BS: The best Place you have ever lived

Subject: BS: The best Place you hAve ever lived
From: GUEST,Hi lp
Date: 01 Jun 15 - 06:49 PM

I have lived in many places around the world, some I have truly loved and long for til this day! I loved Tel Aviv, such lovely people, great culture and wonderful food markets. But it became a very dangerous place so our family left
We lived for a few years in Cornwall, just across the estuary from Newquay, so beautiful, but we always left in summer as it became too crowded.
Nova Scotia , Canada. Spectacular sea coast, very few people and some of the finest people ever. But London is still my favourite
Where have you lived and loved it?

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: ranger1
Date: 01 Jun 15 - 07:40 PM

New Harbor, Maine will always be my heart's home.

Drobak, Norway was interesting, especially the first house my family rented. Built in the 1600s (ancient by US standards) and on an old lane built into a hillside not wide enough for cars. We had a fantastic view of the Oslo Fjord and all the shipping traffic, and badgers who occasionally wandered through the garden.

I'm pretty happy where I'm at now on a rural back road with no streetlights in Freeport, Maine in a small, one-room cottage backing onto a lovely large tract of town-owned forest.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Leadfingers
Date: 01 Jun 15 - 07:58 PM

Six month residency singing in an English Pub/Restaurant in Bermuda in the early seventies !

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: LadyJean
Date: 01 Jun 15 - 10:56 PM

Athens Ohio, when I was in college. The weather wasn't great, but it was beautifully walkable, and there was plenty of good music.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jun 15 - 11:13 PM

I've lived all over the US over the years. I really enjoyed New York City (Brooklyn) but it isn't for everyone. I didn't want to raise children there, but it's a great place for eating your way around the world and walking miles a day. I also like the spartan yet lush environment of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. That's a place where surviving the heat, the dry, and the sharp is an art, but it is a beautiful terrain with glorious colors and cultures.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and still would like to move back there. It smells and feels right, I miss the fresh fish, and there is great gardening.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jun 15 - 11:39 PM

My best place is where I am now: Juneau, Alaska, USA. There is very little about this place that I don't like and tons that I do. It's been 27 years now and never a regret.

To my mind, if we are lucky all of us will eventually find ourselves where we need to be.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 02:35 AM

I've lived in a lot of places. I really live where I am now, somewhere outside Applegate, California. But I lived in Berlin, in Milwaukee, and in Monterey in California. Those are my four favorites. Can't pick just one.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 04:10 AM

Here. And if I move, it will be there. Wherever I hang my hat ......

DC

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 04:13 AM

I've lived in the same tiny village on the West coast of Scotland all my life, its beautiful and serene, but the best thing is having been able to observe life, especially the families growing, nature and history repeating itself over and over.

It sort of gives you some perspective about life, how unimportant every single one of us is, yet how strong the life force.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 04:42 AM

Probably a village in N Wales first time round.

It was a bit behind the times. I'd not claim it was idyllic (and some things I'd disagree with now) but it did try to be a community.

Times change and this once thought of as some form of "hickland" became "highly desirable". If I was able to move back to the last property I lived in there (which incidentally having been done up and extended a bit I last saw on the market for around 700K), I'd still be able to look out of a bedroom window and see Snowdonia. I'd still from the garden be able to see right round from Penmaenmawer to the the Great Orme - it really had fantastic views. I'd still be able to walk the same footpaths and little has changed physically.

Still possibly changes with me over the years and certainly changes in the character of the village do not make it a place I'd want to return to.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 04:54 AM

When I was a kid, just after the war (WW2, not the Boer War), when Dad was demobbed from the RAF, we moved here and there and everywhere. From Lancashire to Scotland and then back to Lancashire again. Then I went to Yorkshire as a student and just a few years later, to London. Finally, in 1976 we moved to Sussex, to the house in which we live now - built new when we bought it. And we decided never to move again if we could help it.

Though I've been back to areas where I used to live, out of curiosity - and though I've travelled all over the place (particularly France) - my home has been here in Sussex for nearly 40 years. We have the wonderful South Downs, the sea, easy access to London and to Europe via Le Shuttle. I can drive through the Channel Tunnel to Bruges or Le Touquet for a good wander round and a pleasant lunch, and be back home for supper - bringing back a carload of excellent Belgian beers...

If I have to die, then it has to be here, down in Sussex-By-The-Sea, where I've been surrounded by all my wonderful musician friends and my family.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 05:32 AM

Whitby is the place for me. The first day I visited I said to my wife "one day I'm going to live here". It took me seventeen and a half years before it became a reality and I can say hand on heart I've not regretted moving for one second. Fantastic history going back to at least 657 when an Abbey was first built here to 664AD when the Synod of Whitby set the date for Easter. Viking raids in the 9th century, through to the rebuilding of the Abbey in the 11th century. Associations with Capt Cook and Bram Stoker make up some of the more recent history. Formerly a fishing and whaling port it is now basically a tourist town. It has a brilliant week long folk festival, two Goth festivals, scooter, war-time, gospel and 60's weekends and a beautiful beach for two and a half miles up to the little village of Sandsend. Not forgetting the 300ft cliffs and the moors just a couple of miles away.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,harpy
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 08:56 AM

My favorites were..... tied up to a dock on the Detroit River on our Bounty , and Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Ozarks and Georgian Bay have my heart. I also like The Wacissa River, near where I live now but the city I am in, meh. I hope to move from here in the future....

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 05:59 PM

I'm not sure I can truly say I 've lived there, but I've worked in western North Carolina a few weeks every year.   There's not enough work to move there full time- but it is LOVELY. The people, the land, the music and the sweet flowered smell of the mountains.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Joe_F
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 06:30 PM

Southern Vermont, southern California, Florida, Scotland, eastern Massachusetts, Long Island, central Virginia. For climate, I would give central Virginia the prize -- real seasons, but the winter stays within reasonable bounds. I was in a commune there for 9 years, and the first few years of that were the happiest in my life.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 06:31 PM

one house, suffolk.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 07:07 PM

We never actually lived in Norfolk, but we did spend three months there one winter, near Potter Heigham. The land was beautiful and the broads were a place to love and explore. We
Often rented a wee boat and enjoyed the waterways. But we never felt quite welcome there. Perhaps it was us. I would like to go back one day and explore more.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 07:40 PM

Wherever my wife is.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,Kampervan
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 07:52 PM

You beat me to it Wesley S, except that for me, I now have to say - 'Wherever my wife was'.

Cheers

K/van

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Padre
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 10:12 PM

In the United States - Tucker County WV

Elsewhere - Wildflecken, Bavaria, Germany

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Musket
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 03:59 AM

I bought a biscuit tin cover cottage in The Peak District back in 2002. It was lovely and the walking nearby was stunning, not to mention the pubs and restaurants. Then I met Mrs Musket and had to sell it as her work made the commute difficult. She also sold hers in Sheffield.

However, we bought our forever house here in The Isle of Axholme about six years ago. The land is flat, though that makes for big skies and easy cycling. Our village is wonderful. Wander down to the farm shop and stop for a pint on the way back whilst Mrs Musket pops down for bell ringing practice. Lots of local folk clubs to keep me happy and the alleged greyhound and I tramp around for miles.

I class myself as semi retired and have the garden, house and village I always wanted. Nice to get it right..

Up till recently I have lived simultaneously between where my first family were and where I worked, so as well as Derbyshire, I have had flats in London, Hove and Leeds as well as abroad in Munich, Aachen and Modena. All nice, all with something to offer but never home.

Just the one home now, and contented.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 07:26 AM

I must come and visit your pub and have a pint,and ring a few bells

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Musket
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 07:57 AM

You're more than welcome Dick.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Musket
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 08:04 AM

Regarding the ding dongs. Look up Epworth and Belton in Dove's guide. Practice night is Monday and alternates between the two. When in Belton, The Crown is next door and where, if not out strumming, you find me, awaiting them with a pint. There is a band now at Haxey but not sure when practice is. Their hand bell ringers are rather good for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 10:29 AM

Abidjan in the 70's. Great place to grow through teenagerhood.

Charlottesville now. Great place to stay a teenager grown up. Also, bourrée de francophones/-philes.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 11:13 AM

Only ever lived in my little bit of The Backwoods. Never desired to live anywhere else (except perhaps in the little cottage we rent from time to time on the Isle of Eigg, or along Lake Okanagan in BC). My wife, family, friends and instruments are all there around me, I need nothing else.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,R Sole
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 02:38 PM

When I started work in a new town, I rented a place for three months whilst getting sorted. It was wedged between a pub on one side and what I later found out was a knocking shop on the other.

My mates reckon it must be the ideal place, but for me, the carpet was wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Gurney
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 05:32 PM

Plymouth, England, when I was in my 20s, but the work was poorly paid by my midlands standards. Great place, though, to memory.

Auckland, New Zealand, for the past 42 years. It's a city, but a spread-out, civilised one, and not far from anything that I'd want Fishing, boating, tramping, diving, shooting, golf, skiing in season, music...
There used to be oceans of work available when we arrived here.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: CupOfTea
Date: 04 Jun 15 - 10:52 AM

Best place is here, but the time was in the 1960s. Cleveland Heights, though a suburb, has some of the aspects of a small town - still does.
As a kidlet in the 60s, I could walk or bike to stores, library, movie theater, school, church, friends houses, or explore the wilderness of the Shaker Lakes just a few blocks away. Lots of other kids to play with, porch to sit on and watch the world walk by, neighbors who all knew each other and gave a hand when needed.

Now the big box store mentality means the grocery store and pharmacy are farther away, local stationery, hardware store and bakery non-existant and the dangers of modern life make the places we played and the things we did while playing taboo. If someone today had a kindergartener walk a mile and a half to school on her own, as I did, they'd call child protective services.

There is a specific character to the place that's still in evidence. Politically active, aware and inclined to be activists, we were among the first suburbs to seek integration and do it well, get into recycling, and Lord help us, declare a "nuclear free zone" (though what that actually means is a mystery to me). There's a camaraderie from living through the fierce winters and reveling in the glorious summer.

I've lived all but a couple years in the same place. My house is three blocks from the one I grew up in, and faces the same direction. In a picture from here, I can tell by the light what time of day and time of year it was taken. I know the smells of each time of year, and all the weather peculiarities. What makes it "best" is a strong sense of place, and belonging to this place. Grounded. Home.

Joanne in the Heights of Cleveland

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,Lin
Date: 05 Jun 15 - 12:12 AM

To Guest Joe Offer:

You mentioned that you had once lived in Monterey, Ca. I don't live there but have visited there many times over the years (most recently in Dec. 2014.) I have stayed in Monterey and have used public transportation to get around. I have got to know the area pretty well, taking the bus to Pacific Grove, Carmel Valley, Seaside, Salinas, Carmel and all over the peninsula on the bus.

I would LOVE to live there but looking in the local newspapers there found the rents very high in Monterey & Pacific Grove (the areas I would like to live) I am looking at 1 bedroom apts or even a small guest house (just for myself) but very expensive.
How long did you live there and what part of Monterey did you live? Did you rent an apt? Did you get a good deal with the place you lived?

I love the Monterey area and the cooler weather. I am in So. CA and hate the hot weather in the area I live. (Inland Empire area)
Plus too crowded, too much traffic and just tired of Southern California.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Musket
Date: 05 Jun 15 - 05:14 AM

This Musket lives in Argyll Scotland. We moved up here with my work and my husband soon found work here too. We both commute towards Glasgow each day but the drive is, till the city traffic, a nice one.

We have a lovely house, overlooking a loch with easy walking to a small town that has excellent bars and restaurants. It can be a wee bit touristy in the summer but that merely makes for more people to chat to! The population is very mixed, and we all get on well. Some of the houses are empty in the winter, being holiday lets but our little bit is thriving and as I type, I have taken a day's leave to get the place ready for our annual party for neighbours. This is the fourth and we are expecting over a hundred people throughout the day and evening tomorrow (help!!).

Yes. This is our dream place. We are young enough to know that work could move us, and as Kris can drop on tomorrow as a hospital doc, my academic post, which is not actually with a Scottish uni' despite being based there, could end our little bit of paradise. But for now? Perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: bubblyrat
Date: 05 Jun 15 - 07:50 AM

I share "Will Fly" 's preference for Sussex ,having lived in Easebourne ( no, NOT EASTBOURNE !! ) , Midhurst, and Fernhurst from age 4 to 12. My ex-RAF father returned to accountancy after crashing in Dum Dum in 1946, and obtained a post with Lord Cowdray ; we lived in a staff flat at Cowdray House in Midhurst, and life there was close to idyllic; definitely NOT "politically correct " , of course, what with all the fox-hunting ,deer culling,pheasant shooting etc but Hey ! -it was FUN ( and tasty ) and since I knew no better at the time, I can make no apologies . Tally -Ho !

PS we did not eat the foxes

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Jun 15 - 05:46 AM

Stroud Gloucestershire UK. It is a town that fits my size, my psyche, my pocket, my hobbies - well me.
I was born in the dead centre of civilization (the very dead centre) - Wednesbury. Emphasis on the dust in industrial.
I am sentimental about Malvern, because that is where I got divorced. It is when life begins again, and for me - Malvern.
Toronto was a city buzzing with - buzz. But it is a big city.
London - pah! The locals love it so much they buy second homes in Stroud!
Wellington NZ is nice enough though not as comfortable as an old shoe or jacket. Hmmmm, the girlfriend there, such memories.
But Stroud is a place you can love. Trust me.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,J-boy
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:02 AM

3 Bond st. Apartment 1. Portland Maine. 13 years with the love of my life and our beloved and various dogs and cats.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: vectis
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 09:58 PM

I loved living in Sussex but am now very happy living in the historical(for New Zealand)gold mining town of Waihi in North Island. Beautiful walks, mountains, mining relics and a fabulous surf beach about 5 minutes away. A little bit of paradise.

Subject: RE: BS: The best Place you have ever lived
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 02:12 AM