What's a one-time New Yorker doing in a tiny village on the remote Cumbrian coast?
There are time when I wonder how on earth I ended up here, and other times when I feel like I've finally found my home.
Three years ago my husband accepted a position as school chaplain and vicar to the village church, and we, with our four children, left our life on Manhattan's Upper East Side to live in a 200-year-old vicarage in a village with a population of 1,800 on the edge of the Lake District in Cumbria, one of England's least populated counties. We moved from this:
to this:
We now have five children between the ages of 1 and 16 as well as a Golden Retriever and while we're still considered 'off comers' (i.e., non-natives) and most likely will be for another 30 years, we are learning to live a village life: a life of community and support, of smallness and joy, of being unsettled when someone you don't know stops you on the street to say they heard you had a bad night with the baby, and of being immensely thankful when you develop pneumonia and people you don't know drop meals off at your house. Of living in a place where a seven-year-old can walk home from school by himself, and the school run involves walking through sheep fields. Of being part of a community that is so tight-knit it can feel exclusive, and other times you feel like you're right in the middle of things. There are days when I wonder why I'm here, and yet deep down I know I wouldn't rather be anywhere else.
Welcome to A Village Life!
Three years ago my husband accepted a position as school chaplain and vicar to the village church, and we, with our four children, left our life on Manhattan's Upper East Side to live in a 200-year-old vicarage in a village with a population of 1,800 on the edge of the Lake District in Cumbria, one of England's least populated counties. We moved from this:
to this:
We now have five children between the ages of 1 and 16 as well as a Golden Retriever and while we're still considered 'off comers' (i.e., non-natives) and most likely will be for another 30 years, we are learning to live a village life: a life of community and support, of smallness and joy, of being unsettled when someone you don't know stops you on the street to say they heard you had a bad night with the baby, and of being immensely thankful when you develop pneumonia and people you don't know drop meals off at your house. Of living in a place where a seven-year-old can walk home from school by himself, and the school run involves walking through sheep fields. Of being part of a community that is so tight-knit it can feel exclusive, and other times you feel like you're right in the middle of things. There are days when I wonder why I'm here, and yet deep down I know I wouldn't rather be anywhere else.
Welcome to A Village Life!
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