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| the river bank slightly disintergrating |
Yesterday we went out to coffee with friends in the village, J had ordered sale books from Folio and they arrived in two boxes whilst we were there. He has this collection, not sure he reads them all, though he says he does. LS collects as well, pretty as they are, I have the fairy tale books, books are for me something to read, their outward appearance is not a matter of vanity, perhaps that sounds snobby when it was not meant to be.
Today, there is a funeral in the church yard, the grave is near the house, the grave digger came yesterday to dig the hole, the heap of soil looms large near the wall, must admit that this is the first time a chill went down my spine, expect it was the nearness; as it is only local people that end up in the church there are hardly any burials each year.
The events committee met on Monday evening, LS is a member we are to have the quiz night on Valentine's day, and the barbecue in June. LS wants more events in the church but it seems you have to belong to a different committee for that. Funnily enough on Saturday the person who mows the church yard came down to cut the branches of the great yew that overhangs our pathway and it is under this yew that the burial will take place....
Saturday we had gone to the pub and fell in talking with a couple, Shawn the youngish man lived in a static near to the pub, and it turned out that once his family had owned it, but due to a family debt it had been sold to a cousin and then of course sold on. My mind immediately springs to the fact that the young cannot afford to live in their ancestral places because of the ridiculous cost of houses, there are about two dozen houses in the village, 3 bungalows are for the elderly (presumably what in the olden days we would call council) a pair of semi-detached next door to the bungalows again look like council, and then the rest of the village. Cottages (which of course are always highly priced) the big properties and our three new houses, all built with profit in mind. There is something not right in this country allowing the price of houses to get out of hand, but there we all rush eager to fund our old age, perhaps decent social pensions would not go amiss.......
The government are talking about 'garden cities' once more, and are probably casting their eye to prime development spots in our protected countryside, here I am talking about virgin unbuilt land such as the moors, but of course the reason why is because certain people in small towns and villages do not want 'attachments' of modern developments in their pretty villages, sometimes we get very territorial and we need a way to get round all this.
So I have one book on loan from J, looks interesting, set in Yorkshire in a church.
Housing is just the same here. The row of what was once council houses were all bought by the folk who were in them as sitting tenants. They have all been done up and mostly then sold on.
ReplyDeleteAll other properties have very high prices and no housing for the young at all. Sad state of affairs really.
Thatcher had a lot to answer for when she sold the council homes off, if there had been a more strict way of holding onto council houses more young people could have got started on the ladder. The trouble is us, the people go for profit every time without factoring other eventualities.
ReplyDeleteAgree with what you say here Thelma.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally - re this post - I love the book you mention.
Yes the book is very good, especially in its Folio Edition;). Housing is a problem, too many of us for the start, I suddenly remembered this morning that Shawn (young man in pub) had said that some of the plants in our garden came from his family garden, he was surprisingly non-judgmental about us 'incomers'
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