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.

My cousin bought a house about a mile from a local aerodrome and then wrote to them constantly asking them to only allow the aircraft to take off and land in the other direction. 🙄

I work with someone who recently moved to the country and every week she complains about something, including, cockerels crowing, muck spreading, farm machinery noise at night, fox noises, the fact its so dark at night, the lane being churned up by tractors, grass pollen in the air, fruit trees dropping fruit on her lawn. Honestly. What do people expect when they move to the country? She's 46 so not green and young.

They're justified in complaining about neighbours' parties if they're late at night on weekdays.
The other things can't be helped.

To be fair this can be a warning for drivers of enormous vehicles who are following their satnav blindly. It causes absolute carnage when they get wedged into a tiny lane with stone walls surrounding them. Local drivers will be aware of where they can drive safely.

Im worried about Ted though. Does anyone have an update?

@SmileyClare yeah I don’t think you’re going to do well there while you think you’re better than these people

I get quite resentful about incomers who want to change our working village with a diverse population into a dormitory village, as so many are becoming.

Still, at least some of them play a part in keeping the village pub going…

"As for bell-ringing, where is is written that rural people have to put up with it?"

Well, if the church was there first you have to accept it basically. It's something you knew about before you moved in.

It's the same here, every year when the farmers put the young cattle out, there are people saying that cows should not be put in fields that have footpaths through them.

We also regularly hear complaints about the lack of a decent coffee shop and that you have to drive to get to the nearest softplay.

I agree. It makes me laugh when people who live in a little village in the countryside complain about how poor the public transport is. Buses only every 2 hours etc. Yet people would complain if there were buses going past their window every 5 minutes and blocking the roads, or they wanted to build a train line right by their house. If you want good public transport then live in a town or city! You can't have it all.

I live on the edge of a very large (rural) town, buses are two hourly throughout the week with none at all on weekends.

I used to live in a hamlet that had one bus per week. It only went in one direction (towards the market town) on market day (livestock). The assumption was whoever took the bus into town would get a lift home from one of the farmers at market.

We’re right on the edge of a town rather than rural so don’t get much of this nonsense. What I do ‘enjoy’ on local Facebook is every time a business appears or changes hands … “Oh not another barbers, can’t we have an artisan baker?” Like we live in some weird total democracy rather than plain old capitalism.

I'm in a group for a village that was a village years ago but is now bigger than the town I live in. (DC went to school there and all her friends live there, hence joining.) It's the funniest read of my day. Most of the posts are complaining about new houses being built...by people who live in houses built in the last 30 years. They also complain about children playing on the playing fields, cats coming into their garden, the milkman...

I think you missed my point.

We moved from London to this village over 20 years ago, as I said we love it here and have lots of friends, our own business.

I was pointing out how small minded some of the born and bred villagers were- prejudging new comers and lumping them all into a homogeneous group- a Them vs Us attitude; laughing and gossiping about them and simply refusing to accept them as locals.

I just thought I’d throw a different perspective on this thread.

You’ll always get the usual nutters moaning daily on local FB groups. It’s not representative of the majority of new comers.

Just as the villagers who feel threatened by change to their village and hate new comers are also not representative of most villagers who have been nothing but welcoming and friendly to us.

My favourite one was someone complaining on the village facebook page about horse riders not picking up the horse poo during their ride from the road/pavements 🙃

We had someone buy a house next to the farm called Pooh Corner.
They complained about the smell from the farm - a pig farm...

I had this about magpies. They didn't have a cat though, they were just being too noisy

I think we must have a pretty well established group of country folk as nobody moans about the farming practices on our group.

Main complaints are fireworks and bonfires. Also the hunt that tends to affect another village close by quite often. Parking near the school- which is really bad but has been since I moved there 18 years ago. Speeding through the village is another and more recently a spate of missing cats.

I was just about to post the same thing! I’ve even seen people on Mumsnet complaining about it! Just let it rot down for a bit and bung it on your roses fhs! It’s wonderfully pure stuff!

I moan about the (lack of) buses because the council keeps telling us not to use cars and parking charges in local city are going up and up. Also patchy 4g when next town along got 5g a year ago and we are bigger!

You absolutely do not have to put up with the hunt being on your land. It makes no difference whether you own or rent it. They have no right to be there.
If they come on your land then you can bill them to have the ground put right, fences fixes etc.
You need to contact the hunt master in writing and clearly state that they have no permission to be on your land. Perhaps include a map for clarity.

There are plenty of country people who do not support them. I certainly know of quite a few landowners around here who used to allow them on certain sections of their land, only for the hunt to take the piss and trash other bits of land/fields with livestock in etc.

Sometimes they're a bit poignant. A few years ago, a young family moved into the newbuild estate with a toddler. The mother posted asking why the bus hadn't turned up. She'd been waiting at the stop to take her toddler into a GP appointment. The bus service had been stopped a good year earlier. They only had one car and her husband needed it for work ...

@MrsMontyDon2020

We get airport whiners too, airport opened in 1950's! Also helicopter noise moaning(there's a military refuelling point 2 miles away and on flight path to brize

She might be living outside the U.K., such as in Ireland where different laws apply concerning the local hunts.

Personally I hate them and will what I can to disrupt the bastards and their hounds.

I live rurally and I just keep myself to myself. You can get too bogged down with the bitching and gossiping.