Continuing the discussion from New to Forest Hill:
Norfolk’s gain is our loss 
You’ve been a star moderator and contributor to this site. Hope you’ll check back every so often and keep us updated on what it’s like to move from London to the countryside.
And if you ever want to start a “dot life” forum for your new area let me know!
Cheers Chris. Yes we will miss it. Whilst FH is not a “village” it has a village feel. It is nice to walk down the street and wave at Peter in the Tea Pot, Dan, Nathan and Ruth (and sometimes Chris and Roger the tash), the lady in the opticians, the great people in Sainsbury’s, Galum in For Your Eyes Only and of course Pauline and her Nerf gun in Sugar Mountain. There are many many more and I will miss them.
Since we got here mid way through 2001 FH has undergone lots of changes. A new Sainsbury’s, the Horniman growing and extending. FH Boys and Sydenham Girls getting new schools, The Library and Louise House, The Pools and many many new and exciting shops, nails bars, estate agents 
The food and drink scene has vastly improved. The Dartmouth Arms, All in One, Sylvan Post, Signal, Tea Pot, Gao, Canvass and Cream, Archie Parker the list goes on and on.
All in all FH has grown and expanded and is a great place to be part of and I will miss it.
Re a dot life for Norfolk. Are they ready for one? 
We’ll miss you John 
Don’t forget to pop in to see me before you go xx
I will, dont worry. We shall also be frequent visitors to FH to return to see friends as we are only around an hour and a half away.
Fab 
Good luck with your new life, @Londondrz. Sorry never to have met you properly.
Cheers @AndyS , I am sure there will be a chance if we organise a SE23.Life drinks do before I leave. Hint @anon5422159
Please let’s do this before you move & @AndyS I think you would get on Great with John @Londondrz 
It’s in hand don’t you worry - but do please let us know which dates you can make, @Londondrz, @AndyS, @Pauline (and all other members)
John @Londondrz please bring your girls in just before you leave too, especially Charlotte. As I want to make them a sweetie gift to take with them.
I will miss Charlottes little chats after School
I must admit to having thought about escaping city life and heading to greener pastures many times but have always stayed where I am - inertia and all that. So congrats for getting off your arse @Londondrz and doing it, I hope it works out for you and if you ever need any advice on keeping chickens, growing your own clothes or knitting your own yogurt - just ask!
@Pauline Thanks Pauline, she would love that. Expect selfies and lots of emoticons ### 
etc
@Foresthillnick I have to admit that I have been the one resisting. Having been a bit of a nomad in my early years (South Africa, Japan form 11-16, back to South Africa and then the UK aged 21) I needed some roots. But, the gilrs growing up means lack of space and finding bigger premises for the right money was not easy. This way we leave, get a four bed house v a two bed flat, are mortgage free and have space to put stuff. I will also have a garage where my tools can go. A very large six foot tool box lives in our kitchen, it is a great talking point but not a great place for it to be.
Once our fish have relocated and settled in (the things breed and die like, well, fish) the girls would be getting a kitten (if you want kids to leave their schools and friends behind bribe them with a kitten!) and once the kitten is settled in then chickens will be next. I have also seen a great area for a veg plot and will be putting in a herb greenhouse and solar panels. The good life it is. Now if I squint very very hard, Mrsldrz does start to look like Felicity Kendal 
Oh man - now you have got me looking on GreenShifters again - and RuralScene
Do you know anyone in Norfolk or is it just a random choice? I have been looking at Wiltshire/Sommerset/Dorset, not that I know anyone down that way.
My other half tell everyone she is from Norfolk, which is partly true, she lived there from age four. She was actually born in Crawley, Oh the Shame!
I have been going up there with her for 19 years, her parents lived near Holt and her father has now moved in with his son and family near Fakenham. We will be living about a mile and a half from them. We will be about twenty minutes from the beach, close to two large towns and about twenty minutes from Norwich and the train to London so ideal for us.
I love Wiltshire, used to live in a shed at a house next to The Wheatsheaf in Lower Woodford and worked for a Field and Forestry company. Issue is it is bloody expensive. Somerset I dont know much about but Dorset is stunning. All I need is an old Landy, curly hair and a love of food foraging and you could call me Hugh. Just don’t really know anyone there and again, due to holiday makers, it is expensive.
As for GreenShifters and RuralScene I must admit I have never heard of them. We used local info and Rightmove 
LOL. Just read this and thought of @Londondrz.
http://londonist.com/how-to-write-a-why-im-leaving-london-article
Meanwhile today marks one year on completing on our house in Forest Hill. And we had someone lovely congratulate us.
There is a whole video. 
She is a darling!
Weird, I thought of your post yesterday about our broadband speed. Signed up to BT and we get 10-14 meg. 8 meg min guarantee! We shall see.
Just read that, Mrsldrz doesn’t like Chardonnay Our reason for moving is space, pure and simple. The fresh air, large garden, two garages, no crowds, nature, sea side, farms, cheaper food are all secondary
It made me laugh though. Most people I know who leave London do so with good reasons. But I do like the one or two who say their new home is really like a mini London.
No its not.
No its not, at all. Maybe the fringes of London, just. Our new home is about as in the middle of nowhere as it is possible to get shy of living in a national park, or Slough.
Seems I times my move well.
True. But with your combine harvester you could just cruise right through the D Rd roadworks.
I failed my combine license, I dropped the straw from the corner of my mouth and crashed into a Costa.
I didn’t know there anything to crash into in Norfolk apart from the sea.
The locals manage it very very often, sometimes on a clear stretch of road. I think it’s the “Massey” factor. “Oh look Mildred, It’s a new Massey Ferguson X10”. Boom, through a hedge backwards.
Have we perhaps wandered off topic here? This is potentially a useful thread of info on disruption to FH (lasting for the rest of the year) and we seem to be discussing East Anglia (covered elsewhere).
Maybe worth a new thread on the potential street event from the traders, though.
Yes, sorry you are quite right.
Street event is a good one, Pauline etc?
[quote=“Dave, post:29, topic:3137”]
This is potentially a useful thread of info on disruption to FH
[/quote]Isn’t that another thread
This one is about @Londondrz naffin off to be a bumpkin in no thumbs land.
Sorry, confusion caused by me splitting off some posts from the other thread, including @dave’s request for the split
Dont forget the webbed feet and fingers and yes, DR has it’s own thread although my bumpkin one is far more interesting of course. I will be taking in B&B booking for the six weeks the Dartmouth Road is closed.
One thing I will not miss is Lewisham’s Parking site. Oh my, it’s dreadful. And try to get a registration changed if you make a mistake.
However, due to a slip up at Lewisham I was given the telephone number direct to the head of parking. I have promised them I will destroy the number when I leave. I may sell it
Well it has been two weeks. Two days worth of removals, over two hundred boxes and only one broken vase later we are in. The girls are on day three of their new schools, Zoe left at 5:15 this morning to go to the London office and got there at 7:30 and I now leave to drop the kids at school.
All still very new, a few boxes still lurking like unwanted guests but they will be gone by Sunday.
@starman A solid 12 meg and ee sent me a nice box to convert WiFi to 3G as my phone just would not do WiFi calling.
Finally a photo of our drive to school, this is a couple of hundred yards from home
Well it looks awful 
Do you miss anything about London/FH or is it all all good?
I miss the fact that I could walk for five minutes and get great coffee. Friends just round the corner and great views from the hill. Local pubs less than two minutes away (local here is two minutes drive but 15 minutes walk) and a train to the center of London in sixteen minutes.
However, throwing open the stable doors in the kitchen in the morning and smelling fresh air more than makes up for it and we have a large list of friends lining up to visit. 
Life is good.
Fab pic of the kids, I miss Charlotte popping in to say hello Tell her I said hello please, but she’s my shop friend on Instagram & her friends are missing her already especially the other kid she helped with a sacond language. Just found out about this today, so please let her know the other kid is keeping it up but misses her input, sure she knows about this.
Thanks Pauline, I will let her know. We must pop back to FH as I am almost out of white mice
Not frollicking on the road to school you dont
All I could think as we gently herded them to safety was “mint sauce”. 
Which is all to say we Forest Hillers have better control on our livestock.
We keep it in the freezer.
I like to get mine fresh from the Butchery.
“Mental image of Dan armed with a large knife going out back followed by bleating”.
