what to do and where to live in uk

Dave,

I guess much will depend on whether you need to work and that could limit your choice a bit, but I'd cast a vote for West Sussex myself. I'm a Northener by birth but fell in love with the South Downs and its landscape, pubs, history and climate over a decade ago.

I only actually moved to the area 4 months ao but spent 12 years of weekends down here wishing I lived here escaping North Surrey.

For me its gently rolling landscape is amongst the finest in the country, it has some of the best weather in the UK and yet offers proximity to the South coast and of course London if required. Best of all there is a surprisingly slow pace of life and a great sense of community in the villages around here.

Its only downside is the house prices which are high by national standards.

Much of this depends on finding where you feel you belong, for me its here which constantly surprises me because why did I not for example feel like that about the Lakes where I spent my formative years climbing - they are undeniably beautiful? I guess everyone has an emotional connection with a place - even if it's somewhere they have no ancestry.

Maybe you should hire a motorhome and spend 6 months exploring the whole UK so you can make your mind up before you settle?

Good luck in your search,

Jonathan

5.9 months in Aus.
2 weeks on a Pacific island beach.
5.9 months in NZ.
2 weeks on a Pacific island beach.
Repeat.

Since you haven't had many answers, here's a serious suggestion: Stroud, Gloucestershire.
(1) Semi-rural - it's big enough to be a town (even got a Waitrose, thank God), small enough to be able to walk from the centre to the edge in any direction in twenty minutes.
It has a direct main line to London (Paddington in 90 mins, though you to have to change at Swindon out of peak hours).
If you drive, you can get to anywhere in Bristol, Swindon, Cheltenham, Gloucester in less than hour most of the time, and you can get to Cardiff, Birmingham, Oxford in an hour.
It has plenty of business - the employment rate is less than half the national average.
(2) Natural beauty scenery etc etc - it is in the Cotswolds at the western edge - the most attractive bit even if the least known. Plenty of areas of outstanding natural beauty immediately surrounding the town and plenty of attractive villages to live in if you don't want to live in the town itself.
(3) Thriving arts scene - one time centre of textile manufacture, still an attraction to textiles professionals worldwide. Professional music: you really need to go to Symphony Hall in Birmingham - there's not much closer to Stroud than that (Bristol possible excepted and one offs like the Cheltenham Festival, notwithstanding (the horses do get in the way though)).
Disadvantages: well, the town centre is scruffy and eminently avoidable; it does seem to be where all the hippies of the sixties who couldn't find Glastonbury ended up (you may not, of course, feel this is a disadvantage); and the business community is frustratingly lethargic.

Personally, I would most like to live by the sea, but my profession, which requires me to visit client businesses at their sites, would require far more travel if I lived on the coast.

quote:

Originally posted by DAVOhorn:

I have decided i will not return to Norfolk Suffolk .


regards David

That's a shame David! There are more Naim Hi-Fi nutters per square inch here than anywhere else in the entire Universe!

quote:

That's a shame David! There are more Naim Hi-Fi nutters per square inch here than anywhere else in the entire Universe! Big Grin

NFN

UBI

My vote goes to the South of France.

I just drove home from an overnight stay in Piemonte with some friends. Two and a half hours it took - from eating Insalate de Carne Crude with a glass of fine Barolo, in Barolo, and in the intervening time I drove through a mountain range, past a ski-resort (not open yet but plenty of snow), and along one of the most spectacular coast roads on earth. It was sunny and 19°C when I got back.

I used to live in Haringay and sometimes the commute to Vauxhall could take almost as long.

I don't earn as much these days, but I don't need to..!

If you have a British passport, the whole continent is your oyster...

Cheers

Rod

If you plan to continue working have a look in the Journal of your professional association to see where there are private practices for sale and also where there are large quantities of potential customers.

David,

I wish you best of luck on your PR app. IMHO I think you will get it so you will not have to make the choice. However, after living in the beautiful, warm and sunny suburbs of North Shore Sydney (just round the corner from you), it ain't so easy coming back I can tell you. It has been crappy, miserable weather today. Think I might put in an app myself

David,

I was interested that you rate your chances of permanent residency in Australia at 50:50, given your age. I am of an age with you and had reckoned my chances at zero.

How are you hoping to swing this? Some years back, I was hoping to move for the final phase of my career (GP) but had written off the idea.

Could not you, as an established person, simply get a sequence of 4-year work visas, or are you intending to retire?

Fraser

Dear All,

Thanks for your comments.

I looked at France and it is appealing unfortunately i cannot legally work in France in my profession. So if i went to france i would have to find a new means of employment.

Dear Fraser,

I have a sponsor and there is a tremendous shortage of health care workers especially me and GP's and nurses. So i was able to get a 4 year temp visa. So at 48 i arrived here. I am now 50 which in Aussie terms means i am over 40, over 45 and over 50 hence i need Exceptional Exceptional circumstances according to the visa guidelines.

So i give it a 50/50 chance.

Things are getting tight here a GP from Germany was recently rebuffed as his son failed his medical (has Downs Syndrome). Also a Teacher failed as her child too failed medical as had Downs too. You know what is wanted before you get here so crying after failing is not really acceptable. Renewing visa 4 yearly is expensive and would prohibit me buying a hoouse as you are not allowed to buy a property on a 457 visa except in exceptional circumstances.

I lived in Suffolk for 20 years and would like a change.

How about Wales, hopefully as a Scot i would be more acceptable than if i was English to the Welsh.

Lontano things here have changed in the last 3 weeks with less foreign migrants needed due to anticipated job losses here. Indeed many aussies working in UK are on their way home as they are no longer required in UK. Same will happen here. many people i know say things are getting quieter here and businesses are going a bit hungry.

So it is intersting times as they say.

I still want to retire at 55 if i can. And then get a less streesful job and work less hours.

regards David

Fraser one way to get in is to get a job in WOOP WOOP on an Indigenous Health Program via the Flying Dr Service.

Do 2 years and they pay all your bills etc etc. But WOOP WOOP here is not just outside of London. It is many hours by road or a couple of hours by air and then a hell of a drive.

So if interested WOOP WOOP may do it for you.

As an example there is a job out of Bourke NSW and the area covered is all along the NSW QLD border and i believe 300kms either side of the border. So WOOP WOOP still covers an area the size of UK if not larger .

If i was young 25-30 and not scared witless by flying in small aircraft then this would be a goer.

BUT NO

regards David

Fraser,

As a GP you may well get in as there is a need for your profession. The case Dave quoted has caused some uproar as people feel there is a shortage of healthcare professionals. Talk to an immigration consultant or the immigration department direct,

http://www.immi.gov.au/immigration.htm

You may be surprised.

Dave,

I personally always liked the Lake District myself. As Jonathan said you sometimes get connection with a place. Other areas that I have been to and liked are the Peak District, Devon, Cornwall and Mid Wales. Mid Wales can be very rural though.

Best of luck with the PR application. I am thinking of doing the same in about 18 months.

The use of a business visa (457) does not prevent you from buying a property. You will need to get FRB approval, which is very quick, when you buy a house.

Regards

Milan

David,

Milan is right on the house purchasing. I recently transferred someone from Singapore to Sydney on a 457 visa. They arrived in June and have bought a plot of land in Sydney and are now building a house. All on a 457.

quote:

Originally posted by Lontano:
David,

Milan is right on the house purchasing. I recently transferred someone from Singapore to Sydney on a 457 visa. They arrived in June and have bought a plot of land in Sydney and are now building a house. All on a 457.

... with the Aussie at 0.62 US that is becoming an attractive alternative for me.

quote:

Originally posted by MilesSmiles:

quote:

Originally posted by Lontano:
David,

Milan is right on the house purchasing. I recently transferred someone from Singapore to Sydney on a 457 visa. They arrived in June and have bought a plot of land in Sydney and are now building a house. All on a 457.

... with the Aussie at 0.62 US that is becoming an attractive alternative for me.

Yeah, but why anybody would want to live in Sydney is totally beyond me. The "life support systems" apparently don't work. Sydney-siders seem to do nothing but bang on about the traffic, toll roads, tunnels, public transport, lack of parking, hospitals, inconsiderate bicycle riders, shite telecoms, decimation of the (y)arts etc etc... They're a bunch of whiners. I personally couldn't wait to see the back of the Sydney-centric sense of entitlement. How the hell they're going to cope now that the holy altar of real-estate-based "wealth generation" had come crashing down, nobody knows.

Yep, Sydney is beautiful for the 0.001% who have a "harbour view"; the rest is ugly sprawl.

Factor in that the whole country is rapidly being turned into a desert by rampant deforestation and farming, combined with climate change; all in a dearth of any reasonable political courage/policy and I don't miss the place in the slightest. The endless sunshine depressed me.... it is the harbinger of the destruction of the ecosystem. And don't get me started on the f%^&ing "baby bonus".

I have no plans to return.

Oh. By the way. Back on topic. I loved living in Bristol and the Southwest. Highly recommended. One of the best places I have ever lived.

Why are we playing my city is worse than yours?

Out of the following

Sydney Hobart Adelaide Perth Katoomba Bathurst hunter valley.

My favourite is Hobart.

I was most diappointed by Perth. Beautiful but somewhat boring.

I loved Katoomba as at the end of the High Street is the GREAT BIG CHASM. Astonishing and beautiful.

Bathurst is great for the motor racing but not a lot else.

Hoping to go to Brisbane next May and hopefully the South NSW coast at Xmas.

Sydney is a challenge to live in.

In 1977 as a junior clerk in an office my rent was 25% of my takehome pay. Today my rent in Sydney is 35-40% of my takehome pay and i am earning a reasonable salary.

regards David

Winky,

I get the feeling your are embittered by your experience of Sydney!

There are some really good suburbs that do not have a harbour view but have sea or National Park views. Yes it can be congested, especially in the CBD.

However, rental is expensive unless you want to go out west were it can get a little wild! As for the transport, it is still better than most UK cities.

Personally I like it and have settled fairly well.

Like David my rent is too high a portion of my takehome pay! Thankfully the price of fuel has dropped to $1.00 a litre!

100 places to strike off your 'possible' list...???

If they do enough of those books they will have included all the towns and cities.

quote:

How Hythe got in book one, I will never no.

They must have heard you were living there!

I'm assuming Crawley must be in book 1 as well.

quote:

I'm assuming Crawley must be in book 1 as well.

Most would assume so too, Howard. But the new library will be brilliant.

Nigel

quote:

But the new library will be brilliant.

Nigel
Looking forward to that opening. Are you nearby?