Rural Boredom?
I participate in an online forum of mostly British ex-pats who have either moved to France, have holiday homes here or are interested in moving here.
There has been a discussion going on where several people are talking about returning to the U.K. That's understandable; there can be many reasons one would want to return home. However, one of the reasons cited was boredom.
I suppose that JM and I are, in fact, pretty boring people. We don't (and never have) party, go to concerts or clubs, hang out with the "in" crowd or any of those types of things. Indeed, perhaps it was the fact that we DON'T do those things that made us feel that we didn't have a lot to gain in remaining in L.A.
L.A. IS the place for you if that's your lifestyle (as is Paris, London, NYC and a bunch of other big cities), but if you don't do those things, you are a bit of a lost soul when you live such places. Everything is too big, too noisy, too hectic, too crowded, too, too, too much of everything.
Our life here in the Possum Kingdom while being laid back, is certainly, for us, far more filled with activity than what we left behind. But I accept that it's not the kind of activity that many people would find particularly exciting.
Today, for example, I baked several types of cookies because JM is giving a slide show on TINTIN at the Bibliotheque Municipale. Noëlle Danjou, our librarian par excellence will make coffee and tea and we'll probably still be talking with folks there until the very un-Chalabre hour of 11 pm or later! Okay, that may make some of you feel like going to sleep now, but we're all looking forward to it.
Then, this weekend is Carnaval here in town. Most towns in our region have Carnaval, but they're all on different days. So, if you're really into it, you can go to Carnaval a dozen times or more during the season. I'm not much into dressing up, but I'll certainly go out to watch those who do. Although, being (as I said) boring, we won't be going to the party afterwards!
In fact, all one needs to do is look at the newspaper on Saturday morning. You can't believe how many activities there are in the Department (and neighboring Departments) every single weekend: book festivals, antique fairs, food fairs, dog fairs, agricultural fairs, concerts, plays, sports events; seriously, if you wanted to do it all, you would never get any rest.
So, I can't say that I think living in the country is boring. At least it doesn't have to be if one is willing to look around.
Ciao for now!
Randy
There has been a discussion going on where several people are talking about returning to the U.K. That's understandable; there can be many reasons one would want to return home. However, one of the reasons cited was boredom.
I suppose that JM and I are, in fact, pretty boring people. We don't (and never have) party, go to concerts or clubs, hang out with the "in" crowd or any of those types of things. Indeed, perhaps it was the fact that we DON'T do those things that made us feel that we didn't have a lot to gain in remaining in L.A.
L.A. IS the place for you if that's your lifestyle (as is Paris, London, NYC and a bunch of other big cities), but if you don't do those things, you are a bit of a lost soul when you live such places. Everything is too big, too noisy, too hectic, too crowded, too, too, too much of everything.
Our life here in the Possum Kingdom while being laid back, is certainly, for us, far more filled with activity than what we left behind. But I accept that it's not the kind of activity that many people would find particularly exciting.
Today, for example, I baked several types of cookies because JM is giving a slide show on TINTIN at the Bibliotheque Municipale. Noëlle Danjou, our librarian par excellence will make coffee and tea and we'll probably still be talking with folks there until the very un-Chalabre hour of 11 pm or later! Okay, that may make some of you feel like going to sleep now, but we're all looking forward to it.
Then, this weekend is Carnaval here in town. Most towns in our region have Carnaval, but they're all on different days. So, if you're really into it, you can go to Carnaval a dozen times or more during the season. I'm not much into dressing up, but I'll certainly go out to watch those who do. Although, being (as I said) boring, we won't be going to the party afterwards!
In fact, all one needs to do is look at the newspaper on Saturday morning. You can't believe how many activities there are in the Department (and neighboring Departments) every single weekend: book festivals, antique fairs, food fairs, dog fairs, agricultural fairs, concerts, plays, sports events; seriously, if you wanted to do it all, you would never get any rest.
So, I can't say that I think living in the country is boring. At least it doesn't have to be if one is willing to look around.
Ciao for now!
Randy
