To look is human

 To REALLY foul things up you need a computer and the internet*.

That's about as much as I'm going to mess about with that old maxim, though there's many a true word spoken in jest as we also say.

The speculative house hunt is continuing. In a way, I'm getting my foreign travelfix without leaving the country, though it's deeply unsatisfying but never the less better than nothing. There are many reasons for buying a house in continental Europe... and many for not doing so, not least of which is that we don't need to make life more complicated than it already is.

Just came across an advert for someone selling a portion of a farmouse in a hamlet. It's been redecorated & generally sorted out inside, lots of space, a terrace, gardens, 20min drive to the nearest ski resort, and 40,000 square meters of idle arable land and woodland. I've set myself a conscious limit not to become interested in anything that looks like a farm because I'm absolutely not going to start farming and it would be fundamentally wrong to leave the land idle. Yet here's a possibility where nothing would change if we bought the place. 

No.

Nope.

NO.

On we go. ;-)

Tonight I did also find a place in a tiny alpine town near the Swiss border that's clearly an ancient building, seemingly not tumbling down and yet affordable. Requires refurbishment according to the advert, which can mean anything from just redecorating to basically pushing the whole lot over and starting again. You can even walk right past the place in google street view (I've used that a few times too - really helpful at sorting between the good, bad and the ugly).

*Or a woman who thinks you shouldn't look at her, regardless of what she displays.

It's been a while

I mistakenly deleted the last post from the blog, intending to remove a post with someone's email address and ham-fistedly hit the wrong button. It's a little how life feels in general, with wanting to be clear about things and instead finding that is tending to delete other stuff.

So surely, after such a long period between posts, there must be LOADS of stuff to write?

Well here's the odd thing: with lockdown going on, really very minimal participation in church life and a busy work life there has been a lot of ticking over, but nothing exciting. The grand kids get bigger (and share their colds if I get close, lock-downs now permitting) but apart from seeing them occasionally life is almost linear.

This is an odd stage to be at. Looking at my mother and various older friends who have retired, I can see we've entered that phase where life gets gradually narrower as you wait to die. We still have 5 to 7 years to go before retirement, probably 25 odd years to go before death, but things are lining up that way already. This isn't being maudlin (though I could manage that too) but an outcome of taking stock and reviewing capacities and needs/wishes. We simply aren't the people we once were, and while a part of me wants to be, there's no drive and no need to be those people again.

At the moment I think there's an unspoken debate going on (i.e. we haven't talked to each other yet) about do we do things that might be fun while we still can, things that might be a little risky to finances or health, or do we just gradually contract and stay safe. It's a curious place to be, and not at all 'living the dream'.

Stroll on Wednesday's second vaccination.