Kate Orson says she moved abroad from Glasgow to avoid Scotland’s ‘dark and depressing’ winters
A British expat in Italy who left Scotland to escape the wet weather and dark winters for a year-long “adventure” with her husband ended up living abroad for nearly two decades.
Kate Orson, 45, who is originally from Hampshire, lives in the rural town of Greve south of Florence, in the mountainous region of Chianti in Tuscany, with her daughter, 13, and husband.
When the couple first moved abroad from Glasgow, they went to Vietnam and then Switzerland before settling down in Tuscany.
“In Glasgow, it rains every day,” she said. “And the winters I found quite dark and depressing.
“I had this idea in my mind to go abroad for an adventure. My husband had been living in Glasgow for a long time and he was really up for it.
“Our thought was we’d go for a year or two, just as an adventure, and then come back. But I’ve just never gone back.”
Ms Orson said her husband initially took on a teaching role in Vietnam, where the pair lived for four years before moving to Switzerland.
Nine years later, they moved to Chianti, where they have lived for six years. Her husband teaches on the outskirts of Florence while Ms Orson works as an author and freelance writer focusing on health, wellbeing and spirituality.
“We’re right on the edge [of the town], so we’re surrounded by olive groves and forest,” she said. “There’s no other houses right next to us.
“Obviously, in Italy, there is wonderful food, and there’s good weather.
“Out in the countryside, it’s more of a traditional life. They have lots of little, traditional shops, family businesses. It’s quite nice for a slower pace, more traditional way of living.”
But Ms Orson warned that moving to the Italian countryside, including tourist hotspots popular among British visitors, was not always as dreamy as Britons might expect.
She pointed out that during her time abroad she had missed the British way of life.
“Maybe this is me and my experience, but when you’ve lived somewhere for a long time like the UK, where the weather’s bad and stuff, people idolise the places they go on holiday to. They think: ‘Oh Italy, it must be so wonderful to live in Italy.’
“When you actually live in the country, it’s quite different. It’s not a holiday – you don’t get a holiday feeling.
“And when it comes to things like the weather, in England, you might think ‘I’ll go somewhere with better weather.’ But actually it can be really hot in the summer and for most British people it’s quite unbearable.”
Ms Orson also said she missed being close to friends and family, as well as the “homeyness of things being in your own language, going to the cinema or some kind of event that’s in English”.
“I miss the life I never led, where you might go and see your parents on a weekend, and then go back to your life. Here it’s more intense. When family come, they come for a week, or I’ll go back for a week.”
Ms Orson added that she had left Scotland “because it was grey and dark, but I actually realised through the process of moving to a hot place, that it was a lot to do with my own mental health and stuff I had gone through in my life. I think I was projecting stuff onto the cold and the grey when actually I had some struggles I needed to work through.
“But maybe it is a dream for some people and they are happier living abroad.”
The mother of one said she now lives in a villa in Chianti with her daughter and husband which is divided into three parts and shared with two other groups of residents.
But she said that house prices in her area were not far off prices in the UK because she lived in close proximity to Florence.
“When you’re near a big city in Italy, it’s quite comparable to the UK,” she said.
“But if you went to the south of Italy, or deeper into the countryside, further away from the cities, then it would be much cheaper and what you can get is more beautiful, like a lovely old house.”