Country life is not all Lambs and Llamas, it's also Tick fever, Foxes, and Feral cats.
Just in the past few days I've witnessed Freddie playing with and terrorising 2 Mice, I've been woken by Bok to find a young Fox looking in through our kitchen window, and I've found one of The Bimbos (a Hen) dead in her pen.
Lady Magnon enjoys watching a TV programme entitled 'Escape to the country' (?), which is about house-hunting townies who want to up-root to the countryside, where they will have the essential country kitchen, wood burning stove, veg' garden, hens, and (every townie's favourite) an Alpaca or two.
Rose tinted glasses are de rigeur with these people; a less likely bunch of mucker-outers you are never likely to find.
In the houses they are shown, nothing is ever right. The kitchen (even though spacious and brand new) is never big enough, there are never enough bedrooms, and the horse loose-boxes are always in the wrong place or the wrong colour. These people have a Beatrix Potter view of the countryside, and nothing less will do.
Invariably the wives do their house viewings in long silk dresses and straw hats, and moan that there isn't a branch of Harrod's in the village. They appear to want 'automatic' countryside, with all the convenience of Sloane Square.
I think townies should remain townies, and country folk should continue to feed them... where they belong!
I love the program too. I love looking inside country cottages, they're so different to Aussie houses.
ReplyDelete'House Tourism' without having to leave the house.
DeleteI know what you mean about nasty surprises for unsuspecting townies. I have always been a country girl, grew up in a village, only ever lived in a city for a short while (Leeds, as a student, for four years and enjoyed it but four years was enough).
ReplyDeleteHowever, it wasn't until we moved to live in the middle of a field that I wake up to owl poo on the doorstep and fall asleep to the frog chorus coming from the small some distance behind us. The country isn't always clean and quiet!
Where I live there is constant traffic going past my door, the nights are never dark and the people won't talk to you unless you drive the right kind of car or had your kitchen designed by the right company (I'm 'Second-hand Rose' and REALLY don't fit in). Can't wait to join my friend in Devon. The only thing I'll miss is being close to the London theatres.
ReplyDeleteI'm a sucker for that programme too - some beautiful houses featured. But I'm always amazed how people assume they are going to keep chickens, pigs, ducks, hens, oh, and let's chuck in an odd llama or two, just because they're moving to the countryside. And do they realise how much work it takes to look after a massive garden! What time is it on today?
ReplyDeleteI love the programme too, but as a lot of the escapees are retirement age, why would they move away from all their long time friends, no shops, no buses for when they can no longer drive and as said above, a huge garden to deal with !
ReplyDeleteI love that programme but it does annoy me that they hardley ever buy anything. I get annoyed by people moving here then complaining about everything from lack of buses, shops not being open 24 seven the noises ect.
ReplyDeleteI rarely watch the programme as it tends to make me shout at the screen.
ReplyDeleteI watched once and a couple were looking for a quite spot (and were concerned at the couple of cars that dared to drive along the road) and wanted a a bit of land... to land their light plane!
Re. the downside of country life, I know your list was not meant to be exhaustive,but I have to add red spider mite and fly strike and incoming townies who complain about cows mooing and cocks crowing, who should join Sara Miller.
Cul terreux !
DeleteMerci. en effet, je suis.
DeleteI also love the program and somtimes wonderd like you what is wrong with all the houses that they dont like.
ReplyDeleteOh yes Cro, how I agree. And these are the people who, if they do manage to find the right house, move in and then complain about the smell at muck-spreading time!
ReplyDeleteWe dislike the in-comers who arrive and complain about the tractors, the farm machinery moving between fields on the highways, the smells, lorries loading beet at 5 00am, and awful things like working farms and then walk all over your land without respect or manners even enough to ask first.
ReplyDeleteCro' ~ heard this this afternoon on the radio about the Aussie mouse census and thought of your post http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4215594.html
ReplyDeleteCan't get it, it says 'page not found'.
Deletehttp://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4215594.htm
DeleteSome people think that they will find Utopia if they move to the country and look through rose coloured glasses and don't think it through….. and, the worst time to do it is when you retire….. often a big mistake …. HUGE !!!! My sisters next door neighbours were on ' Escape to the Country ' and they said that they were shown houses that had nothing that they'd asked for !!!! Perhaps that's why most of them never buy anything ! XXXX
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like most estate agents I know. You ask for a flat in Barnsley for £10,000, and they show you a house in Bedford for £2 Million.
DeleteI love the country and visit it often.....lived there once....don't want to do that any more.
ReplyDeleteWe have similar programs in the US, House Hunters and House Hunters International, that show people looking for a home and then complaining about the smallest things. These shows are semi scripted and fake. The people have already bought a home and the other houses they show that they are considering may not even be on the market. There are few real things in reality shows.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that a lot of these shows are fixed, I wonder if the 'buyers' receive a fee?
DeleteI've not seen the programme, but have lived it in part in real life. At my last location, which was rural when i first got there and part of suburbia by the time i left, there were any number of newcomers who did not like the animal smells, and horror of horrors, did not have access to cable tv. These same folk could be seen trying on innumerable pairs of jeans to assure that one got the best fitting pair but bought these houses without considering the area where they were buying?
ReplyDeleteA friend in Mexico happened to lunch near the House Hunters International crew. The poor naif had his life ruined. The people had been in the house they were "hunting" for some time, and everyone was complaining of putting the house back to pre move in state and then its current state. I though everyone knew the shows are pretty fake; my poor friend!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean, my Brother tried living in the country and couldn't stand the quiet at night. My eldest son also lives in the country and does nothing but complain about the moles on his lawn. Both should have remained Townies.
ReplyDeleteBriony
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Even I complain about Moles on the lawn (not elsewhere though).
DeleteOur cat caught a mole yesterday morning. I had no idea they were so small, considering the size of mole hills. She was chasing it across our grave drive, it would dig itslef below the surface and she would pull it out by its tail, poor thing.
DeleteWe despatched it swiftly with a sharp smack across the neck with a shovel as I hate to see cats torturing their prey, even though I'm glad we now have one mole less than before.
Its coat was beautiful; a rich, deep brown with a lovely sheen and incredibly soft. I have never handled a mole before and now I know why "moleskin" fabrics are named.
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ReplyDeleteWe have similar programs in the United States. I never saw the attraction, myself, but my wife watches them. I will say the "how to" shows she watches have made her a better plumber and carpenter than I will ever be. She is in charge of our work around the house, she plans and I implement.
ReplyDelete