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OT: What's the reality of living in a village?

johnwhitfield

johnwhitfield

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John Whitfield
Been talking about the possibility of moving out of London for the last 6 months or so. In reality this isn't going to happen until the kids have finished school (inner London schools have some massive disadvantages but in terms of the opportunities given I'd be loath to relocate them) so it is a 10 year pipe dream but I can't really get my head around the culture shock I'd have about moving to a village.

Much as I love my house the reality is that it's a terrace in London which means I am never more than 3.5m from my next door neighbours (Rather tragically I have measured it!). At last count I think I have a total of 17 people living either side of me (although I could be wrong and it might be more at any given time).

By the time my daughter finishes school we'll be mortgage free and in our early 50s so potentially looking at early retirement or at least changing jobs to something less stressful than our current ones - one possibility is to buy somewhere with additional buildings we could rent out as property lets to bring a revenue stream in and give me something to do. Surfing on property sites shows some fantastic looking places in the country. Ironically it would be easier to upgrade in terms of size but we won't need 8 bedrooms + by this time as the kids will have left but outbuildings would be nice to stick pins in.

My main fear is about getting bored. Have many of you done the moving from a city to the country thing?

I initially grew up in a crappy commuter town and loved it when I moved away to university as there was so much more to do. Since the very early 90s I've been in London and I know I'm spoilt with public transport, gigs, restaurants etc. Although the country places look fantastic how do you cope with the lack of transport etc? If you go out to eat do you just have to factor in another £50 to get a cab back so you can have a drink? (I think we'd have to be within a hour of a largish place)

I suspect the lack of gigs will be less of an issue in 10 years time as most of the bands I love will probably be dead.:( But again for gigs to people just travel into major cities and pay for a hotel room over night?

Possibly my biggest fear is boredom. When we visited my brother in law in the centre of Wales you simply didn't see anyone out and about as we passed through the villages. If you're not working where do you get the social contact through? How bad is it in the winters?

Probably we'll end up renting this place out and renting somewhere in the country to start with so it's not such a one way commitment.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. We're just trying to get a feel for what to expect. I remember going to Rav's place a couple of years ago and thinking how fantastic it looked but also how far it seemed from city life.
 
Living in the country has it's benefits - Peace, A much more chilled and less stressful existence. However, there's also some things to consider - I noticed these moving from North Bristol to Clevedon (North Somerset - Still a built up area, however much more space/room and MUCH quieter)...

1. "popping" down the road to DIY stores etc is a pain - You almost have to think out exactly where you need to go in order, to get it all done in one trip, and also if picking up stuff, make sure that you pick up everything (i.e. you have to be Organised!).
2. It involves Driving everywhere. Public transport doesn't exist, or where it does, it's crap!
3. It's good if you fancy popping down the local - however remember that sometimes the local can be a few miles down the road!
4. Post is crap.
5. If you cant adjust to a chilled life, and emerse yourself in "hobbies" so to speak, it could be quite boring.

Basically, if you have lived in "town" all your life, It'll be a culture shock - how much depends on the person, what they are used to and prefer...
 
Cheers Paul.

Anna actually grew up in a village in Cornwall, so I think it would be easier for her. I know they had one bus that went to Plymouth a week and the return bus left Plymouth 90 mins later:eek:

A local being miles away scares the hell out of me. How do you actually get back?

Guessing the internet would be a lifeline to buying stuff but connection speeds are probably crap (I moan if the speed drop below 100 at the moment).

At the moment I use the net to do 99% of my food shopping, (just get Tesco to deliver every couple of days on their free delivery plan) but losing the ability to pop out and return 5 mins later with pretty much anything I want would be an adjustment.

It sounds stupid but what happens when it snows? Do people just accept that they will be house bound for a few days?

The peace and quiet is attractive though. So is the fact that you can travel at more than 5 mph. When we go down to the west country it's a good journey if we get across London in 90 mins. Sounds Ok until you realise it's only 18 miles that you've covered.
 
Well Anna Coming from somewhere quiet (Know Plymouth quite well) is a bonus - but remember that Plymouth is quite large too...
Yup - Local is scary.. and they wonder why the drink/drive rate is high in rural areas still :( There's usually some kind of Taxi tho...
Internet connections are Dire - Seriously - Check this out when you find somewhere... Last place i was we were lucky to get 2Meg - and that was only two years ago!
Internet shopping didnt exist back then... Not to the Extent it does now.. If you need it, check it is covered by whoever you use... surprising that a lot of places arent covered still....
Whn it snows - Well it's actually easier to drive on Fresh snow down country lanes than on some of the main routes, however, yup, Working from home helps ;) Not that it happens too often :)
Finally...
johnwhitfield said:
The peace and quiet is attractive though. So is the fact that you can travel at more than 5 mph. When we go down to the west country it's a good journey if we get across London in 90 mins. Sounds Ok until you realise it's only 18 miles that you've covered.
Click to expand...

You can get to most places in reasonable times outside the M25 ;)
 
The last 35 years:

Skegness and the surrounding towns - grew up here. Small town mentality, didn't know any different. Won't go back. Blamed for my love of all things arcade.
York - small big city exposure, and a nice 'English' place to start.
Birmingham - University & various post uni rentals. Great place to be a student, not a great place to live in the centre. 1st real exposure to multicultural Britain.
Warwick - market town, lovely place to live. Easy access to Birmingham, and a nice to place to leave the bustle of Birmingham for after a long day at work.
Horely (Gatwick) - small town, not too bad but feels a bit too close to Gatwick for my liking. Nice countryside nearby though.
Lived in an old motorhome, travelled Europe and Australia/NZ. Missed the internet and a working fridge (!). Everything else was trivial.
Croydon - compared to everywhere else i've lived this was a horrible place. I will never go back there. Very sorry if anyone lives there, but there are much nicer places to live.
Riccall - small village near York. We came back to the area after 10+ years away.


Basically it all depends on what you do now, how much time you spend at home and what you do for hobbies and employment.


When we moved to our current small village home we wanted: walking distance from a nice pub (we have 2 within 5mins), small shop (2), rail stations nearby (York/Selby - can be in London or Birmingham in 2hrs, £3 a day parking at Selby station!) want to be able to get to open countryside within 5mins on my bike (takes 2mins), neighbours we can actually talk to, (cup-de-sacs are so much more social than streets i find, we get Christmas cards and know everyone's name), big garden (yep), local restaurants (2pubs, 1 indian, 1 Italian), post office (yep, but it's a bit like Royston Vasey's local shop), reasonable internet (because i work form home quite a bit, but only 15mbps - just enough), shops nearby in a car but ultimately somewhere quiet and peaceful to come home to. It's a semi detached house, so we have neighbour noise, but nothing like other places and we know the neighbours too. Also got a local community centre with badminton courts, footballl pitches, cresh, library and small bar.

I don't miss the 'big city' facilities because we can go to London (and leave) easily on the train, York isn't far with really good North/South buses or a 45min countryside cycle route, Selby has surpsingly good shops and industrial estates. Cinema's about 20mins drive, but it's over £10 each nowadays, so sod that - there are other ways of watching films.

Do like the countryside? It bores some, amazes others.
Do you commute into work? Did that in living in Croydon, destroyed my soul. When i get the train now i always reserve a seat.
Is gig access essential? You can see real/new bands in lots of local pubs and nearby music venues. If you want bigger brands/names you'll have to be nearer London and/or Manchester. I stopped going to sticky floor gigs a while ago now, a similar time to when i really cut down on booze (health reasons). Just listen to the radio quite a bit now - don't watch TV so much. Although the bloke over the road plays in a band of 50-somethings and they play all-sorts down the local pub every month - we try to go and watch them if we can, it's only 5mins away. I like some Creedence Clearwater and stuff, they do it well. And we went to a grassroots music festival in Herefordshire the last 3 years running - NozStock. FAR less people (and by proxy, less ****ers) than the bigger festivals.

Selling a London house could buy you an entire village up here...
 
the only time in my life that i ever lived somewhere small (town of 30,000 in Australia for six months) i hated it, almost died of boredom. i was supposed to stay there a year for my job, but was so happy to move to big city Brisbane to finish my contract instead.

i'm spoilt by the fact that i can go out to eat Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Mexican, French, Italian, Korean etc etc all within half an hour, and the competition is fierce so the crappy places go out of business. small towns often think their local Chinese is exotic, but quite often the food is horrible and isn't made by a skilled chef, just some random bloke with a Chinese wife he got on the internet. ok i know i'm a food snob, i'm just saying that cooks in 'foreign' restaurants in small villages usually would be sacked if they tried to cook in a decent restaurant - they only got the job because they're Chinese.

think very carefully before you do it, John, if you're anything like me you probably take for granted the multiplex cinemas, shopping malls, Homebase, garden centres, Toys R Us, leisure centres, sports arenas, specialists in every field all available within an hour .....

the space per ££ would appeal to me about moving out of the city/suburbs, and the community spirit if i found a lucky pocket of it, but not much else tbh.
 
I lived in Wimbledon, shortlands, Orpington, and Sidcup until I was 30.
I now live in West Malling Kent, and would not move back to London.
A lot depends on you, because I personally hated getting on a packed bus to get on a packed train and stand all the way to Waterloo East.
I hated going back to my home, as everywhere was built up and people packed in like rabbits in a hutch,every inch of land has been built upon, and every garage had been knocked down for an extension, with all side roads packed with cars.
To me the suburbs where so Orwellian I am beginning to hum underneath the spreading Chestnut tree, however I live close enough now that I can be at my friends house in petts wood in 25 mins.
Where I live now has more than 10 pubs several resteraunts that Dan I am sure would like the food in, and I can walk to this in 5 minutes.
houses are much bigger and you get more space for your money, but london is still only 35 miles away.
I am now thinking of moving a bit further out, as I can get a lot bigger house and acres of land for the price of west malling.
It all depends on your inner being, I still like to go to London occasionally but less and less now,some of my friends would never move and love the suburbs.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

Think it's a Sunday thing as I'm already dreading tomorrow's fight to get on the tube. I'm only 3 stops from Canary Wharf, so by the time the train gets to me it's virtually impossible to get on and you literally need to fight your way into the carriage.

I suspect I'd miss the food and culture but since I've had kids I hardly ever go out. You've really got to have a special night planned to justify £40 on top of it for a baby sitter.

I like knowing that I'm within 30 mins of gigs, theatres, top restaurants etc but the thing is I hardly ever use them now. Still it's nice to know they are there though.

I'd hate to have to commute as that way leads to having all the crap parts of working in London and none of the upside. So I don't see us moving until I'm ready to either retire or have a total change of job. Mind you teaching outside of London must be very different, Last weeks parents evening was yet again an exercise in trying to explain how the pupils were doing to parents who spoke little or no English.

I'd need to be near somewhere bigger like Bristol or Brighton to get a culture fix but the anti--social part of me can picture me having zero neighbours so I'm thinking more village than town. Bath looks nice but I suspect it would be full of old people and I'm not quite ready to start playing Bingo.

I still can't get my head around how it's possible to get a place like this for half the price of a bloody terrace. Maybe I can convince Anna to let me spend the other half of the house money on a load of new machines.



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Best find so far is a castle in Scotland! (although even I realise that 10 acres and 20+ bedrooms is a bit excessive....)

Oh well, 10 years to go until I have to make a decision (Or 1950 teaching days...)
 
looks like you will have some nice choices when you retire John
 
I lived in Brighton, so similar to London in terms of activity, nightlife, transport, eateries, etc., but after 10 years post-Uni it was slightly beginning to do my nut. I still love the place but don't miss the extortionate rents or house prices, and lack of jobs. I now live in Surrey, in the Guildford/Farnham area, on the outskirts of medium-ish village. It's 5 minutes from local railway station which is 10 mins to Guildford, an express mainline to London (handy for work and gigs), but it feels like the middle of the countryside down an unmarked lane. All I can see out the back is trees and fields, but the bus stop is 200 yards away and the local shop is 5 mins walk. But facilities and location aside, it's my neighbours that make it so nice here. Roughly the same ages and similar family situations.

I think if you love the London lifestyle you'd be bonkers to go to other extreme and buy some great big pile in the middle of nowhere. You would definitely get bored, miss the general hubbub and feel isolated, even though you'd have more outbuildings than pins to fill them. Leave London if you want to, just don't go too far. Stay near a town or fair sized village.
 
If you buy a house like that John, unless you have the money for a team to keep it going, you will never be bored. Since I bought the Addam's House a year ago, I have spent a fair amount of my spare time fixing, maintaining and preparing. I don't feel I have done any real DIY or gardening even. Over the last few weeks I have spent 12+ hours preparing the wood I have amassed for the log burning stoves into the right sizes and piles so we can make the living rooms warmer. That was something I never had to do in my 3 bed terrace.
They might be cheaper to buy in the country with more land but running them isn't going to be cheaper than your terrace house, it will be several times more expensive.

Good luck though, the searching is one of the best parts.
 
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