As you may be able to tell, I'm going stir crazy as I can't drive at the moment! The pleasure of living off the beaten track is being tarnished slightly - isn't it odd how much one misses something when you know you can't have it? Even the bus doesn't stop anywhere within the kind of distance I can manage on sticks. Enough whinging Jacky - at least your condition is temporary!!
This has set me thinking about public transport within Norfolk. At one time, people who didn't/couldn't drive used the bus to go shopping or visiting family and friends. As our villages have dwindled away due to the gentrification of cottages for holiday purposes we have lost shops, pubs and schools. Due to the de-regulation of buses, loss making bus routes have been removed from schedules and the downward spiral is hard to turn back.
In some villages, enterprising Parish Councils have organised their own facilities such as shops or small buses but, as younger people move to the cities, this becomes hard to sustain. It really is a vicious circle, however you look at it - village houses are priced beyond local reach, shops close, pubs close, buses vanish - where will it end? I am lucky enough to live in one of the largest villages in Norfolk but it is becoming unique!!
Enough gloom - it's a beautiful day out there and I'm going to stand in my garden - using one of my dogs as a crutch if he'll put up with it, and thank the Lord for things I have got, plan to improve on what I haven't and recognise what I must do without for the time being!
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