Complaining about Village life?

[BumpkinChic]

I just don’t really get this.

I live in a rural village and almost every week we have someone complaining on the village online group about one thing or another… mostly over things that pretty much come along with rural village life. The top culprits are usually along the lines of:

”they haven’t told us they are going to spread manure and now I can’t open my windows because of the smell”

“church bells ringing at all hours”

“the internet speed is always so poor”

Why are you living rurally if you didn’t factor these things in? What is complaining on a Facebook groups supposed to do about manure? IMO a lot of these things are minor annoyances. I know not everyone has the choice of where to live but I know this is not the case for some of the regular moaners. And I know village life can sometimes be dreary but I love it and have always lived in small villages so I know I’m biased.

please enlighten me, I’m genuinely baffled.

@Wishingdirect Anyone (including farmers) who leaves mud and deposits on the road is legally required to remove it.

Rural areas are really expensive to provide broadband to, though, and in virtually all parts of the UK incomes are higher in rural areas than in urban areas (yes, really! Surprising but true). I’m OK with providing a subsidy for those rural people who are on low incomes, but other than that I think rural residents should expect to pay more.

Rural areas are really expensive to provide broadband to, though, and in virtually all parts of the UK incomes are higher in rural areas than in urban areas (yes, really! Surprising but true). I’m OK with providing a subsidy for those rural people who are on low incomes, but other than that I think rural residents should expect to pay more.

What about things like water pipes and electricity mains cables? Even in urban areas, they cost considerably more per property to provide for the big, set-back detached houses than for the long rows of small terraced homes with front doors that open straight on to the pavement.

I think there was a window of time when being online was something of a luxury, but it's such an essential part of modern life now - with so many bricks-and-mortar facilities closed down, leaving no other choice for many people living their everyday lives - that I believe it should be dealt with on a national/local governmental level.

Either that or give private companies a similar obligation to the universal post rules applying to Royal Mail - whereby they have to provide the infrastructure as it is needed and not just cherry-pick the more economical, more profitable areas.

George Monbiot makes the point that muck spreading causes ammonia air pollution so the muck complainers have a point https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/22/air-pollution-lobbying-politics-ulez

I thought I lived in the same place as @Fightyouforthatpie ! We have the same problem. And my MP isn't BJ, so that's at least two places with thousands of expensive houses on greenfield sites around one town, instead of the affordable housing spread across the county which I assume is what's actually needed.

The only way it could work is if all these houses are sold to local people who are upsizing & freeing up much cheaper houses across the county - but what's the point of them all living here, with no jobs for them & no infrastructure improvements?

Meanwhile the 40 (used to be 50)mph, wide main road out of town has been turned into a narrow 30mph nightmare, with cycle lanes & widened pavements, because of all the new houses along it. I'm just waiting for our village to become a rat-run for commuters, because of what they've done to the main road.

Still, at least no-one can say that houses aren't being built under the Tories, eh?

I'm not going to choose that hill to die on when the farmer has to cross the lane twice a day for milking

Discovered today that in N Wales we pay £82 more a year for electricity because of rural communities than South Wales.

Probably because in Cornwall it often is Londoners. Those from Manchester tend to gravitate towards North Wales, Lancashire and Cumbria. Brummies might go to Mid Wales. Those from Cardiff would mostly head for Pembrokeshire.

I live in a small town circa 6000 people on a mountain. Common complaints:

there are sheep on the road
there are sheep on mountain
there are cows on the road
there are cows on the mountains
there are horses on the mountain
there are horses on tbe road

yes <wearily> it’s called common land….

Oh well, I live in a busy universitytown (in Belgium) and hear new arrivals complainig about student life 🤷🏼‍♀️

Ooh yes @SmileyClare the dark skies. When we first moved here, we spent hours outside just staring up at the stars. DH bought us a telescope and we have seen some amazing sights. We have seen the Persied meteor shower several times. In Devon the main issue seems to be having cloudless skies...

The farmer isn't Jeremy Clarkson by any chance? He's always got on so well with the Caravan Club.

Do love a good villager moan.
On our village fb page during harvest a villager asked what was going on? As for over a week tractors had been going up and down at all hours and asked when it might stop as had been keeping her children awake. There were a few witty responses along the lines of “ it’s called food production” and “I don’t imagine the weather is waiting for your children to sleep”

I can't understand Clarkson's popularity.

He's like Peppa Pig for middle-aged men.

Clarkson's Farm was a great show for anyone who doesn't like him. He gets shouted at by the builder, shouted at by Kaleb, shouted at by Charlie and shouted at by Lisa. He also needed a favour from the Caravan Club so they made him record this:

@DdraigGoch

Thank you, my little Red Dragon!

I enjoyed that. LOL!

😂

I imagine that all of the farm workers who regularly, summer and winter alike, have to work through the night, or get out of bed at 2am on a wet and dreary morning to see to stock etc were incredibly sympathetic to her plight.

I get very angry when perfectly serviceable brownfield sites are ignored by developers in favour of Greenfield ones - and that govt lets them get away with it and arranges compulsory purchase.

It would be slightly less enraging if these were social housing for people in the area, but you can bet your life that they will be "executive developments" which will be well out of the price range of the average new buyer.

I agree (should have read a post further down before I made my previous comment)

Good farmland is at a premium in the UK now and it is being sold off for building at an awful rate.

😂😂😂😂😂

waves stick

lets the bull out

Perfectly designed by natural evolution to steal chips and sh!t on heads - who doesn't love the raucous screech of a mewling seagull?

😅

@Motherofkitteys

the man was absolutely furious that my horse had left a No 2 outside his drive……….he wanted to know when I was coming back to collect it

You can bring your horse past our house - I'll be out like a shot with my shovel! My compost heap would think it was it's birthday!

I don't know why people aren't prepared to collect their rich nature's bounty any more

It used to be collected for this very purpose ("nightsoil"). Not a job I would want myself, but people took what they could get, historically speaking.

I don't know why people aren't prepared to collect their rich nature's bounty any more

Because their gardens are botanical deserts.

@Emotionalsupportviper You just wait until Labour identify land for 1.5 million homes! What’s going to left to farm you might ask! Certainly won’t be enough brown field sites.

As for village life. We live in a tiny place but no crops grown in the fields so no messy farmers. Only a hovel for a church so no bells. However we have had a series of bossy, interfering, objectionable and self opinionated people here. They object to everything. Well nearly - some people are exempt as they are mates. They report anything they think needs reporting. Usually made up! Or just plain mischief making. They have planted the village pond with garden pond plants that have choked it. In nearly 40 years there’s always been a surprise around the corner and it’s rarely pleasant.

Once again: brownfield development is a great idea, but only if we are going to focus on these being decent places to live (rather than crappy human-storage pits to shove people into so we don't have to have any housing cluttering up our pretty chocolate-box view).

That means decontaminating, greening and beautifying brownfield sites, esp if they used to be things like industrial estates. If you do loads of apartment building in the center of towns, suburbanites and rural dwellers need to be grown-up about the fact that cities will change as a result, especially since most of the parking places will disappear and the roads will be narrowed for bus/cycle lanes and you'll probably have to use a parkNride and public transit to come into town. All doable, but people need to OK with these tradeoffs.