa you sound like me, I love them and always visit my favorite chippys that I went to as a kid, most are still open and just as good as I remember them, The tray is no big deal, they've charged for years, it used to be 2p ahhh the thought of Cod chips and mushy peas.

I checked out Spalding on Google Earth and it looks nice, I can dig the 20 minute walk into town, The caravan sounds like fun for a while.

I understand your "not wonderful' details" that is a shame, with a bit of care most of those items could be sorted out, I always remember papers blowing around down town, I also remember the Keep Britain Tidy Promotion, I must admit America impressed me with its cleanliness as soon as I arrived.

Highway Code, the laws have changed a little on driving around roundabouts so I'd caution you to read up on that, I almost caused an accident on a roundabout last year when I was home, I would have been at fault, I'm lucky the other driver was paying attention to my moves.

The cost of car insurance (£600) seemed high at first but now I see you have a new car and no NCB its understandable, after a few years you should be getting the 65% No Claims Bonus, I pay that amount for cars that are donkeys years old and not worth much and yes a clean record too so it seems fair...

Chances are you saved good money on Tax by buying a Polo, economical and earth friendly.

The Food, what more can we say, its Fresh and not full of chemicals, it has to be better for you.

Its wonderful that they take good care of your pets, I left my pooch here when I returned 20 years ago, he was such a timid thing the 6 months in jail would have been awful for him...

Enjoy the Journey and good luck with the house hunting...

J.J

Cheers

pcmaccallum

We took our car for it's NCT here in Ireland yesterday (it's the same as an MOT in UK) IT PASSED we are so excited. We rang yesterday to see if they had any cancellation and they did for 9-05pm yesterday at the centre up in Cork not the local centre. We had to drive 1 1/2 hours each way but it was well worth it. They have a back log so our appointment wasn't until August, they said to ring every few days for an earlier appointment so thats what we have been doing. We brought the car over to Ireland when we went over to USA. It's an older car a Toyota Estima Lucida, it's an 8 seater so we can fit the whole family in when they visit, it turns into a bed and we have an awning so we can also use it when we go camping. It is in really good condition for it's year 1994. My husband loves it so we didn't want to part with it. All we had to do was put 4 new tyres and new rear brake shoes which my husband fitted and it passed first time. Not bad when it had stood for so long just being turned over now and then. We can't wait to go camping now. The only down side is the car tax for such a large vehicle here in Ireland is very expensive. We were ok with the insurance because i still have full no claims. We did have to shop around though, the first quote we got was almost 700 euros for third party fire and theft. We ended up paying 336 pounds fully comp.
Anyone looking for car insurance just make sure you really shop around even if you don't have any no claims bonus. Dont be worried about looking on comparison websites you can ring the company for more detailed information. I totally trust the Martin Lewis website. He is always trying to help the ordinary person from being ripped off. It has information about lots of things. Here is the website again.

www.moneysavingexpert.com

I hope everyones plans are going well and you are getting nearer to your dreams.

Chris

Easterndawn

My dream is to buy a volkswagon camper van and just travel around for a summer, maybe some day. I envy you, have fun.

sallysimmons

That sounds fun! My dream is to move around from place to place for the first few year or two after returning. I want to save up enough money that we can afford to rent holiday cottages in different parts of the country for a few months at a time. Partly to get to know Britain in a way I never did when I lived there, and partly to see where we would be happiest living.

Maybe it's just a pipe dream but it keeps me going in this blasted heat we're having. Lord what I wouldn't give for a gray, rainy Yorkshire day!!