“7 THINGS – I have learned about living in the countryside…”

This week's "7 THINGS!"

This week’s “7 THINGS!”

I was born in Stepney, London and remained a city dweller for most of my life. And yet here I am aged 54 – living on a farm – how did that happen? Yes, it’s glorious, yes, it’s idyllic, and great for the pig/sheep/cow/chicken shots which I can share on the Gram – but it aint all birdsong and roses. Life here among the fields is not without its challenges! Not that I would swap this Darling Buds existence for anything. I’ve even bought meself a pair of wellington boots and one of those fancy wax jackets that if they aren’t entirely covered in mud and cow poo, don’t register as authentic country wear… Here are my “7 THINGS”.

1.     PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY. Who remembers the scene from the 80’s movie “Crocodile Dundee” where Mick Dundee newly arrived from Australia, gets on the Tube in London and chats to everyone, introducing himself to wide-eyed commuters who were suspicious or amused by his efforts? I was one of those Londoners. Travelling to school or around town at the weekends, I perfected my look-at-the-floor-and-ignore-me pose. I had learned from when I was small to avoid eye contact, keep your head down, don’t speak too loudly and fade into the background… this skill I honed the older I got when the Tube and indeed the city I lived in got busier, faster, and more frantic. It never felt right to cram into a stinky carriage and hurtle around under the ground like supersonic moles, or on some of the older lines, stuttering moles on Zimmer frames… But this to me summed up how life in the capital made me view strangers. I’ve owned flats in the city and not known who lived above or below me, travelled in the lift each day with colleagues or people with whom we shared a building and not exchanged a single word! So can you imagine my shock when I arrived here in this farming hamlet where a handful of families nestle in a green and pleasant enclave and people knocked on my door – to bring me cakes and offer to help paint/weed the garden whatever was needed! What was this madness? What did they want? I was of course highly suspicious. Turns out they wanted to be by friend. Who knew? Now, these neighbours of mine always wave when they see me, we stop our cars and chat on the lane, we get together for BBQ’s and Christmas parties and I know that if I needed anything from a loaf of bread to a shoulder to cry on, all I have to do is open a window and holler.

2.     YOU GET USED TO THE DARKNESS. It took me months to find the courage to go outside alone in the dark. It was so very different from the darkness of a city where even though the sun disappeared, there was a constant glow of street-lamps/shop fronts/car lights/building lights which allowed me to see. We have none of those things and when the sun sinks. It’s dark! I used to be afraid of it, wary of what lurked in the shadowy corners of our garden and up the lane. I now know what lurks there – the odd hedgepig, Mr and Mrs Fox and their foxlets. Rabbits, mice, rats, voles and even deer. I am so confident in this darkness; I now even take the bin out without a torch! This is real progress…

3.     QUIET SHOULD NOT KEEP YOU AWAKE! One of the hardest adjustments was sleeping without the symphony that I had become used to. The wheeze of brakes, tooting horns, traffic stop and start, shouts of people, glass breaking, phone conversations, sirens, laughing, rowing, singing… it all happened right below my window, and it lulled me to sleep. It was what I knew. The first night I spent here, I was petrified. It was so, so quiet! It took me a few months to feel safe to nod off without my background cacophony and now, I sleep so well and wake before the cockerel crows…

4.     WHEN THEY MAKE A PLAN, THEY MEAN IT! I was so used to living in a fast-paced city where people often said, “we should get together, have dinner, a coffee, lunch…” and the standard response would be “yes, let’s do that…” and the thought would go out of my head until I saw them again. Here, people say that, and turn up on Tuesday with flowers picked from the verge and a smile. We meet up regularly! It’s so lovely to know my neighbours and their lives. These relationships with the elderly farmers, their wonderful wives and others really make me feel like I belong.

5.     SHOP WISELY! I have always lived within trotting distance of a Spar, Londis or petrol station with a small selection of essentials, if not a full blown supermarché! And it’s fair to say I shopped haphazardly, what did it matter if I forgot the basil/Monster Munch/loo roll? I or someone else could always nip up the shop! Here I must plan a bit, write lists and everything! Because mid recipe for a lemon drizzle, when I realise, I have no lemons, there’s no hollering at the kids to go buy some for me. I also can’t go grab a decent coffee when I fancy one, there’s no florist to tempt me on my way home and no book shop. I don’t have the joy of shelf mooching which I used to love about living in the city. I do miss it!

6.     LOUBOUTIN SHMOOTIN… What to wear? First, no one here cares if you are head to toe in Channel or slopping around in your husbands’ old jeans and a sweatshirt your kids put in the goodwill bag. (This might be describing me today!) And I love that! It’s all about comfort and practicality and for a woman who has agonised over clothes and her body shape for the longest time, this freedom is something I treasure.

7.     50% CITY 50% COUNTRY. This is me. I love my new life here, but still like the smell of the docks in London, the noise and bustle of a crowded street, small cafés, walking on grey slabbed pavements, Black cabs, convenience. Looking out of my window at 3 a.m. and seeing life! Hearing the chatter of people, riding the night bus… There’s so much I will always love about city life, not least my memories lurking around each and every London corner. I have the city running through my bones. The city where I was born and raised, but this new quiet, dark, uncluttered life feels like progression, as if I have a chance to breathe, to reset and I figure in this fast-paced world in which we live, that’s no bad thing.

For all things Amanda Prowse head to my website www.amandaprowse.com