I have this recurring discussion with Sigal about life in the country versus life in the city. Not that Sigal actually lives in the country, mind you. What she lives in is a little satellite town, in a dinky little house with a dinky little garden around it and with a big nasty SUV parked outside to take Dor to the kindergarten.

I’m sure her life is wonderful in her dinky little house, with Dor having all that freedom to run in and out of the dinky little garden. I’m sure it’s worth every minute of every hour of sitting in the big nasty SUV in the traffic on the way to and from work.

It’s just not my cup of Turkish coffee.

I am one of those rare exotic birds – the ideological inner city dweller. It’s not that I don’t fantasize sometimes about my own little dinky house with its dinky little garden, although knowing me it would just be a weed garden. And it’s not that I never had guilty panic attacks, when the girls were little, that they weren’t wild nature children wandering freely, investigating leaves and dissecting ants.

But I do so love being in walking/cycling/short bus ride distance from everything I could possibly ever need (although I do own a car and I even use it occasionally). And I love the bustle and the people in the cafes, and yes, even the roads full of cars and buses, especially when I can whiz past on my bike. It’s all so alive.

And if all that is not enough, I really do think this country is far too small and far too populated, for us to allow ourselves the luxury of suburban sprawl.