Moving out of London to the Cotswolds was an expensive mistake

As I open the curtains and peak out over the rows of smart Victorian terrace houses with their terracotta tiles, elegant sash windows and sloping grey roofs, I think wistfully back to the decade I spent living in London. If we had stayed, would we be living in a house like this by now, I wonder?

I am staying with an old friend from university in Dulwich, where my husband, Dom and I scraped together enough to buy a flat after stints in Islington, Clapham and Chiswick, before moving out to the scruffy part of the Cotswolds.

Our friends moved to Dulwich about the same time as we moved out. Our eldest child, now 15, was then a baby and as much as I loved our two bedroom flat, in an Edwardian terrace house with floor to ceiling bookshelves, raising a child there felt like something of a compromise. I used to have nightmares about him crawling out of his cot and opening the trap door at the back of the kitchen, which had deathly stairs directly below and a door which led to a postage stamp garden at the back.

We had been there for a couple of years by the time our son was born and were keen to take the next step on the property ladder. We soon realised, however, like millions before us, that for the amount we would pay for an extra bedroom and a marginally bigger property in London, we could get a bigger house with a decent garden outside of the capital. Three to four bedroom terrace houses ranged from £480k to £1 million in Dulwich back then and now go for anything from one to three million.

Having grown up in rural Warwickshire and the edge of the North Cotswolds, where I spent much of my childhood bombing around on dishevelled ponies, I was keen to return to the area. My dad and step-mum lived there, near Moreton in Marsh, and my sister was only a short drive away in Leamington Spa. The fact Banbury was only 55 minutes on the train from London Marylebone was the deal breaker so we started looking for properties around there.

We found our house, where we still live, in 2009 and although there was quite a bit of updating to do (the pink carpets, late 80s extension and gold bathroom indicated the previous tenants were fans of Dynasty while their budget was more Del Boy), the big fireplace and long sloping garden seemed hugely appealing after living in a first floor flat. I always knew I wanted three children (being the third child myself) and the fact the house was spread over three floors gave us the potential to grow into it and do it up bit by bit.

I threw myself into playgroups and coffee mornings while frantically trying to keep my freelance career going and manage the day to day demands of a growing family. But I missed the sparkling wit and comfortable camaraderie of my old London friends. Most of us had followed a similar trajectory and moved to London around the same time after university.

The friendships which had been built on packets of Marlboro Lights, hazy nights at Infernos and Embargo’s in South London and sharing everything from work woes to heartbreaks, were difficult to replace. Most of the kindly mums I met at local playgroups seemed content to talk about their child’s sleep schedule for hours, whereas I wanted to chat about the book I was reading or what had been discussed on Woman’s Hour that morning.

I tried to, and over time learnt to, embrace the slower pace of life (although people who walk and drive deliberately slowly still drive me mad) but I missed the buzz of the pavement cafes in Clapham and Dulwich and meeting friends for after work drinks in swanky bars or dinner at the latest restaurant in Soho. Having to drive everywhere and finding all the pubs closed at 11pm curtailed the cocktails and bottles of Sauvignon.

We also realised quite quickly that we had massively underestimated the cost of living in the country. We were in our early 30s and had only really thought about the mortgage payments but adding in the council tax, cost of commuting, running two cars, bills and so on left us more stretched than ever. Having three babies in five years also curtailed my career prospects and income.

Of course country life has advantages – the long Sunday lunches with my dad and step-mum and lovely Saturday walks along local bridle paths with my sister. And the sheer joy and convenience of being able to park outside my house anytime and nip to Sainsbury’s without getting stuck in traffic.

Yet fast forward to today, being back in Dulwich and seeing the parallel lives of our friends who have children around the same age as ours – from the casual games of cricket at the local park at the weekends, to their fabulous kitchen extension and floor to ceiling French windows, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a pang of regret.

Our children are at three different schools across two different counties. Keeping track of the ever changing term dates, inset days and parent’s evenings sends my head into a spin, let alone trying to navigate the logistics of their social lives with the sprawling school catchment areas. We have become a weekend taxi service. Wouldn’t it be easier if we lived in London where your friends are just a short bike ride away?

There’s also the fact that where we live is hardly multicultural or particularly diverse. Wouldn’t the children benefit more from being in a vibrant city than a small Midsummer Murders-esque village with next to no public transport?

I’ve made sure my children visit London (and Birmingham and Oxford) regularly so they get to experience a bit of urban life and culture. I remember the highlight of one London trip with my eldest, who was then about 11, wasn’t the exhibition at the V&A or the trip to Bill Granger’s café in Notting Hill, but the chat he had with our Uber driver, who was from Ghana, on the way back to the station. It turned out the driver was also an Arsenal fan and knew all my son’s favourite players.

There’s no getting away from the fact that our friends who have stayed in London are quid’s in with their property in comparison to us too. While the average price of a property in our corner of Oxfordshire is around £480k, the average price property in East Dulwich, where our friends live is £823k.

Maybe I have overlooked or forgotten some of the things that used to annoy me about living in the Big Smoke. I remember I seemed to spend half my life waiting for Thameslink trains at one stage or being squashed up against some soap dodger’s armpit on the tube. My husband was mugged one night coming back from picking up a takeaway when we lived in Clapham and I remember being followed home after nights out with friends. Reading some of the headlines about teenagers being stabbed on buses fills me with horror too and makes me grateful we live where we live.

The Cotswolds has, of course, become super trendy since we moved here and we have a number of fantastic pubs and private members clubs (for better or worse) on our doorstep which adds a touch of glamour. The children have grown up with their doting grandad on the doorstep and our daughter is best friends with her cousin, my sister’s daughter. I love the fact that the girls ride in the same yard my sister and I used to keep our ponies (even if it does bankrupt me in the process.)

And whenever I think wistfully about moving back to London and what we could get for our money now, it seems almost laughable. Trying to fit a family of five plus one dog, one puppy and an emotionally dependent cat into a flat or tiny house after years of having plenty of space would be quite a shock to the system. And I wouldn’t relish the scrum to get a place at a good local school either.

Perhaps we will follow the example of one of our 50-something neighbours whose kids have grown up and buy a London pad when the children have flown the nest. But you know what they say about the grass always being greener. And on closer look, in many London gardens, the grass is all too often fake.