How Things Have Changed.

Shiney with our local government we have a circus here all the time

 

If anything I'd say overall it has improved, when we first moved here (30 years ago) there were very few eating places, a couple of McDonalds, Wimpy and a Berni Inn, now there is overload of all kinds of cuisine. Most of the Pubs have gone but they were pretty grotty in the first place to be honest, those that are left now concentrate on food or students (we avoid the latter).

Still got plenty of Banks here, although I rarely need to go - I do as much as possible on-line and suppose most people do too, if we need cash there are cash points everywhere, we even have one in our works office.

There was hardly anywhere to find DIY stuff, a few Builders Merchants where your average DIYer was made to feel unwelcome and they were shut at the weekends anyway. Now we have lots of the big DIY warehouses and smaller over the counter stores (e.g. Screwfix and Toolstation) that are open at times that suit me.

The worst thing that has happened is the closure of Post Offices, we lost our nearest one, 5 minute walk away (turned into a Vets), the next one after that about a mile away was closed a couple of years later and is now an Undertaker. Our nearest is at Surrey University - no parking so we have to walk, it's hardly used as students don't write home anymore (facebook, skype instead) - so that is a big loss but I've moved on to use a local open all hours type shop that does the cheaper than Royal Mail service Parcel2Go.

There are very few shuttered up shops, none actually I can think of in Guildford. But that doesn't go for the town I commute and work in (Bracknell) which is more typical of what @music describes. It's very run down and unattractive but it has masses of high tech industry on the outskirts, good for employment but the downside is the traffic as most people commute there by car.

I think that sums up the Thames Valley, we have some nice towns to live in (if you can afford it) and grotty 1960s London overflow type towns with plenty of work, but you have to put up with traffic jams.

 

Val, do you have any bookshops?

 

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesise with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside and it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticise
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

 

Just saw this on the BBC, looks like there still is a North/South divide

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31124506

 

Oy! Watch it!! We'll have none of your specieism here.