Your story is lovely, Celia.  You paint a very vivid picture of a charming English village. But the way it turns our, well, I'm afraid we all have the same experience.  The old saying is, "You can't go home again."  It no longer exists, as you observed in your ending.  Everything changes and not always for the better, but somtimes it is.  We've discussed this same lament many times on threads here.  Thanks for sharing the story.