Nichole Smith’s London breaking point came when her youngest daughter was still a baby.
She and her family were tightly packed into a two up two down house in the suburbs, and she had worked out that childcare for her two girls was going to cost around £4,000pcm.
Although she loved living in west London something had to give.
The solution was a move into the uncharted territory of Lancashire.
The new family’s home is twice the size of their old place, and they spend their downtime hiking through the beautiful Ribble Valley landscape.
“I had always craved to raise our children more in nature,” says Nichole.
“Instead of doing our daily dog walk in a lovely but still very urban park we leave home and we are directly in the woods.
“There is a lot more natural beauty, the weather is always interesting, instead of pavement we are in mud, and it just feels like the air is fresher.”
It is all a very long way from Los Angeles, where Nichole was living when she met her husband Phil.
He was attending a friend’s wedding, she was the photographer, and after a couple of years doing long distance she moved to the UK in 2012.
In 2013 the couple bought their end of terrace house in Twickenham, and Nicole pivoted her career into marketing, eventually setting up her own creative agency.
Nichole, 42, loved leafy Twickenham but after Chloe, now five, and Emily, now three, were born, their London life became unsustainable.
During the pandemic Phil, 44, had set up a new business, running gravel cycling tours, and most of his routes were in the north of England.
When Nicole said that they needed to get out of London ASAP he suggested Lancashire.
They decided to recce the area during a holiday in the Lake District, and fell for an under-construction four-bedroom detached home in Whalley, a village just outside Clitheroe.
At the end of 2021 the family (plus their French bulldog Pippa) headed up north.
Financially the move has made brilliant sense. They sold their old house for £620,000 and their Lancashire home cost £380,000. Childcare is half the price of London.
“We really loved Twickenham, we thought it was the perfect spot, and there are people we miss, including the grandparents, although we have a guest room and they can come to stay,” says Nichole.
“But here people are so friendly that we have made more friends in three years than we did in Twickenham in ten.”
