A different world.

I too live in a small but very pleasant town. I don't enjoy larger towns or cities any longer even if they have lots to see and do.
I believe it's due to my mobility issues. Everything in my home ground is accessible and I know what I can and can do. My world has definitely become smaller due to mobility.

We simply cannot wait to live from a large busy town to somewhere more sedate and relaxed and less busy!

Move not live!

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I live in a village - but originally from a part of Kent which is now classed as Greater London. I worked in the West End when I was young and much of my social life was in and around London.

When we first moved this far out I did miss London a bit - theatres, museums and generally the "vibe". But gradually I found myself sitting on the train after a visit to London feeling thoroughly glad I was going home.

Generally our world does get smaller as we age and possibly have to deal with mobility issues.

I love where I live. I had a lot of good times in big cities both in the UK and abroad and enjoyed everything they had to offer but that was a different chapter in my life.

There's lots of "different worlds" out there - be they vibrant, fast moving big cities, a palm fringed, sun soaked beach, a war torn country or a country where disease and hunger is the norm.

When I see what's happening in some parts of the world, I realise how lucky I am.

ferry23, my background is very similar, and now I’m glad that I’m where I am, in a very rural situation, at this time in my life. I feel very lucky. Cities are great to visit, but don’t feel like home any more.

I was born in the London "Square Mile", lived in Inner London and worked in central London until I married at 23. DH and I then lived in an North London suburb for a short while (I had never seen so many trees before!) moved at an outer East London suburb and stayed there for 22 years until our youngest had left school. I loved working in London, but never felt really settled in our home as none of my family or friends had ever lived in that part of London and it just didn't feel like "home" to either of us. We'd originally moved there because we could just about afford the house prices! Of course, we made some lovely friends through social activities and the children's school and we were near a Tube line so could get into central London easily.

We finally moved to where we are now in Hertfordshire nearly 23 years ago. That had been our ambition from when we were first married but family life had dictated that we couldn't do it before.

Ours is also a market town, quite historic and lots of places to eat, drink, shop and visit. Lovely villages nearby and beautiful walks on the doorstep. Doctor's surgery is a walk away as is the dentist, hospitals all very reachable. My family are all within 20 miles, including siblings, children and GC (one DD and GC are a ten minute drive away.) Green and lovely, but with good train connections it is still quite easy to travel into London if we want to. I love it here...

I do agree that needs and wants change as you grow older. If you had told my City-girl teen/early 20s self that I would hanker after a bit of peace and quiet with green surroundings I would have laughed my head off!

I live in the countryside in Devon, but really enjoy visiting cities. Mainly Plymouth and Exeter, but recently spent time in Dublin. When I was working I often had a few days in London. Country living is the best, but I do love a bit of big city culture now and then.

I’m on the outskirts of Durham, which, quite frankly, other than the cathedral is more dead than alive.
Occasionally, I go to the Sunday Quayside Market in Newcastle to meet DD2 and family and the whole City is alive and buzzing!
Pavement cafes and bars and people just walking around admiring the architecture, etc.

OP here. I am glad to be home, and to live where I do.
However it would be good to mix more with people of a younger age.

I live in a large village and really there's no facilities. My DH is unwell so we never really get to go anywhere. I find it hard to imagine that we once went abroad, went to the West end, visited museums etc. I've not been to the nearest town for a couple of years. I'm sorting him out now and meeting a friend for coffee at a pub, that's a real outing for me.

I lived in more central London in my early 20s, and certainly enjoyed the buzz, but 50 years on I’m always so relieved to get away from the crowds and traffic, back to the relative peace and green leafiness. Still outer SW London, but does feel like a whole different world.

I don't like driving on unlit roads at night any more. So although I was brought up in the countryside, I'm afraid it would no longer suit me. It's not that I have a riotous social life but it's dark by 4pm in the winter and I would feel trapped. I also like to be in easy walking distance of a regular bus service in case the car is off the road or there comes a time I'm unable to drive. Where I live just on the fringes of the city covers all those bases but it is also very green and leafy and I have woods at the back so lots of wildlife.

As Londoners we were all glad to leave it, nothing like the place it used to be, so sensible to find somewhere better but with good transport links for ‘days out’.
There still are some pleasant cities to visit when you want a buzzy vibe, we had a weekend in Liverpool and another in Bristol before Covid hit.

I couldn't live in a city. Where we are just now is ideal for us - we can step out of our back gate and walk for miles through open fields, countryside and woods, often without seeing another soul. However, we have a good regular bus service with bus stops just across from our front door which take us into Edinburgh in less than an hour, or we have the railway station just a few minutes' walk away, which again can take us into the city in around 20 minutes. Best of both worlds.

I grew up in an inner city and now am in a seaside town with sand dunes at the bottom of the road. I never fancied a seaside town at all, but young and green, moved to my golf loving husband’s home town. It’s a convenient town, but I’m always devising ways to have a change from it.

I spent my childhood holidays in the ‘real’ countryside and have trips there as often as possible.
I do wish I had lived in London for a long period. Even though there have been protracted stays with family living there and roundabout, it’s not the same.
Wish I had been born in Paris!
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Thanks for the replies, mostly preferring a quieter life than the city.
But what about the people? The age range? How varied is your world in age groups?

I love to visit my sisters in London but we now live by the sea in South East. However, London today is not the same as the place that I grew up in. I do miss the buzz of the city but the pace is too fast for me nowadays. Visits are fine but not long term stays.

It’s horses for courses, I live in London and when I’ve visited friends and relatives in quieter places it had quickly driven me mad , but they like it

I’m gradually working my way back to living in a city. I’ve lived in cities of all sizes and various rural areas (from living the American dream, a three hour round trip for pizza 😂 to my current one-shop, one pub village, just ten miles from a small town) and everything between.

Increasingly, I’m starting to think where I want to be when I’m widowed, and it’s currently a toss-up between the large European city I always planned to retire to or back to Edinburgh. If I win the Lottery, both! My husband, meantime, thinks we should move to Newcastle 🤷‍♀️

I'm from a small city - ie Exeter - and part of the reason for moving once I no longer needed a job (ie retired) was because Exeter has changed for the worse. I can still say what I want (as I was used to) in a conversation there without anyone leaping on me and "having a go" and that was something I didn't realise I had till I moved to West Wales (and I miss....). I miss lots of access to different foods to try and new places to eat. I don't miss the huge volume of traffic (which has been getting steadily worse - why? the public transport is fine there). I don't miss the garden grabbing and "build build build" that's going on there = I hated that to see my city being ruined by all that. I'm pretty much resigned to having worse weather here/way worse shopping facilities here (#sighs) and having to "think twice" as to who is within earshot of me when I say things I've not thought twice about for 60 years prior to moving here. Thankfully things are improving a bit re food since I moved here - a really good restaurant has opened, two decent "nice" bread-making shops, a few Middle Eastern food shops or stalls (Middle Eastern being my favourite cuisine) and I'm hoping there might get to be more of modern eating facilities. I go back for mini-breaks to Exeter once in a while - and eat out/shop/stop self-censoring conversations and am able to remove an extra layer of clothing and know there's a good chance there won't be any rain or wind. So there's pros and cons and I want the best of both worlds. But I did stop "knowing" of course I was safe in my quiet little provincial city from two things that happened there (think that must have been the 1990s) and that was 1. A restaurant there had a failed bomb attempt by a man that had been set up to do it by a group of local Muslims there (sorry - but they were newcomers to our city and that is who it was that did that) and 2. A new group of people had emerged and joined the local peace movement in between CND of the 1980s and Stop The War of the 1990s and I watched their leader in a meeting we held and thought "Which way do you think? - you are giving out mixed messages/wearing mixed Western and other clothing/etc and I want to know" and I think I was the only one in that meeting that heard the tone in his voice/saw the look in his eyes when he said words to the effect of "WE decide whatever-it-was he said" and I knew who he meant and it wasnt the rest of us and I refrained from telling him off/walking out but watched him carefully after that....and that and the bomb incident both happened at about the same time. I was not used to feeling I had to "switch on my own personal safety radar" before walking round my own city!!! Give people their due in this area and they will come to your assistance if they think you've just been hurt or are stuck somewhere remote and need to be offered a lift.

Cabbie21

Thanks for the replies, mostly preferring a quieter life than the city.
But what about the people? The age range? How varied is your world in age groups?

It’s an interesting question, Cabbie. We moved two years ago to a different area. It was already known to us so not a total surprise but it took me ages to realise what was missing here. We previously lived in a rural area but near to a university city. I twigged one day that what I miss in our new town is seeing students! This area has no university, just a college which is situated on the edge of the town. Most local young people go off to the cities for university and I miss seeing these young, happy faces around the place.

I’m not a city girl although I’ve lived in huge cities. We’ve moved to a town for practical reasons but a cottage up a mountain would be my ideal home!

Have lived in cities (Birmingham, London, Sheffield, Glasgow) at different times of my life and loved them all. Did not enjoy living in a village with the nearest shop 3 miles away. I now have the perfect compromise - a market town with easy bus access to a city and convenient bus access to a station to London. Good public transport is key now that I no longer drive.

In answer to your question about mixing with young people most of my colleagues are at least 20+ years younger than me some considerably more than that and we all get along some tease me for my hatred of swearing, but we learn from each other. I’m sure I’ll miss them when I retire in the next few months, but my DCs will make sure I’m kept updated on all things modern

Cossy

Move not live!

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