There are certain things about living in the countryside that really shape who you are. There are some obvious signs that you’re more used to the middle of nowhere than a city centre.
There’s no point cleaning your car when the second you leave home it’ll be dirty again. Muddy puddles everywhere mean you just have to accept your car will be permanently brown because you have to pull onto lots of grassy verges to cross paths with cars on single track lanes. It’s actually quite surprising when your car is clean and you remember what the original colour is.
You’ll say this at least once a week. You need to leave home 20 minutes early just in case there’s a hold-up along the way. If you don’t think that following a slow-moving tractor is much more boring than watching paint dry, you obviously don’t live in the countryside.
You can’t just nip to Tesco if you run out of milk so you need to make sure you’ve got a week’s worth of food when you do your ‘big shop’. The corner shop is too expensive so you’d rather suffer through a week without something than pay those extortionate rates.
You know every dog owner within a mile of your house. You don’t know their names but you know their dog’s names and stroke them at every opportunity possible.
You’re so used to it being quiet all the time that if you stay in a city overnight, you struggle to sleep. With cars, sirens and people never shutting up, you’re awake all night and cranky as hell in the morning.
When you’re at home and hear three cars driving past your house within 10 minutes, you joke that’s its practically a motorway. What gives people the right to drive through your sleepy little village?? Now… cows, you’re used to hearing, loud engines, not so much.
You can’t rely on a connection lasting longer than about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, even when it does work it’s painfully slow. You’ve probably driven to a place that has public Wi-Fi so you can send an email because you’re fed up of that buffering doughnut of doom you see when trying to connect at home.
Deliveroo isn’t a thing. You can’t get food delivered because there aren’t any takeaway places nearby. If you want a Chinese, you have to drive to one three villages away that only opens for about three hours twice a week.
It’s good for your health but bad when you’re feeling too lazy to cook.
There’s nothing more British than going to the pub. Unfortunately, when you live in the countryside, your village pub probably shuts at 11. Late nights out aren’t a thing.
You’re used to being woken up at 6 am by birds if you sleep with your window open. Sleeping in summer isn’t an option – you’re either too hot with your windows shut or woken up by wildlife with your windows open. There’s no way around it.
Wildlife may not seem like a big deal to you but when a friend who’s always lived in a city comes to visit, they point out every animal they see.”Look! There are some sheep!”
You complain about this life a lot but, honestly, you love it. You can’t imagine having to live amongst the hustle and bustle of a city.
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