to not understand why people choose to live in the countryside?

[cumbria81]

Don't get me wrong, I love the countryside as much as the next person. I spend most of my weekends there walking/cycling/whatever.

But why on earth would you want to live in the back end of nowhere where you have to get in the car to buy a pint of milk and everything is a logistical nightmare?

Where I live, 2 miles from a city centre, I can walk to work/a swimming pool/cinema/shops/theatre/train station etc etc. I can also, if I want, run/walk off road through parks and woods for a few miles and am out of the city and into rural land - so best of both.

I don't mind sitting in the car for 1.5 hours on the weekend to get out to the real countryside (ie Dales and Lakes) but if I had to drive every single day for everything I think I'd go spare.

Plus no Selfridges in the country!

I USED to not understand it either. Now I know there is fresh air and space for the children, TREES in abundance, sometimes room for pets, walks and a smaller quantity of arseholes per square mile. That would be the big pull, for me.

Horses for courses. :)

Being in the city for too long freaks me out. It's a great place to visit but...

Of course I don't live in the country anymore, but in a small town. One day I'll get my farm though!

This thread confuses me. Firstly Im not sure i understand where in th UK people can be fhat isolated (unless in scotland?). Secondly, who lives 5 mins away from a shop? I live in a village and still have to drive to get milk and bread.

We do both. A house in the country and a flat in London.

Both have there pros and cons.

The house has acres of space and we have dogs and chickens and horses. Over the bank holiday we could put up our gazebo and spend the day in our garden in total peace and quiet. The children played outside all day in the sun.
The air quality is good and the views stunning. Afyer school drop off I often go walking with friends and there are hundreds of beautiful walks. Miles of fields and rolling hills.

In town, we have easy access to theatre, restaurants, decent shops etc. It's fun. But I couldn't live there all the time and the children feel very cooped up.

I have almost always lived in the country, apart from a stint in Florence. Am a farmer's daughter so grew up knowing the country ways. Would never move to a suburb or city although occasionally do hamlet after the convenience of doing so - good local restaurants, etc.

Last night, at 4.00am when I couldn't sleep I heard a nightingale singing, loud and clear. It was beautiful. For that alone I will always live in the country.

bonsoir my DP would move to France tomorrow, that has been his plan for years. We have got a second home in France, and we he seriously considered it for a time. We couldn't have mucked up dd's schooling though, she was 12 at the time, and is useless at languages. DP speaks fluent French and would fit in immediately; I can only just get by and am also useless at languages, so could not get to a level of French where I could work professionally.

Plus, if I was to move to France I would want to live in Paris, not in the Cantal where the nearest bright lights is a choice between Brive La Gaillarde or Aurillac! It is wonderful for a holiday (is truly beautiful, all rivers and mountains, and so peaceful with NO English tourists) but I think I would go nuts if I lived there.

I am going to move to London when dd has finished her A Levels. Would love to move after GCSE (next year) but she has loads of committments in the area and I know she won't want to move.

So three more years in Gloucestershire it is then

Ohcome on getorf! It really isn't that bad in gloucestershire. I'm sure you'll survive.....

I know I am just being a grouch Orm.

There are far worse places to live. I am very lucky really. But we have decided to move to London so feel we are in limbo really at the moment.

I've done both. I was born and brought up in Edinburgh and spent years in Amsterdam. I always thought I could only live in a city.
Now at the age of 54 due to work and circumstances, I live in a very isolated village in Scotland.
I've been here 17 years now and have adapted to the village way of life. We are 50 miles from the nearest supermarket, the closest hospital is 60 miles (Inverness). We come alive in the spring/summer when the tourists come back but they don't overwhelm the place.
We have a small shop/cafe, which is a ten minute walk, a mobile butcher who does fresh veg. and milk, mobile bank and mobile library, all who come to my front door.
My son went to a tiny primary school where there was never more than 10 pupils and had so much freedom as a child, running around with his friends outside for hours on end.
He's now 15 though and desperate to get out. It's not a place for teenagers.
He's doing exams now and is working hard at them as he wants to go to university. He knows, in terms of employment there's nothing here and I understand that.
I on the other hand am quite happy here, I have a good circle of friends, I have family in Inverness so can stay and get my fix of shops, but I am gradually becoming a bit of a bumkin. If I had to move back to a city I know I would adapt again, but I also know I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country and I would be hard pressed to leave.

I lived in SW london until 2 years ago. It was the £500 hand bags glaring at me from the department store window that drove me out. I hated the constant barrage of materialistic tat. I hated being surrounded by people spending money in pursuit of happiness. When I returned to visit my little corner of suburbia - one that by most standards is pleasant - tree-lined, Victorian housing, full of nice people, I was struck, to be blunt, by how ugly and claustrophobic it was. Noisy too, and full of people who don't meet your eye.

When I first moved up here the word that kept coming to my mind in trying to describe what was different about it was light. There just seems to be a lighter, less worried, less hassled way of being. People here seem to have a lighter load, a lighter way of interacting. They don't plod. It's like they're less worn down by life. They look around them and see beauty and it lifts them.

I think that classing urban living as materialistic is quite reductive (and with the internet and a credit card you have the same access to expensive bags as if you lived only a few bus stops away from selfriges, if that's what rocks your boat).

People are attracted to a big city mostly because big cities often offer a variety of jobs. Cities also offer a variety of ways to occupy your free time, ways that can be as decadent or as "productive" or vocational as you might prefer. Is trekking on the hills morally superior than taking a walk in the park? Is getting drunk in the local pub different than getting drunk in an urban bar?

I have always lived in a big city (apart from 8 yrs in a small city in SW England) and it is a way of life that is now ingrained in my deeper self. My best friends live round the corner, my family a few tram stops away. The other day we had a big picnic in the park, 30 people between adults and children who've known each other for 20 yrs or more. This suits me more than hearing the song of a nightingale.

Of course I hate the traffic, the rudeness, etc and I am doing what I can to support a new mayor in the local elections (he'll never win though, as Milanese are sadly deeply right wing).

I didn't meant to be reductive, and didn't mean to imply that urban living = materialism and all urbanites are somehow inherently materialistic. What I meant, and what I found hard, was, as I said, the "constant barrage". It was quite likely something to do with the particular part of the urban world I resided in but it was very in-your-face - and impossible to avoid. Yes I can buy the same stuff on-line but I no longer have to walk past shop windows and advertising hoardings trying to convince me I would be happier if I had an expensive hand bag, when I walk to the bus stop/buy some milk/ take my kids to school. Pic-nics in the park with people you have known for years sound lovely - and are a feature of life here too (though we make do with fields) - but I think you are perhaps lucky to have that in an urban setting. Many (but not all) people in London have left their home town, commute huge distances into the centre, and have few local links in their immediate neighbourhood. It can be very isolating.

Yes, Hatwoman, I agree that there are some intrinsic sociologic differences which may influence our experience of city life.
It is true that - after having emigrated to the rest of world in the XIX and XX century - Italians don't move around Italy as much as the Brits seem to do (though things are changing again and there is a good number of Italians who leave their country... we did for a while!), therefore yes there probably is more sense of community.

I don't find consumerism so in your face, or at least it doesn't bother me that much, in that - even in fashion conscious Milan - there are so many different groups that you can easily survive without the expensive bag or the horrible Hogan trainers that are so in here at the moment.

As I said, there are other things that irritate me to the most, but they are more connected to the way most Italians are rather than the city itself and there is no place to hide from this, even when I lived in the UK I used to feel depressed about Italian conditions.

Btw Milan is mostly crap, but I do love it

What decided us to move from big city to little village was that since we had children, we weren't actually going out doing all the good things about living in a city. We weren't going to the arts cinema more than once or twice a year, though previously I'd practically lived there. We rarely went to the theatre etc. We just went to the park or to the soft play, or the toddler group. And we were stuck in long car commutes at rush hour due to jobs and nursery constraints.

And every weekend we would trek out of the city to access the mountains or sea or lakes. I can see the point of big city living but with small children we weren't doing all the good bits anyway.

But then you moved too late Fennel, you should have moved earlier so at least we'd have survived toddlerhood together

I am finding the Milly-molly-mandy village life quite good with primary aged children, they have a sense of freedom and strong local community that we couldn't have easily provided in the city we lived in before.

one day I'll live in a big city again, in a minimalist flat, just me, no kids, no mess, no DP... I like cities too. but this seems to suit our family life very well.

..I did wonder at the time what those who were snowed in miles from any facilities did to stop their little ones going nuts...

ours played in the snow, went for walks in the snow, etc. We were cut off for over a week - was great :)

Amazon, Waitrose and JL deliver - can always drive to the big city for Selfridges :)

I think that the village you moved to is very cheerful Fennel. Plus you and your dp are certainly more outdoorsy than we are. As you know I am a whimp and found outdoorsy life in the UK a struggle because I was always cold ...

I agree, OP, it's a great idea, but when I think of the hassle of getting kids to social events and them getting back. Going to the bank, shopping, you would have to be very organised, (which I'm not). I too, have cinema, shopping mall within 20 min walk and I would not like being isolated in the sticks.

I hear villages are full of gossips, at least I can be anonymous when I want to be.

Ps. I live in a suburb of a big city and my only regret is that I can never see a full sunset because of the bloody houses at the back of us.

I'm with Franca on the picnic-in-the-park urban lifestyle. I love the demographic density and the fact that I know so many people in my neighbourhood - and that some of those people are from all over the world and some have been here forever. I spend a lot of time outdoors in exquisitely beautiful and well-maintained public spaces and I love how relaxed socialising is in such an environment.

franca I think whether you are outdoorsy does have ahuge impact on how much you enjoy country life or not.

If you like walking/hiking/cycling/climbing etc and want to make it a part of your daily existence, then it pays to have it all at your doorstep.
In the same way that if one loves messing about on the water, nothing could beat living by the sea I suspect.

I appear to have raised children who love nothing better than being outdoors so whilst I love my time in London, they feel very constrained.

Yes, absolutely Wordfactory. My dc are very outdoorsy too, but we do live near 2 parks where all the local children go (mind you, being this Italy they aren't as manicured or as big as those beautiful London ones) and this keeps them happy.

Also, Milan is less than 2 hrs drive from the slopes, and we go skiing quite often in the winter. We also go and visit the inlaws who live in the country and have a huge garden very regularly, therefore I think the children can't complain too much!