Why I live where I live ...

In a half-hearted response to a blog post by Andy (Look him up, he's over there to the right in my 'Buddies who blog' list), this is why I live where I live.

(And I won't mention the severe lack of bloggage from Mr Hill, especially after his blog posting complaining about the lack of bloggage from the people on his 'Blog roll' ...)

Manningtree. 80 miles or so to the north-east of London, and pretty much 20 minutes from anywhere of importance to my family. Colchester, 20 minutes in one direction, the sea, 20 minutes in another direction, Ipswich and it's marvellous football club, 20 minutes in a different direction. From my house a 2 minute walk in any direction will take you to either woods, fields, or the river - which for the girls and dog opens up all sorts of fun walks with Dad/the feller who walks me (Delete where applicable for daughter or dog).

We didn't plan on moving to Manningtree, Colchester was my limit in distance from London (And work) - but after realising that for the additional 10 minutes on a train to work we would get far more house for our money (And I get a seat on the train to work) we looked. As soon as I saw the river and boats, I was hooked and decided that this was the place Mia and I would raise our daughter (We only had one at the time).

The town itself at one point held the title of 'Smallest Town in the UK', which meant that the fields etc that I so like are unlikely to have houses built on them. The high street is so narrow that only one car can go either up or down at a time, and the buildings have lots of character and are not your common high street type shops.

There are plans to build a big Tesco in the town, which everyone is up in arms about, as the traffic will be terrible - especially when you take into account the only road to Ipswich has a level crossing on it, so you need to wait for the trains to pass - this gets busy anyway, so the additional traffic will be a nightmare. One of my friends is totally against Tesco building their new superstore in the town due to traffic etc, but I don't think has quite grasped the concept as they're all for it if Waitrose decide to build on the site! (For my US friends, Waitrose attracts a much better class of customer ...)

Anyway - the girls and I walked down to the river on Saturday (after a quick detour to the library to get out this weeks bedtime stories in Bethany's case, or whatever Jacqueline Wilson book Charlotte hasn't yet read), so we took pictures, decided which boat we would have, decided it was too cold and wet to go on the sand but it wasn't cold and wet enough not to have an ice cream ...