How many of you have to pay to park outside your house? Well you do if you live in a residents permit area. Nothing wrong with that you probably think - at least it stops non residents clogging up the streets with their cars, and that is true as far as it goes. However, there are some things about a residents parking scheme that make my blood boil. First of all, although we already pay plenty of Council tax we also have to pay a fee for both cars, and for our visitors. The city council would say that they canvassed residents and the majority wanted a residents scheme - yes, when it was free! If you change your car they don't believe you until you've visited Gateway at least three times with registration documents, insurance documents and proof that you live at the address. And even then they insisted on Christopher's signature - they wouldn't take my word for it that he wanted a permit. Then to add insult to injury - if you accidentally forget to renew your permit by ONE DAY you get a parking fine for £50, even though the parking inspectors have seen the car parked in the same place for at least three months and know the car belongs to us, as I've said good morning to them on numerous occasions.
This week's blog is about our wonderful city of Southampton, and overall the parking scheme does mean that we can actually park in our road, so I suppose I must commend the city council for their marvellous organisation, and we should really have renewed the permit before it ran out.
So now I will touch on a few things that make living in Southampton so pleasant. It is very easy to take the green spaces for granted, but not many cities have a Common. This is very useful for jogging round, and has numerous activities including British Army training, tyre throwing and Tai Chee going on. It also has quite a lot of wildlife - jays, squirrels, water voles and many rats. There are lots of other parks as well, and the walk to the library is lovely.
This week's blog is about our wonderful city of Southampton, and overall the parking scheme does mean that we can actually park in our road, so I suppose I must commend the city council for their marvellous organisation, and we should really have renewed the permit before it ran out.
So now I will touch on a few things that make living in Southampton so pleasant. It is very easy to take the green spaces for granted, but not many cities have a Common. This is very useful for jogging round, and has numerous activities including British Army training, tyre throwing and Tai Chee going on. It also has quite a lot of wildlife - jays, squirrels, water voles and many rats. There are lots of other parks as well, and the walk to the library is lovely.
The library is housed in the Civic Centre, a handsome grade II listed building, that also has the Art gallery, and Seacity museum. The library is a very pleasant place to spend the afternoon researching local history, or you can visit the archives if you pick your time carefully - that is Tuesdays and Wednesdays 10 till 4, closed 12.30 to 1.30. Southampton owns some great paintings - some of which are on display in the gallery, so that is well worth a visit. The entrance to the Art gallery and library is quite grand, and I love it.
The museum has a section on Southampton as gateway to the world, and we have had many visitors and settlers throughout the ages. There is one plaque which brings a lump to my throat whenever I look at it because I have friends who are Basque, and as they are my age, they were born during the Franco regime.
There are many leisure opportunities in our city, not least those offered by the football team - at present we are basking in the glory of beating Manchester United. You can also swim, dive, go to the theatre or just go shopping and then eat. There is always room to improve though - people who lived here before 1977 are still complaining about the closure of the Ice Rink.
Living in Southampton is also very convenient because of all the other places that are so easy to get to! You can go on a cruise, catch the bus to the airport, or just visit the New Forest which is right on our doorstep.
Living in Southampton is also very convenient because of all the other places that are so easy to get to! You can go on a cruise, catch the bus to the airport, or just visit the New Forest which is right on our doorstep.
There are very few attractive buildings in Southampton - some of it due to bombing in World War II, but also because of wholesale demolition in the sixties and eighties. We need to hold on to what we've got and make sure that the new builds add to the city - I wonder what the new Cultural Quarter will be like ?