Misconceptions about where you live

I live in Lincolnshire, which I think people just think is boring and flat with nothing happening! We have the historic city of Lincoln with the fabulous cathedral and castle, some great restaurants and bars and a vibrant modern university with some of the best facilities in the country.

We also have beautiful countryside, lots of quaint little villages with fab community spirit, horse riding, quad biking, farmers markets, horse racing etc... We have many beaches along the coast (some are better than others though). We're just over an hour from London on the train but have some of the most affordable housing around.

I'm a Dalston defender. Lived here a few years ago and loved it. Didn't think it was edgy at all (and I look and have the sensibilities of a 1950s' spinster).

Just so happens that when we lived in Bath, my OH and I were innocently caught up in a random fracas and my OH was attacked with a machete, nearly losing his hand.

Originally from Nottingham, which I could rave about forever. And no, it isn't 'grim up north'. At all. It's in the Midlands anyway.

And I never met 'Disgusted' when I lived in Tunbridge Wells. Quite the opposite. It is a bit faded and shabby rather than smart.

Live in Lincolnshire and it isn't all flat. In fact it's very lovely and posher than I thought. Could do with a few more decent shops though.

But in fairness 9 times out of 10 its young gentrified types who can't afford to live elsewhere convincing themselves at least they live in a "cool bohemian" area when in fact its still a hole.

I never understand the attraction to places like Shoreditch/"Hoxton"- it is, for the most part, a utter hole, with a tiny percnetage of cool places/area and a much larger percentage of crap places which would rightly be called crap in picadilly circus but becuase they are in hoxton people like to convince themslves they're cool for being in the east london equivilant of on anon.

Even as a staunch Hackney-defender, I can't ever imagine choosing to live in Dalston. I don't care if it's meant to be up and coming, it's a fricking dive. We spend lots of time there at the (new) Vortex and although I'm happy walking there, I There, and Clapton (specifically murder mile), are the only parts of Hakcney I think I'd rather leave the borough than live in I think. (Do we share Dalston with Islington? I hope so ?

Having just been out on Brick Lane and walked home through Shoreditch, I can confirm I also don't 'get' it. I think this may be because I'm not cool enough though.

Merlini - forgot Springfield - tis lovely ? Did you know Hackney is officially the greenest borough in London? One of our favourite weekend morning walks is down to London Fields, along the canal up to Springfield and lunch in the cafe with the papers. The Downs isn't nearly as pretty but we love it for the Tennis Courts and the fact it's always empty ? The play area has been done up and is pretty good too. Not my favouritest park but one with longstanding memories for me ? My brother lives just down the road in Stokey and we were kept abreast of the Nandos campaign - close to our hearts as the old Vortex was where Mr R-A fell in love with jazz and decided to do it for a living (aged 10...) - having said that, it has been fairly busy when I've been on Church St recently, I don't think it's the end of the world, and tbh Stokey could do with a little realism. Sometimes people forget the need to cater for the non-Fresh&Wild residents of N16 I think.

The village is Crawley Down, really lovely place too - if it wasn't for the fact that all our families still live in the village we would have looked to moving back there! If you ever need any info just let me know. Funnily enough I also know Warlingham/Sanderstead as well, I used to work in Purley and had to travel through them to get from home to work!

Hyacinth, you've missed my point re Hoxton etc- Hoxton is now mainly City flats and ad agencies. Now, that may make it a "hole" but it's not the same sort of "hole" as people are saying Dalston is (high crime, low income etc). I agree that it's got plenty of crap bars etc but that's sort of my point- not that places become both cool and gentrified at once but that they go through a brief cool phase (when there are some good places to go and interesting things happening, but it's still quite rough) then young professionals etc move in and things get more gentrified but less cool. Last time I went out in Hoxton, I felt I could have been anywhere- it was full of tourists and people up from Essex for a night out. Grim, but a completely different sort of grim from Hoxton 30 years ago.

I think part of it must be down to expectations. If you live in St Albans, most of central London is always going to seem a bit urban and grotty, just as if you live in London you might find St Albans suburban (am not trying to be anti-St Albans, btw, we actually considered moving there at one point, just saying that one's perception of a place will always depend on one's expectations and preferences, IYSWIM).

So the main attraction of Dundee are places in Not Dundee ?

I'm along the road in Perth where the average age appears to be 87. It's lovely really but, man, the shops are pish and there's not much here to do besides the usual usual. I use to think Dundee was pants but have slowly changed my mind. Camperdown Park is a real boon and the shopping is so much better. I do like driving back to Perth afterwards though! (Even then I'm in a tiny village outside Perth with a population count increased by cows and sheep)

I'm from Falkirk really, Central Scotland. Not a fan, I have to say. It's sprouted arms and legs over the last 20 years so it's looking not too bad I guess but it was grimmity grim when I was growing up there. I think it's become a lot more affluent and has cashed in on it's location on the commuters belt. If only there wasn't an attitude of being hard done by (or perhaps that's just a football thing, my brother is a die hard Bairn). Or is that a Scottish thing ?.

Mothership - you may be onto something...

Alistair McGregor, an expatriate Scottish man living in America, was recently diagnosed as clinically depressed, tanked up on anti-depressants and scheduled for controversial Shock Therapy when doctors realized he wasn't depressed at all... only Scottish.

Mr. McGregor, a Scottish man whose characteristic pessimism and gloomy perspective were interpreted as serious clinical depression, was led on a nightmare journey through the American psychiatric system.

Doctors described McGregor as suffering from Pervasive Negative Anticipation - a belief that everything will turn out for the worst, whether it's trains arriving late, Scotland's chances at winning any international sports event or even his own prospects to get ahead in life and achieve his dreams.

"The satisfaction Mr. McGregor seemed to get from his pessimism seemed particularly pathological," reported the doctors.

"They put me on everything - Lithium, Prozac, St John's Wort, Ginseng", said Mr. McGregor. "They even told me to sit in front of a big light for an hour a day or I'd become suicidal. I kept telling them this was all pointless and they said it was exactly that sort of attitude which got me here in the first place."

Running out of ideas, his doctors finally resorted to a course of "weapons grade MDMA", the only noticeable effect of which was six hours of speedy repetitions of the phrases "mustn't grumble" and "not too bad, really."

Mr. McGregor had six months of therapy but seemed to mainly want to talk about the weather - how miserable and cold it was in winter and later how difficult and wet it was in summer. The doctors felt he wasn't responding to therapy at all and so recommended drastic action - namely ECT or shock treatment.

"I was all strapped down on the table and they were about to put the rubber bit in my mouth when the psychiatric nurse picked up on my accent," said Mr. McGregor. "I remember her saying 'Oh my God, I think we're making a terrible mistake'." Nurse Alice Sheen was a big fan of Scottish comedy giving her an understanding of the Scottish psyche. "Classic comedy characters like Chick Murray, Will Fife and The Krankies, all hopeless cases with no chance of ever doing well or escaping their circumstances," she explained to the baffled US medics. "In Scotland, being depressed to the point of suicidal is considered the norm and is not seen as pathological at all." Identifying Mr. McGregor as Scottish changed his diagnosis from 'clinical depression' to 'rather quaint and charming' and he was immediately discharged from hospital, with a selection of brightly colored leaflets and an "I love New York" T-shirt.

How excellent (well, not excellent but YKWIM!) I particularly like

will pronounce myself quaint and charming the next time H says I'm moaning

Funnily enough we have just moved from central London to st albans. Come and join us, its great!

You're right, I didn't mean to quote your part of the response, sorry KN! I completely agree with your cool then gentrifired (by generally teminally uncool wannabes, it has to be said)

RA- I've always thought its a shame about Clapton as it actually looks pretty, and has some great houses there.

We were so torn between London and St Albans/Harpenden/the villages round there- in fact, I made some trips back from Brussels (when we were over there) to scout out places to live. In the end we decided it would be a bit mad for us to move- the things we really missed in Brussels were the buzz of London and being close to our friends, so it seemed silly then immediately to move out to somewhere quieter where we don't know people. And now we've sorted out schools here we're probably going to stay for a good few years (although we might go a bit further north- maybe Highgate or Muswell Hill). But St Albans is definitely not off the map forever- perhaps when the children are older. It's ace for getting to the City and you can get so much more space for your money than you can here.

I couldn't move to the suburbs. I know many people consider StAs suburban, but to me its a city in its own right, whereas suburbs are endless dreary towns with no character. St Albans has tons.

It reminds me a lot of a smaller Oxford ( i think you were at Oxford weren't you?) which was part of the attraction. We are slap bang in the city centre and everything is on our doorstep. We Moved from Pimlico, so that was important. We were going from having everything on our doorstep so didn't want to feel depreieved.

That said, everything is better in London, everything. With the possible expception of pubs (we were lacking in SW1) although of course wine bars are still better in London.

In all honesty I can get round London as quickly as I could before (kings X is 20 mins away) although the journey is very expensive.

I have spent lots of time in St A's and it definitely doesn't feel like a suburb. I am another couldn't-live-in-the-suburbs type. I've said this before on here and bound to upset some, but living in somewhere like Enfield is my idea of torture. Why would you do that to yourself when you could live in a proper town, surrounded by countryside, the same distance from the city centre?

Apologies in advance to the swathes of suburban dwellers I've undoubtably upset.

Hyacinth - bits of Clapton are actually OK, esp the bits on Stokey borders - in fact that might be where we end up as it also puts Springfield park and the canal in walking distance. In fact, one of my sister's best friends lives behind Clapton Pond, probably not far off murder mile; they have a lovely house with a beautiful garden, the kids are happy there and have never had any hassle. My only complaint would be more about the fact it's 10 mins walk to the bus stop than anything else! I probably still wouldn't want murder mile as my local High St though ?

I can see what you mean with the Oxford comparison, definitely.

I think one of the things that put me off (Harpenden, actually, not St Albans) was the number of people who said things like "of course, you must make sure you're in X area, not Y, you must join X golf club, not Y etc" when to me it all just seemed the same (also I hate golf clubs ?) and I couldn't imagine really getting into it in that way (and a lovely Hitcher I saw in Harpenden warned me about it too)- I think that's what I meant by suburban but perhaps what I actually should have said was provincial, although that sounds too harsh.

Are St Albans and Harpenden similar in that regard, do you think? I always feel the, the bigger the place, the less likely people are to think in that way.

R-A, that bit of Clapton is exactly where my sister lives (although in a warehouse* not a lovely house with garden ?) and she adores it.

* an actual warehouse, not a converted one. They have to pretend to the council it's business premises and that they just work late a lot ?

?

Living in a warehouse is super-cool. ?

We've not come across that but I think we're probably quite insular (as well as being newcomers!) in that we're in the city centre so there isn't really any of that stuff here. As far as I am aware, there aren't any bad areas in proxemity of the centre.

My worry is not a "bad" area, but a dreary one. I'm more likely to be put off by an area compramising endless pebbledashed 3 bed semis, with only a londis, drinks cabin and bus stop for entertainment. Frankly, I'd rather be on murder mile ? that can be quite hard to explain to people who exclaim " you paid all that for a terrace! 2 miles down the road you'd get a 4 bed!"

(I should point out I grew up in an area like the above so am allowed to hate it)

I can see how with children you could get caught up in the rotary club lifestyle in some areas ? St Albans itself seems to be more Wandsworth Mummy, TBH

I hear you on that one Hyacinth. We get a lot of incredulity from friends who have moved further and further out/into obscure non-areas in order to be able to buy. We're not prepared to make that sacrifice and if it means we're still renting when we're 35 then so be it.

My main criteria for living somewhere is it has to be somwhere iyswim (similar to what KN was saying earlier I guess) - with a centre, a High St where most things happen, a defined identity, sense of community, things to do, somewhere you bump into the same people all the time - a 'village in the city' I guess. That's really important to me.

I completely agree about the dreary thing. I have the opposite problem re comments though- my mother spends all the time she's here saying "I don't understand why you live here when you could be in somewhere like Chelsea or Holland Park" and when I explain we don't have a spare £5m she simply can't get her head round how prices can vary so much in a city. I think it must be a never-having-lived-in-London thing.

That and the wife-swapping parties ?

Well I live in Barking and Dagenham which has a rep as being full of BNP supporters which it really isn't we have a really mixed community.

Ok the night life here isn't the best if your into clubbing and posh restaurants but we have great links into london and out to essex.

I also work in Hackney which I agree is a great place to be.

RA do you work at your local hospital ? I think we may work in the same place

Not at the moment no, I walk 2.5 miles south from where I live to get to work (without being too cryptic!). Leaving soon though as I'm on a rotation scheme so get moved around regularly. What do you do at the hosp?

PMSL ?

Im a therapy assistant on the stroke unit at the moment and was on elders for a long while before that.

Least you have the Falkirk wheel. It's probably the second most succesful Millenium project (after the London Eye, I'd guess) and yet so undereported, at least in England. Fabulous piece of engineering, so funky to look at.

Still, I'd not move to Central Scotland even for that glorious project ?

<puzzled> how can you live in barking and dagenham? do you have two houses?

my mum was from dagenham and my grandpa wasn't far from barking. (seven kings) every time we went to see him she used to insist on driving through the bit of dagenham where she lived so my impression of it is it actually only has one street where five elms (i think) school is. ?

B&D is the borough.

Yes barking and dagenham is the borough I live in the barking half

Oh yeah. ?

i forget they're part of london now. (and probably have been for yonks) i always see them as being part of essex...

We are still in essex just a london borough in essex

I live in Rutland which people assume is frightfully posh, and it is. Most people here are very privileged and I can't say I really fit in here, having spent my first 25 years growing up on council estates in the north of England.

I try not to spend too much time here and thankfully I work in Corby, which is just up the road. It's got a horrific reputation which includes being desperately poor, awful standards of education, having the highest incidence of heart disease and obesity in the country, having the most CCTV cameras per head, having one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country (30 per cent) for many years after the steelworks closed, and for being a little Scottish enclave in the middle of England. It has been all of those things, at some point, but it is changing and I absolutely adore it. The people will give you their last £1 if you are in need and they are the straightest talkers I've ever come across. They all go back on their holidays up to Scotland every year and still call Scotland 'home', despite the fact most of them are third generation.

I love its tough past and the fact that it has overcome such shocking adversity to stick two fingers up at its closest neighbour - Kettering, which is now looking a bit shabby next to Corby's new town centre, civic hub, train station and 50m swimming pool.

I live in Rome. It's nice. I felt safer in my home in London though. Here it's grateson the windows and very secure front doors. The city could be extremely safeand pleasant but they seem to not be able to sort out the little crimes that could really make it a very very safe place.