Why I miss the countryside

For the past 17 years I have lived in a tiny little village (with about 30 houses) in the middle of nowhere. As you may know if you have read some of the other posts on my blog, I recently moved to university in Exeter.  If you know Exeter, you’ll know its not exactly a massive city, we’re relatively near Dartmoor and the coast but the university itself (and my accommodation) is much more urban than what I am used to. I think its one of the things I’ve found hardest about moving to university actually, missing the countryside and all that comes with it. So, this is going to be somewhat of a wistful blog post (as I’m counting down the days to my Easter holiday and heading home) where I talk about what I miss about the countryside.

Edgy as hell sitting on the haybales

From when we were tiny, my brother and I used to love ‘exploring’ the disused farm that we lived next to. We knew the ins and outs of the set up they used to have for milking cows, which barns were best to store the haybales and what the different parts of the tractors did. In spring time, we would go and watch the farmers help the sheep give birth and sometimes even bottle feed the lambs. We weren’t farmers but we had some idea of how it all worked. We weren’t afraid to get mucky and being stung by nettles was second nature (my mum always said it helped our circulation anyway). I remember I always used to find it funny when my friends came over that they struggled to climb over the fences, whilst me and my brother were up and over in seconds. Because we were literally in the middle of nowhere and everyone knew everyone, it was really safe for us to go out around the farmyards and barns and play on our own, we had some incredible games of hide and seek. I think that safety net of a tight community is one of the things I  miss most, whilst we didn’t always get on with all the neighbours there was always someone willing to babysit and we were never far from a friendly face. As kids, the freedom to play outside and ride around the yard on our bikes was a sort of paradise to us.

We also had some really fantastic friends in the village. Every year for Halloween we would have a party with all the kids from the village (3 families) and all dress up and play Halloween themed games. (Honestly, we still do this some Halloweens with the same family that lived across the field from us). Having people living that near that we were so close with was amazing, and I just haven’t found that sort of community being away from the countryside. There’s nobody here who would run across a field of nettles to come and make a scarecrow with me. As a side note, I wish I had more photos to add to this post but sadly they aren’t on the computer I have with me at university. Let me assure you though, some of the scarecrows we made were beyond incredible.

Three mad cows 😉

Another thing I really miss is being able to see the stars outside at night. At home, so long as it was a clear night you could see all the stars, I used to love getting home in the dark and just standing staring up at the sky. That’s not really something I can do here, not least because I’d get some pretty weird looks from the other students. (Picture, if you will, me standing in the middle of the courtyard surrounded by student accomodation staring wistfully at the sky). Also, the sky isn’t quite the same here as it is at home, there’s too much light pollution and its never clear enough to really see any of the stars. I actually wrote a little poem about this for my creative writing class:

 

I sleep when I like here

No matter what time of the day

I nap the day through

I swear that its true

And by night I’m ready to stray

 

But…

 

I can’t see the stars here

When I look at the sky at night;

So I don’t go out

I stay in my house

And dream of those lights in the sky.

Another thing that I’ve always found weird about being away from the countryside is that cars are SO NOISY! There were very rarely cars outside, especially at night, at home but when you’re in a more urban area it seems to be all you ever hear. When my friends used to stay at mine for sleepovers they’d always complain that the birds singing in the morning woke them up, when I’d stay at theirs I wouldn’t be able to sleep because of how noisy the cars were. I think its really interesting how much certain noises you associate with certain places, for me, hearing birds singing will always take me back home.

Whilst it does make me really homesick sometimes being suffocated in the jungle of concrete that is university halls of residence, I am still glad I moved away from home. I needed to experience being away from home and the tiny community I’d come to know so well. When I’ve got a place of my own (as I talked a bit about in last week’s post) I think I would like to live out in the countryside. That said, I don’t have a bus route at home and that was an absolute nightmare before I learnt to drive, so perhaps I’d like to live somewhere a little less rural.

Overall, I love being in the countryside, if only because it reminds me of my childhood and simpler times spent with amazing people.

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