Make Herefordshire home

The first thing to understand about Herefordshire is that it moves at its own pace. This is not a criticism — it's one of the things I love most about it. But if you're arriving from a city, give yourself time to adjust. The quiet can feel strange at first.

The second thing is that community here is built slowly and genuinely. Join things — the local market, a walking group, a village event. People are warm and welcoming, but they don't rush intimacy. That's a good thing.

The third thing — and this is practical — is that a car is essential. Public transport exists but is limited, and when we moved back to Ross-on-Wye from Miami in 2023, I couldn't work due to my visa situation at the time. In a strange way, that turned out to be a gift. I had all the time in the world, and I walked everywhere — every lane, every footpath, every market morning. I fell in love with the place on foot before I ever drove it. When the time came to learn to drive manually (my husband insisted, and he was right), I booked lessons with Phil Jones. Phil is something of a local legend — he taught my husband, his brothers, and my sister-in-law Georgie, and who knows, perhaps one day my nieces and nephews too. Lessons were booked months in advance, which tells you everything. There are plenty of driving instructors in the area, but Phil is special in the way that only someone deeply woven into a community can be. That sense of continuity — of people and families and stories overlapping across generations — is one of the things I love most about living here.

Finally: the food and drink scene here is extraordinary and largely undiscovered. Herefordshire beef, cider, perry, local cheese, farm shops, and some genuinely world-class restaurants. Eating well here is easy and affordable in a way that still surprises me.