to think I will never be able to live in Cornwall again unless we live in a tent and clean toilets for a living?

[livethedream]

(Have name changed for this one as am currently bleating on a lot about this in real life.)

I used to live in Cornwall when I was in my twenties but I accidentally moved away, met DH, had children and am now stranded in the town I grew up in anD I hate it.

I dream of going back to Cornwall and bringing up the DSs there, and decided to focus on making it happen and we have been looking for a job there for DH who does IT support. There is nothing advertised, ever and we've been looking for nearly two years.

He could take a lesser job and pay he was on 15 years ago, which would then put us in a rubbish position to get a mortgage, or we could resign ourselves to never buying and rent something very cheap whilst we both do random minimum wage work to make ends meet.

I dunno, on the one hand I feel like if we want it enough we could make it happen, but then in reality I just don't see how. Shoudl I just accept this and go and live somewhere I like much less but where employment isn't nigh on impossible?

Why would you want to live in Cornwall, it's a dump (JOKE - am devonian so am being parochial).

I will never live in Devon again as I couldn't afford to - property prices are not that much different to Gloucestershire, however as the Op quite rightly points out, there are FEW jobs, and the jobs which you do get are poorly paid compared to what you would get in Bristol or wherever. I moved up to Glos nearly 4 years ago and added 15 grand on, whilst doing teh same job, but for a bigger company in a different area.

As beautiful as devon is, you can't live on seaviews and fresh air.

Plus - as lovely as it was, and I do miss it sometimes, don't just view it with rose tinted specs. generally, you will have shitty public transport, a lot of rural pverty, teenagers on the rampage because there is nothing to do, crap schools with no choice, casual racism and parochial attitudes and less amenities.

I am glad I moved away. The west country is utterly beautiful, but not very sustaining.

Hang on and see what the govt does about capital gains tax. If they whack it up on second homes, and if councils stop the council tax discount, you may find more properties on the market and that should push prices down.

Don't give up, I'm sure you'll find somewhere.

Getorf - I think you're right (I do remember having a storming row with an ex-colleague born and bred in north cornwall who was unbelievably racist and ignorant. And are the schools a bit shifty in Cornwall?

Well, have spoken to DH and he says Bristol looks good for work, so might look into that. Any good, affordable lovely idylls near there to raise children?

SanctiMoanyArse - thank you for the info, just looked on google and Usk/raglan look lovely. Woudl the commute be a bit long to Bristol or is it easy to cross the water?

Thank you everyone for indulging me in my existential angsting - hopefully this will result in us livign somewhere lovely (and nearer the SW!)

GetOrf - we want to live there to avoid the Devonians obviously!

Don't agree about the schools, I taught in a comp which I have to say had the edge on ds's current very pricy British school abroad, especially at KS3.

Depends what you want - I am looking forward to going back...don't have either M&S or Waitrose in Belgium, and whilst I do try to live on chocolate alone, I yearn for a Caesar salad, or chicken thighs and breasts with skin on them, or decent stewing steak, and Bramley apples and the list goes on.

Live...there are some excellent schools in Cornwall both state and private, and grammars in Plymouth, if you are up that end of the county, as Cornish kids can go to the Plymouth grammars.

livethe, Usk is about 10 inutes from here; DH comuted to Bristol for eyars, would take about 40 minutes I reckon. Bridge tolls need factroing in though.

I'm also eyeballing a move to Cornwall in the future. I was there last week and where we were was a 50 minute drive to Truro. But as I drove along I was musing that, although I live near to a major shopping town, it would also take me about the same amount of time to get there, despite it being about 4 miles away and not 50 so that's a bit of a red herring.

My runner up location is the Isle of Wight and I've heard similar moaning on here about that

Mrs, stop thinking about it, just do it, do it, do it.

Cx

Bear in mind that your kids will almost certainly have to leave home to find either higher education or work if you move to Cornwall. Main employers in the south west are seasonal, tourism-related and very badly paid or care-related and very badly paid (lots of old people). (Look in the local papers for jobs - this is all there ever are.)

When you said Cornwall, I thought you meant right down souff. but now you're talking about plymouth and exeter. where do you really want to live.
i grew up on dartmoor. clubbing in plymouth. spent my time surfing in polzeath and newquay. then my dad moved down to bodmin.

lots of my friends still live in devon and cornwall. my best friend does accounts in torquay. always shocked at how little she earns to how expensive house prices are.

what EXACTLY is thta you are looking for as part of this lifestyle change. is it realistic. have you been to the places you want to live in recently ?

Why would they have to leave for higher ed? Sixth forms at most schools, Truro for IB, Plymouth, Exeter and Falmouth for degrees.

I worked in the SW for 17 years before moving abroad with dh and I never worked in a seasonal, tourist related, care related or badly paid job.

Where is the 3 bed house to rent for £500 a month...I have been looking for months. Its more like £675!

Cornwall is lovely but jobs and earnings capacity drives people away.

I have just come back from London for a short break and today appreciate Cornwall more than ever (and we only went to the park today!)

Agree with what avengng gerbil says about childre in cornwall but still willing to accept that for the childhood it offers.

Oblomov has asked good questions. What exactly are you looking for, cos Exeter and PLymouth aren't Cornwall!

I was brought up in Devon, lived 12 yrs in London. I started to crave a bit of peace. Thats alll I wanted, to step down a few gears. I think that it's worth considering living near one of those towns in Devon tbh. You can always pop down to Cornwall for visits or a weekend away. Then you will get thebest of both worlds, with dh more likely to get work.

We sold our London place and just moved to Devon, it was one of the most worrying and harrowing things i have ever planned and done. Yet, when we were sat in our rental, with some cash in the bank, and the rest of our lives to look forward to, it felt so liberating. So I think i echo Questa's word in some ways 'just do it do it!!'

You will miss certian things, but making as close to the right choice of location is about as sure as you're going to get.

Higher education opportunities are getting better in Cornwall but still many are leaving for the brigher lights only to find they are jobless when they return.

I work in IT (software engineer) in Plymouth and live in Cornwall, dh's is manual job. It is do-able!

Agree with ScaryTeacher (hopefully not one of my old scary teachers), education not a prob.

And my (very black) friend comes and stays with us in the summer, and can honestly say everyone here (v small village) was very welcoming.

I went to Cornwall and Devon on holiday two years ago, for the first, and last, time in my life. I have rarely been so bored!

There are lots of lovely places in England with no motorways, beautiful villages, good schools and good amenities like swimming pools and Waitrose. Why would you not want those things?

I think it's sloooowly improving down here, yes a lot is geared towards tourism but there are some signs of growth in other areas. The schools are actually pretty good, in fact the primary that DS1 is starting in Sept, got an outstanding Ofsted recently.

That's a shame Bonsoir, but then you won't get Parisian amenities in Cornwall. I expect you'd have felt the same in rural France however. I certainly would, whereas I can find stacks to do in Devon and Cornwall.

We have no motorways in Cornwall, the M5 stops at Exeter. We have beautiful villages, good schools and good amenities. We have fab food and drink and friendly people. The cheese is wonderful. We do have swimming pools, but there is a big one that surrounds all of Cornwall, and it isn't chlorinated.

Where did you go to school Mamm, and when did you leave? I may have taught you, you never know!!!

We do have swimming pools, but there is a big one that surrounds all of Cornwall, and it isn't chlorinated.

AVenging Gerbil is right: I grew up in Cornwall, but had to leave to get a decent job. I was lucky enough to spend most weekends on the beach and so have idyllic memories of that part of my childhood, but I found it horribly parochial as soon as I hit 13. And as someone else said (sorry, forgot), it's dire in the winter. Newquay on a cold January Sunday ... ugh, it makes me shudder. The seaside town they forgot to close down and all that. Truro has improved greatly in the last 10 years - surely Waitrose will get in there soon?!

The lack of opportunity is an issue, though. If I'd stayed, I'd still be a waitress/barmaid, despite being a graduate (counts for nothing!). But I still envy my friends who stayed; they are happier than me in lots of ways, despite the lack of a pot to piss in. The discrepancy between income and house prices is the worst in the country. It will always be so ... it is incredibly difficult for a non-professionals to get on the property ladder. Before we blame the second homers from Surrey, though, someone sold them their cottages for well above market value.

Usk and Raglan are lovely Wales is brilliant.

I have ended up in a cosy little suburb south of Nottingham. I probably couldn't be further from the sea if I tried which is gutting.

I love the winter there, it's warmer than Brussels, and when the woodburner is cranking out the heat and the range is on, it's ace. Curl up with a book and a large mug of tea - bliss.

Oh you are quite right, scaryteacher - I think rural France is frightful! My sister has a house only 65km from Paris that is right in the sticks - you have to drive 10km to buy a litre of past-its-sell-by-date milk in a shop that closes from 1 to 4 pm

I like the SE of England - countryside with amenities!

To answer Oblomov's questions - yeah, ideally Cornwall would be the dream. But we resigned ourselves to the fact that to live in Cornwall DH would probably have to work in Plymouth so that we could live there and he coudl commute in. But in the absence of any jobs coming up in Plymouth we started looking in Exeter so that we could live in Devon and at least near Cornwall.

DH is going to have one last ditch push and phone recruitment agencies down there as nothing is advertised on the standard websites where DH usually finds work.

Failign that probably Bristol is the next best bet as there are at least jobs there that pay a reasonable amount and it's closer to Cornwall but also near other places I would like to be near (Somerset, Wiltshire, S Wales etc.)

I feel under loads of pressure as DS1 starts school in September and I hate that we'll probably end up pullign him out to move in the next year or so. Would love to get this sorted before then, but it's a big ask...

livethedream - just wanted to add to teh chorus of what is it that you're looking for...if it basically boils down to somewhere beautiful and/or village/community life, then there are plenty of possibilities in other parts of the UK. Dh and I moved out of London 18 months ago to the Peak District. It's awesome: breathtakingly beautiful, very friendly (made more friends in 18 months than we made in 12 years in London), excellent schools (dds' school is ofsted outstanding. dd1 is in a class of 24, dd2 in a class of 12!). However it's also vibrant and is close to big cities - Sheffield, Manchester, Derby, Nottingham. We can get our fix of Starbucks and the cinema if we want it (we rarely do), and we can access just the same range of kids' activities as we could in London (though admittedly it often involves a 30 minute drive - though in time this is not much different than in suburbia - where it was often a 20 minute traffic-ridden drive or bus journey). And we have 2 waitroses.

Having said all that - I know what it's like to have a gut-wrenching love of a particular place, and if you really do have this for Cornwall, then I can understand that other places won't come close. But, if it's something a bit less gut-wrenching, then I'd really recommend spending some time researching other parts of the UK.