Is it Really still slower paced in the UK?

My husband moved here to ATL almost 15 years ago.  He has NEVER adjusted to the faster paced life in America and I'm wondering if y'all think it's slower paced in the UK still.  We don't know, really, because things have changed there since he moved.  Judging by the glacial pace my MIL and crew move, I'd say it's pretty slow, but I'm wondering what everyone else thinks?

We won't be moving to London, but a small city or even a village.  And one of the MAIN REASONS for moving is FOR the slower pace.  We will be stepping down from Suburban ATL soon--as we are selling our house and moving to the small town [900 people] in Rural GA that I grew up in--while we save up some more cash to move and wait for things to open back up.  So that will get us adjusted a lot. Everything closes at 6 unless you wanna drive half an hour to a small city for supplies. 

Along those lines, as we're packing etc., I'm thinking we should do major purging now while there are lots of people around to do porch pickup on stuff we wanna get rid of! I'm thinking with a slower pace, we might wanna get rid of the coffee pot and just use french press or moka pot. Boil the kettle and all that! IDK because when we are at 'home' for the next several months family might be coming by and expecting a pot of coffee.  I'm resisting the urge to do a MAJOR PURGE NOW, but I think it would be better to do that while we are chillin out in the small town and don't have as  much on our plates.

Y'all getting a house ready to put on the  market is HARD. Like so much work...

It's also nearly 100 degrees every day with oppressive humidity.  I hate the sun and the heat and I'm just so ready for it to be 60 degrees and overcast, I can't even.  At least it'll be like that come October!  And hopefully I"ll only have to endure one more GA summer. In the mean time, the VAST MAJORITY of the time I need to spend getting ready to sell this place will be spent in the garden working on the landscaping... UGH.  I'll insist on having a garden in the UK, but dang if it won't be pretty small!  Right now I have 2 acres and MOST of it is landscaped [there's like a third of an acre that's wooded].

Can't say for the rest of the UK, but here in Glasgow it's WAY slower than in SoCal.  Especially when you need to get things done - it take quite some time to get repairmen in, callsback from merchants (unless they want to sell you something), etc.  [This was prior to the Covid. For understandable reasons, it's exponentially worse right now.]

Summertime. We went for a walk yesterday to a shop to pick up something we had ordered. I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and was fine on the walk over, but it turned cooler, the breeze picked up and it started sprinkling an always-cold rain on the way back. I was definitely chilled by the time we got home. In July. We did not go out on Monday to pick up the item because it was raining sideways basically all day. Again.  Be prepared for that, depending on where you settle. While I'm ok with the gray and rain, some people just hate that it rains so very much here. And then there is the dark in the wintertime. Dark at 4pm-9am.  As opposed to high summer, when you can read by the ambient light at 10pm and it gets that light again at 4am. If you are disturbed by your room being too light when you are trying to sleep, you may want to plan to get black-out curtains.

One suggestion on "stuff" - if there is any chance you'll need or want a thing over here that you have at home (say, a particular coffee pot) and it can be made to work over here (with a voltage transformer, if it's electric), you might want to do a little online search to see what the replacement cost here would be. Things were more expensive to replace over here than I expected when we were jettisoning stuff to move over. Of course, you do need to factor in the cost of shipping it over. Also, if you plan to move it all home again at some time, it's more expensive to ship your household goods to the USA from the UK than it is to move to the UK from the USA.

The shops typically close at 6pm here, too - some a bit earlier. So you might as well get used to that. Some of the larger ones in the shopping centers may stay open to 8pm (?), but the "usual" shops shut down early here. Some do not open on Sundays, but most seem to be open then. I had heard before we moved over that there was one night a week when a lot of shops stayed open late, but I haven't found that to be the case where I am.

Good luck!

It’s a slower pace of life because nothing is open, massive bureaucracy, and long wait lists. It’s not that people just relax and enjoy.   

It’s a slower pace of life because nothing is open, massive bureaucracy, and long wait lists. It’s not that people just relax and enjoy.   

Exactly!

Summertime. We went for a walk yesterday to a shop to pick up something we had ordered. I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and was fine on the walk over, but it turned cooler, the breeze picked up and it started sprinkling an always-cold rain on the way back. I was definitely chilled by the time we got home. In July. We did not go out on Monday to pick up the item because it was raining sideways basically all day. Again.  Be prepared for that, depending on where you settle. While I'm ok with the gray and rain, some people just hate that it rains so very much here. And then there is the dark in the wintertime. Dark at 4pm-9am.  As opposed to high summer, when you can read by the ambient light at 10pm and it gets that light again at 4am. If you are disturbed by your room being too light when you are trying to sleep, you may want to plan to get black-out curtains.


1] This is my favorite weather.  I don't like the sun and I often stay up all night because I get my energy at night.  The long summer days will likely kill me, lol, but if it's overcast a lot or raining I might survive. ***already have blackout curtains*** as I sleep in most days because I'm on second shift.

One suggestion on "stuff" - if there is any chance you'll need or want a thing over here that you have at home (say, a particular coffee pot) and it can be made to work over here (with a voltage transformer, if it's electric), you might want to do a little online search to see what the replacement cost here would be. Things were more expensive to replace over here than I expected when we were jettisoning stuff to move over. Of course, you do need to factor in the cost of shipping it over. Also, if you plan to move it all home again at some time, it's more expensive to ship your household goods to the USA from the UK than it is to move to the UK from the USA.

I have already made the decision to do this!  A transformer is WAY cheaper than replacing my kitchen gadgets--which I have expensive nice stuff.  I'll probably get two, so I can also run the expensive air filters and the dehumidifier on the second one.  We are planning to get a 40ft container because we have some nice furniture we want to keep.  Not keeping cheap stuff we can replace easily, but furniture over there is expensive and crappy! It's worth it to keep our stuff we care about. 

Good luck!

Thank you!