The Things I’ve Learnt So Far

Since moving to moving to my rural home in the glorified shed last autumn it’s been quite a learning curve. Settling into my new surroundings and embarking on a renovation project like never before, have each involved many new challenges and lessons.

Spot the heron!

So this is what I’ve learnt so far...

A building or renovation project does not, as rumoured, take twice as long and cost twice as much as expected to complete. It does, in fact, take at least three times as long and cost at least three as much as expected – well, in our case anyway. I’ll let you know if those figures change further. Of course, if we weren’t trying to live in the building at the same time, and could afford an expert team...

Having taken an interest in birds since moving here, I’m now able to identify quite a variety of species on sight, but am yet to master identification by song. With the odd exception, I can rarely identify a bird by its call, though I often wish that I could. The other day I heard a very shrill noise, and was just wondering which bird it belonged to, when my husband walked round the corner pushing a squeaky wheelbarrow! I still have much to learn!

Sadly, a fair amount of rubbish gets washed up with the tides on this stretch of river – but on the bright side we seem to acquire an endless supply of footballs!

In a small village, you may think that people don’t know you or anything about you – but you’re wrong!

Village News

Our adopted rural village is a peaceful place, often untouched by the chaos of the outside world. (Though I say adopted, my husband is a ‘returner’, having lived here many years ago).

Things here jog along at a steady pace with often very little to report. So much seems to be slowed down here – even the rubbish collections are fortnightly and the buses run one to two hourly, sometimes not turning up at all! Therefore it’s rare that l have any local news to report, however minor.

But I do have news – in a very loose sense! Firstly, at the time of the general election, we also voted in the parish council election, which has resulted in a few new faces on the parish council. In fact, at the last minute, the campaign for the election got a bit dirty, with a letter circulated by existing council members, literally running down the opposition. This was a move that obviously backfired (not surprisingly) hence their replacement!

And shock news! The bell-ringing night has changed! The activity has moved from a Tuesday to a Wednesday, which certainly managed to confuse me. It may sound sad, but you get used these little routines and use them to keep track of the week. Not that I’m a bell-ringer, I just can’t help hearing the enthusiastic chimes from the ‘comfort’ (hardly that yet) of the glorified shed.

Although our home is tucked discreetly down a narrow lane and our forays into the village mainly consist of trips to the village shop, the odd drink at the pub, standing at the bus stop or a wander to the recreation ground, we ourselves have obviously become news. There are certainly people that we are not yet familiar with, but who seem to know us. My daughter was quite surprised the other evening, to get off the bus and be greeted by a stranger saying, “Hello Amy how was your day at work?”

She arrived home quite stunned, saying, “But how did she know who I was?”

The village grapevine is obviously hard at work, but actually shows what a friendly place this is. I’m glad that our ‘news’ is quite minor – long may it stay a peaceful place to live!

Local At Last!

Last week we finally got round to visiting our local pub – some six months after arriving in the village!

Despite it sitting at the top of the lane that leads down to our home, we just hadn’t got round to so much as popping our head round the door until now. Renovation plans and trying to organise the ‘glorified shed’ have certainly taken up a lot of our time.

But at last, not only did we call in for a drink, but sat down and enjoyed a delicious meal too. We had a lovely evening and it’s definitely something that we’ll repeat as it’s actually quite a novelty to have a pub that we can call ‘our local’!

For over 20 years, home was in a modest town, where despite there being pubs in nearby streets, they were unwelcoming affairs that seemed to close down at the rate of knots anyway. Any evenings out were always spent further afield.

Prior to moving to our current rural location, we lived in a quieter, suburban area, where the only ‘pub’ nearby was a branch of Harvester, which could be handy for a meal, but only had a poky bar that wasn’t much fun to go to for a drink.

So it’s now quite a novelty to have a warm (lovely log burner at one end), welcoming, thriving local pub just a short walk up the lane, where we can enjoy a pleasant evening and a change of scenery from the ‘shed’. It could prove a handy bolthole when the renovations get a bit too much!

The People On The Bus

In our village we’re fortunate in that we do actually have a bus service, although it’s frequency varies from hourly to two-hourly and at certain times it doesn’t run at all. However, as a route it’s quite good, linking two towns that have shopping centres, calling at a couple of other villages in addition to ours, along the way.

From time to time I take the bus to one of the shopping centres about an hour’s ride away, enjoying the passing countryside en route, although I’m ultimately using the service to reach my chosen destination. It would seem, however, that although many of my fellow passengers are using the bus for the same purpose, there is a steady flow of people who use this bus route purely to enjoy the view!

I quite often overhear conversations along the lines of, “I don’t normally get this bus, but fancied a look at somewhere different,” or, “I like to come on this bus just to see all these little villages and a bit of the countryside”. I suppose that’s quite nice to know, even if we’re sometimes crammed on the bus with our shopping just trying to get home, with many seats taken up purely by ‘sightseers’. But it does feel strange to now be living somewhere that people want to come and gawp at!

On one recent journey home, as we reached the edge of my village, I heard a woman proclaim, “Oh, look, we’re at that funny little place with the really narrow street!” “Yes,” I thought, “That’s my home! It’s quite nice really.” Although I actually live down the bottom of an even narrower lane off said little, narrow street, which obviously represents a novelty factor for some! It’s always odd when you hear the place that you live being described by an ‘outsider’ – it makes you view it from a different perspective yourself!

For my part, I’ve become increasingly aware of the homes that I see in the neighbouring villages, as in some cases the bus passes ridiculously close to their front doors. During recent trips, when all the Christmas lights have been blazing, I couldn’t help looking in at some of the rooms, which looked very welcoming indeed. I felt quite envious of their cosy warmth and orderly designs, knowing that I was on my way back to the ‘glorified shed’, where there is a bit of a draught and much work to be done before we can enjoy the same level of interior décor. Still, these homes act as a reminder of what we’re aiming for – rustic charm, but with a splash of our own personalities included.

I do quite enjoy my bus ride, and despite some of the more odd comments that I hear on the course of my journey, quite like the fact that others seem to make the trip just for fun!

Adapting To Change

When we initially made the decision to move to a more rural location, I was a little concerned that I would feel somewhat ‘cut-off’ and struggle with the fact that it would take much more planning to go anywhere.

Not to say that I haven’t always loved the countryside to some extent. It’s always provided a perfect haven for family holidays, when I’ve embraced all that it has to offer.

Many years ago we had a lovely holiday in a quite remote, farmhouse location in rural Wales.  I had no problem adapting to the peace and tranquillity of our holiday setting, and felt sad when it was time to leave. What did come as a total shock was the fact that I just couldn’t seem to slot back in to my normal urban life when I returned home. It took me ages to feel any level of normality again.

In more recent years, we’ve made frequent visits to our static caravan in East Anglia, enjoying the countryside setting, returning to the suburban location to which we had then moved.

Despite all of this, however, I didn’t expect to settle in to country life quite so seamlessly, following our latest change of location. I don’t miss much at all about town life and have ventured out to the urban sprawl far less than I would have imagined, choosing instead to enjoy what the village and surrounding countryside have to offer.

I sometimes even feel relief to return here after a busy shopping trip to town, with all the noise and chaos that seems to entail – not that I ever really noticed it that much before!

What's more, my skin has certainly thanked me for the change. My evening cleansing routine yields far less grime than it did in my former life - although it comes as a bit of a shock as to what is revealed during the same regime carried out following a day I've ventured back into town!

Yes, I have certainly adapted very easily to change!

Seal Of Approval

The change to a new rural, riverside location has certainly given me an interest in watching wildlife. It’s hard to ignore it really with so much going on literally outside my window.

I love to wile away the time watching the swans gliding along the river, the cormorants drying their wings on the mud bank and the herons keeping sentry duty in the shallows. Recently I was fortunate enough to see a seal catching fish right in front of me! There was much splashing and slithering to gain my attention, although it took me a moment or two to actually realise what I was seeing.

Indeed the arrival of the seal has been a topic of conversation in the village, with residents eagerly keeping watch for its next appearance.

At twilight I love to stand outside and watch the bats flying around me – yes I am a bit of a batty person – but I actually think they’re amazing little creatures.

And whilst the wildlife is causing a great source of interest, it can be a little disruptive to the daily routine.

My husband recently arrived back from the school run a little later than usual, having experienced a hold up in one of the lanes. What was it? A minor vehicle collision? Debris on the road? A spot of road resurfacing perhaps? No, none of those. The delay was caused by squirrels playing on the road. Yes, I did say squirrels caused a traffic jam – the joys of rural life!

And Tuesday Evening Is Bell-ringing

After a lifetime spent living in towns and suburbs, a move to a small village nestled in the countryside has certainly brought a few changes.

I’m used to living in a location that has a Tesco store and a branch of Costa within walking distance, a bus every 10 minutes and just about anything within easy reach. I’ve now traded all of that for a location that has a small village shop, two pubs and a church with a clock that chimes every quarter of an hour. Buses run hourly at best, but sometimes two-hourly or not at all and most things now involve travel of the four-wheeled as opposed to two-legged variety.

All that said, it’s amazing how quickly you do start to adapt. I don’t feel the need to dash off to so many places, revelling in my new view and surroundings, and have soon started marking the time of day by the chiming of the clock. It got a bit awkward last week therefore, when I realised the clock was running somewhat behind, chiming the hour some 15 minutes or so late. Fortunately, it’s now running – well – like clockwork again!

Our first Tuesday evening here, I was stopped in my tracks by the sound of bell-ringing wafting from the church. It seemed quite a novelty and I soon got used to listening out every Tuesday evening for the dulcet tones. So I was quite put out when another Tuesday evening arrived to the sound of silence. What happened to the bells? The fact that the chime of bells was never part of my life before just didn’t matter; I was quite perturbed that they had failed to ring! Thankfully normal service has now been resumed.

Bit by bit we’ll no doubt start to integrate into village life. Now all we have to do is convince family and friends that we haven’t disappeared to another planet, just a country village where they can still actually come and visit!

It All Started When …

A collection of circumstances set off the catalyst for our move earlier this year, seeing us depart from our life as townies and set up home in a more rural village setting.

Said circumstances are far too long and boring to relate, but the details of our new life, and what we hope to achieve, make fitting tales for a new blog. So here I am with my first post on the subject.

I’ve lived in a town setting all my life and whilst I’ve enjoyed country holidays and staying in my beloved static caravan in a rural part of East Anglia, had never really contemplated what a full-time country life would entail.

This summer we not only made the move to a village surrounded by countryside, but decided to renovate a former ice cream chime workshop (further back in time a coal wharf), with the aim of turning it into a three-bedroom bungalow. How straightforward it sounds said like that! But as we have already discovered, things are not as easy in reality, with plans changing on a daily basis, even though our eventual aim remains the same.

Our first, and most obvious, thought was to move afore-mentioned caravan on-site, so that we could live in it quite happily whilst we tackled the business of ‘doing up’ the property. Unfortunately, our calculations about logistics were a bit awry (or perhaps we just exercised plain, blind optimism), and we discovered that the caravan would just not fit down the narrow, slightly bendy lane to its plot. So we’ve had to abandon all thoughts of that one and plump for a sort of semi-camping existence in what I can only currently describe as a glorified shed!

OK, so it does have plumbing and electricity, but we have to go to my mother-in-law’s for a shower, and our cooking facilities consist of a microwave, two camping stoves and a health grill (sounds like an interesting title for an alternative cookery programme). Our ‘bedrooms’ are just small areas constructed using tarpaulin. Are you getting the picture?

Somehow we aim to work round all this chaos and eventually be the owners of a very nice little home. So watch this space …

Of course, alongside all of this we have to adapt to country and village life, which is proving quite an enlightening experience. We have the good fortune to be situated right on the riverbank, so have traded cars whizzing past our window, for the more tranquil passing of boats and swans. The only problem I’ve found is that I’m constantly distracted by the wonder of my new view – the river, the fields, the trees and the hills in the background. I presume the novelty of all this will diminish in time, or maybe not!

And as for the village? More about that in my next post.

You can also still read my original blog www.shoppersjoy.blogspot.co.uk