Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
But we didn't want an enormous
mansion
. Our kids, Sarah and Tom, had gone and,
as far as Jack is concerned, spare bedrooms only attract house guests, the very thought of
which brings him out in hives.
The choice should have been easy, or so you might think. The really tricky bit was
finding an appropriate location with a pleasant climate.
“How about Scotland,” I suggested, thinking it ticked all the boxes.
That was met with a sardonic grin.
“
Brilliant!
The Scots are amongst the most patriotic people in the world; they'll do
anything for their country except live there. And why? Because it's always freezing cold
and rains continuously.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, not
all
of them migrate”, I replied, desperately trying to think
beyond Sean Connery and Billy Connolly and ignoring reminders of the daily moans from
my sister, who has lived there for twenty-odd years.
“Okay then, where?”
As we verbally swept down the country from north to south considering each possib-
ility, we systematically dismissed each as either having a 'Scottish' climate, being too built
up, or just way out of our price league. We eventually ended up at the bottom whereupon
Jack's patience was wearing thin.
“Why don't we buy abroad?” he suggested.
“Oh, well, er … it had never occurred to me.”
“Well it should be pretty bloody obvious to you now. We're at Dover and we've run
out of acceptable options.”
“Okay,
okay
that's fine,” I replied testily. “But where?”
Amazingly the decision came to us fairly quickly and without too much negotiation.
We wanted somewhere close enough to keep an eye on ageing parents and to poke the kids
in the ribs every once in a while. As dog owners the location had to be easy to travel to -
obviously Europe!
Big place though. We didn't know much about the eastern countries so ruled those
out, which left Iberia, Germany, Italy and France. Jack speaks French and German; I speak
French and a bit of Portuguese, so the field was narrowing. Jack had spent years working in
Germany and announced that his personality and brand of humour didn't fit very well with
the 'Fourth Reich'. This revelation was a worry. I couldn't help thinking that if compatibil-
ity with Jack's personality was a major criterion, then we'd have to include new planets on
our list of possible locations.
We both decided that Italy and its culture wasn't for us. Jack's fixation that he would
end up constantly eating pizza, pasta or meatballs, bribing officials and pinching ladies'
bottoms for the rest of his life rather confirmed it. Iberia, we felt, was not suitable either. It
has vast arid areas and we didn't even know if the kind of hunting we enjoy actually exists
there.
