The Places We Live Now
Well here I am in the leafy 'burbs of lovely Cirencester, I'm on a trip to see the designers who are working on a couple of books that we are just finishing up. Virgin Cross Country took me to Cheltenham Spa where my friend picked me up. He and his wife used to live just over the hill, in the next valley, from us, but moved south a couple of months ago with their young children to be nearer parents and also not to have the hassle of spending most of their entire lives on the school run, or whatever other run is necessitated by having kids.
We were talking last night over supper about how important it is to live in the right place for the time of your life - something that it is so easy to get wrong. For us living slap bang in the middle of nowhere works perfectly, but it wouldn't if we had young kids. It won't work once we become older and less able to deal with the garden, and less happy to have to drive the 80 mile roundtrip to Edinburgh. They and I agreed that we were so lucky to have a very wide choice of where we can live; they were also lucky to have sold their house just before the latest round of madness set in. Now they are renting and looking for somewhere in and around Cirencester; the only difficulty is finding somewhere because, apparently, in the current situation there's not much coming on the market. Tricky times!
5 comments:
Not so sure it's not right for you, Richard, in your old age. Health is a factor of course but your health would surely be better where you are.
James has a point there, don't think age think health.
But I can see your point about driving all that way for things!
Duns. Here you come. Eventually! ?!
this was a very interesting entry, richard. and very prescient. yes, it is important to be in the right time and the right time in your life. i know this, but from the perspective of someone who has never really been in the place I want to be. even my retirement locale has been selected by someone else---a place that is beautiful part of the year and cold as ice the rest of the year. to me, winter is the same as death. I need to be somewhere that stays marginally warm all year. and yet my whole life i've lived in the boondocks of the American West, suffering through negative forty Fahrenheit winters that last six months.
I was talking to someone tonight, whose mum and new partner just built a new house near the beach suited to their needs in their mid 70s. Pretty adventurous I would say.
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