to hate living in the country?

[Hullygully]

IT'S SO BORING I HATE IT I HATE IT

I lived in the country in a small village for about 6 month, I think I enjoyed the first week then I got bored the time dragged it was so so dull but nothing is worse than living in suburbia that really does suck the life out of you, well unless you like it of course

Hurry up and move back to a city it's far more fun

I would rather pluck my own eyeballs out than live in London, personally. I did 2 years of hell there in my 20s and it's a shithole, quite frankly. Living in the countryside means I don't have to:-

1. Walk past homeless/drunk/drugged up people and drop a patronising coin in their cup
2. Ignore the schizophrenic nutter on the last tube home who's trying to talk to me.
3. Stand for 1 1/2hr on the train being ignored by prats in suits who are sitting smugly. After already spending the day being shoved by crowds and fighting my way through shops.
4. Decide whether to come home from wild night out at ooh...about 8.30pm on train or fork out a week's wages for a taxi at midnight
5. Speak to snotty, southern strangers who look at me and then blank me as though I'm weird for saying, 'Morning' to them.
6. Have various people go, 'OMG you're from the North!' (as though that makes me either thick, sub-human, slow, or that I own a whippet.
7. Listen to up their own arses people in the office talking shit about 'trendy' food/art/culture.
8. Live in a damp bedsit knowing I could afford to buy a fucking house in the country for what I am paying here in rent.

10. Pay about double what anything would cost somewhere else because it is 'London prices' which means that it's okay to be ripped off because 'London' is somehow cool and special.

They may be all negatives but it adds something to your day :)

I aged about 30 years living in suburbia the dullness nearly killed me

I love the tube crazies! they were much more crative and entertaining in their craziness than scary country crazies! (who you genuinely fear will murder you one day!)

Just out of interest, what's the crumpet situation in the countryside?

I keep watching programmes with swarthy men in tweedy breeches concealing well toned rural buttocks and think , looking across at the sleeping heap of podgy City man next to me. But when I'm there I never see these men .

I do indeed live up in the Lincolnshire Wolds. I moved here for the schools too, and also have 3.5 years to go

Advantages:
It is quite ridiculously pretty here.
It is close to quite ridiculously perfect beaches.
They have grammar schools, which are superb.
There is a grammar school that boards so you don't have to live here.
The people are very nice, very welcoming and aren't narsty to incomers.
Your children will rapidly become outdoors kids cos there is fuck all else to do

Disadvantages:
The shopping is fucking useless. Lincoln itself is a timewarp, and don't expect to find anything high end there.
The supermarkets are v v small, unless you are near enough to drive to Lincoln. Which I'm not.
There are no decent hairdressers.
Or beauticians.
Or anything else really.
Lincolnshire does not have motorways. Or dual carriageways. Get stuck behind a tractor and you are stuffed.
It rains. A lot.
It is windy. Most of the time.
All the farmers grow fucking rape. Summer is hayfever season for moooooonths.
Then it gets cold and damp. And you discover that the rape fields are magnets for mould. I won't say any more about mould allergies.
There are very few things to do.

I read 'Wife in the North' as my comfort reading. She has it far, far worse than me.

I long for Essex. Yes, it is that bad.

There is no crumpet here. There are about six surnames, all of local villages, and everyone looks like each other for a very good reason.

Houses are cheap though. Can't imagine why.

I've lived in this village all my life. Can't imagine I'd ever leave. I went to uni in a big city for 3 years, dirty, noisy, got burgled, they had riots.

Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I'd got a job in London, some other really big city.

I don't think I had the courage at 21 to go for it. Got a fairly good degree and came home and applied for admin jobs in my home town as there was nothing else going. All a bit tragic really.

imo,boredom can lead to depression,so I think Hullys and others' problems are important to address.

I love the sense of community here in Dorset; we have been here 2 years and are so much more involved in life than when we lived in suburbia. I am now a school governor, my DH is a parish councillor and we have a big set of friends within a mile or two. Yes, there's more driving generally but there is no traffic, so it's actually quite a pleasure to be out in the car. The schools are all 'outstanding' ; my little DD's school is 5 mins walk and the older two get free school buses from outside the front door. I love the fact that people really seem to matter to each other. I gave always wanted to live somewhere like this and it's better than I ever thought it would be.

And the health care! My little DD has eye problems and it used to take an entire day of misery getting her seen at Moorfields in Ealing. Now we bowl up to the County Hospital, park directly outside, wait 5 mins and see a consultant. Barely time to open a magazine. We also have a brand new state of the art GP surgery. Dead easy to get an appointment. I like the feeling of not having to compete against hordes of people for basic services.

EmmaNemms, I've found the health care to be generally rather better than when we were living in town, but I had a dreadful consultant there, and the guy I see here is good. Our massive hospital is like a curate's egg, but the equipment is far more up to date than the hospital I used to be stuck with, and the staff are far better. GP is as good as, but again is better equipped.

That's probably the best (only) good thing about being here.

I agree some small cities are good, but I live in a crap small city, and its depressing.

NO restaurants. I am telling the truth, in the whole city there is not one decent restaurant, just chains and indian and chinese basic eateries.

No decent theatre.

The cinema is run down and horrible, plus has no licence.

Its as ugly as sin apart from a tiny area round the cathedral.

There are nice places in Cheltenham down the road but that is a twee as fuck.

To feel you are in a real city you have to go to Bristol or Birmingham.

It is rather damp today, admittedly. But it's all lovely and green outside!

Actually, the road bonkers thing is my biggest disappointment about living in the country. I thought either

a) I'd finally learn to drive in a "nice quiet gentle roads" place.

b) I could cycel everywhere.

Ha!

This lot drive worse than the maddness in Milan. At least the traffic slows the buggers down in the city. Here they burn along narrow, bendy, potholed roads like they are on the autostrada and act all infuriated if you aren't going thirty km ph over the limit.

The roadside is jam packed with little crosses and bunches of flowers....but do they wake up and realise they are not immortal ? Do they bollocks!!

They bully other cars and cycling is akin to having a very uncommited feeling about being alive. So I am stuck being driven when my husband is free and I feel up to the task of quivering in the second driver's seat, squeaking and peeking put between my fingers between bouts of panic.

This is when sheep come in handy. They are like a living speed bump. I may buy some and leash them to the front of the car so I can rely on their traffic slowing properties wherever I go.

There's something worse than the country and small towns - Welsh country and small towns. I used to live in Tenby - no cinema and the only clothes shop was a tiny branch of New Look.

Before that I lived in rural North Wales. Very pretty but bloody isolated.

yy the roads...and the (pissed) driving

dear lord

I feel for you Hully. Welcome to my world.

To be honest the school we moved for wasn't all that either. :(

It's the bigotry and casual racisim that gets me down although I do realise that that is special to my particular part of the countryside. I quite like sheep though - much prefer them to the other residents.

I'd stay here forever rather than move to London though. York would be perfect for me but I'd cope in most cities or market towns.

Guess what someone said in a pta meeting the other day:

"I am SO tired, I have been working LIKE A BLACK all week"

Yep. We get that.

You didn't move to the house three doors down from me did you

I wish

We could have muttered and plotted together

[shocked]

or rather

@ the 'working like a black' comment.