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 had to move last year. We now live rurally.
Pros: Beautiful. We have a river that runs through. Full of wildlife, pheasants, hares, shrews, foxes, ducks, herons that we love to watch. Dairy cows that will come into the field beside us every week or two. I find them very relaxing and they come over and listen to me talk to them. Big outside space. Calm and quiet. No traffic noise. I have an online business so work from home, no need to commute.
Cons: Isolating. I do feel rather lonely. I don't get to walk the kids to school anymore. They miss their friends calling for them. We have to drive to get anywhere whereas before we had everything on our door step. I miss chatting with the neighbours even just in passing.

Well, I don’t drive at all (see other current thread expressing disbelief at those who don’t), and live close to a city centre, within a few minutes’ walk of both DS’s schools, my workplace, shops, cinemas, theatres, restaurants, pubs, gyms etc. DH has a car, but it only really gets used if we’re heading out of the city, or if he needs to go to his more distant office HQ rather than the local one where he’s based. So it’s possible not to have to use a car much depending on where you live. A lot of people where we live are medics at two nearby hospitals or academics at the nearby university and walk and cycle everywhere.

I grew up in the country, but have moved around internationally a lot as an adult. DS was born in London where we’d lived for ten years, grew up up on the edge of a village in England till he was 8, which he loved but admits now at almost 13 he prefers the city we live in now.

The most remote place I ever lived was on an island where I was the only inhabitant other than sheep and seals, and which could easily get cut off for weeks at a time in bad weather. I loved it.

I used to think I’d like it, but that was before we started staying regularly with friends who lived down a steep, very narrow lane in rural Devon. All very nice for a weekend, but you needed to drive for 15 minutes for a pint of milk or emergency loo roll, and they couldn’t even walk their dogs off the lead without driving for at least 10 minutes - sheep in fields and local boy racers (not many but enough) hurtling around the lanes.

Crazily enough, it was much easier for them to walk their dogs when staying with us, outer SW London, a few minutes’ walk from a big park.

There’s very different ways to live rurally!
I live in the edge of a village - I’m in bed now watching the mist rise over the valley. It’s quiet and beautiful.
i can walk from my door to woodlands with rivers, a waterfall, hilltop walks all off road and no one around.
i can also walk, within five minutes, to two pubs, a shop, a primary school, a GP surgery, a bakers and a bus stop with a bus to the city (45 minutes on the bus).
I love it , it feeds my soul.
i love to visit cities but could never live in London- maybe a European city.
my point is, it’s not all or nothing. When we bought our house , our priority was that the kids to walk to a school, and we could walk to a shop and a pub. You can have rural peace and beauty without being completely isolated.

I also have the best (sort of) of both worlds. Tiny hamlet (50 houses or so, no amenities) about 2 miles from the nearest very small town, so walking distance over the fields. Bridlepaths for dog walking, mostly arable so no stock to worry about, road goes nowhere so no boy racers. Quiet, but not too isolated. Disadvantage was that my kids (who grew up here) had no friends nearby and I had to drive them to every meet up and they had to get driving lessons ASAP which, as a single parent with no money was nearly impossible. When they all had weekend jobs in different towns and directions, I would spend most of my time in the car, picking up and dropping off. But they had a pony, a garden full of animals, and roamed outdoors with the dogs in the holidays.

I continue to live here, but in a smaller house now and still love it, although I do worry about what might happen if I have to stop driving...

Yep in a tiny hamlet next in the grounds of a big estate. Love it. It's so quiet, wildlife is everywhere and we know all of the small amount of neighbours. The estate is a big shooting one and we go bush beating for them, as do a far amount of the residents so it really does feel close knit. Miles of beautiful walking literally out of the door.
Downsides - nearest shop is a tiny spar attached to a garage 3 miles away, coop is about 6 miles and supermarket is 10/15.

Grew up in London, now living in a rural village on the outskirts of Rome. There’s a church, a couple of sleepy shops, and fields..but Rome is only 30 minutes away on the metro. Lots of new houses are springing up, and a shopping centre is going in this year.
I like it for the tranquility, and my commute to Rome is very easy. I’ll move back to England eventually, but not sure if I’d like to go back to London.

MNers are heavily concentrated in London & SEast.

The most difficult things I've found about raising a family in a rural setting is the unreliable bus service to secondary school. My children have to get a public bus rather than a dedicated school bus and it is awful. Gets them there late very often or misses picking them up.
The other tricky time has been when they get weekend jobs at college but the bus service doesn't go to that location so you have take them and pick them up.

The population is particularly concentrated in London and the SE (near 20m) so that would be expected.

I live in a neighbourhood in Birmingham like this - we love it and although both of us have licences we don't own a car - DH works from home, I work in community dev. and get around by bike. I love it here - we moved closer in as we lived in a more affluent area (Solihull) but there was less access and we had to get into a car every time we went out in the evening and we love Gigs, Cinema and Theatre - now we can walk to our nearist art house cinema and we have a very regular bus service to get into the city centre in 20 mins

When I was a teen my parents moved from London to Norfolk - I hated it because suddenly I'd lost all my independance and there was nothing going on. I still have a gruge against the countryside for that! Having said all that we still get out and about here - It's a 20 minute cycle and your into rural Warcs and country lanes ect so I don't feel deprived of views.

City living is what you make it - I've been out mulching fruit trees in my local park this morning - we have plenty of green spaces here.

Eighteen months. I was a caretaker, mostly, though I also repaired broken drystone walls and did some wildlife checks.

I think most people would describe where I live as remote rather than rural. Fields, mountains & the sea all round us. No neighbours within shouting distance. 20 mins drive to the nearest village, doctors etc. 45 mins to the nearest supermarket. 7 hour round trip to the nearest city. We love it here, it's very peaceful.

I bloody love living rurally. I wouldn’t swap.

My favourite is no people within 4 miles.

I lived rurally for a year after I seperated from my now ex husband, as I rented a cottage at mates rates from a friend. I thought I would love it as I ride, and my horse I loan was on the doorstep and I love the outdoors lifestyle in general, however it was so difficult.

My teenage daughter hated it and I ended up being a free Uber driver. Everything took so much planning and you couldn't just go out for the evening without spending a fortune on taxi fares. If you forgot milk or bread, it meant jumping in your car.

I have now bought my own place closer to the City and I love it. The bus is on our doorstep and we have shops 5 minutes walk away. I miss some aspects of rural life, but i so appreciate the convenience of where I live now.

I grew up on a farm, edge of a village so rural but think I'm after remote lol.

I love the look of remote, but it's bad enough having to drive the ten minutes on the local lanes to the nearest shop (which I work in, which helps). The thought of being very remote and having hours to drive to the nearest bigger town makes me feel oddly claustrophobic. And I'd also panic about what would happen if I was unable to drive for any reason. And now I'm in my 60's I quite like having neighbours who would notice if I didn't take my milk in or if the dog was unwalked for a day!

So I think my little rural hamlet is the best of both worlds.

We can walk to the village shop ( 20mins ) and pub (15mins) but the pub isn’t the most inspiring, no food and a drinkers pub. The next nearest pub is just not practical to walk to, narrow, fast (60mph) and at times, busy. Our local primary school is walkable but again at drop off and pick up time you take your life in your hands. Busy parents are not tolerant of fellow parents on foot.

The local shop and post office is now a Coop express and has a good variety of stock but not cheap. Since changing hands they have doubled the staff and are open longer but we have a decent Tescos in our local town (10mins drive although can take up to 30mins in traffic).

DS went to school in local city, private academically selective (12miles or 24 round trip) the state alternative was the same distance. Both had school buses but we had to drive 3 miles to the pick up by stop. State school picks up almost from our front door. The local bus service does run from the same bus stop as state school but timings wrong and very unreliable ( the buses are always breaking down).

We can walk for pleasure from our front door though. But no street lights until you reach the small town we are closer too so walking to the pub or shop in the dark is fun.

Over the years, probably the biggest problem is the frequent power outages, since the cables are over land. The recent storm caused multiple fallen trees and we were without power for 3 hours, however National Grid sent me a cheque a few days later for a few hundred pounds compensation. I was a bit taken aback because they’ve never done it before.

The longest we’ve been without power is 48 hrs, nothing to do with weather. A local bull was using the electric cables post as a scratching post and brought it down. It caused the cables to snap, everytime the circuit breaker tried to kick in another part of the cable arced and so about a quarter of a mile of the cables came down. Fortunately it was all across farmland and no bulls were harmed.

We’ve had a herd of cows escape into the main road at night causing chaos. Woken up to sheep grazing on our lawn. We have amazing birdlife including a cuckoo that visits annually.

Although there is a downside to living rurally there are so many ups.

Well that is what you’d expect given it’s the most populous area of the country… I actually think rural and Scottish MNers are overrepresented

We're rural and love it. It's a small village but it has everything we need, and it's not a long drive at all to a bigger town. The next village over has decent amenities. We've got two shops, two pubs, a post office, and a few little restaurants and cafes. The walk to school is only about 15 minutes.

We're a horsey family so we have a stable and land. Cottage is about 300 years old and we renovated a lot of it ourselves. DH is Norwegian so we'll be moving there in a couple of years - the house we own there is in a very small village, but it's extremely close knit. DH grew up there and it's absolutely amazing for kids and teens, lots of accessible things like youth clubs and the like. Not amazing for jobs once they get older (unless WFH like me and DH), but the sheer amount of people who return later in life proves the pull of the place! Magical.

We live rurally in a tiny hamlet a few minute's drive or half an hour's walk from a village.

As we're so remote, the roads between us and the village are single-track and extremely quiet so are quite safe for walking, running and biking and this makes a huge difference, I think, practically and psychologically.

It is very friendly, quiet, peaceful and safe, and very beautiful, with views of hills and the sea.
It is also a bloody long way away when you're missing something you can only buy at Waitrose!

Lived in a tiny village for 35 years.
It was perfect when DC were little. They got a school bus to the primary in the next village and later to secondary 5 miles away. Lots of walks and pretty countryside. No bus service and no shop.
If you run out of sugar you have to get in the car or borrow from a neighbour. As a result I have a well stocked larder and chest freezer.

Once DC hit 12 or so there is a huge amount of running around. At 17 they got their licence but you still do lifts for nights out. I never said no because they could easily have resented living here.
Now retired and I would love to move somewhere with amenities but DH won't.