Hi All,
My dream, along with many others I'm sure, is to move out of busy, stinky London and live in the country. I live in a tiny 2 bed flat, have 2 kids (3 if you include my hubby!) and a mad Jack Russel. My in-laws have a lovely farm house in France and my daughter just blossoms there. She loves the open space, the relaxed pace of it all and as a result spends every school holiday there. I too love it tremendously as does my hubby. We hate coming home, and can feel the stress creeping back getting in the car to come home! I've been looking at houses on the net about 2 1/2 hours from London but was wondering if living in the country is as lovely as cold, smelly France? (the farm house is in the north and next to the stinkiest farm ever!) We are quiet people, don't go out much and will certainly not miss London life, I hate it. I long for the quiet. So my questions are, Has anyone on here done it? did it work out or end in disaster? what do country dwellers really think of city folk? should i forget the dream or gasp it with both hands? We are in our early thirties and I worry that It will be something I regret if I don't give it a try.
Sam x
Hi samela,
Can understand your need for more space and ' to live the dream ', the country
is a wonderful place to live in - there is no doubt. Will say , if you don't want ' smelly '
you'd better think again, it's full of dairy and pig farms usually. Quiet like the quick wiff of
pigs - preferably when passing in the car . Now cow dung is sweet in comparison, especialy
when fresh , they do get noisy when needing to be milked [ who wouldn't ] and you can even hear
them munching on kale all night. I'm sorry if this sounds flippant, but I am seriously wondering
where your ideal home would be ?
floss x
We did it 14 years ago. Rounds and swingabouts. Good and bad. Certainly quieter in terms of people and traffic. Pigs smell sweet next to hundreds of tons of chicken bedding.
Downside, 10 miles to nearest shops, so making a list is essential.
Easier to answer specific questions than to generalise.
Would we move back? No.
Would we sell the garden for houses and move to a smaller place in the country? Fast as greased lighning.
Hi Samela,
I moved to the country.
In short,life is very different.
Long trip to the supermarket.Local shops tend to be expensive.
Will you miss your friends?You have young children so you should be able to make friends via the school
No takeaways...still miss my Friday night Chinese :)
Locals will be a mix,some do not like incomers....others are fine with it.........
Some think only they and their relatives have a right to live in the area :)
Banking has to be planned,so does travel,A trip to hospital?Time consuming.
Lots of good things about country life,A wonderful environment and yes,sometimes very smelly.
I have never lived in London,you do not seem very happy with it so what have you to lose?
Maybe make a list of the pros and cons.
I think country life is wonderful for children.
Hope things work out well for you. :)
Maybe a sort of half measure would suit you better, at least to begin with.
I live in a village on the edge of Stoke on Trent. We have fields behind our house and around the perimeter of the village, and are probably classed as semi-rural. Our nearest supermarket is 5 mins by car and nearest town about 10 mins by car. The opposite way is countryside leading to the Staffordshire Moorland and Peak District.
You don't necessarily need to go the whole hog to get a complete change of livestyle, and maybe this way would be less of a culture shock.
You will love it the kids will be able to watch the rabbits eating your growing veg, the deer eating your shrubs, the badger digging up your lawn and the fox eating your chickens.
But the friendly meetups with your banjo playing neighbour and his wife/sister/mother/aunt will make up for your loss of garden.
You will also benefit from your kids leaving home at an early age and going back to town. (well you would not want them breeding with the neighbours) .
Home cooking whether you like it or not. As you will not be able to feed your family on your husbands wages which will be minimum pay, unless he commutes and spends a 3 or 4 grand a year on fares.
Plenty of time for you to take a lover, as the old man will be off at sparrowfart and might get home before 9.00pm
Go for it, but loose your london accent as nobody trusts a crafty cockney also 2.1/2 hours from London is still London.
As long as you don't go in all rosy-eyed & innocent.
I've always lived in the outer London suburbs, but my in-laws and my brother-in-law both moved to the country in retirement. As the others have said, the logistics of life - 10 miles to the shops, buses twice a day, doctors won't always come up your hill in a snow-storm - are very different.
Personally, if I were your age and were able to, I wouldn't be on here asking - I'd be doing it!
But I didn't.... And you're on here asking, so are you even 75% sure?
Follow blisters' advice, perhaps? But if you want it that much, you probably will regret it if you don't try it. Just be prepared to be amazed if it works, not bitter if it doesn't....
Ace's advise is very good, after all, he has the experience with the rednecks next door and he seems to travel a lot to London for work and every time I go on holiday and someone is asked where do you come from, they always come from London even though they would live a radious of up to 50 miles away. ??? ;D ;D ;D
have lived in wiltshire all my life surrounded by farming industry and i wouldn't change it for the world i cant compare it to city living as i obviously haven't done it and wouldn't for love nor money ;D
my experience's of a bumpkin life as follows:
1. it doesn't stink to high heaven as much as you may think and even on the odd day that it does it will no doubt be better than breathing in car fumes all day.
2. i have a choice of shops within 25 mins walk or 5 mins by car/regular buses.....hell even lidl's managed to find us :o
3. locals in my opinion tend only not to like people that come in and buy up properties and then use them only for a couple of weekends a year as holiday homes which in turn forces local people out of the market.....however i know several people who have made their homes here who wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city such as yourself and have never heard anyone slating them for wanting a better quality of life for themselves
4. catching rabbits eating your veg is better than catching chavs burning down your shed ;D
5. last but not least i dont have six fingers nor wonky eyes nor do i play the banjo and i dont fornicate with family members ;D ;D ;D ;D (i've seen the morris dancing pictures ace!!!!)
better to regret thing's you have done than to regret the thing's you haven't.
whatever you decide good luck with it!
I'm a dab hand on the banjo, well I do work in the back of beyond. find the little brown bit in the middle taken when we were in the middle of redesigning the garden.
Only joking earlier you are only here once make the most of it.
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=50.654195~-1.447663&style=a&lvl=15&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1 (http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=50.654195~-1.447663&style=a&lvl=15&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1)
mike 77,
You have got it in a ' nut shell '' I lived in Devon for 17 yrs and left for all the right
reasons, family ! more grandchildren than we could accommadate -- so we moved to
be nearer them. We were nearing sixty with too many friends leaving this life and us,
not ready ! It has been rewarding beyond our expectations, yes we missed a lot -- at
first, the buzzards flying overhead, the seagulls coming home at night, places we took our famillies
-- that we rarely visited on our own, now we have great trips into the countryside or get a 20min
train to London.
Horses for courses -- I would say ' live your dream ' at an age that you can addapt to a new
environment, change it again if you need too -- life is too short to worry about ' smells '
and ' noises ' . Relax and go forward, your kids will survive whatever you do !
kind wishes, floss x
Sorry Ace , don't understand ? ::)
What's that about the brown bit ? ;D
bloody hell ace! thats some sort of size garden :o :o
and don't worry twas all taken in jest!! always look forward to reading your post's as they always raise a smile ;D
if you zoom in on the centre of the pic flossy you can see ace's garden! if you look really closely you can see him in his rocking chair on the porch with a bottle of bourbon ;D ;D
The countryside can be quite isolating, especially if you come new to an area and don't have connections there. Even if you're not wildly sociable, it could get to you after a while. It can also reduce your kids' opportunities for a social life, especially if you live outside of a village and they can't get anywhere at all without a lift from you.
Also, depending on where you go and how old your kids are, they (even more than you) could have the experience of being 'outsiders' and it is often non-negotiable, i.e. even after years in the area you can still be treated as 'not one of us'.
I had this experience when we moved from Manchester to Mid Wales when I was 7. I never, ever became a real local! I know lots of other people who had the same experience, though of course it's probly worse if you move to Wales or Scotland, where they're not reliably friendly towards the English. People can be very friendly to holiday makers, but move there, and it's quite different... same in Cornwall.
On the other hand, I adored living in the country and I missed it badly during my 15 years in London! There are plenty of pros to a small community, especially with young children. The disadvantages get worse as they get older. I was *desperate* to get out of Mid Wales by the time I was a teenager. We were 2 miles from a village, 7 miles from a town, very limited public transport and none at all within 2 miles. As a teenager, you go stir-crazy...
Friends of mine with two small children moved to Brittany, and loved it initially. But my friend said she'd been watching the local youths, hanging around behind the local supermarket getting drunk, with NOwhere else to go, and suddenly realised it was a stifling place to be a teenager, and now thinks of moving back to London.
Myself and my husband have just done the halfway-option. We've moved to Reading, and strangely enough, compared with Lewisham, it *feels* like the countryside! We pay the same rent for a 2-bed, 2-sitting room house with garden, as we did for 1-bed flat in Nunhead. We can get into London super-fast when we want to (though, rather expensively - by train) and yet we're a ten-minute walk from the Thames pathway and there's proper countryside close by. And now I have my back garden allotment, I have a whole outdoors life that I didn't have in London. We're actually better off for shops than we were in London, where it was a bus journey to Peckham High Street or the local giant Sainsburys, or some very crummy local corner shops.
However, everyone reading this thread must be sworn to secrecy! If the word gets out, everyone will move to Reading! So, shush! And let's keep up the pretense that it's ugly, characterless, yawningly provincial, and best seen as a blur from a high speed train.
I'm sooooooooo glad to be out of London.
Most of life is best seen as a blur... the train ride is optional!! ;D
My ex-partner (scarred by his upbringing as an outsider in Cornwall, coincidentally) only liked the countryside when 'it's going past the window quickly'. :D
Samela, if you want to move into the countryside, come to North Wales, it's full of southerners who wanted to get out of London! I was born and brought up in an inner city and hated every minute of it. By the age of twenty, I'd had enough and moved out. Never once regretted my choice, but it doesn't work for everyone, I know plenty of people who have tried it and hated the life. Bear in mind, if you move out of London and you regret it, will you be able to afford to move back?
As a countryman for most of my 79 years, I will give you a few pointers to getting on well with the locals.
Do be respectful to all.
Do, when you meet someone along the way, look them straight in the face and greet them.
Do be friendly.
Do offer your help if someone has a problem.
Don't talk about people behind their back, you may be talking to a relation.
Don't put people down.
Don't try to show how well off you are.
Don't try to be superior.
I am a retired decorator, one of my best customers was a very unassuming chap, he was the local millionaire. Another was a retired Gent living in the next village, he was formerly the Managing Director and chief shareholder in a large printers and stationers in the nearby town. Things are not always what they seem.
Quote from: Larkshall on January 19, 2009, 21:49:45
Do be respectful to all.
Do, when you meet someone along the way, look them straight in the face and greet them.
Do be friendly.
Do offer your help if someone has a problem.
Don't talk about people behind their back, you may be talking to a relation.
Don't put people down.
Don't try to show how well off you are.
Don't try to be superior.
Don't forget to touch your forelock and grovel to the squire ;D
Samela, we moved to the coast from Essex 21mths ago, it is a nice place BUT we have put our bungalow up for sale, we do not feel at all happy here i am very lonely the peeps here do not seem to want to speak to strangers at all.
Of course you are much younger & have children so you would be excepted very quickly, Want to buy a bungalow LOL LOL.. Much quieter & slower which is nice, if only the natives were friendly.
One of the perks.
My daily dog walk :)
Ooh lovely pic, Betula! Where are you? Reminds me of Herefordshire...
By the way, I hope I don't offend any Welsh or Scottish people with my remarks about difficulties for English people in those countries. As with everything in life, the majority of people are helpful and nice, it's just a minority that can make life difficult. But the child's social experience is more brutal; where an unfriendly adult might just be abrupt, your fellow seven-year-old will come right out and kick you in the shins. :S
My parents were quite shocked when they heard my (and my brother's) stories years later - they hadn't been aware of the half of it...
But of course that was only one part of it, I loved Mid Wales, and living in the hills, having our garden and our chickens, a river running by at the bottom of the field (most soothing sound ever) and the birds, the trees, rambling old houses, space to run around - and the peace and quiet. It's tough to make the choice, but I'm very happy with our compromise. No London Transport! What a huge improvement in my life! :D
I think a big thing to consider is if you feel have to earn a good salary to maintain a certain standard of living. I commute up to 3hrs a day when I go into the office as there are no jobs for my skills in my local semi-rural area ( I wish I'd trained as a solicitor or something!) . If I were to take a local job I would at best earn about half of what I do now, and it would be a similar level of stress and responsibility, I could get a less stressful job locally and earn about a third.
Tough decision, but may have to be taken soon.
I have occasionally had local jobs, but economic drivers, takeovers etc have scuppered those & there tend to be only one or two "big" companies in the area, so if they are not taking on, it's trecking long distances to the nearest employment area.
Try renting out your city property ( if it's yours) and renting in the country first, see if you like the change before committing. Personally I get lack of green fever everytime I have to go to London - takes about 4hrs to set in!
Hi,
There is a lot of good ideas here, lots for you to think about, I do understand how you feel too, the countryside is such a wonderful place, mind you I love London too but then I don't live there.
I live in Hampshire and I would suggest similar to others, try moving away but not so far at first.
My OH works in London (45mins by train) and we have the rural life. That way you could do your move gradually, if your family are still in London you would not be too far away, and you would not be losing your friends either. There are lovely villages all around London, doesn't matter which direction, one advantage of this way is closeness to ferries to escapt to France!
I would say follow your dreams, there is no point wishing you had done it in later life.
The only thing I would say is once they get to teenage years your children are best with some sort of public transport otherwise you are forever being the taxi! It is worth having that in your choice as it comes sooner than you think.
Am excited for you.
T.
Wow, what can I say! thank you all sooooo much for your advice.
Ace, I love your replies, you really make me laugh LOL I thought I was being brave moving 2 1/2 hours from London... Seems quite far to me! ;D
Betula, thanks for pointing out the obvious things that I hadn't even considered, banks, shopping, Dr's and NO takeaways.... eeeeekkkkk and wow, what a picture!
Mike77, sooooo true about the chav's, this area's full of hoodies
Hellohelenhere, you've really given me something else to think about with the kids. It's good to hear it from someone who been there and done it.
Larkshall, thank you for you're wonderful advice
froglets, salary is our major problem. My husband can work from any of the 200 office throughout the country but we don't want to live miles away from his work as neither of us want him to be commuting for hours everyday.
Tulipa, also fab advice. Being close to family and flights/ferry's to France is also important to us.
Gosh, there's so much to think about. Thanks everone for your help. Despite it being a big change, you all seem to love it so maybe I will too :)
Sam x
(http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq181/munds77/090120091036.jpg)
one of my many dog walks!
Wish there was a starbucks at the top of this hill ;DView over the village.
i wish there had been a starbucks when i took that photo betula.....was bloody freezing.
the whole canal was frozen solid something i haven't seen in years the only bits that weren't were the lock mouths.
great hangover cure though :D
I think the one definite is that if you hate living in London, you must leave. Precisely where to go is now the question.
We chose Reading for logistical reasons; I looked at a train map to see where we could go where we could still get to London easily and be within reach of major airports - my husband is a musician and travels a lot. It also puts me much closer to my parents, in the Cotswolds.
Then I looked up rental prices, and discovered that it's waaaaaay cheaper than London - Slough, which is the next town in towards London, is much pricier.
Then we visited, and liked it a lot, and simply can't understand why Londoners all say 'ugh! Reading' as though it's the arse-end of the universe. It has two rivers and lots of canal running through it, for a start, and I do like a town with water!
We don't know people here, bar one friend who lives nearby. But I've got involved with the local LETs organisation and we're meeting people that way, and also through musical connections. We're not madly sociable, we don't go to pubs and so forth, so it's not really an issue for us - plus we have a social life in London which is near enough to maintain.
You'd need to move more towards the south coast, for getting to France I guess? If you go by ferry? But other than that, I reckon a similar compromise would work for you. If you can find a small town that you like, where you can afford to live, where your husband's company has a branch, and where you still have a lifeline to London if that's important... and you can live on the outskirts of the town, perhaps, so you pretty much are in the countryside - wouldn't that tick all the boxes?
When I was young, we moved around quite a lot as my Dad worked on power station construction, and lived in villages or small towns. As we kids approached teens, parents moved to a larger town, so we wouldn't all die of boredom. The following move, to the smallest village yet, was a great relief to all of us.
I live in a village now, after several years in and around towns. One of my teenagers can't wait to get out, mainly because of the problems of transport to meet friends. The others are perfectly happy here.
It's about 8 miles to the nearest towns, but an easy walk to the local primary school, doctors and village shops. Banking and grocery shopping mostly done online. Nearest takeaways 5-10mins away in next village. Various activities for different age groups in the village hall.
But 20 mins to the hospital, and when we needed an ambulance it took nearly 40 minutes. (First response paramedic took 8 mins).
Buses once an hour, and take ages to reach town by the time they've looped though all the other villages. Somehow, it's always 58 minutes till the next bus when it's cold and one of the kids needs to get home :-X
Sally
MIKE77,
Great picture.you can almost feel the cold just looking at it. :)
We moved from Leeds to Otley 2 1/2 years ago. I must say I love it out here in Wharfedale. We can go to the 'big city' if we want but I have found that you can get just about everything you want from local suppliers. Things may be more expensive, but then you don't have the hassle of lots of traffic/petrol and people get to know you.
It has take a couple of years for both of us to start making friends locally - but then we are here for the long run...
There are so many benefits:
Lots of cheap/free manure
Cheap firewood
No one minds you keeping a cockerel!
A bit slower pace of life
I can see Ilkley Moor from my back garden!
Lots of walks for the dog.
Within a few miles we have some really beautiful walking country.
Otely has quite a thriving community too with lots of events: Walking festival, Beer Festival, Folk Festival, Victorian Fayre, Farmers Market...
The house is pretty small, but the garden is long and there is room to build an extension (when one of us wins the lottery).
I now run my business from a wooden shed in the garden - with my pot-bellied stove to keep me warm as I write my programs. In the summer I have the door open and watch can my veg grow. What more could a boy want?
What do I miss - er, nothing!
I agree with Hellohelenhere, especially her last paragraph.
A village or a small market town would probably tick all the boxes but live on the outskirts, not where you are likely to encounter the binge drinking brigade on Friday and Saturday nights.
You may also wish to consider schools for your children and may find this helpful when deciding where to go.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/parentpower/league_tables.php
I have always lived in a village with beautiful countryside. There is a class structure though in those I have lived in but it doesn't bother me too much. The main thing for me is opening my curtains every morning and seeing these views.
(http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x311/7stephenson/house%20views/viewfromhouse.jpg)
(http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x311/7stephenson/house%20views/ViewacrossTillValley.jpg)
(http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x311/7stephenson/house%20views/backgarden.jpg)
Good point that Pauline makes, about small towns at the weekend! City dwellers are sometimes amazed at the bedlam - small towns can be like the Wild West on a Saturday night. All the local youth concentrated in a few bars and maybe a single 'night club', and much drink taken...
Newtown, Powys, hit the headlines a few years back for their Santa Fun Run that turned into a mass brawl: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/4081415.stm
:D
Lovely pics Pauline.Another country pic for you.Thought people on this site may like it ;D
Quote from: ACE on January 19, 2009, 22:09:04
Don't forget to touch your forelock and grovel to the squire ;D
Sorry Ace, I grovel to no one. I treat all as equals, be they Foreign Princes or Down and Outs. In 80 years I have had little trouble with it.
I agree with Larkshall.
I did the move the other way, Cornwall to London. Found life very strange. I did think that the LBC radio Sunday night program was a set up and probably a comedy sketch. The discussion was always about sexual problems. The wife and I used to laugh about it. It was the way people were then. Everything and everyone seemed to be so up front. I was told things about people I met within 5 minutes that I knew it would take years to find out at my old "home". Funnily enough no one spoke on the tube and eye contact was an absolute no no.
Don't get me wrong I liked a lot of the people I met but I suffered from information overload. So bear in mind that to some people a simple hello and a discussion about the weather is broaching on a week long residential course.
As an example I used to go to a small garage in my village to fix the car (well on old banger I had bought there) I could spend 20 minutes talking about seemingly nothing just to get a light bulb. Even now when I go back I have to be careful not to be too up front.
My wife's family were"incomers" in a nearby village but they were soon part of the community without even trying.
If you go there looking for the squire you will find him and his family, problem is they will be as far away from the other residents as you are ::).
If you really find city living unbearable then I would suggest that you do it But remember don't scare the locals 8).
Bill
Hi All,
Wow, what response! ta very much. You've all given me lots to think about.
Mike77, your photo.... WOW it's beautiful
Paulins7, your photo too is beautiful. How about swapping houses and moving into my flat in London and I'll move to your house....????? :)
Everyones given me fab advice and lots to think about. Been looking at lots of places on good old rightmove but can't decide on an area. With a maximum of £180,000 to spend, some places I can afford a mansion and others a mobile home! I've been looking at Somerset as my hubby's main office is in Exeter.
If anyone knows of a nice place to live, with good schools and sky reception let me know ;D
Sam x
What about Dawlish in Devon? It's a small town with a lovely beach and a railway station. Houses aren't too expensive either as these show:
http://www.findaproperty.com/searchresults.aspx?edid=00&salerent=0&areaid=1639&prt=1&abeds=1&bedrooms=04
There's also Teignmouth which has some of the best Primary schools in Devon.
Both are within easy reach of Exeter.
Why not take a holiday in the area at Easter to see for yourself how beautiful Somerset and Devon are?