Becoming Domestic

Having considered a huge range of possible cures for our itchy feet Bealers and I finally found a house we may move to in a few weeks while off work this during this half term holiday (all five of us laid low with stomach bugs and filthy colds).

Possible options have been wide ranging and have included taking the family travelling for six months to a year, living and working in an intentional community (very appealing in many respects), helping my dad complete his renovation of his home in France, buying a reasonably priced plot of agricultural land to start a smallholding on in west Wales or just to move to a new rental house which meets more of our needs than this present one does.

Our minds were kept well and truly open until we heard of a house for rent in a very pretty, very rural location not too far from where we are now but too far for the twins to continue at the school they have attended since we left London two and a half years ago. We had seen the house advertised about six months ago but had ruled out viewing it as it was beyond our rental budget and also seemed too far from ‘everything’.

Since first advertising the house the owners have emigrated and have now dropped the rent so we drove out to see it as on paper it seemed to have a good number of rooms, a large garden and orchard, countryside views, is near to a very small rural school (just 40 pupils on role) but yet near enough to Bealers offices to be a possibility.

We knew fairly soon during the viewing that although it wouldn’t be a financial downshift (more a financial sideshift as the rent will be slightly more but the house is doubleglazed and has a woodburner and its own woodland area so hopefully heating oil costs will be lower), it could be another move towards a much more simple lifestyle away from the relentless pressure to shop and consume.

The house and school are both surrounded by fields, rivers and woods. We saw more than ten pheasants on our drive from the main road to the house, a buzzard flying overhead and horses, cows and sheep in the distance. As a long term aim we both still hold a desire to become more self-sufficient in a more remote location but by renting this house first we are able to see whether we do actually like living so far from a town environment.

One thing which initially concerned me is how much I might miss the facilities of the small town I use everyday after dropping the children off to school - the butchers, the bakers, the Co-op, the charity shops, the bank, the chemist. In the potential new village there is just a (lovely) little shop, post office, one pub, the village hall, the church and school. After a few days of pondering I remembered how I once realised that it is easy to live in the countryside and enjoys all of its benefits but one has the ability to visit the nearby town whenever one wants to but harder to do it the other way round (to live in a town but to truly appreciate the benefits of rural life whenever one fancies it). I’m more than happy to try it out for a year or so. Especially because the house itself has a few extra rooms so we can have a dedicated guest room and baby bedroom.

If the headteacher of the possible new school says that she has two places for the kids then we are likely to move house in the first week of December. I found a fantastic website today with loads of checklists and advice for people moving house called www.helpiammoving.com I particularly liked the ‘How to move with children’ section and will borrow a few of the books they recommend on the subject to read to E & M. We’ll start the long job of packing, getting rid of stuff we don’t need as soon as I’ve spoke to the headteacher to confirm the school has places tomorrow but luckily the decluttering task will be lessened by the fact that we moved not so long ago and I have been slowly getting rid of surplus books, clothes, toys, ornaments whenever possible.

I’m also going to follow our friend L’s expertise and make sure that on the day of the move itself the kids are looked after by someone they know while we scurry around and get the children’s new bedrooms looking wonderful and inviting at the very least.

Initially I thought that the best time to change schools would be after the Christmas break as they wouldn’t want to miss all the lovely activities in the run up to the holidays at their current school. Then I realised that actually it might be best to start at the new school when it is all carol singing, pantomime trips, Christmas fayres and parties. When the new term starts in January it won’t be a horrid bleak unfamiliar environment it will be saying hello to friends they started to make in the fun time prior to the Christmas break.

Posted on November 2nd, 2008 under Family Life • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback