Fuck it. Who wants to recreate the Isle of the Amazons with me?

There is no appropriate emoji to react to that - it's kind-of funny in the context of almost- boy dogs, but it must have been very difficult for you and I hope it is OK for you to take about it now, so I went for the 'support' emoji.

Ileithyia, you are misgendering your dog😧
Almost-boys are more properly referred to as demi-boys, and have their own pride flag. No, really, they do!
Don't let your dog read this, they'll start demanding their own Pride Month😄

An almost-boy?

Sounds like my second ex-husband, who suddenly announced that he was gay after ten years of marriage to me, following which he had an affair with our male church organist.

Can I bring my dog? He’s an almost-boy, does that count?

Dammit, BiologicalRobot, now I've got it into my head that I have to make a model trebuchet. A working model trebuchet. And it's all your fault😠
😁

Y'know what? I'm sure that at least some of you have much nicer pads than I do, so when you all de-camp, just drop the keys off with me. I quite fancy a spot of house-sitting.

We won't need either, with your armed pedalo - or fleet thereof - patrolling night and day.

Oh, hang on... piranhas for the clean-up.

DBoyCat thanks you (and his manly bollocks are long gone)

Cats make lousy construction workers!🙄
The Bluestocking can warmly recommend capybaras, all maintenance work is carried out to a high standard by 'Capability' Capybara and her team.

Growing fruit and veg doesn't have to mean subsistence farming. It can mean lounging on the terrace with a good book and leaning over to pick fresh grapes or figs as a snack, or a few tomatoes to have with lunch.

I don't think anyone had mentioned sharks, tbh. I thiink I'd probably go with piranhas. Less drama, more efficient clean up.

Exactly.

So some of us will see cats, and some of us will not see cats.

Even though the place will be overrun with cats

Not a problem, CactusSwoonedEnding - if that's what you want, that's exactly what you'll have. Just don't ask how!
That's how fantasy works, innit?😄

Having been to nun-run schools most of my school-life, we used to get visits from nuns trying to recruit us.

It was very tempting: there seemed to be a particular need for nuns in the USA for some reason, and they put on slide shows of all wonderful amenities that would be at our disposal - I vividly remember water-skiing being one of them.

It seemed like a lot of fun, but we had the feeling that it wouldn't all be fun and games. It was a teaching order, so we guessed that we'd probably end up having to teach classes full of the likes of us😧

Love your swan-mounted scythes ideas, Arabella😁

Sign me up for the trebuchet rota.

If I fit sycthes to the swan pedalo paddles I can whiz round the moat and do defense like a waterborne Boudicca.

Hang on. This thread has moved on significantly from where it was when I last had arsing-around-on-mumsnet time. I disagree with shark-infested moats and isolationism. I wasn't anticipating being on an island or reducing ourselves to self-sufficient subsistence-farming. I don't want us to have to build and run our own electricity plant, water treatment works etc so want to be connected to general Civilization, ideally somewhere within easy reach of a major city. I want to be able to go to the cinema and to the big touring Musical Theatre shows and art galleries and museums. Some members of the community may well be keeping on with careers that require interaction with the world, possibly customer visits etc, so commuting links need to be reasonable.

And yes cats are important.

I think boy cats, sans bollocks, should be allowed.

I’ve got a couple of female friends who’d love to join. No discernible hard skills but quite witty and enjoy a good conversation. Wait, one’s an excellent baker.

Love it. We can do an Amanda and Alan on it

(Can I come, please?)

My terms:
No cats
No countryside
No pilates or yoga
Decent coffee shop
Decent chocolate
I am allowed out for shopping and trips to my (male) hairdresser

Oh found it - 1 Euro villages :

Aren’t there loads of abandoned castle-village-citadel type things in Italy that need rehabilitating - some of them you can buy for next to nothing if you’re hound to sort them out?

also YES to roving guard geese mentioned upthread.

i have three DSs nearing adulthood though so not sure how that could work.

having seen the absolute state of some retirement apartments or villages I think we could do similar but much better. There are a couple that were bought by the residents and then run as they liked it I seem to remember - with houses that could be bought but also with a maintenance fee that was reasonable and covered gardeners etc. guest apartments For visting family

I was a professional singer.
I'll organise a choir.