Just Move to the Countryside
What I know about living rural.
There is something very romantic about the idea of living a simple life in the countryside. A modest cottage, living off the land and raising animals. Exploring woodland and hills, climbing trees, and fishing in tranquil rivers. It's something that I am hearing more folk mention in tech circles, that everything they are doing is an effort to get to this place where they can retire, live on a farm and enjoy "the good life".
I seem to be somewhat of an anomaly. I work in software engineering, yet I spend the majority of my free time doing much of what people dream a countryside life would be - growing flowers, eating food that I have grown myself from seeds I have planted in my own dirt, keeping herd of ponies as well as experience in rearing pigs, geese and chickens. I am somewhat of a hybrid in that sense, tech by day and countryside living by night.
Prior to my career in software, my wife and I ran a Shetland pony stud. At it's peak we had 35 ponies which we bred and competed with - we were fortunate enough to export some of our home bred youngsters to the continent as well as the US, and picked up a fair amount of wins/championships at Shetland and County shows around the UK. Our lives were very different back then, but as much as possible I try and keep doing the same activities, albeit on a smaller scale.
For sure, there are a few of us country folk around in the tech space, yet the consistent shock/delight from people when asking me what I am doing at the weekend, and I reply with "oh, not much, maybe putting my potatoes out" suggests that the numbers are few and far between.
The countryside is aesthetically pleasing to the eye - but for me the beauty in living somewhere remote is in the smaller things that people don’t necessarily realise unless they have tried it. The perfect stillness and darkness at night time. The smells in the air that change through the seasons. The sounds of pheasants in the day or foxes barking at night. Being able to walk out of your door and explore fields or woodlands without needing to jump in your car and drive there. The reward of growing your own flowers or vegetables from seed. The absolute pleasure of being able to work with animals.
Being rural makes you so much more appreciative of the amenities that become every day normality to folk who live in the cities. The few times I venture into London each year, going to a decent coffee shop and getting a Long Black is a treat, rather than an everyday ritual and I savour it as so.
It seems with the people I have spoken to that are dreaming of a life in the countryside the perception is that you are “all in” or not at all - almost as though you can have a life in technology or a life in the fields but not both at the same time. I am writing this to let you know that there is a middle ground.
I wouldn’t ever consider myself an influencer.. but if there is one thing I will try and influence you on it’s embracing the simpler and slower life in the countryside.
Location
Many of the people I speak to that have this life long aspiration of retiring to a farm, live in cities. I grew up in Surrey, which is a county that borders on London, but moved to Berkshire aged 17 to live with my girlfriend. We rented for a number of years, before buying our first home in Wiltshire - the next county over.
We live in a small village roughly five miles outside of a town called Marlborough. To the North of us sits the Cotswolds which I truly consider to be one of the most beautiful places on planet earth.
Getting the location of living right is important firstly because we are surrounded by miles and miles of expansive countryside. But secondly, you can get much more house and garden for your money than living in London or in the surrounding areas.
Generally in England, the further North or South you go, the cheaper houses become (of course there are anomalies). We are located about two hours outside of London, still within a commutable distance if needed, but far enough away that for the price of a modest London studio flat, you could buy a four bed detached with a driveway, garage and a decent sized garden.
When looking for a house to purchase, we noticed that something as simple as going over the border from Berkshire to Wiltshire made a big difference in the amount of house/garden you got for your money. Villages are cheaper to live in than the towns, primarily because the amenities are much fewer and further between - and some villages are cheaper than others, depending on the houses you have there and how far they are away from civilisation. Not having a car is a massive disadvantage, as sure there are the local shops which stock the essentials, venturing into town means either having to wait for the hourly bus or going by car.
Flexibility of Work
The last few years I have been intentionally looking for jobs at companies that have a flexible attitude to the working day. This has looked different for each role I have done the last few years. The idea here is that I still wanted to be able to spend time in the day/evening tending to the animals or enjoying the garden.
When commuting into London, being able to catch the 5.30am train, working early, and leaving early means that I can be home by 6pm, which in the summer still allows several hours of evening sun to enjoy. Many companies allow and encourage the flexibility around core hours, and it's always something I will ask for early on in the interview process.
Doing this for five days a week is something that I have done before, but is just not sustainable for me, it's not how I want to live my life, and as an introvert I have found being around the office too much incredibly taxing. Many companies will offer a hybrid model, one or two days a week in the office for instance, which is great - however I have found the best flexibility when working for globally remote companies. My current company is extremely flexible with working hours as everyone is working in different timezones, so being able to start really early in the morning, taking multiple breaks to go outside through the day and finishing early means that I find balance.
This has been game changing for my mental health and wellness, but also having the opportunity to go for a walk in the middle of the day to the woods, or to see the horses has been game changing for my focus levels when at work. I am undoubtedly more productive and healthier (physically and mentally) for it.
Tech workers are fortunate in that perhaps more than any other industry finding opportunities like this is very realistic. I have worked manual labour jobs in the past where you are very much tied to a physical location like a building site or a factory. Being able to work from a laptop wherever you are in the world at any given time is extremely freeing.
The Garden
I have fond memories growing up of both my Grandparents gardens. They were very different in form and functionality. On my Dads side, the memories revolve around digging potatoes and the earthy smell of the shed where the tools were all kept. On my mums side, I remember vividly the big rope swing tied to a gigantic weeping willow that sat in the centre of the garden.
As mentioned in the location section above, a garden doesn't have to be a luxury thing for wealthy folk only as long as you are willing to live outside of the big cities. There is not one house in our village that doesn't have a adequately sized garden, and there are houses from £200k upwards, considered much lower than the UK average.
Up until a few years ago, I had lost that connection with gardens. Ours had been very simple and low maintenance, until we took a trip to a ‘pick-your-own’ flower farm in Devon, and both fell in love with the idea of having our own cut flower bed.
Growing flowers has been one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life. There is an artistry of picking the right blooms and colours, placement and design. There is a science to understanding which flowers grow well in which area of the garden, what varieties do well in your type of soil. There is a nurturing element to growing things from seed, going through from propagation to watering and feeding the flowers when they are fully established. The craftsmanship of doing the groundwork, digging the soil and building planters or raised beds out of wood. There is a mundanity yet flow element to pruning, weeding and general maintenance. And the community element of giving the fruits of your labour to friends and/or neighbours. Flowers are a simple gift, yet universally appreciated. The idea that you have grown your own makes it extra special. My wife last year started picking bunches and giving them to people - including her hairdresser who was apparently delighted.
There is a growing body of research that links gardening with longevity of life due to it's effects on physical health, mental well-being and social connection. One of the things that people within Blue Zones, which are areas of the world where people tend to live to a significantly higher age on average is gardening - whether it be in Okinawa, Japan or Sardinia in Italy.
The Allotment
Of course, if your garden is big enough you can grow vegetables within it - but a great alternative is an 'allotment'.
I am told an allotment is a UK specific term for what other countries/cultures might call community gardens, but it seems to be less common abroad. In the UK, most councils will provide towns/villages with a patch of land where people can rent small plots for gardening. Depending on the size, there might be 10 - 100+ plots, each about 250 square meters in size. Even the smallest of villages will generally have one. Sometimes they have long waiting lists, but we were very fortunate in being able to join pretty much straight away due to a patch being fairly unkept.
The thing that surprises people generally is how cheap they are. We pay £15 a year for ours - reader, I challenge you to find better use of £15 (comment below).
Depending on where you are the rules are slightly different. We are pretty much limited to growing only flowers and/or vegetables, but some councils will allow you to erect a shed there and even keep chickens or bees.
As the research into blue zones, or areas of longevity go, one of the key elements for long life is the idea of having a sense of community. Having a communal garden, where you can reap the mental and physical benefits of growing and cultivating as well as the social benefits of speaking to people and getting to know people in your area, seems to be very conducive to living a long and healthy life.
There is a real community spirit within our allotment - people share manure or compost they have purchased. You are encouraged to pick fruits from each others plots when they go away or can't keep up with the harvest, as picking fruit means ultimately more yield. We were even given a rhubarb plant by one of the adjacent plots upon joining.
But there is definitely a physical fitness element to working the land too that undoubtedly has health benefits. Just the other day I was turning over the soil in a patch of our allotment, and it is hard graft, not helped by the fact that dig down more than an inch and you are greeted by solid Wiltshire clay. After an hour I was cooked, my arms were aching and my face red with sweat. Just a few patches along was a gentleman easily twice my senior, happily digging away seemingly unfazed. Humbling to say the least. This 'real-world strength' is something I have seen a lot of with my interactions with farmers and country-folk, people well into their sixties/seventies still physically strong enough to pick up two bails of hay at a time is something that you will never manage if you live a life solely chained to a desk.
Our allotment patch was very overgrown and in not a good state when we were allocated it. There is a lot of work still needed to be done to the land, as the soil is not in a great condition - so in terms of planting this year we have kept it minimal, some potatoes, onions, shallots and courgette. Next year will be better, as we will be able to work the soil properly after the growing season - but there is something so refreshing about thinking in seasons or years - it is a forced slow down in a world that is constantly pushing you to go faster and do more quicker.
The Field
A few minutes walk from our house we rent a ten-acre plot in the grounds of a manor house that sits within the village. For those that might not be familiar with the size of an acre, ten acre is the equivalent of roughly seven football pitches - it is a substantial piece of ground.
Right now, we have a herd of seven Shetland ponies living on there - as mentioned earlier on in the article. Shetlands are very hardy as a breed, having originated from the Shetland isles which is a small island between the top point of Scotland and Iceland, they grow their own coats in the winter so don't need rugging or putting in a stable, and as long as they have a decent amount of grass to eat will pretty much look after themselves.
I also harvest the fallen trees for firewood off of a small patch of woodland that sits at the bottom of the field, which gives us enough logs each year to keep our log burner burning through the winter.
This isn't the first field we have had - we have had ponies across three different bodies of land that we have not owned. The amount of land that sits around Berkshire/Wiltshire and presumably other heavily countryside counties that is not used is perhaps surprising. We have found that proactively putting letters through doors asking if anyone knows of or has any land available for rent yields very productive results. One would think local groups on social media might be the best format for finding local land, but many people are not willing to put it up publicly, so a personal letter posted through someones doors has been our method for several years.
The first plot of land we had was roughly six acres, and sat in the grounds of a house of a family that used it as a summer getaway from their house in London. For the services of maintaining the land, a friend of ours was allowed to keep their horses there and make use of one of the barns - our Shetlands were a welcomed edition to help with grass maintenance, and also the family found great enjoyment in visiting the ponies when they were staying at the house. We kept them there for nearly three years for free.
The second plot of land was a bit smaller, but we had downsized in the number of ponies we had in our herd. This was a two acre plot directly next to the garden of a house in a neighbouring village. Again, we kept them there for free, as the chap who owned the house enjoyed the ponies company, and they kept his fields neatly trimmed, something he was having to do prior with a sit on mower.
They stayed there for two years until something came up much closer to us, with a bit more land which we found was more efficient for wintering as we could rotate the horses around when the ground got wet/muddy. Me and my wife had walked around this field many times prior to renting it, and always had cooed at how beautiful it was. In the morning, fog would stretch across it, an old Oak tree in the middle of the field barely visible. We do pay rent for this land currently, but it is a small amount that covers water bills as well as any general maintenance of the surrounding fences.
This field has been a lifeline for us. I could sit there for hours taking in the sights, the smells, the noises and the feeling of being outside in such an open space. The occasional Muntjac or pheasant will run across the field through the ponies and it is truly beautiful to watch.
Moving to the countryside is not for everyone. For many who say that it is a dream one day, it will always remain as such, and that is ok.
But for those who want to give it a go but are put off by the potential cost and investment I hope this has inspired a little bit of confidence in yourself that chasing the good life could be more attainable (and affordable) that initially perceived.