Liz says: I moved to Leamington to live with John about 18 months after we met. Having survived a long distance relationship in the late 90s, ie with only landlines and snail mail to sustain us between sleepovers every other weekend, I finally managed to get a job within commutable distance from John's compact stables conversion. It was on the outskirts of Leamington, at the posh end of the town and close to major roads for my commute to work, and felt nice and a bit rural.
I've always tried to get involved in the community in one way or another, like volunteering roles driving a community minibus, giving people lifts to medical appointments, becoming a local councillor, joining the local MS Society group. It's always been rewarding and I've enjoyed doing it. But mostly work has dominated our time, leaving precious little to spend on truly enjoyable pass times, purely in pursuit of our own personal pleasure. And that's what we are craving - being able to give a whole day, or even a week over to a trip or a project, with no interruptions. Hopefully this is something that will come with retirement. But also, once we have moved away, we will have divested ourselves of all our current obligations with an excuse better (and less guilty) than 'we are just choosing to be selfish for a few years'.
John says: I've been living in Warwickshire since I was 18, working for the same company the whole time. I moved here in the late 1980s to work in the automotive industry and I've stayed ever since. I'm not proud - I'm an economic migrant. Put simply, I wouldn't have earned what I earn here in South Yorkshire and it's also quite a nice place to live all round! Work and family life has dominated my time, but I still find time for running (I've just wangled a ticket for 2023 London Marathon .... again), cycling (I prefer off road to on road), walking (a bit limited as its not very hilly), volunteering in a nearby woodland or at an outdoor swimming lake in the summer in exchange for a free open water swim session.
Leamington was a small town of about 50,000 people at the turn of the millennium. It felt friendly and familiar. You could walk across the town centre in 10-15 minutes and knew where everything was. It was an up-market town with a good reputation, and (weirdly) everyone seems to heard of it! And if they haven't you can just pick any of the surrounding towns: Stratford Upon Avon (Shakespeareland), Warwick (Castle and quaintland), Coventry (hmm, well we go there to workland) and even Birmingham are all within a 10-30 minute drive of our house. These days Leamington has grown and is full of students and there's quite a bit of county-lines drug runners and, perhaps not unrelated, a homeless problem - we feel it has gone down hill a bit.
The downside of living in the Midlands is that we are as far as you can get from the coast, which is something that everyone loves. And, due to the close proximity of several big cities, the 'transport connections are excellent', which really means that we sit in the centre of an enormous motorway network - we can even hear the M40 from about 5 miles away if the wind is blowing in the right direction.
We are also almost commutable from London, which means that the amount of building work that is going on is insane! When we had the kids we moved south of the town centre, again on the outskirts of the town. But over the last 20 years thousands of homes have been built almost 360 degrees around us. The knock on effect is that Leamington is now swamped with traffic, schools are overflowing and we feel surrounded. Thank goodness for Leamington & County Golf Club which has buffered our house from having more houses overlooking our front garden than the eight that already overlook the back!
The longer we live in Leamington the more we become frustrated at the plummeting standards of humanity. The litter, the graffiti, the discourteous drivers, cyclists without lights on in the dark, the noise, the grime - it's wearing us down. And it's time to get away, to somewhere cleaner, friendlier, quieter. And that means less people.
But there are things we will miss. Leamington is big enough to hold some great events like Art in the Park, Food Festival, Peace Festival, and the town has hosted a couple of notable road cycle races such as for the Commonwealth Games. We even volunteered a couple of years back to be zombies for an immersive game in the local shopping centre, which was awesome fun for two nights, with make up artists, actors and loads of people looking for a great night full of adrenalin scares. We both love outdoor swimming and for the last two years have attended regular sessions organised by Do3, a local triathlete company at the amazing lake at Compton Verney. And the town is a rich mix of diverse cultures with a large Sikh community, an annual LGBT festival, and we feel it's a very inclusive town.
Liz has also been a long time attendee of Tai Chi, although slacking of late due to other commitments and generally lacking in energy and motivation. And, of course, without practice things get forgotten. So, not only will I miss the lessons and the have to be disciplined in practicing often, I will also miss the people from the class, many of whom have been attending for almost as long - about 15 years!
When we moved in together over 20 years ago, we decided to go to our local parish church, St James in Old Milverton, for their Christmas service. It is a gorgeous little place, about as close to a village church feel as you can get, with an amazing group of people who were so welcoming that we've been regularly going ever since. We have become increasingly involved through the years as the church is very unusual in that it is run purely by the people who attend. John plays the organ and Liz writes and reads prayers and maintains the website. She has also recently signed up to lead Matins services as a lay person a few times per year - it's nerve wracking but an honour, and he congregation feel like friends and are very forgiving!
We've been blessed at Erica Drive with some really great neighbours, many of whom have also been here for over 10 years. We've had good times with the 10-12 houses at the end of our road all getting together once a year (usually involving cocktails,) and always a feeling that people are there to lend a hand if you need. We'll miss our neighbours, but many are reaching the same point in life that we are - kids grown up and leaving, thinking of moving to the next chapter of their lives.
Friends around Leamington have mainly been from work for both of us. Most of them, we hope and believe, will keep in touch, and we're sure many of them will come to visit us - many of our friends value the same things as we do in life - a sense of space and escapism.
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