For those of you who live in a small country town, what activities do your DC do?

[jemimapotts]

We are seriously considering moving from a very large northern city, to a small town in the North. We hope this will offer the family a better quality/less stressed life style. I want to go but also worry it will be boring, and that although I fantasize about the DC going horse riding/climbing/ mountain biking/kayaking/ fishing etc in reality we won't really do this, and will miss all the activities the city offers.

To all those rural mumsnetters, does your family actually make full use of living in the countryside? What do they do after school? Please don't tell me they just want to play electronic games!

I just let mine roam.

They stay indoors a lot at the moment 'cos they're not very hardy, but in the summer I kick them out and they make swings and stuff. I try to avoid anything structured, tbh.

I mean structured activities, not structured swings

Sometimes we'll go for a bike ride and a picnic. The older ones are 8 and 10, little one is 3 so he doesn't go out without me (well, a bit, but nearby so I can check on him).

DD at the moment does swimming, just about to start riding lessons, we also go for walks, and to the beach.

My oldest (7) goes to Tae kwond Do and Football. He is also a member of the slalom club and goes skiing a few times per week in winter. We also go cross country skiing as a family. In summer we do go fishing, we go for cycle rides and mountain walks.

Oh yes, forgot the beach.

And we often climb our local big hill. We all love that.

I knew what you meant Cadelaide. Sounds really good. What about when it's wet? Mine all want to horse ride, and I figured it's much cheaper out in the sticks. It's £12 a lesson in the city.
Do you know what teenagers do? Mine are 10,8 and 4, so adolesence is looming.

Football, swimming, Highland dance, ballet, Beavers and roaming about.

The play 'yard' at the school is several hectares with loads of trees and the children run loose in it in at lunch and play time.

We go on picnics and for walks as a family and meet people at play parks.

Beach, too.

Doesn't matter if it's wet. They just go out.

Teens, well, they hang round each others houses, play football, martial arts, Highland dance, go the leisure centre.

Mine have climbing sessions once a week in the nearest city (40 mins) and the rest of the time, well, they kind of hunker down and dig up dead stuff.

Jam jars of worms, a butterfly hatchery, live action drowning mouse action, planting things, growing their own tomatoes and courgettes, tadpole collecting, a ginormous rope swing with a tractor tyre at the end, long long dog walks, and swimming in the river in summer.

These are normal everyday activities, all you need to do is potter nearby doing useful gardeny things and all is good.

There's lots of big hills to climb where we're looking. Ski-ing sounds amazing Quint!
Thought sledging would be great in the winter.

the roam around the frield in fron t of our house,
they cycle their trikes and bikes,
the have a sandbox and 5 cats to terrorise, they help me in the garden,
we go for the occaional walk but there are alot of big dogs so not as often as i'd like,
they play endless football and chasing games.

on top of that dd does irish dancing and i'm looking into rugby for her but i'm not sure if she falls under the age limit yet.

there are tonnes of football, hurling, gaelic and other sports clubs around and in summer there are two pools nearby, one open air and one enclosed but with stupid opening hours

They do a lot of sledging too in winter. And snowboarding.

It sounds fantastic for the DC. How about for the adults? I suppose if the DC are happy it usually follows that the adults are. I could do with getting more fresh air and exercise too.

We live in a rural market town and miss out on lots of things that a city would offer. We have a small city about 12 miles away though so not too bad.
I hate the idea of the kids doing a school club every day after school so mine just have swimming lessons and a yoga lesson.
Then DD wants to start back riding on a sat morning.

Other than that, as a family, we either go to the play park (next door), the town's country park with a fab outdoor play area or the woods - of which there are lots of places with woods.
We're 40 mins from the beach so go there every so often.
Our town is surrounded by a river so there are lots lovely riverside walks through the cow fields too, which the kids love.

Mine are still preschool but I see the school kids playing in the woods and down the lane. We go to the village toddler group, have a great load of friends already (only lived here 2 months) and we're so much happier than where we were before.

In the snowy weather all the village kids were out on the large hill and the older ones were helping the littlies, it was really nice.

rebl. Sounds really lovely. Did you move from a city? My dd is 4 and already at school. I worry it will be harder to make friends as toddler groups are great place to meet people.

The teenagers in this small rural market town do what they do in the nearby city and largely hang about with their mates looking scruffy.

However, there is a massive amount of music made here, skateboaridng is very big and the high school works with the local leisure centre to get the kids in there. My neighbour's 15-year-old DS goes to the gym most nights of the week. In fact, there is hell on as the council are chucking out the indoor bowlers to make way for a ten pin bowling alley.

Triathlon is also very popular for local teens as is the rowing club. We also have a lot of kayaking teens. For more cerebral types, there's an arts centre and a decent independent cinema.

Looking at thhis written down, I don't think that we do too badly. However, I have to say that I picked this town as it had enough to keep me sane and not for the sake of the DCs!

Pixie congratulations to your dd, she must be so excited!

Sounds great where you are too Florence.

Thanks everyone for giving such a positive picture of rural life.

Just arranged for the estate agent to come to take photos, and measure up on Friday, with a view to putting our house on the market. Very scary.....but exciting!

OOh, how exciting. My big tip with teens is not to be seduced into buying a better property outside the small Northern town. My DB lives in the sticks with niece (13). She is very isolated from all of her school friends and drives him bonkers!

PS: Would also add that we decided that having easy access to a city was important and (at the weekends) we can get into the centre of Newcastle in 25 mins. We go in about twice a month as a family and it's great for all of us to see some city life. The Sage Gateshead (massive music venue) run some fantastic weekend music courses and I really hope that my DD1 will get involved in those when she is a little older. I can also easily access theatres in the city and the occasional gig.

We'll be 30-40 minutes away from Leeds and Manchester. Bradford is nearer still. Good rail links so the DC will be able to go on their own in a few years.
Are you in Northumberland Florence?

I am. Tis lovely.

Your move sounds ideal. Only downside here is that the job sitution is nowhere near as good as in the north west.

Near the coast? Have you been there long? Newcastle is a great place to be near.

Yes it is a good place to move to, but I am going to miss my friends.