Photo Trip Report: England and Scotland

[STEVE G]

The big problem with living in the west is the price of property in anywhere vaguely nice, particularly with todays mortgage prices.

However, southeast Spain was an exception. Property prices for an apartment 7-10 min drive from the beach were very reasonable - under €1k/m2.

That is more reasonable, where I live in Luxembourg city two bedroom apartments start at about 650,000 and houses at a million.

[buksida]

Yep, property prices and rentals are obscene in the UK.

Where are the workers?
This appears to be a direct result of lockdowns and government policy but hardly anyone is working and pretty much everywhere is short-staffed: immigration, airports, supermarkets, pubs, restaurants, shops, police, banks, services, car rental firms, hotels, stations, post offices, clinics, all short-staffed and vacancy signs and appeals for workers were absolutely everywhere.

For many, it was financially better to stay on benefits than to spend money on fuel, parking, and travelling to a place of work (and they'd got so used to being paid to stay at home during the pandemic). Either that or the wages and conditions being offered were simply unlivable. It is a completely flawed system as there are thousands of jobs but people won’t take them and the state keeps paying them not to work.

As a result, it was a struggle getting anything done as nobody answers email enquiries or the phone and you’re constantly dealing with automated bots which are useless. There are long waiting lists for getting things done like plumbers, electricians, mechanics, handymen, etc, and long queues anywhere that needed human contact. It was as if these companies didn't even want the work - extremely frustrating to say the least.

Another side effect of this depleted workforce was a lot of closures. Even in the busy places, a lot of the restaurants, shops, and pubs were often closed which again appeared to be a result of a lack of staff or lack of customers, or both. It was a very different place to pre-Covid England.

[Dannie Boy]

It’s also a bit of a catch 22 situation - take pubs for instance, charging roughly £6 a drink is putting a lot of customers off from going or spending on more than 1 or 2 drinks. Even at those prices they aren’t making enough profit to make it viable.


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[buksida]

We never paid £6 quid at any of the pubs we visited, the average was about £4.50. But yes, making a profit in this environment isn't easy, especially with those horrific energy bills. The lack of staff was absolutely everywhere though, not just pubs and restaurants.

[Dannie Boy]

Well one of my fairly local pubs - The Chequers at Darenth near Dartford charged £17 something for 2 pints of beer and a single G&T. It’s a nice pub, good decor, lovely gardens but very expensive - we only went twice in 5 months.

[Big Boy]

Probably paying a football premium, but a friend paid £39.60 for 4 pints at the England vs Germany match a few weeks ago. Then, as if he hadn't learned his lesson, he ordered a meat pie, which cost £8.50.

[buksida]

Naturally, stadiums and swanky city pubs will charge a premium but I reckon the most we paid in the two months was about £5.50. The shocker was that we had to wait for service in several as they had no staff!

But agree, overall pubs have outpriced themselves now and more people are doing it at home with garage or shed conversions and inviting pals around - which also exacerbates the closures of public houses.

Edit: the stadium thing happens everywhere so can't really be used as a comparison. I remember paying the equivalent of over 200 baht for a small tin of Singha at the Sepang MotoGP in Malaysia.

[buksida]

Traffic and parking wars
Parking in England is an absolute nightmare. You have to pay to leave a car pretty much everywhere now, and it is not cheap. Private companies with all the latest camera tech appear to have taken over every bit of land or car park that was previously part of another business. We even had to pay to park in a hotel we stayed at! This privatized parking faction is very efficient at sending out fines and again, you’ll struggle to find a human to talk to if you want to dispute them.

The driving in general was a pleasure compared to the video game antics on the roads in Thailand where everything is trying to kill you. We covered more than 2,000 miles without incident and the driving was courteous (most of the time) and predictable. Traffic and road closures were not as pleasant, the worst area we found was greater Manchester where they appear to constantly close roads and snarl up traffic just for the sake of it. There is also the weekend warrior issue where traffic is a lot heavier when those that do actually go to work have a couple of days off.

Scotland was the opposite, with very little traffic outside of the cities, and you can park where you like for free most of the time.

[Big Boy]

Paying to stay in 'posher' hotel car parks (Scotland included) goes back to at least 1990. For 20 years I was basically living out of a suitcase during the week, and encountered numerous hotel car parks where I had to pay. It never bothered me back then because MOD would always pay me back. Must be a pain if on holiday though.

[buksida]

It was the first time I'd ever encountered having to pay to park at a hotel we were paying to stay at! What made it worse is that we got a £100 fine for not paying when we paid in cash at the reception.

[Dannie Boy]

It was the first time I'd ever encountered having to pay to park at a hotel we were paying to stay at! What made it worse is that we got a £100 fine for not paying when we paid in cash at the reception.

Presumably you got the fine waived?

I got done for parking in a supermarket car park whilst I was back - although the sign clearly said that you were allowed up to 3 hours free parking, in smaller type it said “only during normal supermarket opening times” and yes I stayed about an hour outside their normal closing time. The £70 fine was reduced to £40 if paid within 2 weeks so I paid up as there was no way I would have been able to contest it.

[buksida]

Yeah, eventually after a LOT of pissing around getting the hotel to admit that they'd taken the cash. Also got fined for driving over the Dart bridge and being an hour or so late paying the toll, I've ignored that one as it went to the car rental company which also fines you for passing on the fines.

[pharvey]

Yeah, these companies in control of monitoring parking and issueing fines are out of control quite frankly. I've been issued with a fine at a Holiday Inn where there was no mention of parking fees (signs or notification at reception) - whilst I was only visiting for a meeting, I should still have been notified. Also received a £70 fine for parking in a disabled spot at hospital - dropping my father off and using his Blue Badge.

Still, there's always the "Welsh" excuse....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61409004

[buksida]

Don’t give me cash
The UK is pretty much a cashless society now; some places such as Starbucks won’t even accept cash. Handing over bank notes often resulted in strange looks which have probably been exacerbated by pandemic paranoia. The banks have upped the limit on these wireless touch cards to £100 which makes it very very easy to spend money as you’re just beeping a card all day and don’t have anything to count in your pocket. Even the millions of parking machines that have now infiltrated every spare plot are card only.

Thailand 4.0 is still pretty backward when it comes to these things and very few outlets accept wireless cards. I tried it in Lotus here and it didn’t work without putting the PIN in which kinda defeats the purpose.

[STEVE G]

I noticed that about the cashless UK, I was back for a few days in September and never used any cash. I had a ten pound note in my wallet from a previous trip and it came back complete, actually I gave it to a colleague because his wife wanted it after the Queen died!
One advantage is that you don't end up with a pocket full of loose change on return.