Loneliness is more dangerous to our health in retirement than smoking.

Oh, dear, are we not allowed to be intellectuals?
I get great amusement from the 'I am more integrated than you' threads on the French expat forums. Some boast that they don't watch UK tv - more fool them, it is probably still the best in the world and I make no comment on French tv! Some say they avoid all contact with fellow Britons, or that they are a pillar of the village community. Some boast about how good their French is.
Some spend a lot of time running down

Oh well you can join me in an intellectuals corner if you like expat . Serious minded and proud of it. (But doesn't mean we can't have a GSOH !)

This is one of the reasons I come onto GN which I thoroughly enjoy. I am now so integrated in German culture- I love the language and the countryside, the orderliness, the cleanliness, the way everything functions. I like the way the Germans seperate business from pleasure because when they are having good time then there is always a terrific atmosphere. I am also rather intellectual in my taste and what I read and watch on TV and in Germany that is 100% Ok it upsets nobody. I was once told off on GN for being too intellectual and intelligent.

I feel quite cut off from the younger generation in the UK and now only enjoy the company of older people like on GN or my family. I look after a German u3a course in the UK run by my sister-in-law which I enjoy and wish that more young British people would learn German because they are crying out for young people to fill job vacancies here.
Maybe I'll put a profile on but without photos.
Good luck Jess with your book. I have had a few articles printed in Uk magazines but am too lazy to write a book for the reasons you mentioned.

Oh right expat how do you find integrating in another culture?
I also have those inclinations to keep some privacy. But I am going to have to break cover with the publication of my ebook. This feels very weird. I would prefer to hide but if I do, I won't sell books. So I am told. [nervous emoticon]

chitchat welcome to GN don't worry about age on here we are all young in the virtual world of GN.

JessM I'm an expat from Yorkshire and now live in South Germany in a small, pretty market town 70 miles south of Heidelberg.

It's true I have no profile, I am a bit wary of putting my details on an internet site.

Welcome, Chitchat. I'm 71 and a great grandmother but it doesn't bother me. My sister, who is 75, attends two groups which are subsidised by her local council for the hire of a room in the library. They have talks from interesting speakers and go for days out and to the theatre. She has made some really good friends there.
I live alone in an isolated part of France, but I am one of those odd people who actually enjoy it.

There are one or two in the 80s. If it's any comfort, chitchat, I've been feeling about 90 recently!

There are some older!

I have just been looking at some of your profile's and it's made me feel really ancient, is there anybody out there as old as me, sob sob.

Our U3A had its first AGM today. We've been going and flourishing for just over a year now and now almost anyone I see on the street seems to be a member. I jointly organize a creative writing group and we are getting some good and interesting pieces. Thinking of publishing an anthology.

Hi Annobel. Yes you are correct, gold star for you I do have one lovely Grandson, coiuldn't make it show up tho.In fact I didn't think my profile had gone thro, oh dear me another senior moment.
JessM. I think the nearest U3a by us is a bit out of the way for me.The Chit Chat club that I belong to consist's of, on a good day 14 Lady member's most except 2, aged 70 / 80's. We had a reporter come and see us with a Photographer from the Shropshire Star. Did a full page write up with photo's about 6weeks ago. onsidering doing autograph's now.

U3As run lots of groups all over the country. i know ours runs a similar group to yours chitchat and it is a good one for new members to start on. U3As tend to take things like bus routes into consideration.

Your profile looks fine to me chitchat - except the thing that seems to happen with a lot of us: it says you don't have grandchildren when you obviously have! Don't think this is your fault, it happens so often.

Don't worry! I make amess of everything! They still seem to humour me! I'm not sure why?

Hi Jeni, thanks for the welcome, fortunately I am not on my own, but do know about lonelyness. Will luv to join in the discussion's Just tried to do my profile, made a complete mess of it, that's the trouble when you get to my age oh! dear

Hi chit chat! Wellcome lots of people who are on their own here!
Feel free to say what you want and join in our rows discussions

Hi There, this is my first time on this Gransnet, and I am nervous????????????

I am Chairlady of the Hollinswood Chit Chat club in Telford there are about 12 /14 ladies between the ages of 70 / 80's who meet every Wednesdy morning. We know about lonelyness, have dicussed it, it can be a a killer. To be lonely is an awful experience especially as you get older and possibly confined to your home. It is easy to say that there are club's, courses etc out there waiting for people to attend, but it a most daunting experience to walk through the door's of these places on your own.. Also if you do not have a car and most elderly people dont, how do you get there , by bus, I hear you say. Now thats a thing, most times it's not one bus but two and then they dont alway's go near where you want to go.
Lonelyness is a terrible thing especilly if if you dont like being on your own, and lot's of people dont, especially at night , no one to talk to, no one to hold your hand, give you a cuddle when you feel a bit off colour, no one to eat a meal with.
Yes I think it's just as dangerous as smoking.

Expat you have no profile. Where are you an expat from and where now?

Am I the only one to feel lonely in a crowd of people? When I'm with a large group I feel like I'm on the outside looking in, so when I am alone I prefer it. I'm still married and we are both comfortable together and similar in this respect. But after one has died the other will remain alone. We've discussed it. I see no other way. We have one daughter 12 miles away and this is a comforting thought.
I just can't see myself joining a group just to get out and am sure it will not shorten my life.
I have a glass of cognac about three times a week but no other drink. German beer makes me sleepy, and wine gives me a headache.

Same here Greatnan I hate to be smothered had same when children were younger and it put me off a bit.
However since retirement met another couple and although very pleasant woman would sulk if I didnt want to do what she wanted!!!
so I gradually dropped the friendship as I was too busy to deal with sulks and looking after grandchildren etccc she needed somebody with bit more time

Apparently the number of units was just plucked out of the air as there is so much variation in individual tolerance of alcohol. (Same with the 'five a day' campaign - I believe that was the maximum they thought people would accept).
However, I know there is a huge increase in the incidence of women suffering from liver damage by alcohol abuse and it is just as likely to occur in middle-class, middle-aged women as in teenage girls out on the lash in Newcastle. My daughter was Drug and Alcohol officer for a large area before she emigrated and she heard so often 'Oh, we only drink the best wine' as if that made it less likely to be harmful.
I drank a bottle of wine/champagne a day for all the six years I worked in Monaco and I was very relieved when a blood test during a routine health check some years later showed no damage, but I was lucky. Perhaps the fact that I have never smoked helped.
I now have one glass of wine with my dinner each evening,but I dilute it with a little water. I don't drink and drive at all, as I can't risk losing my licence and the permitted level is much lower in France.
I am sorry if I am being 'preachy' but I have witnessed the disintegration of my daughter's life due to drug addiction and alcohol is a very powerful drug indeed. More money is spent by the NHS in treating alcohol-related illness than on every other drug - possibly apart from tobacco.

A girl after my own heart.

Should we worry about units? Apparently the Queen is, officially, a binge drinker (I read this in one of the papers a few weeks ago so it must be true) because she has a gin and Dubonnet before lunch, wine with lunch, dry Martinis before dinner and champagne with dinner.

Lucky old her I say. And doesn't she look well on it?

Just going downstairs to have a small glass of Shiraz. The sun is well over the yard arm ...

Jack Gin is my lifeline too - preceding the scotch and plonk as the day goes on.........

jack I think that was me not gally! It wouldn't be gin, it would be vodka