I live in a village of about 7,000 people. I checked some demographic information when I was thinking of buying a place here. The population is mostly people of Scottish and German descent. I used to find it weird, after living in the city, how seldom I see brown or black people round the village, except those who’ve come up to the mountains as tourists. I’ve got used to it, though it does mean there’s no decent Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese or Lebanese food for about 100 kilometers in any direction.

Yoga and yoghurt in the mountains

A really high proportion of the people up here are single mothers. The single mothers are here because of the property prices: you can afford to live up here, with a bedroom or two for the kids, after a divorce or separation. And there’s a single mother’s mafia, a network who get each other bargains, and swap garden produce, clothes and that sort of thing, to keep living costs down.

Also, according to Neil Young so it must be true, welfare mothers make better lovers.(It’s a great song, by the way, and I recommend the version on Weld. If you ever wondered, “how much noise can Crazy Horse really make?”, this demonstrates that the answer is, “More than you could ever imagine, in your wildest dreams.”)

There’s a temptation to go all man-of-the-world when you hear bumper stickers like that: ah, yes, that welfare mother, the colours her face turns when you’re in her bed and the kids are in theirs, just a wall away, and she’s trying to suppress orgasmic screams. Her sexual abandonment and need, when you’re just got an hour left before the kids get back from school.

She has various kinds of wisdom, that come from having loved and had to leave a man, and another kind that comes with responsibility for children, that lead to a willingness to see the world and people as they are. That’s sexy too.

The man of the world says something like this, and he sighs with pleasurable reminiscence. He has a sip of whisky, breathes out and says, again, “Ahhh, yes.” I could do that. I’ve even got a library with a leather armchair.

But it’s bullshit, of course. Not because single mothers aren’t great lovers. But then, you could make up just as reasonable a story about nurses, or teachers, or librarians making better lovers. It’s one of those statements that sounds like knowledge but doesn’t really mean anything.

I’ve never known a woman bank middle-manager, or travel agent or public service policy writer, who wasn’t a brilliant lover. I guess I’m just not a man of the world. 

Anyway, I started this train of thought because I was going to write something about running a bdsm meet’n’greet group up in these mountains, and what that’s like. But I’ll come to that next time.