to wonder what country life is really like?

[longestlurkerever]

I've always wanted to start a thread to ask what people in the countryside actually do at weekends and after work, but thought it might come across as a bit rude. But there have been so many threads asking how people can bear living in London lately that I am just going to ask.

I love beautiful countryside. Sometimes I feel if I moved somewhere glorious I could just sit and drink in the view and feel happy. But then I kick myself and think "but what would you actually do?" Where would you take the kids when they're driving you mad and you just need to get out of the house? Would you really just go for yet another walk? Do kids really keep themselves entertained all day with a stick like MN would have you believe? What about when it's dark at 4pm or wet every weekend for months?

So, people who enjoy country life - can you describe what you actually fill your time with? Especially if you're a bit meh about horses and animals in general? Or is that no one who lives in the country?

Perfectly reasonable question OP - despite only being 45 mins from London on the train and having lived there for many years, I often wonder how parents in London manage

Despite being so close to London we are in proper countryside (smallish village). There's a really good community here so lots of friends to socialise with and a fabulous playground/park in a beautiful location which we all spend lots of time in. We're near a zoo and spend much time there, as well as soft play, swimming, cinema, meals out, lots of NT properties.

We do go for bike rides and walks, pick fruit, berries and nuts and cook with them, and I imagine we'll do more of the outside stuff (longer walks and so on) as we get older.

Without the children I walk and do a fair bit of wildlife/landscape photography - it changes constantly through the seasons and in different weather, and I love trying to capture that.

I LOVE living in the country, though part of the charm is the fact London is nearby, but not too close.

PS Also another point is that as we're rural, we have a MUCH bigger garden than we'd have in London, so if the kids are climbing the walls we kick them out in the garden (we have swings, a treehouse, slide etc and room for plenty of outdoor toys).

We're really lucky in that our two are pretty good at entertaining themselves, but I don't think that's anything to do with where we live - it's just luck of the draw.

How has the OP got a 'hilariously stereotypical' view of countryside dwellers?

Well tbh it was her questions about playing for hours with a stick, collecting conkers and then the prospect of getting up the next day for more of the same, plus the seeming assumption that everyone in the countryside has to be into horses and love animals.

Of course it's ok to say you lived in the countryside, didn't like it and left. I left London and would never go back, but I loved it for a few years.

I just think that having tried both, it's fine to state the advantages and disadvantages of both. Whereas saying "Ooh how can people possibly...?" or "Please explain to me (genuine question)..." is often a veiled insult and feigned ignorance.

In any case, if the OP's question is really genuine, the answer is that life in the countryside (unless truly deep rural) doesn't NEED to lack anything much that city life offers, but can offer space and landscape that cities don't. There are loads of countryside areas which are in perfectly sensible reach of a city when you fancy doing city stuff. Or of course, live in a city that's near the countryside. But I'd have thought that was all pretty obvious to anyone with access to a map or Google.

I admit I started this thread while feeling a bit aggrieved at all the London bashing. I did think "fuck it, my question might sound a bit rude but no one seems to care about that when it comes to London" but I am definitely not coming from the place you all think I am. I don't want you to tell me your lives are boring so I can sit feeling smug. I want to have my eyes opened to different pleasures life can offer and examine whether I am making the most of it.

Ok then. Sorry OP. When I indulge in a leetle bit of London bashing, it's more because I look back on how much I liked living in London and shake my head in wonder that my priorities and likes have changed so much. I also think that it's odd that I liked it so much because I spent comparatively little time in the lovely exciting cultural bits if London because who can afford to live in those bits?

I am utterly in love with where I live now. The people are friendlier, the schools are great, the countryside is breathtakingly stunning. Just driving to work is a visual delight. The air is cleaner. The feeling of space is liberating. I have a (little) university city 25 mins away, pretty villages, lovely little market towns with frequent festivals, gazillions of lovely pubs, local breweries, cinema, theatre, a fantastic restaurant 5 mins away, mountains, forests, lakes, the sea, rare orchids, ospreys nesting nearby, low crime rates, cheaper houses... I can see the Lake District peaks across the bay from my bedroom window.

Will that do you?

I can honestly understand the OP's question despite being a countryside-dweller. It's not about what facilities are available in the countryside, it's about how people fill their time.

For me, an easy life with the kids involves being able to potter in the garden, slip out of the back gate to the playground and to friends' houses, or wander across the road and into a big forest. Unless I'm going further afield, I don't have to worry much about busy roads or holding hands or having to plan activities or think about opening times.

Of course we do go further afield which involves getting in the car and thinking about all of those things - but lazy days entertaining the kids in the vicinity of the house and garden are a possibility.

Although I've lived in London and still go on a very regular basis, I can't really imagine how my friends who live there with kids manage or what they do with their days - it sounds like there's a lot of travelling, crowds, stressing about roads, having to make special outings to go to the park or the museum or art gallery and find space for the kids to run around etc. etc. Of course I know their life is no harder work than mine, it's a question of what you've experienced, what you're used to and what you enjoy. It's interesting to see how other people live their everyday lives.

Not sure I've explained that terribly well, but I'm tired and avoiding a work deadline.

pmsl @ TellmeStraight's pix.

We live on edge of a small town, miles of countryside if I turn left out the front door. It has goods & bads.
One of the bads is how insular the community ... small town life is not for the thin-skinned.

Thanks both of you. I am quite jealous Eolian, if I am honest. It does sound glorious, in the way "we have a cinema too" doesn't. I do think London offers more than many if you can see, but I can see how my description of today's wander through St James's, looking at all the fine tailors and imagining other people's lives in years gone by, picking up posh cheese for my boss in an amazing shop I never knew was there and discovering a new square I'd not been before, doesn't sound that riveting in itself. It is more an accumulation of little pleasures, much as I suppose you have described to me. I do find the lack of a change of pace a biut difficult though. I would love it if I could just drive an hour and be in the Hebrides, or Lake District or something.

Rumble has nailed it though. It us the minutiae of life that I find hard to imagine, if just strolling to the library or park wasn't so easy

I live in a tiny hamlet of around 15 houses, no shops, no pub etc, i don't drive but thankfully have a great bus service to the city, baby is only 8 weeks so as yet i dont need to entertain her much, we go for walks in the woods or fields and once or twice a week get the bus to the city to meet my husband for lunch. I love how quiet it is here, the wildlife, the rolling fields. Thankfully have great mobile signal and ok (ish!) wifi.

I live in London, though not in the middle (zone 3, have lived here all my life). Like the OP, I confess I wonder how life really is in the supposedly idyllic countryside. About twelve years ago (pre-parenthood) I went to a wedding in Devon. The night before the wedding me and some other London friends went to the pub, got pleasantly (but not offensively) drunk and staggered happily back to our hotel. The next morning we were all genuinely horrified to have to have a conversation about where we'd been last night with the hotel staff. All the local guests at the wedding knew which pub we had been to. We genuinely did nothing worse than have a few drinks, laugh a lot and go home to bed. I'd often wondered about moving out of London but that kind of did it for me. That level of scrutiny is totally intolerable for me. I like the anonymity of the city life. I would hate to be somewhere where I was constantly identifiable, not because I do anything so very terrible but just because I like my privacy. If I were to live in the country it would have to be splendid isolation with nobody around for miles (and I suspect there would still be too much interest in my comings and goings for me to put up with). The very best thing about the city is that you are always as alone and anonymous as you want to be.

For me, an easy life involves being able to easily just go somewhere where something interesting will be happening and join in, just a short train ride away. DD and I, if we have a free day, frequently just go to the South Bank where there is nearly always something free and interesting to do. She's not very physically active by choice even though she is actually quite good at some types of sport, as she tends to prefer reading or drawing or similar, but she loves to get a chance to experience something musical or theatrical or whatever. She genuinely likes museums and finds the park/countryside a bit dull, and has done ever since she was tiny. She does like a beach on holiday but not really unless it is genuinely hot rather than English/British summer.

I don't get stressed about travelling or crowds because that's been my daily reality all my life. I just can't understand why people find the underground etc as stressful as they clearly do. Equally, I'm sure some country people can't understand why I found the wedding and 'oh you went to X pub' stressful and intrusive!

Ok I see what you mean. The nearest park is less than 2 mins' walk away. The library is considerably further, but probably nearer than my nearest one was when I lived in London!
My nearest proper town (with decent library, department store, clothes shopping, cinema etc) is a 15 min drive away. It's got lovely little squares and very nice cafés, even posh cheese .

I think tbh I am not very good at entertaining myself, and neither are my dds. I tend to seek out company when I'm entertaining them, and they do the same. A day pottering, just us, is rare and pleasurable, but hard work.

We do a lot of just pottering, but there's plenty of company if we want it. Both the dc and I have more friends here than where we were before. Plus the dc's friends live in our village, in walking distance. And it is so safe that they are allowed to play out, go to the park and call for friends on their own.

Oh and we don't spend time pottering around because we are in the countryside - we'd potter just as much if we were in the city. My dc have never lived in a city (or even a town) though. We were in a village before we moved here, still in the countryside but a bit less rural. We moved here because it was a bit busy there and we wanted more rural!
The downside I didn't mention is the weather. It is pretty dreadful. But obviously that is because of the specific area we live in, not because it's the countryside! Anyway, I'd rather watch the rain sweeping dramatically across the fells than be in the rain in the city I think.

Yeah I think it'd have to be a village for me, just for that reason. I love that dd's friends within walking distance, though if it was just me and dh it would be the real emptiness that would appeal most.

I do know there is life (+and cheese ) outside London BTW. I have lived in other, smaller cities. To me, London still offers something different - that sense of discovery I suppose. It amazes me that there are places 15 mins walk from my office that I never knew about. That is not to say it is better than other places. I know they offer charms London lacks. But I was directly asked what I would miss about London that i woukd be looking to compensate for and then, like Misshoolie said, my answer was rather poo pooed. I didn't start the thread to bang on about London

Eolian, I live on the other side of that little city- still in the countryside.

I covet your location- it is my favourite place in the world, I think.

(It was the orchids that tipped me off )

I grew up proper rural and it was dull and muddy and required a car and my parents to go anywhere. Wouldn't wish that on my kids.

We live in a small town/large village by the seaside, in a largely rural area. Our evenings are mostly the same as anyone else's with small children - dinner, bed, bath, collapse in front of a box set! - although during the summer just gone we went to the beach a lot in the early evening, fish'n'chip picnic teas, paddleboarding, last swim of the day, it was bloody glorious. We'll probably be going to the beach a lot after school next summer.

Weekends again are at the beach if sunny, but we have a lot of family attractions around here that work quite well on wet days - farm parks with playbarns, NT/EH properties. I love not having to got to a sweaty soft play on an industrial estate - for some reason a slightly drafty playbarn with bales and slides is much nicer. Otherwise we do normal stuff - swimming, football. We don't spend much time in the house.

DS will not walk. Even if you dangled a chocolate bar in front of his nose i don't think he would. But we can now go out for family bike rides which have revolutionised life frankly - all of us out on towpaths or forest trails, with the dog, pub llunch or hot chocolate in a cafe. Hose of the mud and come home to collapse in front of a Disney movie, love it.

They do play with conkers and kites though!

The other thing we do is go to see our friends in the city during winter for our dose of museums. Then in summer they all come to us.

When I moved out of London I missed the variety of food (sushi, vietnamese, good mexican food, Oh god I miss them!), decent hairdressers/beauticians, the chance to wear nice shoes, and clothes shops.
I still desperately miss the food, have found a good hairdresser who isn't any cheaper than my Zone 1 stylist but hey you can't have everything, don't require the same level of grooming so have ditched any aims to find a beautician, and my feet thank me for wearing practical shoes more often. Now when I go to London and see all the shops I'm actually kind of horrified at the CONSUMPTION everywhere, and although it's a bit of a pain to have to plan ahead or order online when you need to buy something, it;s refreshing not to just buy things because you see them everywhere. Shopping is not a leisure activity here unless you count browsing Hush on the iPad at night.

Oh god I do agree with you on the shopping does not equal fun front! With the exception oif food shopping, which i do quite like. London with kids is a bit different to London without I think. I have ditched any attempt at grooming too and London lives with that better than my home town which is a bit more glam (no trainers or coats). I have just been for a brilliant curry buffet in a street of South Indian restaurants with dosas and appams. It was yum. On the other hand I did think of your ospreys and orchids while I was waiting for my friend on the corner of Euston Road breathing in eau de bus!

I do admit London air quality is fucking awful these days. It has always been bad but I used to think "is that what you would consider swapping all this for - better air?" but I increasingly feel I actually might have to, though I am banking on Sadiq Khan turning it around

Shockers . at recognising the orchids. Yes it is lovely. I still have to pinch myself sometimes.

It does depend a bit on what your priorities are though, I suppose. I find there are plenty of clothes shops, but then I'm not exactly into fashion and rarely need (or want) to be glam. I like interesting and foreign food, but don't eat out often because it's too expensive (though a bit less so up here). Many of the things I did when I lived in London were because I was young, single and unencumbered by expensive children rather than because of being in London.
I'm not into expensive hairdressers and have had my nails done... twice in my life. Not that there aren't plenty of decent hairdressers and nail places round here.

We get lots of visitors. When we moved here 2 years ago we had guests booked in ahead before we'd actually even moved! The odd thing is, I seem to have no desire to even visit cities atm. I thought that once I'd moved somewhere properly rural, I might hanker after city breaks in the holidays for a bit of a change. Apparently not!

Lots: depends on the ages of the kids and how remote you want to be? I'm not a huntin' shootin' ridin' type at all.

We spent a lot of time in the forests, on the downs. Building things, making things, exploring. Making music, later in bands. Growing things.

I found it has hidden advantages too, like learning to prioritise in different ways. They learn to value function as well as aesthetics. To be compassionate, because nature offers so many opportunities. About lifecycles and to become comfortable with birth and death as a normal part of that....from leaves and decaying tree trunks happening all around.

Haha and goodness only knows the value of a stick: they become a thousand different objects in a child's imagination.

What I like most now that my oldest is at Uni is that by not having activities pre-arranged, controlled, made and bought it's given him a real sense of self and creativity to the extent that he's confident and self-aware as he enters adult life. I feel so grateful that I was able to give him that chance.

My thought is this: nothing is set in stone. You could give country living a try and if it's not for you, then you'll have learned that. You could investigate and see how it goes? I'm a great believer in learning from our experiences.

We live on the very edge of a village, very rural location, my view is fields, trees, horses and sheep. It is national park, very quiet, lots of lovely walks, we can see the sea in the very distance and the air is full of the sounds of birds, bees and animals, at night the sky is black and you can see all the stars. Our village has 4 pubs, a curry house, a fine dining restaurant that draws people from far and wide, a small hotel, a village shop, a cafe/tea room, a primary/preschool, village hall, even a lido pool in the summer, the mobile library visits once a week. We walk out for dinner on a regular basis. However within 40 minutes we can be in Brighton amongst a huge range of restaurants, clubs, shopping etc. We have a really good hospital 15 minutes away. Country isn't all really remote, within an hour we can have a Wagamamas or a Nando's. Dominoes pizza still deliver here.

Oh we also have a hairdresser/beauty salon

I lived in London for a bit, you can't beat the huge skies and clean air here though. Even if I have to jump in the car to see the new film or get a bigmac. The best bit, you could swop your current house for something 2-3 times the size....have I sold it to you yet?....did I mention we have a station with direct line to London if you got home sick.