Talk to me about real life outside London

[Herewegoagain84]

We’re considering the big move out. I’ve been a Londoner all my life and always considered I would stay, but I’ve got a third child cooking and I think it’s time. I know it sounds mad but I’d love to hear what your life outside London is like - especially with children at the weekend. We have everything so accessible to us here and always plenty to do. Can you talk me through how we might be spending our time and what activities you do / how weekends are spent? If you lived in London previously was it a good decision to move? Thanks!

I know what you are talking about, you leave London and it is less buzzy, harder to take a notion and find yourself within the hour in a world famous attraction or fabulous tucked away eaterie and still get a table.

I live five miles out of a mid size town less than two hours from London. The nuts and bolts are the same, the swimming lessons etc all happen, no idea if wait lists etc are less. However decent sushi is some distance away, the theatre fairly industrial and not in a chic way and the cinema is decidedly antique but the last two still deliver, are less crowded and we still see some great stuff. We have some lovely history locally to explore or not and schools are generally pretty good though getting into the good secondaries is blood sport. Weekends we walk dogs, go cycling, do swimming, tennis and riding lessons and generally turn up to the opening of the proverbial can of beans if someone puts one on in the village, just because that’s social life, along with drinking tea, wine, whatever round friends houses, play dates and no random cake stall fundraiser left un visited. Our village pub is quite unexciting so if we go out it will be somewhere around the area and the decent places do book up so you need to book ahead in the good places which can be a pain.

Hope that helps, it’s not all wellies and mud but neither is there much of cutting edge anything! We love it.

@tilder

For one friend who moved to a university town in Devon, tempted by the green spaces for her kids, the answer to the OP's question is that she finds her weekends very dull because there's not enough to do and the people, with exceptions, are not wildly interesting. She's counting her weekends until her youngest goes to uni and she & DH can move back to London.

How rude.

I have met people like this and it is strange how they find it difficult to meet like minded people. Such a pity they generally move away. Am sure we feel their loss greatly.

Unless you personally know people she would find ‘likeminded’ it’s not strange is it? She’s lived all over - London, Cambridge, NY, Italy and Japan and never had this problem before.

There are some really snarky replies on here on both sides of the fence. I think the OP was genuinley intentionted even if some chose to misinterpret.

For those voraciously suggesting the OP is small-minded for never having looked outside London, I'd suggest they might be blinkered for for never considering what's inside London if you're living there.

There's no need for a car. We have buses, trains, tubes and trams all running every night of the week at least a 10 min service until 1am every night and some nights running after that in the week. We have not just any museums or theatres but top exhibitions and actual west end theatres both mainstream and off main steam (and ways of getting cheap tickets) - throughout London. We don't have one high street or one town centre, if you live in London you have a choice of many. It's about variety. London is vast and different boroughs offer different choices. And actually Deliveroo and Uber (and all the start-up within an hour grocery services that I get through my letterbox every day) services are good and useful and sometimes what you want on a Friday night - again, choice. There's not just one school - there are a few that are achievable distance wise. Similarly hospitals, GPs, dentists, libraries - everything is not constrained by location necessarily.

I'm not hating on the rest of the UK - I've been there and lived there - I just sense some people on here defending 'everywhere else' have maybe not properly experienced and lived in London.

@Motnight

Does no-one care about the child being cooked?

I live in the north east, on the coast...

On a weekend we might: visit one of several national trust places within a 30-45 min drive.

Visit the coast

Visit newcastle city centre (15 mins on the metro)

Visit the fun fair (20 mins on the ferry)

Visit my large back garden (2 mins after finding shoes and unlocking door).

On Saturdays I send my kids up chimneys and on Sundays I set them about cleaning their clogs and slates ready for school the following week, after they've walked the whippets and cleaned the ferrets out.
Then it's into the tin bath then off to bed with a clip round the lug hole.

Oh this is still going? Everyone is so hilarious

@TownVCity

There are some really snarky replies on here on both sides of the fence. I think the OP was genuinley intentionted even if some chose to misinterpret.

For those voraciously suggesting the OP is small-minded for never having looked outside London, I'd suggest they might be blinkered for for never considering what's inside London if you're living there.

There's no need for a car. We have buses, trains, tubes and trams all running every night of the week at least a 10 min service until 1am every night and some nights running after that in the week. We have not just any museums or theatres but top exhibitions and actual west end theatres both mainstream and off main steam (and ways of getting cheap tickets) - throughout London. We don't have one high street or one town centre, if you live in London you have a choice of many. It's about variety. London is vast and different boroughs offer different choices. And actually Deliveroo and Uber (and all the start-up within an hour grocery services that I get through my letterbox every day) services are good and useful and sometimes what you want on a Friday night - again, choice. There's not just one school - there are a few that are achievable distance wise. Similarly hospitals, GPs, dentists, libraries - everything is not constrained by location necessarily.

I'm not hating on the rest of the UK - I've been there and lived there - I just sense some people on here defending 'everywhere else' have maybe not properly experienced and lived in London.

Very sensible (and correct) response. I was losing faith in this site on my first day 😂

Decide on what (if anything) you need to be in walking distance and buy your house accordingly.

For me it was schools and workplaces. For you it might be corner shop and pub or cafe and yoga studio, or all of these.

@Norgie

On Saturdays I send my kids up chimneys and on Sundays I set them about cleaning their clogs and slates ready for school the following week, after they've walked the whippets and cleaned the ferrets out. Then it's into the tin bath then off to bed with a clip round the lug hole.

Many a true word spoken in jest

Where I live (SE commuter town) there are way more playgroups and kids activities and parks and children’s facilities than I could ever access in London unless I wanted an hour on the tube. London is best at monuments, museums, theatres and employment, but for anything else, outside London is better.

This image of London is so not what real life for most people living there is like. I lived in Crouch End, London and there were more (and better) playgroups, kids activities, parks and children's facilities in that one small part of London than in the whole of the town we moved out to. Kids activities were also much cheaper, ironically, as was travel - an Oyster card costs significantly less than the ridiculously high bus fares, for buses that come (or not) every half hour, where I am now. For life with a young child I very much regretted our move out of London.

@TownVCity

There are some really snarky replies on here on both sides of the fence. I think the OP was genuinley intentionted even if some chose to misinterpret.

For those voraciously suggesting the OP is small-minded for never having looked outside London, I'd suggest they might be blinkered for for never considering what's inside London if you're living there.

There's no need for a car. We have buses, trains, tubes and trams all running every night of the week at least a 10 min service until 1am every night and some nights running after that in the week. We have not just any museums or theatres but top exhibitions and actual west end theatres both mainstream and off main steam (and ways of getting cheap tickets) - throughout London. We don't have one high street or one town centre, if you live in London you have a choice of many. It's about variety. London is vast and different boroughs offer different choices. And actually Deliveroo and Uber (and all the start-up within an hour grocery services that I get through my letterbox every day) services are good and useful and sometimes what you want on a Friday night - again, choice. There's not just one school - there are a few that are achievable distance wise. Similarly hospitals, GPs, dentists, libraries - everything is not constrained by location necessarily.

I'm not hating on the rest of the UK - I've been there and lived there - I just sense some people on here defending 'everywhere else' have maybe not properly experienced and lived in London.

You also have high crime rates, terrible traffic, pollution, high house prices and rents, massive numbers of tourists to compete with for tickets and space and crowds everywhere. (I know, I lived in London for more than 20 years and still spend a couple of days a month there for work).

London's a great place to live in your 20s and early 30s and later in life. Once you've got children you spend a lot of your time ferrying them to childcare and school and activities. Usually during the rush hour periods, when all the other parents are doing the same. How many times do people with children see a West End show or visit an art gallery each year? Very rarely, even with middle class parents.

Once you have children you can have a vastly better lifestyle, and a larger home and garden, in a small city or a decent-sized town elsewhere. You go to London for special weekends every few months and do the museums and the art galleries and the trips to the Tower of London.

Where I live (SE commuter town) there are way more playgroups and kids activities and parks and children’s facilities than I could ever access in London unless I wanted an hour on the tube. London is best at monuments, museums, theatres and employment, but for anything else, outside London is better.

This image of London is so not what real life for most people living there is like. I lived in Crouch End, London and there were more (and better) playgroups, kids activities, parks and children's facilities in that one small part of London than in the whole of the town we moved out to.

Different parts of London

Different parts of ‘not London’.

The answer is to decide on your priorities, which the OP still hasn’t shared.

Agree - the volume of defensive posts to the OP tells you everything you need to know! It stands to reason there will be more to do, more diversity etc in a city. That doesn't make it better (depends on what you value) but it's a fact

Hove has a lot to offer. Difficult to get a decent sized garden though.

@TownVCity I'm not hating on the rest of the UK - I've been there and lived there - I just sense some people on here defending 'everywhere else' have maybe not properly experienced and lived in London.

So patronising! People are quite rightly laughing at the way OP phrased her initial request, at the London exceptionalism which everyone outwith London knows all too well.

I've lived in H&I hamlets & villages, Aberdeen, Edinburgh in Scotland. I've lived in Brighton and Bristol and London in England. On a farm in Cornwall. In various places in Australia and the Philippines. Cairo in Egypt. & more.

I feel I bring diverse experience to forming a view ...

@TownVCity

There are some really snarky replies on here on both sides of the fence. I think the OP was genuinley intentionted even if some chose to misinterpret.

For those voraciously suggesting the OP is small-minded for never having looked outside London, I'd suggest they might be blinkered for for never considering what's inside London if you're living there.

There's no need for a car. We have buses, trains, tubes and trams all running every night of the week at least a 10 min service until 1am every night and some nights running after that in the week. We have not just any museums or theatres but top exhibitions and actual west end theatres both mainstream and off main steam (and ways of getting cheap tickets) - throughout London. We don't have one high street or one town centre, if you live in London you have a choice of many. It's about variety. London is vast and different boroughs offer different choices. And actually Deliveroo and Uber (and all the start-up within an hour grocery services that I get through my letterbox every day) services are good and useful and sometimes what you want on a Friday night - again, choice. There's not just one school - there are a few that are achievable distance wise. Similarly hospitals, GPs, dentists, libraries - everything is not constrained by location necessarily.

I'm not hating on the rest of the UK - I've been there and lived there - I just sense some people on here defending 'everywhere else' have maybe not properly experienced and lived in London.

Yes this. And like a PP says, where I live in London, I have so many options for places to take the children (from babyhood to teens) and myself - coffees, shopping, yoga, work, all within walking distance. When I moved to another (small) city - I had to travel all over it and beyond to find far fewer options for both me and the kids.

I think the OP is been given a hard time, with all the flat cap talk. London is a great place to live for many reasons, and she won't replicate that elsewhere. But she would get a different way of life elsewhere.

Londoners go on and on about not needing a car but personally I'd rather drive somewhere than take public transport. I suppose it's what you are used to but I really don't see why having to take the filthy tube for an hour to get anywhere is any better than a drive in a car. Life with children is busy and my relatives in London with DC aren't benefitting from all the world class culture, they are spending hours on the tube taking their DC to swimming classes, birthday parties in church halls, etc etc. I was doing the same activities in my bustling northern town but the difference was the swimming pool is a 2 min drive away and even going to the church hall on the other side of town is just a 10 min drive.

@JaninaDuszejko

Londoners go on and on about not needing a car but personally I'd rather drive somewhere than take public transport. I suppose it's what you are used to but I really don't see why having to take the filthy tube for an hour to get anywhere is any better than a drive in a car. Life with children is busy and my relatives in London with DC aren't benefitting from all the world class culture, they are spending hours on the tube taking their DC to swimming classes, birthday parties in church halls, etc etc. I was doing the same activities in my bustling northern town but the difference was the swimming pool is a 2 min drive away and even going to the church hall on the other side of town is just a 10 min drive.

Swimming pools and kids parties in London would be a walk away IME... that's what makes them local

What I'm getting at is each London neighbourhood is it's own small town with (variable quality) amenities... the idea you have to get on tube for everything is not how I think a lot of families experience living in London.

Where we live you can walk to a heath, 3 commons and it’s a short bicycle or car ride to a 5 mile park. Cycle through that park and you come to another park.

When the kids were little there were playgroups galore, 4 excellent nursery schools within 5 mins walk from the house, 2 adventure playgrounds within 10 mins and some of the best music teachers in the country. Not to mention the 2 Olympic size swimming pools within walking distance, the dance classes, martial arts, sports and local drama groups. And of course all the different kinds of museums and galleries that have special stuff for kids. And the vast array of schools.

Parents spend time ferrying kids wherever the live, the sibling of mine who moved out of London drives miles every week ferrying her kids between school, sport, music, friends - as the public transport is almost non-existent.

In London we could walk to the kids’ junior school and they use public transport now they’re at senior school. I don’t have to spend anything like the amount of time ferrying kids as my sibling.

Finally posters keep claiming that Londoners don’t go to galleries and theatre, but it’s nonsense. I see an exhibition about once a week or once a fortnight. Tomorrow I’m catching the Durer, next week I’m seeing the Raphael and there’s a new exhibition at the Barbican of modern British starting March 3. We go to the theatre once or twice a month. (Doesn’t have to be the west end, as there are many small theatres). Concerts the same, except that 2 local churches have weekly concerts from professional musicians and we sometimes go every week.

London isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, there’s no denying the pollution, but it terms of children’s activities, including local activities, it’s hard to beat.

Lived in London for 40 years but was never in walking distance of a pool. Did have a choice of several to drive to. I think London has more open air pools than anywhere else, but who knows if that is important to the OP?

It’s important to me, but the trade off now is that I can swim in the sea. But be warned, a lot of ‘Notlondon’ is nowhere near the sea.

Swimming pools and kids parties in London would be a walk away IME... that's what makes them local

Yep, there are 100s of swimming pools in London, everyone has a local pool.

@astern664

Oh do enlighten me about Londoners not liking a good steak?

My nans a Londoner and and loves steak. Guess she’s “old London” though.

What a ridiculous comment from you 😂😂

Janina yes public transport in London may be more frequent, cheaper and (mostly) more reliable than the 'outside' but oh my god it's tedious. It took me over an hour and a half the other week to travel approximately 6 miles to Smyths toy superstore to buy a fricking Care Bear (route used.... Overground train, tube, bus). Oh to have a car...it would be brilliant.
Everyone is like "ooh London has museums and theatres and ooh laa laa restaurants but to get to these from my Zone 3 home it can take about an hour if not longer to get to them.
Up in Northamptonshire last week I travelled from Town A to Town B to go to Nandos. It took about 15 minutes to get there.
I find non London town folks often moan that their specific town doesn't have XXX and they have to "travel all the way to another town" for it and it's "so unfair because London has everything" yet a couple of days on London public transport to (slowly) get anywhere and they would be running screaming to the Watford Gap to get out of there