Friends thought our 580 mile trek for muddy love was “mad”

The long distance rural romance of Shelley and Jim.

A country couple, from opposite ends of England, travelled more than 1,000 miles each month to see each other, all in the name of muddy love, after matching online.

To the bemusement of both sets of friends, mud lovers Shelley and Jim embarked on the mammoth monthly journeys, taking up to 5 hours a time, for near on four years before finally deciding to move in together this January.

Gardener Shelley and builder Jim met whilst online dating with Muddy Matches in 2018. Each looking for love in the countryside, and a match that enhanced their lifestyle in wellies, they connected over a shared love of field sports and country life.

Only problem was Shelley resided in Essex and Jim was 300 miles away in Durham. However, such a distance did not put off the pair wanting to pursue their online spark, offline in person, mind you.

What followed was long distance rural romance that was given plenty of time, commitment and dedication to help fully bloom.

“We were travelling 290 miles each way from my home in Colchester to his home in Barnard Castle,” Shelley tells us. “It was every other weekend roughly. People thought we were mad and that it would never work out.”

“But we’ve have been together for five years now and we got engaged in November. We are living in Barnard Castle after we decided to move in together earlier this year.

“We also introduced lots of single friends to Muddy Matches and they have found their match too. We would love to encourage others to take the step.”

Long distance love, like that of Shelley and Jims, is not uncommon on Muddy Matches where nets are spread much further afield than on other dating apps and websites when it comes to finding matches who just get the muddy way of life.

Will you find your needle in a haystack?
For more than 16 years now, Muddy Matches has been well trusted as the UK and Ireland’s original, online home of rural dating and farmer dating.
Attracting over 3/4 million singles from all walks of country life, it is considered THE ‘go-to’ dating website on which to discover love in the countryside with singles from all walks of country life.