I need to hear good things about the UK

OK! : )

How about the wonderful supermarket's!
They do have sunshine, which you can actually go out and enjoy without it being too hot!
The winters are much milder!
You have the rest of Europe of discover cheaply!
People holding doors open for you!
People offering to help you when they see you with a stroller or heavy bags, even complete strangers!
Plenty of different places and cultures within UK to explore.
Only a day away from the States!
Chips!
Takeaway Indian Food!
Marks & Spencer's Food Hall!
Steaming hot crispy sugar do-nuts on the sea-front!
London!
Glasgow!
Drive to Paris!
They do have showers, dryers, washing machines etc!

Before I get carried away........all I can say is your not going to Mars, it's the same planet, same stars and same sun : )  and very easy to get back to the States when ever you what with all that vacation time! That's my view : )

Esme

This entire thread has been a delight to read and has confirmed why I wish I could move to England.  I've had this "pull" to live in England for about six years now but unfortunately cannot due to family circumstances :\\\'(.   Reading about your experiences and what you love about living there increases the longing I have to live there.  You all are so fortunate (in my eyes) to live there.   I visited England 2 years ago and loved everything about it.  I'm hoping to go back sometime this year.   I hope the fact that I don't live there (yet... ) disqualifies me for this forum!

I'll desperately miss:

English TV.
Little old men in tweed coats riding their bikes along the street.
Narrow boats on the canal.
London.
Lush cosmetics shop.
Watching little kids in cute English school uniforms file along the sidewalk to school.
The cathedrals.
The museums.
Market Day.
The slower pace of life.
Being so unique in my neighborhood.
Proper english breakfasts.
Political flexibility.
The Guardian!!!
Being surrounded by gorgeous, varied accents.
Sunday roasts.
Pubs.
Strong, local beers.
Women in hats at weddings.
Non old-lady Bingo.
The countryside.
Sunsets over the Fens.
Little pheasants running all around the fields.
Ancient houses all over the place.
Preserved historical buildings.
Pub quizzes.
Christmas carol services in a church older than my country.
Gargoyles.
Flowers blooming in winter.
Charity shops.
English Maternity care.
Documentaries galor on TV.
BBC Radio 4.
Good public transportation.
Closeness to Europe.
The cool antique shops.
Having a different perspective on US goings-on.
Greener greens than I've ever seen before.
Green in the winter, too.
Ghost walks & stories in local pubs, houses, etc.
The friendly relationship between mainstream medicine and non-traditional medicine.
The dressier type of clothing available.

There's millions more, but that's just off the top of my head...

This is wonderful.  You said you had "millions more," so how about another 50 or so . . .

Everythng everyone has said has made me SUPER excited about moving. I'm not actually moving until July '07, but I have been worried about it.  This has calmed me a bit because now I have so much to look forward to!!!!
Thank you all,
Daniela

I'll desperately miss:

English TV.
Little old men in tweed coats riding their bikes along the street.
Narrow boats on the canal.
London.
Lush cosmetics shop.
Watching little kids in cute English school uniforms file along the sidewalk to school.
The cathedrals.
The museums.
Market Day.
The slower pace of life.
Being so unique in my neighborhood.
Proper english breakfasts.
Political flexibility.
The Guardian!!!
Being surrounded by gorgeous, varied accents.
Sunday roasts.
Pubs.
Strong, local beers.
Women in hats at weddings.
Non old-lady Bingo.
The countryside.
Sunsets over the Fens.
Little pheasants running all around the fields.
Ancient houses all over the place.
Preserved historical buildings.
Pub quizzes.
Christmas carol services in a church older than my country.
Gargoyles.
Flowers blooming in winter.
Charity shops.
English Maternity care.
Documentaries galor on TV.
BBC Radio 4.
Good public transportation.
Closeness to Europe.
The cool antique shops.
Having a different perspective on US goings-on.
Greener greens than I've ever seen before.
Green in the winter, too.
Ghost walks & stories in local pubs, houses, etc.
The friendly relationship between mainstream medicine and non-traditional medicine.
The dressier type of clothing available.

There's millions more, but that's just off the top of my head...

I have read every post. I have been reading on this site for a few days now, but this is a great list! I am visiting England in two weeks to decide where we want to live (in-laws live in Holbeach)...and I can't wait! Thanks for sharing all of your good thoughts everyone!

Some of my favorite things about England (or should that be favourite?): 

Trains!!!  And public transportation in general.  I suppose if you come from a place with good connections (like NYC or something), it's not as noticeable.  I thought I'd die without my car before I actually moved here.  Now, I am thinking that I don't really need one ever again (and I don't even live in a city with a metro!).

Tea and biscuits are a daily occurrence, rather than an occasional luxury.

Being able to see what's really going on in the world, instead of sanitized corporate news.

BBC TV/radio, and Film 4 (it's free now!).

Nearly everyone knows how to read a proper topographic map, and you can buy them in any bookstore (unlike the States, where you usually have to get them from overpriced outdoor goods stores).

The hillwalking tradition.

Everythng everyone has said has made me SUPER excited about moving. I'm not actually moving until July '07, but I have been worried about it.  This has calmed me a bit because now I have so much to look forward to!!!!
Thank you all,
Daniela

Oooh...I will be moving over there in July 07 as well!
:-)

Wow, I don't think I've ever heard so many positive things said about this country.

Kudos!

Wow!!! I am thrilled and excited that my hubby has been transfered to the UK. We are moving in the summer!!!!What a great thread. Thanks.

English gardens
strawberry season
CREAM on everything is considered a MUST, not a bad thing for dieters
Free range eggs for free from my neighbors chickens
friendly neighbors
TEA - I love the tradition that you drink it all day if you want
It's okay to have a bit of caffeine if you are pregnant (not that I am)
prams have covers so you can still go out in any weather
hanging the washing on the line is normal and good for the environment
The amount of american programming on Sky - it's like being at home!
British documentaries are so fascinating
pubs
I live in a house that was built in 1850 that I LOVE
At home births are encouraged, not weird (again, I don't have kids, but am looking into it)
You don't have to go to university to have a good living
School hours for kids are more reasonable and similar to working hours (at least in the am)

taking a late sunday morning ramble to a lovely pub on the river to eat and drink off the hangover from the night before.

how i miss the rose and crown in wivenhoe.  one of the finer points of essex, id say.

I have eaten at the R&C in Wivenhoe! Got there by kayak LOL ... it IS a lovely, lively spot and I loved it. And the dog was allowed in the pub!

You wanted to hear good things, dear VNP.  Here are the last few paragraphs from your countryman Bill Bryson's book Notes from a Small Island.  He's about to pack up and return to the US, and has gone up into the Yorkshire Dales to say farewell to it all ...

[...]  Halfway down, I had my wife stop the car by a field gate. My favourite view in the world is there, and I got out to have a look. You can see almost the whole of Malhamdale; sheltered and snug between steep, imposing hills, with its arrow-straight drystone walls climbing up impossibly ambitious slopes, its clustered hamlets, its wonderful little two-room schoolhouse, the old church with its sycamores and tumbling tombstones, the roof of my local pub, and in the centre of it all, obscured by trees our old stone house, which itself is far older than my native land.
            It looked so peaceful and wonderful that I could almost have cried, and yet it was only a tiny part of this small, enchanted island. Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - Marmite, village fêtes, country lanes, people saying 'mustn't grumble', and 'I'm terribly sorry but', people apologizing to me when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, stinging nettles, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, crumpets, hot-water bottles as a necessity, drizzly Sundays - every bit of it.       
                     What a wondrous place this was - crazy as f***, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree. What other country, after all, could possibly have come up with place names like Tooting Bec and Farleigh Wallop, or a game like cricket that goes on for three days and never seems to start? Who else would think it not in the least odd to make a their judges wear little mops on their heads, compel the Lord Chancellor to sit on something called the Woolsack, or take pride in a naval hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy [...] What other nation in the world could possibly have given us at William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardeners' Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None, of course.
         How easily we lose sight of all this. What an enigma Britain will seem to historians when they look back on the second half of the twentieth century. Here is a country that fought and won and noble war, dismantled a mighty empire in a generally benign and enlightened way, created a far-seeing welfare state - in short, did nearly everything right - and then spent the rest of the century  looking on itself as a chronic failure. The fact is that this is still the best place in the world for most things - to post a letter, go for a walk, watch television, buy a book, venture out for a drink, go to a museum, use the bank, get lost, seek help, or stand on a hillside and take in a view.
         All of this came to me in the space of a lingering moment. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like it here. I like it more than I can tell you. And then I turned from the gate and got in the car and knew without doubt that I would be back.

And you'll be back too, VNP, and Rhia, and Lou, and Krissy, and so many of you good Americans!  And it will be our proud privilege to have you back ...

Howard

It is OUR privilege to visit such sweet, honest, hard-working GOOD people! I miss the country very much. This was such a very sweet post ...

Definitely many many many things about the UK to love and appreciate. As a goofy lost Yank one day while living there, I visited the local bakery. Went right to the counter, as we do here in the States, and began to pick and choose what I wanted even though there were a line of people on the right. No numbers. And I was so busy picking and choosing (in my head) that I didn't even notice that there was a line that people were waiting on. After a few minutes, I began to look around for the numbers and there were none. I finally noticed the line and saw the counter lady call the next person waiting patiently. It was then I realized my goof and said aloud 'OH!' and went and stood in the line and the counter lady AND the people on line all shoooshed me over politely to MY place in line, which was next and the lady said, so sweetly, "It's alright love! I had my eye on you! You're up next!" LOL What a goof.

the best thing for me here is the feeling of total and complete freedom. i know no one here that i knew before, except the boyfriend... so if i don't want people to know about my past, they dont know. i was able to truely start over. i'm not sure if i can feel this bliss any other way.

Turkish Delight.

Did you know there's only like 129 calories in one of those chocolate covered Turkish Delight bars (about the size of a Chunky bar for those who haven't crossed the pond or have been exposed to this magical sweet yet)?

Off Topic discussion about wedding cake has been moved here: http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=38593.0