Cold feet! Hand hold please

[Puffinsrock]

Planning a big move- city to village in countryside. Village has sporadic bus but no train so going from zone 2/3 tube to car for everything

Reasons- more outdoor way of living / space and given option to transfer job so seemed like a sign (hospital Doctor so no improved pay or conditions though) not loved london during covid kids school here is sweet but very limited (aged 8,6,3)

Cons
Husband will have big commute 3 days per week approx 1h20 door to door
Will need to hire nanny with early start (7am) which I'm not sure is easy in a village setting
New area don't know anyone what if I don't make friends
My commute will be 30mins which isn't massive but isn't teeny either

Equivocal
Schools - ok where we are but free.
Amazing where we are moving to but need to paying (although we do have savings which we have saved just for this)
House - have lovely house now, found a lovely one to buy (although not as amazing as I had hoped when we first started talking about moving away from london)

We weighed it all up and agreed both keen but now we are coming closer to Exchange I'm getting really really cold feet!

Is this normal? Life where we are now is good, yes has issues but I know how to solve them / manage them etc

Really scared we won't integrate in new area / will hate it / won't be able to sort childcare etc/ commute will grind my husband down / relationship will be shit as no quality evenings together/ no where to go out etc

Is village living OK? Fun? How do you find having to drive everywhere to get around? Do you miss restaurants on the doorstep etc?

Do the kids like it?

I grew up in a city so feeling very nervous! Sorry if this all seems lame to rural mumsnetters!

Thank you!

😁I'm just repeating her account of the encounter! I grew up in a village in Yorkshire (but with transport and shops) and it was definitely a place where if someone took a dislike to you then life was a bit difficult.

Why are you picking somewhere where you have to pay for schooling?
In the main London schools are pretty good .. in my area all secondary are outstanding and nearly all primary are good/outstanding...zone4
There are also many areas outside London which have good schools that are free.....
Schools policy on social media /phones pretty irrelevant to society norms....most schools don't allow phones..
If you want school to go to 13 think some areas still have middle school (windsor/Somerset) where would secondary be?
I would be really concerned about getting a nanny and being so far from both jobs..
Maybe map out what you actually do and how you spend your time as a family...are there lots of clubs for the kids often you want this out of school to widen friends network and meet local kids as they won't all be going private...and for the adults can you get to a gym/yoga/running /pottery...
Too big a jump and lots of lifestyle compromises for me...larger village/small town..

I moved 3 miles away when my kids were 14 dd and 12 ds

It's much more rural here. We love it (dh&i) but my dd hates it a there is no bus at weekends-at all. I have to take her everywhere. Sometimes I drive to the same town where here school is 5 miles away 3 times in one day to pick her up drop off etc . It gets very boring. And the petrol!!! Next car will be electric.

However we knew we would have to make this sacrifice for a few years until she can drive in order to live here

In exchange we have a lovely village. Much nicer neighbours. Rural walk lwalks about on our doorstep
And a much much bigger house We could Not have afforded this house in our old village.

So it's worth it for us but my teen are older than your kids so that's a lot of years of being taxi.

Worth pointing out that small villages don't tend to have nannies on tap

Many don't even have CMs anymore

I wouldn't do it again, though I ADORE living in the country now.

DC at private school 1hr on bus each way, and the school buses run an hour in each direction so friends and boyfriends are a long drive at weekends and holidays.

We don't go out any more even though we went out loads in the city as one always has to drive (no taxis available or the one town where we can go with taxis is £30 each way).

DH used to commute 2hrs each way to the city though that's changed since covid, though it hasn't affected his quality of life as he spends even more hours working now including the weekends.

DC get cross having to ask me to take them everywhere especially when I say I can't for whatever reason. My car takes £110 diesel a week with all the driving at the moment (used to be £80 before fuel rises)
.

But I can see cows out of the kitchen window, I hear cuckoo's and woodpeckers in our garden, I live near a river that the dogs can swim in, I walk six clean aired miles a day at least. We have a lot of room and a massive garden.

Good luck OP

I should add we are in a tiny village (100 adults who can vote) but we weren't interested in village life such as it is (all v old pensioners) and there's no social life here so as the only people aged under 80 and with children we've just kept to ourselves so no worries about people knowing our business!

I imagine your kids wont have quite such rose tinted memories of village life as you do...

I grew up in a village
Moved away
Came back (long story...kids schooling, bereavements...)
It's now not a village anymore - major housebuilding over the past 20 years. Another new development being built atm - No more infrastructure though! so people are really struggling with dentists, drs, schools etc
Ds1 now at university (and drives) and ds2 at secondary so the unreliable public transport isn't as much of an issue as it was.
Once dc are left home for good I'd like to move. Dh not so keen. I fancy City life :)

Sounds like you may be better suited to market town life - or close outskirts of a market town/suburb to a city.

I've never lived in a city. Hate the thought of it. I need to be near open space, cities seem claustrophobic to me. I was a teenager in a village in the 90s. Literally nothing there other than a church, school, shop and a phone box! Limited bus service (one a day) that got me into the nearby (lovely) city within 40min. Other than that, I just hung out with the local teenagers, of which there were quite a few - we all grew up together. Parents ferried us about occasionally, bus service to high school. Our summers were mainly just hanging out at each other's houses, long bike rides and sleepovers. We were perfectly happy, it was all we'd ever known.

I now live in a suburb of the same city I used to bus into as a teenager and I'm bringing up my teenagers here. Still plenty of open space, easily walk in the countryside. Tesco/Lidl a walk or 5min drive away. A couple of pubs within 5min walk. Buses into the city every 15min or so. Decent high school which my kids walk/bike to. My kids definitely have more to do in immediate local area than I did at their age, but it still feels small, friendly and rural rather than city.

As for the driving thing - I think because of my village/countryside upbringing, I consider any car journey of 30min or less, as very short! Seems totally normal to me and definitely not a big deal. Would much rather drive myself places under my own steam than use public transport.

I lived in a village whilst my DD was little. We moved to a city when she reached secondary.
Yes, it was beautiful, but we all commuted so much we hardly saw the views. The swimming lessons on a Saturday took most of the morning, 40 min drive to the pool, we then had to do the food shop, as our village didn’t have anything but a small corner shop. No local jobs. My ExH was a ‘local’, after 20 years I was still not ‘one of theirs’.
Some places should stay holiday destinations.

I really don’t like driving so the country wouldn’t suit me. I do long for a decent garden though. We decided to stay in London and now the children are older it works well for them. It has been very good for my work as well. I didn’t have to stay in a job I didn’t like because there were a lot of others available. Hampshire is very nice though.

Honestly? I think you’d be mad to do it. You will be adding two sets of school fees (using up your savings) and increasing travel costs.
I now live near a town near countryside and tried village life (one pub; cafe; minimart; hall) and lasted six months. Every head turning when you went in the pub, the only activity was watching cricket, and about 40 minutes drive to buy the weekly shop.
even now I have to drive into town to drop the teens and resent the five minutes each way! At least there’s a lot more within walking the distance and the teens do have local friends and can walk to school etc.

The key thing for me is whether you can walk and cycle from your door, or if narrow lanes and busy traffic prevent this. That’s what we miss most. We haven’t acquired a dog, as I’m not keen to have to get in a car every time I want to walk it.
It makes a difference if your children don’t go to the village school: much harder to get to know people nearby.
We’ve become more introverted, sitting inside our high hedges, but that’s partly Covid.

@ChiswickFlo you are absolutely right. One DC doesn't socialise but the one who does already complains.

That said, all their friends live in the middle of nowhere too so all in the same boat. The mums just take turns driving them around or hosting sleepovers.

I'm sure they are very grateful :)
I HATED living here as a teen
Bus every 2 hours if they actually stopped.
Nothing to do..
Nowhere to go..
Admittedly my parents weren't well off which didn't help.

Stay in the city. You'd be crazy to move. Villages are full of busybodies and "you're not from here"-goons.

It sounds to me like moving out of London is a good idea for you. That commute for DH 3dpw is ok - I did very similar commute 3dpw for six years with DH doing 30 min commute 5dpw and was fine - though when I found similar job within walking distance I took that! On balance if it was me I would have been looking more for small town, but that doesn’t mean your decision is wrong and I think the attitude of “well if we decide to move again in a few years that’s ok” is a good way to think about it as long as you can afford the costs of two moves. Cold feet just before exchange is perfectly normal!

And not all teens want to be constantly socialising in towns - mine are more likely to be found in the countryside (and we live in edge of large town with countryside in one direction and city in the other). But it’s good to know they have the option of course.

For someone with kids your age it would be a no for me. The romantic idyll of the lovely village school and open fields etc is great for really little children but for teens it will be an absolute nightmare: for you and them.

Having lived briefly as a rural teen I think there’s a dark side to it which parents often don’t see too. With so little to do it’s oddly easier for them to go off the rails in very quiet places than in bigger towns.

I don’t think it’s easy to extrapolate others experiences and apply it to your family- too many variables.

Personally, I prefer living rurally (I’m a Dr too)- the pros outweigh the cons for me and my family. We have a much better quality of life where we are than we would in a city- from my perspective and based on the things we value for quality of life. But, that balance is definitely different for other families, who prefer town or city living. I don’t think anyone can tell you whether this move will work for you based on whether they have done it and liked or hated it, or whether they think they would like it or not.

I grew up rurally and loved it. We lived about 25 minutes from a small county town and 35/40 minutes from a (small)university city. I don’t feel I missed out at all. I know many have said teens need a city/large town for amenities- depends on the teen and many don’t live in cities and have perfectly good childhood/teen years. Some will crave busier lives and wish their parents had moved to a city. Some city-based would prefer to have lived more rurally.

I too am a doctor who lives rurally. I have lived in cities and much prefer the lifestyle i have now. I have DC’s who are in their teens and there is a bit of ferrying about, but it’s not that bad and they are happy. I asked my dd if she would want to move into the city and she said “ugh, no!”. But there will be some who would feel differently.

I didn’t really love London and was very glad to leave . I’ve also lived in smaller cities (Edinburgh) and larger ones (Glasgow), as well as big cities abroad (Sydney and Melbourne) as well as in the UK- I enjoyed myself at the time but they were never where I wanted to be long-term. But there are clearly many people who do love living in London, Sydney, Melbourne.

In your position, I suppose one factor is there the possibility of being able to move back to a London job if you do hate it? There are vacancies in some specialities but not so many in others. Is the housing market where you are moving fairly active (I.e. are you likely to be able to sell relatively easily if you want to move)? I do think if you go in with the expectation that you will not like it, that you will feel isolated and not get on with others, you need to be wary of the risk of self-fulfilling prophecy. One issue we have noticed locally with 2 couples who moved during lockdown is actually they really wanted London with views and wanted things to be all quaint and twee, I think. One in particular has spent a lot of time unfavourably comparing this area to London (restaurants not as numerous/varied/as good, shops not being open 24/7, pain to get a takeaway, fewer amenities etc), that there were fewer “excellent schooling options”, the roads were too narrow and not sufficiently gritted in the winter and also complained that the birds in the trees made too much noise so wanted them cut down. Oh, and the latest one is that could we please move the sheep in the fields near their house as they make too much noise. All of these things were entirely predictable if they had just done a little research about where they were moving to rather than just indulging in some imaginary vision of beautiful bucolic with pretty bird sound and lovely views. What I’m getting at is make sure you have done your research- know what is available and, possibly more importantly, what is not. Make sure you are happy with that and you should be fine.

Go for it OP. It is a fairly significant change so normal to have cold feet but give it a go! Remind yourself of the reasons why you wanted to do it in the first place - those are your true feelings and the doubts you are having now are totally normal but try not to give in to fears. Your experience will be what you make it. Try it - it might be the best thing you’ve ever done and might be the worst, but if it is really bad you can always reevaluate and make another change, nothing needs to be permanent.

from someone who has moved around from big cities to tiny villages and towns in between :)

also I don’t want to assume or be rude but it may be that people here who are living in cities and firmly against the idea of moving are just reinforcing their own decisions, so not quite unbiased opinions

Moving may be the right thing to do, but I think you have cold feet because you've picked the wrong house in the wrong place.

Too long a commute, no good state schools, not enough activities nearby, no transport, no childcare, you don't even think the house is amazing. I'd go back to the drawing board here TBH. Start by looking again at the location, fix a decent commute time and circle areas on the whole UK map, then cross out of here are no decent state schools, then look at proximity to activities you enjoy and finally transport. Then look at Rightmove again. That'll move your search towards some more decent options that can work for you as a family.

Really enjoyed reading this, very well put! We moved from London to small village (no transport links for 3 miles but there's a pub and preschool) over a year ago and have been loving it, even read threads like these and worry DC will suffer when older due to our decision. So this was a comforting post, thanks!