Selfsufficientish.com

The Other Half and I have been busy coming up with ideas for this over dinner. You know you're a townie when:

When you've never seen a star.

You think nothing of paying £4 for a pint of beer.

Going to the Beach means trying the new club.

You believe in Heaven - it's the gay club down the road.

The local park is nature and nature is best avoid after dark.

You have several dozen home-delivery menus next to the phone.

You're suspicious when strangers smile at you.

You're on first name terms with the police at your local nick - as a victim of crime.

You have the business cards of six detectives stuck to your fridge.

You're pleased when your suburb gets three mentions on Crimewatch for street robbery - house prices will be on the up because six months ago it was a murder and a race riot.

You get the taxi to the gym.

You spend £50 on groceries - then take it back to the office for lunch.

Your door has two locks, a spyhole, a chain, a security camera and a multi-bolt mechanism that takes 10 minutes to de-activate.

The horn button on your car is worn smooth.

Your 4x4 has low-profile tyres.

The only dirt to touch your hiking boots is dog dirt.

Half a dozen flakes of snow fall and the whole place shuts down amid screaming panic.

You complain about hosing down your garden - it's a scrap of bitumen with a few pots.

You work in an office, but after taking the tube, train or bus home you find you have black lines inside the collars and cuffs of your shirts.

You keep £20 and a couple of cancelled credit cards in an old wallet for street robbers, then hide your real cash and credit cards in different pockets.

Fashion matters.

Sex is either a perfume or band - but you can't remember which.

You keep half a brick in your odd sock.

Your car has never been out of third gear.

You're on nodding terms with the flower lady at the bus stop - after five years.

You see more of the flower lady than you do of your wife.

You stand next to Elvis Costello at the urinal in a pub - and think nothing of it.

A London specific one - you step over people when they collapse and die on the Tube. Saw this happen three times.

Mercedes is the transexual in your local.

Nobody talks to Mercedes, not because they're bigoted but because s/he is a registered informer.

You're within walking distance of three Tescos, an Asda, a Sainsburys and a Morrisons - but they never have what you want.

Despite being within walking distance of six supermarkets and a high street, you still drive to them - it's cleaner and safer.

When you meet your neighbour Derek at the station, you rush home and check the locks. He's out on licence.

You're not surprised when your at the local playpark with your toddler and one of a group of teenagers pulls out a handgun to show his mates.

As a foreigner in a street full of foreigners you still stand out as a member of a minority - you're the only white person.

On a dark night with the streetlights largely out, you can still tell whether the bloke on the other side of the street has a mobile phone, a knife, a gun or just a hand in his pocket.

Phishin is something you do on the computer.

Fresh air smells weird when you do go to the country.

You believe the BBC is representative of Britain.

... you can't understand why you don't get a few days off over Easter, even if you've just been told by me that I'm up to my ears in lambs and have been doing night shifts for the past three weeks...

(That's one thing I've not been able to get a friend of mine to understand: yes, you are busy - but surely you'll get a few days off over Easter? And next year I'll come to visit around Easter time - it's so lovely with all the lambs out there... Argh! Yes, it may be - but I'll be asleep any minute I'm not working!)

Oh, and this is along the lines of Stoney's "nature is best avoided after dark": I had a breakdown with my car last Sunday night - in the middle of nowhere, out of all reach of mobile reception, about 7 miles from home. (A wheel dropped of.) A lady at the garage commented - how dreadful, out there, in the dark, on your own. Well, I said - rather out there on my own in the dark than in the middle of Aberdeen at the same time.

.....when you think its okay to try and make your child ride on the back of the local dolphin and wonder why the dolphin wasnt too pleased (actually happened recently)

Going to the Beach means trying the new club

- this made me laugh as the Beach IS actually a club in my town (with beachy decor too and a boat for the dj!). but its right next to the actual real life beach too....so very confusing sometimes!

Stonehead wrote: When you've never seen a star.

.

yup - happened to me... people from London staying.. clear starry night.. friend asked what that cloudy area was....

the milky way. he had never seen it....

you know you're a townie when you think it's perfectly okay to let your dog/s off the lead in a field of sheep or cows


xx
I lived in the kent countryside for 23 years and 2 years surrounded by sheep in wales before moving to a polluted town which i call smoke on stench

You have no concept of distance out of the city.

Since we moved out of Glasgow to a wee village 25 miles south and therefore out of the central belt, the grey blob of an urban sprawl that covers the map from Glasgow to Edinburgh, people I work with seem to think we are practically in England.

It seems that when you live in a rural location and are maybe a mile or two from your nearest shop somehow this is greater than the same distance in the city.

Stonehead wrote: You're not surprised when your at the local playpark with your toddler and one of a group of teenagers pulls out a handgun to show his mates.

This happened to me as a teenager except it wasn't hand guns. One day, one of the lads turned up at the park where we used to congregate with a kalashnikov. Another time he arrived with a hand grenade and we pulled the pin out and played catch with it. Thankfully is wasn't live.

Oh and this wasn't the city but a small town in South Wiltshire which just happens to be inhabited by the army.

Zoe

"you WALK to asda?!"...

yes. I do. the wlak is a very nice one through a woodlandy bit. it's 1.5 miles each way.

when you drive to work. which is 3 streets away. just found out my boss does this. im fairly certain that by the time you've got in the car and got it started and going, you would be there already if you went by foot.

Your mates never come up to visit from London as they can't imagine there's anything worth seeing out side London. However they never actually see anything in London when quizzed as they're too busy at work/commuting the 5 miles across town, and it's full of tourists anyway.

When a friend proudly says she has eggs from her chickens you ask if they are safe to eat...

You ask what said friend does with the veg she grows...

you think mixing a jar of ready made curry sauce and ready cooked meat is a home-cooked meal

From my experiance of living in N1.

* At the end of the day, you blow your nose and your bogies have black bits in (sorry to be gross)
* Your friend assumes that Hyde Park is pretty respresntative of the remaining open spaces in the country (quite sad actually )
* You carry a long umbrella with an extra heavy wooden handle, not because it rains, but to use as a club against fellow residents should they come too close.
* You can't sleep in the quiet of a country night so make aeroplane noises to lull yourself.


But then county folk can be odd as well. You know you're a bumpkin when:

1. You treat going to see a show in town as an expedition to Mordor, no you don't need to take spare sandwiches just in case we get stranded!
2. You assume brown people are deaf.
3. You're friendly when you meet a stranger (this took me a while to get used to, at first I thought either they were high, I had something on my face and didn't realise, there was something in the water or they were trying to lull me into a false sense of security before pouncing)
4. If you're a teenager, you hang out in a field. Why?????? At least a bus stop shelters you from the rain.
5. You assume that all schools have playing fields (again actually quite sad).
6. You're not familiar with all the major religions festivals and their dates.

ina wrote:... you don't know that a cow has to have a calf before she can produce milk...

as a new-comer to a village and living in your 'country retreat' you complain to all and sundry about the cows and calves calling after 'seperation' until you force the farmer to move - but still expect milk on your dooorstep or the supermarket
(this happened to a neighbouring farmer when I was living in Gloucestershire)

I've seen townies demanding that farmers have somebody walk behind each of their trailers and pick up every bit of mud, tattie or neep that might fall off... So their cars don't get dirty when they drive on country roads. And of course, they complained when the combines run 24 hours/day during harvest, because they couldn't get their beauty sleep! But, as you say, they still expect their morning rolls on the table.