HELP! People who have moved to the country from London I need your advice (long, sorry)...

[CountessDracula]

Am having a mare

We live in London currently in a lovely house in v nice area (which we are just finishing doing up) with lots of friends, great primary schools, dd just settled in brilliant nursery, easy journey to work etc...

AND NOW....dh has been offered an excellent job in Winchester. I grew up there and am tbh not overly keen on going back, though if I look at it objectively I can see the benefits (near parents, bigger house with garden 10 x size of current one, no planes, traffic etc, dh will have much chiller lifestyle, we will get to do country things (whatever those are, stumbling around in shite IME))

BUT... I love living in London. I have lived here for 20 years, I love it. When I go to the country I go bonkers. Everything is so slow and annoying. The shops are crap. The food is awful and even nice restaurants give you bloody baby corn and mange tout with everything. Culture is non-existant (I love theatre, opera, gigs etc and go a lot). I will miss all my friends. Plus I will have to commute 4 days a week and it would add at least 40 mins each way onto my journey, but not sure I would really mind that as could sleep in the morning and work in the evening (or drink v&t lol!) I would still see dd in the evenings.

My question is, once I am there, would I chill out and stop being such an arsehole about all this or am I doomed to a life of dissatisfaction and woe? I don't want to go if so!

Other downsides - the schools are nowhere near as good, would have to pay for private in all probablility. There is nothing to do as a teenager but get pissed and take drugs. There is NO WAITROSE (ok that is my main problem I admit )

I really really want to do this for dh. He reckons he has no prospects in London. This firm tried to get him twice already and he turned them down (about 3 years ago). They are, for them, offering him the earth. He will take a paycut but will have much better prospects and life. I want to make him happy but I don't want to make myself miserable in the process.

WHAT DO I DO?

cd - my tuppennys worth as a completely urban west londoner turned bumpkin.

I think if you are going to do it, then do it properly. None of this fannying around with a terrace house in the middle of winchester. If you move from london to the middle of a provincial market town (OK OK I know it is a city but only because they plonked a cathedral there 800 years ago) then you ARE going to be disappointed. It won't compare (obviously) and you won't get any (many) of the benefits of being in the country, the two greatest ones being internal and especially external space. You need to open your windows in the morning and see GREEN GREEN GREEN and be able to stroll around your garden at dusk with a glass of white wine in June and talk to your apple tree when it comes into blossom and stuff like that. Your dd will get the most benefits if you can throw open your back door and just let her wander around surrounded by fields and dig in the mud etc etc. THEN you will think "OK, I could never have this in London and it is pretty cool". You don't need 10 acres, you do need a house set in its own gardens on the edge or in a village with green all around. And if all this is going to happen soon, and you rent out london and rent a house in Hamps on a trial basis, then don't you want a country summer instead of a summer sitting in a town house surrounded by hot pavements and other people's bins?

Second point - I know you think london is much better for seeing friends - and in a way it is, pre-kids especially - but in london you only really see friends for supper for a couple of hours, or for a long lunch on sunday with children running around shrieking in a small london house. In the country friends come and stay for the weekend, so you get to really see them and talk to them about all sorts of stuff, and get to know their children - it is different and I found it an unexpected bonus of living in the country. My london friends have become much closer, in a way, because I spend longer with them (48+ hours at a stretch).

Next point - Although housing in winchester may not be much cheaper than west london (although I think it will if you drag yourself 5 miles out into the countryside), a lot of other things are. Eg nannies, nursery places, parking, bloke to fix your fridge, eating out (and you do it much less), butcher baker candlestick maker etc. London IS a rip off. Our daily expenses of that type have dropped dramatically out here in the sticks.

Final point - when I lived in london and all of dh's friends (6 years older than me) one by one announced they were moving out, I greeted the news with "how lovely!" and inwardly thought "oh my god, are they nuts? I'd go mad". and felt slightly smug. Now that I live in Wilts (similar to what you are thinking of, 55 mins into london, but near a crap town rather than a civilised one like winchester), I'm afraid that I view those friends with one or more child over the age of about 4 in the same way "yes, london, great" "god, I couldn't do it - the dirt, the air, the noise, the people who all think that london is the centre of the universe and everyone else is just a potatohead". And I feel slightly smug!

So I guess my view is - try a short term let over the summer in a country/village house - if you love it then great, if you think it is good but you'd rather be in winch then great, if you hate it then how brilliant that you tried, but you'll have had a nice country summer for dd and the dog anyway!

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very good points pph although having friends to stay = a nightmare when they all come down, one weekend after another expecting the same 'theme' country weekend - log fires, roast dinners, country walks/pubs, everything has to be hugh fearnley whittingstall this and that.

also living in the country is fun if you like to be a bit rustic and self sufficient, chickens, chopping logs, mending stuff etc etc

Trying desperately to resist but failing......

CD - How much of life outside of London is Crap do you think?

Life outside London maybe different to what you are used to but it isnt necessarily crap is it?

Anymore than plenty of things i could mention about London are crap???

But LittleRed, you live in the forest and see off wolves, you are properly country

lol enid, I know exactly what you mean, I did that for about a year and now they get lamb chops and mash if they are lucky! still, they don't seem to mind.

and don't you find most london men are GAGGING to do the log fire themselves? All that poking and fiddling about with kindling and putting the BIGGEST LOG EVER in the fireplace. We have fights about who gets to be on fire duty

yes but dh gets nervous as it is of course his fire, then someone gets pissed and knocks a log out and he nearly has a coronary

I have chickens! They laid 6 eggs today the little dears. Sure sign that the winter is over.

LittleRedRidingHood, don't mean to be brutal but what does it matter what you think? This isn't a thread about "is CD wrong about preferring town to country" it is a thread about "should CD give it a go even taking into consideration her natural aversion to mud?" She could refuse to live anywhere except st moritz on the basis that everywhere else was crap and it would be her perogative, surely?!!

Good grief, PPH, you've almost sold me on the idea.

Although that was partly because I misread your post as 'strolling around your desk with a glass of white wine in june....'

god if I lived in St Moritz I would think everywhere else was crap

my BIL is particularly good at laying fires, and I can see it slightly pisses dh off - he doesn't mind guests ineptly doing fires that he can then "fix", but he doesn't like an expert one laid on his patch!!! ha ha ha

should have said in earlier post that I do like to be a bit rustic and self sufficient, log chopping, gardening, chickens, muddy walks etc, it wasnt a criticism!

ooh yes had forgotten about nice log fires (though we do have one here norty but small)

I hate gardening. But could always get a gardener, I wouldn't mind poncing about pretending a bit and doing some veggie growing.

PPH my prob is that I need to live within walking distance of the station or my life will become not worth living I am NOT prepared to get up at sparrows and slog into Winchester in the traffic, drive around the car park for hours and then miss my train etc (and of course despite being big commuter place only TWO fast trains an hour). So that kind of rules out country pad.

Plus if I woke up and saw nothing but green out of my window day after day, I suspect the men in white coats would be after me soon. I could always paint an urban mural on the ceiling above my bed I suppose.

So far then:

In favour

Bigger log fires
dd and dog would like it
Nice big garden to ponce about in and grow veggies

Against

Everything else

LRR I refer you to my earlier point: "I am not so stupid as to think that everything in the country is crap"

FFS I grew up in Winchester, I visit it 6 times a year, it is a known quantity, hence the trepidation.

CD - those were my reasons for moving to the country - dh wanted to (and had to, his work is here), log fires, big garden to waft around in. They are all good things.

Yes, the work thing is the big thing. I don't want to take a good chance of a chill job away from him.

Sorry to butt in but do you like doing anything that is suited to country/parochial life - depending on your mind set? I love riding and walking. However, still miss London 11 years later in some ways but stay with friends there and used to work there until v recently so still get to enjoy London if and when I want to.

Now dh has just called me, had a late Con. He is walking over waterloo bridge and will be home by 8.50.

If that was me and we lived in Winchester I wouldn't be home until 9.30 or even later depending on what time the fast trains went.

Commuting is a pain in the arse. One thing I HATED. Three houra day and have only ever lived in Hertford and Surrey when left London. Sodding ridiculous and a complete waste of time. Apart from reading loads.

Oh yes

Walking
Clay shooting
Fishing
Country pubs (apart from vegatables)
Nice Game butchers that don't charge the earth
Proper greengrocers that don't charge the earth
Errrr... that's it

Can't think of anything else. Don't like horses much but I guess dd will so will have to do that again.

I suppose I could buy an old car and keep it in my front garden and "do it up" or something

CD, no advice to add really, but I completely sympathise. I did leave London, but I couldn't have moved anywhere smaller and with less culture than here (Edinburgh). No Waitrose, I can live with that, but shops nowhere near as good generally. I don't miss London, but I sure as hell would if I moved to Winchester. I agree with all the others about your dh commuting to start with. A friend of mine commuted to London from Winchester when I was there and although the commute was alright when everything worked, she was really late at least once a fortnight because of delays on the trains, and every month or so there would be a huge delay. Maybe it's improved now though.

Sympathies.

I can sleep in the morning and work in the evening so not a prob really I think

you like walking, shooting and fishing

you are made. You will become the village 'trophy Londoner'