RE: living in Frome or Wells?
oh thank you all! I am amazed to see how many replies I got in such a short time...I expected at least 2 weeks to get an opinion!
Venetian, like you I have only lived in big places (I am a Parisian, then lived in London &Edinburgh). But after a while living in London I had a rejection of "big towns", even though I was born and bred Parisian. I longed for Cornwall or the highlands. I am well aware that this longing for the rolling hills is a typical urban nostalgia for what appears a "perfect country life", ie: I suffer from post-modern romantism![sm=idea.gif]
I now live in Bristol (hello Delighted!), but health matters (nothing too bad) make me really want to move and live in a cleaner air town.
I have visited Glastonbury three times and have seen Wells from the bus, mainly. It looked historic, dignified and clean: which I really like (as opposed to urban blandness or ugliness when you are not wealthy enough to live in Muswell Hill or Clifton!).
I don't think I could live in Glastonbury, because although I am all for the Goddess / mysticism revival, I got on each visit a negative vibe from some pagan-looking guys there, who obvioulsy did not like foreigners...which made me wonder if the pagan thing is not, for some people, a way of exploiting english folk tradition/legends against whatever is beyond the Albion seas...(sorry, much off-topic!).
I have met people, briefly, who live in Frome, and they said they liked it. I also read about its artist community: all the better as I used to be one.
Wells has no rail connection but Frome has some. So, Frome seems a more likely new home. Also, in the last 2 years of looking at rent prices, I have not seen ONE flat coming available in Wells (in my price range)!
Delighted: what do you mean by "yin"? is it the landscape features? is it more secretive?
RE: living in Frome or Wells?
It's a change of subject, but maybeI could ask here anyway.
I don't know Bristol hardly at all, but am wondering what that's like? The only two thingsI seem to pick up about Bristol, without spending time there, is both good news and bad. Good news: compared to other UK cities of comparable size, it has a much bigger spiritual / New Age / environmental scene going on? Bad news: I gather it's got quite a lot of rough and dangerous areas?
V
RE: living in Frome or Wells?
Our posts crossed, Fadette. I'm hearing this opinion on Glastonbury from just about everyone these days, and I agree: a nice place to visit, but not to live in. There's no need to live there anyway if you are just 10-20 miles away. There's something 'not right' about the vibe of the place and some of the people, is how I'd put it, and so many people have said the same to me recently. It's as if - for want of better words - impure or dark energies and maybe people have moved in.
V
RE: living in Frome or Wells?
about Glastonbury: it is exactly what you described...I was sitting in a cafe, talking French to a Belgian friend, and there were these 2 long-and-wild haired men (about 45 years old), carving a wooden stick with a knife, obviously local (looking a bit viking). The number of times I got really bad vibes from them, and sideway looks, while talking very low at times...I could imagine them getting up and using their sharp stick![sm=speechless-smiley-040.gif]
About Bristol: again, it is exactly how you put it!
Alternative (a dozen of althernative therapies clinics in the same area!) people but3/4 of the city is (in my humble opinion) rough and dirty.
I also find it the most unfair city I have ever lived in: simply put, you have the cultured and wealthy living in the sight-seeing part of Bristol (around the uni and the woods), but the rest of us live in anonymous subburbs, which can also offer the cocktail of violence and care-community ambiance (I am now used to the daily bus experience of being sat next to a loony who suddenly gets up and scream).
Transports are the most expensive of all cities in the UK and maybe one of the worse: no tram, no tube, some irregular buses that don't move anyway. Going 2 bus stops up my road is £2, a day ticket is nearly £4....might as well live in London!
I have met again and again people who are only looking for jobs which start after 10 am because they cannot arrive in the city centre before that (no train and traffic being unimaginable).
Voila for Fadette's account. As you may guess, I can't wait to move away.[sm=banghead.gif]
RE: living in Frome or Wells?
I only have one friend in Bristol but yes, she's had some very close shaves of near-rape at night. At the same time, as you say, there's a real wealth of alternative things for her to do for her.
V