Rebecca Roncoroni writes: We’ve recently moved into the countryside just on the edges of Carisbrooke. Having been bought up on a farm in Merstone and spending many happy days in Carisbrooke with my grandparents, I have always wanted to return to the country. For a country girl, towns/estates have always felt claustrophobic, cluttered and far too noisy.

It has always made me smile when townies eulogise about how safe, how beautiful, how peaceful, how green the countryside is. Then the same people move to their bucolic daydream of a house in the country and the reality kicks in. They complain about cockerels crowing, tractors going to slowly/jamming up country lanes, the mud, the isolation, the lack of shops, poor public transport, the inconvenience. Rural living is indeed very different, but for me the pro’s far outweigh the cons.

I’d forgotten how noisy the countryside is, especially when your garden backs into a large pond with ducks and swans as well as the rookery in trees aside the pond. At dawn and dusk the birdsong is natures death metal, loud! There is one particular mouthy mallard who we’ve nick-named Donald (after Trump not Duck) who quacks/shouts out at all hours of the day/night.

The sights aren’t bad either. The rooks and ducks flock first and last thing, playing around on the thermal currents together having a great chat. When the ducks come back in to land, there seems to be a competition around who can crash land the loudest with the longest skid. Other water birds being dive bombed shout their displeasure, the naughty mallards ignore them and sound like they’re laughing their head off.

We have a hen pheasant who comes into the garden a lot. She has two male admirers. One is very grand with the full plumage and knows it. The other has somehow lost his tail feathers, so looks a little tatty around the edges and a has a mournful air. I love the fact that he still hangs around, just in case. Every day we sit with our coffee, surrounded by green, breathing fresh oxygen given by the trees, watching the live show nature provides for us every single moment of the day, and it soothes the soul like nothing else.

There are many many insects. Masses of spiders webs appear every day in the garden, many little things that bite, beetles, ants, woodlice and ladybirds are everywhere. We had to help a dragon fly out of the sitting room and then we have a little wren who flies into the house, says hello and then flies out again.

We are so lucky on the Isle of Wight, it is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world, and all of this beauty, the beaches, the countryside and nature is free and available to all. We live in a very special place.

It’s good to be a country girl again.