WOULD LOVE TO LIVE IN A VILLAGE...SHOULD WE MOVE?

[noonar]

we have 2 dds aged 2.9 and 5. dd1 is v happy at school. we have lots of friends and live in a lovely area...but, we've been here 14 yrs and fancy a change. and our house is on a v busy road and we are sick of the traffic noise.

we have lovely villages 20 mins drive away, and i would so love to be somewhere more peaceful.

how can i tell whether this is a just a pipe dream, or a really sensible idea? would we be mad to give up our friends and life in a nice community, just because we're a bit bored? and i worry about disrupting dd1's schooling. she's v happy here she is.

have considered quieter streets nearby, but they just don't excite me in the way that a more to the country does.

am also worried we'd really regret it if we moved and didnt make friends easily etc.

any advice? anyone had a similar dilemma?

TIA xx

So will you be growing vegetables, Expat? Seem to remember you saying you were on a long waiting list for an allotment

Ooh Expat how exciting - have you found a house?

I live in a village, only 4 miles outside of town. We have a Tesco express, Post Office, pet shop, wool shop and 2 fab pubs with beer gardens. We came here from Scotland and have settled in really well.

expat - Argyll is lovely (well the bit of it I know). There was I thinking that you were a city girl at heart .

I sort of want to move out but I am in two minds. Having lived in a town or city for 30 years now I find the simple logistics of being remote very hard - we stayed near Lands End last summer and had to drive to get a paper or a pint of milk. I'm sure that we'd get organised in the end though - or I would as DH would leave me if I even suggested it. And I have some doubts about certain kinds of country folk - spent the day on Exmoor during half term- beeeauuutiful countryside but full of haw-haw types in tweeds and landrovers blocking the roads with their vehicles watching the stag hunt. My family is littered with them and whilst I daresay they are fine once a year at funerals or weddings I really don't think I could live surrounded by them. I asked DS#1 (a serious townie) if he'd like to live there and he said that he would ....but only at weekends.

expat - Argyll is lovely (well the bit of it I know). There was I thinking that you were a city girl at heart .

I sort of want to move out but I am in two minds. Having lived in a town or city for 30 years now I find the simple logistics of being remote very hard - we stayed near Lands End last summer and had to drive to get a paper or a pint of milk. I'm sure that we'd get organised in the end though - or I would as DH would leave me if I even suggested it. And I have some doubts about certain kinds of country folk - spent the day on Exmoor during half term- beeeauuutiful countryside but full of haw-haw types in tweeds and landrovers blocking the roads with their vehicles watching the stag hunt. My family is littered with them and whilst I daresay they are fine once a year at funerals or weddings I really don't think I could live surrounded by them. I asked DS#1 (a serious townie) if he'd like to live there and he said that he would ....but only at weekends.

Why does that keep happening. I rarely say anything that merits repetition....

Noonar, it sounds as if you've had loads of great advice here - good luck with your decision.

I moved to our village 18 months ago. Used to live in big city which I sometimes miss but it is only 45 mins drive away and I go back to see my friends / go shopping there once or twice a month.

I love our village (and it does sound suspiciously like the one you are thinking of moving to!) I have no regrets moving here. Dd1's asthma has massively improved. The schools are fantastic and of a much higher standard than any of the state city schools I would have had to battle to get into. There is beautiful countryside all around us. But best of all is the feeling of community that is so strong here. Our village has attracted loads of Londoners (it's v pretty and the houses are gorgeous!) so it hasn't 'stagnated' at all.

Just keep out of local gossip though (that is one drawback!) and you'll be fine!

Yaddah - sainsbos, tescos, asda etc don't recognise my postcode - tesco's limit their delivery to 10 miles from my house and no further.

We logged on to Dominos pizza one night for a laugh and typed in our address - it actually replied with "move house"

Expat - we got a great side by side fridge/freezer combo which has been so much better than our chest freezer. Milk freezes well too btw.

we don't get pizza/curry deliveries either bob

our sainsburys comes from 20 miles away !(but they have very grumpy drivers who always trust there sat nav and get lost)

Still i do tend to get lots of lovely free vouchers as they're always lost/late

Exapt, have you both got new jobs and I hope you have got plenty of wellies and waterproof for the wetwetwest.

I grew up in a village and go back to see my mum at least 2x a week. We thought of moving back but I am too use to walking into the shops after school drop off. I do miss village life, I think it is fantastic for young kids but DH says " I am not moving to somewhere that shuts Saturday lunch time till Monday morning."

Life is too short not to give it a try. If you are really not sure could you not rent out our owm house whilst renting something in the new village?

20 mins is nothing really...

I live in a very small village and it was a bit of a shock after living in busy towns for years!
The people are really friendly and I'm really pleased that my daughter will be growing up somewhere so nice! We go out for walks in the countryside every weekend and enjoy the empty play park every day!
On a downside it is a very religious village and I am not religious at all. Also I can't drive so it does get lonely as there are no Mum's my age-just nannies!
I'd say go for it, just as long as you have means of leaving the village from time to time!

Noonar,
We moved from Cardiff to a small village (well, it has a school - only primary though, doctors, a few small shops, a takeaway etc), and the local town which is plenty to walk away is only a ten minute drive away.

It's lovely here, quiet streets, lovely neighbours (but it has taken us a long tme to get to know them and others). We've got moorland almost at the back of our house, and a lovely view up the valley).

Very interested in these responses esp those loving the country life. Facing similar dilemma ie whether to move from London to village nr Bath close to my parents and sister and a couple of school friends but leaving the excitement of London and people here and being able to walk everywhere. My DH would move tomorrow but am thinking may miss the big smoke.

Still our ASBO neighbours with their feral fighting dog that leaps into our garden when DD (9 months) is playing are making the decision increasingly easier..

Make sure it's a big enough village - only 30 dwellings in our stretched out hamlet. Also now our children are getting older the parent taxi service is a nightmare. I'd love to move back to a decent town or a big village with station/transport. It's beautiful, but too far away from civilisation here for myliking.

I grew up in a village that my dad grew up in, and his dad, and his dad............pillars of community etc. No anonymity at all, everyone knew what was goin on. High school in the town, which was a 15min bus then a 20 minute walk(on a good day) Remember as a teen wanting to live in the thick of things as there was always nothing to do and my friends were (obviously) in the town, if you knew which town it was you'd be rofl, rose tinted glasses @ 13.

Scroll forward a few years, past living in flats in west end, walking to pubs etc

To the (different) village where we've been now for 17 years and have no intention of ever moving from(most folk don't) The difference is that there were no ties, so are accepted for yourself. One bus an hour, primary school, PO, a bakery and 2 pubs. Dd gets a bus to school(with no walking) but I vowed to be a taxi as required, based on the non-taxi-ing from my dad, so she will not miss out on things as I did.

i moved from York to a village, and don't hate it but don't love it either. the m&t group were ok, but a little cliquey (not mean) and there is one shop, but because you have to drive everywhere you don't meet people in the street much. when we go shopping in the nearby town we bump into everyone we know from the village. also, we both work ft & nothing is open in the eve so again, don't go out & see people.

a village with 4 or 5 shops would be fine, or a small town. how much would you miss going to the corner shop at 10 om for something you needed?

I have this conflict too. My family is 'country born and bread', DH's not, but I always feel I should be in a village somehow.

However, I get bad hayfever, it looks like the children may get it too, and I worry whether my capacity for dealing with mud has reduced now I am the one who would have to clean it up.

I hear stories from my parents' village that leave me recoiling. My Mum recently told me about a couple of professional men in their village who have had a civil ceremony, but even now, after the event, people are still tittle tattling about them being together, whether they are just friends who married for tax reasons bla bla bla.

I was also introduced to someone at a drinks party a few years ago, who I was told was a newcomer. They'd lived there 8 years!

We're still undecided over whether it is for us.

bump

kickassangel makes a good point about very small villages with no facilities - you do have to travel to do the slightest little thing, so you never actually get to know your neighbours.

I have lived in bigger villages and towns that had more of a sense of community than the small village that I currently live in.

The only people here that you meet outside on the street are others who are on the way to their cars

I really, really miss our lovely village life. We now live on the edge of a town and, yes we can have an Indian takeaway delivered, but the other sacrifices we make for that 'luxury' are way too high. In my old village we had no shop and one pub. There was a Post office run out of someone's front room of a morning and a once a day bus (once going in to town, once coming back) Our nearest town was 3.5 miles away, but could hardly be called a town - more a bit of a high street. During the fuel strikes I had to bake my own bread and collect my milk from the farm (fresh out of the cow!). It may sound like something from Thomas Hardy, but it was a bit of a pain (although it was also something to remember!) I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, and would give my right arm to go back. You have to be prepared for everyone knowing your business, though. No secrets at all, but I quite like that. It used to take me an hour to ride my horse through the village (should have taken 5 mins) because I was stopping to chat every few strides! Friends would pop in on a daily basis and we all helped each other out in times of need. I do realise how lucky I was though, because so many villages now are just bedrooms for commuters, and village life is not what it used to be.

Both I and my wife grew up in villages (in Yorkshire) for the first eighteen years of our lives, lived in several places since and now live in the heart of North London. Increasingly, friends are moving out of London as they have kids citing most of the reasons above: nicer neighbours, better education, countryside on the doorstep, cleaner living, greater sense of community etc.

From our perspective though, we love bringing up our lad in London. His nursery classes are full of African, Caribbean, Asian and English kids all with different backgrounds and lifestyles. Museums, zoos, shops, exhibitions, events, play centres and parks mean just a walk or getting a 30 minute bus or tube. His friends and ours aren't just from the NCT classes or nursery, but from across London. He can eat with us at pubs and restaurants a short walk away, or we can jump in the car for the 15 minute drive into the country for lunch. We, and I'm pretty sure he, love it!

Interestingly, we had one of these friends come to stay a couple of weekends back who are looking to move back to London, or certainly to a larger town, citing some of these reasons. Mainly though, they hated the fact that everyone around them was largely white-middle class, there's relatively little to do and the fact that everyone is interested in everyone else's business.

I guess it just depends on what's important to you and yours kids.

Kerala - we are thinking of doing the same too - moving from west London (where I've always lived) to a village outside Bath, where my Mum, brother and sister (and her family) are...

where are you thinking of?

We are thinking somewhere near Corsham

Just don't know if I'm brave enough to leave all our London friends. Also scared that once we leave London we'll never be able to afford to move back if we change our minds as London prices appreciate a lot faster than anywhwre else.

Thinking of renting for a while to see if we want to make it permenant

this thread is very interesting

anyone got experience of moving a mixed race family to a village?

(sorry not trying to hijack thread)