Is a daily cross-country drive easier?
No, says long-distance commuter Deborah Madden I’m an academic researcher who works at Oxford University and I occasionally commute to Bedford, too. Nothing unusual there, you might think — but I actually live in Hastings and drive to work. I’ve been hitting the roads for about a year now, and wonder whether my husband and I made the right decision to move away from Oxford to step on to the property ladder. We were renting in Oxford and wanted to buy a house but, like London, the prices are so high we looked for other, more affordable, towns. Hastings popped up as one of the few places a house was within our reach. Of course, that exacts a geographic price: this admittedly ridiculous commute is the trade-off. We did also consider moving up north, only to discover that — in the towns we’d have liked to live — it’s actually just as expensive as Oxford. As for the commute, it’s as you would imagine. On a good day, it can take two-and-a-half hours to get to Oxford or Bedford, but if it’s b
