Do you live rurally?

[mistyfields]

We do and I like it but I do notice sometimes that we seem to be in a bit of a minority on here. I think I am noticing it more because DC1 starts school in September and walking to school is out of the question, wraparound care is very limited which in turn limits the jobs I can do, and so on.

Even the MN mainstay of ‘just wrap up and go for a walk!’ Isn’t really possible here without driving somewhere!

Just interested if anyone else lives in the arse end of nowhere, and how you find it!

We do. I absolutely love it BUT as the kids have got older, the inconveniences have become more evident. We have no bus service at all and the nearest secondary is 10 miles away with no free bus travel. It's incredibly expensive for the school bus (mine are out of that age now but I had to drive). I can't get any instructor to come to the village to teach DD to drive. I have to take DD to the nearest town daily to get the bus to work. We will be looking to move eventually to a bigger village. I couldn't live in a town or city, but I'd like a few more facilities now.

We're very rural, live miles from the nearest village, no walking to the corner shop. We love it, we like driving, we're a very organised household so don't find issues with time. We'll move to a more remote place in the next 10 years- potentially in the US or Canada.

We have no issues with playdates or kids seeing friends though, their school takes day students and boarders so we often having boarding friends visit. The issue is their friends go back home for holidays and some weekends- often hundreds of miles away. But that's a seperate topic.

@canyoulast Have you been picked yet hun? xo

Yes we do and have done for 15 years. Dc have loved it, we are close to the sea and they have had so many outdoor opportunities. Have we had to drive them everywhere, yes, but we knew that would be the case so have just done it. Their social lives have not been impacted and I would say they have a different type of social life to those in big towns or cities. They meet on the beach or each others houses. We have very limited public transport and the hospitals ate a bit hit and miss but we love it. Both dc have valued living where we do.

@mistyfields You have to teach DC about safety. We have no pavements where we live or street lights. Dc must learn about safety and you have fences and gates that they do not open! Yes, you are a taxi service. My dc could not walk to school either. As it was not a safe walking route, a taxi was provided. In some respects I think DDs would have been better off in the nearest town but we have a lot of space here which they also enjoyed. You have to weigh up what’s best.

That’s a real shame then. We live rurally but have footpaths going in all directions from our house and the lanes are quiet too.

We moved from a major city 25 years ago and brought up 3 children in a rural setting and have never regretted it. It is true that you have to put a lot more effort in to things like getting your children to activities and so on, but for us, the advantages have far outweighed the disadvantages. I mean obviously it depends on your particular interests etc but my kids have been able to do activities every week, after school and at weekends that had we remained in the city would probably have been only possible in school holidays. When they got good at their sports et it is true that it required lots of travel, but I don't think it limited their horizons at all. They had the advantage of an extremely good state education here too.
My children are all adults now, and contrary to the popular narrative on here they don't hate me, never took drugs in the local graveyard, have plenty of friends and were never bored. (Well no more than any other teenager anyway.) My eldest has finished University and now lives somewhere at least equally out of the way to where she grew up. Middle one graduates this year and is hoping to move back to our area afterwards. Eldest just started University this year and is definitely making the most of city life but says he misses home and being able to get out into the wilds.We've had some of his friends staying over the holidays and they've loved spending time here. I'm glad my kids moved away to experience different places because I didn't want them to just stay here because it was all they knew. If they prefer something different then that's absolutely fine, but I think - and they agree - that they had pretty idyllic childhoods here.
As I am getting older I do worry a bit more. Things like distance to the shops, access to healthcare etc are not a problem yet, but I do wonder if I still, want to be here in my 70s. Most probably we will down size and move to one of the bigger villages/small towns in the area in the next decade or so, but right now I still wake up every day, look put of the window and think how did I get this lucky.

I love the idea of living rurally, ie being quiet, fewer neighbours, scenic views...but probably not the practicality of children getting to schools, children not being able to be as independent when they are teens, even not having neighbours when the chips are down eg power cuts, security

I think I do but it's a different kind of rural than you @mistyfields OP! I live in a national park, from my doorstep we can walk for miles (days) through mountains and woods. Mainly mountains.

But we don't live in farm land, maybe that's the difference? It's one small road to navigate and then you're in the mountains with plenty of walking available, I would hate to live rurally and not be able to walk! For me that defeats the purpose of rural living!

We are just outside of our small, rural town so DC can walk to school unaccompanied, we have a shop/ pub/ chippie/ surgery as well as some amazing community hubs that have been funded partly through rural development schemes. So although there is not much to do, day to day needs are met.

I would not want to be unable to get out into the countryside. I suppose I am lucky with where I live

i can’t remember the last time my teen dd was in a car.
She walks to school, to her friends, to shops, to cafes, to sporting activities
makes me very happy

I grew up rurally and it was hard to join in with some things as once I was home had no way of getting back to the village my friends lived in as it was too dangerous to cycle in the dark on the narrow roads. That said I loved the freedom, the sprawling open space & overall sense of peace & calm.

I'd love to sell up and move back to the arse end of nowhere but it's not possible quite yet....but one day I will.

I can give you a slightly different non UK rural viewpoint.

We live in a tiny mountain village in Norway. Very much a choice to live here. We are lucky in the fact that DC can walk or ski to school/ nursery and a very tiny local shop (seasonal fruit/veg, limited meat/ fish choices, bread and milk). The local town is a 1 hour drive and it's also a very small mountain town. We have excellent local services that are all within walking distance, so a tiny GPs, shop and an automated petrol and diesel pump. However, other services are a big distance away. For example DS had to referred for a fairly routine orthopedic appointment to review. Our "local" hospital is the equivalent of driving from Cheshire to Taunton in Somerset. So it was a long day of train rides etc. That is also our local city, so we have no takeaways, restaurants etc.
We do spend less money and definitely have more outdoor interest, play a lot of family boardgames etc.
We used to live in Stockholm and had every single choice of everything on our doorstep. I would choose rural every single time.

Teaching about safety is of course important but at age one you’re on a highway to nowhere with that.

Living on the edge of a national park sounds lovely.

We live in a very idyllic country village with lots of lovely walks on our doorstep. DS attends the school in the next village and is picked up by a taxi every day. It is perfect for the primary years, lovely community, plenty of fresh country air. We plan to move to a town for the secondary years as I am already a bit tired of almost everything being a drive away and with a teenager that will become so much worse.

I am a big fan of living in different places for different stages of life. Cheap city to get the on the housing ladder when young. Countryside for the primary years. A safe town with amenities and public transport for secondary years. A place with plenty of theatres, art galleries and social clubs for empty nest, pre grandchildren years. Close to the grandchildren when they are growing up. A lovely retirement community for late in life.

Yes, although I'm not sure about being in the minority on MN as I see plenty of other posters saying they live rurally!

We've been in a small village for 3 years, primary school is in the next village so not walkable. DH grew up rurally and really wanted the same for DC, I grew up in a town but was open to rural living.

We don't have many facilities in our village, but we do have lots of lovely walks around where you don't have to get in the car first (lots of farms here too, but most have public rights of way across them).

The wraparound care thing is interesting, for us DC primary school does have wraparound care, but there is only 1 childminder who picks up from the school and holiday clubs are all miles away so overall it's limited.

Overall in our village people are friendly and look out for each other when there's power cuts, bad weather etc. There's one or two in the village whose families have lived here for loads of generations and like to bang on about 'outsiders' spoiling their village, but mostly it's a good little community. I'm aware it could get challenging when DC hit the teenage years though.

Yes. Rural Suffolk, in a small cluster of houses - not a village though, no shops, no street lighting. We can't walk to primary school either! The only thing I do miss is having a park for the kids within walking distance . We can go for a walk from our house though, we back onto fields and there is a public right of way across them.

I can sympathise with this, especially just at the moment! There are no pavements round here and whilst our lane is normally very quiet there are currently roadworks on the nearest A road and loads of people are using our road as a diversion even though it's not the official one and it would be a nightmare to try to walk anywhere today. Normally it's not so bad though.
Your kids are very young though OP. It won't be like this forever. We live about 3 miles outside the village where most of our friends and DC's friends live and there was a lot of taxiing when they were young. There's no pavements and it isn't a safe route for a primary aged child to cycle. But by the time they were at secondary they had enough road sense that could walk to closer friends, cycle further afield, get off the school bus at a different stop and we did a lot of lift sharing. I probably did more driving than if I'd stayed in the city but I wasn't on the road all the time. And in fact a lot of my old friends still drove their kids to places in the city, at least at night, because of worries about crime that were just not on my radar.
Of course there are downsides and worries to living and bringing up kids rurally, but the same could be said of urban life - nowhere is perfect.

We don’t have any childminders at the local tiny school and I was met with incredulity when I said this once!

Yes, I do! A mile up a single track lane, with no neighbours except cattle and sheep, pitch dark at night, not a trace of light pollution, four miles from the nearest town, plenty of space to keep my bees and chickens, a garden full of wildlife (some, like rats and squirrels less welcome than others!), perfect peace and tranquility at night. Wouldn't have it any other way, but it is what I am used to, and what I have chosen, my preferrence being to spend my time in wide open spaces, surrounded by green and living things, and having been brought up in an old cottage, virtually on an island between a small river and a derelict canal, half a mile walk from the nearest road and everything, absolutely everything, including groceries, feed for mum and dad's chickens, goats and sheep etc, was taken along the river path on a wheelbarrow. Absolute heaven for kids - we had a rowing boat and rowed up the river to build dens and camps, complete freedom to roam the fields and woods, trying to shoot rabbits with homemade bows and arrows, swimming in the river every day in summer - very much a 'Just William' type childhood.

I did, once, through circumstance, live in a small town for a short while but felt miserable, suffocated, hemmed in and like a caged animal. Never again! But it is, I guess, 'horses for courses'.

I grew up in a tiny picturesque hamlet and I absolutely despised it. No public transport, couldn't safely walk on the national speed limit pavementless roads (so like you it was a drive to go for a walk), awful small-minded nosey neighbours, no children my age nearby, depending on parents for lifts for everything. Awful. My parents on the other hand love it, love their garden, love the remoteness.

I now live in a city with everything I need less than 15 minutes walk away, including lovely parks and longer walks. I'm also close to a hospital which is reassuring. As my parents age the fact that they are so far from support and emergency services is worrying. They don't really drive anymore but won't move so they're living a very limited life. Thank goodness for shopping delivery services and internet shopping in some respects, but without that lifeline they would probably be forced to move, which I think would be better for them.

We live semi-rurally. It's in a row of houses, maybe 15 or so, there are a few streetlights, but nothing out the back other than fields, and across from ours is just our neighbours house, then fields and hills. We can walk to school, its 10 minutes and safe as there is a grassy verge in front of a few houses and then pavement. But there's no walkable shops, pubs, restaurants, no takeaways will deliver to us. We are an hours drive to a huge city, 25 minutes to a small city and there's a few small shops around 10 minutes drive.

There is zero after school/breakfast clubs. That is difficult, but we are lucky in that DH and I both only for a 4 day week, so that's 2 days, and the other 3 DH's work is flexible and he does school drop off's and pick ups. He can work from home sometimes and if he has client meetings I am in a job that allows me to collect time to take off in lieu when I'm on callso I use that to leave early/come in late, but we need to be very organised for that

It's been nearly 3 years and I still love it. We go for walks in the fields, we are mostly crops round us so as long as we stay to the side the farmers don't care.

I love the wildlife we have round us too

We live in a village, but I’m not sure if I can really describe it as rural as the nearest city is only 10-15mins drive away. Driving everywhere can be a pain, but living here means we can afford a large detached house which for us was worth the drawbacks. I don’t mind driving the teens around really - it’s when we have our best chats. Captive audience!

I appreciate that my circumstances are different to many, in that I have no dependents and it is just me, myself and I to cater for, but my needs and wants are few, my nearest town has, sandwiched between all the pubs, bars, coffee shops, tattoo parlours and nail bars, none of which I require, outlets which I do, like supermarkets and an agricultural merchant. I keep a couple of loaves of bread in the freezer, long life milk, tinned foods and soups in the store cupboard, in case of emergency, have oil lamps and a petrol stove for light and cooking facilities in case of power cuts or, if in real trouble, a stovetop kettle and cast iron skillet for the top of the woodburner. I make my own jams, jellies, chutneys and preserves, cut, split, store and season my own firewood, harvest some of my own food in the form of pigeons and rabbits, courtesy of the local farmers, catch my own fish from the local beach. And yet - my local town has arts centres, theatres, a library, cinema and a couple of museums, including one dedicated to the history of brick and tile making, artfully concealed in an industrial estate! There are more cultural facilities in the County town, 8 miles away, so I have the best of both worlds, in my view. I am not trying to be flippant, but this lifestyle suits me perfectly.

Currently we live on the very, very edge of town with fields/walks to the back of the house. As soon as DD (currently 14) goes off to uni or whatever we will be moving out as close as possible to where I keep my horse in the middle of nowhere. I hate being in a town, give me the outdoors!