Moving 20 mins into the country?

[booksandboots]

I don’t know if IABU or if this is even really rural, but: I live in a lovely smallish town with naice cafes and shops etc, quite an expensive area so we currently live in a poky end of terrace with 3 young dc and desperately need more space. We’re walking distance from the dcs’ primary school, high street shops, clubs and activities etc and we have lots of friends here. We don’t want to move far but we just can’t afford a bigger house in town.

A perfect house has come up for sale in budget but it’s 20 mins drive out of town. It has a huge garden and plenty of bedroom space. It’s right next to a farm (which could well have its own issues) and feels very rural compared to our cosy townie lifestyle right now.

Is 20 mins out of town too far?? The kids wouldn’t have to change school and it’s still in catchment for the good secondary in our town. I work from home, but it’s actually closer to DH’s work than our current house. He’s massively keen, but are we going to find it a huge pain to drive the dc to activities and friends’ houses etc? They’re primary school age at the moment but will they hate this as teens? Will I really miss my current 10 min stroll to Pilates class and a flat white in town? Am I overthinking this (wouldn’t be the first time)??

Would this house be within walking distance of a small village shop or a bus stop?

Sadly not at all, no.

Yes it will be a PITA.

is there a bus route for secondary?
two kids different activities and friends you will be a taxi service.

This is what I’m afraid of. Though yes there is a local bus service for secondary as it’s such a big rural catchment

We made this same type of move 20 years ago. Our children got a free bus to the primary school and to the secondary school. However, as the catchment for schools was so rural and wide, we spent a lot of time taking them to visit friends or to activities. Nearest small shop was 7 miles away and nearest small town with medium sized supermarket was 9 miles away. 20 miles to larger town with chain shops. However, both our children now look back with fond memories of living in the countryside and having a large garden, one of them now lives in town and would not move to the countryside, but the other lives in a house more rural than we are.

Thanks, this is quite encouraging! My kids are not very outdoorsy at the moment (we have no garden, all their outdoors time is at the local playground really) so it’s hard to imagine them enjoying the big garden etc but I would love it if that changed and we all spent more time outside