Everything is so bloody boring here right now, what with the inescapable party-political power-struggles - both internal and external amongst all parties - and the worst of it is that nobody can see it getting any better in what is left of my lifetime.
At least France has settled down in the best seat of the rollercoaster with Macron and his rather lovely older wife. Another reason to be jealous of Cro.
The Liberal Democrats have pledged a second referendum on the Brexit vote on the grounds that we should keep trying until we get it right, but there is no chance of that, even if we could afford yet another election.
A few years ago, before agricultural land was bought up by speculators, I had a plan of buying a 4 or 5 acre stretch of dormant farmland with a patch of woods at the top, bordering on a swathe of meadow leading down to a river, for about £5000. I even knew exactly where it was.
I would set up a little wooden hut on the fringe of the wood, and if anyone complained I would put a wheel on all four corners. If they continued to complain I would buy about four sheep and let them loose in the meadow to do as they please for as long as they lived.
I would have a small wood-burning stove in the hut, and if anyone complained about the smoke I would tell them to fuck off.
When things would become as intolerable in town as they are now, I would move to the hut and renounce electricity and all the evils that ride on its current. If I outlived H.I. then I would permanently move into the hut, knowing nothing but sunlight in the day and moonlight and candles by night.
I would probably stop washing and shaving due to the shortage of hot water, so it wouldn't be too long before I would turn into an old man who is both revered, feared and avoided by children, who would dare each other to pay me the odd visit after dark on Halloween.
After a while, even the occasional visit by outreach social services officers would cease and I would be left to my own thoughts forever.
A few years ago, I went to the stretch of wood leading down to the river and there was a sign up saying, FOR SALE. WWW.WOODLAND.COM.
I left it too late.
I share that dream. A series of small huts or sheds, hidden away in some of the most idyllic places on earth, would suit me fine.
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't even have to change your appearance to suit.
DeleteImpossible for me. I MUST have hot & cold water, drains (Mains or sceptic tank) and electricity AC. It's not too much to ask is it?
ReplyDeleteDoes the Pope shit in the woods?
DeleteYour shed retirement dreams take my own country dreaming a bit deeper into the woods. Even though I am currently mostly enjoying being retired in the big city, I have not given up on seeing myself far away from concrete, subway train noise and dirt, street lights that keep me from seeing the stars above and so forth.
ReplyDeleteHoping that your own play B is having a good incubation.
Plan B? I am banking on Plan X. This is why I like Jack@'s comments so much. There are so many plans - XXXXX
DeleteBecome a monk in a closed order. That should do the trick.
ReplyDeleteI could become a lay person attached to somewhere like Waverley Abbey, but there are two problems. I have no interest in slogging my guts out in yet more masonry, and Waverley Abbey was dissolved hundreds of years ago.
DeleteThe best laid plans and all
ReplyDeletethat Tom.
Also the road not taken.
The road not taken by me was the one which leads to riches and success enabling me to spend my last years in a moated Tudor manor house, Weave.
DeleteThen you might have called your plot "Walden", writing a book about "Living the Simple Life".
ReplyDeleteI had a very similar dream as a child: I wanted to live in a hut in the wood, far from the maddening crowd, and become a "wise woman", healing people with herbs.
Sorry to say: wise did not come off totally, and looking back (without anger), I suspect they would have burned me.
I read all of those books, but did not like the communal aspect attached to the idyll. I watched Nosferatu again the other night, and I want to meet your friend Bruno Ganz even more. Bring him to Bath?
DeleteI am quite proud to tell you that I met Bruno Ganz in person, when he was awarded the Iffland-Ring in the Bremer Rathaus, in 1996 (we were invited, ha) - but I have also seen him when I still lived in Bremen as a very young girl - he played the villain Mohr in Friedrich Schiller's "Die Räuber", under Zadek. Great - and a fascinating man, ever!! If I can I will allure him to Bath :-)
DeleteSupposedly an old friend's mother was so enamored of Ganz that she looked him up in the phone book (rumor had it he too was living at that time in Zürich) & gave him a ring. By all accounts it was a nice chat.
DeleteI don't want to live in a hut !! XXXX
ReplyDeleteYou might have to, the way things are going. A hut? Luxury!
DeleteThey wouldnt let you back in a Bath pub if you lived in a hut!
ReplyDeleteA regular at our pub lives in a shed on an allotment and looks like he does too.
DeleteNow we finally know why you were buying all those candlesticks. Also, a post on candle sticks is long overdue!
ReplyDeleteI might do a post on candlesticks just for you, Iris.
DeleteThe tiny house movement is huge in the US. I could't last for more than a day.
ReplyDeleteIs it? No lawns to sprinkle all day?
DeleteWho isn't jealous of Cro? I know I am. I live now in a house not unlike your dreamed of hut. We only have wood heat, our animals make the neighbors scratch their heads and the only reason we bathe is because we still have to go to town for about 10% of our food. But one day...
ReplyDeleteI was going to ask if you have electricity, then I understood that would be a stupid question.
Delete