Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

PasturesNew

Doozergirl wrote: »

Yeah, couldn't Gen be the Aussie Martin Lewis? Move from all that specialist, proper clever stuff and teach Aus how to stooze and find loopholes;)

He could become the Housewives' Choice of Australia

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

That twitter thing is amazing. I think for the second time (first being ''arab spring'') I'm beginning to ''get the point''. News still not picked up on it ....and those commuter trains to the sw are BIG al year, but REALLY big news at this time of year on a sunny weekend for sw businesses! but I think Rail enquiries website has now got the delay.

Fow what its worth anyone heading west, waterloo is, I'm told, blissful, after Paddington heave.

Twitter's perfect for the collective knowlege to instantly report from the ground exactly what's going on .... except for those who don't have it

The ability to instantly be somewhere and tweet "Don't try the back entrance, it's bunged" then "Found a clear exit over behind the doughnut stall, number 16 buses are still running from round there".

Stuff people will find useful "right now".

PasturesNew

I've 'invested in my online businses' aka: Spent some money buying something that you "buy now before the price goes up" at the end of a long sales letter. Thing was, it's got some specific functionality I'd been googling for all day .... and it was cheap as chips - and the price did go up 2 hours after I bought it.

So today I've installed that on one of my servers (hark at me, 'one of')... and am configuring it and populating it with stuff to work out "so !!!!!! did I buy? does it do what I thought it does? so how does that work then? eh?" - and it looks like it solves (mostly) precisely the problem I was trying to solve.

Bargain price too. For the price of a cheap meal I am now probably in a position to mega-market, with more control over my sites/updates ... and can even tweet to many accounts (I've only got two at the moment, so clearly need more) on demand.

Still got the look/layout to dabble with a tad, then write about 1000 descriptions of things and create/download/upload 1000 images .... and I'll be in a more 'powerful' position than before.

Not sure how the bandwidth will be hammered though.... only time and testing will tell.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not got one near me - and when I say near me, the closest is probably 200 miles. Difficult to tell from a long list - they should have map-enabled that.

Yes, the Scilly Isles have to ship everything in that they want - and ship out any rubbish. The Scilly Isles is like stepping back 100 years - you get off the boat, there's a couple of tiny corner stores and a pub and that's pretty much it for commercialism.

They don't have to MoT their cars though - because there's no facility. But you don't really need a car as there's nowhere to go. I think the tiny lane around the outside of the biggest island's got to only be 4-6 miles long

Lovely place - went once on a daytrip, but it's hellishly expensive to go (£30-35 return on the boat). Sometimes you can collect vouchers and get a half price boat ride - boat takes 3 hours each way and is a "basic grunter", leaving you with about enough hours to either visit Tresco or take the old-fashioned bus tour before sitting in the pub.

OH and I have spent a fair bit of time in the Scillies - utterly gorgeous place. If we were the Beckhams, Isaac would be called Tresco....

I think it's only the main island (St. Mary's) which has cars at all. The other inhabited islands (the "off-islands", they are usually called) are Tresco, Bryher, St. Martin's and St. Agnes, and they don't have cars at all. Tresco is a privately-owned island, too. It has the most wonderful sub-tropical gardens, because it almost never freezes in the Scillies.

Amazing, magical place. Miles of empty, white beaches. But PN is definitely right, a pain to get to! If you leave at the crack of dawn from London, and get the plane from Land's End or the helicopter from Penzance, it takes the whole day. If you get the boat, more than one day.

beach on Tresco:





Old Grimsby, Tresco:



New Grimsby, Tresco:




Unihabited island - St. Helen's

PasturesNew

House prices are mental there too.... I think there's one small "council block", the bus tour points it out. It's where singles go to live their life out in 8' square of space.

There's allegedly (according to the bus tour guide) somebody buried standing up in the graveyard, he's buried vertically, looking out to sea.

One of my mates went once, got drunk in the pub, called in at the phone box on the way home, dropped all his money ... went home. Next morning, he got up, went back to the phone box and all the money was still there. That's how it is there. A thieving-free zone virtually.

There was a TV series, following round the vicar/whatever, An Island Parish. And there was another one (I think it was a different one), following everybody around.

Some of the (cheaper) places are 'holiday restricted', so you see them and think "ooh, affordable", then find out you can't live there

Postcodes are:
St Marys, TR21 http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=tr21&n=100
St Agnes, TR22 http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=agnes+scilly&n=10 - only one house ever sold there.
Bryher, TR23 http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=tr23&n=10 - only two ever sold
TR25 http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=tr25&n=10 - just two there.

RM currently has 4 houses for sale, £650k, £750k, £800k and £900k
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE^2668&insId=1&sortByPriceDescending=false&radius=5.0&includeSSTC=true&_includeSSTC=on

I think most sales are just done through the EA on St Marys, so rarely on RM.

neverdespairgirl

For a lovely hotel, Tresco takes some beating - however, it's not very MSE. Rather pricey, sadly:

http://www.tresco.co.uk/Accommodation/island-hotel/default.aspx

PasturesNew

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

For a lovely hotel, Tresco takes some beating - however, it's not very MSE. Rather pricey, sadly:

http://www.tresco.co.uk/Accommodation/island-hotel/default.aspx

Only posh people stay there though

The Star Hotel on the main island's a posh 'un too.

PasturesNew

Camping's up to £10/night per person: http://www.garrisonholidays.com/
Or £8.50 here http://www.troytown.co.uk/content/availabilityandrates.php

Re getting to the Scillies, you can fly from Gatwick to Newquay, then Newquay to the Scillies.
Or, London to Bristol on the train, then Bristol to the Scillies by plane, although the airport will need a bus to reach from the train station.

Or, take the overnight sleeper from Paddington to Penzance, then fly or take the boat.

PasturesNew

Done the costs/timings now, although routes change twice a year, this is this summer's selection:

Gatwick to Newquay, Flybe, £118 for the three (prices roughly £40-60 on this route)
Newquay to Scillies, Air Scilly, 4 flights/day, £72.50/adult, £41.50/child.

Exeter to Scillies, £100/adult, £55/child
Bristol to Scillies, £115/adult, £62.50/child

By sea from Penzance, £30/adult, £18/child

Sources:
Skybus/Boat: http://www.islesofscilly-travel.co.uk/fares.asp
Flybe: http://www.flybe.com/timetableClassic/timetable.jsp?selDep=LGW&selDest=NQY (Gatwick to Newquay)


08:30 Gatwick to Newquay £118 (I think that's one way, can't remember), so might be £240 or so return
09:35 Arrive Newquay

Suggest lunch at Watergate Bay as it's only 1.5 miles away

14:00 Depart Newquay £200 or so x2 for return = £400
14:30 Arrive Scillies

Blimey.... it takes ages to work all this out.

So can't be 4rsed to do the other options.

Scillies.... for posh people.

PasturesNew

Travel is confusing for me - as I've never done any I can make mistakes/not understand. And, most systems expect you to know a date/time you're travelling.

There needs to be a looser system that shows you all and lets you pick randomly to get the cheapest ways/dates.