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Post by arth_frown on Nov 29, 2008 12:47:42 GMT -1
hmmm.... that's why people in Wales can't afford houses.... It's like that everywhere. It's those who buy a holiday home that really p**s me off. The bungalow and land was being sold for only 70k, going by the state of house and land it had been vacant for years.
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Post by Tegernacus on Nov 29, 2008 13:28:48 GMT -1
yeah, that came out wrong. What I meant was: the answer isn't moving to "cheaper" parts of the Island. Because the people who live there will need to move to "cheaper" parts again and on and on.. Sooner or later there won't be anywhere that isn't affected : it's just selfishly passing the problem on to someone else, rather than solving it. I'm alright Jack. And that's what's got the planet into the mess it's in at the moment.
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Post by alfvin on Nov 29, 2008 15:27:00 GMT -1
Well, some interesting responses there, although none on a really practical or spiritual level.
I lost heavilly on the sale of my house, to the tune of around £40,000 but then again I wouldn't have had a house if it wasn't for Maggies right to buy.
I have managed to escape the British police state, which many of you have commmented on. I now have a much more relaxed lifestyle and don't miss my old country one bit. Well I miss affordable cheddar cheese, decent sausages and a few other things but in the 4 weeks I've been here, I've spent more time out of doors than I probably did in a year in the UK, although it is now officially cold (I had to wear a fleece today), it is almost mid winter.
I am however still effected by the British economy ie the pound against the euro. I daren't change money as the rate is so bad, so I'm still scrimping and scraping to get by. Some things never change.
Alfvin
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Post by chris on Nov 29, 2008 15:38:07 GMT -1
I mainly moved to Wales 'cos I was destitute. Because I'd "lost" a house and associated credit ratings there was no opportunity to stay where I was (Cotswolds) 'cos anyone letting a house wanted ..... credit ratings.
I took a gamble that somewhere in Wales would be a nice person with a house to let who would be, shall we say, more "informal" in their tenancy requirements. Thankfully there was.
It wasn't as if we were downsizing or anything, I'm sorry if my levity of "all else fails" came across wrongly. I settled myself and my kids and promptly had the breakdown to end all breakdowns, where I lost 3 stone and all my hair along with what remained of my sanity for a while.
Eventually, by the sheer chance of a miswritten will several years later we were able to buy again, a tiny little house that's gorgeous but not much bigger than a large mobile home here in the lands that I have come to love. The remainder of the inheritance we portioned between the kids to enable them to get started on the housing ladder (most of them live in the Midlands where their jobs are).
We bought 7 years ago. It was still relatively cheap in Carmarthenshire - you could still actually buy a basic house for around £30k. Since then property around here virtually quadrupled, which was insane in a low-waged area. I can understand the grievance about all of that madness, totally and absolutely, because it means that local people on local wages don't stand a chance ........ barely, even, in the sub-sub-prime mortgage market of high borrowing ratios to over optimistically self assessed incomes. It's hardly surprising people get desperate.
I guess Arth's bungalow and 9 acres, even in a state of disrepair, would have been well over £300k at the height of the delusion.
The village I live in now is tiny. There's no shop, one pub, and about 30 houses plus a few outlying farms. Four of the houses are council - one of which is now privately owned by its previous tenant. Another 10 are holiday homes, vacant for most of the year. I've just been trying to work out how many of the rest are owned by Welsh villagers (including me in the latter 'cos I didn't take shed loads of cash out of the Home Counties and move with a golden handshake) ..... and I actually reckon it's less than the holiday homes. And the rest is definitely those who have moved to the cheaper and more beautiful countryside.
It's often the latter who are a right pain in the arse. I was talking to one the other day when I meandered down to the post box with a letter. He was moaning about the "mess" made by a glorious horse chestnut tree, doing what deciduous trees do naturally by dropping its leaves. It's autumn, hey. Unfortunately, in his eyes, there's a preservation order on it ........
Phew.
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Post by Tegernacus on Nov 29, 2008 17:18:27 GMT -1
I was ranting about that very thing yesterday... (I rant a lot to myself, I'm going to be that doddering old geezer walking down the road shouting at bushes). Anyhow, there were some (English) guys on the radio complaining about proposed pylons, linking wind-farms in mid Wales to England. And they were going on about it's going to spoil their nice view of the Welsh countryside... and I was shouting at the radio "if they don't set up wind-farms the planet is f***d and you won't have a view at all!!!". Jeebus. It's scenic rape, honestly.
Aaaaanyhow... politics, eh?
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Post by chris on Nov 29, 2008 21:02:13 GMT -1
Sometimes I don't think they even begin to realize. Street lights have been an issue recently here. Some of the councils of Dyfed have decided to turn some off. They were suggesting every other one, or even two out of three. When I was a kid (and I really am a doddering but sassy crone) we didn't even have street lights in a viallage this size .... and that was in England!!!! I live quite a way out of the village now, but I have a street light outside my house. On the rare occasions it snows it looks like Narnia, but that's it's only positive attribute. But I really had to chew my tongue with the Horse Chestnut guy on another foray to the post box, because he was ranting about The Dangers To Life And Limb From Turning Off The Street Lights. Virtually every villager that actually LIVES here in the winter has petitioned the council to leave "their" street light on, ie the one outside their front door and gates. I did actually get a tad exasperated, and said something to the effect of What About The F**king Planet? ? but Horse Chestnut guy said there are children who need to play in safety. "In the dark, in the winter?" said I. "And what children?" The "child" scapegoated as the Reason For Retaining Street Lights is 14, for Gawd's sake. But it didn't go down well when I said if he got run over in the dark he would be negligent to a point of being crassly stupid at his age. (It's quite good being a doddery ranting crone, actually. A whole new perspective on life.) *grin*
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Post by Tegernacus on Nov 30, 2008 9:34:26 GMT -1
I can understand having street lights in inner city London, but not in the countryside. It's pointless, really. I used to live in woods on the Gower, and anytime we went anywhere we would take a lantern. A row of lamps tramping home from the pub... magic...
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Post by clare on Nov 30, 2008 10:24:26 GMT -1
The joys of middle age! I remember being 14, walking 2 miles in the pitch dark from the house to the pub, which was the only thing with any human life in it for miles. It was second nature to wear something reflective, walk on the correct side of the road - which was not always to face on coming traffic, particularly round a corner - to shut one eye and stand still as the car came past so that you weren't entirely blinded.
This poor lonesome, infantalised 14 year old in your village needs to run away and go live in a hedge for a while.
Anyhoo. It's good to read this discussion, to see that it doesn't immediately degenerate into howls of political ire. I wonder how people feel about squatting semi-derelict properties in the countryside? This is one area where I'd expect the experience to be better in towns where people become outraged of Tonbridge Wells but expect the council to deal with it. In the countryside I'd be concerned about the locals arriving with burning pitchforks!
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Post by Tegernacus on Nov 30, 2008 10:42:27 GMT -1
if you squatted a cottage, and two hundred people turned up on the weekend for a rave, I suspect they would be out with pitchforks. I'd join them.
However, if you were homeless, and squatted a cottage, then proceeded to give it some TLC, clean up the garden, etc, you'd find people far more sympathetic. The key is interacting with the local community, not being seen as "an outsider". Go to community meetings, get involved with stuff, but be upfront and let everyone know you're squatting and why. When the council/police do make moves to evict, it's better to have the local community fighting in your corner. (That applies in the city as well as the country)
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Post by Tegernacus on Nov 30, 2008 10:45:25 GMT -1
oh, and do some research first. If you squat a tumbledown that's owned by someone who now lives in Australia, you'll have a better time than it you squat an empty house owned by the farmer up the road. It's obvious, really, but I guess if you're running out of options things like that don't come into consideration.
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Post by chris on Nov 30, 2008 11:10:40 GMT -1
Bless him, his mum wouldn't like him living in a hedge ..... and people who like street lights wouldn't be able to use spurious notions as excuses.
It's amazing what people can come up with as justifications for anything they want to retain, whether it's spiritual titles or perceived creature comforts.
*grins very wickedly*
I think alfvin asked about spirituality in terms of credit crunches. My fall from societal grace was like a bloody shamanic dismemberment - but it took me a while to appreciate it as such. Mind you, that's probably often the way - nobody exactly thinks, "Oh goodie, I'm being flayed alive and stripped of everything I've built up in my life to date, isn't that wonderful!" when they're in the thick of the action.
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Post by clare on Nov 30, 2008 16:31:31 GMT -1
Gods Chris, you've hit the nail on the head. Your experience sounds hideous, we tend to forget how close to homelessness home owners are (3months) which is somewhat more than people in public housing who can be evicted for keeping a cat. And people who privately rent can be out on their ear in a week. All deeply shamanic, several years after the event. *Shudder*
Teg, re: squatting, sounds good advice all round. I happen to love my flat in the center of a housing estate in the center of London. I love central heating, no electricity failures, on-tap hot water, my brilliant neighbours and the coffee shop next door. I love it particularly in this weather. But if you know any deserted places that a farmer might like to have tarted up a bit over spring and summer . . .
Re Spiritual responses to the downturn, for me, in all seriousness, the main answer to most social problems is community. When one person gets kicked in the teeth it's good to have others help him up. When someone becomes homeless, it's good for others to offer him a home. In pure economic terms it's cheaper for a number of people to share the bills and buy food in bulk than it is to live separately. In mental health terms, with the right people around you, life can be financially difficult and very sweet. Community for me would have to have a spiritual input,even if that's just sharing time talking meaningfully as a group.
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Post by chris on Nov 30, 2008 17:13:15 GMT -1
We didn't have any sense of community whatsoever when the s**t hit our proverbial fan.
I thought I had friends, who I'd previously helped by looking after their own kids for weeks whilst they were sorting out divorces and such like. I thought I had family. I thought my hubby had family.
But were as comprehensively disowned as if we'd suddenly contracted something really nasty, embarrassing, virulent and highly contagious. We actually phoned an uncle of my hubby's (who I thought we were really close to) to ask if we could leave some furniture at his place whilst we tried to find somewhere. Silly me - he said rather sharply that he needed the entirety of his treble garage for his car and put the phone down. We never heard from him again.
Surprisingly, it's actually doing me good to be able to talk about it. This is a first, even after all these years. There's such massive social stigma in Britain about this type of thing, far more so than in the US.
There have been times in the past few weeks where I've really had to stop, breathe, and convince myself that this time it's far, far different to the time I had in the early 1990s. This time I own my house, this time the kids have all grown up and I won't have to ever bundle them all in a car again and pretend we're off on a lovely adventure game.
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Post by clare on Nov 30, 2008 19:39:33 GMT -1
Stigma. It goes nastily deep. 'Benefits' has a similar meaning to 'paedophile' these days: outcast scum. I wrote my MA on it and holy moly, it's a dirty little world some people live in. Fook 'em, that's what I say, we're liminal people living liminally, Chris. It's not a life I planned for but it's the one I choose over others. How many Pagans who witter on about saving the world consume enough petrol/food/stuff to keep Zimbabwe going? It's good to keep it simple, even if it's forced on us! And deeply distressing when it happens out of the blue.
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Post by chris on Nov 30, 2008 21:46:07 GMT -1
One thing we, as a family, seem to have is the notion that we help each other. Hubby and I have helped to do up houses bought in need of repair - fitting kitchens, tiling bathrooms etc. My youngest is an electrician, so he's usually in demand! Sometimes we might not talk for months, just a relaxed but busy silence 'cos most of us either have a couple of jobs (regular and paying hobby) or are studying for extra qualifications part time ..... but as soon as anyone needs anything, it's sorted.
We're very relaxed about presents (years of living on shoestrings) so instead of buying into the consumerism of Christmas we tend just to get together for a meal out or something. Obviously the grandsons get something for The Day, and I celebrate Solstice .... But one of my great pleasures is to sit at home in a nice quiet house and eat something perverse like beans on toast for lunch on 25 December whilst envisaging people up and down the country frantically trying to co-ordinate timings of massive turkeys and several veg - whilst probably enjoying an argument or two from the stress of it all.
It's quite liberating, really. As you say, Clare, living liminally.
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Post by Craig on Dec 1, 2008 12:12:10 GMT -1
I think the abolishment of the 10p tax band put the final nail in Mr.Broon's claim to be the champion of the little man. Don't expect Mr.Macaroon and his millionaires to return it neither...
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Post by Lee on Dec 1, 2008 16:05:52 GMT -1
the 10p tax band is back i thought, hence rebates at the moment and less tax. i thought it was done a few months ago.
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Post by Craig on Dec 2, 2008 7:22:27 GMT -1
Sorry Lee, it isn't as far qas I know [and I am obviously an expet as I listen to Radio 4 ]. They gave some temporary relief to the lowest paid is all. The latest wheeze is to give you a temporary tax break to cope with the crunch, reduce VAT by three-fifths of bugger all and increase petrol duty and National Insurance. As soon as the crunch falls off the front pages they'll increase VAT to more than it was before and pretend to tax the rich [y'know the guys who can afford tax accountants and who'll avoid every last penny]. So guess who pays...?
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Post by Lee on Dec 3, 2008 13:21:46 GMT -1
my understanding is that the VAT cut was more to do with getting more money n the pockets of companies - who prob wont cut prices - so they are making a bit ore and also from a psychological point of view for the rest of us. i reckon most of this recession we have been talked into by the media - the run on Northern Rock was a huge starting point and almost entirely media created.
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