Hi. I'm Benjamin, and this is my dog, Bombay. My job, right, I coach people all around the
world in improving their written and their spoken communication. This video is aimed
at people who are thinking of moving to an English-speaking country. I live in the UK,
and in this video I'm going to be talking about why I love living here to help you decide
if it's a country you would like to live in too.
One of the things I love most about the UK is the landscape. I noticed the landscape
when I was living in Spain and I returned to the UK. You noticed how green and lush
the land was. There's a famous hymn, "Jerusalem", which talks about the green and pleasant land
of England. Now, just looking out, we've got green hills, we've got lovely old trees, we've
got the sea, the sky, the clouds are always looking different, the weather's always changing,
and the weather is actually something that kind of makes... It's part of our identity.
You know, it's not like it's always the same. Like, you go to Los Angeles, it's always sunny,
but here you never know what it's going to be. Like, sometimes in the summer it's kind
of grey and rainy a lot of the time, and then suddenly it's sunny. Woo-hoo, we've got a
day of summer. The winters, they aren't, like, really, really cold like they are in Canada,
for example, but it always gives us something to talk about. You can always talk about the
weather.
So, just going back to the landscape of the UK. So, it's quite... It's quite a small country,
and there's quite high population density in some of the more urban areas, but you come
out to the national parks. There's, I think, around seven national parks in England. I
live down in Devon in the southwest of England, and the national parks and the coastlines
- really, really stunning and beautiful. So, let's go for a little walk and see what we
can see.
So, if you're moving to the UK for some great job, the chances are that the job will be
based in a large metropolis like London or Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, perhaps Leeds
or Cardiff, perhaps, Edinburgh, Glasgow. And there's a lot to do in those towns and cities.
That's the scope of another video. I'm going to talk to you about what I love doing down
here. So, here we are. We're on the North Devon coast. Devon, it's down in the, like,
the southwest. Imagine it as, like, the boot of the UK, like a shoe. It looks like a shoe
sticking out. And no Bombay, don't be naughty. So, just looking out, there's so many things
that I love doing here. I can see down there, edge of the water, there are some boats. Excuse
me. So, I keep a boat there in the summer, a little wooden dinghy. We take my son sailing.
And then I can take Bombay for a walk on the beach down there, dog-friendly beach. A bit
further around, there's a cricket pitch, gorgeous cricket pitch. It's right on the edge of the
water. Lovely views out to sea. And then there's another river. So, this is... This is called
the River Torridge here, and it's called a confluence, a confluence joining together
of two rivers. That's the River Tor up there, two North Devon rivers. So, very exciting
sailing out in the middle there. And then we've got Appledore over there, which is a
pretty little village town. And in the summer, at high tide, you can catch a boat between
Appledore and Innstone, which is quite a nice thing to do. And all the kids, when it's at
high tide, they jump into the water and they catch crabs and put them back in again. So,
it's a lovely place to come and visit. There's not a huge amount of industry right here.
Over there, you can see a ship building yard in Appledore, but, you know, there's not a
huge amount of activity. But having said all of that, you know, it's much more possible
these days to work remotely. So, if you are coming to the UK, you don't necessarily - well,
it depends on the job, but you could live out of London and maybe go up a couple of
days a week. These are discussions that have to be had with employers. But, yeah, I love
living here. And there's another village over there, and there's a church service every
fortnight, and we walk across the fields to that. And there's a nice pub in the village.
When you're out in nature, it's great. I spend a lot of time out on the water. So, looking
further, you can see, like, the really good surfing beaches of North Devon, like Croyd
and Puttsburgh and Saunton. That's sort of out there in the distance. And there's another
surfing beach over that way called Westwood Hoe. And actually, there's some quite good
surf today. So, even though it's November, I'm probably going to be going in and getting
rather cold.
So, the longer you live in a place, the more connections and associations you make, the
more you have memories of places. So, when you pass through a town, you go, "Ah, I remember
when this happened." And the longer you're in a place, the more friends you make. Now,
children are obviously great ways of becoming part of a community because you go to the
school, and you meet the other parents, and you go to birthday parties. But if you're
coming to the UK, you don't have children, you've got to think about getting out there.
You've got to think, "Okay, I've got work, I've got my job, but I also need to have a
life and I need to integrate into society. So, what are the activities that I'm going
to be involved in?" Maybe outside, maybe joining some club, but it's really important to, you
know, make some friends in the community. So, you know, you go down into the village
and you can say, "Hello, Mr. Da-da-da. Hi, Mrs." or first name basis. Yeah, that makes
life awesome.
Here we are in Devon. This is where I grew up. It's where, like, home is for me. And
obviously it's one of my favourite places, but there are lots of other great places in
the UK. Further west, we've got Cornwall, which is, you know, known as a tourist destination.
It's mainly along the coastline that people go to more, the beach resorts. Lovely place
to visit. I like Falmouth down on the south coast, one of my favourite places. But you
go even further down towards Land's End, you've got lovely little fishing ports like Mousehole,
which is spelt "mouse hole". I've covered that in another Pronounced Weird Places Names
video. So, then moving kind of eastwards. So, here we are in Devon. Devon's quite a
big county. It's, you know, it's a dairy farming. So, lots of green hills and cows and sheep.
You go a bit further and then Somerset is quite flat. They play cricket there. They
make cider. A bit down, you've got Dorset. That's where my wife's family's from. Lovely
county. I think apart from Cornwall, it's the only county in England not to have a motorway
through it. And then, in my mind, things start to get a little bit more serious as you move
towards London and pace of life quickens up a little bit. It's a bit more built up, although
you do get areas like the New Forest, which are beautiful. And then London, lots going
on in London. A lot of culture. A lot of different nationalities and opportunities and work etc.
And then you've got East Anglia and there's some really nice bits there. Quite well connected
to London via the train. And then heading north, actually, well, further west, Wales.
I recently discovered Wales. I haven't really been there much before, and Wales is beautiful.
You've got Welsh as well, which is spoken there, so a second language that some people
in Wales, their first language is Welsh. Big cities, they've got opportunities like Birmingham,
as I said, and Manchester. And then other, like, beautiful places to visit. Like, there's
some great places in Scotland. But yeah, like, I'm sure we'll get some comments in this video
about where your favourite places are in the UK. Sorry, my dog's kind of whining. Bombay.
But I guess my general message from this video is, you know, it's a lovely place. You know,
we'll have different politicians probably by the time you watch this video in a different
kind of situation, so I'm not going to comment on that. But there's lots to do here. It's...
The weather's always changing. There's a lovely landscape. And if all that appeals and you're
in a sector like IT, medicine, then get in contact with me and I may be able to help
you further your career in the UK. My website is www.honeyourenglish.com. But otherwise,
thank you very much for watching this video. I really appreciate my viewers and subscribers.
If you like these kind of videos, then press subscribe, ring the bell, and I'll see you
in the next video. Well done, Bombay.