I moved here and now I love…

[Ferreting]

Well I moved here and now I love all the missing ferrets. There are two heartening sides to these tales and one is the fact that people keep ferrets (not a thing where I am from a few hours away) and the brilliant community response that invariably finds the ferret (also not mic a thing where I am from).

There is one today that escaped and is already all over local Facebook pages scurrying around. Hopefully soon to be recovered then he can join all of the found ferret stories. The best one was the primary school text asking who had forgotten their ferret and left it in the playground.

What random things do you love about where you live because it wasn’t a thing where you grew up?

The scrap iron man. The first time I heard him thought it was a call to prayer. Not a thing where I grew up or have previously lived.

The random food vans that appear at the local pubs. Definitely didn't get that in London.

I love æresport. Weddings and big anniversaries you get an arch made of greenery and flowers around your front door.

Stork outside your house when you have a baby.

Girl Guides and Scouts happily swinging axes and knives. Also they do not mess around with pioneering - I helped make a freaking ferris wheel out of poles and rope!

Local municipal swimming pool

Free local events

An amazing fruit and veg shop

Fantastic community spirit. It’s a really happy town.

We have a music festival that lasts a week with local pubs, restaurants and churches taking part and at the weekend the park is filled with various stages and stalls. (Not Glastonbury).

Smallish city. Nearly every weekend there's something on in the centre. Often music, markets, entertainment generally. It's lovely!

Absolutely nothing to love about where I live sadly.

I love all of these!

I live on the edge of a smallish city, surrounded by fantastic countryside and only half an hour from the beach. We have everything we need close by, a top ranked university, an excellent theatre, a fantastic hospital etc., but although technically we live on the edge of a housing estate and our house is semi detached we are surrounded by trees with fields on 2 sides, (to the side is designated amenity land protected by a covenant, behind is a wildlife sanctuary, so neither can be built on) our garden is regularly visited by deer, badgers, squirrels and foxes, all I can hear are birds - we get SO many birds! And bats. My neighbours are nice. We have somewhere to park right outside our house... And did I mention the birds? Apart from the usual blackbirds, robins, sparrows, wrens, bluetits, coaltits, magpies, wood pigeons etc. I have, in the last few days, seen a nuthatch, a lesser spotted woodpecker, a greenfinch, a chaffinch, a bullfinch, a willow warbler (had to look that one up) and a fair of long tailed tits. I have heard nightingales and various different varieties of owl, and seen buzzards overhead.

We have a small stream in front of our house, a small colony of brown lizards amongst some sleepers on the patio, and slowworms in our compost heap. I just love it here!

The nature reserve just a few steps
from our house and the pub and coffee shop at the marina, a short walk away.
I also like that we bought some years ago when it was a cheaper area and if moving here now, we could probably not afford it.
It does lack diversity though and some of the town’s population are a sharp
elbowed demographic, but I don’t go on the local FB group where it used to wind me up and I would wind others up.

Sounds wonderful!

This sounds great ! Where are you ?

Are you in Wales? I thought exactly the same when I first moved here!

Ha ha- same! There is a mosque not far from where I live so thought it was that but nope! I only know because I asked a Muslim friend and he burst out laughing at me and explained. I felt like a right prat!

Rural Denmark.

@Ferreting it IS wonderful! My adult daughter is really rude about our 1990's, and actually quite nice, house and the fact that we technically live on a housing estate, but we have good insulation, lovely bathrooms, enough bedrooms, a lovely kitchen, really effective double glazing and everything we need. She has a very nice, characterful and very old thatched cottage with one tiny shower room and an inadequate kitchen. It has a lovely garden, but nowhere at all to park and although it is beautiful it is surrounded by other houses. Swings and roundabouts! Very few people get exactly what they want.

We have missing ferret posts too. One wandered into the local police station 😂

Our scrap iron man doesn't bother hollering "A-WOON" out of his van window any more, he rings a hand bell instead. New folk who move in are confused and think he's selling ice cream.😁

NB - translates to "Rag & Bones" in a rural Bedfordshire yokel accent (yes there is such a thing).

Yes!! South Wales. And everyone who visits also has the same "what on earth is that?" moment. Especially as the van whizzes around too fast to actually stop and see - no idea how you're meant to get your scrap out.

The only thing I love where I live is the road leading out of the place.

This may be a strange thing to write about but it gives me such a nice feeling about the country I live in.

In our government hospitals, patients are given warm milk with honey and biscuits to help them sleep. It’s all done so lovingly, I always half expect the trolley lady to tuck me in and give me a goodnight kiss as well.

Just don't leave any bikes outside, even in your garden!

@DilemmaDelilah Where do you live please? It sounds amazing!

Amazing! I'm in South Wales too and truly thought it was a call to prayer. (I still find all Welsh so lyrical, even after 6 years here 🥰)