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I don't like the Lake District.



There.
I‘ve said it in the title.
I don’t enjoy living in Cumbria: especially here in west Cumbria. It has nothing for me. It has nothing for us. It only had work for my partner in the first place; the only job that she could get 7 years ago. They soon made her redundant from that and we struggled financially. My partner now works and lives in Sheffield, 36 years of marriage cleaved by living in the wrong place.
Why is it considered so heinous a statement to express a dislike of an area? It seems alright for people to say
“I couldn’t live in London, Leeds or Manchester.”
That is somehow more acceptable and people nod in agreement or express their dislike of big towns.
However, say you dislike the sacred, beloved Lake District of Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter and you receive a torrent of approbation;
“How can you say that? It’s lovely up there.”
Yep. It’s lovely for one or two week’s holiday. Just try 312 sodding consecutive weeks with no break, save for two weeks in Greece as a Best Man to a friend. Then you’ll feel the effect of the privations of having to travel for everything. I mean everything: Food, petrol, entertainment you name it and it isn’t local.
Here’s an idea: Try and follow a Guardian recipe in Cumbria. It would take months to source the ingredients. Oh and while you’re at it get your local fishmonger or butcher to help you out: at Morrisons or Asda?
We have variable mobile phone coverage, if at all but we have lovely views. (We use a Vodafone signal booster to be in contact with the outside world).
We have no fast broadband or cable optical broadband but we do have lovely views. The broadband speeds are so low even BT television is out of the question. Also when it rains and that is very often, the broadband signal suddenly drops.
Our petrol prices here are amongst the highest in the UK, however the views are stunning as you drive expensively through and to them.
Gas, water and electric prices are higher than average due to the transportation costs but we have the outstanding views and lovely walks to compensate for fuel poverty. How lovely.
Most big bands and entertainers avoid Cumbria so our nearest large entertainment venue is in Newcastle (3.5 hours), Glasgow (2.5 hours) or Manchester (2.5 hours).
Yes we do have The Theatre by The Lake: A stunning venue showing some good plays and holding a literary festival every year. That is not enough for an area as large as Cumbria. We also have the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal a 1.5 hour drive away through tortuous countryside!  Or you could go by bus, that will only take about 4 hours each way after all the changes and stops.
The nimbys of the National Parks committee won’t even allow signal boosters in their precious open land; so consequently mobile signals and even FM radio signals are sometimes non-existent. This is the bloody 21st Century! You see people in the middle of a desert taking a mobile call on television!
Even Freeview, this the place where all analogue television signals were switched off first with much trumpeting of ‘progress’, can be patchy and often non-existent without huge television masts, boosters and aerials we would have no signals!
I really can’t think why I want to move to Sheffield with its theatres, trams, buses, shops and restaurants, tandooris, parks, people of colour, FM signals and full platform Freeview. Need I go on with that listing?
The Lake District, lovely chocolate box views, some lovely people but it’s not for me. I refuse to swish around Cumbria in sodding waterproofs. I don’t own any: Hateful anti-fashion.
So now I expect I’ll get attacked and people will tell me how noisy and smelly Sheffield is, how much crime there is, how people are aggressive and unfriendly, how it’s a big city with all the attendant problems etc. Of course it is the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire. Ah, to be amongst so many like souls.
Roll on 2014 and our move to Sheffield is all I can end this piece with.

Comments

  1. Dan10 April 2014 at 13:23

    An enjoyable read. Gets the point across with humour, perhaps lets off some steam? Well Done!

    ReplyDelete

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