Calling all Townies: Remind me why I don't want to live in the country?

[MrsGrump]

DH & I always said we wanted to live in town/city, have good access to services, not have to own a car... but hacked off with high house prices for no space, hacked off with all negative feedback at work & lack of childcare, and toying with fantasy of chucking work in, buying a big house in a coastal village...Please talk me out of this? I don't want to live miles from anywhere, crazy too-fast drivers on tiny roads, no facilities, have to own and maintain a car... er, must be more than that against it.

We've lived just about everywhere, cities, towns, large villages and are now in a tiny village. We've been very happy since the day we moved in, when neighbours gave us welcome presents and invited us to Xmas and New Year parties. We have wonderful views across a river and its valley with a backdrop of the Scottish hills. Everyone is friendly but I don't find it intrusive and we haven't found that people seem to know all your business. We're about 3miles from a town and 20 from a city. The drive is gorgeous, I love watching nature's cycles - I now know what-blooms-when, where certain birds hang out, where the first lambs will be. We have an excellent local school three minutes walk away with a shop and PO next door to it.

Downsides are that we don't have public transport, but as we both drive, it's not exactly a hassle to take dd places, plus we can keep tabs on her. (The local taxi service knows us and is reliable, anyway.) Drugs/drink is much less of a problem than in the city, even a local survey highlighted that one. Other minus points are that it's a long way to go for a carry-out and that no supermarket delivers out here.

We can't really imagine living anywhere else, although have spoken of moving deeper into the countryside!

When we move, it's likely we'll be staying with my inlaws. They are selling their house this summer and will move into their other property nearby. It's divided into flats. They will live in one (temporarily) and will keep another free for guests - and we can use it as a temporary base if we're moving down. It's really nice of them to offer this, but also, I have never lived so near my inlaws before. That and moving from town to country and finding a job seems really daunting. Expect a flurry of mumsnet crisis posts from me around this time.

Although we can put down a good deposit on a home, I don't know if we can afford anything outright. I am setting my sights very low on this - anywhere in reasonable condition with three bedrooms will do. If we can't buy a new home outright, how will we get a top up mortgage if we have no jobs.....getting stressed just thinking about it.

The better secondary schooling is a big pull for us, and as I know the general area well, I feel I can picture the sort of life we'll lead - and I'm looking forward to it. While realising I will miss my london life as well. Regrettably, I don't think we'll be able to afford regular shopping and entertainment trips to London though - but I will definitely be looking in on Cribbs Causeway. I read about Cribbs here on mumsnet and took notice of where it was. Breathed a sigh of relief that the West's answer to Bluewater is not too far off the map.

We live in the middle of nowhere - in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, in one of the smaller islands, in a village of 4 houses, 2 of which are 1/4 mile away! We're 15 miles from the nearest village, and 23 miles from the nearest town, which has most things.
It is fab. Before we lived here we lived in central Edinburgh, 10 mins walk from Princes Street. I like it here a LOT more. It is quiet (no buses backfiring at the stop outside our door at 1 in the morning), safe (we have lost our front door key and it doesn't matter!), friendly, the schools/nursery are superb, dh gets home from work at 5.30 (and there's not many GPs can say that!), and though we have to go everywhere in the car, we still walk a lot and spend most of our time outside. My kids know where their food comes from (we are eating our way through one of our next door neighbours cows at the moment). It is clean - I can't beleive the SMELL of towns, let alone cities, they stink!

The downsides of shops etc are as nothing to me. I don't really care - I do my shopping in Inverness or Edinburgh when we are on the mainland and a couple of days does me fine, then I get bored and am longing to go to the beach and throw stones in the river again. We have 4 fabulous restaurants, including one which has just got into Michelin, and 3 of the 4 are within half an hour, which isn't bad, we used to go half an hour on the bus or walking across Edinburgh to get to a nice place to eat. We have a great little arts centre with all kinds of stuff on which you wouldn't always even get ina city and one of the best music festivals in the country (Hebridean Celtic Festival - FAB!)

For me the main downside is the time spent travelling to the mainland - which isn't an issue for most people. It takes a whole day to get to the central belt, and costs a lot too, so we usually combine trips with a meeting or something for dh's work, and get our travel paid.

I love it. I don't think I'd ever want to go back to city living.

Becuase my dear, its uncultured.

message withdrawn

I did think of Bristol, because it's always vaguely attracted me, but dh is not keen. Yes, we would be nearer our inlaws, but not near enough for it to matter much - still a long drive to and from from their bit of South Devon. (so no evening babysitting, no spontaneous get togethers for an hour or so, no chance of PILS being emergency contacts for school) Plus it is still a city, and we don't have roots there (just like London). Just be swapping one city for another. At the moment we have rejected this idea but plans are fluid, so we might go back to it.

susanmt, your island sounds idyllic - friends of mine regularly go to the celtic festival and rave about it too.

Just reading this thread serupticiously (SP!!)at work and am giggleing away to myself like a mad women - have just read aloha's thread where she says she visited the country and cot v. scared - I'm sorry aloha but I imediatly got this vision in my head of a heard of cows mooing over the hedge at you and DS....

I was brought up in the country and except for uni years and pre-family I have always lived in the country (different parts of the UK though).
I just cannot imagine bringing my family up anywhere else...
On Sunday my two DD's were invited up to the local farm to see the new born lambs - they held them and fed them - it was great.
We do daytrips to london to muesums and the theatre and we are not tooo far from milton Keynes for shopping...
Get your wellies out Tigermoth!!

Ime, healthcare isn't necessarily bad in the country. Thre wmiles from us, we have a number of GP's to choose from and a dental practice which has just built sparkly new premises. There's a local hospital with a 24hr minor A&E dept and a superb, second-to-none maternity unit. If reinforcements are needed, there's a university hospital and a brand new sick kids hospital 20 miles away. I think services vary from area to area and generalisations can't be made, it's something you'd look at when considering an area.

hear hear suedonim. I obviously know 'cos we aren't that far away from each other.

I'd like to second suedonims thing about rural health. I get fabulous healthcare here, have an excedllent GP practice and I know my dh at his practice also gives topnotch care, including allowing country people to die at home, which is time consuming for him, but very very important to them.
Our local hospital is fab but if there are any problems you can get shipped out to a specialist centre at their expense within the day.

Maybe its cos we are in Scotland - the health service is generally better up here I think.

And we have an NHS dentist with space on his list.

Eulalia, Susan, .

I must add something about rural garages, too. The brakelight went on my car so I went to our local garage this afternoon. They looked at it there and then, replaced the bulb, and I was back on the road within eight minutes, having paid the princely sum of 50p.

Mrs Grumpy Zebra, how's your decision making on this subject coming on and is anything said here making any difference one way or the other? Just being nosy!

I honestly don't know what to do. But we went to the small town today where DH works, and was pleasantly surprised to find it had all the basic services, including a Woolworths! Thing is, can we get DS into the "good" primary, and would there be too little for preschoolers to do? DD is a happy homebody, but DS wants to go out & do things every day. He's only 4yo, and already hates staying at home. But...It is looking more & more like we simply cannot afford the sort of house we want in a good area of the city, so maybe we should trade-off and at least get some of the benefits of living in/near the countryside instead.

I am reading this thread avidly. We currently live in central London but are seriously considering moving to West Yorkshire as dp has been offered a job in Leeds. I'm from York orginally, so am really attracted to being nearer my parents. We went up to have a look this weekend, & are thinking about living in a small market town. It couldn't be more different to where we live now. dp is a Londoner whereas I only moved here once I graduated, & all his family are very close to us, so it will be a much greater wrench for him than me. So many of my friends have already left London that I feel a bit left-out still living here. There are many things I would miss about living here, but I didn't realise how keen I was to leave until presented with the opportunity. We're currently scouring on-line estate agents & getting our house valued, just in case. Final decision still has to be made, I am practicing being cool. So watch this space I guess, & I may soon be starting a thread on culture shock (p.s. any mumsnetters in Ilkley like to declare themselves?).

message withdrawn