Advice about rural living

[henmama]

We lived in the city, not a crazy large city but had all amenities on the doorstep. We decided to move to a village, it has a shop, pub, cafe and library and lovely walks. We got a lovely home (3 bed semi). Public transport isnt great but we both drive when needed.
Problem is that this perfect ideal place we moved too, doesnt feel like that after 3 years. I feel I should be happy but cant get passed the parochial mindset. Everybody my age has kids so are busy with family life. I have made 1 friend. But I just feel like an outcast, people are friendly to your face but dont want to be friends with you.
I have a good group of friends in the City that I would be see, but i hate this feeling of feeling like an outsider. We have had a couple of horrible experiences of kids vandalising our car, which left me feeling even more isolated.
Before we made the move to the village, I really wanted to try rural living, but my husband talked me out of it as at the time I didnt drive.
I dont want to be in the village anymore I feel 3 yrs is good amount of time to give a place ago. We are now discussing moving either back to the city, or again I am pushing for rural living and again he is trying to talk me out of it.
His reasons are that its isolating, that I wouldnt enjoy being far away from shops and people, but I feel that I would be isolated, but I feel like that anyway in a village of people. Living rurally at least I wouldn't have to deal with people or neighours.
Sorry partial rant but but also needed some advice.

There are some downsides to living in a house surrounded by agricultural land. Namely that you do have neighbours, they just don't live near you so don't care that they've filled the fields around you with shit. Or that it's 2 in the morning on a Sunday and they're harvesting because they need to beat the weather. Or that you need to get somewhere and they're slowly moving 50 cows down the lane.

Then with children it's a different problem. You are the taxi driver. They have no hope of ever hanging out with children from school without you providing constant lifts.

I like rural life but I'll stick to living in a village where I can at least get to a small shop with a 20 minute walk.

Rural living isn't for everyone. During covid we had people move to our village. We have no public transport , shops , poor Internet ( No cables) no school just a small amount of houses. Most of these people are moving back to cities now. I think many thought it would be idyllic. Unless you prefer isolation then it's not for you.

I think the culture of the village makes a big difference. I moved to a village two years ago and I love it; I don't make friends easy but I have made some here. Its quite a busy little village and I get involved, go to events, invite kids over, mums for coffee, etc. Most of the people I spend time with are not from the area /are from abroad, so looking for a network like me.

I think if you aren't finding this in your current village time to move! Could you try and vet some other villages a bit more carefully?

You could also split the difference and move to a small town.

Why are you pushing for rural living when you really seem to have already tried it (many villages are at least semi-rural) and have not settled to it?

To go more rural than you already have could mean isolation. Plus very expensive heating costs because many rely on oil fired heating. A friend of mine used to have to stump up £1,000 each time his oil tank needed refilled, and in winter that could be monthly.

You do sound as if you'd be happier returning to the area you used to live in.

We live in a village. A large village, but a village nonetheless. As our DDs prepare to leave home over the next few years (all in their twenties now) the plan is for DH and I to downsize, but also move to a larger town so that we can have more amenities and public transport within easy reach as we get older and probably want to drive less than we currently do.

Moving back to a town/city from a village isn't unknown. Village and rural living doesn't suit everyone, and maybe less so at some stages of life than others.

I have lived in the same village for 15 years. I made an effort, sat on committees, helped out at events, went to village social things. Everyone is perfectly friendly and happy to chat when you turn up to things, if I asked for help, it would be given, but I wouldn’t say I had a single friend here. It’s no-one’s fault, simply that my age and background doesn’t fit neatly into the demographic of the village. A couple of friends that I did make in the village moved away.

I have friends outside the village with whom I share interests and a similar background, in the village I have (friendly) neighbours.

Many villages are simply too small to contain the sort of people who will become true friends. Think of how many people you meet in life and how many become true friends. I am now thinking of moving somewhere larger and I recommend you do the same.

I lived semi rurally as a teenager. I absolutely hated it. It's put me off for life. Crap amenities, transport and miles from friends.

I think nowhere is perfect and you need to think about what your priorities are and compromise around them. I live in a city, I'd prefer no noise! But it's not a priority too me worth giving up all the benefit of living in a city for.

I live rurally - I think if you're a city-dweller you'll struggle with how everything needs just that little bit of travel/planning.

I grew up semi-rurally (on the edge of a village) and one boyfriend just didn't understand that there was no-where to get takeaway in the village, or within 15 mins drive, or that delivered to the village. He'd grown up in what he called a village, but was actually a town to my mind for instance.

Now I live about 10km away from the nearest town. I have space which I love, but I do have to plan everything, I am the taxi driver, and I do have septic tank/well/oil fired heating (I'll move to a heat pump at some point), so it's different to having everything sorted out for you like it is in an urbanisation.

Its obviously just that particular village isn't a good fit for you. We moved to a similar type of spot when we first married and I gave it nine long years but I really hated it in the end. I think it just wasn't the right place for us and if we'd done better research beforehand and been more honest with ourselves we'd have saved ourselves a lot of misery. I'm now in a really nice (but big) suburb with every amenity on my doorstep and fabulous friendly neighbours.

A friend of mine used to have to stump up £1,000 each time his oil tank needed refilled, and in winter that could be monthly.
Did he live in a castle??
We've lived in a house with oil central heating for nearly 25 years and we have never spent £1000 a month on oil, or indeed needed a delivery every month. The price fluctuates obviously and sometimes it is quite a lot more expensive than gas, other times it's cheaper. And you do have the option of filling up when price is low. We spent just over £3k on oil last year and the prices were sky high for a big chunk of 2022, I'd expect this year to actually be a bit lower. That's a fairly big 4 bedroom detached house with 2 of us at home all the time so the heating on most of the day in the Winter.
Of course it's not cheap - what heating fuel is - but to be spending £1000 month you must have to have a very large and/or poorly insulated house. Either that, or no lock on your tank and lightfingered neighbours.

It was a large farmhouse that had a number of bedrooms and had been run as a b and b for some years, but only during the summer months.

Have you tried your local WI? They are usually friendly and keen for new members.

I live in a village and totally empathise. However my village is not totally remote. I think people think it’s either city or village but there is a happy medium. I grew up in a town with decent transport to the nearest cities (train) and it was great.

Another village will probably not feel less parochial.

There are pros & cons to country living.

Pros - peace & quiet, beautiful views, clean air, relaxed pace of life. Cost of living is low - cheap fruit & veg, lower Community Charge etc. Small school classes for the children.

Cons - folks can be parochial and resent 'incomers'. No shops or shops with a poor variety of goods. Nothing much to do apart from the local pub (if you are lucky enough to have one).
You'll need a chest freezer, a generator, and ideally a 4 x 4 (because the roads are usually crap) to be really sure about surviving the winter in isolated areas.
You could be off-grid and probably not have gas or mains drainage. Solar panels are a must.

You pays yer money etc....

We moved to a small village in lockdown and it has been absolutely perfect for us. The village is really welcoming and there is a wonderful sense of community and all sorts going on locally. I guess though there are villages and villages and there is rural and rural.

For us we are on oil and barely use £1500 per year, which is less than we were spending when on gas previously. We don't have 4x4s just standard cars as the roads around here aren't too bad and anyway if we couldn't get through we would just stay home. We do keep tins for emergencies and plenty of candles as we do get powercuts sometimes, as well as logs for the stove if needed. We also have the best of both worlds as we don't really have any direct neighbours as there is land between us all so we have plenty of privacy and feel very much in our little world when we want to.

Why don’t you like village life out of interest?

Ok, so it's probably the size/age/energy inefficiency of the house that's the root of the problem then, not specifically that it's oil heated. I would imagine that it would also cost a lot to heat with gas. If the OP were to buy an average sized, reasonably energy efficient house, the like of which which do exist in the countryside, then it would be massively unlikely that her oil bill would be anywhere near £1000 a month even in a really terrible winter.
There are, of course, pros and cons to rural life but on threads like this people always post dire warnings about oil central heating, septic tanks etc and mostly they are misguided. Of course piped gas and mains sewage are slightly more convenient and probably a bit cheaper, but apart from a handful of days a year when you need a tanker to come to the house (to refill one tank or empty the other!) there's no noticeable difference on a day to day basis. Having done a big city to rural life move myself, I would say that heating oil is a long way down the list of things to consider.

It's more the parochial aspect of the life. Being of different ethnicity brings alot of stares which goes annoying. Someone mentioned on here already, people are friendly and I'm in a few groups where we would have nice chats but they wouldn't want to take the relationship any further. Usually due to having family and friends in the village already.
It's s hard decision and I'm sad that it didn't work because I honestly thought this would be the place I could set my roots into.

£1000 a month! Even when oil prices were nuts we weren’t spending that a month. We spent £600 recently for 1000l. Will last us until Christmas easily. I wouldn’t say oil is the issue here.

I moved to a village and felt an outsider for a number of years until I started working at the local preschool. Now when I walk through I always see people I know well enough to talk to and made local friends through my job. It does take time unless you find a way to weave yourself into the village. Most people have probably been friends since nursery/school.

Living in a village is a difficult one, if I were to live in one again I'd prefer a large one. The village I used to live in in Devon had no shop, no pub, no post office, no takeaway deliverys etc and there was only 1 bus a week which took you to the nearest town 8 miles away, and that town itself didn't have many supermarkets/shops. My village was very insular and unfriendly, the locals essentially scared me out in the end as I was constantly stared at, verbally abused for no apparent reason, and my neighbor was deeply unpleasant and was convicted of arson in the end due to him setting my hedge on fire several times on purpose. Local kids egged my house several times and damaged my car by bashing on the window constantly. I would choose carefully.