to hate living in the country?

[Hullygully]

IT'S SO BORING I HATE IT I HATE IT

I remember the Copper Kebab incident. One week the headline in the local paper was 'Youths pulling stunts on motorbikes in High Street'!

I can just imagine the Cheltenham craft fair i'd rather pull my toenails out with red-hot pincers, or have a scrap with a wild boar.

mrsruffallo, it's been a long time since I visited London, I used to live 40 mins away by train. These days I consider Gloucester to be a comsopolitan and happening place!

Or cosmopolitan even

Oh for a happening place sometimes. Love it here but now the grey weather has set in I do hanker for a bit of life. We're just over the border from Glocs but Cath Kidston has struck here too. Emma Bridgewater also has alot to answer for.

Lotkinsgonecurly, surely there is a slightly happening place within driving distance?

Wht's wrong with Cath Kidston and her pastel florals and her tween cupcake cases? I don't even know who Emma Bridgwater is, so I'm clearly one of the rough village idiot type country people.

Imeant to say twee cupcake cases!

We're pretty much mid way between Oxford and Cheltenham. 40 mins to either. Nearest town is 3 miles away, pretty but unhappening. Famous for famous people living there or near it but other than that really quite uneventful. Even the famous people we ignore so they can all just behave normally. However when friends visit it really is quite amusing. Bit of celeb spotting and all that, almost had to get a restraining order on one friend. Google Emma Bridgewater am sure you've seen her at someones coffee morning.

Very naice Lotkinsgonecurly! Costwolds eh?

I probably haven't seen Emma Bridgewater, as me and DS are too old for mumsy coffee mornings now and I'm a freelancing hermit lady!

According to other Gloucestershire residents that I've met, the forest is the anus of the county and they are amazed that anyone from near London would choose to move there.

I have met a few potential Emma Bridgewater enthusiasts, but they were more the Orla Kiely,Baby Boden and Cath Kidston types.

Burford. It's got to be bloody Burford and its Bull and Bay Tree bollocks.

Ah, Burford! It's naice round there too!

I wonder if lotkin is talking about Chipping Norton and its famous residents Jeremy Clarkson, Rebekah Brooks and Shine Dave.

Yes, but Burford's got the Kates (Moss and Winslet). And Radiohead.

Will she tell us?

*I'm surprised so many of you hate it.

Having lived in London 34 years, and spent time in most major cites I love the country.

Dorset is beautiful. With fantastic schools and Waitrose 10 mins away

I think I love the calm perhaps? *

I've been in Dorset 2 years after moving from Surrey and we all love it. We're in the Piddle Valley (hilarious, I know) and about 20 mins from Waitrose (possibly not too far from Feminine and Grovel)

It's fantastic when you can take the kids out on a nice sunny Wednesday, for example, and just pop down to West Bay and eat fish and chips on the harbour wall.

I admit the shopping is a bit shite but Dorchester is on the up, with a big new development nearing completion. Other than that, I am also surprised that so many people loathe the countryside. Just as well, if you all wanted to live here, it would be just as crowded as the south east.

And all this talk of theatres and galleries; are you all popping in them, day in and day out? I used to live in Egham, already maligned, 35 mins from Waterloo and only used to go a couple of times a year, just because I was usually too busy with the usual boring mechanics of life and it was always there, so never really bothered. And it was bloody expensive.

I have been in Lincolnshire for 3 and a half Looooooong years. Am guilty of choosing here for schools
I get very excited indeed when I see a lump in the road as it could ALMOST be a hill...where we are is totally flat.
I like the countryside...like Suffolk.Just have not been able to form an attachment to this county.
I do,however work in central London during the week{opposite a Carluccio's} {grin} But tbh not keen on cities.

We went to the village show.There was a comp for the owner and dog that lloks most alike.DP and our Irish terrier won...

usually too busy with the boring mechanics of life well exactly. Have lived a bus ride from museums at South Ken and an intercity train ride and we still only get there twice a year.

I am thinking that there has been some kind of space time continuum breakdown with kindle and some of you have escaped from a Jilly Cooper novel.

'And all this talk of theatres and galleries; are you all popping in them, day in and day out?'

Not day in, day out ? you exaggerate a tad there .

But I do go nice and frequently. And I can pop to a world-class gallery on my lunchbreak/in 30 mins on the bus, if I want.

And more to the point, unlike if I lived in the cuntry, I have the option of going to theatres and galleries, and a choice of which ones to go to (too much choice, if I'm honest, but that's quite a nice problem to have).

I know what you mean LadyClarice. I used to live in Greater London and don't visit art galleries/museums/theatre/cinema/go to the opera/eat out any less often now in rural South Yorkshire than I did in GL. In fact I probably do more art galleries etc etc now than I did in London.

We do have theatres and galleries in the provinces, you know!

And although they might be further away, we can get to them quite quickly as we don't have to sit in hours of traffic, fight our way across a huge city and we can usually park directly outside. (horrid memories of driving round and round South Ken looking for a space whilst the performance at the RAH had already started).

I worked in Whitehall for a number of years and I can't say I ever popped into the galleries (to be honest, I was probably less interested in those callow days)
I was too busy eating a sandwich and reading the paper and other much less cultural things (no Internet for wasting time on!)

EmmaNemms, I've been told on MN in the past that our provincial galleries, museums and theatres just aren't up to scratch. It was made very clear to me that London is the only place for culture.

In a toss up between living in the country and living in London the countryside just wins for me. It's much quicker to get to places

Just been single handedly taking down the banking system through fooking about in work time working hard in my super duper job and casually looking at the internet from time to time, scouting for countryside crumpet, all I found was THINGS LIKE THIS

YESSSS fish and chips in West Bay. A walk on Eggardon Hill. Lovely.

"I've been told on MN in the past that our provincial galleries, museums and theatres just aren't up to scratch."

That's bollocks. Sorry, but not all national museums are in London.

National Railway Museum - York
Royal Armories - Leeds
The Media Museum - Bradford
Tate - Liverpool, St Ives
National Coal Mining museum - Wakefield

And what about places like Ironbridge, Beamish etc?

Londoners are so parochial.

I should know I am from London and my family are the worst examples.

Indeed Bunbaker but I just nod and smile.

Railway Museum? Coal Mining Museum?

I must see them soon.

I want to go to the Media Museum and see lots of tabloid hacks shot, stuffed and mounted .