Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Things can only get better?
Just as you think things are getting better in Bilborough, someone goes and drops a turd on the table to bring you back down to earth. There were small signs that the place was going up in the world, albeit by small steps. Fewer strange noises outside of a night, a couple of new street name signs left untouched by graffiti, fewer Darrens on motorbikes piling up and down outside the school, house prices still rising despite a nationwide trend of stagnating or falling prices, and most obviously a massive (and architecturally quite striking) expansion to Bilborough College, which I'm reliably informed has a very strong reputation. Next door, yer woman's rarely in, now having moved into her boyfriend's house around the corner, so there's never any noise of an evening, though I occasionally hear her during the day if I'm working at home. (Which is reassuring, as I wouldn't want her to give up her house, partly for her and her kids sake so that she's got a bolt-hole in case things go pear-shaped with the BF, and partly for me as who knows who might move in next door. Better the devil you know...)
And then I get on my bike this morning to go to the shops thence on to work, and there, barely 100 yards from the house outside the school, is the burnt-out shell of a minivan, which had plainly been torched sometime last night. I don't think it was during sleepy-byes time as I'd surely have noticed the light of the flames through the bedroom window, so perhaps it was in the evening when I'd gone to the Rodney straight after work.
It could have been joyriding Darrens having a laugh, although a minivan is a strange thing for a joyrider to nick, or maybe it was the van's owner trying his luck with the insurance. Who did it is irrelevant, it's what it says that matters. And what it says is: don't get ideas above your station, O residents of Bilborough. Grottsville it will remain.
It immediately put me in mind of the title sequence for that C4 series, Shameless, where the estate residents are dancing around a burning car and the voiceover from the deadbeat Dad, Frank, says "we know how to have a paarrrrtay" in his Manc accent. Bilborough makes me think of Shameless, but without the funny bits.
Ah well, at least it's jolted me out of my complacency - for while I was even starting to get used to the place. Best keep scouring those jobs bulletins for work oop North, or alternatively keep an eye out for places in less grotty areas. A colleague at work is flogging her house in Bestwood Village, which is a very nicely situated place, thankuverymuch, although at 115k it's a bit pricey. Shame it's an old mining village, given the unforgotten and unforgiven role of the Notts miners in the 84-85 strike, and a bit of a way from work, but it is by some very nice greenery and woods. Worth a butcher's anyway.
And then I get on my bike this morning to go to the shops thence on to work, and there, barely 100 yards from the house outside the school, is the burnt-out shell of a minivan, which had plainly been torched sometime last night. I don't think it was during sleepy-byes time as I'd surely have noticed the light of the flames through the bedroom window, so perhaps it was in the evening when I'd gone to the Rodney straight after work.
It could have been joyriding Darrens having a laugh, although a minivan is a strange thing for a joyrider to nick, or maybe it was the van's owner trying his luck with the insurance. Who did it is irrelevant, it's what it says that matters. And what it says is: don't get ideas above your station, O residents of Bilborough. Grottsville it will remain.
It immediately put me in mind of the title sequence for that C4 series, Shameless, where the estate residents are dancing around a burning car and the voiceover from the deadbeat Dad, Frank, says "we know how to have a paarrrrtay" in his Manc accent. Bilborough makes me think of Shameless, but without the funny bits.
Ah well, at least it's jolted me out of my complacency - for while I was even starting to get used to the place. Best keep scouring those jobs bulletins for work oop North, or alternatively keep an eye out for places in less grotty areas. A colleague at work is flogging her house in Bestwood Village, which is a very nicely situated place, thankuverymuch, although at 115k it's a bit pricey. Shame it's an old mining village, given the unforgotten and unforgiven role of the Notts miners in the 84-85 strike, and a bit of a way from work, but it is by some very nice greenery and woods. Worth a butcher's anyway.
