When Ria Pandey bought her first ever home she should have been champing at the bit to get in and start enjoying it.
In reality she was so overwhelmed by the prospect of moving 130 miles west of London to a tiny speck of a village in the country that it took her two months to pluck up the courage to pack her bags, say goodbye to her rented one-bedroom flat in Surbiton, and move into her three-bedroom stone cottage in Hardington Mandeville, Somerset.
“I really had cold feet,” says Pandey, now 42. “I was on my own, it was bleak winter, it was in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t want to go at all.”
Pandey finally made her move in March 2021, after living in London for some 15 years.
During Covid she found herself working from home – from a makeshift desk built into her wardrobe – and she began to realise that she was no longer tied to living in the capital.
After a discussion with her manager Pandey, a cyber security engineer, decided to start house hunting in the West Country.
“In my heart I am a country person but before the pandemic it was not feasible,” she says.
Initially Pandey intended to rent a place in Devon but the vision in her head of a perfect chocolate box cottage with roses around the door was not matched by the rental properties on offer. So she decided to see if she would do better by buying.
After viewing 20 homes she settled on her 200-year-old cottage. “It ticked all the boxes,” she says. “It was beautiful, and surrounded by fields, valleys, and rolling hills.”
In London Pandey’s rent was £1,250pcm, and when she investigated buying the flat the price was estimated at £425,000. Her cottage cost her £300,000.
Despite her pre-move jitters Pandey has settled easily into country life. She met her partner, Ben, who lives about 40 minutes’ drive away, online, and they have been together for four years.
She got chatting to friendly locals in the village pubs, and met more people by attending community coffee mornings.
“It is definitely daunting but I am very positive and friendly, the kind of person who will go and talk to anyone.”
The friends she made supported Pandey when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2023, and saw her through her treatment and recovery, and she has also found the time to take up a new hobby – art.
This introduced her to the local creative community, and she now takes part in group exhibitions around Somerset.
“I am a big believer that everything happens for a reason,” says Pandey. “I moved here because I was meant to move here, and it was the right thing for me.”
