Grass is greener on the other side

Guest thingy today is regarding a couple who plan to move from one side of a river to the other. From England to Scotland. Not exactly Mexico to Texas perhaps but they think they will face the same cultural and economic gains.

I went through the same process some five years ago. The cliche comment, I suppose, is And Never Regretted It. For us - cliche or no, it is the plain truth. I came here because I thought devolution would soon lead on to independence. From time spent working and on many holidays at the very top right hand corner of England, I knew I could endure any problems that London-based friends recounted to me.

It is just the quality of life. Nothing political. No 'we wuz robbed over the oil' sympathy. The choice and range of food is stupendous. I have no need to rail against Tesco; we shop at farm shops where the produce still has the earth on it or is that dark colour that properly treated meat has. No supermarket red lights there. I have had need to try the medical services both at routine GP and blue lights to A & E. Far far more satisfactory than the GP I had who communicated by speaking to his wife in a mix of Arabic and German and she then spoke to me. I knew enough of both to frame my questions but I was almost unique. My visit there to A & E at the time the ticker went slow kept me on a trolley for 5 hours with no more than 2 aspirin.

The people are very friendly. Within a year almost every tradesman in the village knew us by christian and surname, where we lived and recognised my dog as well. The chemist knows my weaknesses and medication better than I do. The GP recently gave me prescripton at a very elevated strength to short-circuit a deep deep depression. The chemist would not let me have it until he had checked with the GP that there had been no mistake and we both knew what might be a side effect. Dahn sarf, all one might expect was that the assistant in the chemists would wave the bottle of Night Nurse roughly in the direction of the trained person and that was all they cared.

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Mind you, I suppose coming from a wooden hut in Northumberland where even the frost freezes, Scotland will be an improvement