To ask what you dreamed would be fabulous but is actually maybe a bit shit

[hitsvilleuk]

I think this about lots of things to do with celebrity lives, when I was younger I thought it all would amazing now not so sure.

A particular one I have is that I always longed for a villa on the Italian lakes. We went to a hotel there one year for 5 days ( in the same village as George Clooney ) It pissed down for 3 days. Everything was dark and damp and that combined with the endless queuing for flights and the thought of maintaining a property in another country sort of did for the dream. Not achievable without a lottery win anyway but now I don't even want it.

Anyone else got stuff like this or that they actually got and then thought 'meh'. I seem to have it about more and more things as I get on - I just don't want stuff anymore. Is it just to do with age?

Having a conservatory. It was bloody expensive to have built. It’s so bloody cold in the winter and costs a small fortune to heat and so bloody hot in the summer.

Yep. And now there's a trend for people to take out either the house back door, or even the whole back wall to make one space. Thinking of letting my conservatory set the temperature for the whole of the back of downstairs gives me shivers. I'm glad I can close the door on it for most of the year.

(I firmly believe that in a decade there will be a big home trend in adding walls and doors back in...)

@RaraRachael

Centre Parcs - overpriced very ordinary "villa", paying over the top for activities - why do people go there? Paris - hated it. The only city I've felt unsafe in on 3 separate occasions in a 5 day stay Slow cookers - bland, watery food

Yes bloody slow cookers, I don’t get it. everything comes out tasking the same and if you need to brown stuff beforehand wtf it’s just easier to continue & complete cooking it?

Talking of Paris, once when we were there we walked past the entrance to the Paris Sewer Museum and I insisted we went in despite my family's protests. For some reason I was picturing boating along through glorious underground architecture. I don't know where I got that idea, maybe the Phantom of the Opera? Unsurprisingly it was just an underground room with sewage flowing through it. Not envy.

My family still don't trust my judgement and to be honest I don't blame them.

The Eden Project. It takes bloody ages to get to the domes from the car park. Looks amazing from outside but when you get inside it's a bit meh.

Pisa. We shuffled round the tower trying not to be pick pocketed. And that was it. Rubbish.

New Years Eve. Depressing.

crackofdoom Yes! Having an allotment is nothing like 'The Good Life'. So much hard work for very little. I shared an allotment with two friends. The beginning of the end was our lovely sweetcorn crop being decimated over night by 'something'. Muntjac? Badger?

A big house. My sister lives in an absolutely gorgeous house. But it's so big . It's exhausting, trudging around and up and down a (beautiful) wide, wooden staircase which I always feel I'm going to fall up/down. It's quite isolated too so nothing going on and no immediate neighbours. She never, ever seems to stop having to do 'stuff' around the place either. She finds it exhausting at times. I love my sister and love visiting her but I'm always pleased to get back to our cosy, ex council flat with a bit of life going on around us (and no scary stairs!).

I LOVED Siena. And weirdly, I really enjoyed a short break in Benidorm . Expectations were low but I loved it! I also LOVED Mallorca.

@Twintub

Yup agree cordless dyson can barely do the hall before the battery flat and you have to wait 5 hours to charge

How long is your hall?

generally find that people hating Dyson is sometimes due to politics but more due to laziness in cleaning and maintenance and sticking it on MAX when it isn't required reducing run time. As cordless vacuums go they are the best alongside Miele. People convince themselves that the cheaper brands are better due to having less expectations, pretty much like this thread

@KeyboardWorriers

Cruises. as a child I imagined they would be glamorous. They are utterly dire.. .giant floating Harvester restaurants filled with uncouth people stuffing their faces all day and getting drunker and drunker.

I'm quite partial to a Harvester when it's quiet but a cruise is my idea of hell!

The last season of Game Of Thrones. It really didn't have to be so crap ... Just why? Seven seasons of stabby goodness then pffft, total damp squib.
Troy. I was massivly into the Illyiad and the Odyssey and was really excited about visiting the site and there's sod all there - and we nearly got mugged in Canakkale, only we both screamed and he ran off.

I agree Los Angeles - not great. My DH accidentally to use to the area near skid row and there were so many homeless people and tents. Plus everywhere charges valet parking to park your car. Really annoying and adds to the cost.

Marriage and family. Kids still have time to turn out OK.
Cruise. Everyone was telling me how much I would it , although I was sceptical.Hated it.Only good bit for me was getting off at Pompeii and Rome. Some people stayed on board all day. But lots of people love it , so nice we are not all the same.

I'm only half way through - but just had to say that reading this thread has made me happy to be poor and live a boring life. Well, it's not boring to me - but it's missing all the things people are listing on this thread that I once thought I was missing out on.

Having said that - I did once live in Paris and loved it. New Zealand and Australia I also found hugely disappointing and have felt ashamed about that until now.

I don't enjoy sitting watching theatre and have felt ashamed of that too.

This thread is quite therapeutic.

Massive glass doors in an open plan extension.

In a south facing house, it made the whole extension like a bloody greenhouse on the hottest day in summer.

Having a rich boyfriend in my late 20s. After the novelty wore off (took a couple of weeks) I couldn’t see the point.

@Anonapapple

Labour. Did my hypnobirthing and thought it was going to be the most beautiful, peaceful, empowering, rite-of-passage ever, with me sniffing my lavender oil and embracing each surge while imagining my cervix opening like some kind of magical flower.

Turns out that contradictions don't hurt because of society's negative representation of childbirth, but because they actually happen to be excruciating!

Yeah, I was actually shocked about that; silly woman!

Sorry but I really belly laughed at that!

@SheeshazAZ09

Having a rich boyfriend in my late 20s. After the novelty wore off (took a couple of weeks) I couldn’t see the point.

That reminds me.

One of mine would be -

Going out with a man because he had a very good career, and I had been advised to go out with men with very good careers.

He was one of the worst men that I have ever met, and sexually assaulted me.

I swiftly learned not to go out with a man just because he has a good career, and that a man with a good career is not a better person than a man with a "worse job"

@froomeonthebroom

Tastesmiths curry kits. I was so excited to cook these and I agonized over which ones to get and whether it would be worth £20. It wasn't

Go to asda and get the simply cook goan fish curry kit. Its spice pot and you have to buy the other ingredients, its lovely!

Miami - shithole
Siesta Keys - boring, just shit beaches
Marmaris - shit, full of perverted men wanting to grab young women
Strawberries from Tescos - shit, go mouldy within a day or two
Starbucks - shit coffee

Subway - shit sandwiches
WFH - shit, like groundhog day, and expected to work more
Grass in the garden - it adds to a shit experience for having to pick up non solid dog shit, ended up with poo in my nails many times by those darn blades of grass intertwining within the poo.

Lapland to see Santa - early rise , fucking freezing , dark, everyone just wanted to sit in the tent with the fire and one poor sod's kid was terrified of Santa and refused to see him 😂😂😂 and the planes doors froze on the way back so we had to sit in some shit little airport for hours.

Saint Tropez. Ripped off at every corner and one of the smart restaurants gave my husband terrible food poisoning. Put me off France for years.

Totally agree about Starbucks. Really bad coffee, and I love a coffee shop!

One more
Gotta go flamingo - utter shit, took so much effort to find to get in time for Christmas, it was only used once, and it didn’t preform like on the TV Ad

Me and my DH always wonder how Starbucks manages to keep going. The coffee is so disgusting! Does anyone really like that coffee flavour taste?

I love Paris, but then I went there for my honeymoon 30 years ago so it will always be special to me.

Las Vegas in the 80s, absolute shithole, nothing there except casinos. I've never been back. The Trevi Fountain in Rome. Could barely get near it and when I did was shouted at for sitting on the wall.

I sometimes think I would love to go to an opera, or ballet, then I remember I get fidgety towards the end of a two hour movie, (and miss bits, because I always, always need to pee).

I can't think of much I've done, that was really disappointing. Maybe because I have to be properly motivated, to go anywhere, unless I have to.

Being engaged. Living with a man. Romantic relationships in general. Disney has a lot to answer for!

Our honeymoon. We spent the entirety holed up in our housey thing, vomiting. I appreciated the sea breeze though ngl.

The wedding itself was a massive, expensive cringe episode as well, but I was thinking, only a few more hours and then the honeymoon...

Men. Being with a man. All the teenage magazines and bloody romantic films and books, friends, family and society with the pressure to get a boyfriend. Every one has been bloody horrible to me. In fact every man I have ever known, father, brothers, friends, boyfriends - have all taken me for granted as and treated me like crap.
The more I know about them, the less I like.

To know just one decent man would be great? I just don't know any.