City living Old Style?

Winged_one

I grew up in the country, with ditches for blackberries, some trees around for logs, large veg patch and plastic tunnel in back garden etc. The local farmer grew some veg commercially, so my bro (when "helping" for fun) would sometimes come home with a couple of massive cauliflwers which were too big to sell (he wasn't getting paid), or I sometimes got a few bags of volunteer potatoes in fields that were sugar beet that year (had been spuds the year before).

However, it was also a long way from value - Mum and Dad would head into the city (25 miles away) every weekend to do the supermarket shop (with 6 kids, they needed to save money) and change library books. (The petrol was free, so driving was fine, only paid for parking). We'd drive to a fruit farm 5/6 times per year for our "Sunday Drive", but it was only an hour away and good cheap eating and cooking apples (and pears at harvest time - they just never stored well).

OH had a similar upbringing - he lived 15 miles from me, and they also went to teh same fruit farm regularly. They went to the closer town (only 5 miles from them, and we passed through it going to city) but also had a network of farmers etc for getting various veg and meat from directly. They also grew veg, and have better ditches (blackberries, elderberries, damsons, sloes, crab apples) and lots more trees around for fallen limbs or whole trees.

We now live in the city. I have an allotment for soft fruit and veg (where I can actually get decent sticks and cones for the open fire too). We know a few places to get blackberries and elderberries locally. We have good butchers and F&V and fish shops locally too. As well as decent supermarkets, and a couple of Lidls too. And I can also get to Asian supermarkets in the city centre (where I work) to get my bulk rice and spices. We have access to good public transport so we don't need to use cars all the time, and we're close enough that DH can cycle (I am not fit enough). (I do forage when we go "down home" too).

I have access to fabric shops etc, and hardware shops too, to be able to do things in an OS way. I grow a lot of veg and fruit in the back garden too. I know where I can find various menders and things.

OK, we are gadget fans, and do get certain convenience things, but that's a lifestyle choice. And we can't get much by way of game or local meat - but we go to a local farmer's market when we visit home, and if I had a chest freezer, I could arrange to get a half a sheep once a year through MIL and just collect it immediately before freezing it (rather than collecting it already frozen, which might not travel well enoguh).

So city living needn't be as un-OS as country living (my parents have lived in the country for more than 30 years, and I am a LOT more OS than they ever were!).

jollymummy

We live in a rural village about 5 miles from nearest supermarket. It's lovely to go walking and foraging, we are very high up so got snowed in last year - yay!!

Our village shop is pretty good and open until 8pm most nights we have a post office, chip shop and 2 pubs The library bus visits once a week and we have a smashing little library in the next village as well as a butchers and small Co-op and an Arkwright style DIY shop!!. The only downside is the amount of traffic particularly lorries that use the village as a rat run and the appalling bus service (I have the car one day a week and DH has it for work the rest of the time, so I do all my shopping on that day - still it means I don't spend much:)

Our boy goes to our lovely village school which has 70 pupils and all in all after living in a city for 13 years up until our son was born, once I got used to not being able to walk into a city centre, I blimmin love living up here

We got an allotment this year and spend as much time up there as we can and have a nice but not huge garden. The views on our walk to school are stunning and most people wave and say Hello when you walk by - we are skint but happy !!