City Living: Be prepared if you're serious about quitting the city, says Edel Morgan.

Are you vexed in the city? Do you find yourself experiencing feelings of murderous road rage over the merest transgressions by other motorists? Do you constantly feel harassed and put upon by your employer and work colleagues?

While stuck in traffic or in a boring business meeting do you find yourself lapsing into daydreams of retiring to a country cottage and making your own cheese? Or entertaining thoughts of giving it all up for the kind of back-to-nature lifestyle you once dismissed as the preserve of the "knit-your-own-yoghurt"brigade?

The urge to bolt the stressful rat race hits most city dwellers at some time or another but, as the heat is turned up on the pressure-cooker environment that is city life, a growing number are acting on impulse and moving to the country.

Before uprooting yourself and your family, it is important to make sure you're prepared for the realities of rural life. Martina Walsh moved from Dublin with her partner to a remote part of the west of Ireland four years ago. They wanted to escape the drudgery of paying off a big mortgage and had harboured ambitions of escaping to the west for some time.

She gave up a high powered career in the IT industry where her hours had become "longer and longer" with a view to working freelance from her new house in the country.

They sold their Dublin home and bought a house in need of complete renovation which left them with an enviably small mortgage.

The rural idyll was soon found wanting.

"I had intended to cut down on my working hours but had set myself a target of so many hours per week and found it quite difficult to find the work. I had to cut down the fee I was earning in Dublin by half. We had more disposable income than previously because we had of a small mortgage but we realized that you need to be content with a come-down in your career because the variety of work just isn't there."

Another area of their life where they found variety lacking was the social scene in their new neighbourhood.

"There wasn't much beyond the pub scene. We had to drive to the pub which meant we had to cut down on the amount we were drinking and a night out meant getting in the car to drive into town. We found the choice of restaurants and cafés limited."

The thriving arts scene in the locale was one of the highlights of their time there. "I worked on IT with a theatre there. There were a lot of artists around the area running small projects and courses that you wouldn't find in Dublin."

While the locals were "quite friendly" she found them "quite traditional, rural, old Catholic. If you didn't have children and weren't doing the school runs, and were a bit artistic they didn't really know how to talk to you. We associated more with artists and non-nationals who were living in the area."

They have decided to move back to Dublin to be close to Martina's elderly mother and to progress their careers.

House prices in Dublin have shot up since they left but with "a fair bit of capital" on the sale of their house, they are in a strong position to make their return.

She advises others considering making the break to the country to "be careful of the work situation. If you want a complete change then great, but if want to continue your career, make sure you research what opportunities are available. You will have more free time on your hands, which is a bonus if thinking of doing something creative, like writing a novel."

The things she will miss most about rural life are "the space, the low mortgage and the quiet but I probably wouldn't live so remotely again; in hindsight it wasn't a good thing for us".

Keeping in touch with friends and family in the city while living away is important, she believes, "because if you decide to return it can take time to rebuild relationships".

She says she is looking forward to her return to the rat race but will be "more watchful" this time around. "I will take life a bit easier and I don't know if I want to travel the same distances to work that I used to." She is lucky that she can afford to return to her chosen area in Dublin but others are not so fortunate.

Pat King gave up his Rathmines apartment and his "nine-to-nine job" for life in the west of Ireland. He bought a modest bungalow and spent his spare time painting and "living out the artist's dream". His hope that friends and family would visit most weekends didn't quite work out and he began to feel like "a monk in an enclosed order".

"My nearest neighbours were elderly and kept to themselves so there was no one really to talk to during the day. There is only so much painting you can do in a day and I began to feel very lonely. I went to my local pub most nights just to have a chat with the barman and began to feel a bit of a saddo."

When he decided to call it quits after less than a year he found that Dublin house prices had spiralled and he was unable to afford to buy in Rathmines again. "I had spent a lot of the money I made on my apartment on day-to-day living expenses and doing up the bungalow. When I put the bungalow on the market there wasn't exactly a stampede of people looking to buy and I ended up selling it for a very small profit. The only place I could afford to buy when I came back was Clonee where my commute to work is longer than I would like.

"I know a few people who had great experiences when they moved to the country but I went into it with a completely unrealistic view of country life. My advice to anyone would be know what you are getting into before you try it."