Country living, yes or no ?

I grew up in London , I was used to public transport , 24 HR shopping and takeaways everywhere, instant hot water and heating that didn't cost the earth, cable broadband, mains sewers etc

And I now live in a tiny hamlet at the foot of the Glens of Antrim and have never been happier

Nearest petrol station/shop is 4 miles away
Town is 5 miles away
Any town with a choice of chain stores is 17 miles away
Major cities with proper hospitals, theatres, etc 45 miles away

Septic tank gets emptied once a year FOC but really only needs doing every few years if it's working properly

Electricity is via overhead cables and power cuts are normal

No gas, so it's oil, which can be very very expensive depending on oil prices and coal and logs, neither are cheap, both are dirty and cover your house is dust

Broadband just means a connection in the country, high speed really depends on where you live. I finally got high speed last year (12 years with speeds of 512 before then )

Roads untreated mainly in the winter. Ours used to get gritted part of the way where the bus came through, but now we don't have a bus service so we are at the back of the queue

2010, we were 'snowed in' for three weeks. When the thaw came so did the burst water mains , no water for another week. It was so cold that winter the oil in the tank froze

There's no saying sod it, I'm ordering Chinese , no one delivers here. The postman arrives around 2pm and he will bring a newspaper with him if you want and he does take your post with him

But as Adrian says, it's the community that keeps you. It takes a while, but slowly your town/city ways fade and you embrace what you have

We both have found jobs locally, in family businesses. Whilst they are low pay, who cares when it's a five minute drive and you are treated as a valuable member of the work force and part of the family? My 7 mile commute in London took 70mins in the mornings by car, up to two hours by bus. My 8 hour days was really around 11 hrs , no time to enjoy the home I was working so hard to pay for

I'm never later home then 4 and DH is home 4.15. In the summer months it's change clothes, feed the hens, and we can be on a beach by 4.45pm.

The drive to the city takes 45 mins. It's the only time we see traffic

Yes winters can be long and cold and wet, but what's not to love about them when you have a roaring fire and a home cooked meal?

High fashion is swapped for good quality, hard wearing outside clothing

That's not to say we don't like to get dressed up and party, there's always a party somewhere and the heels come out ( I've never been to so many weddings in my life for example, everyone gets invited) There's so much going on all year round, every village has their family days, all the YFC have bbqs and charity events. The councils spend a lot on events throughout the year that are FOC


But best of all are your local neighbours. They are there for you as you become there for them. A real community

I'm dreading the day when I become to old to drive and will have to move to a town

AdrianC wrote: »

The flipside to that is that we sold our suburban 70m2 house with minimal garden for 1.5x what we paid for a glorious 18th century 200m2 house in 1.5 acres...

Same here, we sold our mid terrace 2up2 down heavily mortgaged house for a five bedroom, 3 bath, 3 receptions in a 1/3 acre with a tiny mortgage which was paid off in 5 years

suki1964 wrote: »

No gas, so it's oil, which can be very very expensive depending on oil prices

Gas is an option - it just lives in a tank or bottles.

and coal and logs, neither are cheap, both are dirty and cover your house is dust

Logs? They're free. You just have to stop 'em being big chunks of tree, and point them in the direction of being logs. Think of it as being like the gym, but free...

Broadband just means a connection in the country, high speed really depends on where you live. I finally got high speed last year (12 years with speeds of 512 before then )

Rural high-speed broadband is very big news - we moved to fibre-to-the-premises (rock solid 50Mbit) 18mo ago. Friends in towns get far, FAR worse than that.

But best of all are your local neighbours. They are there for you as you become there for them. A real community

I'm dreading the day when I become to old to drive and will have to move to a town

You'll be fine. The neighbours will be there for you.

Mgman1965 wrote: »

My other worry is my budget, what I'd get for my nice, decent size 3 bed 1930's semi with off-road parking anf garage in town it seems will only get me a small 2 bed cottage with a small garden in a nice unspoilt village.

Depends on the choice of country location, surely? Surrey villages aren't like Mid Devon villages, for example.

We swapped our semi in town for a property with 5+ acres and outbuildings and we still had over £100k left to do it up. It's better than the town house was by a mile.

But we wanted to plant trees, make a big garden, look after sheep and hens, do building work etc etc, so we never had the OP's difficulty in deciding what to do. It would have been a different matter if we'd wanted lots of holidays and easy access to shopping etc.

We wouldn't have missed the life we've had in the country since moving to it on retirement, but I'd say it was because our objectives were clear. Life in town was easier, especially when we had children to cater for. Also it wasn't entirely an either/or situation for us, since our city house was only minutes by car from open fields and an easy stroll through the park from the theatre, restaurants etc.

Not all 'town' places are equal, and neither are 'country' ones. We think we're pretty wild and woolly here, but compared with the Highlands of Scotland....