Where do you spend your time - re house move

[Mindymaby]

Currently looking at whether to move from our village to somewhere just outside of a different village. The house we could afford outside of the village is amazing - bigger bedrooms, much bigger garden, space for friends and family to visit and park their cars, and I’d have a garden room for my counselling job which I do term time.
but we won’t be near are friends, kids won’t be able to walk to school or walk to playground…. We’d be so happy in the house and only a five min drive to the village which will have everything we need and hopefully new friends.

so my question is… where do spend your time - in the village with friends, or actually just at work, school drop off/pick up.
twins are just about to start school, so don’t know how things change with that- have really valued walking to baby groups and playground, but won’t they just be at school all week and parties all weekend? Would we actually be spending our free time at home, in which case it may as well be beautiful?
when there older they can bike down into the village to see friends, catch the bus to town etc and I’d be happy to give them lifts if we’re moving them out.

we will have to move somewhere as we don’t have enough space and building work is to expensive. I like the idea of so much more for our money , but the price is that it’s a bit further out

If it’s only a short drive I would go for the lovely house.

Thanks. Yeah five mins and we’re in the big village / small town - absolutely everything we need and a bus to the bigger town.
we could possibly walk to a farm shop and lovely countryside and river walks, but would have to drive to meet friends and go to playground etc.
it’s really valuable to walk there now, but I long for the countryside and I think things will be different once we don’t have every day to fill and they’re at school

Personally, I put a very large weight on being able to walk to primary school, to friends, to local facilities for most needs and to a station for bigger town/city facilities. We ruled out anywhere where we would have to get in the car on a regular basis. For me, it's just so much nicer to be able to potter about from the front door, for children to get themselves to friends' houses, for us to get home after a few drinks without worrying about who is driving or booking a taxi. Even people I don't know properly I at least recognize because I walk everywhere from our door and pass on the street. It makes me feel part of a community. And walking, cycling, using public transport makes me feel connected to the world and a better human being than getting in the bubble of my car ever could. Yes, obviously, we do spend quite a lot of time at home. More than we spend around the village. But provided the home is big enough, extra size is unlikely to outweigh location for me.

Having said that, I've never lived somewhere that isn't walking distance to friends and facilities, so it's largely what I'm used to. Other people are clearly happy with other decisions. And if it is an easy, safe, pleasant cycle ride then that makes a difference.