Recently we have been wrestling with one of those ‘nice problems to have,’ which is the verbal equivalent of getting out a tiny violin and sawing away while someone tries to tell you what a chore it was to have to go out for dinner five nights last week.
Heavens to Betsy, missus. You are one of the most City people I've ever met. You need vast selections of restaurants, galleries, theatres and people around you in order to function properly. You thrive in busy places. West Wales is not for you, not the 'now' you in any case, maybe the younger you, but not now. Also a smallholding? If I remember you ended up not enjoying growing fruits and vegetables at a school allotment several years ago. It's fucking hard, backbreaking work that doesn't honour holidays, winter, illness, bad weather, hot weather and it is unrelenting. Wales and Scotland are too far away from the kids, your parents, your friends. Oh lord, I'm such a Debbie Downer but you at least need to live somewhere NOT DAMP!! Hugs and kisses.
You are not being a Debbie Downer. You speak the truth. I did say, when we started talking about it: ‘I hate gardening though!’ I think it is just another example of me trying to fit into a role I think I could do rather than just getting on with being myself. I seem to need to learn it on the regular x
These all sound like incredibly valuable conclusions to come to after your harrowing ordeal! As I was reading, I wondered if you had been inspired by the epilogue of my book GET YOUR SH*T TOGETHER, in which I experienced something eerily similar—an AirBnb rental which was supposed to have been a month (!) long solution to a housing hiccup whilst I finished a draft of the book. I made it one night in a wretchedly damp bedroom and found creepy-crawlies in the kitchen cupboard the next day, while searching for a coffee machine, which did not exist. My husband would have stayed, but he knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t make it a second night, let alone 30 days. He booked a night at a hotel to give us time to figure out a plan, told me to pack my pajamas and laptop, and I woke up the next day in clean, dry hotel sheets with a Keurig machine in the room. Success! Glad you came out of this with some new/revived self-knowledge and hope the “real” anniversary trip goes swimmingly! (But if it doesn’t, that’s okay too 😂)
I, brought up on books like Thursday's Child and The Railway Children, always hankered after life on a barge. With the kids now adults, my beloved booked a weekend canal trip for my 60th. I knew from the moment I set foot on it (the hum! the vibrations!) I wasn't happy but thought I could manage. That was before I realised the constant shift on the water was like that moment before you pass out. We never made it to the first lock. Spent tea time poking my baked beans around the plate, tears rolling down my face while I tried to 'pull myself together', foetal curl on the bed all night. We turned round in the morning and headed to the Presellis and a much- loved damp, musty, wildly impracticable cottage. Takes all sorts 😂
Yes! It’s just about finding your groove and getting the measure of the romance of it against the reality. To cheer us both up, I knew a family who booked a holiday in a gypsy caravan complete with horse and had a breakdown and left after an hour! X
Good to "meet" you here, Katy! Enjoyed this a lot.
It sounds, on balance, that maybe the rural cottage is not for you :D Reminds me of when I went to stay with my sister decades ago when she was at Aberystwyth University and renting a remote, damp little cottage with other students, and I thought, pretty in principle, but not actually a dream home.
It's clear that remote country life is not for you. Maybe try some more 'low-key' countryside, maybe like Devon or Dorset. It's pretty rather than bleak, it's not too far from London (if you're near a rail station) and you can live in quite a large town and still have fast access to deep countryside.
i so appreciate your honesty. the past does not stay in the past and time is not linear. however, having loving people in our lives, like your Jason, help us navigate the feelings that arise unexpectedly and bring us back to ourselves when we have done/are doing "the work"...and that you have done. and yes to research projects! i like that. life is a big research project i'm starting to think! and, well, you might know what's coming next, please be gentle with your heart. lots going on.
It is a big research project. I definitely need to work on the crazy idea that I might one day have 'done' it all. What ever done and it is in this situation. x
It sounds like a perfectly awful trip, with wonderful insights. The spiders in the bed would have driven me to sleep in the car.
Tom and I have talked about getting land and a house in the country and while I would love the quiet (no beach bar music or backfiring cars!), I wouldn’t be able to have those random interactions with people and dogs walking to the coffee shop or the indie bookstore. We’d lose being close to our friends.
Keep assessing and planning and researching. What you want and need will appear. And good for you both for making the anniversary trip a celebration instead of research.
"The last hour of our journey was across the hills with only a handful of houses lighting the darkness. The road dropped to a ravine on one side, was only wide enough for one car and was festooned with sheep. When we rounded a hairpin bend in the blackness to find a sheep asleep in the middle of the road, I may have screamed." Oh my goodness, had to stop there initially- gives me palpitations just reading it!
Sounds like that Welsh cottage was in need of some good dehumidifiers and a cat or two to munch on the spiders, along with a working fridge!
You think you've done the work to get your Shadows sorted, then they sneak in the back door. 🙄 Full props to Jason for seeing you were distressed and being super supportive.
Here's hoping that anniversary trip is even better than you can imagine. And you will find your own groove, I'm sure.
I may or may not have felt similarly about Rick Springfield back in the day... 😉
Heavens to Betsy, missus. You are one of the most City people I've ever met. You need vast selections of restaurants, galleries, theatres and people around you in order to function properly. You thrive in busy places. West Wales is not for you, not the 'now' you in any case, maybe the younger you, but not now. Also a smallholding? If I remember you ended up not enjoying growing fruits and vegetables at a school allotment several years ago. It's fucking hard, backbreaking work that doesn't honour holidays, winter, illness, bad weather, hot weather and it is unrelenting. Wales and Scotland are too far away from the kids, your parents, your friends. Oh lord, I'm such a Debbie Downer but you at least need to live somewhere NOT DAMP!! Hugs and kisses.
You are not being a Debbie Downer. You speak the truth. I did say, when we started talking about it: ‘I hate gardening though!’ I think it is just another example of me trying to fit into a role I think I could do rather than just getting on with being myself. I seem to need to learn it on the regular x
These all sound like incredibly valuable conclusions to come to after your harrowing ordeal! As I was reading, I wondered if you had been inspired by the epilogue of my book GET YOUR SH*T TOGETHER, in which I experienced something eerily similar—an AirBnb rental which was supposed to have been a month (!) long solution to a housing hiccup whilst I finished a draft of the book. I made it one night in a wretchedly damp bedroom and found creepy-crawlies in the kitchen cupboard the next day, while searching for a coffee machine, which did not exist. My husband would have stayed, but he knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t make it a second night, let alone 30 days. He booked a night at a hotel to give us time to figure out a plan, told me to pack my pajamas and laptop, and I woke up the next day in clean, dry hotel sheets with a Keurig machine in the room. Success! Glad you came out of this with some new/revived self-knowledge and hope the “real” anniversary trip goes swimmingly! (But if it doesn’t, that’s okay too 😂)
Ha! No I hadn’t read that book before this happened but that is spooky. Am just off to a literary shindig so I’ll buy the book while I’m there! X
I, brought up on books like Thursday's Child and The Railway Children, always hankered after life on a barge. With the kids now adults, my beloved booked a weekend canal trip for my 60th. I knew from the moment I set foot on it (the hum! the vibrations!) I wasn't happy but thought I could manage. That was before I realised the constant shift on the water was like that moment before you pass out. We never made it to the first lock. Spent tea time poking my baked beans around the plate, tears rolling down my face while I tried to 'pull myself together', foetal curl on the bed all night. We turned round in the morning and headed to the Presellis and a much- loved damp, musty, wildly impracticable cottage. Takes all sorts 😂
Yes! It’s just about finding your groove and getting the measure of the romance of it against the reality. To cheer us both up, I knew a family who booked a holiday in a gypsy caravan complete with horse and had a breakdown and left after an hour! X
Have you considered Yorkshire? Still a long way away, but loads of little friendly towns, where they have huge cakes at good prices. ❤️
We usually head to Harrogate or York, but maybe the coast? x
Good to "meet" you here, Katy! Enjoyed this a lot.
It sounds, on balance, that maybe the rural cottage is not for you :D Reminds me of when I went to stay with my sister decades ago when she was at Aberystwyth University and renting a remote, damp little cottage with other students, and I thought, pretty in principle, but not actually a dream home.
Indeed not!
Mate xx
I know, right? xxx
'Everyone is going through changes
No one knows what's going on
And everybody changes places
But the world still carries on.
It's here today and gone tomorrow
But the world goes on the same'. (Alan Price)
Hi Katy,
Big, big changes coming up with you and loved ones.
With a year before the boat's MOT, you've got a while to explore your next location searches.
You've started the researches early. Good for you!
For a while I've been uber stressing about finding a new location pick, and have just learned to downsize the stress.
It's the letting go of all the stressful things I keep picking up that's the trick. I am so impressed that you are learning to downsize yours! x
It's clear that remote country life is not for you. Maybe try some more 'low-key' countryside, maybe like Devon or Dorset. It's pretty rather than bleak, it's not too far from London (if you're near a rail station) and you can live in quite a large town and still have fast access to deep countryside.
I think we're going to focus on Kent and Sussex for a bit. Maybe, but Dorset definitely has a lot of appeal. x
i so appreciate your honesty. the past does not stay in the past and time is not linear. however, having loving people in our lives, like your Jason, help us navigate the feelings that arise unexpectedly and bring us back to ourselves when we have done/are doing "the work"...and that you have done. and yes to research projects! i like that. life is a big research project i'm starting to think! and, well, you might know what's coming next, please be gentle with your heart. lots going on.
It is a big research project. I definitely need to work on the crazy idea that I might one day have 'done' it all. What ever done and it is in this situation. x
It sounds like a perfectly awful trip, with wonderful insights. The spiders in the bed would have driven me to sleep in the car.
Tom and I have talked about getting land and a house in the country and while I would love the quiet (no beach bar music or backfiring cars!), I wouldn’t be able to have those random interactions with people and dogs walking to the coffee shop or the indie bookstore. We’d lose being close to our friends.
Keep assessing and planning and researching. What you want and need will appear. And good for you both for making the anniversary trip a celebration instead of research.
It would be lovely to be quiet and to be connected to everything. I think that requires a level of wealth we don't currently possess! x
"The last hour of our journey was across the hills with only a handful of houses lighting the darkness. The road dropped to a ravine on one side, was only wide enough for one car and was festooned with sheep. When we rounded a hairpin bend in the blackness to find a sheep asleep in the middle of the road, I may have screamed." Oh my goodness, had to stop there initially- gives me palpitations just reading it!
I am so glad I wasn’t driving! X
Sounds like that Welsh cottage was in need of some good dehumidifiers and a cat or two to munch on the spiders, along with a working fridge!
You think you've done the work to get your Shadows sorted, then they sneak in the back door. 🙄 Full props to Jason for seeing you were distressed and being super supportive.
Here's hoping that anniversary trip is even better than you can imagine. And you will find your own groove, I'm sure.
I may or may not have felt similarly about Rick Springfield back in the day... 😉
Yes! a raft of dehumidifiers for sure! I understand the Rick Springfield thing entirely x