To wonder how people cope living in London?!

[WinterIsHereJon]

I'm visiting for the weekend. It's hot, sweaty, incredibly busy. We had the misfortune of travelling on the tube during rush hour earlier, people pushed and pushed onto an already full train, to the point where I became rather intimately acquainted with a chap behind me. Despite the complete lack of room people were still attempting to read newspapers! I think I'd snap if that was part of my daily routine, I don't know how people do it!

London is a series of villages though. If you walk out of the centre you generally find you have a 10 min walk through a road with nothing in it bar basic office or houses befor you get to another small area of shops and restaurants etc, then continue though and you get another nomads land before next 'village' area

I think it is very polarising...most people either passionately love or passionately hate the place! I'm one of the latter...I actively avoid going.

Lived in Crouch End when it was seedy and most definitely felt like a rough village. Mind you that was back in the mid 80s.

I work in the centre and normally stay well away at weekends.

But in my weekday lunch breaks I have a choice of parks and a horde of art galleries, often with fascinating stuff in them, which are always quiet and sometimes empty.

I'd love to live in London, I grew up by the sea on the South Coast and loved visiting the city whenever I could. I hardly used the Tube and got around on foot using the A to Z.

I now live in rural East Anglia and whilst I know it's best for the DC and house affordability, part of me yearns to have a year or two living in London.

We spent sometime living in the Cotswolds because of work. when we moved back to where we are now I told dp that if he ever got a job or wanted to move outside the m25 he was on his own.
Dd has been going on her own to school in Central London Commuting in via the tube network since she was 10 years old

I live and work in zone 5. It is indeed like a village; quiet and safe with a good sense of community. I enjoy all the wonderful central London stuff at weekends. Best of both - I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

Yes, London really is a collection of small villages, totally agree.

Restaurants, bars, shops, high streets, horrendous traffic, loads of houses - so not like a proper village in the slightest in other words. But carry on believing this is what a village is if you like.

I am surprised by all the Londoners in here who never use the tube in rush hour. I do - because those are my working hours - as do all of my colleagues and friends...

It's not fun but it's not that bad either - and I say this as someone who is 29 weeks pregnant! - you get used to it and find ways to distract yourself, e.g. podcasts.

The only expensive things about London are housing and travel, and travel is actually really good value when you compare like for like elsewhere in the UK. So really, the only difficult thing becomes housing, and the answer is to either move further out or compromise and live somewhere smaller. People who don't live in London seem to think they should have 3 spare bedrooms per person, people who live in London are just grateful for a cupboard where they can rest their head.

Yes, housing costs more but we can earn more in London because there are some jobs here that you just couldn't do elsewhere in the country, and we command a premium in our wages. Salaries for professionals reflect the increased cost of living. Salaries for non-professionals are often "living wage" rather than minimum wage.

Travelling on the tube is easy, meals out are dirt cheap, museums and theatre are free or cheap, green spaces and farms are everywhere - you do realise, Londoners do not behave in the same way as tourists and they don't pay the same as tourists either? There are so many secrets that we don't share with tourists - people who want to experience our wonderful city but who don't want to live here get charged a premium for everything.

You would have to drag me kicking and screaming out of London. And first you'd have to catch me, and if you're not around from here, good luck catching me first.

We couldn't believe the drop in car insurance when we left London,we thought the insurance quote was wrong it was so low compared to London

I'll go along with the village theory. The only difference is that in London they are all connected by excellent public transport.

I've just been for a run and was thinking about this thread on the way round

A couple of years ago, SIL and I both did a marathon. She lives very rurally, and her training was all on country roads. She didn't dare listen to music because she had to keep an ear out for traffic. She did nearly all of it on her own, save for a couple of runs she did while staying with me.

My training was all done in the parks. I could run 12 miles, starting at my front door, and only a tiny fraction of that would be on pavements. The rest was around Clapham/tooting/Streatham commons, Battersea park, Hyde park. Or a couple of laps of Richmond park.
When I did 20 miles, it was along the Thames towpath and then around a big park near Kew

SIL commented at we have SO much green space open to us. While she lives surrounded by fields, they are all off limits, save for a few narrow footpaths. They have their garden and a small village playing field with a swing and slide and nothing else.

Where as we have thousands of acres to walk, run and cycle through, with music, with children, on horseback, on bikes, with cameras, with friends, by ourselves.

In a lot of respects, we have a much more outdoors life than she does because everything is accessible.
I've just watched people having in promptu cricket matches and football kickabouts.
Where would that happen in a rural village?

LotsofShoes - so jealous of people who live by the river, and getting the Clipper to work is enviably cool

I sort of get the 'villages' thing about London, actually. I used to find it funny when my cousins came up to stay from a small southern town and would ask if we could 'go into town', meaning up to our local high street. There are three different, busy high streets within a 5 minute drive from me, each with their own unique character.

Another supporter of August! Love London - including travelling on the tube during rush hour (just a polite notice - please don't use it if you are not in a rush if possible as easier for you and us!) - pinch myself every day and think how lucky am I !) - my only gripe is had to buy in zone 4 but near several stations (well 3) so great transport links - particularly improved with overground - moved to bring kids up in London and has benefited them I think .

After a stroll by the Thames and a climb up a hill to admire breathtaking views, I'm wandering through Richmond Park, listening to the crickets, surrounded by long grass and flowers, trees and occasional butterflies.

Perfect Saturday.

I love London, I live near a very big park, near the river, 5-10mins walk to both. It takes me 20 mins to get into the centre and so much going on every weekend, we are spoiled with (cheap) choices- we are into classical music and we go almost every weekend to an event and pay very little(compare to anywhere else), it comes as a weekly thing. We are spoiled with museums, children events, so much to see. Even simple thing like 3 mins to the highstreet coffee shop is nice and lovely

Village here..yes kick abouts happen here very much so. Love the open fields. We walk quite a bit. Fields opposite my children's school. I'm not keen on London either. Parks just don't compensate. Each to their own.

sparechange a friend often gets the tube from Victoria to Kew or Richmond and runs back along the river because it's such a nice run.

The village thing sounds like estate agent wankspeak but it's true. Places have distinct characters. I like where I've live but wouldn't like the next district as much even though an outsider might not see the difference.

I don't fancy being south of the river either, simply because I find tube stations familiar and comforting and the south isn't very well served by the tube. That's irrational of me because I prefer to use buses than the tube and I'm sure I'd be happy in Clapham. Stockwell and Balham are on the tube. I remember when my friends lived there. It was a bit scary. It's not like that any more.

I love sitting all alone in my Zone 1 garden, which is where I am now, listening to the sound of the helicopter that's been buzzing my house for 15 minutes, but on days like this I also think I should have gone to sit with my friends in the gardens at that canalside marina a few tube stops away.

Someone else is having a big picnic on Clapham Common which is close by too. I really like being around people.

But it's a hot day and I'm feeling lazy and antisocial.

South of the river has the overground now though, which is unaffected by tube strikes. That can be bloody useful.

Parks just don't compensate

Not if you want solitude and wildness. For that I go to my MIL's on Exmoor. But for me, the memories of warm lazy days, stretching into evenings with friends in London's public parks are some of my best.

And I expect someone will be along to say that Dartmoor or Bodmin piss all over Exmoor. And that's just the soft South.

When I moved out of London, the first thing I noticed was the sky. As in, here it's blue with little fluffy clouds in it unless there's a good reason, but in London it's just light grey and heavy looking for most of the year.

Empress I fully concede that my tube twitchiness is irrational. The friendly little face of a tube train tells me that I'm home.

There are also tubeless bits north of the river that I'm wary of - Crouch End, Clapton, large parts of Hackney and some bits around Fulham/Chelsea.

There be dragons.