It's a long time since I have been down at Poole Harbour, which is just visible as a dim hump in the far distance. I dreamt of buying a wee house with a view such as this over the harbour, but decided the several millions required could be better used elsewhere. I used to walk near here with a friend and we often contemplated a flat with a higher view, just up the way from here. We both decided that a million pound for a flat was too much. There again, having 47pence between us, this was an easy decision. Dreams are cheap, but the more I look at rich folks throwing their money away on expensive items, mostly for show, I wonder if they are as happy as you and I are in our struggles? How many are divorced, unstable, depressed, and looking for meaning by gaining more useless items? I have done similar but at a cheaper level, it does not work. Obtaining a property such as this may be good fun but you would end up mixing with the type of high flying greedy guts that you prefer to avoid. Those who can cheerfully afford a £10 million house are not the people I want to live next to. Obviously some would be decent, but those desperate to be among the higher orders would proliferate, and what a bore they would be.
It is five years since I took this picture of Corfe Castle. That seems like a generation ago. Those living in Corfe, in houses made from castle stones, must be among the rich of Dorset. A house near to the castle costs around £800,000, but it does come with a couple of thousand tourists outside your door, cameras clicking as much as their tongues, kids screaming, and traffic a couple of feet from your window. I'm not sure I could enjoy that.
The thing of course is to be where 'your people,' are found.
Not far from me, the main road north from historic times, dives down the hill. Traffic flows day and night, yet people pay vast sums, similar to Corfe, to live amongst 'their people.' In one way this is understandable, in another, I wonder if 'their people,' could be found in a better area? We like to be with 'our kind,' and object when incomers to the country behave in the same manner. An example I read of the other day was 'Green Lanes,' in London. Many are Cypriots who came here in times past. At one end Turkish Cypriots gather in coffee clubs as they did back home. Up the road, sharing many of the same shops, Greek Cypriots live similar lives as lived back in the sunshine. The distinction is clear, but they need to be near one another to live lives as they always have. Together, but separate.
Humans are funny...
