Dangerous TV

I have long been hooked on Britain's "Escape to the Country," a show where friendly real estate agents take buyers to look at three properties to choose from -- all of them always set in absolutely stunning countryside locations. They're usually in quaint villages, and might range from 15th-century barn conversions to Tudor homes striped like zebras or stone cottages with low-beamed ceilings. Once in a while you'll get something more modern. Sometimes vast tracts of land and sometimes easily-managed little gardens or courtyards. Often they have holiday-let potential. Once they even took us to a home that was a land-lease...from the Duchy of Cornwall. Imagine having Prince Charles as your landlord!

But the other day I discovered another show, with the same estate agents, called "Escape to the Continent." They take British buyers to places like Brittany, Portugal, Italy, and Cyprus to look at properties for sale there. It's the same luscious, fantasy-inducing show but on steroids. I've recorded four episodes and I'm going to sit down tonight with a plate of pasta and completely indulge myself.

These shows are dangerous because they inevitably get me thinking things like "How soon can I retire?" and "Well, the kids could always come visit us, couldn't they?" and "How many more years until the dogs die?" Well, maybe not the latter. But imagine the freedom to pick anywhere you wanted to go and just moving there! Of course, now with Brexit, it may be the end of that show, I don't know. Certainly people will have to rethink just picking up and moving to Europe. But it gets me pondering...How much like France would Quebec City be? And I bet parts of Newfoundland are like Norway. And Nova Scotia could pass as Scotland any day.... Maybe moving "abroad" is possible without even leaving this country.

It's been -38 here much of the week, and Cyprus or Portugal sound pretty nice right now... I have to remind myself summer will come again. I mustn't do anything rash just because winter has me down...