Your new place sounds lovely. I have read stories featured around college towns and they sound so pleasant.

Of course you must have bookshelves! That was the first thing I organised in my present home and had one especially made to hide ugly power points!

When DH and I were setting up our first home, it seemed like every time we went out browsing for furniture, we came home with another book case 😂

When we down-sized from our too big house in a small village but with a traffic infested main road (hundreds of vehicles going through per hour) I had to off-load about 500 books. Now we live only a mile or so away just above the centre of a small one-horse town . . . but SO much quieter. We no longer have a car but I can walk to the necessary shops and the library and I seem to be replacing books, always second hand, but not perhaps leading to the 500 I lost.

Vee, that is a lot of books to have to let go. I have had to leave many behind in my travels and have not been able to replace them. I don't have room here and need to cull but keep putting it off!

I was surprised that I don't hear traffic as my place in a Retirement Village is next to a main road. There are mature trees around and a large lawn in front which seems to muffle the sound even when there is a stream of cars around 3.30pm when the nearby school run home starts and during peak hours when the workers feed along my street to the main road.

The only vehicles I hear are the occasional wail of an ambulance or police car attending an incident.

Vee, I thought of you several times when I was going through my books. I figured that if you could do it, so could we! We got rid of about 500 books in the process, but probably kept more than twice that number. I don't think I will miss anything I gave up.

Donna, yes, you guessed it. Probably not hard for anyone who knows Colorado. Like you I sew, and my sewing room has moved to a small room in a semi-finished basement. It is compact, but it is certainly adequate. I used to use my sewing room as a study and retreat as well as a sewing room and spent most of my time there. Now I will use it mainly for sewing. We may enlarge the window and put in a window well, but that is a project for next year.

I have a brother in Ocala. Is Live Oak anywhere near that?

If we do a bookmark exchange this year there will certainly be some updating to the address list. I found two packets of bookmarks that I bought on travels in the past couple of years, so I will be ready.

Rosefolly, we are a couple of hours north of Ocala. About halfway between Gainesville and Tallahassee (speaking of college towns LOL).

Rosefolly, your house sounds absolutely delightful. My first trip west of the Mississippi was to Colorado where I fell in love with Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park. I've been back to the state several times, and everywhere I've been is lovely. The last time I saw RMNP, though, the pine beetles had been through, and they were brown and sad looking.

Congratulations on the move, it sounds like a lovely place.

Carolyn, Estes Park is not all that far from us. We visited once, and no doubt will visit it again.

I just re-read what I wrote about RMNP. Obviously, it's the pine trees that were all brown, not the beetles. That has been quite a while, so I hope everything is green and back to normal now. CO will be quite different from CA, won't it?

I have always liked the idea of college towns. Over here, we, of course, have the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge and other cities/towns where there are colleges and uni's but they were never originally established as places of learning. Are yours in the US very quiet/dead during the vacations?

Vee, I don't know, having just moved here as the school year ended. Perhaps it would be busier during that time of the year. But this is not exclusively a college town and there are several other businesses located here, mostly tech-oriented places. In that way it is a bit like Cupertino where we used to live (Apple headquarters), but in a much more subdued way. Many colleges and universities have active summer sessions, so the reduced activity is not so marked. I have seen college towns where everything was dependent on the college, and they do get very quiet in the summer. It is much like a tourist town that shuts down out of season.

Thanks Rosefolly. Having grown up in a tourist town, we were used to being crowded and busy during the summer and although it is many years since I lived there I understand it is full of visitors for more-or-less the whole twelve months. Where we are now, the place has no intellectual pretensions or anything that might attract tourists but we are surrounded by forests, open country and a scenic river estuary so maybe more about agriculture rather than culture!

Colorado...sounds wonderful and Fort Collins...my sweet neighbor gal is going to SCU in September and my dear friend's daughter lives in Fort Collins...all the way from Cape Cod!

We moved to the Cape, from Boston suburb, when my husband retired 20 years ago (yikes!). My grandparents always had lived on Cape (born in the late 1880's) and my dad went to high school here, so it was natural that I came here every summer. Hubby knew not of Cape Cod, but he came along...what option did he have? He loves it, but summers are busy; come fall and it becomes Patty Page's "Olde Cape Cod" once again.

Anyone having trouble with getting primary care docs? Now you see them, now you don't. If you live in an area of older folks, Medicare payments can't cover the cost of an office and staff.

Whoops, sorry, I may be an interloper. I just realized I am in Garden Discussions. You have more fun than houzz. I remember back in the early days of houzz we had a group we called the OLLDS (old ladies love design) and we chatted every day on "other" and got to know each other. Long gone now. Sad. But, I still have two friends and we keep in touch by email and one of the gals (and hubby) has been here to visit twice, Last time they stayed at my daughter's cottage for a week. We had a lot of fun.

Rosefolly, we have a good friend in Ft. Collins who is a travel agent. Let me know if you ever need her contact info! Millbrook World Travel.

Donna

Elcieg, it is good to see another person here. We have lost so many over the years.

Regarding getting to see a doctor, it is hard to find one who allows patients to access the Government assistance. Because of the costs of running a medical facility, so many are charging private rates for a consultation. As a senior I am eligible and can continue to see the doctor I have had for over twenty years free of charge. My meds are cut rate too which helps with otherwise eye-watering prices!

I moved from the UK with their benefit of the National Health Service and could have joined an insurance scheme in Australia to cover my other medical and private hospital expenses but it was quite a lot to pay from my pension.

I am not very fit but I am usually healthy so I didn't join and have put money aside for the occasions when I need to pay full rate for things like dental or optical needs. Even then I get Government discounts as a senior.

We get a visiting doctor to our Retirement Village once a fortnight but I have stuck with my own one. If she is not available while on vacation, another at the medical centre can see me.

Rosefolly, I am really looking forward to visiting you at some time and wandering all around your neighborhood! I’ve never been to Colorado so I can’t wait to visit it (and you 😉)

elcieg.........welcome !! New voices are always a good thing .

Elcieg, you are not an interloper at all. You are either a welcome visiter or perhaps even a new member. It's your choice. We talk about books a lot, but as you can see, we talk about lots of other things along the way. In either case, we are happy you stumbled upon us.

Vee, your new town sounds lovely. I am glad you are enjoying it.

Rouan, you had darn well better come see me! (For those who may have forgotten, Rouan is one of my sisters.) I would welcome visits from other RP members too, should chance or intention bring them to Colorado. I had the good fortune of meeting Carolyn at a Jane Austen festival some years ago when I was visiting several of my sisters in her home town. Over the years I've met three or four other RP members who are no longer on the forum due to one cause or another.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting you and your sisters, Rosefolly, and greatly admired the Jane Austin outfits you had made for them and yourself for the occasion.

Carolyn, credit where credit is due. Rouan does not sew so I made my costume and hers. However our other three sisters each made her own.

I’m the odd one out since I have no interest in sewing, but I promise you all, I’m not a changeling! I love to read as much as my siblings, and maybe more than a couple of them.

I was a member of this group 18-20 years ago and just happened to think of it this afternoon. i love that so many lf you are still here!! I first heard about Kristin Lavransdatter, Old Filth, Small Island, Cloud Atlas and so many more favorites here. I even had a thread called ”Literary Baby Names” when we were expecting our now 17-year-old daughter (we went with Jane). Do you still do the bookmark exchange?

Anyway, I am bookmarking this page so I don’t lose track again. 🙂 (-Phaedosia)

Welcome back! The Bookmark exchange is still ongoing.

Some old names have vanished but the old timers hang on. I am not a real old timer as I joined around 2003 after lurking for a while.

Hi Phaedosia! I remember you from all that time ago :)

I remember you too. We each have more than a lifetime supply of bookmarks but somehow we cannot stop.

Phaedosia, I always thought your name sounded so Greek-godessy! Do stay and join in; the more the merrier.

I picked that user name when I was in college and we were studying Plato's Phaedo and just kept it for any bookish things. Can you really have too many bookmarks? LOL!

Is the gentleman who read all the Booker nominees and Paul Gallico books still here? I can't remember his name. But, I have read so many of Gallico's stories because of him!

It was Martin. After he retired from work he moved from Harrow, W of London, to York ( a lovely old city) to be nearer children and probably has a busier life than when he commuted every day.

I did attempt various Booker nominations but they mostly proved too much for me.

I do miss Martin's comments. I only occasionally read literary fiction, but he inspired my efforts more than once.

That’s right! Martin_z. I hope he is well.

Welcome back, Paedosia. And, yes, you can have too many bookmarks. I have six 16x20" frames of them hanging down my hall and enough more to paper the walls if you all would come and help me.

Welcome back Phaedosia; I remember you too! and, last year, for,the first time I did not participate in the bookmark exchange. I missed doing it, so if there is one this year, count me in! I am sure I can make room for a fee more of them.

I enjoyed meeting Carolyn too, and would love to meet some more RPers if the opportunity ever arose.

Besides Rosefolly and Rouan, I once met Martin and the girl from Germany whose name I can't remember at the moment in a bookstore in London. We ended up staying most of an afternoon talking, and Martin posted a photo of us on a thread here afterwards. It is such a pleasure to meet other readers.

Hi Rouan! I remember you, too! Carolyn - how perfect to meet in a bookstore! We moved from California about 5 years ago and now live in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Our Allen County Public Library is home to the second largest genealogy collection (after the LDS collection in Salt Lake City). One of these days, I will get around to starting on our family tree.

(And Carolyn - I remember you, too! Just didn’t scroll up far enough….)

Phaedosia, we are sort of neighbors now--I live in Kentucky.