I did not post any updates in the past week so a very simple reason. I have been really depressed. After living in the UK for a year and a half I still don't feel settled. I don't like living here and would love to move. Unfortunately, my DH's pay (particularly the bonus part) is good and we simply can't afford to lose it.
I have lived in a few different countries in my life and I always felt that I can do something with that place. In Ukraine I felt that with certain adjustments I could be comfortable. In India I felt that I could live there. In fact, the UK is the first country where after living for 18 months I can decidedly state that it is a country where I don't want to live. My DH keeps saying that it is not a problem of a country but a problem of a crappy area where we live. We moved in the area where we are now for a few reasons. I was heavily pregnant when we came to London and we wanted to be close to work, so my DH can arrive home quickly if I go into labour. I used to live in this area during my student years in London, so I knew it quite well. It is also cheap, so we could afford to rent a big house. Unfortunately, this area is cheap for a reason. Few months ago we bought a house and it was a huge and very expensive mistake. It would have been cheaper just to stay in a rental house and send kids to private school. Now we are stuck here - in a tiny crappy house in a crappy community.
For all my attempts to make friends, I have not been successful. I did make a few, but now one is having a second baby and pretty much not available. The other one when back to work. The real problem is the absence of people of similar socio-economic status nearby. People living here are either on benefits, or work 24/7. There are no stay-at-home mothers here, who stay at home because they want to and not because they are so uneducated that they can't find a job. There are plenty of teenage mothers here. Teenage pregnancies are a common thing in the UK. Many girls see it as a good carrier option. Once you have a baby, the state provides you with a house and pays all you expenses including dental and eye care until your youngest kid is 16. The recent proposal to reduce the age to 11 was met with outcry. Every time I see how much taxes we pay and how little we get back from the system, i feel like packing.
I have very little in common with most of the people in this area - teenage mothers, immigrants of African-Caribbean origin, recent Polish, Lithuanian, and Somali arrivals. Local Brits here are often uneducated and uncultured. Those who are educated and cultured have to work long hours to survive in this country. Most of the time I see kids brought up by nannies. I don't have much in common with the nannies either.
The cost of living is astronomical. Even though my DH's pay went up significantly our quality of living went down. Brits I have met tend to complain a lot about everything. They are suspicious of anyone who does not speak English with their accent. If you have any kind of east European accent you get treated as a criminal who came to take advantage of their 'fantastic' health care system and social services. They are not far from off as I have seen plenty of recent immigrants sponging off the state benefit system. It does not make me feel welcomed in this country. In the past 18 months I made Indian, Hungarian and Jewish friends. I did not make a single British friend or even an acquaintance.
My social life is non-existent. I am lonely, tired of looking after kids, and bored from the mind-numbing routine. All at the same time. I hate it here.
My DH (dear husband - for those not familiar with this abbreviation) believes that all this can be at least partially solved by moving to a better area. Unfortunately, the last move was so exorbitantly expensive that we simply cannot afford another move. At the end we decided to follow our original plan and wait till Big Munchkin starts her school. I just hope that the school is as good as all reviews suggest. At least it will make everything seem a bit better.
I have lived in a few different countries in my life and I always felt that I can do something with that place. In Ukraine I felt that with certain adjustments I could be comfortable. In India I felt that I could live there. In fact, the UK is the first country where after living for 18 months I can decidedly state that it is a country where I don't want to live. My DH keeps saying that it is not a problem of a country but a problem of a crappy area where we live. We moved in the area where we are now for a few reasons. I was heavily pregnant when we came to London and we wanted to be close to work, so my DH can arrive home quickly if I go into labour. I used to live in this area during my student years in London, so I knew it quite well. It is also cheap, so we could afford to rent a big house. Unfortunately, this area is cheap for a reason. Few months ago we bought a house and it was a huge and very expensive mistake. It would have been cheaper just to stay in a rental house and send kids to private school. Now we are stuck here - in a tiny crappy house in a crappy community.
For all my attempts to make friends, I have not been successful. I did make a few, but now one is having a second baby and pretty much not available. The other one when back to work. The real problem is the absence of people of similar socio-economic status nearby. People living here are either on benefits, or work 24/7. There are no stay-at-home mothers here, who stay at home because they want to and not because they are so uneducated that they can't find a job. There are plenty of teenage mothers here. Teenage pregnancies are a common thing in the UK. Many girls see it as a good carrier option. Once you have a baby, the state provides you with a house and pays all you expenses including dental and eye care until your youngest kid is 16. The recent proposal to reduce the age to 11 was met with outcry. Every time I see how much taxes we pay and how little we get back from the system, i feel like packing.
I have very little in common with most of the people in this area - teenage mothers, immigrants of African-Caribbean origin, recent Polish, Lithuanian, and Somali arrivals. Local Brits here are often uneducated and uncultured. Those who are educated and cultured have to work long hours to survive in this country. Most of the time I see kids brought up by nannies. I don't have much in common with the nannies either.
The cost of living is astronomical. Even though my DH's pay went up significantly our quality of living went down. Brits I have met tend to complain a lot about everything. They are suspicious of anyone who does not speak English with their accent. If you have any kind of east European accent you get treated as a criminal who came to take advantage of their 'fantastic' health care system and social services. They are not far from off as I have seen plenty of recent immigrants sponging off the state benefit system. It does not make me feel welcomed in this country. In the past 18 months I made Indian, Hungarian and Jewish friends. I did not make a single British friend or even an acquaintance.
My social life is non-existent. I am lonely, tired of looking after kids, and bored from the mind-numbing routine. All at the same time. I hate it here.
My DH (dear husband - for those not familiar with this abbreviation) believes that all this can be at least partially solved by moving to a better area. Unfortunately, the last move was so exorbitantly expensive that we simply cannot afford another move. At the end we decided to follow our original plan and wait till Big Munchkin starts her school. I just hope that the school is as good as all reviews suggest. At least it will make everything seem a bit better.
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