Grass greener

Now that my post holiday blues have receded and I'm settling back into normality again I wonder why the grass gets greener?

Now that Ive stopped Googling for affordable island homes on Mull and imagining an idyllic alternative lifestyle in the Hebrides I have realised it's our false concept of life that's to blame.

Holidays are a recent invention. Our great grandparents would in all likelihood not have had any. Certainly the Hebridean islanders of even recent times would not have taken any time off except for sickness and maybe for exceptional family reasons that forced them to travel somewhere. The other exception being the 18th century rich young who were despatched on grand tours of Europe. Going more distantly through history travel was the exclusive domain only by necessity inhabited by soldiers, sailers and merchants. The only people opting to travel were ecclesiastical scholars and missionaries.

This current and the last generation are the first to regularly travel for pleasure. 'A change as good as a rest' entered the lexicon and expectation. Holidays and time off incrementally became personal rights. Hitherto these had been communal things; festivals, religious feast days.

So in deliberately exposing ourselves to the possibilities of alternative lives in undreamt of locations we stoke fires of jealosy. We envy Meditteranean lifestyle, culture and diet. We envy tanned skin. We covet a place in the sun.

Then we are led to disdain our driech grey skies even more and become so dour that 4 weeks in sunny climes every becomes almost a medical requirement for national health.