Moving to Micheldever: Stephanie's Story
Over the last few months I have had the privilege of speaking to quite a few people who have moved to Hampshire and others who are considering it. One thing they have said is that they really appreciate hearing personal stories about making the move. So I am delighted to start a series where local people have shared their “Moving to Hampshire” stories and to start of off with Samantha’s Story.
Moving to Micheldever: Samantha’s Story
We moved from Tooting in London to Micheldever in Hampshire.
We decided to move because we were worried about the crime rates and schooling long term in London and having just had a second child were finding we didn’t really get any of the pros of living in London (proximity to restaurants, theatres etc.) and found most of the weekends were spent travelling to visit families and friends.
We chose Hampshire because my husbands family is based in Winchester and my family are in Dorset so it would mean a reasonable commute into London where we both still work with the upside of being much closer to family and old school friends.
We chose Micheldever because we fell in love with the house and the feel of the village. The bonus being that my husband’s family are only a couple of villages over from us. So babysitting would hopefully be readily available.
We moved at the end of May so just as the lock down for Covid was starting to be lifted. It’s made integrating into the local community a bit difficult compared to what we originally expected. But I met a few people at the church’s Cake and Plant sale who were very welcoming and provided some tips for walks and others with kids in the village. Our 2 year old has joined the local preschool so we met a few people there and are hoping to get more involved with that next term. The biggest help has been the local Facebook group - both the village one where I’ve met a few locals in similar situations or gotten advice for local tradesmen / cleaners etc. I’ve recently agreed with one of the other local village mums to meet up for a play date now that it’s allowed. Meeting people has definitely hard, but I’m expecting preschool and the various village clubs will help with that over time.
My husband and I will both be commuting for work but given Covid, the office advice is to work from home for the foreseeable future.
What I found difficult about the move has been the different pace of life - I used to be able to walk out the door and grab a coffee and then buy something we needed within a 10minute walk. I find I have to plan things a bit more now, especially the food shop. We are also doing some renovations to the house and have found that there is less choice than in London so it can take twice as long to do something just due to good people being booked up way in advance.
The benefits so far are the space, the fresh air and the ability to see family at a drop of a hat. To me that’s the biggest benefit.
Micheldever village has its own small primary school, everything we’ve heard about it sounds good and we can hear the kids playing at playtime in our garden and they sound pretty happy.
The roads definitely took some getting used to. I’m as likely to meet a tractor on the road today as I am a car or a horse! Something I’d hardly ever driven near. Most of the roads near us are single track or pretty narrow so I’ve had to get used to nipping into the verge pretty quickly but you get to know the twist and turns pretty quickly. The main road outside our house is very quiet and we regularly will just walk down/scooter down the middle of it.
Our kids are 2.5 and 10 months at the moment. Given their ages we don’t get much free time at present but when we do most of it is spent doing the garden or planning our building works for now. Hopefully in the coming months it will involve more cycling/walking and maybe even some sailing down on the Solent.
I’d definitely recommend making the move to others, especially if you’re looking for a different way of life and you find London just isn’t meeting your needs anymore.
