Eighteen months ago I took a giant leap of faith; I put my house on the market, left a job I’d been with for over a decade and said goodbye to all that was familiar, to move my family from the urban rat-race on the outskirts of London to the tranquility of the North Devon Countryside.I’m not generally renowned for being the type of person to take such foolhardy gambles, so I’m delighted to say we’re blissfully happy here…well, most of the time. However, such a huge lifestyle and cultural move has not been without its moment of soul searching and tumultuous ups and downs.
Indeed…life in rural Devon took an interesting turn on day one when our fairly modest sized delivery truck failed to negotiate the unbeaten track to our remote new cottage, leaving much of its underbelly lying forlornly on the roadside. This was our first experience of the warm and giving nature of the villagers who were to be our new neighbours; within minutes a local farmer, Richard, had offered us a barn in which to store our worldly possessions until we could move them by hand to the house. A somewhat surreal start to the new chapter of our country lives found us carrying furniture away from a herd of cows during the early hours of the next morning, whilst they gazed on in ominous silence…
Life here has been a continual learning curve; we’d never lit a coal fire before and to the uninitiated it’s an extraordinarily tough job. Being the man of the house (and apparently the one who knows best…) my partner Sean made the first brave attempt to get to grips with heating the homestead. Several failed attempts later, whole charred Yellow Pages worse off and the unfortunate recipient of a raft of roof top pyrotechnics, (as burning pages made their escape up the chimney), Sean admitted defeat. A similar battle of wills then ensued with the much coveted Rayburn oven, a symbol of country living I’d been so looking forward to getting to grips with; with whom I now have a love hate relationship, due to its total lack of cooperation to light or warm up. There were indeed several aspects of life here we were completely unequipped for, and at times I have felt much like an overgrown boy-scout, such are the tasks required in our lovely but dilapidated cottage.
Our new lives frequently remind me of an episode of Twin Peaks; everyone in the village seems to be called Richard (bizarrely even the elderly lady next door), the locals use nonsensical expressions such as “where’s that to?”, and they indulge in somewhat unusual pastimes, (pumpkin racing springs to mind…). However, relocating is undoubtedly the best decision I’ve yet taken in life. I’ve learned a lot about myself since the move; I’m more adaptable than I gave myself credit for, I have a natural gift for wine making and food foraging, and most crushingly of all, I’m a terrible barn-dancer. Since I’ve learned to play to my strengths over the years you’ll find no barn-dancing advice in any of my forthcoming blogs; just seasonal tips on the wild food that’s available in our hedgerows, coastline and forests and how to create something truly delicious from it; more about life here in North Devon and our journey from city softies to self sufficient crofters.
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