Rural Living
Dec. 12th, 2022 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo"I wonder how the couple who bought the farm are doing?" says Ailz.
I wonder too from time to time. Early reports (we don't solicit these because that would be spying) suggested they were suffering from culture shock- as do many people who move to the country after a lifetime of urban living.
Here are some of the things we learned in the course of our nine years in semi-rural Kent.
1. The countryside is a workplace. We had a neighbour who made fenceposts. And, no, he didn't sit on the front porch whittling. His was an industrial enterprise involving warehouses, a sawmill, big vehicles and colossal bonfires.
2. The countryside is noisy. There's agricultural machinery, there's animal noise; cows go moo, sheep go baaa, roosters go cock-a-doodle do, rooks and crows croak, foxes and owls give out eldritch shrieks. And just because there aren't that many houses doesn't mean there won't be roads. We had the A21 less than half a mile away- and you should have heard the racket the bikers made on their down way to Hastings!
3. The countryside is full of living things that won't leave you alone. Trees fall over, drop branches, drop leaves. Foxes will eat your pets. Mice and rats will invest your attic and your walls and consume anything edible- like liquid soap- that they can get their little pink paws on. Ants will come into the kitchen looking for sugar. Nettles and briars will fight with you over any available space.
4. The countryside has fewer people but they come in stronger flavours than you get in your average suburb. They can be friendly and supportive, also nosey. You don't want to alienate them because they're not going away and they're all you have. Some of them will be criminals. A few will be crazy and sociopathic. If they give you advice about country matters, take it- because they know all manner of things you don't.
5. The countryside has roads that are narrow and windy and mostly lack footpaths. If you don't have wheels you're in trouble.
6. The countryside is smelly. Some of the smells are obviously delicious, others less conventionally so.
If I've accentuated the negatives it's because townees already know what the positives are- and the positives are very positive. I enjoyed them and made the most of them. At the end of our nine years in the countryside I had become middling-well-adapted to the life- tramping the fields, building fences (very badly) and making friends of the trees and the birds and the squirrels. All the same I'm very glad I don't live there any more.
I wonder too from time to time. Early reports (we don't solicit these because that would be spying) suggested they were suffering from culture shock- as do many people who move to the country after a lifetime of urban living.
Here are some of the things we learned in the course of our nine years in semi-rural Kent.
1. The countryside is a workplace. We had a neighbour who made fenceposts. And, no, he didn't sit on the front porch whittling. His was an industrial enterprise involving warehouses, a sawmill, big vehicles and colossal bonfires.
2. The countryside is noisy. There's agricultural machinery, there's animal noise; cows go moo, sheep go baaa, roosters go cock-a-doodle do, rooks and crows croak, foxes and owls give out eldritch shrieks. And just because there aren't that many houses doesn't mean there won't be roads. We had the A21 less than half a mile away- and you should have heard the racket the bikers made on their down way to Hastings!
3. The countryside is full of living things that won't leave you alone. Trees fall over, drop branches, drop leaves. Foxes will eat your pets. Mice and rats will invest your attic and your walls and consume anything edible- like liquid soap- that they can get their little pink paws on. Ants will come into the kitchen looking for sugar. Nettles and briars will fight with you over any available space.
4. The countryside has fewer people but they come in stronger flavours than you get in your average suburb. They can be friendly and supportive, also nosey. You don't want to alienate them because they're not going away and they're all you have. Some of them will be criminals. A few will be crazy and sociopathic. If they give you advice about country matters, take it- because they know all manner of things you don't.
5. The countryside has roads that are narrow and windy and mostly lack footpaths. If you don't have wheels you're in trouble.
6. The countryside is smelly. Some of the smells are obviously delicious, others less conventionally so.
If I've accentuated the negatives it's because townees already know what the positives are- and the positives are very positive. I enjoyed them and made the most of them. At the end of our nine years in the countryside I had become middling-well-adapted to the life- tramping the fields, building fences (very badly) and making friends of the trees and the birds and the squirrels. All the same I'm very glad I don't live there any more.
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Date: 2022-12-12 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-12 08:24 pm (UTC)