Is an Idyll Ideal?

In nearly every property show on British TV there is always someone who wants to move to a rural location, a cottage with roses around the door, far from the madding crowd.

Why? A hundred years ago, country folk were clamouring to move to the towns and cities. Then, as now agricultural labouring was a low paid job, so they decided to become economic migrants and moved nearer to the higher paid jobs in the factories and mills.
 
Living in the country nowadays doesn’t mean working in the country. With the advent of motorways and high speed rail links, modern man has now the chance to live the dream.

But wait, is it really a dream? If you are one of these rustic wannabes, what exactly are you searching for!

Peace and Quiet?

I can tell you it’s no fun being woken up at five o’clock on a sunny morning to the sound of a tractor working in the field at the bottom of your garden and having to climb out of bed to shut the windows because of the clouds of dust that follow the damned thing.
 
Then there’s trying to sleep on a warm, late summer evening when a combine harvester is working until midnight to get the harvest in before the rain comes, and again getting out of bed to close the windows to keep the chaff out.

When you do finally drop off you are suddenly awakened by the dogs barking dementedly at a fox rifling your dustbin.

How about birdsong, you like birdsong, don’t you? I love hearing a few birds singing, but when every bird in a five mile radius decides to use your hedges to tune up at daybreak, the attraction starts to wane!
 
Sunday is shooting day. Everyone in the area with a blood lust and a shot gun tries to blast every rabbit and wood pigeon residing near the back of my house into oblivion on the day of rest.

Try sitting in the garden with a cup of tea on a Sunday morning and it’s like being on the set of a John Wayne movie!

To Get Close to Nature?

You can do that OK! Moles pushing up hills on your manicured lawn, rabbits gnawing down young plants and wood pigeons doing the same thing, that’s after they’ve eaten the entire contents of your bird table, depriving every other bird of an easy meal.

Then there are the mice that live in your shed and the visiting rats from the neighbouring fields, looking for a change in diet.

Did I mention the wasp’s nest and the incessantly squawking starlings in the loft?

Then there is the matter of adders sunbathing on the patio and grass snakes swallowing the frogs in the pond, whole.

Live in the countryside and you’ll never have to watch another wild life documentary!