Hi all!

My parents and my husband & i are looking for a fresh start and are thinking of moving from Australia to England next year for approximately 2 years or so. My mum has dual citizenship and i in turn can get it then our husbands through us. These are the things that we would love:

 1: We hate the heat so would love the colder weather - we love snow so somewhere it gets snow would be a bonus.

2: We have read and heard from many english friends the south of england is particularly lovely and benefits also include close to london and close to train to france etc as we would love to take adventures

3: Good area for work - My mum is a medical typist/secretary as am I also with practice management experience. We would both ideally love part time jobs. My husband is a carpenter and my dad is in sales but we would really do anything

4: My hubby loves the outdoors and hiking etc but also loves skiing in winter 

So I guess I would love advice on some areas to try that would attract us based on the things we love (above)

 Thank-you so much in advance for your help :)

Jade

Hi Jade and welcome.

The new UK government is tightening up on imigration (and everything else lol) of non-Europeans, so plan wisely in advance.

Areas to settle in the UK? tough one this as all parts of the UK have very nice, or not-so-nice areas. I live in the North west and I wouldnt swop it for anywhere else in the UK. The South of England is ok for a weeks holiday break but for real Britain you must travel up North, real people, beautiful landscapes , lakes and countryside. If Hubby likes ski-ing then a two hour flight from Manchester will get you to the ski resorts of France, italy and Switzerland, or a 3 hour drive will get you to the highlands of Scotland ski resorts. We nearly always get Snow in midwinter and sun in summer, the beaches and nightlife of the north west are second to none in the UK. Hope you find what youre looking for and Gooday folks 

wow: it's very nice ok ,

                    thanks for the subject it's very fantastic.

Hello Everyone !

We're returning to beautiful old England after being away for a very long time but with two young children in tow ! We need as much help and advise as possible because we'll be back in four months time but we need to find and decide on a place to live and enrol our seven yera old son into a lovely and local state primary school too ? ! Would you mind looking up 'my profile about me' because I've asked for your advice in that ! It's rather long and complicated which is why I'd rather not have to re-write it, if you don't mind ? We're flying back to England for nine days in the middle of May to make our final decisions after visiting our top one or two choices as well as the primary schools that we'll have narrowed down by then. I just hope it wont be too late to enrol our son by then?' Many many thanks From Anne-Marie and and !

Hello Anne-Marie and a warm welcome to POE, unfortunately I can't help with your enquiries but am sure that lots of our members who live up North in the areas you mentioned in your profile, will be able to give you more information.

Meanwhile have a look at the photos of the areas you mentioned and the information on the various towns and villages there, you will find them all here on POE.  Just put the name of the place in the google search, top left hand side, and it will lead you straight to the places you need to find out about! 

How lovely of you Cathyml and many thanks for your warm welcome and advice .

Yes I'm very hopeful that I'll get some good recommendations and advice from other POE members who either live or know the regions that we're interested in and soon I hope? 

I've looked at MANY of the amazing Yorkshire photos so far but haven't had time to research any of the places yet.There appears to be hundreds of picture postcard villages that we'd adore to be residents in, so I've got MANY hours,days and weeks worth of research ahead of me but May's our deadline because we have to know where we want to live by then !

So I wish you a very relaxing weekend and Iook forward to chating again?

Best wishes,

Anne-Marie

Hi Anne-Marie. For me the Cotswolds will be the number one suggestion of an ideal place to live. It covers a large area of course so I guess I will have to settle for naming but one 'Lower Slaughter' as beautiful, but it depends of course where your work will be.

Oxford is just 45 minutes (or an hours travelling) to/from London's West End. You really have got one huge problem in finding a place to settle, simply because of the vast difference's to be found in our multi-cultural society.

Dear Ron.

Many thanks for your suggestion and I agree it's absolutely beautiful and I wish we could afford to live there but it's way beyond our modest means .

The three counties that we're most interested in for various reasons and that we can afford are Durham, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. So I'm hoping POE members either from those areas or who are very familiar with them, can help me save a lot of time and narrow down our vast search for a picturesque rural or coastal village, that's very safe and family orientated. It needs to have a good state primary school, a lovely old pub or two (!), a post office (ideally) and a grocery shop or two ! I'm not looking for much am I ?!  My parents live in Marden in Kent which is an old and rather beautiful village with many ammenities and actually every thing you'd ever hope for but sadly we can't afford to live there. I'm hoping to find an equivalent or as close to it as possible being realistic but up North where we can afford to live ?

As I said in my 'profile' this lovely village we're looking for ideally needs to be with in a 30 or 45 minute commute to work for my husband who'll be teaching English as a foreign language. He's in the process of introducing him self to the Universities in these three counties as well as the numerous language schools. This is why it's a complicated search . It's almost the chicken and the egg scenerio but we'll get there some how ?

Best Wishes and thank you again Ron for trying to help, 

Anne-Marie

Hi Anne-Marie...

Coming from Yorkshire myself I am biased, but even so the areas around York are very good,you get the best of  everything, countryside for walking,cycling,city for working, and coast for relaxing, the house prices vary the farther away from york you go, but it's easy commuting to York, good train and bus routes, and motorways.

We are looking at moving back to Yorkshire in the next few years and we are looking at  the Yorshire Wolds, a little bit more out of the way and rural, (hoping to retire retire there), but even so the coast isn't too far away and the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful.

Hope you find what you are looking for and have a vey happy future

Dear Karen,

Thank you very much for your recommendations for your home county of Yorkshire.

It's almost like de ja vu ( sorry can't do the accents over the e and a ) because both my husband and I have also come to the conclusion in the last day or two, that to live within a sensible distance of York, Harrogate and Leeds would be perfect for his work but also because it appears to have every thing we'd hoped for.

Like you though, I'd prefer to be in a more rural area or close to the coast and where you're hoping to retirement sounds superb and I'm going to look it up next !

I'm yet to research the property prices in the first area mentioned and how far out we might have to live to be able to afford the rents and ultimately buying a place there ?  But I'm hopeful.

So it's really looking like Yorkshire for us too and I'm starting to get VERY excited about living back home, all be it another region but in many ways a better region probably ( I must be diplomatic !) especially for what we're looking for and can afford.

So watch this space and please if there's any more wonderful suggestions and recommendations for Gorgeous Yorkshire I'll only be too happy to receive them .

Many thanks again Karen and the best of luck with your return to your roots and the idyllic environment you hoping to live in.

My best wishes,

Anne-Marie