We moved somewhere rural for a more peaceful life. It's beautiful and neighborly — but has problems we never had in the city.
Dec 29, 2023, 17:24 IST
- Jennifer Sizeland moved from a Manchester, England, suburb to a town 10 miles away.
- With a baby on the way, she and her partner wanted to feel safe somewhere more rural and peaceful.
Advertisement
After growing up in the English countryside and moving to Manchester to work and study, I always hoped to return to rural life someday.
But I never wanted to stray too far from the city. I live in a town bordering Lancashire — close to Manchester — with my partner Christopher, our 2-year-old son, and our cat Ghost.Our first house was in Chorlton, a buzzy, liberal suburb of Manchester, a few miles from the city center. I worked as an assistant producer for TV shows and websites while Christopher was an assistant director. It was convenient to MediaCityUK, a huge media development where broadcasters, including the BBC, work.We bought our three-bedroom house for £150,000 in 2014. It was a decent-sized semidetached house built in the 1930s, but it was cheap because it was in a rough area and needed renovation.At first, it was great because many of my friends lived there, it was close to work, and it had great amenities. But we wanted to move after some things happened that left us feeling unsafe. In 2017, our car was stolen, set on fire, and dumped nearby. After traveling for a year, we returned a few months before COVID-19 and decided to sell it as soon as pandemic restrictions allowed.Christopher had been walking near Ramsbottom, a town about 10 miles north that's still part of Greater Manchester but completely different from our busy suburb: It's slower-paced, quieter, greener, and less polluted.Ramsbottom is in a picturesque valley but is still connected to Manchester by a highway. He suggested we move there. We visited together, and I loved it, but finding somewhere within the budget was challenging. I was pregnant. Our dream home was another three-bedroom house with a garden for our son and a driveway to keep our cars safe.The larger, move-in-ready homes were wildly expensive, so we compromised on a 19th-century stone house, which had been converted from two terraced homes into a semidetached one. It was damp and moldy because it hadn't undergone proper maintenance in over two decades.After a survey listed repointing and reroofing as urgent repair work, we got a good discount and bought it for £259,000 after selling our previous home for £270,000.
We moved for a peaceful life while staying close to a major city
The location is perfect for Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Lake District, and England's northwestern coast. Since living here, I've seen more beautiful places than I ever knew existed in the UK. The road we live on has views of rolling hills and farmland. I feel safer in my own home.
Advertisement
But I was unprepared for the problems the countryside would throw at me. Things I took for granted in the city, such as drains, sidewalks, accessibility, and buses, were much worse. I barely took my baby out in the stroller because of the potholes and lack of dropped curbs.Over the past two years, we've dealt with unfortunate and mostly preventable events. My car was caught in a flood that an overflowing drain caused. It was so badly damaged my insurer paid me the car's value rather than paying for repairs. Tractors and trucks pose a big risk on narrow roads. When my partner pulled over to let one pass, it passed and then reversed a trailer into his car door. Our toddler was in the car at the time.When things break here, getting them fixed has been painful. I had to make over 20 calls and send emails to fix a broken sewer leaking waste into a park and backyards. The town's internet was damaged last autumn after a car drove into the wires-and-cables box. It took over a month for it to be reconnected. I had to contact the local member of parliament, who applied pressure to get it resolved.I had difficulty imagining these problems going unfixed in the city for so long. But I don't want to always be angry because of my "city energy" and wanting to fix everything. I want to adapt to the slower pace and let some things go.I still like the countryside in many ways. People here put a lot of effort into keeping the street nice. I know all my neighbors, an owl sits on my roof, and I've seen deer from my window.While I was writing this, my cat went missing. Three neighbors kept an eye out, with even more asking after him. When I told them he'd eventually crawled back home after being hit by a car, they were concerned and relieved to know he'd returned.Back in the city, the main feeling I'd have felt would have been anger at the injustice of the hit-and-run. But here, my main feeling is gratitude that I live in such a kind community where my cat survived a traffic accident. I shudder to think what would have happened in the city.I hope this "country energy" stays with me, even if I ever decide to leave this beautiful corner of the world.