To wonder if any of you have moved from the city to the country...

[Daisymasie]

and how it worked out? It's one of those things I dream about sometimes when I'm fed up of rude people in supermarkets, aggressive drivers, litter drifting around the gutters etc.
But I know I probably have a very Enid Blyton/Miss Marple view of country life as being all cosy and fragrant and safe and friendly so would like a reality check.

We moved from the centre of a city to a large country village last year.
Advantages -
Lots of space - we didn't have a garden in the city we now have 1.5 acres.
Wildlife - kids (& I ) love all the visitors to the garden
Our village is well connected with a train station (well stop - there are no buildings) & buses both of which are relatively regular.
Different kind of noisy - instead of traffic noise, drunk people & car alarms, I'm now woken by chattering birds noisy foxes & occasional tractors.
Nice community to an extent.
Nice country pubs & walks on our doorstep.
We have a village shop, drs & a good Indian restaurant that does takeaway within the village.
Bizarrely we have better broadband than when we were in the city.

Disadvantages
Parish council petty politics are driving me nuts.
Childish historic village divide - apparently I live in the 'posh' (old) bit of the village which means some people won't talk to me at all.
We didn't get into the popular village school so I have drive DS miles to school in a local town. Which also makes it harder for DS to make friends actually where we love.
Mobile phone coverage is very patchy round here.
Our road is popular with cyclists in the summer so I have to watch out for tons of them racing past in Lycra every time I emerge from the driveway.

I grew up in Greater London and worked in London when I first left school. I now live in a village in South Yorkshire that is a 10 minute drive from the nearest market town, 15 minutes from the nearest large town and 30 minutes from two major cities.

I love it. We have the best of both worlds with clean air, low crime rates, excellent schools, nice housing but all the facilities of towns only a few minutes drive away. After all, it takes my sister as long to drive into the centre of the overcrowded town that she lives in as it takes me to get to my nearest town.

We even have a station in our village with an hourly train service.

Love it. ! Know/like my neighbours. Wake up to glorious views, still have a post office I can walk to. Don't lock my back door, have learned to keep bees. Joined WI, met loads of lovely kind helpful people. Bus stop outside door for teenagers to get into town independently..I could go on

I moved from Dartford to Gloucestershire a few years back. Nothing that hasn't already been covered but I found it a massive culture shock. The way of life was a lot 'slower' than I was used to although I wouldn't move back.

We're still within walking distance of shops, which is great, and its still a busy town so we're not quite in the sticks. The Cotswolds on our doorstep which makes for lovely days out and I think we have a better quality of life here.

I do find the lack of anonymity very uncomfortable though. Its almost guaranteed that when you meet someone you'll already know somebody else through them. Everyone knows everyone else's business, I don't like that. it makes slagging off people really difficult.

We moved from a major city to a little village just outside a small city, 8 years ago. It's been great for us, we were very outdoorsy types already. Also we were careful about where we moved to so we actually need the car a lot less in this village as we can all walk and cycle to work and school, while in the big city we needed 2 cars for commuting and nursery runs. We were nervous of moving to a village, would it be unfriendly/cliquey/boring? But our village is really very lovely, it has lots of incomers which probably helps but we've all appreciated the village community/socialising/everyone nosing around in everyone else's business - we like that, and it means that our dc can roam free and we know that people look out for them.

The only downside for me is that it has limited career opportunities, that's the only reason I'd move away now back to a bigger city.

Dc are teen/almost teen and they like it here, they are quite active and do things like sailing, lots of bushcraft activities with youth groups, windsurfing, kayaking etc, as well as hanging out with friends in the nearby little city. They certainly don't want to move to a big city (I have suggested it for work reasons but they're resistant).

Yes. I went from a suburb in South Birmingham, literally yards from a high st with Tescos, Sainsburys, Woolworths (was in 2000), countless shops, pubs and takeaways, to a stand of 4 houses between two villages in North Yorkshire with a view of the river, and fields all around. But should say I grew up a few miles down the road, in one of the villages and my family has been here since the first page of the parish records - so I was just coming home, really.

There's a lot to be said for getting a balti at 11pm when you feel like it. And not having to bother owning a freezer or spending money on the electricity to run one, as the shops are yards away. But then... inner city schools for the kids, etc... We first moved to a large village, that is quite busy with a Co-op, a few other shops. In 2002, we moved out here to the middle of nowhere.

One big change we noticed straight away was... we could hear the birds sing! I missed that, in a city. Also, at the time we moved, my older kids were Years 6, 3 and 4 and overnight, they lived in a place that even the youngest could walk down the street to play with a friend, on his own and they could run round the village with mates, go to shops and parks unaccompanied. Walking round the supermarket, we were no longer fiercely having to hold hands and stay with them every millisecond. It gave them massive freedom. There is no price you can put on that.

My two younger kids have grown up with that freedom and take it for granted. Although they have X Boxes etc like my older kids, they walk to the village most days (a mile or two), and play out for hours with their friends - climbing trees, exploring, running around. Unthinkable in a city. When my older kids were young teens, they could go to York on the bus with their mates, and by age 15 or so, they knew the city like the back of their hands. Had they still been growing up in Birmingham, they'd just about be allowed to go into town alone with their friends aged, say 15 or so. In the country they could do it at 12.

Their quality of life is hugely better. All that said we had new neighbours a few months back who are making our lives as hell as if we lived in the inner city with their howling dog, domestic violence and screaming fits. Nowhere is immune from people like that.

Should add, we never bothered locking the house, outhouse, sheds, or car but since the inner city has come to us in the shape of Wayne and Waynetta next door has been a sea change round here and we are all locking doors we used to leave unlocked for years on end. So things can change suddenly. Neighbours here tend to be great - we always lent eachother things, and as we have coal/wood burning fires, if one of us got given a load of free wood, we split it between 3 of the 4 houses, etc (I once got an entire winter's worth of fuel for nothing!) But because there are less people in a community, it only takes one difficult family moving it to totally destroy everyone else's peace, and ability to go about their lives in their own way. That said, in the country, people can bond together against outsiders. So you have to be careful. I come from here originally so it wasn't too hard for me. But I can see our new neighbours who came here from a city not far away, will never be accepted now as they have done a series of things that ostracized them from everyone, and there's no clawing your way back in a small community.

Also think maninawomansworld has it right.
I grew up in a city, moved to the country as a teenager, moved back to a city for uni and a few years after. Finally settled back in the country 12 years ago.
9 country miles from town and shops. 3 houses in our valley, none of which are visible from ours...love it...but, I am a country person...in fact the only way I would move would be to be more isolated - it's too busy for me sometimes!

I am semi rural and enjoy the best of both worlds really. I can drive into town where I used to live (population 13k) in 5 minutes. Walk it in 40 and frequently do.
DS goes to smallish primary in the town.
At home today it is 24 degrees. The sun is shining and I have had lunch outside in the garden after a morning's weeding and strimming and passing the time with the couple who live up the road. It's lovely.
Tomorrow I will be at work in a city 35 minutes drive away where I have access to all the usual shops before returning home to my wee cottage.

Yy to litter on the verges Long TailedTit. Do one with your fast food wrappers and bits of old carpet people near me!

I am sure it is good while you have small children, but it really can be a problem for teenagers. I lived in a small town in Cornwall growing up-having moved down from London when I was about 8, and whilst many people had other hobbies, these are a) often expensive, and b) tend to need you to be taxi'd to until you can drive- so a lot of teenagers do take to drinking and drugs. The "young farmers" I knew/did know seemed to drink really very heavily! As we were often drinking in fields etc, it is really very hard for the police to police, unlike in cities/bigger areas.

On the plus side, I suppose I got it all out of my system when I was young and was probably a bit more sensible by the time I got to university.

The other downside is that I will probably never be able to afford a house in the area I grew up in, and there is a real lack of jobs and prospects here.

Also, some places can be very lonely in the winter when all the second home owners have gone home.

There are upsides of course, and I spent a lot of time riding horses around the countryside and such which was great fun, and it is nice to be able to get on a train/bus and get to the beach or the moors- or drive there in a very short time.

However, if you end up in a touristy area, the traffic can be worse than in cities- the major roads are simply not up to the traffic on them in the summer. Unfortunately, I do know of young people who died in car crashes as well, although I'm sure this can happen anywhere.

I think a lot of people do have an idealised view of the country, and it's important to do your research before you move. I do think you have to consider what it will be like for teenagers, if you are planning a long term move.

I have been moving so much and i will move even more in the future. From one city to another, from one country to the next country. Moving makes life more interesting and exciting. All Removals London