Yeah, I know.
Here I sit in a spectacular natural setting, the sea all around me, on an island, cut off from the boring "real world." Everything's slow here. There's a human scale that seems to have gone out of fashion in most places. Traffic's sparse and dogs are everywhere. They all seem slower and calmer, too.
Work's not plentiful but neither is ambition.
Smugglers and sailors and pirates make up most of the history and the tales of the area. Hasn't been much money around here since the navy pulled out. The navy's loss.
Cruise ships bring folks in to gawk at the locals and the natural beauty of the place.
No, I'm not sitting here, hunched over a laptop and a Bloody Mary at Pepe's in Key West. I'm settled on a soft sofa in my living room in Portland, Dorset, my home for the last three years on the English Channel.
Yeah, I'm sure the world will find us. Honestly, we would welcome a few hippies and queers and perverts and drunks and pirates. A few bucks from the more adventurous artists and writers and celebrities of all stripes would go a long way towards patching a few potholes and caring for a few hedgehog orphans, too.
I know that I'm lucky. I won't be here to wring my hands and tell the newcomers what they missed. These are the good old days, my friend.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.
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