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Category: UK Expat Archive

Simple tax returns

Few of my readers may remember the little adventure I had with my UK tax return about a year ago. In that post, I mentioned that the self-assessment process for filing tax returns in Britain is easy and even expressed anticipation towards trying it on my own. Well, Q.E.D. It…

Frauds and snitches

Frauds and snitches

In England, just as I remember in later years in America with ads against insurance fraud, TV campaigns against benefit fraud do a pretty good job of sending the appropriate message. A benefit thief may not mend his ways outright upon seeing an ad like the one below, but seeing…

Random Illustrations: Recycling notices

Remember, I wrote in the past about the recycling scheme instituted by the Greenwich council? Basically, the dry recyclables go into the blue-cover bin, the food waste and the garden refuse into the green-cover bin, and the rest goes into a large garbage bag (soon to be replaced with a…

Random illustrations: Smoking in Canary Wharf

It’s been a bit over a year since England curbed smoking in public places. For those of us who cannot stand the smoke, life has become considerably more pleasant, especially when it comes to dining out. The unfortunate souls who can’t exist without cigarettes, conversely, have been having much harder…

NHS: Be punctual – or else

Natasha arranged for a vision check-up for Becky a few days ago. We haven’t been to that NHS office before, and Natasha turned out to be overly optimistic about the ease of finding a parking spot near the office. By the time she had parked some distance away and walked…

Some education

Kimmy’s Year 4 program in literature includes a module called “Fantasy Worlds”. Guess which texts she was supposed to be studying in that? Harry Potter books! And not just the books – all movie installments to date were apparently part of the program as well. On top of that –…

What I’ll miss

It seems a bit premature to start ruminating on this subject – after all, we are not going back to the US as yet. But Jeri asked the question, and I figured I’d give it a try. So, what will I miss of England and Europe once I eventually repatriate?…

Cultural adjustments (Q&A, part 3)

There was still one question from Jeri – who graciously saved me from an embarrassment of having an “ask me a question” day without hearing a single question – that I neglected to address thus far. What were the hardest cultural adjustments for you and your family when you moved…

Lessons learned, two-years mark

Two years ago I landed in Heathrow to start my life in England. I used to subscribe to the notion that an émigré should spend 3 years establishing himself in his new life before making any pronouncements on his overall successes or failures. This period of our life is not…

Re-visiting education (Q&A, part 2)

Continuing our Q&A exercise, in which I successfully engaged one single person to ask me questions, let’s address another one of Jeri’s queries. (Part 1 is here.) I’m assuming your children are in British schools – what are the advantages and disadvantages of American vs. British school systems? I did,…

A trip to Legoland

Taking advantage of what might be the last – and first – nice-weather weekend in September, on Saturday we took the kids for a long-promised visit to Legoland. Of course, half of London had the same idea as us… The amusement park, located near Windsor, failed to make a great…

Separated by common language, part II

It’s been close to a year since I posted a brief sampler of the linguistic differences between British and American English language variants. I had a clear intent to parlay that article into a potentially fun series. But in the intervening time, I suppose, I lost my ear when it…

Check your crime levels

London’s Metropolitan Police (taking after the NYPD, unless I’m seriously mistaken) is testing a website that would map certain types of crime for all areas of Greater London. The crimes accounted for so far are only robberies, burglaries and vehicle crimes, but it still could be useful for any prospective…

A Queen sighting

Our guests not only managed to visit several of the London sights that we thus far shunned; they also came by an audience with Her Majesty the Queen. Ok, not really. But we ourselves only see the reigning monarch on TV, despite living just a dozen miles away from the…

The last busy weekend of the season

The weekend was spent in various activities involving our latest visitors, which explains the first non-travel two-day post gap since sometime last year. With our approaching long holiday, it should be the last active “home” weekend for a couple of months. Anyway, here is a brief re-cap. On Saturday, we…

New nuisance: Call Limit

I have not mentioned the concept of the call limit in the past, and yesterday we unwittingly ran afoul of it. In a nutshell, when a landline phone service is being established in the UK, the phone company determines the monetary limit that the customer should stay under during any…