Meme: On the street where I live
Jan. 25th, 2007 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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nitoda and kightp.
List three things that you love about the area you live in. Do not contrast with the things you hate.
1) I love that I live in a little community - when my mother walks down the street, people recognise Linnea in the pushchair and smile and nod. When I walk out without the kids, people with familiar faces congratulate me on having a little time off. Total strangers walk up and compliment me on my parenting - toddler reins, babywearing, traffic safety, answering questions.
2) I love the street I live on. It's called Curzon St, and was built in 1899, the year Lord Curzon became Viceroy of India. It's a red-brick Victorian terrace, built by Quaker factory owners for their employees. It has three rooms on each of two floors; originally every room had a fireplace and there was an outside toilet of some sort. Now there's a small extension at the back of the house with the bathroom in it. Outside, the brickwork is patterned - 1899 is worked in the brickwork not quite opposite my house. I secretly wish I lived in a house with one of those digits on it. At every corner on the block there's a commercial unit with big picture windows; many of them are bricked up and the buildings are just residential, but some of them are corner shops, one sells an odd mix of fashion and music, there's a piano tuners... that sort of thing.
3) I love that we can walk, cycle, or bus to everywhere we want to go within the general area of the town. There's actually quite an extensive cyclepath network, and really good maps with cyclepaths and quiet roads marked, and huge great ! by dangerous junctions it's best to avoid. These maps are free, by the way. I particularly love cycling along the river or canals to do banal things like shopping or banking; groceries are more exciting if you stop to feed the geese on the way there and have a picnic on the way home. The pedestrian crossings respond to button-pushing - the one closest to our house changes in less than 45 seconds, usually, often almost immediately. There are lots of one-way streets, so it's easy enough to cross where there isn't a pedestrian crossing, and the only dangerous junction has plenty of fencing around the footpath/pavement. Within easy walking distance for the toddler, there are three playgrounds (with large green areas for running around!), a library, four or so charity shops with toys, books and clothes sections, at least three independently-owned supermarkets, several cafes including one that sources their own beans and sells home-made cakes, and a range of hairdressers for hair of all types.
There's actually quite a lot more but I started trying to cram it into the "things we can walk to" bit and that's probably cheating.
nitoda and kightp.List three things that you love about the area you live in. Do not contrast with the things you hate.
1) I love that I live in a little community - when my mother walks down the street, people recognise Linnea in the pushchair and smile and nod. When I walk out without the kids, people with familiar faces congratulate me on having a little time off. Total strangers walk up and compliment me on my parenting - toddler reins, babywearing, traffic safety, answering questions.
2) I love the street I live on. It's called Curzon St, and was built in 1899, the year Lord Curzon became Viceroy of India. It's a red-brick Victorian terrace, built by Quaker factory owners for their employees. It has three rooms on each of two floors; originally every room had a fireplace and there was an outside toilet of some sort. Now there's a small extension at the back of the house with the bathroom in it. Outside, the brickwork is patterned - 1899 is worked in the brickwork not quite opposite my house. I secretly wish I lived in a house with one of those digits on it. At every corner on the block there's a commercial unit with big picture windows; many of them are bricked up and the buildings are just residential, but some of them are corner shops, one sells an odd mix of fashion and music, there's a piano tuners... that sort of thing.
3) I love that we can walk, cycle, or bus to everywhere we want to go within the general area of the town. There's actually quite an extensive cyclepath network, and really good maps with cyclepaths and quiet roads marked, and huge great ! by dangerous junctions it's best to avoid. These maps are free, by the way. I particularly love cycling along the river or canals to do banal things like shopping or banking; groceries are more exciting if you stop to feed the geese on the way there and have a picnic on the way home. The pedestrian crossings respond to button-pushing - the one closest to our house changes in less than 45 seconds, usually, often almost immediately. There are lots of one-way streets, so it's easy enough to cross where there isn't a pedestrian crossing, and the only dangerous junction has plenty of fencing around the footpath/pavement. Within easy walking distance for the toddler, there are three playgrounds (with large green areas for running around!), a library, four or so charity shops with toys, books and clothes sections, at least three independently-owned supermarkets, several cafes including one that sources their own beans and sells home-made cakes, and a range of hairdressers for hair of all types.
There's actually quite a lot more but I started trying to cram it into the "things we can walk to" bit and that's probably cheating.
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