My friend and I (country folk) are continually in fits of laughter about the ridiculous expectations of country living.
It is not all it’s cracked up to be, it can be idyllic on a lovely summer day, but that’s not the whole story.
Hundreds of villages now have no shop, school, pub. When we moved here, we had two pubs, village shop, post office, bakers, hairdressers, and fish and chip shops, now we have one pub and a shop, which basically now sells booze, cigarettes, and scratch cards, and possibly the counties biggest selection of crisps.
In winter the lanes are at best thick with mud, at worst treacherous, the country smells get into every corner of your home, and to get to work and get your children to school, you will be driving tens of miles a day.
We like it, we’re used to it, we don’t have a big island, or a herd of alpacas, not even a veg patch, and yet somehow we seem to struggle through.
I really wouldn’t want one of these aspirational couples moving in next door to me.