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Utterly OT: What's it like living where you do?

Finding a home that you are happy with and at peace with is so important, if you aren't happy in your current place my advice is to stop everything else until you sort that out, pins, cars, hobbies, whilst giving pleasure are nothing to the peace of mind you get living in a home that you care about and feel secure in.
+1 on that
 
This is the "cheapest" house available in our village. (Flats are slightly cheaper).most properties now are over a million!!
We are in the middle of the new forest national park mind you. We suffer an annual influx of northern grockels......the village does benefit financially of course...I know this first hand as my brother in law owns the chip shop.(he used to house pinballs but now refuses the old misery, they take up valuable shop space...huh!) We are in Brockenhurst..it's beautiful come visit if you have not already.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-65128187.html
 
Strange what ticks people's boxes. A grew up in a commuter town. If I ever post that I'm moving to one it will be code to say that I've being kidnapped at gunpoint. ;) I can do cities and I suspect that I would be fine in the **** end of the countryside but living on a new build estate and travelling in to work really doesn't do it for me. I also struggle in areas full of old people. The road my parents live on must have an average age of 80+ They've all been there since before I was born. Nature seems to be doing her best to rectify the situation but every time one shuffles off a new over 70 pops up in their bungalow.
 
There's the key word. Bungalow. I mean unless you're in a wheelchair or can't afford a Stannah Stairlift, who on earth would choose to live in a bungalow? Best way to minimise your living space per ground footprint.

If and when I can ever afford to buy again, I'm getting the tallest free standing building I can afford, with basement and preferably also a lift or other means of getting heavy stuff upstairs. Maybe I'll have to make a big ramp using logs like the pyramid-builders or like what they did in 'Elmer on Stilts'
 
Just been hearing this afternoon about a games developer who has just finished up on an as yet unreleased title (zombie themed). Anyway apparently he's moved over to London from the US, set up a small studio and moved into the Hilton in Knightsbridge. Paid cash up front for the year.

Mind blown.
 
Anna actually grew up in a bungalow. She struggles with all our stairs as a result

The ones opposite my parents gave all gone into their roofs. I suspect this is now simply unused space
 
There's the key word. Bungalow. I mean unless you're in a wheelchair or can't afford a Stannah Stairlift, who on earth would choose to live in a bungalow? Best way to minimise your living space per ground footprint.

If and when I can ever afford to buy again, I'm getting the tallest free standing building I can afford, with basement and preferably also a lift or other means of getting heavy stuff upstairs. Maybe I'll have to make a big ramp using logs like the pyramid-builders or like what they did in 'Elmer on Stilts'

I guess Bungalows made more sense when the cost of ground footprint was less than building costs. I grew up in a 4 bed bungalow which my dad built it - sits in an acre of garden, so it was way cheaper to build outwards than upwards. This was not in London mind - just down the road from @DRD, just outside Retford in North Notts. I wouldn't want to live there now though, it's a bit too far from jobs, services, infrastructure, etc.
 
@JT.

I lived in Retford for a few years as a child.

Do you remember the mot testing station on London Road next to the railway bridge ? It is now a hand carwash. It had a Medusa in the early 80s. The first game I ever played, or at least the first one I remember playing.

I also used to play Elektra in the "new" 1970s sports centre at Ordsall

Retford is a bit down on its luck these days. In the early 2000s the Labour Party geniuses levelled

  • The 1970s sports centre - replacing it with an inferior one with no sports hall
  • Freddie Milner's school
  • Girls' High School
  • Hallcroft Girls' School
  • The Boys' Grammar is an OAP housing estate now
New schools funded with debt replaced the above four.

The fire station has been levelled and rebuilt too.

The Labour Party is legendary. Noone other than footballers or investment bankers can afford to knock down infrastructure and rebuild it down the road. But the Labour Party loves it

And unfortunately someone has to pay.
 
@JT.

I lived in Retford for a few years as a child.

Do you remember the mot testing station on London Road next to the railway bridge ? It is now a hand carwash. It had a Medusa in the early 80s. The first game I ever played, or at least the first one I remember playing.

I also used to play Elektra in the "new" 1970s sports centre at Ordsall

Retford is a bit down on its luck these days. In the early 2000s the Labour Party geniuses levelled

  • The 1970s sports centre - replacing it with an inferior one with no sports hall
  • Freddie Milner's school
  • Girls' High School
  • Hallcroft Girls' School
  • The Boys' Grammar is an OAP housing estate now
New schools funded with debt replaced the above four.

The fire station has been levelled and rebuilt too.

The Labour Party is legendary. Noone other than footballers or investment bankers can afford to knock down infrastructure and rebuild it down the road. But the Labour Party loves it

And unfortunately someone has to pay.

Yeah, I remember that - just before the Conservative Club on the same side of the road, before the grammar school. I remember my dad once won the jackpot on the Con Club fruity (£100 I think, but this was 35+ years ago). It didn't have nearly enough cash in it to pay out.

The whole place looks wierd to me when I visit - new roads, new commercial buildings, new housing estates. I haven't lived there since the early '90s though, but my dad is still living in the same house (in Gamston).
 
@JT.

If you are visiting your dad, come over. Have a few games. I have 11 up and running right now. I am in East Markham about 2 miles from your dad
 
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On the bungalow thing, it is just a matter of taste/ fashion. In the UK bungalows are seen by many (incorrectly in my view) as naff/ pensioners only. It probably stems from the ridiculous way we ration land use over here.

But when you have lived abroad and experienced countries that do not ration land use the way they do here, you realise that not all nations think this way.

The uk population is ageing. Many old folk want bungalows but they are in short supply. Land is so expensive here that developers rationally want to squeeze as many bedrooms onto the smallest plot they can. So in my village, our community wants starter homes (so grown up kids can afford to buy a home locally) and oap friendly bungalows (facilitating downsizing) but what we get is 4 and 5 bedroomed houses with postage stamp gardens and garages you can't actually fit a family car into
 
On the bungalow thing, it is just a matter of taste/ fashion. In the UK bungalows are seen by many (incorrectly in my view) as naff/ pensioners only. It probably stems from the ridiculous way we ration land use over here.

But when you have lived abroad and experienced countries that do not ration land use the way they do here, you realise that not all nations think this way.

The uk population is ageing. Many old folk want bungalows but they are in short supply. Land is so expensive here that developers rationally want to squeeze as many bedrooms onto the smallest plot they can. So in my village, our community wants starter homes (so grown up kids can afford to buy a home locally) and oap friendly bungalows (facilitating downsizing) but what we get is 4 and 5 bedroomed houses with postage stamp gardens and garages you can't actually fit a family car into

I'm resisting the urge to talk politics now - I'll go and vote today instead


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So what’s it like living in the rest of the UK? What’s good. What’s bad? How on earth do you cope without a decent pubic transport system? I didn’t even own a car until I was 33 and still barely use it.
@johnwhitfield Really enjoyed your post. Thanks. I grew up in Slough, summed up by John Betjeman’s poem ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, It isn’t fit for humans now.’ In fact I was born in the bit of Slough that the rest of Slough looks down on. While I was studying and training I worked in smart parts of London – Hampstead; Swiss Cottage; Westminster but never in a million years could afford to live there. When I qualified we moved to Derbyshire. For what we sold our 1 bed flat in Slough for we bought a 3 bed detached house. We both love Derbyshire. After a few years in Hong Kong we moved to Ashover, the village we’ve now lived in for 35 years. If we sold our 6 bedroom Victorian house we could probably afford a dilapidated terraced house in an unpopular London suburb. We look out on fields and hills. We know everyone and they know us…and our children. If I walk down to the post office I’ll always speak to people on the way there and back. We walk our granddaughter to the village school (rated excellent by Ofsted for what that’s worth). We walk out of the door and can set off on miles of quiet footpaths across the hills. Sheffield is 30 minutes away by car with good shops, theatres and restaurants if we want that. M1 J28 is a few miles away and Chesterfield, 6 miles, has a mainline station with direct trains to most parts of the country. I knew nothing about Derbyshire and the Peak District before we moved here but it turned out to be a really lucky break for us.

IM000707.jpg

Our house

IM000715a.jpg

The view from my study where I'm sitting now.
 
Some fabulous scenery around this neck of the woods. Not been to Ashover as far as I know, but been to Chesterfield a few times. Really like Ashbourne. Buxton is one of my favorite places. Matlock Baths is fantastic, we were up there last week, its like being in another country when the sun is out. But for me the one place I really want to settle down and stay is Leek. Englands market towns are fantastic.
 
Some fabulous scenery around this neck of the woods. Not been to Ashover as far as I know, but been to Chesterfield a few times. Really like Ashbourne. Buxton is one of my favorite places. Matlock Baths is fantastic, we were up there last week, its like being in another country when the sun is out. But for me the one place I really want to settle down and stay is Leek. Englands market towns are fantastic.

The trees are green, spring sun is shining, the Shropshire hills are rolling and the birds are singing. Been all over the world and nothing beats England in the Spring.

Looks a bit sh#t in the winter though


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Yeah England is **** in the winter. Here is the view from my old apartment in Stockholm during the winter...
 

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Yeah England is **** in the winter. Here is the view from my old apartment in Stockholm during the winter...
It sounds like you are almost in tears with sadness on that video :(. Depressing stuff. Did you live in a tree house or is the whole place like that?
 
It sounds like you are almost in tears with sadness on that video :(. Depressing stuff. Did you live in a tree house or is the whole place like that?

Haha, I think it's actually the sound of my son watching train videos on YouTube....I could be wrong, maybe I had a cold. But yeah it was just like living in a tree house. Pretty much like that all over Stockholm actually. This was really central too, I could cycle to the Palace in less than 10mins. We'd be out having a BBQ on the balcony and there would be wild deer grazing below.
FB_IMG_1493935217413.jpg FB_IMG_1493935803396.jpg
 
IMG_2797.JPG IMG_2801.JPG IMG_2802.JPG Just thought I'd join in on this thread on the joys of living in sunny Exeter.

Having fortuitously been born in a place that turned out to be the 'centre of the universe' (Newton Abbot in South Devon for those of you 'less in the know' ;)) and then lived through Student/work days in Birmingham, Chelsea,Peckham Rye, Wimbledon & Solihull my wife (to be) settled on Exeter as a suitable mid-point between her 'North London roots' and my 'yokel calling' - the coin toss may not have been entirely even:p.

To be fair though somewhere like Exeter is not a bad place to be to combine city life and many of its benefits with easy access to the beach, countryside & Dartmoor.

The house is being decorated at the moment, so just been up to roof Level this evening to check on progress of works and rake in the view, which neatly encapsulates what is in easy reach.

First shot shows the view to the City Centre (we're 10 mins walk away) and Cathedral with the country hills surrounding Exeter beyond and just above the spires of the Cathedral you can just see one of the tors on Dartmoor.

2nd shot panning to the right shows the local Waitrose (built after we moved here - used to be the site of the maternity hospital) and the local police station, adjacent the ambulance station.

3rd shot is out the back which, if there wasn't a bloody great tree in the way now, you'd be able to see straight down the Exe Estuary to the sea!

From our point of view it combines many of the benefits of city living with those of the country (with 24 hour shops and less cow poo:clap:)
 
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