Me, ever the practical, would want to be somewhere with all the facilities I may need close to hand, near family and friends, and with the freedom to get up to London for exhibitions and concerts. And plenty of trees and opens space to close to my home
Friends of ours moved to the Lake District, which we love. We visited and they were so happy, we both thought how fortunate they were - then we realised that they were the kind of people who get involved in village activities, parish council and WI, gardening and pottering, not activities that we were itnerested in.
When we realised that to follow any of our interests we would need to get in the car and drive 20 or 30 miles along country roads, often in the dark, we realised that the Lake District is for holidays and yearnings, but not for living.
I have spent most of my life living in and around Berkshire, its wide open downs, huge skys, the river Thames and all its tributaries, easy access to London, the huge cultural variety of Oxford. From the station a few miles away, I can get trains to most of the west country, south Wales, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and one change at Oxford gives access to Scotland and most of the north of England.
The one problem; distance from family. So we are moving to within easy reach of Cambridge. I will be losing the downs, but not the river, the Great Ouse winds its way through my new location on its way to the Wash, but still the easy train access round the country and to London, and all local facilities within a couple of hundred yards, plus daughter on the doorstop and DS an easy train ride.
It is lovely to think about living in beautiful places, but I suspect most people, not all, would find the difficulty of shopping, of distance to doctors and hospitals, distance from family would soon take their toll and they would long to be back where they came from.
