Living the dream - really????

[bebespain]

Apologies in advance if this comes across as a self-indulgent moan (its been a long weekend at home alone with the 2 ds)

I´ve just been peeling vegetables looking out of the kitchen window at the bleak scene, remains of snow/slush on the ground, grey skies, bare trees etc and I remember what somebody told me a while ago when I was moaning discussing my life here that I was "living the dream"

Can somebody remind me of what "the dream" is?? I am in Spain btw some 40kms out of Madrid

It is a serious question, honestly but I really am struggling to find the answer.

Is anybody else living overseas told that you are "living the dream" or does it just depend on the country you are living in? I mean is the British idea of Spain still that of being by the sea/beach sitting drinking sangria all day, munching fish and chips etc

This is a great thread - I need to find my spiritual home on Mumsnet, perhaps this is it!

We live in St Lucia and yes, in many people's eyes, we should be "living the dream". It is a beautiful island, my dh has a secure and well paid job, my 2 dd's go a to a good (pre)school.

BUT. There is a drought here and we are all worried about the water running out. There is currently a higher per capita murder rate than in Jamaica. It is very hard to get to know people and I miss my friends and family, my support network, from home, like hell. We have to move again as this is a vacation property and they need it back. It is so hot we can't do anything outside between the hours of about 11am and 3pm. My oldest daughter hates the sea. There is one playpark on the whole island and f-all else to do with the girls. It is incredibly expensive to fly anywhere so we are invariably stuck here for long periods of time. The shops are crap and you can never get that vital ingredient that you need for that evening's meal. People are mumpy and grumpy and either drive like maniacs or so sloooowly that we've all aged about ten years by the time I have done the school run. Which is another thing, I have to drive everywhere - I really miss walking to the shops!

Now, what I will say is that wherever you live in the world there will be plusses and minuses and it is course the same here (eg oh how we laughed about all the terrible weather back home!). But just because we live in a holiday paradise does not mean our lives are a constant holiday.

Thank you for starting this thread, it is nice to know that others understand!

SOrry that was a very moany message - there are lots of good things about St Lucia as well. Swimming in the sea (when dd1 allows), cocktails on the balcony while the sun sets, watching the humming birds......

Inmaculada reminded me of something else i genuinely do love here - how much people love children. They generally met with indulgent adoration, I am forever making ds put hard candy he is given in his pocket and whisking it away later even in a bar full of adults at worst kids are ignored but in a nice way like no one is fawning over them but they aren´t annoyed either. I swear even on flights home which tend to be dominated by brits you can already feel the atmosphere change and see people thinking oh god, a kid, as you get on.

claraquack, I was pg with dd in summer of 2006 in london and there were worries that we'd run out of water and we'd have to have street taps. Which is pretty "impressive" for the rainiest place on earth!!

in greece on the other hand, people wash the streets with their hosepipes!! no kidding! I mean I do live on the side of a snowy mountain so water reservoirs is never an issue here, but... WHY on earth do people wash the streets???!? There is a big washing lorry doing that anyway. Still, in the afternoon, in the middle of the summer, everyone is out with their hosepipes. I asked once and I got a funny look, kind of "what is it you don't get?". The response? " Well, it's the summer, innit?". Of course.... I could do with less street washing.

Good point made by Maveta. I remember being on a plane by myself with a then 6 month old DS, it was pretty packed but the British guy next to me couldnt get up quick enough when DS started screaming crying. I know its not pleasant but he didnt even wait a couple of mins for DS to stop, he literally shot out of his feet tut tutting, raised eyebrows!

claraquack - Im right with you on the driving front. I find it the same in this part of Spain, maniacs v crawlers as I like to call them and no where in the world have I seen so many wobblers, "drivers" that just randomly drift into another lane or over to the other side of the road and back again. Don´t know if they are half cut, chatting on mobile phones or just complete loons but they put the fear of God in me What I find even stranger is that there are so many more traffic police about yet it doesnt seem to deter the loony drivers, I just dont get it. Your bit about aging 10 years made me laugh!

Iliveinghday..its to keep the dust from blowing into the house of course! I´ve never done it but our neighbours in the village we lived in used to do it, not with hosepipes but will bowls of water, scooping it out and chucking it around on the road No idea if it works or not..

People here hose down the streets in high summer. They say it cools the whole atmosphere down, stops that awful reverberating kind of heat that can accumulate in built-up areas.

This thread is excellent.

I'd agree that a great deal of what makes or breaks a place is whether you build up a network of friends and support.

I lived for 10 yrs where Frannikin is, and I well remember faults she mentioned and some more, including mouldy washing, evil cockroaches, corruption, insane drivers, poor administration, petty attitude to the public from officious civil servants, cartels rigging food prices, cyclones and rainstorms followed by complete lack of fresh fruit & veg, isolation, insularity...

I am now in Provence, which on the face of it is even more classic 'dream' zone.

I regularly and bitterly regret having moved, as in those 10 yrs, between the ages of 21 and 31, I made some irreplacable, amazing friends, whom I miss daily.

Friends are what make things enjoyable, bearable, fun, etc. Where you are is almost secondary, really.

I have to admit that MN has been invaluable for me in making the transition to Australia - the fact that I can still easily chat to "friends" I have made here, and that if I wake in the middle of the night I can come on here and it is daytime for most of you. I could ring people I suppose but in the middle of the night you can't be chatting on the phone without disturbing DH/DS so it's not easy. House is so open plan, the only room I could talk in is our bedroom and DH is asleep in there. So - MN makes an enormous difference to me. Without it, I would feel much more isolated and probably therefore unhappy.

How many hours from here to you? 15 or 19? I'm usually up when you're online.

I love this thread!

We moved to California a few months ago and everyone in the UK went on about 'living the dream' the sunny weather etc...

I REALLY agree with AuldAlliance: 'Friends are what make things enjoyable, bearable, fun, etc. Where you are is almost secondary, really. '

Whether a place works out for you is more to do with the people you meet than the place itself.

Yes it's sunny here but I really miss the friends and familiar culture of home. Someone to laugh with and friends to offer support and help with the DC.

Also agree with comments about 'living the dream' with young children. My dream at the moment would be family round the corner to babysit and online shopping with Sainsburys!

JM, I'm not sure how many hours, tbh! I am currently 11 hours ahead of the UK, but come Easter/spring clock change, we'll change to 9 hours ahead when both changes go through.

So - it's currently 15:52 here in Oz - what time do you make it there in Canada?

It's 20:59 here... so you are 19 hours ahead.

yay - I just got that too from the tearoom thread! Hurrah, maths brain still works.

Barely, in my case...

Agree with Thumbwitch, if it hadn't been for t'internet I'd have run amok in my nighty brandishing a carving knife before now.....

I had one of those supermarket "queue" experiences just now...there I am, with my basket, behind someone else, and I sense someone to my right, in my personal space....there she is, covert PusherInWoman, not behind me, oh no, putting her basket right next to mine, touching my basket.......I give sideways glance and start breathing hard in passive-aggressive get your minestrone away from mine you beyatch.......then she steps forward, moves 3 paces ahead of me, casually, nonchalently, but I'm ready for her, (they don't call me mad furriner for nothing) push my basket up to the front, shift hers out of the way, and I'm there, first blood to UK upbringing. Then, then...I'm actually on the conveyor belt, and she tries it again, puts her butter on.....I have to use the whole wrestling body block thing to stop her trying even at that late stage.......Why? Why? It isn't just the queue, it's the whole concept of personal space......it just doesn't exist.

Going for lie down and to watch Casualty on iplayer now.

My dream was to move to the UK to be with dh. Nothing more exotic than that. Small council flat in grotty suburb would have done me, just to be together. Have now been living that dream (minus the small council flat) for the last 16 years. And I still enjoy it.

I am part of a community, because I have made myself part of it. I can speak to hairdressers after 16 years of practice. I am not an expat because there are no other expats around to be an expat with: I have to either be part of the local community or not be part of anything at all.

I don't get the feeling that the UK is inherently fair in some way that Sweden is not. What I have learnt is that the two different cultures sometimes have different takes on what it means to be fair, and I have had to adapt and be flexible in order to bring my children up in a different culture. Because I found when I settled down and started living here that my "fair" was not necessarily everybody else's "fair". I enjoy it, actually.

There are certainly things that my own country could have offered (not least for the children) that the UK cannot. But all in all, it's not a bad life. But then my dream always was rather small scale.

Nothing wrong with realistic dreams, Cory!

Out of interest, apart from friends/family, what do you miss about Sweden?

this was so sweet and honest.
I suppose we didn't really have expectations from our destinations when we moved abroad, we just knew that we didn't want to be in the uk anymore, maybe being certain that you don't want to be home makes it easier to adapt in the new country.

And it's so true about "fairness" not being a universal concept. I never found the UK fair either. Neither is greece, but it's a different kind iykwim.

I do get homesick sometimes. But it takes a bit of skiing on our local slope or a bit of swimming in the nearby sea to make me forget all about england

I think there's also a huge factor we overlook sometimes and that's whether we want to be where we are now. Personally I was quite happy bobbing along but the Powers That Be said otherwise and now we're here. If you've made a conscious choice to move somewhere I suspect it might be different.

I must admit I was having a particularly bad day yesterday though...but it's still raining. Where's my sun?

its so great to have others who understand to moan to!

i think language barriers make a place more difficult to live for sure. and also, having internet is a biggie. mine goes off for days at a time and it really freaks me out!

DH is away at the moment and i must have sent him like, 10 texts all saying i hate living here! but the internet is back on so have cheered up immediately.

'I think you live the dream if you're retired and have no money worries. The rest of us it's just the same but sometimes maybe the weather is a bit better.'

This. And good health.

I agree with ABeta, too.

There's another problem with 'living the dream' when you have children that no one really addresses.

And that is that your children may come to see 'living the dream' as their homeland.

It's not living the dream for them, it's home.

So there may come to be a big part of you that is one thing, and they are not and never will be. They are foreign to you in that way, and it is all of your making.

So that if you want 'to go back', they don't, because there is no 'back' for them, only home.

And the things you moan about, that irritate you, you see in them, as part of who they are.

So if I've learned anything from 8 years continuously away from my native country, it's the harsh lesson that is patience.

Impulsiveness is a sign of immaturity.

And I would know.

All I know from having lived abroad for 8 yrs is that:

• the presence of good friends makes the difference
• living abroad, even in the most perfect country ever is bloody difficult. A constant exercise of patience (as expat said), tolerance, and will to change/adapt your habits, views, expectations, etc.

I'm Italian and I lived in the UK, I moved there without reservations, but ooooooh it was difficult. Our emotional worlds are miles apart, I think. I find this the most difficult thing to adapt to.
But I learnt so much.

Frakkinaround - I agree, it is probably difficult if you haven't chosen to go to a certain place but been posted there or followed a partner or whatever, the resentment can build up and block out some of the good stuff. We didn't really chose to come here, it is actually quite a convuluted story about how we ended up here. But it would not have been our first choice. On the other hand, I imagine if you chose to emigrate and you chose carefully where you want to go, and it doesn't quite live up to expectation, then the disappointment must be harder to deal with.

We are also only here for a short time - 2-4 years - which makes settling hard. Most of my friends are either expats or locals with links to the UK because most people who are here permanently don't want to make the effort to get to know a family who will soon be moving on.

I also agree with expatinscotland about our children coming to know these places as home. I worry about taking dd2 home in particular as she will have no memories of anywhere else (she was 20 months when we came here last year). But overall I think this will be a brilliant experience for them both, the exposure to other cultures, languages, food etc is something I could not have given them had we stayed in the UK (especially as we live in a very "white" town).

bebespain - oh yes the driving in Spain! I once drove from England to Gibraltar and couldn't believe I made it alive. Especially the bit around Madrid - those macho men like to show off, don't they?!

Here I just think they are unaware or simply don't care about anyone else. The other day we were driving along a dual carriageway to find a pick-up driving towards us, on our side of the road. He just sat there until we had to move out of his way.

Trouble is, you can't refuse because you just don't know who is carrying a gun in this place.