Pros:
Public transportation - most cities or good size towns have buses that run their routes. Corby is especially cheap - at 1.50 pounds for an entire day of transportation. Buses also run between cities and to train stations. We lived for almost four months without a car, taking buses everywhere we needed to go when we weren't walking.
Cheap internet: 7.50 pounds a month for broadband is what we pay. There are more expensive companies of course.
Flowering stuff everywhere: right now, in December, I have a plant in my garden with yellow flowers as well as one with white flowers. During other seasons, there is stuff everywhere you walk - hedgerows with blackberries, flowers, other berries - lots of color everywhere.
Power shower and instant hot water: even in relatively cheaply built homes like ours (typical housing development type construction), they now put in these power showers which have fantastic pressure - I actually have to use it at about half the power. And because they have these boiler units in the kitchen that produce instant hot water, you basically never run out if you keep your hot water on continuously (which we pretty much do, being the wasteful Americans that we are). Most Brits have their hot water come on for a certain period of time, fill the tank, and that is all they use for the entire day, being the very energy efficient people that they are.
Grocery delivery: need I say more! I do. I have a veg box delivered once a week from a local organic farm. This veg "scheme" offers fresh fruits and vegetables, grown organically, dairy products, and even meats. I usually get a different box each week for the variety and some whole milk, also from a local farm. Then I also have groceries delivered from a place like ASDA (Walmart) or Tesco. This is so great - click the mouse a little, and then all my bags of heavy groceries are delivered right to my door.
Countless old castles and such to visit: the historical sights one can see here are fantastic. All over the country are various castles or "houses" (really mansions or palaces) that are anywhere up to a thousand years old, some maybe more. Many of these have opened up to visitors in order to raise much needed money to upkeep their monster estates and pay the unbearable taxes. Even the Queen has opened up Buckingham Palace for this reason - she is using funds to refurbish Winsdor Castle after it was damaged in a fire. You can view the various ones that we have visited in previous blogs. Then , throw in the occasional Stonehenge (over 5000 years old) and Roman ruins in various places (like the baths in Bath) that are in spots all over the country, as well as all the treasures they have ammassed in London museums, and basically you could never run out of incredible things to investigate.
No mosquitos? At least I think so. I did not see a single one when we arrived in the summer, and none of the windows over here have screens, and people just leave windows and doors wide open in good summer weather, so I am going to assume there are no mosquitos.
No poles, wires, lights, and other view-obstructing paraphenalia: There are very few traffic lights - just at certain busy pedestrian crossings and busy city round-a-bouts. There is absolutely nothing overhead. All power lines and cables are burried underground. This makes things look significantly prettier.
So now on to the cons:
Financially starting over: When we arrived, we were able to use our passports to start a bank account here. It seemed as though they needed proof there would be income to start it. We had to wait for debit cards - these have a chip in them, unlike any of our American cards. There are stores that only take cards with a chip and pin. And I could not buy my cell phone (with monthly plan) until I had a card with a chip. The wait was frustrating. We also found out that we could not get any financing. So when we purchased our washer and dryer, we couldn't get store financing but had to pay for the whole thing. We couldn't apply for a credit card, so we had to continue to use US credit cards which made us very dependent on the exchange rate for the true purchase of our stuff. It's hard to start completely over like you are newly out on your own when you have been financially capable for years. The same held true for our recent car purchase - we are not eligible for car financing until we have been in the UK for 3 years! We should be able to get a credit card though at some point in the next few months.
Lack of closets: when they build houses, they do not automatically have closets in the bedrooms. If you pay extra money, you can get built in "wardrobes" but many rentals here have no built in wardrobes either. So where do you hang your clothes? Well, you have to buy wardrobes! In addition, there are no closets throughout the house - like in the bathrooms, in the hallways, etc. So you have to buy storage solution type of stuff for all your things. This is a real pain and even having wardrobes, containers, other storage furniture containing all your stuff is still a lot more cluttery than having nice closets in all your rooms.
Taxes: 33% typical tax rate - yikes! Bill was actually having about 29% or so out of his paycheck. He then opted out of pension, reducing that to about 25%. (you have to work for 15 years in the UK to receive pension benefits) We have now applied for working tax credit and child tax credit which will help to further lower the percentage. There is a process we have to go through before we get this, and we are still waiting on all that. In slight defense of this taxation, we are paying about 140 pounds a month in taxes for National Health Service. That is incredibly cheap for a whole family. But, it is a very socialistic system and therefore heavily taxed. Of course, if the US keeps pace, they will have similar taxation difficulties before long!
The roads: when going somewhere for the first time, we can almost guarantee that we will get mixed up at some round-a-bout along the way. They are not the easiest things to negotiate when you are clueless as to where you are going. Once you know your way around, they are easy. Road signs can sometimes be not-so-helpful, although they are not always bad. I do prefer having street signs on posts at the corner of every intersection. They only put road signs at the beginning of a road, so once you are on it, there are no signs along the way to confirm. Or if you turn onto the road from a street somewhere in the middle, there is of course no sign so you may not know what road you are on. This is the reason why I prefer to have every intersection marked with BOTH streets.
Nickeling and diming: you pay to park in Town Centre, you pay to park at the mall, and a million other little charges like that.
And the jury's out on:
the educational system
the National Health Service - quality of care etc
These are just some of the things that we have positively and negatively experienced here in the UK. Maybe a while from now, I'll revisit the pros and cons. By then, some of the cons may have resolved themselves as we become more established. In the meantime, the pros are many because basically how can I not be thankful in everything when God is in control and is so good and merciful to us?
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