{"id":98573,"date":"2023-09-07T10:48:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T10:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebritycovernews.com\/?p=98573"},"modified":"2023-09-07T10:48:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T10:48:12","slug":"we-live-in-the-uks-most-remote-areas-our-houses-are-spider-infested-have-no-power-and-arent-even-on-the-map-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebritycovernews.com\/fashion\/we-live-in-the-uks-most-remote-areas-our-houses-are-spider-infested-have-no-power-and-arent-even-on-the-map-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"We live in the UK's most remote areas – our houses are spider-infested, have no power and aren't even on the map | The Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"
IF you find city living a pinch on the purse strings, it might be time to up sticks to the countryside – but how remote would you roam?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rise of off-grid communities – and hellish cost of city living – has sparked more families to sell up and sow new seeds in the countryside for a better quality of life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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However, life in the sticks comes with some very unusual sacrifices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here, two adventurous mums who left the rat race behind to live in the wilderness reveal all of the weird and wonderful challenges it brings with it…<\/p>\n
Opening the kitchen cupboard, Jessica Ord reached inside to grab a box of cereal, only to hear a symphony of squeaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There \u2013 alongside the badly-chewed packet of cornflakes \u2013 was a mummy mouse and her brood of babies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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While most of us would run from the kitchen, shrieking in terror, Jess, 35, wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back in 2019, she abandoned her hectic London life to live on a 200-year-old isolated farm with her husband Richard, 36, a farmer and their two young children, Monty, five, and two-year-old Primrose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a shock to the system for the former London dweller, who now owns hypnobirthing company, Positively Pregnant – but nothing she hadn\u2019t tackled before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d grown up in a North Yorkshire village and thought I knew everything about rural living, but when Richard took over his family farm, oh boy was I in for a shock,\u201d she said. \u201cNo longer could I grab a burger from the street corner, or pick up my morning coffee fix en route to work. What would I do without my little luxuries?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Jessica\u2019s home near Alnwick, Northumberland is a 10-minute drive from the nearest village and when bad weather sweeps in, she\u2019s totally cut off from the rest of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n Far from the stressed-out film and TV script supervisor she once was working in the capital, Jessica is now a rope-wielding heroine who comes to the rescue of panic-stricken delivery drivers stranded in the wilderness.<\/p>\n \u201cThe property is so remote, the surrounding land isn\u2019t even on a map,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a delivery drivers\u2019 worst nightmare.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce, Richard and I had to take his tractor and respond to a crackly call from a driver in distress minutes from my house after he got stuck in a bog.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s little chance you\u2019ll find their peaceful property among the thick woodland and rolling hills, unless you know where to look. It\u2019s a dreamy destination for the family, who rarely see another soul, but Jessica soon says there\u2019s a hefty price to pay for her peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe farmhouse is so far up in the hills that we have no mains power, a very temperamental water supply and patchy internet at best,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThen there\u2019s the pests. We have so many mice that I\u2019ve had to put all my cupboard food in glass jars so they can\u2019t eat it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to call it the mouse house because they were everywhere.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd don\u2019t get me started on takeaways. Oh how I miss a Chinese or an Indian on a Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re half-an-hour away by car, and they don\u2019t deliver. I think that\u2019s the thing I really miss the most.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead of watching box sets and nipping over to the neighbours (who, as it happens, are miles away) for a cuppa like she\u2019d do in London, Jessica spends her days filling buckets and kettles with water – just in case their water cuts off.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the winter months, or extremely bad weather, the electricity can go off for days at a time,\u201d she explains. \u201cSometimes we can\u2019t get hold of fresh fruit and veg, so I rely heavily on baked beans.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve even had a petrol pump installed in the farm, not wanting to run out if we can\u2019t get out to the village.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But no matter how bad the weather is, the cows, chickens and sheep on the farm still need to be fed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen everyone else was snuggling down under blankets during the beast from the east back in March, I was helping Richard tie tennis rackets to his hands and knees – the surface area of the thick-stringed bats helped him crawl outside without sinking into the 8ft snow,\u201d she recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite all the hairy moments, Jessica wouldn\u2019t change her home for the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve grown to love the slower pace of life, the lack of neighbours, watching the kids roam free,\u201d she said. \u201cI used to be highly-strung and stressed out but now I\u2019m relaxed and a lot healthier, physically and emotionally.\u00a0<\/p>\n "Away from the pressures of city life, Richard and I hardly ever argue – and we have far more time together.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe kids have never known any different, so they're completely happy. And I\u2019ve built myself a community of friends up here, other rural women who I can relate to.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt may be a 20-minute drive for us to meet up, but otherwise, we keep in touch via WhatsApp all day, every day. I'm less lonely here than in the city, where everyone was caught up in their own bubble.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCountry living has been the medicine I didn\u2019t know I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n Jessica\u2019s not the only mum who\u2019s moved out to the sticks. Back in 2017, Chloe Haywood left the safety of her terraced house near Weybridge in Surrey for an ancient house in Cheddar, Somerset.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chloe, 48, lives with her husband Stevie, 52, a production sound mixer, and their three children Christian, 12, Alexander, nine and six-year-old Benji.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll always remember the parting words of the couple who sold us their house: \u2018Don\u2019t forget to shut the gate or you\u2019ll get cows in the garden\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought it was a strange thing to say, until we were posting lost cow alerts in our local Facebook group.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAn apologetic farmer promptly turned up at our door and shooed his cattle home but since then, giant bugs, snakes and horrifying spiders have made the cow seem like a piece of cake.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen grass snakes, huge slow worms that look more like adders and moths the size of bats. Stevie has even been bitten by a tick on several occasions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like the insects are super-sized \u2013 the grasshoppers and dragonflies are enormous. And don\u2019t even talk to me about the spiders.\u201d<\/p>\n Chloe, a designer who makes homeware out of recycled waste products, has always loved the countryside, but it took a while to get used to the fact that her home in Cheddar is quite so remote.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn Surrey, I\u2019d give Stevie a call to grab some food on the way home. Now we\u2019re 15 minutes from the nearest shop, so we have to plan our meals to a tee\u2026or go hungry.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd there\u2019s no point phoning one another – there\u2019s no reception here at all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Chloe\u2019s house used to get its water from a well but by the time they moved in, there was a mains supply – and a very nice surprise waiting for them.<\/p>\n \u201cDue to an old clause about potential contamination in the water, we were exempt from paying for our water for years,\u201d she revealed. \u201cIt\u2019s only been recently that someone thought better of it and started billing us. Still, we saved over \u00a3200 a year while it lasted.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we have the unpleasant job of having to remember when our septic tank needs emptying and call the \u2018sludge gubbler\u2019 to come and collect our waste. It\u2019s not a job I\u2019d like to have – if the pressure gets too high, I dread to think about what would happen – but needs must.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of that said, I love it here. Breathing in the country air is an instant stress-reliever and everyone is so friendly here, it\u2019s like living in The Archers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLuckily the kids love it too. My youngest loves picking flowers and even came home the other day chattering about two racing snails, while my eldest adores the bike rides.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur life in the sticks really is as picture-perfect as it looks.\u201d<\/p>\n Fabulous will pay for your exclusive stories. Just email: fabulousdigital@the-sun.co.uk and pop EXCLUSIVE in the subject line.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/picture>MYSTIC MEG <\/span><\/p>\n
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\u201cThe farm sits at the foothills of an ancient druid settlement – complete with amphitheatre, sacrificial font and stone circles. It\u2019s a really special place – so special that it\u2019s had to be kept off public maps.\u201d<\/p>\n
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