Living the dream... and not liking it :(

[hardtoplease]

We made the jump from city to countryside last year. I’ve got everything we talked about, big house, real fires, stand-alone bath, wet room, huge garden, country lanes, nature... and I don’t like it one bit.

The bath. How I longed for a bathroom like in the magazines. It’s crap. Water splashes everywhere including underneath and it starts to small damp if not wiped up. So you just finish a nice relaxing soak and then you’re on your hands and knees in a towel trying to wipe it all up. It’s a big house, it’s hard and expensive to heat. The underfloor heating is cracking the tiles so it looks awful and feels nasty. The place is so big the water pressure is shite and it takes ages for the hot water to come through the tap.

Something died in our roof space, the smell lasted 6 weeks. We couldn’t find it. Experts couldn’t find it. We run out of stuff constantly and the nearest shop is a small garage a few miles away. We have to drive to get anywhere. So much for all those country walks. We did more when we drove in from the city at weekends. The weather has been shit so we haven’t used the garden much. Trees came down. We were snowed in. The cars were iced up in the mornings. When the electricity went we were grateful for the real fires but the mess, the mess. And there’s mud tramped in everyday.

It’s a huge house. I have to walk up two flights of stairs if I’ve left something in the bedroom. Everything you want upstairs is downstairs and vice versa.

The saving grace... we rented! We can move back (not for six months:( ) to our city place and live the real dream with 24 hour shops within walking distance and restaurants and coffee shops and low bills and no stairs and I can have a bath without it being a major expedition. We can drive to the countryside when we want and then leave the dead animals and mud there when we leave.

But DH thinks we should stick with the decision now we have made it! He has a huge commute instead of a short walk, but he says it’s “running away”. He hates the commute! He’s a wackaloon!

Who is being unreasonable?! We’ve tried it for six months. We tried it. It’s shit.

MrsDesireeCarthorse
Your comment made me chuckle, largely because it saved me having to respond along the same lines.

ha ha ha
you dont actually think all those people in country living magazine are REAL do you ???

I think it’s been said and said again, but what on earth gives you the impression that this very specific set of circumstances and experiences is the sum total of living outside London / rural living / living the dream?!

Why on earth have you gone so extreme???

Granted we are NW, but we live in a “village” that is actually a small town. Population less than 10k.

Very villagey feel, sense of community, lots of Mum friends and sociable groups etc, lovely lovely deli, coffee shops, restaurants, lots of pubs, butchers, bakers, etc etc. And you can walk straight from your door into a national park, along riverbanks, up massive hills, and yet you’re five minutes from 3 decent and “naice” towns with most shops you’d want, and 20 mins from Manchester, less than 2 hours from London Euston.

Did you not research where you were going to live?!

I bloody love our version of rural life but I would utterly hate what you are describing.

So why give up entirely? Why not do better homework and try again?

OP. I can think of lots of small towns where you would have the advantages of a city life but able to walk from your door to lovely countryside.
My eldest dd and her DH have just moved from London to Ilkley, from a damp 1 bed flat to a 3 bed house with garden all around for less money. It has theatre, cinema, music venues, restaurants, outdoor pool, coffee shops supermarkets, 2 outstanding primary’s and grammar school Within 15 minutes from their house they can be up on the moors or on a lovely riverside walk through fields.
This is what you need! Find a town like that.

I personally think you need to give any big change like this at least a year. I moved continents, the first six months were tough and I didn't like it. It slowly got better and now after a decade I love the place.

There were obviously reasons that made you leave the city. They will still be there when you get back.

I think to give anything like this a real go, you need to give it a year to two years. If after that you still don't like it, then move back.

You spent winter in the country. Buy a big rug for under the tub, take a deep breath and enjoy spring and summer. Then see how you feel in August.

Best of luck.

Where are you, OP? I'm wanting to rent somewhere rural, not too far from the sea, as I have to leave where I am at the moment due to a major broadband meltdown.

To me it sounds fairly idyllic!

YANBU. You tried it. Didn’t like it. Move back or at least to your nearest large village or town. You certainly don’t have to “live with it” as your DH says! It’s not Victorian times and you are only renting! Surely that’s the point of renting. To try it out! Stick to your guns and move.

Sounds like you picked the wrong location and the wrong house! Rural living doesn’t have to be like you describe. But I would never live anywhere not in walking distance of shop, pub, social activities etc And the issues about heating and water pressure are house issues, not countryside living per se. If you bought a huge old house in a town or city then you’d have the same issues of paying more to heat it and having to run flights of stairs to fetch stuff.

Move back if city life is what you want. But presumably you disliked certain elements enough to move out in the first place. A perfect solution could be a better property in somewhere less rural

YANBU. I love the countryside and the fells but you've given all the reasons I would never live there - especially having to drive for every.little.thing.

Plus cities can be very green.

We live in a large city (Leeds) , 1 mile from the city centre. But our house backs onto woods with nothing behind it and we can walk from our back door to join the Dales Way and onto The Lake District if we really wanted!

There's a reason why Escape to the Country is always filmed in spring/summer. Winter in the country can feel very long and dark. Bleak.

Winter in the country can feel very long and dark. Bleak

That’s the beauty of it

YANBU but your DH is! Move back to the city

The countryside isn't great for older kids. At my dd's sixth form there is high drug use for the country kids as not much else to do.
From the age of ten my dd has cycled herself to 95% of social gatherings and I almost never give her a lift because we live in the middle of town. This is great for her independence and great for me as I'm not running a taxi service as so many people seem to.
The thing I hate most about country living is all the driving. And that you can't go on country walks in most country places especially in winter.
And it's harder to find friends as fewer folk to choose from, villages can be v cliquey and less broad minded and tolerant than cities.
Lack of shops is just about planning and you get used to it. Schedule a grocery delivery twice a week and use amazon prime, keep some stuff in stock in your house. Sorted.
The upside if you have a big house is definitely entertaining, throwing parties and dinner parties and having weekend guests.

It's been a tough winter this year - obviously mud is a given, but it's been so wet here that it's been frankly epic. We're in one of the driest parts of the country and it normally drains pretty quickly but this year has been soggy. And the snow was interesting too.

That said, it doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. We live about a mile outside of a village, in a little row of houses. You can walk across the fields to he village which has two pubs, a primary school, a GP, a shop (which is a really good, well-stocked one) and a coffee shop. Or you can cycle it in a few minutes. It's an arable farming area so we don't have to worry about ddog and lambs - although he is trained to stay off crops and not to chase gamebirds. There's a nice sense of community, but it's not too isolated - we can get to a decent-sized supermarket in 15mins, and two county towns in under 45 mins.

Give it until you've had summer, then see. Maybe this house is not for you but there is plenty in between the two extremes you appear to have gone for.

Sounds like you either didn't research your area well enough or had some misguided notion of what living in the country entails. We lived in South London 30 years ago with two small children and hated it. Too much traffic, too noisy and busy and no one has time to talk. Extortionately expensive too and rubbish schools in our area. High crime. The only thing going for it was our family and friends lived there.

My husband accepted a job transfer 250 miles away to the West Country. He researched at weekends when he was working down there and I travelled down weekends. We went for a medium sized town on on the outskirts as we had young children and I needed to return to work and we did not want to spend a fortune on fuel driving everywhere. Best of both worlds. No where near as busy or full of pollution as London, countryside within walking distance and moors and beaches within 20 minute drive and 20 minutes drive to nearest city. Schools within walking distance and local shops, pubs, restaurants etc. Kids friends lived close by.

Only downside is they keep building houses out here now so area more populated. Still nowhere as bad as London though.

You picked the worst six months to be living in the countryside, so you’ve yet to experience a summer there.

Give it another six month, put on an extra jumper, leave shoes at the door, and before you get in the bath, put a towel under it!

I haven’t read all the posts, but I completely understand the OP. I moved out of London to the country and missed the convenience and all the opportunities to chat with other people while the children let off steam in a playground. We got a dog. It made things a bit better. Village life was not for me. The politics! My children didn’t spend enough time in the garden to warrant the amount of work it needed to keep it in check, I had to drive to the nearest shop, the school run was long, and my dh was never at home (commuting). End result - divorce and move to a tiny town with a small supermarket, a few shops and places to eat/drink. It really is the best of both worlds.

The upside if you have a big house is definitely entertaining, throwing parties and dinner parties and having weekend guests

Problem is that's a lot of work when you are used to friends dropping by for a hour or meeting up in the park or nipping out for coffe or catching up on the school run

Beds to make meals to plan days out -

Lots of excellent diverse opinions to mull over. I have been in the suburbs of a big city all my life and am ready to up sticks and move to the country/coast this year. However I think I may be wise to rent just in case I am badly mistaken! Go with your heart OP - I once started a new job which I hated but miserably stuck out for a year because I didn't want to give up/look like a failure. This meant I endured a year of hell and I should have cut my losses and trusted my initial instincts!

I live in the countryside and I love it, but the winters are so hard. My house is old as well. We have 6 children so bath and shower time in the winter results in damp in the house. Ots my biggest grind. It's cold, wet and miserable. You don't tend to see anyone through the winter as nobody wants to venture out. Then comes the spring!!!! Suddenly all those things that annoy me have gone! Everything bursts into life again. It's beautiful. The summer's in the country make the winters worthwhile. Long, lazy summer days. Nice walks and lovely clean fresh air. Your dh is right. Stick the summer out and if you still don't like it then throw in the towel. I agree though that maybe you went too remote straight from the city.

At least you rented so have had a chance to try it out! Maybe give it a few more months to see what it’s like in better weather?

We chose a town/London suburbs and it’s been a fantastic place to have a baby and toddler. We are ten minutes walk from shops and three toddler groups, swimming pool, two play areas, ducks to feed. 15 minutes walk from the station (40 mins into central London). But we are also 10 minutes from nature reserve, countryside, walks past cows, sheep etc. There are lots of people around and it’s easy to meet people as you see them in the small town centre/market.

Summer means bugs. You haven't experienced summer in the country without realising what an insect desert the cities are. I wonder how far away the nearest poultry farmer is to OP? Oooh... savour the aroma.

This thread has made me think, I don’t think I have been to a city in at least 4 years.

My closest big town has 2000 people, and that’s big enough for me. I don’t like driving the 20 miles to get there and when I do all I can smell is concrete.

In all honesty if I could buy 400 acres somewhere really remote as a small holding I could happily live there with DH and the kids and never see another human ever again.