5 Things Canada Does Which England Might Want To Consider

I love Canada, and I love England, too. I’ve been blessed to live in both, and have had some wonderful experiences in each. That said, much like my previous post about things that I love about England, there are things that I found myself wishing were more like Canada while I lived there. I recognise that that’s why we travel, to get away from the things that are like home, but I do think England could benefit from these few things.

#1: Waiting for Cabs

This is the single thing that really got my goat about living in England. In Canada when you order a cab, you’ll be given a time frame. You might have to wait twenty minutes, even an hour if they’re busy, but if you’re willing to wait they will send the cab. In England, if the wait was longer than fifteen minutes, there wasn’t a cab within a certain radius, you called from a bar, or from a movie theater, the company wouldn’t even bother sending a cab. It’s anxiety inducing, especially when you’re a four hour walk from home and your phone is dying! True story!

#2: Weatherproofing Buildings

I do understand that in an age of climate change, buildings that were constructed in the early sixteenth century just won’t hold up against snow or heat. That said, several buildings on my local high street flooded after a rain storm that as far as I could tell, wasn’t out of the ordinary for England. A good bit of weatherproofing would save those buildings for generations to come.

#3: Combined Faucets

There are still a lot of faucets in England which have two separate taps for hot and cold water. It might seem cute and historical but I can’t recall a single time I haven’t burned myself trying to wash my hands using those taps. For all the safety measures that I see in England, combining the taps so that the water doesn’t scald the user seems like a no-brainer.

#4: Women’s Shoe Sizes Above 9

I went shoe shopping only once while I was in England. I wanted something cute to go with a dress I recently bought, and upon asking for a ten or eleven in a particularly nice pair of heels I was expecting to be told that they did not have my size. I’m used to it; in Canada cute heels that fit me are hard to find. The person helping me gave me a bemused look and asked, “In men’s?” Confused, I clarified. “No,” I said, “I mean do you have a size ten in this set of heels?” I was then informed that women’s shoe sizes stopped at nine in the UK, and any sizes above that would be in the men’s section. I have struggled with my femininity and size most of my life, so being told that an entire bloc of countries considered my feet literally too unladylike to exist was a bit disheartening.

#5: Dealing With Snow Appropriately

I was living in England during the storm they called the Beast from the East, and I can tell you first hand, most of the problems don’t come from the snow. They come from people freaking out about the snow. I’ll be making a post about this experience later, but in brief there were a lot of English people who did not know the first thing about driving in the snow, and who should not have attempted it. There were a lot of near misses, and a lot of accidents. There were also a shocking amount of people who decided to stock up on bread during the storm, rather than perhaps canned goods or bottled water before hand.

Despite all these things, I definitely love England, it was a great place to live and I’m lucky to have done so, and to balance this out be sure to check out my previous post: 5 Things England Does Which Canada Might Want to Consider!