Cycling to another country gives you time to ponder

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 31/10/08 at 10:10:51 am

The day before yesterday my bike trundled over the Scotland – England boarder.  It was a great feeling seeing the flags of St Andrew in the distance then slowly crossing the boarder. It was one of those moments that you uncontrolably grin from ear to ear, I automatically looked around for someone to share this moment with and thought better of nipping over the A1 and waking up one of the truck drivers to tell him, I decided that he might not be as excited as I was.

Today I am writing this from John Headstrong’s computer, the fella that re-designed selfsufficientish and set up this blog for me. Seems odd having worked with this bloke for the last 6 months and never having met him. There is something about the folk that this website seem to attract (the ones that stick around), they are all very easy to get on with and are just genuinely good folk. 

I was in Hadington and Edinburgh yesterday and decided to break my self imposed not buy anything new rule. So I am sitting here in what is now called a thermal base layer, formerly known as long johns ready for the next bit of the trip onward to St Andrews.  I don’t think I will be playing golf though. Not sure where I will stay yet, I guess it all depends on at one point it gets too dark and I get too knackered to carry on and where there is somewhere to stay. Might not even end up being St Andrews but it does have to be on the road to Aberdeen!

I think I can start to be philsophical about this trip now, it does feel like it is something that has shifted some of my outlook and solidified some of my previous ideals. Seeing what chemical works, fertalizer factories, landfill sites, power stations and oil refineries look like and what they do to the surrounding areas can only further my thoughts for a more natural lifestyle. With each button left on stand by, each plastic wrapper put in the bin, each unecessary car journey or each spade full of chemical fertilizer we are all causing a part of our country (wherever that might be) to become glittering eyesore or an area that just feels unhealthy, my lungs felt like I had smoked a packet of marlboro in some places just because of the smoke filled air.

Anyway small rant over and time for a new one, the other thing that really jumps out is how much money is in the South and how little is in much of the North of England*.  Essentially how much money runs around our capital and how the mining communities that have litterally helped fuel the economy and have been squeezed dry of their natural resources (human and mineral) and left to rot. (I guess that must mean its dry rot). * I know some of it is prosperous but I am concentrating on some of the places I have seen.

This recession is being called a middle class one, there is no longer a manufacturing base and it is jobs in banking, estate agency and other high powered ‘city’ jobs are being lost instead. Basically the people who are the money illusionaries, the ones who make us believe that that we need it are loosing their jobs. Don’t feel too sorry for them though as they have earnt in bonuses in the last year as much money as many of us have earnt and I mean ever.

There is a point I am trying to make here about the massive North South divide and this recession, perhaps it will be a great leveler. Hopefully when the dust settles in 4 or 5 years time (yes I believe it will last that long) and we see what legacy it leaves the country, it will be postive. There will be have to be a more sustainable and cleaner way of producing power, over consumersm will have to decrease, we will have to realise that we can no longer rely on our greatest god of the West (oil) and we can’t have a country that has one smaller infanelty more prosperous one inside it within the M25 existing in it’s own little bubble, sucking the life and money out of the rest of the country.  

Ok, last little rant Holiday homes and out of town shopping. These two things are also massive players in the distruction of communities around our country. There are villages with whole streets being deserted during the winter, imagine 20 house and only one family living there. This is what happens when you rent out a holiday home, it means no village pub as there is not enough people to sustain it all year round and the post office is no longer needed either. The out of town shopping centres also mean that the other local shops have gone, unable to compete. This might all be old news to many but until you have seen comunity after community left as shadows of their former selves then you might not feel too gulity of shopping where “every little hurts”.  But you are helping to fuel this when you shop, it could not be too long before none of us have a choice.

Well, I am in a ranting mood this morning, strangley I am in a pretty good mood ready for the next leg of the cycle tour.

1 Comment

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1. I’m sad that you feel this way Andy, sad because I see it the same way and I hope that this recession will be a seminal piont for change. A change for the better, to be more community based, to be more friendly to others and to be healthier. Wealth is not money but friends, food, warmth and shelter.

   Keep up the good work Andy and all the ish site background staff… you are doing a great job.

   Big Al.

   Comment by Big Al — October 31, 2008 #

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