> But it was the sheer silence of the place we moved to that unnerved me
I live in a small town in Canada and I can travel outside the town just a few minutes and be in rural area. Although it's getting increasingly longer to get outside sprawl.
When I am there I often think to myself how quiet it is. At times it feels like my skull is going to collapse from the negative pressure of lack of sound.
And where I live near (~500m) the main hospital it seems to be with the increase in population comes an increase in ambulances. They at times seem to be constant on weekends or warm sunny days. Plus the emergency life flight helicopter. Maybe that's why the silence of rural areas is such a contrast to me.