City Life/Country Life - Which do you prefer?

I much prefer living in a small village, I'm an unsociable bollix so I don't have to worry about gossip.

Country. I love being isolated. But i grew up in a house thats was down a 2 mile lane with nobody for 2 miles in any direction.

Jackeens and townies will say the urban life and each to their own i think its a lot to do where you were brought up

I'm originally from Dublin and am now living in a fairly rural area with no public transport, no footpaths, no street lighting, that sort of thing. I miss being able to do anything I want. Where I live now is about 10km or so from the nearest town and there's not much to do there. However, I have 3 dogs, no neighbours and a huge garden, something that would be virtually impossible in Dublin. There's good sides and bad sides to both places but I really miss the social aspect of Dublin.

I'm from down the country but have lived in Dublin about 18 years or so.

I prefer being here than at home (down the country) primarily because there's a lot of variety for our little one (3 yo) in terms of places to play and things to do.

That and the countryside bores me.

Diff'rent strokes and all that

Country for me.
Did live in city for a time at college and worked in large MN in Dublin for more than a decade.

We live in the sticks, down la lane.
Can’t see the road although you might hear the odd vehicle on a calm evening. We run a small hobby farm, usually about 20 cattle.

I’m sitting here eating breakfast watching cattle graze in the field next to the house, can see the orchard starting to bloom, Chickens poking about, I’ll go out and potter about in the polytunnel for a while before doing anything taxing. We have neighbors close by but never really see or hear from them.

Has it’s drawbacks in bad weather and broadband is sketchy, but it’s an easy life and kids aren’t mixed up on loads of townie ****e.

I have a day job but I packed in the shift work for a job on half the pay but completely flexible.

listermint wrote: »

You can't beat walking out to your front garden this morning and hearing absolutely nothing but birds singing. Wont get that in the city. Love it

Im in bed and the window is open. All I can hear are birds singing and a few cows mooing. Blissful.

Graces7 wrote: »

[/B]

I was raised in towns;but always gravitated to deep rural so it is a character trait,maybe genetic. May even go back to my Irish ancestry...

Maybe

erica74 wrote: »

I'm originally from Dublin and am now living in a fairly rural area with no public transport, no footpaths, no street lighting, that sort of thing. I miss being able to do anything I want. Where I live now is about 10km or so from the nearest town and there's not much to do there. However, I have 3 dogs, no neighbours and a huge garden, something that would be virtually impossible in Dublin. There's good sides and bad sides to both places but I really miss the social aspect of Dublin.

Grow your own fruit and vegetables.

Grew up in the countryside, but within easy distance of the nearest typical small Irish village. However, once I got older there was absolutely nothing there to interest me. Once you get too old to just 'go out and play', and start to become more of your own person, looking past your own nose so to speak, I have to say I found country living quite isolating. As a child and young teen living rurally, you are completely dependent on your parents to bring you places. I certainly spent a lot of my teens back in the late 80's/early 90's (outside of school hours) doing pretty much nothing, aimlessly walking the dog twice a day and trying to keep out of my mothers way so she wouldn't give me all the housework to do

I've mentioned in other threads that this has made me....not anti-social, that's not the right word, but more - accustomed to not socialising. Even now, in my 40's, I have difficulty motivating myself to socialise, especially lately. I think this was down to a lot of inadvertant isolation in my formative years. I was just used to not meeting my friends consistently (of course I did get to see them sometimes, sleepovers etc but not routinely) so it was never a way of life for me. Even when I went to college and started working etc, I just went straight home afterwards because that's what I'd always done. It's mad, looking back on it. What a waste.

Now that I'm older, I'm still living in a city (used to it I guess) but I would be hoping to move to a smaller town soonish. I would be hesitant to live rurally again, both because of the social isolation aspect (that's my own view) and the personal security aspect of a single person with no neighbours nearby. Had I ever married and had a family, I would be hesitant to bring my children up in the countryside due to my own experience, which of course was not ALL negative, but it certainly affected me in the ways I mentioned above.