"Oh yes," says Di, in her usual dying fall. Di is just back from London so she's our current expert. "You have to get dressed up to be seen at breakfast, dressed up to be seen at lunch, dressed up again to be seen at dinner, then for a reception or party. All the time you aren't dressing up to be seen, you are shopping for clothes to dress up in. And nails are suddenly very important. Everyone spends hours getting their nails done every week."

French women don't dress up? Di and I look politely disbelieving for a moment. Then, I read them something egregious from Tatler, they laugh and we all congratulate one another on our astonishing perspicacity for ending up on Saltspring from various points of the compass.

6. Most people in my life here are from other classes, ages and professions. Which means I can stop and talk to my handyman just as easily as I can talk to the ex-wife of a rock star. For one thing, we have something in common: the weather. If you live in Ontario, remember the blackout? Well, every season something happens that has a similar impact on us. And the beauty. We have all chosen to take a hit, income-wise, to live in such a beautiful place. Odds are that the handyman has a poly-sci degree from Yale. My firewood man, Dave Harris, quotes reams of poetry at me from the back of his truck while he's throwing the wood on the ground and, pointing a finger at me, demands that I identify the poet. (This is embarrassing because I can't.)

(Copyright National Post 2003)

enickson@nationalpost.com

They have been drumming in the village. We think it's because the solstice is near or because they think they can drum George Bush out of office. Di heard that the kids drum because when they get stoned it makes them feel as if they are doing something.

I'll tell you, the drumming has been making it hard to concentrate in the film office in which I work here on Saltspring Island. So instead of working I am flipping through Tatler, which still gives me post-traumatic stress disorder but I read it anyway, and then I say what I always say, "Thank God, I don't live in London any more."

This is a ritual conversation in the office, which continues as follows:

"Uh-hah!" says Nathalie, the international production co- ordinator from Paris.

"Oh yes," says Di, in her usual dying fall. Di is just back from London so she's our current expert. "You have to get dressed up to be seen at breakfast, dressed up to be seen at lunch, dressed up again to be seen at dinner, then for a reception or party. All the time you aren't dressing up to be seen, you are shopping for clothes to dress up in. And nails are suddenly very important. Everyone spends hours getting their nails done every week."

We laugh, and run over the various excessive and silly ways city women waste their time. Then Di or I always ask, "Is there anything you miss about Paris, Nathalie?"

"Non!" she almost shouts. Then she backs up, because she is very patriotic. "Well a little, of course. But French women don't dress up. They just dress in black."

French women don't dress up? Di and I look politely disbelieving for a moment. Then, I read them something egregious from Tatler, they laugh and we all congratulate one another on our astonishing perspicacity for ending up on Saltspring from various points of the compass.

I know that cities are all the rage these days, urbanism rocks, the engine of growth, etc., etc., but I've lived in five of them so I'm skeptical. To convince you, I've outlined the main advantages of life as a country grrl, er, girl, er, woman.

1. You don't have to dress up. You don't have to wear makeup. You don't have to have your nails done. Eyebrows, legs, underarms, nether regions never need to see wax. You have no idea the time that frees up. And the pain. My husband used to tip me on to the bed every month or so and pluck my eyebrows, while tears slid into my hair.

2. You never wear high heels. My last trip to London is lost in the agonizing blur caused by four-inch heels.

3. There is never any traffic. That would be, yes, never.

4. Everyone keeps asking me if I'm lonely, which reminds me I'm not.

"Are you lonely?" asked a CEO at lunch the other week in Vancouver.

"Thinking of coming back to the city yet?" asked an attractive man that night at dinner.

"What on Earth do you do all day?" asked an editor in Toronto last month. And: "Do you have any friends?" and "Can you see any other houses from your house?" and "Just how isolated are you?" From the questions, you'd think there is disadvantage, except for the following:

5. I am never lonely because everyone talks to one another all the time. I never go to the village without seeing three or four people I haven't seen for a few days, or weeks, and we stop to say, "Hi, you look great (or tired and emotional). What's going on in your personal journey? And what growth steps have you taken?" and offer compassion and silent strength or loads of encouragement and support. OK, that sounds a little New Age, but Saltspring is the end of the hippie trail.

Last Friday night, I had a leisurely dinner with an 87-year-old woman I've known since I was six, looked at 150 of her watercolours, then met friends for a late movie. Isn't that normal, for Pete's sake? Except in London, even Toronto, to have that kind of evening would require invasion-force planning. You have time for people, is what I'm saying. See points 1 and 3.

6. Most people in my life here are from other classes, ages and professions. Which means I can stop and talk to my handyman just as easily as I can talk to the ex-wife of a rock star. For one thing, we have something in common: the weather. If you live in Ontario, remember the blackout? Well, every season something happens that has a similar impact on us. And the beauty. We have all chosen to take a hit, income-wise, to live in such a beautiful place. Odds are that the handyman has a poly-sci degree from Yale. My firewood man, Dave Harris, quotes reams of poetry at me from the back of his truck while he's throwing the wood on the ground and, pointing a finger at me, demands that I identify the poet. (This is embarrassing because I can't.)

7. Men. For every cashed-out first wife or frantic single mom working on her chakras, there is some fellow alone in a palatial house (or shack) smack up against the forest howling at the moon and drinking too much. They may need a little cleaning up, but they generally aren't brutalist metrosexual investment bankers requiring a lot of worship.

8. A good haircut does not cost $300.

9. You will never meet anyone who just had a colonic so her stomach will be perfectly flat for Saturday night's party.

10. They say Arnold has just bought property here, so that when California crashes down on his head he'll have somewhere to run. Which is the most important point. The country is funny.

11. OK, one more thing: float-plane pilots.