{"id":90086,"date":"2025-05-10T12:54:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T12:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/90086\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T12:54:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T12:54:21","slug":"why-i-regret-moving-to-cornwall-my-relationship-was-ruined-i-was-told-go-back-to-london-for-trying-to-buy-oat-milk-and-it-takes-half-a-day-to-get-anywhere-because-of-tourists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/90086\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I regret moving to Cornwall: My relationship was ruined, I was told ‘go back to London’ for trying to buy oat milk and it takes half a day to get anywhere because of tourists"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a glass of champagne in hand and the turquoise River Fal gleaming in front of me, I felt smug. It was October 2017, and my fianc\u00e9 and I were celebrating the acceptance of our \u00a3450,000 offer on a cottage just outside the seaside village of St Mawes.<\/p>\n

We were finally escaping the exhausting daily commute of the south east, replacing it with peaceful beaches, quaint villages and an altogether slower pace of life in Cornwall.<\/p>\n

I was convinced that the county\u2019s untouched Roseland Peninsula was the ultimate upgrade. We\u2019d be a stone\u2019s throw from our favourite spots including Portscatho\u2019s tiny harbour, the Lost Gardens of Heligan and endless quiet coves.<\/p>\n

But sadly the reality didn\u2019t live up to the much-hyped daydream.<\/p>\n

For a start, it wasn\u2019t until Christmas<\/a> 2019 that we finally managed to make the move full-time, with a baby in tow. One of us was always needed back in London<\/a> or Cambridge<\/a> for work.<\/p>\n

When we eventually spent more than a few weeks together in our coastal bolthole, our 14-year relationship imploded from the stress of living in a half-renovated property in a remote village, with a newborn.<\/p>\n

I found myself a single mother in the middle of nowhere, cut off from the hectic pace of the capital and desperately missing its anonymity and my friendship network.<\/p>\n

Ironically, I was physically closer to my mum, grandmother and extended family than in decades. They were just an hour or so up the road on their farm, but even that felt a world away when I was caring for a little one and juggling work with property renovation.<\/p>\n

\"Rebecca <\/p>\n

Rebecca Tidy moved with her fianc\u00e9 and young daughter to a\u00a0cottage just outside the seaside village of St Mawes in 2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Rebecca <\/p>\n

Rebecca Tidy (pictured with her daughter) is a single mother after the pressure of the move ended her engagement to her daughter’s father\u00a0<\/p>\n

Life in Cornwall didn\u2019t magically get better when summer hit. Tourists descend in droves each year, gridlocking narrow, single-lane roads that inexplicably haven\u2019t been upgraded since the days of horses and carts. Bins constantly overflow and seagulls circle, dive-bombing for discarded pasties or fish and chips. And parking becomes a competitive sport.<\/p>\n

The only half-decent hotel gym in miles shuts its doors to locals so it can cater to visitors. I try to avoid even a trip to the supermarket, as traffic slows to a crawl and it ends up taking almost half a day.<\/p>\n

Locals call this \u201covertourism.\u201d I call it what it is and that\u2019s a woeful underinvestment in infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The Cornish are famously proud of their cultural heritage. And rightly so. But I was shocked by how real the hostility to \u201cincomers\u201d and resistance to change can be.<\/p>\n

Soon after our arrival, I asked, perfectly politely, if the village shop stocked oat milk. An elderly man looked me up and down and commented: \u201cWe don\u2019t sell that muck in here. F*** off back to London.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think he was joking, but it definitely carried a sharp edge.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The mother-of-one enjoying a rare quiet moment on the beach during the summer. The area is usually overrun with tourists and it can take half a day to drive to the supermarket\u00a0<\/p>\n

Months later, I was shocked to hear the popular local electrician tipsily bragging in the village pub about charging some \u201cemmets\u201d \u2013 a Cornish word for \u201coutsiders\u201d \u2013 four times the usual rate.<\/p>\n

Even the weekly girls\u2019 ballet classes at the village hall is a battleground. It costs \u00a310 a session, but parents aren\u2019t allowed to wait indoors during the lesson \u2014 not even in the empty room next door \u2014 unless we pay extra to hire the space.<\/p>\n

When I queried this rule, I got a cold response. Days later, I was quietly removed from the village Facebook group. I later learned that there had been a thread filled with complaints about the fact I\u2019d spoken out.<\/p>\n

It is funny, I suppose, but at the same time the message is crystal clear. Toe the line or you\u2019re out.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m constantly puzzled by how often locals lament the so-called \u201chousing crisis,\u201d while fiercely opposing the construction of any affordable homes that might actually help solve it.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are fewer sirens in sleepy Cornwall. You don\u2019t worry about getting mugged by a teenager on an e-scooter. But crime doesn\u2019t disappear, instead it takes a different form.<\/p>\n

\"From <\/p>\n

From the beginning of her pregnancy, Rebecca knew that she wanted a safe, stable life for her baby, and felt ‘smug’ about her move to Cornwall initially\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Rebecca's <\/p>\n

Rebecca’s been making an effort to immerse herself in a whole new world and make friends with other newcomers locally\u00a0<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t recall any drug raids or stabbings in this neck of the woods, yet my neighbour\u2019s dog defecates in my front garden every single day without fail. It\u2019s not a crime that will get anyone locked up, but it\u2019s the kind of thing that slowly chips away at your sanity in a place where everyone swears they\u2019re just doing their best.<\/p>\n

Some people thrive in this tight-knit environment. They love that nothing goes unnoticed and that gossip travels faster than the local broadband signal. Personally, I\u2019ve struggled to adapt to the village-wide interest in my every move.<\/p>\n

When the police turned up at my door, as I called a retired officer a raging misogynist, it felt like front page news for weeks. People still comment on it over a year later. These days, I second guess almost everything I say.<\/p>\n

I desperately miss the privacy and excitement of the city, being able to get on with life without mistakenly stepping on local toes. And I miss grabbing oat milk at the nearest shop without triggering a minor culture war, and not having to tiptoe through what feels like a political minefield every time I challenge how something\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

But even if I wanted to disappear back to London, I can\u2019t. My ex-fianc\u00e9 has already remarried and had another child. Our daughter, who adores her dad, wouldn\u2019t want to live far away from him, and I wouldn\u2019t want that for her either.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ve decided I\u2019m staying put. I\u2019m going to learn to love this place.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the school run and my child\u2019s extracurricular classes have opened up new friendships. I\u2019d become uncharacteristically shy after the oat milk moment and ballet hall debacle, but slowly my confidence has returned.<\/p>\n

I tentatively turned back to Facebook, not for the cliquey village group, but to connect with newcomers and locals looking to build new friendships.<\/p>\n

Things have gone surprisingly well and I\u2019ve met some brilliant friends, some with their own faintly traumatising tales of adapting to rural life.<\/p>\n

Gradually, I\u2019m beginning to appreciate the seaside peace I once craved. I spend time outside gardening or sitting with a cup of tea, enjoying the stillness. It\u2019s far from the seaside life I imagined, but it\u2019s becoming one I can live with. Maybe even love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a glass of champagne in hand and the turquoise River Fal gleaming in front of me, I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,276,92,393,4884,257,12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-90086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-cambridge","10":"tag-dailymail","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114483643668991071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90086","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=90086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}