In an ideal world, what does your life look like?

[WildFlowerBees]

I enjoy a daydream so in my ideal world I live in a cottage, cool airy and bright. No immediate neighbours, surrounded by a meadow with wild flowers and large trees.

I have runner ducks and chickens and my own walled secret garden. On a warm spring day I can take my cup of tea and sit in my garden listening to nature. No neighbour noises, no road sounds just the wish wish of the trees, the animals and the birds.

Hell to some absolute bliss for me. Anyone else?

Best thread ever.

I don't work but used to, and now I am internationally respected in important circles as a writer of...something or other. But not famous so I can go out in public without getting mobbed (sounding like Adrian Mole already).

I have a team of gardeners and an enormous garden with lots of secret sections. There is a fountain. I have a private, live-in chef. My house needs precisely no work doing to it as there is a full time maintenance man who attends to all that.

I am slim, and my hair is washed and blow dried daily by a hair stylist. I am also dressed by a stylist so always wearing the right colours and styles and moving with current trends.

I spend my days painting, writing poetry and going to museums and galleries, and eating in amazing restaurants.

Oh and I have a full-time spider catcher, who finds, humanely traps and releases spiders from my house. Plus prevents them coming in.

I live alone in a stone cottage near the sea with my two stray cats. A virus has killed 99% of men.

I have two versions.

In one I have a farmhouse cottage with a big walled garden, an orchard, ducks, geese, a donkey, pigs, a huge kitchen, a cellar, open fires including one in my bedroom, fields all around. I grew up somewhere very similar. I won't ever have that again, and I wish I could.

In the other, I have a house on Princelet Street in Spitalfields, all done like it used to be as much as possible (there was one for sale not long ago) and I write novels and go about dressed in (faux) furs and velvet and pearls, and have a 1940s Rolls-Royce (or thereabouts) and have a Dalmatian and a Persian cat.

I have a healthy body and can enjoy long walks in the countryside or by the sea.

I have a lovely view and the house is decorated and tidy and doesn't need £10 k of upgrades doing.

I have a loving partner who I don't live with but he lives nearby and properly loves me and is supportive and vice versa.

My ex disappears in the ether like Thanos has snapped his fingers.

I don't have to work, other than to make art which I exhibit in my own gallery.

I am healthy enough to travel and have enough money to have city breaks to all the amazing cities in Europe where I waft about in cafés and galleries.

I live near to my mother and can pop in and see her without driving for hours.

My son is happy and has good friends and enjoys school.

I might keep some hens or have a dog. I have time and energy to cook nice meals.

My life is not like this. Sigh.

I have my own perfect little house with a beautiful garden that slopes down to one of the creeks in south Cornwall. I work two days a week and have enough money to see me through, but not so much that it ruins me and my work ethic. I have a lovely man friend who is emotionally mature and healthy and solvent and who values his time with me and who understands me, but has his own house. We have amazing sex! We go travelling together sometimes, but also independently of one another. We have a little sailing boat on the creek. I have lots of lovely women friends who laugh like drains together when we frequently meet up. I play the fiddle in a folk group and I am brilliant at it! My sister and her family live nearby and we are able to see each other frequently, and I am a second mum to my nieces and nephews. I am surrounded by peace, quiet and wildlife and I never have to put up with the sound of revving engines and other antisocial behaviour. We have a modest sized but perfectly specced camper van that we frequently go and have adventures in.

Id work 3 days a week on double my now salary , I have lots of time to relax , have massages and beauty treatments, I’d have a few dogs and cats and a cleaner a few times a week.
i wouldn’t change anything else 😊

Oh and I have my own cook and masseur

Me and my family live in rural Scotland, we have a herd of donkeys and various other animals. I spend my days making art that sells well and is inspired by the nature around me. I’m not in pain and I can do all the activities I want to.

I’m so happy with life right now -
a wonderful dh who has the all clear from cancer,a dd3 who is happy,confident and excited about life in a way I’ve never seen her before after treatment for a condition that she’s had for years has finally worked.
2 other dd’s are in happy,settled relationships and we are debt free and living life together with love after a terrifying year last year for dh and I with his diagnosis.
I Know how lucky I am and honestly only wish for dd3 to find a partner that would make her happy as I have everyone and everyone could wish for .

Love this!
I am retired, maybe occasionally helping out at my current job. I have a beautiful house overlooking a lake/ the sea, and i can see cows from my kitchen window. My dc are happy and settled and live not too far away. They visit often with the grandchildren who are all wonderful, and I alternate between helping them out with babysitting and travelling.
I go to Costa Rica to volunteer in a sloth sanctuary and all the sloths love me.
I am slim and healthy and fit. Oh, and I'm also a published author!

I just wish I was thin.

Have both!

I live in the countryside in a cottage with enough space around me that I can’t hear the neighbours. I have two cats and a garden where I grow beautiful roses. I take pictures of my garden, put them on social media and this creates enough income so I don’t have to work. My adult dc pop round daily for a coffee/chat and we have lovely long meals together a few times a month DH is home too and he writes books in his study so isn’t under my feet too much. I don’t waste hours doom scrolling, I have lots of lovely friends who want to spend time with me and I’m a size 8-10.

This.

And my kids lived closer.

Other than that I wouldn’t change a thing tbh.

I live in a beautiful Georgian house in Highgate, with a sprawling wild garden that somehow also accommodates a Japanese hotspring, which I love to soak in at night in the winter, whilst snow falls silently from the non-light-polluted-sky.
I also work a little, but spend most of my time enjoying the city, meeting interesting people, and pottering abount in my pottery studio.

I think I’d keep DH and the kids, and maybe even the house, but I’d like critical acclaim as an author and two Newfoundlands please. And some sort of arrangement with a private chef.

I think I am generally pretty good where I am now, although more money and time would help. That said, I would love to live in a stately home - but not for the size or exclusivity/prestige - but if it could be somehow passed through all generations before me that would be a lovely thing - such emotional security and with every step someone you’re related to has stepped there too.

All my children and my DH are healthy. Sometimes I allow myself a little fantasy and imagine it's true. No more blood tests, medication, hospital appointments, worrying etc

I count my lucky stars though because I know it could be a lot worse.

More realistically I have a little fantasy where I win the lottery, we can afford private healthcare for ever and I can buy each of our children a nice house 😊

Also, I'd like the energy I had when I was 30 please and frizz free wavy hair and a much larger, possibly walled garden 😁

Love this and how different some are!
Quite like it does now except I wouldn’t have to work, I’d have enough land to be able to keep a menagerie of animals onsite and a housekeeper so I didn’t have to bother with boring indoor jobs and could spend all my time outside. DH could stay (he’d probably be on a cricket pitch or a golf course anyway!)
DC would have more confidence and less anxiety around expanding their horizons, parents would be much fitter and more able than they are

I live mortgage-free in a Georgian townhouse with huge shuttered windows. I am a novelist who gets to spend a few hours a day writing at a desk with a view over the garden. I work in term time only and can spend the holidays with my kids. We spend every summer in Cornwall and go skiing in the winter. I have a daily housekeeper who sorts out the laundry and cleaning. I work out three times a week with a personal trainer and am always well-groomed.

My real life is basically the opposite of this.

I live in a large Georgian house, depending on my mood it either on the beach in Cornwall or it’s one of the massive houses that surround Greenwich Park or it’s in the middle of the country side.
It’s beautifully decorated, modern with underfloor heating and all of the mod cons you could dream of but it’s also quirky with a beautiful stained glass window that lights up the oak staircase. I don’t work because I’m stupidly rich, I have a cockerpoo, a brown one called Twiglet and a big fat moody cat called Bishop.
Im a size 8 but it comes naturally, no dieting needed.
My adult children are successful, with happy marriages and I have a ton of grandchildren.
We have big family holidays every year and everyone comes to me for Christmas.
I spend my days landscaping my beautiful garden, I have a duck pond and a circular bench that that surrounds a blossom tree, I read a lot. My husband adores me and again depending on my mood he either looks like Bruce Willis in Armageddon or a long haired surfer type.. They both look like they could build a house with their bare hands.

I've got a dog and we are best pals. My dcs are all happy and independent. They live nearby and I look after the grandkids a few days a week. I've retired early but use my spare time volunteering. My dh and I go on a few trips each year to all the places we always said we would. My menopause has been and gone and I'm one of the women whose symptoms have gone and I've "rediscovered" the old me.

Ahh, my favourite daydream.

I live alone in a tasteful modern apartment in a city, a short walk to cafes and shops. I haven't quite worked out which city. Maybe Bath or London? But I need to overlook a river or the sea. Must have a view.

I have a beautiful balcony full of plants. I don't need a car.

My chef, Alfredo, makes sure there is always healthy dishes in the fridge, but I don't often see him.

I work 2 days a week as an ESL tutor for recently arrived refugee women. The rest of the time I work on my forensic linguistics PHD.

I have a walk-in wardrobe, and a discreet lady who organises it.

My cat is called Jane Austen.

I’d be in a remote little cottage overlooking the sea or surrounded by windswept moors, little veg patch, I’d decorate how I’d want to, I’d go out to work but only because I’d need the interaction with people. Dc would be grown up and moved out, they’d see me once a week with the grandkids

ideally I’d love all my family alive again but that’s not possible and instead I’d have a thriving social life with friends and clubs and in my spare free time which would be a lot! I’d go travelling in my campervan.