I empathise completely. One of our main reasons for still being in this small town, despite my craving to live by the sea again, is that it’s quiet and peaceful and relatively safe for our kids. The people are, for the most part, decent, and all the schools are smallish and the teachers know the kids. Sorry for the mixed metaphor I’m about to shame myself with, but by the time the kids get older, they’ll feel like big fish in a wee pond and will probably have a natural desire to spread their wings!

The last part is such an interesting idea, what (gifts) would we share from our towns with others. I have started thinking about this, most certainly takes a lot more thought, but it has me viewing the positives instead of the negatives. Not that there’s negatives for me, but when your look at your town through others’ eyes, you may feel it’s not up to their standard you know? It doesn’t glitter and shine, there’s not much to necessrily do here, but then I found that I enjoy staying here, so there must be something. It’s smallish (popn what 40-60 000?), quiet and peaceful , the kids can still walk to school or town center or ride a bike most days without getting driven over etc etc. Lower crime than the cities, certainly les traffic and hustle and bustle etc though Saturday mornings I do stay as far from town center as I can.

So thank you for the reminder, that our dreary small town, with not many activities to attract ‘tourists’ of any kind, still does have some positive beautiful aspects.

I am now going to make a list of at least ten with my children so we can all appreciate the good life here…