Hi everyone,
I am Middle-Eastern married to an English and we've just relocated to the UK from my hometown. My husband is fed up with the city, and I could also use some time in the countryside as we're expecting our first child in three months. We're looking to buy a house with some land, but we've been agonizing over the location. Both of us work remotely, so we're very flexible, which strangely doesn't make things easier! At the moment, we're looking at these two options:
- the more sensible one is Gloucestershire (more specifically the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean) which are very green while still being well-connected to cities like Bristol and London. But having spent a few weekends there looking for houses, it didn't seem like there was many foreigners living there, and wondered if my child would adapt as a mixed-race boy. I might be totally wrong here, but the local culture seemed a bit inbred, and I worry we wouldn't fit in.
- the more 'extreme' option is Snowdonia and Ceredigion, which are both much more isolated, but houses come with bigger lands, and the landscapes in general are astonishing. We would probably be much more isolated, but this isolation would be compensated by a real rural lifestyle.
I'd love to get some opinions about both of these areas, in terms of the local culture, activities available, and especially accessibility to bigger cities, as I would need to travel back home often to visit family, and my social life is currently limited to Bristol and London.
Thanks so much!