Where would you love to live if you could…

[tramtracks]

If you children have left home and you haven’t any elderly parents to care for anymore where would you like to live and why.

I’m with you, but I’d be nearer south Ken and would want four to five bedrooms, or at least a basement for a housekeeper and cook to live in!!

Your neighbours sound FAB!!

Where I live now. Mallorca, near the sea.

Perhaps a bigger town near me. Would be nice to live somewhere where there's more going on but I wouldn't want to live anywhere too busy. The town near me has beaches on the lake, lots of parks and playgrounds, forests, decent shopping, and there's a ski centre too.

The west coast of Ireland- Clifden maybe. Or Westport. A little renovation cottage project to keep me busy during the winter months. I live in a place with very hot summers and I find it limiting.

I would live on one of the small islands off the UK mainland, though I imagine that you'd really have to like all of your neighbours to do that. I'd like to grow some of my own food and go fishing for my dinner, and I should be OK with having experience of farming. I'd obviously have to bulk-buy things like flour and chocolate from the mainland. I like knitting, so perhaps I should move to Fair Isle and sell extortionately-priced knitwear* to passing American tourists😊

*I appreciate that it is a lot of time and effort, as well as probably being one of their most economically beneficial trades.

China.

Lovely country. Family friendly culture. Welcoming people. (I appreciate this isn't the standard Westerners viewpoint, but that's based on western propaganda.)

Where I do now, but in a house twice the size, with a double garage, a huge garden, a conservatory and room for greenhouses & polytunnels.
Oh, and a music room with a dance floor and ballet barre for those family members who currently clutter up the house with their monumental collections of dance stuff, instruments and associated amplification paraphernalia. I wouldn't mind, but one of them doesn't even live here any more. 😁

@whirlyhead ha, can I visit you in my fantasy Stockholm/Palma split life. I love Mallorca,I’ve been many places but nice bits of Mallorca are my happy place , with a city I love too for essentials

I want to live by the sea. Maybe a villa on the Algarve or southern Spain would be nice for the weather but I think I’d miss all my friends in the UK so I’ll go for somewhere by the sea in the UK with certain requirements….

A thriving village pub or two. Friendly community that doesn’t object to incomers. Walkable to a coastal path and beach that isn’t too busy with holidaymakers, but has a cute little hut selling great coffee and cake. Easy driving distance to a town with facilities, and doesn’t get clogged up with tourists in the summer so that you can’t leave the house. If anyone knows of such a perfect place, please let me know so I can start house hunting.

Current mood: a small island, uninhabited by human but with a few friendly animals.

General mood: somewhere on the Scottish coast / by a large loch. Large village / small town with all the things you need and good transport links. Beautiful but crucially not a tourist area.

Sorry message on wrong thread!

Edinburgh

Newark fits your bill OP. It has an Odeon, but a half hour hop on the train to Lincoln takes you to the Everyman. Loads of independent shops and cafes, two railway stations (East Coast Mainline station and a regional one that could get you to Nottingham or Lincoln, or Derby, Leicester, Stoke, Crewe, Cleethorpes etc).
Waitrose and M&S food.
East Midlands airport is 45 minutes away by car (or you can go by train).
Pretty riverside walks, a lovely park and nearby countryside.
Plenty of history and culture. Pretty cheap to live here too. It’s a town that is often overlooked.

Paris. I feel very at home there.

Oooh - that was my choice when I left uni - but I just couldnt get a job in Leeds and never managed to get back there. Betty’s !

The Netherlands

That sounds wonderful 😍

I want to move back to Southsea. I lived it when I lived there. Now in Coventry as it’s central(ish) to both sets of parents and Down south is just too far.

Apart from the friendly neighbours, which are obviously a bit of a lottery, I sort of think the op is a given! I wouldn't live somewhere that didn't have these things (prefer a m&s food to a Waitrose, but most places surely have both?)

Heaven !

UK- maybe saltburn up on the northeast coast - on a trainline, amazing dramatic coast/ countryside, handy coastal bus route, big sainsburys, multiple book shops

Internationally- maybe Barcelona, or one of the small cities/ towns along the coast. Tarragona, or somewhere smaller.

My perfect place would be halfway up a mountain in Switzerland in a villa with an indoor pool with an amazing view of the mountains. I'm not giving the exact location as I don't want to publicise it! I love the peace and quiet, the changing seasons and the clean air, clean streets and the fact that everything just seems to work like clockwork!

London, but only in a very smart bit.... perhaps one of those lovely red brick mansion flats within staggering distance of the Albert Hall and the V&A. Blissful!

Cornwall, with enough money to not need to work other than selling the eggs from my chickens via an honesty box

I would absolutely love to move from my rural Yorkshire life into central London for retirement but I would need plenty of money to help able to enjoy an afternoon at the theatre regularly with plenty of lunch dates etc.