Country living, yes or no ?

ibizafan_2

I was put off living in a village years ago when my children were small babies. I found it very isolating, and had nowhere much to push a pram. Thirty years later, I occasionally like the thought of living in one again, as many are so beautiful, but I’ve decided I’m a bit of a townie. We live on the edge of a smallish town, with great transport links (45 minutes by train to London where one son lives) 35 minutes to the airport, and I can walk to our nearest supermarket. Easy access to lovely Warwickshire and Northamptonshire countryside as well. Best of both worlds for me. However, when I watch “Escape to the Country”, I do sometimes think “aaah, doesn’t it look lovely” but then I get real.

Davesnave

Smodlet wrote: »

Another thing to think about might be the distance to the nearest hospital and how long would it take an ambulance to get you there, should you need it. Also how far is the nearest GP's surgery/dentist/vet if applicable.

Like a lot of things people are mentioning, sweet spots exist for those who do their geography homework. The problem is that many folks looking for country places focus on Rightmove and holiday brochures, but don't drill down into the stuff that matters most day to day, and to them.

For example, although we are very rural here, we're not far from the small hub that serves this 25 mile wide area, so doctors, dentists and first response ambulance are all very close, as are trains and buses. Butcher, baker etc are all to hand as well, just not supermarkets, B&Q or take-aways.

Yes, the hospitals are a 25 - 30 mile stretch, but this is the 21st century, so we are 4 minutes flying time from the Air Ambulance. Indeed, locals are currently raising money for night time landing lights, so the service can be 24/7. We also have a hospital car service for all the elderly and non-drivers with ordinary appointments.

In any sparsely populated area there will be places which have few, if any, services that might be important to individuals. There will also be lively and relatively 'dead' villages they might buy in. Finding the info is hard, so the suggestion to take winter breaks in the chosen location is a great one. We did it......just in the wrong place!:rotfl:

vics_1982

We live on the outskirts of the village which is around 15 miles from the nearest big town and we love it.

We have never been city / big village folk though to be fair and are always outside. Yes oil can be expensive but buy it in the summer when prices are low. So what if the electric goes out, its not too often and you work round it, worst case, get a generator.

My partner is a farrier so has always been outside with work and i work at a port so travel 30 miles to work each day.

My children go to the village school which has a total of 42 children in it, each child is very well behaved and they get fabulous teaching!

We are lucky that we have four acres and my horses at home so we look out to our field and them.

We can walk for miles and miles in fresh air. Granted, we dont get any takeaways that deliver but its 15 mins to a small village to get kebab, Chinese or fish and chips.

You do have to be organised as its a bit of a faff to pop and get some milk if you run out but once you are sorted its the best.

I would never change it!!

Littlebobo1981

We live in a very small market town, and have the countryside on our door step, we have a post office, butchers and over the last 10 years have added a tesco extra so we can get milk/bread etc otherwise yes we need cars (unless you want to rely on buses

Dentists are 20 mins away, but hospital is around 30-40 mins but never caused us any problems - i do think any more rural would feel a bit isolating for me personally though ..it's a very personal choice and something you probably wont ever know until you do it

Aylesbury_Duck

Another vote for being on the edge of a town. We looked at moving to a more rural location in Kent (we live in a large town in Kent at the moment) and on house prices, we'd bank about £30k for like-for-like houses due to the rural location being further from London. However, when we looked at schools, jobs, sports clubs, shopping and other weekly activities, it worked out that both of us would be spending about 10 hours extra every week driving around. That made it an easy decision and we stayed put.

Mgman1965

Watched a ETTC yesterday and one couple on there bought a very rural house and they revisited them 2yrs later and they seemed happy there, but the guy still worked in London, and said his commute was 3hrs each way by car and train !!!!!!

That's a potential 14hr working day, not allowing for road/ train delays and the weather. Not for me I'm afraid. He must be on mega money to put up with that, I'd need to be !!!!

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

You can "faux test" it .... starting today you can ban yourselves from using any shops/services within a 5-6 mile radius - forcing yourself EVERY time to access what's in another town.

Not allowed to "pop out to" any of your local services/shops... nor even to "take a stroll round town" without having to go to another place.

Find somewhere 5-6 miles away and say "pretend that's our nearest place" .... see how long you last.

Sounds like a very logical suggestion to me - and I've moved from a city to a semi-rural area.

So - nope it's not an easy walk to a choice of hospitals. It's a "drive you up the wall backwards" long windy bus journey to a hospital and the same back again and BTW the buses are a lot less frequent anyway.

Social life will be more "scattered" - where you are for "this", next town for "that", nearby village for "t'other". It's more likely to be a patchwork quilt of transport to here/there/everywhere - rather than walk to everything and "plenty more choice" than you actually need yourself.

Tradespeople - you may be used to having high standards/tradespeople being reliable. Restaurants/cafes having lots of choice/pretty high standards BECAUSE they all know you can "drop them like a shot" and there's plenty more choice where they came from. So you do "drop", then "drop", then "drop" and carry on "dropping" however many times you have to. But you don't have to "drop" nearly as much - because they all know you can and will:D. If you're in a smaller area - there is a LOT of pressure to "use someone local" and then a lot of pressure to "put up and shut up" if they're not right.

Some moves will result in the weather impacting a lot more on you than you're used to. It's a shock to move from "never taking the weather into account in the slightest" to "forever taking the weather into account - and then still forgetting hat/gloves/etc most of the time when you go out - because you're not used to it".

There are plus sides - a comment from someone in my home area today about how many people I know I bump into in the street when I go out. Well - I do bump into a noticeable number of "people I know" when I go out - but you don't have to "know anyone" anyway before you go out and about. Chances are that you'll have had quite a few conversations - quite possibly including really long "meaning of life" type ones with total strangers by the time you get back inside your front door anyway:rotfl:. Because that's how things are here...

The clean air is a plus side - to someone like myself that hates traffic fumes - because I dont have a car myself and therefore really resent breathing in said fumes.

A plus side is realising that even delivery people (yep...you'll see them a lot - with the amount of goods you have to buy online if you move more rurally) are "keeping an eye out for you".

melanzana

This is a very interesting topic.

I live within the boundary of the city. However I bought it 30 years ago for the open spaces around and the views to the mountains. There are 5 big parks within walking distance, beautiful spaces, each a little different from the other with different facilities, or none! Twenty minutes drive or bus up to the foothills of those mountains and similar to the sea. I am not overlooked and the neighbours touch wood are very nice too.

The tram is five minutes away to get into the city in fifteen minutes, buses too going anywhere and everywhere around. Well all the facilities you need on your doorstep. I am seriously considering getting rid of the car, but NOOOOOOT yet!

Anyway I love the countryside, but like everything else when it becomes your "normal" the gloss may wear off.

I think it really depends on your outlook. If you are very used to living in a town/city or the outskirts with everything handy, it could be a huge culture shock to move to the country.

It is not for me anyway. Lovely to visit though, but great to get back too!

suki1964

Adrian, where's these trees that you can just convert into logs?

I only have a few fruit trees and I think the farmers and the forestry commission might take umbridge if I went steeling theirs

Yes there is LPG, but a you are tied into a contract where they can put the price up at whim, where as with oil, I can shop around and b, going to need a bloomin big hole dug in my garden to sink the tank

Yes BB in rural areas is hot news, just someone please put a rocket up open reaches bums to get them shifted. I'm lucky, a new box was put in a mile down the road. My friend 2 miles further up the road is still on 512

AdrianC

suki1964 wrote: »

Adrian, where's these trees that you can just convert into logs?

My own garden... You'd be astonished how many split logs there were in just one big branch that the big ash threw away. Just over half an acre is 45deg north-facing slope, which was thick with overgrown pines when we moved in. There's a lot of other tall rubbish still to come out, and the "to be split" pile is already too huge to make much of a dent in before it's rotten.

But, that apart, I've been helping do some post-snow-and-Eleanor clearing up down in the local nature reserve, and there's a lot of wood there which would be available, without affecting wildlife habitat, if anybody could be bothered to collect it. Instead, it'll just rot down.

Or the big pines the other side of the lane which are just lying where they've fallen, because nobody can be bothered. OK, pine's not the greatest to burn, but...!

Ain't no shortage of wood around here...