To ask what it’s really like to live rurally?

[BuffaloCauliflower]

Currently holidaying in the Lake District and as usual wishing I could up sticks from London and move to somewhere beautiful and with real community. But having grown up on the edge of London I’m so used to a world where there’s buses every 10 minutes, 24 hour supermarkets 5 minutes away, lots of jobs, lots of schools, I know I really have no idea what it would be like to live in the countryside. I’m definitely in a nice, more affluent part of the countryside right now and there will be areas far more rural than this, so trying to think broadly, I know not everywhere will be the same.

What jobs do people do? Everyone surely can’t commute miles and miles to cities. Where I am now I’d guess a lot of farmers and a lot in hospitality, but that can’t be all. What’s the transport like? Does it matter? How do your kids get to see their friends when they don’t drive and everyone’s houses are so far apart? Can people move from the city and be happy, and accepted into small village communities?

A broad question I know but there’s such a range of places that will all be different, but would love the real story instead of just the ‘holiday’ view of the country.

Disclaimer: I’m aware as a born and bred Londoner my concept of what is rural might be really wrong, and that I also very likely have some rose tinted views of the countryside. I’m not trying to offend, so please be kind, I’m genuinely trying to learn!

30 people in our village (plus a couple of kids) ranging from 27 to 80s, and the houses are all spaced out with a couple of fields between each, so it's fairly isolating. If DH is away for work I'll go several days without speaking to another human face-to-face.

What happens if a new single person - man or woman - rents a place in the rural community for a while? I mean a few months rather than a holiday let of a couple of weeks.

Is it like one of those cosy type novels set in remote Scotland or Cornwall where they are seen as a sexy new person of intrigue and everyone either hits on them or gets obsessed with them or is obsessed with which people are hitting on them?

Or is it more like those cowboy films when the stranger walks in the saloon the whole bar goes quiet and eyeballs them with a look of disgust?

fazackerley - my neighbours would rant along with you! A few years before we moved here someone did exactly that on the plot of land opposite us. I don't especially mind the resulting house, but it is weird - there are little cottages on all sides, and quite a lot of garden/green space, then they have a plot with a large pebbled driveway so they can fit four cars onto it, and a house taking up almost all of the rest of the space. I mean, sure, different people like different things, but I do find it odd that someone would move to the countryside and then try to eliminate all traces of countryside from their immediate environment.

tellit, we rent and are recent, and initially we had two types of response:

1. 'Oh, how lovely, I am so glad you bought that house - it has had lots of awful people renting it and they lived like pigs! What ... you rent? Um ... but you have curtains at the windows?!'

2. 'Are you working at the asparagus farm? What part of Eastern Europe are you from?'

To be fair, we live in a row of cottages, one of which is routinely rented out by the farm, and our current house was a shithole when we moved in.

We moved from London to a small village in Argyll, two years ago.

Shopping is now mostly done online.

Hospital appointments mean a whole day's travelling to get to Glasgow and back.

No rail links. Infrequent public transport.

Slow broadband.

But...…...no traffic jams, no road rage, no NOISE, lots of wonderful scenery, neighbours who care about how we are, and whose names we know.

I would never go back to London.

SarahAndQuack we have one that had real problems getting PP and how they have managed it I do not know. The original house fitted nicely between the two neighboruing houses with lots of 'air' between them and a view of the hills behind all the houses, the new one is higher than its neighbours and dominates the skyline, no more view. It is fucking horrible. Apparently there's a hoo ha as it is higher than it was supposed to be. They've also built it right onto the side of our paddock, so unless they are expecting to have a strip of our paddock their back wall runs adjacent to our land (we only rent this but it is annoying)

I live in a Hamlet of 12 houses, down a long country lane from a village with 406 houses (I just googled the census results). Everyone in our little group of 12 houses knows each other, and as we all have big gardens there is a lot of knocking on doors to give away surplus home grown fruit and veg in the summer. When we moved in, all of the neighbours stopped by to say hello, and one even brought homemade cookies still warm from the oven. I grew up in London and when I see the neighbours, I’ll say hello and maybe have a quick chat, but that is it. My husband will stand outside talking to them for ages, they probably all think I’m grumpy in comparison. I do get the feeling that if there was ever an emergency they would all help out in a heartbeat.

Obviously we don’t have any shops/amenities in our little hamlet, but there is a pub and village shop (with post office counter) in the village. It takes about 20 minutes just to walk down our lane, so probably 30 minutes each way to the pub and shop. The nearest supermarket is a small Aldi two villages over. It is a 30 minute drive to Sainsbury’s, Tesco, or Morrison’s. But, Ocado deliver. No takeaways deliver, we have to go and get them from the surrounding villages. This is probably a good thing as I used to eat a lot more takeaways.

I work from home, and managed to get fibre straight to my property (rather than to a cabinet, as god knows where the nearest cabinet would be), but it took months of relentless badgering of BT and openreach. It has somewhat trapped me in my job, as we now have two dogs and it suits me to work from home with them, but luckily I love my job. My husband drives to the nearest city, an hour away, for work, but an hour each way isn’t too bad.

Utilities are a problem. We don’t have mains gas or sewerage. We have to get oil delivered a couple of times a year (and remember to keep an eye on it so we don’t run out). We have a septic tank which needs emptying every few years.

I couldn’t live here if I didn’t drive, but for us the benefits outweigh the cons. Looking out our windows all we see is fields, it is really quiet, and you get a lot of space for your money.

Maybe think about semi-rural op. We are 30 mins from a city but in a very small village (just one road) with country side in all directions). The nearest school is only 10 mins drive in the next village and there is a co-op and a pub there too. Maybe find an area that is rural but only a short drive from amenities.

We've moved to rural Fife after years in Edinburgh (DH is Edinburgh born and bred, I'm from the Midlands). We live in part of a converted stable yard and country house with a dozen other households, and we have our own grounds. The whole lot is in the middle of a wood. Our drive is half a mile long through the woods.

On the one hand it is pitch dark at night - need a torch to come from the car sort of dark - but on a summer's evening, instead of hearing about meteor showers on the news, I can sit in the garden watching a sky full of shooting stars. I don't have a Starbucks round the corner but deer were grazing by my car when I filled the kettle this morning. I don't have theatres and cinemas on my doorstep any more but I can sit in the garden and hear nothing but trees and birds.

And - bonus - I can get to back to Edinburgh to see friends, do shopping, enjoy all the things that go with a capital city in under 45 minutes (traffic on the Forth Road Bridge allowing).

I think we have a pretty good middle ground here. What you would need to be aware of is that some family and friends will take the view that you always have to make the effort to visit them because you moved away. The prospect of venturing over here positively terrifies some people. I've explained that the Forth is not the River Styx but they're not having it.

I live very remote! Probably far too remote for most people and it wouldn't work at all living here if you had children.
Obviously different everywhere, but I live in a remote area of the northern Highlands.
DH works as a software developer remotely and I do some side jobs online and work on our croft.
Our internet is actually ok! we watch netflix, game online and both of us can work online.
You have to drive everywhere, we could walk for hours from our house and not reach anything even remotely useful and no buses for us.
Shopping means a day trip to Tesco once a month which is the highlight of our month, because were saddos that don't get out often we pick everything up like excited toddlers, dh have you seen this new pasta sauce! As I said we don't get out often!

We occasionally drive to the capital (inverness ) but its a long drive and a huge faff, we probably go every 5 months.

No takeaways, but we have several chest freezers and lots of pantry storage and we have lots of freezer junk that we use for our version of takeaways, pizzas, freezer chips, garlic bread etc. We buy so much on our shops, we do one shop a month so pick up loads and we have various freezer boxes for transporting back in the car.

It's can be very isolating and lonely, I can go weeks without talking to other people apart from dh and the sheep, they listen better

The only thing I really miss is being able to grab a costa or sit in a wetherspoons and just people watch and I sometimes worry about how awkward I'm becoming because of lack of contact with others.

Do you not mentally stress/panic about what happens if you are seriously unwell (a dr home visit as in too much pain to move) or need an urgent ambulance? Or your elderly relatives do?
Yes, I do worry a little bit about it, I once really badly hurt my knee when I was alone and hadn't taken out my phone as was just popping into the fields, seriously thought it was broken and I was thinking fuck, will dh know to call someone if I don't pick up, thats if he even rings! Luckily was able to drag myself back inside and was just very bruised, but I'm religious about taking out my phone now even if its just to let the dogs out to the loo. There is an air ambulance, but obviously still a wait, for less emergency stuff, it's a pain, like I had to travel all the way down to inverness when I found a lump, as none of the nearer hospitals up north can deal with it, because they're very small

What do you do about buying fresh produce? (if it's several hours drive to buy a tomato or a peach) Or do you grow your own?
I grow a lot of my own, but I also embrace canned and freeze and dehydrate a lot myself and have several planters on my kitchen windowsill with herbs and cut and come again salad, make own bread etc. I love foraging, so we eat some unconventional stuff, like nettles, nettle soup is a favourite.

If you live alone or happen to be alone (family away), how do you cope with the stress of a man breaking in to your home while you are alone and too far to get help? (no one will hear you scream)
If someone broke in I'd almost be impressed! You'd really have to come looking for us and I'd hear a car pulling up as it basically never happens, but we have ring security cameras to watch the chickens, that someone would trigger in the unlikely event someone came past and the dogs and various other animals would kick off.

I'm much more concerned about fire, I have lots of fire alarms and have lots of fire extinguishers/fire blankets.

I was brought up in a rural village. I live in a rural village. I spent a few years living in a city as a student and couldn't wait to get back to the sticks. My wife was brought up in a city but quickly adapted to village life.

We have an "off-grid" holiday place that is even more rural. No mains services at all. No phone signal either.

We moved from london to rural a few years ago. I think one of the only things I actually notice is that we are too remote for takeaways and that a taxi has to be booked well in advance. That and the lanes being overrun by large shiny cars in the summer with drivers who can’t reverse. Other than that we get post (so can shop online for most things) and Waitrose deliveries (no Ocado though) and there are supermarkets open late 7 days a week - they are just a drive away. It is also a 30 min drive to the nearest shop like Next or M&S. The local towns have charity shops and boutiques but harder to buy pants or tights (so I buy online). We drive to school and to see friends.

Dressing for the weather is often a challenge mind you.

Social housing is being discussed but local view is that we have sufficient tied cottages to provide for lower income families

Gosh yes. We wouldn't want common people in Brigadoon but obviously the staff need to be within earshot of the bell.

Villages inhabited by normal people on non professional incomes struggle due to the high cost of access to services and work and low, often insecure incomes.
In prettier/commuter villages an influx of affluent city exiles can push prices out of reach of local people whilst objecting to any social housing plans.

Rural poverty is a huge issue and in many areas the influx of middle classes wanting to "move to the country" is a problem for the local people resulting in dormitory towns.

'Many - or even most - children board or if not, travel on school minibuses. Local state school has transport used by less affluent locals'

This may well be completely factual but it sounds horribly snooty @cherrypavlova. Why do most children board, is rural life so unbearable for them?

We're not truly rural, we're in a market town with two supermarkets, plenty of shops, two good enough schools, friends all within walking distance. Most of the time it's fine.

Transport is the biggest issue. DH needs the car for work - it's two train journeys and a bus otherwise and he has to be in work at 8am (our buses start at 7.30am...). He normally works from home two days a week so it's never really an issue as I run my own business from home so I'm pretty flexible on when I need the car.

This week DS has a hospital appointment. DH can't get his day at home switched so DS and I were planning to go by bus.

Except the hospital is two buses away - into the main town (1 hour and 20 minutes on the bus) then change. The first bus we can get from our home town will get us to the hospital 1.5 hours early and the second one gets us in 30 minutes late! During the week at peak times. So we'll be twiddling our thumbs for 1.5 hours. Either that or it's a £35 taxi ride...

On Sundays weekend there are no buses going to the main town.

When we first moved here there were buses beginning at 5.30am and one every 30 minutes plus hourly at the weekend. That's been cut to an hourly, peak time, service and no Sunday buses. And then we've had the locals moaning about constant traffic build up in town...I wonder why?

For all that I wouldn't go back to living in a major town or city. The community is great, people say good morning in the street even if they don't know you, the kids are pretty good (mainly because everyone is likely to know their parents) and we have great community events in the summer and at Christmas but the transport....

If you live alone or happen to be alone (family away), how do you cope with the stress of a man breaking in to your home while you are alone and too far to get help? (no one will hear you scream)

The more rurally I live, the less fear I have. The only times I've ever felt the slightest bit worried about being a victim of violence or crime have been in cities. The crime rate is very low where we live. The chances of your house being broken into are pretty low in general, but much lower where I am now than anywhere else I've lived. Besides, by the time you're screaming, isn't it probably a bit late for anyone to effectively come to the rescue? Tbh that sounds like anxiety talking, not actual concerns about rural living.

Moved rurally two years ago after 30 years in London. For me rural living is idyllic. It is incredible to wake up to peace and quiet and no car noise. I'd never heard an owl hoot before, there are deer at the bottom of my garden, rabbits hopping all over the road when I leave in the morning, you get the picture.

The peace and quiet is so restorative. I still work in London so to be able to come home to such a relaxing environment does wonders for the soul.

From a practical perspective, you will need a car. I have found my off roader to be invaluable for the dodgy roads I use. It gets me to the station in the mornings despite the ice and snow and it's great for horsey stuff and my dog.

I commute 1.5hrs each way but have Fridays off, my commute involves a 1 hr train journey which I enjoy, I work, read or watch the boxsets my DH isn't interested in.

You have to be organised. No shop to walk to when you've had a couple of glasses of wine and realise you don't have all the ingredients you need for dinner.

I didn't enjoy shopping even when I lived in London so I don't miss having shops nearby. I online shop like I did when I lived in town.

Work wise, my neighbours are doctors, an artist, a journalist and a banker.

Moving from London to living rurally has been the best thing my DH and I have ever done. We wake up happy every day and can't believe we live somewhere so beautiful. There are no downsides, for us at least.

Think long and hard before moving to the deep country. We are on the point of some pivotal change in how we conduct our lives and getting in a car or going places will become more restricted, even in the next decade. You will need more than an ounce of ability for self-sufficiency if you intend to live in remote areas. Better to live near towns and cities, on the suburb, or between centres of population, if not in the centre.

Not aimed at me but I clicked because we want to move somewhere slightly more rural too.
I live on the edge of a fairly large town. I can be at work in 10 mins, big supermarkets in ten mins etc and Birmingham is 20 mins away... but 5 mins in the other direction are some gorgeous small hamlets and villages that we have our eye on. In fact they surround our town in all directions. Hoping they’d be the best of both worlds!

I'm in central Scotland and rural is easily done here as nowhere is terribly far. I'm in a farm cottage, about 3/4 and 20 minutes walk from the centre of the village and the bus stop with a bus every hour to the nearest town which is around 20 minutes by car, 24 hour supermarkets, the lot. About 10 miles to a motorway. There's a fair bit going on in the village, plus a website, Facebook page etc so difficult to be anonymous 😁.

It takes me around 35 minutes to commute to a nearby town, only one short stretch on the motorway. Work is about 10 minutes from another big town so I shop on the way home.

There's good rail and road links from the motorway to the rest of the country and Edinburgh is less than a mile away, and Glasgow just over. However, I'm in the middle of the countryside here. Coming from rural Aberdeenshire, it's very connected here!

And I have a pretty decent job (I get paid over £40k) and unemployment here is pretty low I believe.

(As are house prices )

I'm in central Scotland and rural is easily done here as nowhere is terribly far.

Yeah, there's A LOT of Scotland where it's not at all easy to do rural, but then, the house prices reflect that .

Oh, in many rural areas you also get burned for extra postage or even have quite a few places that refuse to deliver to you at all.

Living rurally makes you very settled, not in a good way. I was living the same life as my elderly neighbors!
Ive done city living followed by rural, followed by village life.
Anything but city and you have no spontaneity, everything has to be planned, my teens feel very cut off and resent it.
I wish I’d reared my family in the city instead of chasing the ‘green dream’.

Once we’re out of negative equity I’ll be selling up and moving as close as I can get.

Laughing at all the driving teens comments. I passed my test 3 weeks after my 17th birthday. My patient old dad was so happy. We were all driving round car parks and fields from 16 so we could be ready to sit our tests asap.