wow, didn't know the hummingbird moth was in the UK.. we have them here in Mississippi along with the hummingbirds.

Yes Vancouver Island is beautiful although in an 80's timewarp! We will miss the Bald Eagles sitting on the tree across the road and waking us up and hummingbirds but then I remember all those British birds, like the Chiff-Chaff, Mourning Dove, Cuckoo with fondness and look forward to one day hearing them again when walking in the countryside. May I ask why did you leave?

Wow! I hope to be visited by one of those some day.

The hummers used to love our scarlet runner beans and would often keep feeding as I was picking. In winter we fed the ones that overwintered in Victoria, and if it was really cold we'd bring in and thaw it a few times a day. They seemed to appreciate it.

Bev

We wanted an adventure before we go too old for it. We were a bit bored with it, and didn't like the 8 hours difference to the UK. Plus travel's difficult to anything really different.

Bev

Tell me about it! Hubby and I just look at each other when we ask what should we do!! And yes travelling from here always involves a long ferry journey to get to Vancouver or we have to fly. I am quite bored as well, once you have seen one forest, one island and one similar community it becomes a bit of a bore! Has been nice here though in Oct, I can still walk in shorts and T lol

Strange how living amongst beautiful scenery can become just a backdrop to your life. Much preferable to seeing your neighbours brick wall up close, but sometimes, no matter how breathtaking it first appeared it eventually becomes......... well, just there, and you have to take take some time out occasionally to appreciate it.
I remember travelling on the commuter ferry from Manly Bay to Sydney harbour and thinking, what a wonderful commute, certainly better than the thameslink into London, even had a small submarine pop up close to the boat. What were all the commuters doing? Reading a book, playing on their phones and laptops. It just wasn't scenery to them anymore.

Thats very true Bud, I still gasp sometimes when I look out the window at an amazing sunset or sunrise because we are on the ocean, but you can't eat scenery as someone here said to me once and what you thought you wanted 10 years ago, changes as you get older, and you find you now want to be closer to family! Nothing wrong with that, priorities just change.

Interesting. I'm currently trying to weigh up two houses I saw - one is a beautiful house in a nice setting, but has no views from the windows. The other is a less nice house and needs some work, but has spectacular views from every window. I've been leaning towards the one with views because I work from home and have to look out of my window all day - but maybe I'd soon stop noticing ... hmmmm.

We choose our current home. mainly because of the setting, the house structure and design were secondary considerations. No regrets at all *, in fact, for the first few months, nearly everyday I had to pinch myself to believe I lived here. Now I have to pinch myself to remind myself that I live here. I also do a lot of work from home and deliberately placed the home office in the room with the best view. However, unless something exciting happens outside, I barely notice it. - Still better than looking at a brick wall though.

* I may have regrets further down the road when the upkeep becomes a consideration.

No Sally, I still notice my views and appreciate them because I know in the future I will never be able to afford these views again, especially if we move back to the UK, it will be a small garden surrounded by hedges and no views, but I will make my own, I love gardening and will just have to create something to look at. As an aside, we bought the worse looking house in the best location, in fact we passed it up a couple of times when the agent told us to look at it, it was so plain and boring but oh what a location, we are now glad we were pursuaded to take a look inside because when I saw the view of the ocean out of the large window we were hooked, and that was in March when it was raining. Slowly over a period of 10 years we have renovated it to a lovely home, and now hope to sell one day to move back to UK. As Phill and Kirsty say, location, location, location

A good dilemma to have. I think its a personal choice. However, I would go with the views. I recently sold a view property that was the smaller house on the hill surrounded by much bigger homes, but it had the view - every day I was thankful I choose view over space or other considerations. This home also had views from every room, delightful.

To illustrate further - I moved to a tiny - and I mean mean tiny place but in a great location where when I step outside everything is as perfect as can be. I could move elsewhere have more space but would lose the views, convenience of locality etc..

Good luck deciding.

My US wife and i have been back in the UK now for 2 weeks. It has been and still is a difficult transition for her as she is New York born lived in Boston and then for the past 30 years lived in Washington DC. So moving into the small Devon town of Dawlish is quite a culture shock for her. Please take my advice and indoctrinate your US wife as much as possible. She will invariably compare everything to the US like is much cheaper there and you don't have certain things that's available in the UK like there is in US.

As my wife was a daughter of a US army service person she moved a lot during her formative years and doesn't take change with ease. The weather of course is another vent, yes it rains in England, a lot, that's why it's so lush and green during springtime and summer, unless of course there is a drought which was a concern this past summer.

Before i met my wife she was a true anglophile right from a young age and had been to England on vacation no less the 7-8 times, but of course a vacation is different to residing here. These are my observations and may be entirely different with your US wife and of course it depends on where you intend to settle.

We both are in our 60s so change does not come easy. Wish you all the luck in the world.

John

I think there are some views you never ever tire of and each day its like you're seeing them for he very first time and they sort of take your breath away. If you've got one of those its nice to hang on to it if you can.

Oh, I would go for the views! I've recently moved from a house with spectacular mountain views to our dream home without any views. And I miss my mountain views so much. It really makes a difference.

Not sure about that. I love views and vistas, and IMO the ones around the home are always a benefit.

I think we were talking more about the larger environment. The thing about Victoria and Vancouver Island is that it's hard to get to anything different. What's there is nice, but some of us want variety.

Not all of us. Some are saner and are happy with lovely but same!

Bev