A perennial and quite enjoyable conversation between meself and the Memsahib, and is probably also enjoyed by most of you, is often focused around the question, “Where shall we live?” This arises mostly as a response to our thorough enjoyment of the setting in which we currently find ourselves and the pensive idea arises that perhaps we should up sticks and move thither either at the end of the current contract or at glorious works’ end for our retirement (whatever the hell that is).
Being in a beautiful place, for me at least, is always a pretty good stimulus for a kind of self-questioning in this regard. It allows for a mental checklist of wants and needs, a wholesome review of the current happiness index and a checking of all life's proposals and directions and gateways. Some of the doors, of course, will forever remain firmly shut; a solo climbing of Everest, training to be a spaceman, concentrating on developing premiership footballer skills or acquiring the kudos of a brilliant and disciplined entrepreneur (all of which I thought possible or even probable as a child). Ah, what could have been achieved had I'd only been talent spotted…
Spending time somewhere like southern Thailand inevitably nudges the self a little. The people are fun and generally welcoming, a charming mix of wide-eyed innocence and wideboys, delicate respect and brutal, sun-boiled realism. The weather is generally benign, unless the heavy rains are a-fallin' and you’re caught out in them. The environment appears verdantly luxurious (at the resorts) or the very semblance of bucolic bliss (where munching buffalo mindlessly stand in empty rice fields). There are few sensations more enjoyable than the brush of cool morning winds gently blowing the delicate fronds of coconut trees, that is floating the puffy white clouds nonchalantly over the emerald green bay, that carries a perfume of soft frangipani in the air and brings in the sound of the farting longtail boats slowly crossing the warm waves.
Of course, the reality is that by 9 a.m. the mosquitoes have bitten your feet to pieces, the Russian neighbour’s beeping alarm clock has beeped non-stop for the last two hours (and every morning for two hours -and once he's got up to switch the damn thing it off he'll vomit up the cancerous catarrh from smoking high tar Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes all the previous evening), the satellite reception is crap and bloody difficult to hear at the best of times because of the bloody noisy farting longtail boats slowly crossing the bloody bay...
It must, however, be in most people’s minds to retire somewhere warm and friendly without it being too hot or too familiar. The massive retirement populations of Southern California and Florida testify to the need for the former, the somewhat more scant Gringo peopling of Mexico to the latter: none of us would wish to be in the kind of paradise where we wake to the sound of unhappy people shooting their neighbours (no matter how long their beeping alarm sounds). By the way, the population of Orange County FL alone is more than those number of Americans living in the whole of Mexico and nearly twice as many than those that live in Canada!
This wintry Christmas, the Memsahib and meself enjoyed a few days in the Christmas card City of Wells, the snowy paths and roofs of the medievalness of it all made us want to live there, to reconnect that link with the past, that integrity and honesty that blessed the candle-lit carol service in the magnificent Cathedral, those un-ergonomic low black beams in ye olde pub, harder than nails and 800 years old, the outdoor market selling brussel sprouts by the stalk. But once the snow had melted and the festive season had passed it seemed a little less welcoming and a little more… dreary!
The deep, long rolling barrels that break on Balinese beaches are beautiful, no matter which way you cut it. Sitting in the rose-tinted shade of a Moroccan riad has a deep stillness and spiritual calm hard to find anywhere else. Turning a corner in a happily overcrowded jeepney in the Mindoro region of the Philippines allows for one spectacular view after another where deep green jungle slopes meet empty blue bays. Northern Spain has some of the best craggy mountainous landscapes Europe has to offer –and all pretty much secluded from the rest of the screaming sun-worshipping hordes. The southern Languedoc region of France is a seductive, largely unspoilt region where many an Englishman (and Dutchman) has made his castle. Mai le forêts de France, le vins, fromage and fin jambons, le châteaux et le joi de vivre of it all is then tempered by the bloody French themselves...
And that, perhaps, is the rub: these places are full of 'natives' who spoil it for the rest of us. France would be a fantastic place –without the French! It could be said that the Spanish drunkard who on arriving back home at 3 in the morning to relieve himself outside the door of your apartamento might have just unnecessarily spoilt the rest of your stay. Excitable Philippine feast days mean blocked roads and work-shy delivery men or construction workers. Let’s face it, many an English town could be pepped up with a certain je ne c’est quoi if the miserable natives would only pull their collective fingers out. Do you think we could swap countries with the French?
The truth of it is that many of those we see around us in sunnier climes would gladly swap places: the hotter places in the world are often the poorest. And our unhappy days are spent dreaming about getting off the plane in some sleepy fragrant harbour. Children sleeping on Manila pavements certainly couldn’t make me feel ‘at home’, but then neither does seeing adults doing likewise in rain-soaked Oxford Street shop doorways.
So, I propose a new idea: a job and lifestyle exchange. This would require a few months living the lifestyle of locals that do the same sort of work as yourselves and they doing yours. A bit one-sided, I know, but can you imagine trying out the hell of their sun-kissed shores and hearing their enjoyment of the monotony of commuting, of broken central heating and cars that won’t start. We could swap sales figures for sea fishing, modernity for simplicity, overly-menacing armed forces for overly-observant CCTV, Bruce Forsyth for Dingdong Dantes. Even the poor in our countries could swap –the Manila orphans would certainly fare better on the streets of Coventry.
I jest, of course, and at the end of the day most of us make our homes where our feet lead us. And perhaps the future not lies in migration, retirement, or settling down, but in acceptance of our lot, the inevitable compromise of the things we have with the aspirations we cannot and never will reach.
Or we could just go on holidays.
I understand your plight dear Richard, but millions are condemned to a stiller doom than yours and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. In future you ought to, like me, stay at home and make puddings, knit stockings, play the piano and embroider bags. JE
Posted by: Lesley | Monday, 07 February 2011 at 04:02 PM
Oh wise Richard, you speak with such truth. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than yours, and millions are in a silent revolt against their lot. I myself feel constant frustration while making puddings, embroidering bags or playing the piano. Dear reader,
is it folly to allow imagination to create life, fire, feeling that you desire yet do not have in your actual existence?
JE
Posted by: Lesley | Thursday, 03 February 2011 at 02:23 AM