Opinion

HEADING FOR THE HILLS

LIVE THE DAY

IS YOUR RURAL COMMUNITY FACING UNMANAGEABLE OR UNWANTED CHANGE? WE CANNOT KEEP PACE WITH THE FARM WORK AND CASA RURAL ANYMORE AND THE TIME HAS COME

Blimey. The word is out. We are not in­tend­ing to mar­ket the farm until Easter at the ear­li­est, but it seems there is some­thing spe­cial about The Pri­o­rat. So many peo­ple want a piece of this land and are ring­ing us out of the blue want­ing to come and view it and the two houses.

It is hardly sur­pris­ing. The Pri­o­rat is stun­ning and sits close enough to the coast and city of Reus. Our lit­tle town is blessed with all the es­sen­tial shops, chemists, etc. There are ex­cel­lent pub­lic trans­port and health ser­vices. But the prices in re­cent years and months...

I have some ques­tions. What is the de­mand where you live and have costs rock­eted? There has been a major rise here­abouts in re­cent years. This is bound to strain what bal­ance there al­ready was and fos­ter new de­vel­op­ment which will in­evitably change the char­ac­ter of the com­mu­nity. We are part of that change, I con­fess. Is your rural com­mu­nity fac­ing un­man­age­able or un­wanted change?

We are mov­ing into a flat in town, try­ing to re­duce the amount of clob­ber we have ac­cu­mu­lated over the years. Some things we will leave, while oth­ers we will be­queath, a tile cut­ter to a local Gaudi-esque ce­ram­ics artist friend. I am re­ally strug­gling to re­duce the amount of books.

The good news, with the town just four km from the farm, is that we al­ready know so many local peo­ple and are partly es­tab­lished. And we will con­tinue our olive oil ex­port busi­ness.

Why move? We have savoured 25 ex­tra­or­di­nary years here. But sud­denly I find I am seen as old and I con­fess I feel it. We can­not keep pace with the farm work and casa rural any­more and the time has come. Maybe reach­ing re­tired age is a wake up call. It is as com­mon truth. No­body is mor­tal. This we have had to come to terms with as well as some se­ri­ous health con­cerns. They all focus the mind.

Live the day.

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