Mr B bought tickets to hear (and see) London Symphonic Rock Orchestra play at the Southampton Guildhall last Saturday.
Great musicians - absolutely no question of that - just too much or too many at times and the beauty of some of the pieces they chose to perform lost on too many layers of reverberating sound.
People of 'a certain age' might have dominated the audience but no one was dancing in the aisles.
English.
We used to live in Southampton. Driving and finding parking there has not got any easier. Mr B was on Cowes and coming by ferry. Trains were not running and replacement buses ended early so I was instructed to drive over and we could then use our 'motor' to go to Mr B’s daughter's place to stay afterwards.
I haven't driven for nearly 6 years (while in Greece and as I turned 60 before we came back, my resolution to stop driving at 60 had kicked in) I was told that refusing to do so last weekend was churlish, so I relented.
Deciding that I am content to remain a non-driver was easy after a couple of circuits of Soton Centre. If the modern planners of town centres want to exclude cars, they need to have working park and rides - better public transport in other words. Just making the place a nightmare to navigate might effectively exclude private drivers but they will go to out of town malls and retail parks if they have no other way of getting to the commercial district in town.
There was however a healthy population of skateboarders and electric bike food-delivery riders around the Guildhall Square.
Why commit to stop driving at 60? Just curious….
ReplyDeleteThe concert looked rather like a rock and roll venue, with the light show and the smoke effects, but I imagine it was a lot of fun!
Ive been driving since i was about 5 - I'm allowed to give it up. It's bad for your heaith and... Actually the real reason is that i have watched older family members go way beyond the point they should have stopped driving. They become a danger to themselves and others and you can't make them stop because their idea of themselves as a competent person is linked in their heads to their ability to drive, and by the time their driving is bad enough for others to notice, they have gone beyond being able perceive (or accept being told) it in themselves. I have given up while i can make a reasoned decision to do so and am young enough to build another life style in which my sense of my independence is not dependent on being a motorist.
DeleteI definitely don’t like driving in traffic and roads that wind around or have constant road works.
ReplyDeleteYour very brave
I don't find driving scary, I just want to build a different mindset for getting around / or enjoying being where I am.
DeleteI used to live in Southampton as well..I have been back to the centre once.....
ReplyDeleteI used to go to the Guildhall with my father to the BSO concerts..and our grammar school prize giving.
I enjoyed the concerts....
Now that I have been back, I vaguely remember going there for something (Uni related) when I was at Uni in Southampton.
DeleteAmazing photographs. It was worth going just for the visual effects. I couldn't abide the loud noises and the crowds, though - I've been the same all my life - how dull!
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't uncomfortably loud (I am really bad with loud and crowd), just too much of it and the details get lost in the mess.
DeleteI haven't driven for three years now and no longer have any desire to start again. I walk everywhere here or take the bus. For longer trips I usually end up in the passenger seat with P as my chauffeur.
ReplyDeleteI 'fess up to being chauffeured too. Goodness knows what I will do when we live rural and Mr B starts losing his marbles.... (Because I never will 😉😎)
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteNot my kind of music, ear defenders required...
Scotland's cities are well served with the park and ride system you mention, but I also find it as easy to park on a suburban street and take local buses. That said, apart from Edinburgh and Aberdeen, maybe Perth and Stirling, most of our large towns and other cities have excellent central parking...and mostly free or at least not gouging cost. Not driving for four years resulted in not leaving my home, so a return to driving has improved my mental health, if not necessarily the physical! Though I quite understand your own position on it. YAM xx
😉 Ha ha - says she who loves heavy metal.... They chose to play some of my favorite music (Fleetwood Mac) but the sound mixing people at the back of the auditorium have a different take on the delicacy of some of it I suspect. I get out on the bike (and walking) - and always have done so, so isolation is not part of the problem for me. I just don't want to be be obstinate senior (FiL) who can't walk, is losing all peripheral perception (and has the reaction times of a tortoise) but still driving!
DeleteI like the look of the light show, and might enjoy the music, but other people around me is not what I like. even watching a movie in a theater is a thing of the distant past. I can see and listen in front of the 65 inch TV and no one to distract me but BOB. to each his own and its a good thing everyone is not like me because there would be no things to watch or see if everyone felt like I do.. if you lived here you would be out of luck with public transport. we do have buses but they are slow and don't go where we need them to go, plus we are so far from a bus stop, I would be to tired to shop.. also death is imminent when walking here.. I think it is great you are walking because that means when you are pushing 80 like me you will still be able to walk distances..
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that you are a very active (nearly) 80 year old (more than my Mum was). And you still walk Beau. I get you about urban areas designed entirely for motor vehicles and wonder what was going on in the heads of people who did that - did they not have kids (and pets) and elderly parents?
DeleteI wanted to stop driving at 70. I'm almost 72 and have no choice. I live too far from town. I hope I realise when, before, I'm dangerous or my kids make me stop. We have had quite a few deaths on the island of elderly people driving into plate glass windows, driving over cliffs. Thankfully only killing themselves.
ReplyDeleteYou're brave driving in any city. I'd drive to Nafplio or Argos, do so sometimes but they're still small and manageable. I'd panic in Athens now
I have bought land in the Marlborough Sounds - fastest way to town is by boat. I figure I am less likely to be a danger to anyone else in a boat (and never said I would give up boats), but I entirely get your point about distance out of town and needing to drive and in all seriousness wonder whether I will be able to maintain the rural life style If I don't drive. Trouble is there won't be any kids to tell me I am a menace and I am not the personality type to listen if they did.
DeleteI think too many New Zealand town planners learnt their craft in England! We have exactly the same problems appearing here, with the discouragement of driving but no alternative being put in place (unless you accept, as in our case, hourly or two hourly buses that don't take you where you want to go - forget about us oldies hopping onto a bicycle again after 50 odd years!).
ReplyDeleteAgree with the above comment ^^^ mind you there are ALOT and I mean ALOT of cyclists here, haven't seen that many in Greymouth though unless they are tourists.
ReplyDelete