Have you put your dreams on hold?

gillybob I too collect sea glass and now have a big glass pot of it. It is on a windowsill in the conservatory, and when the sun shines through it it is glorious. I have spent many happy hours searching the tide line for it. One of the lesser known bonuses of living by the sea.

I live and work in London, but when I'm by the sea my daily problems seem tiny in comparison with its vastness. The

I don't have dreams like that anymore. I just accept and enjoy all the little things that happen on a day by day, or week by week, basis. So long as nothing else dreadful happens then I'm content.

Anyway the grass is always greener isn't it?

Like Anya I have found that acceptance is the key to living well .
No more dreams that won't come true, no unreal expectations and no regrets.

We retired to live in the Lake District. None of our children are settled yet. We had to move when we retired as we lived in a tied house. This was our dream and we love it. I never thought retirement would be such fun!

Same for me Anya,

Yes Bbevan I have lots of jars of sea glass on a little ledge going up the stairs. It does look lovely when the sunlight from the window at the top catches it . I also have a huge pot of it in my dining room which is so heavy you can hardly lift it. My DGC enjoy tipping it out sometimes and searching for their favourite piece of treasure.

Acceptance and finding something good in every day equals living the dream I feel. I love the sea, lived next to it for a couple of years but like many others here, the most important thing is family, so we still live in the house our children grew up in.
If I hadn't been lucky enough to have children and children who returned to this area when they 'settled down' I'd have moved to the coast. I love holidays near the sea, driving to the nearest (not very lovely) seaside in the winter, when dogs are allowed on the beach. A long, often very breezy walk along the coast, followed by fish n chips, that's living the dream

Any chance you could afford a caravan or cabin? These for example are right on the coast and are very secluded and a bit quirky. But loads of choice around (& range of budgets). Would allow you to spend extended time near the sea but still live near family.

churchwoodvalley.com

Oh I have lost count of the number of people who moved to be near their kids then the kids moved. Armed with that proxy experience we have decided to stay right where we are which is where we brought the kids up - before they all moved away to other cities. It actually works quite well as we are a handy London base for them when they come.

I too live by the sea we have access to the promenade directly from our home and can see the sea just a few metres away from our garden. We moved here three years ago and I will never want to be anywhere else, we also have a beach hut just five minutes away more for when the grandchildren visit than anything but I quite often find myself there for a few hours in the afternoon with a cup of tea, so if you can't live by the sea get a beach hut it's the next best thing.

No I have not put my dreams on hold, I never had any big dreams other than to see my family happy and settled.
When I want to walk along a beach I go to gilly's beach because it is beautiful and the cobwebs get blown away.

I am very lucky as my DS and his family live about 4 miles along the coast and my DD, dad and sister all live within a few miles .

Sounds idyllic LouLou . I love beach huts.

I was born by the sea and lived there till I married. We watched lots of Londoners coming to live their dream of retiring by the sea only to realise that the seaside in winter is not the same as the seaside in summer!
I would recommend hiring an out of season holiday home from November to March and see how you like it! If it's an area with second homes you may find its almost empty with shut down facilities in the Winter. The locals can't afford to live there any more because of second home owners!

Gillybob, you sound a really nice person to know with such a great sense of humour. How lovely the sea brings out your sensitivity. I live in Norfolk half an hour from wonderful beach. Obviously would LOVE to live a stones throw from it but go as often as possible. I come back feeling so refreshed after a walk by the sea. Last year we went 4am on Summer Solstice. Absolutely no one there so I stripped off and danced on the beach. Hope no one had binoculars?

Oh dear, I hope that what I'm contributing here doesn't bring you down - but DH and I moved down to the seaside in 2005 and the first five years were great. Both of us had jobs which we didn't love but without a lotto win we had to subsidise ourselves somehow. We had a little bungalow with a super garden - the type we'd always dreamed of, with climbing roses, honeysuckle, etc - it was lovely.
I've lots of good memories but my DH was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. This knocked us sideways and was the worst time of our lives with DH passing away only nine months after diagnosis. However the SW is the best place to live with this devastating illness as the help there is tremendous.
I moved back to the Midlands due to illness and am nearer family -I had to make that choice - place or people. I look back on that time by the sea as special but bittersweet.

Aaah haaaa Eglantine Not all stretches of beautiful coastline are down south you know . Where I live there are very few holiday homes (except for a lovely little site of static caravans) . We are virtually all permanent residents. We do get a lot of day trippers in the summer months but it's very quiet in the winter. Just the way I like it.

My wife and I had a similar dream but we downsized to live within 90 minutes of our two daughters and both sets of our grandkids. Our son and his wife still have no kids and have yet to settle down.

But one of our daughters then said she thought we should have bought a smallholding with animals so her three could spend long summer holidays with us!

Perhaps we should have consulted our kids more on what they wanted.

When our grandkids grow up we may settle for a static caravan where we can hear the waves.

I'm an east coast girl myself gilly but further down - in what is now known as Little London. No room for locals there. I blame the royals myself!!!

I don't have any dreams either. I gave up my long term relationship to nurse my sick mother for many years, until she died. I have dated since but no one interests me and I still think about my ex partner. He is now married to a younger woman and has a child. I am too old to have children, too insecure and set in my ways.
I will have only a tiny pension because of all the years off work nursing my mother. And now I have to work to 68.
I just try to get through each day. Dreams are nothing but disappointments waiting to not-happen so I don't bother with daydreams.

I think global warming might make living near the sea less desirable or more imminent, depending where you live now. I am 10 miles inland...........could be a beach front apartment before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

I really want to be in Cornwall but making the kids travel all that way to see me would be selfish......however talking proper dreams, when Cap'n Poldark comes to fetch me................

When I was sixty I met someone and flew to the other side of the world to sail with him on his boat. It was fun and I have lovely memories. Follow your dream and don't live to regret things you haven't done.

Oh I can recommend that too Grampie (the static caravan that is). Many years ago when mine and DH's business was doing okay we had a static caravan further up the coast in an idyllic little fishing village. We didn't have this house then we lived in the middle of the city in a bigger house. When the business went a bit pear shaped (well very pear shaped) we were forced to sell up and downsize. I didn't even glance back at my house but boy did I cry for that static caravan.

Anyway I suppose things have a way of working out. We now love in a lovely little house close enough to the sea that I can hear the waves crashing when I lie in bed. We are nearer to my little family so couldn't ask for more really.

If I won the lottery I would buy my DS, DDiL and the children a small holding as it would suit them down to the ground. Then they could live "the good life" with chickens, donkeys, horses, cats, bats, rats and crikey knows what else.

Can you move again?

My DH's parents moved from East Grinstead to Haxey, a South Yorks village, and never really settled. They stayed twenty years in which they were never truly happy as they had wanted to be by the sea. Towards the end of their lives when ill health had overtaken them they confessed that they had 'nearly' moved back down south to the seaside a decade before but had just given up on the idea as being too difficult and overwhelming.

We were horrified as, had we known, we could have encouraged and helped them.

The inheritence they left us was used as a deposit on a house with a sea view. What an irony.

Go for it. The dead don't have dreams.

Moving to the sea in the hope that your family will spend idyllic summers with you does not always work out. My parents did this, and we had no more desire to visit and listen to them arguing by the sea than we did in town!! We did of course visit, but probably not as often as they had hoped.

Also it is worth remembering that the GC might enjoy the seaside, but after a few visits they may want to visit France/Spain/somewhere else instead.