How to live in the countryside

The town where I grew up doesn’t have incomers, nor do the villages. One of the few unpolluted areas!

Didnt realise you were from barrow on furness molgrips…..thats where you meant right id understand why it has no incomers 🙂

Village life – the best and worst in life.
Our last one:
10 minutes after we and removals truck arrived, I walked into local shop to buy milk for brews all round to be greeted by ‘Oh, you are the family from Sheffield moving into Gray Street – helloooo.’ 😯
It was the place when a young girl died in the village, the WHOLE village stopped for an hour for the funeral. I think the only people still working were the police, turning tourists away from taking pics and getting a punch…
It was the place when the snow comes, you would pick up a shovel and a flask and head out to see who needed the path to the door clearing, a brew and a chat (all of which meant that all morning was spent on this recreational activity).
You did not lock your house.
.
Equally.
.
Everyone is related to everyone, and if not they just are best mates.
The village gossip was horrendous – if you didn’t laugh, you would cry. The village saying was ‘If you break wind on the bridge over the River Dochart, by the time you have walked to the bridge over the River Lochay (10min walk) – the gossip had already beaten you there, and someone would inquire as to how you sh*t your pants…
The narrow mindedness and deliberately obstructive nature of some was awful – and constant tension between those who wanted peace, quiet and no tourists, and those who needed the visitors to earn a living.
Too much alcohol is consumed, by too many people.
Too many drugs are consumed, by too many people.
Too much violence occurs, on a regular basis, by the same groups of people.
It is a place, that looks lovely, yet is under resourced, used as a ‘sink’ for challenging people from big estates in the city to find a council house, everything costs more, you do 25k miles a year to get around, the issues of rurality are massive
Loved it.
Not too upset about leaving.

Word in title NSFW![/url]

You all clearly lived in a metrolopis not a village. My parent’s don’t have 8 neighbours (unless you count family members and pets rather than just the houses) unless you cross into the next county.

WHat you have there tinas – is a house not a village- at best its a hamlet.

Indeed, its a mile to the postbox, two to a streetlamp!

When you live in a hamlet, village folk are townies 🙂

Randomly because i live in a row of 8 farmworkers cottages i have a street light in my garden( not through my leccy box) …..handy as owt and good for security.

Nice to know where your roots lie.

Always fun to be able to point people to one of the larger tombs in the village church, dated 1592 (I think).

No idea if I’m related, but if people want to make that assumption 🙂

Our village is split in two. The posh end and our bit. The posh bit has the ex City bods and retired folk. Our end of the village has 10 houses (including two farms) and that’s it.

We have neighbours from the Smoke though. They seem to be fixated with padlocks. They put in some ‘ranch style’ fencing, about 4 foot high with wire mesh under the bottom rung to keep the bunnies out. There is a gate in the middle of the fence with a big padlock on. I asked him why he had a padlock on when you can just step over the fence….it keeps people out apparently!

Before they ‘fully moved up’ I offered to put their bins out to save them leaving them out from Sunday evening to Thursday morning. They readily accepted but refused to give me a key so I could get in their ‘ranch style’ gates to get to the bins. I stepped over the fence and manhandled said bins over the fence for a few weeks and then gave up. They still haven’t worked out how I got into their drive (sorry – security compound!)

Meanwhile, they have just planted an oak tree about 5 yards away from their house and 10 from ours. I offered a suggestion that it might not be wise but they were having none of it!

It was the place when the snow comes, you would pick up a shovel and a flask and head out to see who needed the path to the door clearing, a brew and a chat (all of which meant that all morning was spent on this recreational activity).

My neighbours and I do that. We live in the middle of a city.

We had the choice in our last move to go very rural but chose semi. I work from home and need to feel I’m not isolated. Also we have fantastic local shops a hop, skip and jump away. A great pub, yet still with brilliant doorstep mtbing.

We had the choice in our last move to go very rural but chose semi. I work from home and need to feel I’m not isolated. Also we have fantastic local shops a hop, skip and jump away. A great pub, yet still with brilliant doorstep mtbing.

Or, put another way, you live at the very outer reaches* of civilisation….

*some might say beyond them….

IanMunro – Member
When you live in a hamlet, village folk are townies

Very true! 😆

funny, but still written by posh types for posh types. I grew up in the country and very few people we know shoot, have gun dogs, etc. This was the Highlands though, so maybe it is different down south, darling. And since when was living in a village living in the country? A trip to the village was quite a treat, streetlights and everything!

I’ve never met a poor farmer

you’ve obviously not met very many then.

Slaughterford church, where my Great-grandparents are buried, their grave just out of sight to the bottom left. It’s a hamlet, has nine houses in total, if memory serves, and one of those is the farm in whose field the church stands.
Trashed by Cromwell on his way to Bristol, finally restored in Victorian times.
Really lovely little church…

[/url] St Nicholas Church, Slaughterford[/url] by CountZero1[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Wish someone would bring the brewery back into use, though…
Nobody who lives there now is an original inhabitant, they’re all townie incomers.

Lots of poor farmers where I grew up. No shooting either except to kill vermin.

Farmer who owns the land that my houses were built to serve has had to sell up hes that poor.

1.25 million for the land and the wreck of a house.

Thats after he tried renting fields out to pikeys.

Or, put another way, you live at the very outer reaches* of civilisation….

*some might say beyond them….Haha, how are doing OMITN?

If you’re ever over this way pop in for a brew or something stronger, I seem to remember you don’t drink tea or coffee, same as myself 🙂

How to live in the countryside?

Well, I guess that if we’re talking stereotypes…

😉

I’ll kick off with the behaviours you ideally need to display to fit in.

-irrational dislike of outsiders
-homophobic, racist views
-narrow minded
-parochial

Good job some considerate townies move in to help improve the area 🙂

Either trailrat is being ironic or he’s missing the point by quite a wide margin.

Lack of smileys makes it hard to tell…….

Clubber – you are so right, many of the locals in our village don’t understand the concept of equality and diversity

That link from xcgb up there….the christening photo…..am almost certain that I knew that girl many years ago! 😯

Flashy – the kiddy is really cute though, is it yours? 😉

Thats after he tried renting fields out to pikeys.

Isn’t that like trying to sell fridges to Eskimos ❓

Count, might I have bumped in to you riding my Cannondale Scalpel one exceptionally rainy day in Biddestone a few weeks back? You mentioned having a On-One 5,6,7 if that rings any bells? If so it was good to chat and nicely broke up a very long and wet ride… also, I can confirm The Count dresses entirely appropriately for country life and practices what he preaches 😀

Having lived in the country proper most of my life it does amuse me how perhaps 50% of people living in Bath (big city for us sheltered folk) seem to believe they in the most rural of all rural places even in the city centre and dress accordingly. Bath seems to be the “countryside” for Londoners. I guess there is always someone a little more “proper country” than you out there… at least you’d hope so

Wife in the North is a decent account of Townies mooving (see what I did there) in to the coutryside. I actually read it as there are people mentioned in it that I know.
Caused a bit of a stink from what SWMBO says.

funny, but still written by posh types for posh types. I grew up in the country and very few people we know shoot, have gun dogs, etc. This was the Highlands though, so maybe it is different down south, darling.

Depends how far South (East) you go – see Stoner’s comments above (though I still reckon he owns red trousers 😉 )