\n I went from living in a massive city where everything is on your doorstep, to a rural yet beautiful part of the world.\n<\/p>\n
\n And it is safe to say that the move has made me aware of some large differences between life in London and my new home of west Wales.\n<\/p>\n
\n Here are five things I have found surprising since my life-changing move.\n<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0It rains more<\/p>\n
\n After living in London for the majority of my life, I never imagined there would be a place with more rain.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Pembrokeshire is officially the wettest place I have ever lived.\n<\/p>\n
\n Due to both being in the UK, I expected a similar level of downpour. In West Wales, though, it\u2019s relentless.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, apart from Storm Bert last month, I do remember a few clear-skied days this autumn.\n<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0Driving is less stressful when compared to London<\/p>\n
\n It sounds obvious, but driving around country roads is more pleasant than constantly getting stuck in traffic.\n<\/p>\n
\n You do have your fair share of 20mph zones, although this is balanced out by areas where you can drive a tad faster to reach your destination.\n<\/p>\n
\n The natural scenery when driving also adds a feeling of relaxation, compared to being on the look-out for buses, Ubers, black taxis and general congestion.\n<\/p>\n
3)\u00a0Recycling is taken very seriously<\/p>\n
\n In London, it\u2019s not uncommon to have a black bag for general rubbish and one extra bin to recycle plastics.\n<\/p>\n
\n But having separate bins for cardboard, plastic, paper and food waste is not commonplace.\n<\/p>\n
\n In contrast, this seems to be the norm in the couple of shared houses I have stayed in Pembrokeshire.\n<\/p>\n
\n As long as the right bags are used, recyclable items are collected every week without fail.\n<\/p>\n
4) How unreliable trains are<\/p>\n
\n When I first moved to Pembrokeshire, I decided to take the train for my monthly visits back to London.\n<\/p>\n
\n There has been more than one occasion when I have missed my connecting train due to delays which has resulted in me taking another route and arriving significantly\u00a0later than I should have.\n<\/p>\n
\n Londoners often complain about transport. But most of the time, your train is less than five minutes away.\n<\/p>\n
\n Unlike Pembrokeshire, if you miss one, there\u2019s another on the way and various alternative routes if all else fails.\n<\/p>\n
5)\u00a0The amount of shopping options<\/p>\n
\n There is the perception that rural areas in the UK like Pembrokeshire are scarce when it comes to shopping options.\n<\/p>\n
\n I\u2019m glad to say this is not the case in this county.\n<\/p>\n
\n I have had the luxury of doing my weekly food shopping at\u00a0supermarkets like Tesco, Co-Op, M&S, Aldi and Lidl.\n<\/p>\n
\n Plus, Withybush Retail Park has been a great place to shop for new clothes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I went from living in a massive city where everything is on your doorstep, to a rural yet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-653672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115779026869608792","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}