expectations vs reality for life in the uk

When I moved from Canada to England, I thought I might not fit in. I expected to hear the posh accent from television everywhere, see quaint high streets and spend the rest of my life in the rain. I also worried that living in Kent meant missing out on the London experience. Looking back after six years, I was happy that several of those expectations had been wrong.

The voices were more varied than I’d imagined

The accent I’d had in mind was received pronunciation, the sort of BBC voice I associated with posh television shows and films. I did know people who sounded like that, but it wasn’t the one voice I’d hear all around me. The variety of accents was one of my favourite things about living here, and the reality was more exciting than the version I’d imagined.

Playing multiplayer games on my Twitch livestreams gave me a lovely example of that. In voice chat, there could be my Canadian voice alongside voices from southern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Midlands and northern England. We were all hanging out and playing a game. I loved how much character there was in people’s voices, and I was glad I hadn’t ended up hearing the same television accent everywhere.

I thought I’d end up back in Canada

My expectation that I wouldn’t fit in was harder to shake. The first five months were so difficult that I called them my five months of living hell. Even while I was trying to get settled, I didn’t think I was capable of changing my life like that, fitting in or staying. I thought I’d be back in Canada sooner rather than later.

Six years on, I was still here and very settled, approaching my seventh year. That didn’t mean every day was good, or that I loved every part of being a foreigner in England. There were still bad days. But I loved my life here and felt grateful to be living it. The fear that I would never fit in hadn’t turned out to be true.

I wanted to be honest about both parts. I wasn’t going to pretend the beginning had been easy, and I knew what it was like to struggle. My view was that having an open mind and being patient with yourself could help. British life might turn out to suit you, as it had suited me, even if it didn’t feel that way at first.

The high streets weren’t all the television version

I’d imagined quaint high streets and trendy cafes. Those places did exist, but they weren’t everywhere. There were also Poundlands, Greggs and McDonald’s, rubbish on some streets and areas that looked more run-down than others. That wasn’t uniquely British. Canada had its less attractive places too, and I thought it was part of the whole package.

I’d lived in both kinds of places: picturesque ones and places where I didn’t think a tourist would want to go. I’d had very happy memories in both. There was plenty in the UK that I found beautiful and wanted to explore, but I couldn’t expect every place where people lived to look like the setting of a television show.

Kent didn’t mean missing out

When I first moved, I was living in a town in Kent. So much of the expat content I saw on YouTube, Instagram and elsewhere came from London that I felt I might miss out by living outside it, or at least outside a big city. That turned out to be another expectation I was grateful to have got wrong.

Over the years, I discovered that I loved visiting London but preferred towns and villages as places to live. I’d happily go into London for a day or a weekend, then feel a sense of relief on the train home. I felt more at peace in a smaller place. Someone else might find London was exactly where they wanted to be, but it wasn’t what I wanted for my own everyday life.

More grey skies than constant rain

When I told friends and family I was moving to England, plenty of them warned me to get ready for the rain. I expected it to rain all the time. It did rain, of course, but I found there was much less than I’d imagined in my part of Kent. I thought we were lucky with the weather in the South-East, and I was hot and trying not to look sweaty as I talked about it.

For me, overcast was the bigger feature. There were days when the sky looked as though it was about to rain, but we only got a few drops, if anything. That was my experience in Kent, and I knew someone living elsewhere in the UK might have a different one. It wasn’t the endless rain I’d been warned about.

Looking back at my old videos was a strange way of seeing those changes. My thoughts about life here had changed as I’d spent longer in the UK, and I’d got older too. I was still the Canadian describing her experience of England, but I wasn’t describing it in quite the same way as when I’d first arrived.

Watch my expectations and reality after six years in England.