Have we done the right thing by moving?

SueDonim! Do you live near Colyton in Devon as it was there annual tractor run yesterday?

This criticism of moving to the back of beyond also works for people who buy their 'dream home' on retiring, which is far too big or has a lot of garden. They are not going to be 65 and in good health forever.
They may move away from trains and buses after a lifetime of commuting - they will have to give up driving one day. And country bus services do get cut, or services reduced.
And don't get me started on those (usually women) who hold a driving licence, but partner does all the driving, so when he(?) has a stroke or is hospitalised, the licence holder hadn't driven in decades, and is terrified of the roads.

String curtains are cheaper than I thought - under a tenner for the door
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This reply is not going to help you but may act as a warning to others. We lived in a remote hamlet for 20 years and when we were working it was idyllic. Somewhere to escape to after a stressful day at work. Once we retired we felt it became a bit of a pretty prison. A thirty minute car journey to anywhere. Last year after a couple of years of trying to sell we moved to an urban area and we are still pinching ourselves at the positive move it has been for us. We watch the TV programme ‘escape to the country ‘ and wonder how people get on. The countryside is absolutely beautiful but it can be a lonely and expensive place to be when you get older.

We have just done the opposite to you and moved from a quiet village to a busy one with shops.
I think it takes a while to settle down, in our old village we could go out and leave our door unlocked, we knew just about everyone. My husband is disabled and I know that if I had phone anyone who lived near us they would have been there to help.
We have moved to be closer to family and now live on a new housing estate where everyone goes out to work, as a result I couldn't even tell you what any of our new neighbours look like.
You will get used to the animal sounds and a different way of living it just takes time.

You do get used to it all. I'm by the sea, with incredibly noisy gulls equally early in the morning. You do get used to it all!

I have a string curtain across the back door. If that doesn't keep the flies out, I'd buy another and double the density.

Judithc2 You will get used to it! We did the same as you and moved from a busy London suburb to a small village on the south coast where we are surrounded by farms and fields and sea. The road outside our house is a bit busier than we expected at weekends but the advantage is we have easy access to other areas. We often have to crawl along narrow roads behind big farm vehicles, horse riders or ponies & traps, but that gives us time to really look at the landscape around us. Cows, horses, cockerills, pheasants and songbirds wake us up early but as soon as I see the rolling fields from the window I want to get up anyway. I don't even mind the smell of muck spreading, though DH was a bit miffed when I ordered a huge quantity of rotted manure for our garden this Spring - but our roses are doing so well now! I am still surprised and delighted when I meet complete strangers and they say hello or good morning - never got that in London. We are far more aware of the changes of the seasons and the never ending work that goes into producing the food we eat, and it's great to be able to buy fresh veggies and eggs from very local farms. So all in all I think life in the country suits us, it just takes a little getting used to.

I'm sorry to hear people have had such bad experiences of country life.
Don't give up Judith it can be good in the country just give it a chance.

I can never understand people moving to the country, I did this 20 years ago (not by choice) and hated every minute of it, for the same reasons you are finding. I’ve just retired and now live 9 miles from Edinburgh and I couldn’t be happier.

Moving to the country sounds idyllic after a lifetime in a busy city. However, my own observation of an aunt and uncle who did this in their mid 50s after taking early retirement has put paid to any yearnings I may have had in that direction. Basically, when they took this plunge they were both in good health, and my uncle could drive. So, they were able to enjoy all the lovely views and peacefulness. However, my uncle's eyesight deteriorated and he had to stop driving, my aunt was 'too old' to learn, so they lost their car and became reliant on public transport which was infrequent. As their health became worse and more hospital visits were required, they had to cope with very long journeys on several buses to get to these appointments, and when my uncle was unable to manage the public transport he had to either pay for a taxi both ways or wait for a hospital ambulance. Sometimes that meant a 10-hour trip as the ambulance picked up/dropped off other outpatients. All that for a 15 min appointment with a junior doctor!!! Eventually, my uncle was hospitalised for a month-long period and my aunt was effectively separated from him at a time when it was thought he might die as she was not allowed to sleep in the hospital with him (very backward attitude when compared to city hospitals) and she couldn't manage the public transport alone. The local post office was closed in a rationalisation of provision and they could no longer collect their pension in person, so these had to be paid into their bank accounts, and the bank was in the next town. So, whilst at the moment, your problems are just with normal rural noise, if you can't cope with this now you need to fast forward to all the other potentially annoying aspects of country life that will undoubtedly occur in the future. And just as one more sadness in this story, my uncle did die (but at home) leaving my aunt very lonely as the big circle of friends they had before early retirement were not available to her. It's a huge decision to up sticks and leave the city behind and you have to consider all angles - the grass is always considered to be greener on the other side, but at the same time we often don't realise what we have until we've turned our back on it and it's gone.

We moved semi rural four years ago,it took a while to get used to the "silence" apart from birds singing, occasional tractor working.
The worst thing is I miss people, I need more around me, but have overcome this by taking my car to where we used to live and having a chat with people, before coming home to silence!

It's a curious thing - noise. I grew up in quiet suburban roads in a time when there was little traffic. Now I live at the end of a no-through suburban lane which is mostly quiet but for delivery vans and the occasional building work. Urban foxes can be noisy at night and I still have one neighbour who has milk delivered. The delivery van rattles up the lane at 2:30am and often wakes me. A friend, who has recently moved house, swears by living on busy roads. She says one becomes used to the constant drone of traffic and it blots out those occasional irritating noises that we seem to notice more in an otherwise quiet environment.

I have never understood the idea of moving to the country as you get older if you have never lived there before. We did it the other way round and now live in a quiet road in the middle of a town with plenty of trees and birds but also all the facilities we need to hand, apart from the morning and afternoon school run it is peaceful here.

Sorry to sound uncaring, but you have got exactly what happens in the country. Please don't be one of those townies (and yes, I am a townie) who expects the country to change.

Gagagran. What a shame. You will feel hemmed-in after being used to the lovely open views.

I am lucky in having a large area of common land opposite my house, which can never be built on. I enjoy watching the wild flowers come and go throughout the year, and the trees are beautiful. We even have a few wild apple trees which produce nice free fruit every year.

I hope that the loss of your view will at least result in some new friends, once the houses are completed

What would you prefer noisy neighbours with their loud music ?Give me birdsong at the crack of dawn, bleating sheep mooing cows and anything else that comes with rural life.I know what I would choose, and did, twenty five years ago and never regretted..

We moved to the edge of a small town/large village in 2012 with a glorious open view of fields to the front. We saw deer and birds flying up from the coast, half a mile away, to feed. Lots of garden birds and even a fox now and then.Idyllic.

Then the farmer sold the field to a developer last year and now we have diggers and bulldozers and building activity ongoing from 7am until late afternoon. There will be 125 houses there so we have lost our peace and view forever. We would not have bought this house, despite loving it, had we known what would happen.

You just never know what is round the corner and as someone has said, you can't buy the view.

We had problems with a neighbour's invasive Bengal cat, and bought window screening from flatcats, and got our local double glazing firm to fit screen doors so that we could have the patio doors open.
They are black, and virtually invisible...don't affect the view at all. They keep out both the cat and all the flying insects, and we can enjoy this lovely weather.I
Pricey, but worth every penny

You hear so many people mistakenly thinking "the countryside" is peaceful. In fact it's one of our few remaining industries, and ploughs are no longer pulled by oxen gently lowing.

Judith wherever you move, whatever your surroundings, it takes time to acclimatise. The birds all stop singing in September, then by next Spring you will be settled and won’t notice. Likewise, this is a busy tractor time of year. It will get better and there are so many advantages, honest. ?

I’ve lived all over. When in the countryside we lived next door to a pig farm once. The noise at feeding time! And the smell when the farmer opened the windows to vent! Not to mention the flies. But we got used to it and enjoyed our own 10 acres and our horses.

Another time we lived near a busy railway line and after a while didn’t notice the noise.

When we lived by the sea our cellar used to flood at high tide and sometimes the road outside.

Now we live within walking distance of a small market town and love that too.

My point is, you’ll learn to dismiss the country noises, find a way to cope with flies and tune out the tractors. Enjoy your new home.

I was getting a bit excited about your blinds seacliff till I saw the photo.
Your windows open inwards. ? Mine don’t.

We live in a village that isn’t too far from a small market town. There is a bus stop round the corner so if I can’t walk to that I can’t walk anywhere.
I was having a smile to myself on Saturday morning- I was strimming , DH was in the shed making a table, so using his machines. We have someone in now to help with the hedges, he was busy using the hedge cutter. R, next door was using some sort of equipment, C. Across the road was mowing her lawn.
The quiet of the country! Still we’d all finished by lunchtime and peace reigned again.

Have a look at Tectake striped roller blinds. They adjust so you can either see out through them or close completely at night.

Sheep do attract flies, but when they get move on the flies will go with them. The dawn chorus is one of the wonders of the countryside, but if you’re close to a rookery I’m afraid you will have noisy neighbours. We have one near us and their antics are fascinating. Summer in the countryside is a noisy time. Cows being separated from their calves, combines running late into the night, sugar beet lorries on peace work racing through narrow lanes to the beet factory, lorries and chain saws taking out pines in the nearby plantation..... And it’ll soon be time for the shooting season, and the foxes mating..... The countryside is a food factory and a busy place, but it changes with the seasons. It’s worth giving it time.

We live right on the edge of a small market town. We have fields behind our house in which there lives a donkey and two ponies. The dinky sounds like rusty hinges when he starts braying! There are sheep and cows in the fields at the bottom of the hill. The birds start to sing at about 3 am, and the wood pigeons coo from daybreak. I'm not far from a busy A road and hear the noise from the traffic.
I love it here. I am happy. I wouldn't change a thing.
I hope you soon get used to the sounds of the country judith