Moving out of London

I've been using it regularly for the past 12 months, there was a spell of cancellations but recently, touch wood, it's been faultless.

Thanks. Helps to know.

Anyone on this thread regretted their move so much that they've done a reversy percy?

I think about moving back to Europe all the time...

I got moved back by work after 18 months in Bristol. Was kinda happy at the time.

Now I'm moving back out- like being able to catch up with people but will not miss the rest of the city.

Currently. Yes. I miss the culture and chaos.

Moved back to Bristol after about a year of deepest Cornwall. Too isolating, expensive, samey, it didn't work for us on a number of levels but we'd always kinda thought we might do that.

So much this. Wife and I feeling really torn after a weekend in the smoke - not for the first time. There is so much to like about where we are now (south Cambs) - great school on the doorstep, endless countryside, wildlife, family nearby - but it's all just so homogeneous. Can count the number of people we've met and really gel with (Hi Sam!) on the fingers of the hand of my former woodwork teacher.

It's very hard to articulate without sounding snobby or self-important, but there's something very different about people who've never lived in a big city, particularly one as diverse as London. Maybe it's not about that, rather that those we live near now just haven't had the same interests and experiences growing up, but the London thing has become my reference point.

Then I think of my former commute down the Old Kent Road and think I'm being daft.

Got kids? If so, how did they manage with the changes?

Nope, I don't think it would have happened if so, and future proximity to the parents in relation to this was a big part of the decision to move back.

My bro in law moved from bow to Brentwood then to Leytonstone. He hated brentwood , the commute, the people , the pubs , everything. Even though his house in Essex was twice the size of the one he ended up in E11 in.

No, I get exactly what you mean. The chances of connecting with people on a random scale have totally diminished for me.
I like the spontaneous contact. Believe it or not, I miss walking down a heavily congested road.
There was an over abundance of stimuli that just engaged me, so your Old Kent commute is, in my opinion, as valid as sweeping countryside and wildlife.

I'm by the sea. It's 29c outside now, crystal clear skies, and I'm sitting inside, because being outside just means watching people lounging, continuously feeding, drinking and ponderously moving between hotels and bars.

I am fucking bored. If you're snobby, then I have no qualms about being so too.

We also have a lovely big house, garage and garden which is well in excess of what we could move back to - not to mention a smaller mortgage.

Nope.

As other people have articulated, the buzz of walking down an over-stimulating congested high street is hard to replicate (however other cities are available) and there is a definite ‘small’ mentality from the people who’ve never left a place but the quality of space/air/countryside/etc make up for that. After a year here we are also now starting to make new friends, admittedly mostly DFLs.

There's just so much less friendliness or desire to get to know people here, in my experience; more of a cult of the individual, or family at least, maybe down to everyone having a garden and not congregating in the lovely local parks which litter London. Also the unutterably shit public transport, which of course you come to take for granted in a city. Again, that brings people of all backgrounds together and quietly creates a sense of community and acceptance of difference. Here, everyone gets in their car to do anything.

As I say, there are clearly loads of benefits of not-London; trying to weigh them up against what's been lost (identity, culture etc) is the hard bit.

I've posited to Mrs2wheels that we're perhaps just in the wrong bit of not-London. Thing is, once you have kids and they are at a school (which they love and can't bear the idea of leaving) it becomes much harder to test the waters elsewhere until you find your place.

I'm by the sea. It's 29c outside now, crystal clear skies, and I'm sitting inside, because being outside just means watching people lounging, continuously feeding, drinking and ponderously moving between hotels and bars.

I am fucking bored.

Sometimes away from the big cities I would say that you have to be active in getting out and finding things to do, routes to ride, people to do interesting things with etc. There is more of a need to make things happen because it isn't always just there like it is in big cities.

Hope this isn't coming over as patronising btw. I don't know where you are and what it's like there so I might be talking out of arse!

Life can be like that in London too, to be fair. A lot of what keeps me busy is work and commuting rather than a vibrant social life.

Hope this isn't coming over as patronising btw

Not at all, you've actually got a point. It's an Island, so I've explored a fair bit of it as it is, and with the over abundance of tourists, most of the fun rides become chocked with coaches/cars roaring up and down any sort of high point.
More than the rides, I miss the chaos that the diversity of people accomplishes. A melting pot so to say.
There is stuff to do, I suppose it's just as @Timmy2wheels said. It's more of an insular culture, so finding engaging people is quite tough. I suppose I'm a bit lonely in that regards, more so than other places I've lived in abroad.
Mind you, they were mostly cities.

The chances of connecting with people on a random scale have totally diminished for me.

+1
I am generalising massively here, but I reckon that most people who've managed to dig their heels into London for more than the minimum "get a degree and leave" period, typically acquire outstanding social skills. I will miss that for the rest of my life.

Ah, tourist spots are odd, particularly in season.

@Sparky Fair comment, I've never lived in London but always thought that it could be quite isolating if you don't have enough connections irrespective of where they originate.

Yes I’m glad we moved before children complicate things!
There’s quite a lot of not-London, I liked the idea of proper countryside but we settled on the edge of a town centre, so as not to be too far from some buzz (even if it’s not 24/7) but with space and still within touching distance of greenery. Also avoiding suburbia.
I’m actually pretty impressed with the amount of community and culture going on now, definitely more than when I grew up here - seems to be a big event on almost every weekend this summer!

I had a tough first year out here in East Kent. Big adjustment in lifestyle to commuting, lost touch with friends because of diminishing post-work social time etc. Hard to know how much of that was having a kid and Mrs Fatberg giving up work to care for toddler full-time and how much was to do with physical household relocation. I suppose I still would have been rushing back home to SE23 to do bath and bed if we hadn't moved out of town so who knows...

Anyway, after eighteen months despairing that i'd ruined my life and that I'd never meet my people out here (which was exacerbated after some mis-steps going for drinks with dull blokey neighbours) I eventually fell in with a bunch of (yes, also DFL) peeps with whom I feel entirely comfortable sharing my fears that we'd moved to a racist backwater. We haven't though, it's fine. We just stay out of the pub, mentioned in previous posts, that, unbeknownst to me, they had been referring to as "The Jolly Bigot" for years. There are plenty of rainbow-flag flying micro-breweries and tap rooms for us to get pissed on cheap craft ale round here for me to mourn the loss of one very Brexitty local

I am also getting involved in plenty of local shiz which is a good way of meeting folks. I've been doing some stuff for a refugee charity. My wife has been volunteering for the local historical society and now i'm getting a local environmental campaign all of which have led to meeting plenty of new people for all walks of life.

To be honest though, all the people we've made genuinely close friends so far with have been though my wife going to baby play-groups and classes. Through that route I met a few of the husbands and then through them met other friends till I found myself in a group of about half a dozen dudes any one of whom i'd happily go for a pint or a ride with.

Can't comment on the generality that a sense of community is lacking out here in Smalltownfordshire. I got on great with my old neighbours in London and seemed to have lucked out here too. We get on great with both sides.

I get out of this here London to visit relatives in the Midlands/Wales/North fairly frequently and often get the feeling of the void - sounds terrible but there is this slowness and almost childlike innocence - I don't know but I quite like returning home to London and its fancy ways.

We have amazing neighbours here.

We help the couple over the road - he had a stroke before we arrived and is wheelchair bound, she can't drive due to failing knees so I am on the insurance for their car that can take the electric wheelchair.

Local farmers help us out with maintaining hedges, we let them graze sheep and cattle here and also get meat and red diesel for our tractor.

A lovely neighbour comes and looks after our garden and gives us guidance on what to do for free. We have also made friends with other neighbours - getting invited to parties etc.

Our political views are not the same as everyone round here but we are not the only remainers/lefty liberal leaning people. But crucially the reason for many wanting out is they are farmers and the common agricultural policy does not benefit them, though they are also aware that losing foreign fruit pickers etc is going to have a huge effect too.