Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

oakie

The second to lowest possible social level for a white person. Second only to trailer trash. People who collects hub caps and hang them on their house or fence, tape their windows instead of replacing them, and have a large collection of random stuff scattered in their yards, in a seemingly organized chaos. They are generally a bit more shifty and withdrawn.
Run and git that hub cap, son. We'll give it to that family up the crick. They's good people, just oakies.

Quoted from the Urban dictionary.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

An Okie (from Muskogie) isn't the same as an Oik, AFAIK.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

It is suppose to be cooling down in England. Has it happened in your area?

One thing I forgot to mention. I did mention the fast moving traffic on two lane roads but also they have farm tractors that hold up traffic. They will travel for miles on the roads with a long line of cars following them that are unable to pass.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

yes it has and yes they do :nod:

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Islandwoman... When we lived out in an area that was rural here in the US we lived in that area for nearly 10years. My whole attitude changed towards socialization. I became more intravert and less likely to go out I spent most of my time in the garden or in my house. I really became a recluse. Houses were very separated and I hardly saw anyone and hardly anyone spoke. I became nervous when I went to a mall I didnt like all the crowds. We now live on a small housing estate and I get to say hello to the neighbours and chat but I still have not got back to where I was before we moved up to NH.

Going back to the UK if I ever get to go back will need some added skills.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

I think article from the BBC Website is very interesting and touches on some of the concerns we have spoken about;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23401073

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Thank you much much Trotty apologies for late reply. Was missing 40 's and discovered I had been unsubscribed???? So subscribed again tonight.
Yes the wedding was amazing. Would love to show some pics but have no clue how to put them here.
My ex is putting putting up a fight regarding the stager's instructions. Won't pay for any changes.....painting the obvious (20 year old house) flower beds, stupid stuff like white plush towels, white sheets, shower curtains, soap dispensers etc.....I will go ahead and do with my separate property. I guess I didn't really know him. He is threatening to go to court to force a sale as is.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Trotty.....I was the most outgoing person ever...Judging dog shows showing dogs.....traveling the world....now I rarely leave my house....Infinity FX 35 almost 5 years old - 19000. Don't do dog shows, turn down all assignments even hough I am an international judge. Most days...Don't know how to get through the day. I am too nervous to answer the phone. From my ex's history it would most likely be for a bill not paid. Life sucks...

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Celtic...this and your previous post are very sad. Chin up, though. This too shall pass. We support you and wish you strength.

I don't want to complicate things or appear to be supporting your ex's POV at all, but I do question the need for the perfectionist home staging that is sometimes recommended by agents and stagers.

However, I suppose it does depend on the area you are selling in and how much else is on the market competing with your property. It may well be needed to make your home stand out.

All the received wisdom said I should get rid of the shelves full of books that covered many of the walls in living room and dining room. But I felt, why should I? If the buyer also loves books, they'll see that there are these wonderful built-in shelves for them. If they don't, they'll see that there are plenty of shelves for storage of other items. In the meantime, "books do furnish a room," as the saying goes, and to me at any rate make a room more appealing. In the end our house sold, with all its pros and cons, mainly because we had installed a walk-in shower on the ground floor which was essential for the buyer's elderly relative!

Anyway, good luck with the process and with this complicated issue of the deteriorating relationship with the ex.

Re being "unsubscribed" from the thread--I don't know if this is what you mean, but when one hasn't looked at or posted on a particular thread for a while, one stops getting email alerts when there are new posts. So the thread can move ahead without you, and you don't realise. One is still subscribed to BE as a whole, though.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Very interesting trotty on how our environment can change our behaviour and degree of outgoingness. Sounds like a good thing you are on this housing estate now and getting a bit more used to saying hello and chatting!

I think your experience points up the importance of surroundings--rural or not, town, residential, etc--to our quality of life, and how it depends on what sort of person one is...or how it can change how one behaves.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

I read a few of the relevant articles - sad, but true. It was interesting to read what you wrote about the various places you lived in and your responses as a result. I was connected with universities for many years, so had 'built in' social contacts, and enjoyed the times when I was solo. Now things have reversed, and though I do a lot on my own as a fiber artist, I still need human contact. But that now is often in the form of 80+ yr old people, transient tourists, and shop keepers. As is the plight of the newly- retired, I have to make my life again with a new set of ideas, more time, and in new places. Which is what I am doing, with all the attendant angst involved. I am grateful for this site - as usual! - and am sure I provide quite a lot of entertainment for the masses who read but never make themselves know to the main forum. :)

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Like many places, housing estates are a compromise.

Our Pluses: neigbours that give a kindly wave and chat, proximity of bus stops and bus frequency, bus stop chats, nearby mini-supermarkets and vets, post box, village pubs, low crime because of people behind twitchy curtains, adjacent park, not far to railway and express buses, not too large a garden (for DW). Not too far to countryside.

Our negatives: inconsiderate next door neighbours that had their kids sqealing outdoors from 9 am to 9 pm over the weekend, not large enough garden (for me), dog poop on the lawn, a bit but not too much litter from kids passing back from the shop, (neighbours cars parked in front of house windows - not us , glad we didn't get a house in a inside corner, 3 houses near us have 10 cars total in their corner). After living on USA sub-division (with wave and chat neighbors) I feel crowded in by the closeness of houses on UK estates, especially newer estates.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Surely the court will cost as much a stager. Sounds bloody minded to me.

We didn't have a stager. God rid of most stuff from attic and basement, took down most wall pictures and filled / painted the nail holes, new carpet. The buyers commented they liked we had protected the carpets from dirty shoes with a layover strip, and that we had new filters in the A/C intakes.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

I find your reference to "built-in social contacts" fascinating. I too was in universities, with their built in social circle. Elsewhere I also was lucky to have a built in social circle (the "expat" experience in a country where expats hung out together in rugby clubs, etc.). As a grad student in the US, I had another ready-made set of social contacts. And as a bicycle club member in two states in the US, the same.

It really struck me that the ease of access to potential social circle just wasn't there when I came back. No family nearby, not the same social life around work, no decent "social" cycling club, and worst of all, no time because my job was much more time-consuming including a 90-min commute (vs. a 5-min walk to work in the US). If it wasn't for the dog I really think I would have gone stir-crazy.

This has been perhaps the hardest part of moving back. I have plenty of acquaintances, one decent pair of friends (a couple), but not much else, and I can't see it changing anytime soon.

I do see the need to change - as the saying goes, no-one on their death-bed wished they had spent more time at the office, so ... I have had a few moments of epiphany over the past 6 months and am trying to figure it all out as I look ahead. I've even had two very decent job opportunities presented to me in the US over the past 6 months but having moved away from that idea, I don't want to let it mess with my head.

Re: Over 40's Moving Back and Catching Up
 

Celtic, regarding the staging...are you sure you can't do some of that stuff yourself. I think the process of 'staging' is to make the house look as neutral as possible by stripping walls, painting them beige or white. Then if you have a room that doesn't have an obvious purpose, give it one, maybe put a desk in a downstairs den etc.
Professional stagers are pretty expensive from what I can gather. I bet you have some good ideas already.