Fuck it. Who wants to recreate the Isle of the Amazons with me?

[TheABC]

Alternately, I'm open to taking over a castle community. The French have a tradition know as Beguine Communities, where women could retreat into female only spaces without taking vows. After everything I've learned about the rape gangs, Epstein and the problems face Refuge for funding, I think we need something like that here. The Government at every layer has shown it does not care about women. We should stop demanding equality - they don't think us worthy of it. We need a matriachy example. Run by women, for women. Stop asking for scraps.

Cooking was a man’s job back then because too many women were tempted to poison the pease pudding.

I know what you and Brefugee mean about the Bluestocking thread, it often travels at near the speed of light!
But it's very much travelling in whatever direction the last poster - no, not the bugler playing the Last Post😃- decides to take it in.
That's often frivolous, sometimes hilarious, and occasionally, when something serious happens, very supportive.

It's up to you, but I suggest you pop in, BiologicalRobot, and say 'Hey, anyone here ever fired a trebuchet? and watch while a whole conversation about siege weaponry develops😁

On trébuchets, I was a hamster human in one wheel of a double wheeled counter weight trebuchet. So I have experience. Just need another shorty to run in the other wheel and we can sink any boats coming to Amazon island.

As a historical point, monasteries had female servants to do their laundry 🧺 and scrub the floors.
They just weren’t allowed to stay overnight.
Cooking was a man’s job back then because too many women were tempted to poison the pease pudding.
I think you'll find that there were Lay Brothers who did those jobs. (though happy to be corrected)

Depends on the monastery I suppose. The different orders had different rules.

I'm also quite good at chutney and jam.

Re @JoanOgden 's point:

I think neutered male cats are acceptable if well-behaved

I have yet to meet a well-behaved cat.

Male or female.

My badly-behaved male neutered cats.

They're packing their bags as I speak, and making vague promises to behave in the new space.
They're lying, naturally.

Screw that I’m not growing my own food. I’d rather have it shipped in.

I’d rather host yoga and wellness retreats for women on one side of the island at £5000 a head per week for 6 weeks a year and then use the money to fund my luxurious island lifestyle.

It’s odd. I vaguely looked at becoming a nun after my marriage ended and all the children left home. Sadly, they didn’t want older nuns, perhaps because too many would go there with health problems to be looked after.

I have a strong recollection of being in church with my children, probably round 7, 5 and 6 months. A nun came in to talk about how tough it was being a nun. She had been to Rome and various other places as she studied theology and, my goodness did I envy her!

I’m in, by the way. If we want farm animals, I can probably look after them, thus earning my keep.

I also used to be a professional dancer. I can run tribal dance classes too.

I think dogs on one side and cats on another should be okay
But the cats will just roam everywhere and pay no attention to boundaries.

Cats are so like men in that sense.

I was a professional singer.
I'll organise a choir.

Aren’t there loads of abandoned castle-village-citadel type things in Italy that need rehabilitating - some of them you can buy for next to nothing if you’re hound to sort them out?

also YES to roving guard geese mentioned upthread.

i have three DSs nearing adulthood though so not sure how that could work.

having seen the absolute state of some retirement apartments or villages I think we could do similar but much better. There are a couple that were bought by the residents and then run as they liked it I seem to remember - with houses that could be bought but also with a maintenance fee that was reasonable and covered gardeners etc. guest apartments For visting family

Oh found it - 1 Euro villages :

My terms:
No cats
No countryside
No pilates or yoga
Decent coffee shop
Decent chocolate
I am allowed out for shopping and trips to my (male) hairdresser

Love it. We can do an Amanda and Alan on it

(Can I come, please?)

I’ve got a couple of female friends who’d love to join. No discernible hard skills but quite witty and enjoy a good conversation. Wait, one’s an excellent baker.

I think boy cats, sans bollocks, should be allowed.

Hang on. This thread has moved on significantly from where it was when I last had arsing-around-on-mumsnet time. I disagree with shark-infested moats and isolationism. I wasn't anticipating being on an island or reducing ourselves to self-sufficient subsistence-farming. I don't want us to have to build and run our own electricity plant, water treatment works etc so want to be connected to general Civilization, ideally somewhere within easy reach of a major city. I want to be able to go to the cinema and to the big touring Musical Theatre shows and art galleries and museums. Some members of the community may well be keeping on with careers that require interaction with the world, possibly customer visits etc, so commuting links need to be reasonable.

And yes cats are important.

If I fit sycthes to the swan pedalo paddles I can whiz round the moat and do defense like a waterborne Boudicca.

Sign me up for the trebuchet rota.

Having been to nun-run schools most of my school-life, we used to get visits from nuns trying to recruit us.

It was very tempting: there seemed to be a particular need for nuns in the USA for some reason, and they put on slide shows of all wonderful amenities that would be at our disposal - I vividly remember water-skiing being one of them.

It seemed like a lot of fun, but we had the feeling that it wouldn't all be fun and games. It was a teaching order, so we guessed that we'd probably end up having to teach classes full of the likes of us😧

Love your swan-mounted scythes ideas, Arabella😁

Not a problem, CactusSwoonedEnding - if that's what you want, that's exactly what you'll have. Just don't ask how!
That's how fantasy works, innit?😄

Exactly.

So some of us will see cats, and some of us will not see cats.

Even though the place will be overrun with cats

I don't think anyone had mentioned sharks, tbh. I thiink I'd probably go with piranhas. Less drama, more efficient clean up.