To want a Country Living lifestyle?

[meditatingwithdolly]

This is lighthearted. I've had a series of unfortunate events in the last year and have moved to a very deprived area with a lot of social problems, which is probably causing me to fantasise a bit more than usual. Subscribed to Country Living magazine on a whim as it was very heavily discounted. One of the highlights of the month is hearing it fall on the doorstep and I have to grab it quickly before it gets stolen. It provides wonderful escapism, the sky is blue all year around, everyone is sooo happy washing rocks in rivers and the animals are never PITAs, unlike my pets. No one ever has money problems, and the cost of living is an afterthought as sustainability and self-equilibrium are the utmost priority.

Women have lovely, fulfilling jobs that "they stumbled upon entirely by accident" eg Jilly, who was always very frustrated by the lack of solar heated plant pots for her oriental orchids that she fell in love with on her travels in SE Asia, and one day whilst walking her collie-cross dog Shep in her 50 acre paddock, she stepped in wild horse dung and had the wonderful idea to give up her full time job and start a sustainable business making her own handmade pots from dung. She did the completely obvious thing of untying her neck scarf, filling it up with as much dung as she could find, and carried it back to her 6th century renaissance 12 bedroom house, where her husband Robert greeted her with a warm smile at the site of her Dick Whittington style knapsack, and immediately started building her a cosy workshop-cum-snug where she hosts the local edible flower supper club 3 nights a week, when she's not up to her elbows in excrement. She had no idea if her £199 pots would take off, and was most shocked when she had 10,000 orders in her first week.

No one needs a business plan or a budget, peace of mind and a sense of zen is much more important than bringing in a wage. Forty two year old Carol was so stressed by her teaching job that she just handed in her notice and planted 40,000 carrots in her small holding. Originally intended to be a business, Carol admits sheepishly that she's so fond of each one (who she has given names to) that she cannot bear to part with them. "My husband Marcus jokes that they are my babies", she laughs, "but in reality it's true. These carrots have regulated my sensory nervous system, which the daily grind of work had just worn away. I simply had to give in to what my body was telling me. Watching each and every one of them grow and develop their own little personalities is nature's way of giving back to me".

First world problems keep these people awake at night, such as 31 year old Jackie, who couldn't find curtains for the nursery that reflected the personality of her unborn son. "I really sensed that he he felt a deep connection with the Ottoman empire, and I was just flabbergasted at the lack of relevant material on the market", she laments. At 39 weeks, she jumped upon a flight to Istanbul, after having a dream that the perfect print was in Topkapi Palace. "Everyone thought I was utterly mad", she laughs, but when she was hypnotized by the Turkish style tulip motif tiles in the palace state room, baby Freddie shot out of her uterus, confirming to her that this was the perfect print for the nursery. Three hours after giving birth she opened her business designing bespoke curtains for equally distressed parents-to-be. "They understood the stress as they were undergoing the same thing. Being able to relate to them really helped me zone into what it was that they really wanted. Sometimes words aren't enough, you have to be able to finely tune stress signals others are giving out in order to see their vision". Jackie (and baby Freddie) now work out of her garden studio, and she has been commissioned by the Royal Family to produce the perfect print for sash window in King Charles' water closet. "Every morning I wake up with a warmth that radiates throughout my body, and I love that Freddie has input in my work, this is all because of him, really".

AIBU to want to a job like this? Where everything is a lovely colour and all the materials are made of earthen clay and rare plant dyes? No money problems, no annoying customers, no bins that haven't been lifted by the council (there's no need for a bin anyway, all rubbish is fully compostable). Do people really have a business where people pay to meditate with sheep, or is Country Living an entertaining work of fiction?

Life’s too short to brush a mushroom.

Real country people take them!

OP you are very witty and I loved your post. I also love CL and all the escapism.Please turn these characters into a novel and come back and tell us about it. It would be utterly brilliant, become an international bestseller and you could then sell your soul and move to a crumbling pile in the Cotswolds and keep horses.

Sorry entirely my mistake! I must be associating in nouveau country circles with absolute amateurs!

Seriously though, I don’t know any genuine country person who’d spend £200 on an artisan mushroom brush, £100 on a hand woven wicker boot basket etc. We’re all spaffing money on central heating oil because the house is like ice station zebra or maintaining the horses in better accommodation than we live in, whilst shopping at Lidl and driving a clapped out Citroen. I swear the buyers of the artisan goods all live in sensible, energy efficient bungalows in the suburbs!

My mum was a Country Living columnist yonks ago.

We did spend an unnecessarily significant part of our childhoods quilting and repainting the beams of our 17th century cottage. In-between feeding the hens, milking the potatoes and weaving our own bricks.

(Christmas edition photoshoots were in July. My mum had to source mincemeat to fill mince pies in the middle of summer. All the quilting meant she couldn't make her own, in spite of being a prolific and proficient jam maker.)

😭😭 omg i hate the idea of country living, firmly a city girl but you've almost sold me on it 😄🥰

Hail fellow spirits ! My mother buys me a subscription every year for Country homes and Interiors , and it’s chock full of houses that mine is going to look like when I grow up . (I’m errrr .. older than 50) And every month I peruse it whilst sitting at my kitchen table , wondering how their artfully curated objets that they sourced whilst travelling with the unborn baby Anemone in the lower Transvaal, somehow doesn’t look like a load of old shite , and furthermore , how long all that Farrow and Ball shade of Old Semen stayed that particular shade of vaguely yellowing white before someone said “Nope , it looks crap” and painted over it with Dulux wipe clean magnolia .

Not at all. I have a nice life with a wonderful home, successful career and no money struggles... and an second instagram account that is entirely dedicated to scrolling pretty, uncomplicated things release dopamine (interior & landscape design, architecture, nature scenes, baby animals, etc). I also go through about 20 digital magazines like Country Living from the public library per month via libby, often just flipping through looking at pictures and daydreaming about living in them.

There's nothing wrong with some escapism as long as we don't forget it's a fiction that we're mentally wandering through.

You are looking at this in the wrong way. The freezing house should inspire you to start making sustainable capes out of the feathers that the chickens are molting. This will obviously (much to your surprise, as you weren't thinking about money) become a very sought after product, and you will require a studio/snug to tinker/potter around in and of course you will make a fortune (not that that matters to you). Everything else is irrelevant. Go out into the garden, inhale the smell of manure and feel your central nervous system recalibrate.

NC for obvious reasons.

Excellent OP 😄

I have moved in Country Living circles and have had a couple of mentions in it as DH and I used to run the village shop where the editor lived. It was like a cross between the Vicar of Dibley and the Archers. With extra mud.

🙈🙉🙊

(Needless to say we're now safely back in the bosom of suburbia!)

The Country Living Fairs are lovely and will give you a great fix of rural nonsense if mushroom brushes are your thing.

Don't be fooled: It's full of Satanists smearing themselves in fox blood while out dogging... Also remember that in the Country nobody can hear you scream...

I think you can tell that I'm a Londoner.

On a serious note, does anyone even brush mushrooms? Surely you just wash them under the tap and use your hand to brush off any soil? The CL people are secret genuises, devising products and making them seem so necessary for daily life, whilst charging you £200 for it. ETA: I'm definitely adding a mushroom brush onto my christmas list.

Excellent writing bravo OP🤣

We recently spent a week in North Norfolk . Two days in and I was scrolling through Rightmove, dreaming of a seaside cottage. Another two days listening to and observing the many dull Jilly's and Jackie's and I was begging to be let back into London.

Ah yes , but you do realise practically no one lives in north Norfolk ? It’s just where all the second homers and people from Fulham come on their hols .

Country Living: London edition

Araminta (known as Minty to family) Foghorn-Chattersby and Reggie Pankhurst-Purv have bitten the bullet and bought a modest 4 bed Edwardian terrace in West London, that they share with their 29 year old rescue cat Marmalade. Minty, who is on her fifth gap year since graduating with a first class degree in Hungarian Folk Dance, explains their initial concerns. "Well obviously Mummy and Daddy and all of our friends were very concerned about how we'd manage space wise, the house is a very snug 1800sq feet. They are incredibly proud of us now though, Reggie spent his 3 gap years foraging in the Amazon with the Hoohoo tribe, who taught him how to weave room dividers with palm fronds and hammocks out of clementine netting. It certainly hasn't been without sleepless nights worrying about sustainable storage solutions though, and how Marmalade would adjust to urban life. He's been a complete trooper, mating with the local fox to produce a new species called the Focat. This has been quite a talking point with the neighbours, who have all requested one, which has meant Reggie having to set up a mating station in the potting shed in the back yard. I've set up a business making hair scrunchies from Victorian flour sacks, which was inspired by my travels in India, where the slum dwellers were incredibly resourceful. Whilst not making a fortune, this has supplemented our income of breeding Focats and a small amount from the 27 rental properties Reggie inherited. It's all fine though, the aroma of the London smog is worth more than money can buy, and when we get bored we can just travel back to the Cotswolds on a sustainable mushroom broom designed by our friend Titty that is charged by the naturally occurring diesel fumes. Freedom and choice is really important to us, full time jobs are for the feeble minded".

Marvelous, OP. 👏

’31 year old Jackie, who couldn't find curtains for the nursery that reflected the personality of her unborn son.’

😂 best sentence I’ve ever read on MN.

Love it. My fave for this type of thing is Alexandra Tolstoy .

I can’t read it because I’ve met these people before and found them insufferable!

I can't compete with @meditatingwithdolly's OP, but she has reminded me of my recent first visit to Daylesford Organic in N. Oxfordshire, after years of wishing.

It truly was a different world. I was particularly impressed by this gift for small children. Note the price. (Fresh flowers NOT provided.) Whatever happened to making your own daisy chains?

Yes! Totally!

OP!! Thank you for making me cry with laughter after a pretty rubbish day

This is exactly the crap wonderful business idea that CL's come up with, and make a fortune out of!

Fabulous, darling!😁

Bravo, OP. I am a lover of all things CL because I live in skint, damp chaos in a too-small cottage. I will never give up the dream!

I spotted an old uni friend in one issue a while back. He's still absolutely fucking gorgeous but living in the woods making sustainable charcoal would probably have been a step too far for me, however aesthetic! His brother and family have also featured and are bang on message.

More please! Escapism of the highest order.