Vocal Voices

Meant to say earlier, I was in the gym this morning, glanced at the big TV and the reporter was at Matlock Bath. It was the ITV breakfast show, something about good places to visit that people might not know about - just what you need, even more people finding out about your lovely area thanks to national TV!

We will be like that after our cycle race in May
Good for local economy it's said
We can't move in the summer now it's grid locked

Oh deep joy! We really need more tourists!

We can tell that tourist season has begun. Mum came for lunch on Sunday and I took her home at around 4pm.

The journey to her house took me just over 5 minutes (no traffic going that way) the journey home again (along exactly the same road) took me 45 minutes!

There is only one road to and from our house - the lane going down to the A6 and then the A6. Whichever direction we want to go in, even to get to the back roads, we have to go along the A6. The A6 gets completely blocked on Sundays and bank holidays. And the pavements on the main street in the village are so packed you can't actually walk along them. Very, very few residents venture out and if you do you tend to go out early in the morning and come back late at night.

It was similar when I lived in York - you'd be in town trying to get the shopping or go to the bank and you'd be shuffled off the pavements by hoards of Japanese or American tourists trying to take photos or oohing and arring over the 'sights'

It's the same here, it used to be a summer thing but now any halfway decent Sunday in winter, people pour into the place as well. Like Debih says, if you want to go out on a summer Sunday or bank holiday, you go out early and come home late. On Monday, Miss Osc and family went out and were coming home around 6.30ish, she said the queue of cars leaving Howth was 2km long There is also decent public transport, bus and train, and they would be packed.

Kaz I used to love being a tourist in York

Same here lol, we will all live in these lovely places

The price we pay dif

Oh I loved living in York, it's a beautiful place - the crowds were a small price to pay

To a certain extent we see it with Cannock Chase. Traffic isn't such an issue as there are several roads in, out and around but it gets far too busy for my liking in Summer and there are plenty of visitors who don't respect the fact that they're in an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty and drop their litter as they walk This is where John's cycling obsession comes in handy though because he now knows the Chase backwards so we can go off the beaten track to areas that visitors aren't aware of.