The grass isn’t greener on the other side

There are a number of reasons why people choose to live abroad. The lifestyle, escape from the rat race, to learn and embrace a new culture and the sun. There are other reasons too, like the old chestnut that this country is going to the dogs – the belief that ‘the grass is greener on the other side’ – but those I would suggest are the main ones. Cards on the table, I’ve packed in full time work forever and I would certainly like to spend more time abroad, preferably in the Greek islands, and enjoy the more regular rays of the sun. But living abroad? Well, each to their own.

I know a good few people who have left the UK to live abroad and only a few regret it. The one consistent link between those who have happily emigrated is that not one of them has left on the dubious grounds that Britain is going to hell in a handcart. They have all gone for positive reasons, not to leave for somewhere less worse, but to somewhere they really want to be. I know others who have left because of a perception that this country is going downhill and nowhere else is. Only in this country, it would appear, is society in an advanced state of collapse, that nothing works and everyone is on the take. I call this the Daily Mail gambit. And the grass is greener brigade live totally British lives abroad. Now I can completely understand the need for the Brit abroad for HP Sauce, Marmite and Earl Grey tea and the love for these things won’t go away simply by moving away but to spend your time, for example, in a traditional British pub, packed with John Smiths and Magners Cider, on the Spanish Costas or the Greek islands, is not exactly embracing a new lifestyle. My experience of Spain, listening to ex pats complaining about how Britain is going downhill but living wholly British lives in the sun, suggests some of them have missed the point.

In Corfu this winter, I met some Brits who have taken the plunge and moved to the island on a permanent basis. They have totally embraced the Greek culture, are learning the language (good luck with that one!) and live within a community rather than creating a British ghetto. And guess what? They love the locals and the locals love them. They look out for each other. I met several Brits in different parts of the island and not one of them had a single bad word about Britain, no attempt to justify their actions other than they wanted a different lifestyle experience.

Very different to the “I’d leave this country tomorrow if I could” on the grounds that Britain is crap and the Spanish Costas are perfect. Bits of Britain are crap – the fact that we have hundreds of thousands of people surviving only because of food banks, we have issues with immigration, there are still over two million people who are unemployed and millions more surviving on little more than the minimum wage and an ageing population – but everywhere else has these problems too and worse. Like in Spain and Greece.

On a perfect Sunday morning in Britain, like today, with the sun shining brightly and barely a cloud in the sky, I don’t think there are many better places to live. But it really is a matter of taste. The sun shines brighter in other countries but the grass definitely isn’t greener. It’s what you make it.