I moved to Somerset to raise my family - here's why I never want to leave

I grew up not a million miles away from Somerset’s green and pleasant land, just up the M5 in Gloucestershire in fact, but the county I now call home can sometimes feel a million miles from the way of life I left behind. While big towns and cities have a lot to offer, for me, nothing beats what this rural region provides in spades.

Beauty abounds in this corner of the southwest - even in the larger towns, you are rarely more than a 10 minute drive away from the countryside. And I mean the proper countryside, complete with narrow, winding lanes, greenery as far as the eye can see and a tractor around every corner.

Of course this type of road network means you are unable to whizz around, dashing from A to B, as you might in other places where roads are that much wider, in fact you can quite frequently find yourself coming to a complete stop, waiting for other vehicles to pass before continuing on your way. But, as long as you factor this more leisurely pace into your journey times, it’s actually quite lovely to have slower speeds forced upon you, giving you the opportunity to dial down life’s frantic pace and appreciate the breathtaking scenery that surrounds you.

Don’t get me wrong, Gloucestershire and beyond have plenty of pretty places too, I don’t deny there are chocolate box villages dotted across the country, but if you want to live in one of them you had better have a considerable bank account because those areas come complete with whopping price tags. Travel further south though, and here in Somerset characterful properties abound, most with considerably smaller asking prices. My Victorian cottage is my dream home, one I simply could not have afforded if located in one of the surrounding counties.

While many of us in these parts don’t have the convenience of Deliveroo and Uber Eats, what we do have is an abundance of farm shops selling produce grown and reared right on our doorstep. Shopping in these places has given me a new-found appreciation for the meals I put on my family’s plates - when you see the aforementioned tractors going to and fro at all hours, you also get a better sense of the work that has gone into getting that food from field to fork.

As the summer months approach, I’ll watch the hoards making their way through Somerset on their journeys to Devon and Cornwall, and while Somerset does boast a healthy tourist trade, it never feels quite like the huge influx of people you get stampeding to the coastal regions to our south every year.

And that’s what I possibly love most about this place - it feels like somewhere the masses have yet to discover, a secret, sleepy place to watch the seasons change and raise a family.

In a nutshell, when modern life steals your joy, Somerset hands it back, reminding you that the simple pleasures in life are actually the very best. And that’s why I’m here to stay.