Country living, yes or no ?

Gers

Gosh...rural crime! My place is always unlocked even for trips to Australia.

Where I am is rural, slow broadband, three buses a week, no mains gas, no more power cuts than in the city, no street lights for eights miles, no shops for eight miles, plenty of cows and sheep, hardly any neighbours and a view of the inner Hebrides. Wouldn't swap it for now.

I am semi-retired, tried to be retired but got bored, still drive and really enjoying the quiet life. Incidentally, my 90 year old DM still drives though she may be the exception.

Local hospital eight miles away, next 'up' hospital 35 miles away north and the main one 90 miles south, great big yellow helo when required. There's volunteer driver organisation to take folk to hospitals, docs, shopping etc and NHS pays for the travel to the hospital and overnight stays if needed.

Yes, it can become difficult sometimes but the local community does the trick, farmers with tractors for when roads are flooded, plenty of folks willing to fix, mend or just generally support when needed. My eggs are from the farm nearby, milk from the dairy on a neighbouring island and so on.

It all works for me, it may not for others. I left a big city after over 30 years living right in the centre of it and miss nothing. Lots of benefits.

TBagpuss

Davesnave wrote: »

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:

very good points. When my parents retired they did a lot of this kind of research before buying their current home. I suspect that it helped that they had been living in a country village for 30 years already, so had a good idea of the pros and cons, but in then identifying which specific village to move to in the part of the country they wanted they did take into account their ages and the possibility that the time may come when they don't drive, or need more in the way of assistance or medical care, so that for instance) they chose a village which, while not very picturesque, still has a post office, shop, primary school*, sports and social club, regular bus services to the local market town etc.

Another point not made is to consider what you like by way of social activities. It can be hard to integrate into a village, but if you are willing to join things then you will find it easier to be accepted into the community (although in many places you will still, of course, be 'an incomer' for ever!)


(*obviously they don't need a primary school, but took the view that a village with one still had a proper population and was not reduced to nothing but second homes and holiday lets)

moneyistooshorttomention

trailingspouse wrote: »

I'm really pleased that you've had a proper conversation with your wife. Rural living is fab - if it's what you want to do. But it sounds like it really isn't for her.

Agreed:T. Some people will, at some point, adapt to not being in "their" environment. Others never will.

I know this from watching a small town boy (who likes the countryside) married to a big city woman (they're my parents). My mother still to this day wishes she hadnt been ripped out of her city - into what (for decades now) has been a reasonable size town. She hates not having as many shops/as much "activity" in the area as she was used to and feels bored by it. My father, on the other hand, is okay with the size of the place and could possibly even "go a bit smaller".

So some people never ever do change their minds. Others of us will sit there and make out a pros/cons list at intervals, do an objective analysis and decide there are advantages where they are (as well as disadvantages) and "settle more" as they go on. But I would be very surprised if an "urban" person would ever accept a very small place in the long-term.

From this - I'd say that someone that is basically an urban person CAN only move to a place with quite a lot of social activities etc going on already and they see the chance of encouraging even more to start up and there's others taking that same viewpoint of "encourage/encourage/encourage" on that front. Plus there will have to be advantages in moving more rurally for them (eg cleaner air to breathe and that's something that's very important to them) or safety for instance.

Niv

The broadband in the village I live is fibre which they don't have in the county town!

Callie22

suki1964 wrote: »

Rural crime is crime against property, theft of farm machinery, rustlers, oil theft, there's very little crime against persons

That's very true. Where my parents are, I've never heard of a burglary from a house, the main problems are the thefts of farm and garden machinery. The farm thefts tend to be traced to gangs from the nearest cities and the garden ones to 'local' rogues. I'd say that home burglaries are practically impossible as everyone's too damn nosy! Having said that, there was an issue a few years ago with drugs - dealers from the nearest cities realised that there was quite a good market in the villages and that they could be quite a long way off by the time the police arrived. However, again they underestimated just how observant the villagers could be and they didn't get away with it for long! The plus side of that was that the village did get more of a police presence and they now get a couple of visits a week from the local 'Bobby Bus'.

One thing I would say is that when considering a move to the country, look at what the local villages have lost. My parents are lucky in that the village is so big that it's unlikely to lose the primary school, but you do find that in the smaller villages, once they lose the school the local shop will follow soon after. Once the shop goes (especially if it's the only shop) you do tend to lose the heart of the community, particularly if the younger families start leaving. I'm guessing it wasn't a priority for the OP but schooling is definitely something to look at if you have children. Choice can be limited and the secondaries tend to have massive catchment areas which can be a pain for teenagers who want to spend time out of school with their friends.