Rural problems

On Friday last week the buses stopped running here!
Our pharmacy was under threat of closure last month after cuts to the rural NHS budget were proposed.
The  doctors practice reports they will have a serious shortfall after losing a large chunk of their budgets.
The only thing that links these two events is that they are both as a result of being "rural"
On Friday people in the villages failed to get to work in the absence of a bus to catch. By Monday some emergency services had been supplied by another bus company and last night a double decker went past my house!
We are told that everyone is working very hard to ensure the bus services go on as usual but no one is sure that it will happen.
Talks of car sharing, getting bikes, walking are all options but Truro now seems a long way away. One person thought of walking to the ferry and getting a bus on the other side....until it was pointed out that she would have to be up by six o'clock to reach the ferry in time to get to work!
Walking to the next village would take a couple f hours by road but only about half an hour across the fields....
These discussions are going on everywhere right now but there is a definite sense of being penalised for being rural!
A post office has been closed recently.
The numbers of the population include the residents but not the holiday makers when our small numbers swell by thousands.
We are undoubtedly rural....and mostly this is valued by us all. This may start to change soon!