Big J

A genuinely lovely thing to write there Mark, and you're completely right. I take my hat off to you with the litter picking too. I went swimming in the River Ax last week and thankfully the place had very little litter, but I did nevertheless pick up and take home what I did find. It's just an obvious thing for me (and you). It's certainly worse than it ever was, but it has always been pretty terrible in Scotland. I recall going pike fishing one day at a reservoir about 30 miles north of us. The fishing was slow and I filled two black bin bags from about 150m of bank. I barely scratched the surface too. I've never, ever been able to understand why people would chose to make the effort to go somewhere pretty and then trash it. Anyway, thankyou for the support. ☺️ Perhaps if we'd grown up here we'd feel more rooted, but that not being the case, you end up judging your living situation in very objective terms. When you're not happy, you're not happy. Getting out of the rat race and reducing our stress is so important for my wife and I. The Swedes have a word for that balance which is 'lagom'. Not too much, not too little, simply lagom.

I agree. But I'd add the caveat that the region could comfortably accommodate many more tourists if the infrastructure was properly upgraded. I cannot see that ever happening though, so the inevitable Friday and Saturday M5 car parks will continue every summer ad infinitum

Dash cam mate 😎 Because we moved around a bit when I was a kid, I don't feel that I have a tie to anywhere. That's probably not a good thing, but I'm very unlikely to get homesick. I do miss the Highlands, but I fear that it's being ruined by all the Weegies overrunning the place since Covid. Parts of Scotland are genuinely absolutely stunning (my favourite bit is the bit between Ullapool and Lochinver) but are sadly being tarnished by a significant minority that don't respect it. I remember reading that during the relaxation last summer after the first lockdown, that the path up to the Hidden Valley at Glencoe had all the handrails ripped off and cut up for firewood by neds. Leaving a 50ft drop down to the river. I just can't understand the mentality to be as partriotic as so many of the Scots are and then to destroy your natural landscape. You have the best of living in the West Country Matt. Within Dartmoor, you've loads of open access land at your doorstep. Ok, the roads are a ballache, but at least it's pretty and accessible. I'm hoping to work at Hembury Woods on the edge of Dartmoor again over winter and I'm genuinely looking forward to it. Beautiful oak woodland with the river tumbling down the valley below. It's very pretty. I agree with everything else you said.

Yep, I'm a grumpy bastard. I know that and I'm perfectly happy to be grumpy. But what exactly is so great about Devon? Within the context of the rest of England, it's perhaps a bit more scenic, but most of the nicer areas you scarcely see because you're confined to the roofless tunnels that are the roads. And then you struggle to access the land because it's all private, mostly farmland, has a limited number of footpaths and 8 months a year is muddy as hell. Personally, I love lakes and forest. Devon has very little of either. Or is it the insane traffic you prefer? Like a customer of mine who had to sit for a full 20 minutes at the junction to cross the A30 to get to Chard. Or the 1hr 10 min I lost the other day on a 40 minute journey due to the Devon show. Do you enjoy reversing long distances on every journey because the road isn't wide enough to pass, or losing wing mirrors? Or having massive issues moving any machine almost anywhere, because lorry access is generally terrible. Or is it the people? The people that square up to your harvester driver when they arrive on site because for some reason they believe that no tree should ever be felled. Or that report you to the EA when you clear a drain and the stream runs cloudy for a short while? Or is it being reported to the Forestry Commission for felling stone dead ash, despite the leader of that particular parish council being given my contact details and encouraged to speak to me. Or the endless grief you get for simply trying to do your job, providing local timber for local markets. Or being crashed into (well technically, rolled into) by some idiot in a Polo on a blind corner on a tiny lane? I was stationary as he mounted the bank and rolled into my van. I particularly enjoy the flippant nature of landowners who change their minds without so much as a thought to how that might affect us as a company. Like the guy last year who cancelled a three month job 10 days from the start (after 7 months of planning) because he decided at the 11th hour to go with a major harvesting company. Who left him high and dry with the job only partly completed. That nearly sunk us last year actually - middle of covid and lockdown and it didn't just f*ck me up, but a lot of subcontractors too. So forgive me for being a little bit miserable about Devon. Many people hold it up to be this Utopian paradise, but the reality is that it's just as shit as anywhere else with the added complication of terrible roads, terrible weather and literally millions of tourists. Do you really think Sweden is a dark place? Did you know that Stockholm gets 40% more sunshine hours in a year than Plymouth? Sitting in a conifer plantation, listening to R4, comedy or podcasts is my idea of heaven. Knowing that I have a lifetime of work ahead of me, that I don't have to work my nuts off, that my children have lifelong free education and the certainty of being trilingual, that I won't have to fork out £750k (25 years of payments for a 4 bed family house here) for a mortgage and that I can go swimming and fishing whenever, and wherever I want. Well that makes me happy. And knowing that this is as much traffic as I'll ever see

Thanks Andrew. I think that the opportunities for hand cutting in Sweden are fairly limited now. It's almost all machine work, and I'm hoping that with a forwarder or combi machine that I should be fine. I'm also hoping to have pretty decent conservational Swedish by the time we get there. I know that the local sectors do favour local contractors, but I'm pretty confident of being able to work my way in. I've done it here in Devon. I'm looking forward to the bureaucracy ...... honest 🤣

Providing for people in their retirement is a major issue for all western countries. I agree with you that the approaches trialled haven't necessarily been the best courses of action but they haven't been wholly unsuccessful either. From speaking to various people in Sweden, the consensus seems to be that (rurally) the integration is going fairly well. The town we're looking to move to has almost no issues now, and any incomers who didn't settle simply moved away. The Swedes acknowledge that they took in too many refugees in 2015 for it to be sustainable and the politics there reflects that realisation. I however welcome moving to a more multicultural society, and particularly relish using three languages on a daily basis (English, German and Swedish). Regarding what Andy said - as I said, I don't think that the Norwegians have the best balance. There is vast amounts of money to be made there, hence the number of Swedes working there, but it's very similar to all the countries around Luxembourg. I do want to be within a few minutes of a lake, a forest, a school and a supermarket. I can easily have that in Sweden, in any one of thousands of towns and villages. For the cost of a modest plot here. Objectively, there are some things that are good about the UK (such as the pubs and the generally outgoing nature of the random people that you meet in them) but the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages, when viewed objectively.

As I said, different lenses Andy. It's the same way that there is no point trying to persuade you that the UK's present situation isn't as a result of the EU. Some people enjoy Devon. I f*cking hate it. I had to move my forwarder from Minehead to Barnstaple yesterday. I was along for the ride in the tractor as we negotiated the A39. Miles and miles of stupid, inadequate roads where we could barely fit a tractor trailer. Thousands of clueless tourists that don't know how to drive. I know some people would be looking out the window going "oooh, look at the pretty view" but I just see the total nightmare that is trying to work in this region. I imagine your sister in law swims in the sea. Swimming in the sea is fraught with difficulty. It never gets to more than 18c, jellyfish are a big issue, as is boat traffic. Parking at seasides is expensive and sometimes impossible and our nearest beach is 30 minutes away. And then there are the various water quality issues with sewage discharges after rain. As I said, many people are happy here and fair play to them, but for me it's an extremely expensive place to live, that is difficult (logistically) to do work in and has very restricted personal freedom.

I'm not sure where you are in the North West, but having lived in Manchester, my impression of the region is that it's a drizzly and generally grim place. Only place I've ever had a bike stolen, only place I've ever been knocked off my bike and left in the middle of a junction with the driver zipping off. I remember visiting friends at Whittle-le-woods and going for a walk at a local moorland. The litter was extraordinary and there were dirt bikes everywhere, screaming up and down the paths. I've a friend in Morayshire from Preston who has some extraordinary stories from the estates there. There is a massive issue with littering at swimming spots in the UK at the moment, which is destroying the enjoyment of it for the majority. It's depressing. Have you been to Scandinavia much Huck? I'd be interested to understand what your perspective on the place is

They have a fantastic quality of life, but it's not because of inflation. It's because they are strongly in favour of aggressive free market capitalism but not at the expense of social policies. People often mistake Scandinavian countries as communist/Marxist and not in favour of capitalism. That couldn't be further from the truth. Sweden is an exceptional place to start a company. There is substantial support from the state to become an entrepreneur. They just don't ascribe to the American model of capitalism, in which the winner takes all and exploitation of the lower echelons of the workforce is regarded as normal. It does also help Norway rather that they used the wealth from the North Sea to create the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, which owns 1.4% of the worlds shares and is worth $248k per citizen. In the UK, we used the income from the North Sea to subsidise tax cuts, especially for the rich. As a consequence, we now have absolutely nothing to show for 50 years of oil and gas extraction and a National Debt that amounts to £32,500 for every man woman and child, which increasing at £10 a day at the moment.

We're looking at the same situation, but through different lenses. I don't regard migration into a depopulating country (which is pretty much any western, developed nation) as a negative, provided it's sensible, proportional and controlled. Norway is fantastically expensive, yes, but wages are far higher than here. Quality of life is much, much better. It struck me when I was in Sweden this year that if you value the outdoors and value personal freedom, that you have a quality of life there that is simply unattainable in England, irrespective of income. It just doesn't exist here. Yes you can earn a packet, but you still spend your life stuck in traffic jams, visiting crowded seaside towns or National Trust properties, restricted to walking on public footpaths or national parks with no right to roam. You're completely stuffed if you want to swim - I have as close to zero as makes no difference swimming options within 30 minutes of my house. After a bit of rain, it is zero due to agricultural pollution and discharged human waste. I don't think that Norway is the best example of the Scandinavian ideal. In all likelihood, it's probably Finland, which is usually deemed to be the best place in the world to live.

The difference with the Scandinavian second home market is that they are mainly just cabins by lakes. They aren't buying all the houses in the villages and scenic towns. That's the issue down here. And they also permit far more new building, which is more affordable than here. Our restrictive planning laws mean that getting permission to build your own home is difficult and extremely expensive.

I disagree. There is far more pressure on the housing market from the dissolution of the traditional family unit and the Brit's obsession with property investment. And in the south west, lots and lots of second homes.

Haha 🤣 With the exception of the monstrous export tariff on forwarders, I've not moaned about Brexit for ages. The whole market is just completely unaffordable now though. As an example: The average salary in Devon is £27.5k. Assume a typical family on an average wage with one parent full time, one parent 50% pro rata. That's a gross household income before tax of £41,250. The qualifies them for a maximum mortgage of 4.5 times their combined income (as stipulated by the FCA - 5.5 times is sometimes awarded but only to high earning first time buyers earning in excess of £40k), so £185k. So assuming they've got a 10% deposit and they've got a mortgage for the rest, that gives them a housing budget of £205k. This is the closest house I could find to £205k in Cullompton (which isn't a great area to be honest) - it's £230k, is in the middle of a housing estate, has almost no garden, isn't even 75 square metres and it's £25k overbudget. This house isn't a home. It's a rabbit hutch. It accommodates you but doesn't allow you to live. Check out this 3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale on Rightmove WWW.RIGHTMOVE.CO.UK 3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale in Longwool Run, Cullompton, EX15 for £230,000. Marketed by Purplebricks, covering Exeter Assuming they've managed to find the extra £3k deposit and persuade the bank to lend them an additional £21k, they've then got a mortgage payment of £976/month at 2.95% (which is amongst the best 5 year fixed term rates I could see - I'd be looking to tie my mortgage rate up for as long as possible at the moment). In 5 years time, I'd be very interested and concerned to see where the base rate is. Before the 2008 crash it was over 5%. That's probably a worst case scenario, but that might push the mortgage up to 7.5%. And then it's £1530/month. Assume a middle position (most likely scenario, I feel) at 2.5% base rate. Then, at a mortgage rate of about 5.25%, the monthly payment is £1240. And that's on a combined household income after tax of (not including tax credits or child benefits) of £34k. Current interest rate: 34% of total household income Worst case: 54% Middling case: 44% In summary, the accommodation that the average family on an average wage is entirely inadequate to actually accommodate them, and only just affordable at our presently (historically) low interest rates. If those rates rise, the property becomes unaffordable and they default, which crashes the market. It needs to crash to be honest. The prices attained don't reflect the construction cost - not even close.

There are no guarantees obviously but almost anything is better than here.

I'm happy for you that you feel that way. It's not the way that I feel and I feel that a future here for me and my family is a bleak prospect, whether that be in cultural, economic, educational, social or health terms.

I agree, good decent people, going above and beyond. Except that they shouldn't have to. Have you ever been to another European country that litters like we do? I scarcely saw a single bit of litter in Sweden earlier in the month. Swimming spots where 500-1000 people were using them on a daily basis and you'd not have filled a carrier bag with litter in a week of litter picking there. And then the Falls of Falloch in Scotland get left like this on a daily basis: Don't get me wrong, the UK has a lot of wonderful people. Some of the best people you'd ever meet. But they are unfortunately somewhat outnumbered by people that just don't give a shit.

Recognising the negative attributes of a country doesn't make me a negative person. Anyone who thinks that this country is on it's way to bigger and better things is deluded. The UK is an overcrowded, overendebted, massively unequal, xenophobic shadow of it's former self. I'm active on a few wild swimming groups, one in Scotland, one here in Devon. A really common theme (especially in Scotland) is huge numbers of people coming to these beauty spots and absolutely trashing them. Leaving broken bottles, disposable barbecues, used nappies, human excrement, general waste in stunning natural location to the scale that some of the swimmers from these groups are routinely returning with big bags of litter on every single visit. Does that sound like we have the kind of people in this country that will improve our general situation? There is a total lack of respect in the country from a significant proportion of the population. That lack of respect extends to all walks of life. I feel extremely relieved to be leaving, but sad that it's only by accident of birth that it's still a simple option for me.

It doesn't make you right. The shitshow that is the state of the economy emerging from the covid pandemic would tend to agree with me. We have the prospect of banana republic levels of inflation at the moment and the housing market is poised to burst. Can you honestly see the Bank of England holding the present interest rates if inflation is 5%? Once the base rate goes up, the UK house of cards property market crashes. Given that the housing/property market (and speculation on it) is the basis of our entire economy, we're primed for a major hit.

No. I disagree. We're going to see a very sharp increase in inflation, which is a) largely negative and b) mostly as a result of Brexit. Free movement is an almost entirely positive thing. Previously we had the automatic right to live and work in 28 countries. We now have that right in 1. It's the most massive contraction of personal liberty I can think any country has inflicted upon itself.

It is market driven though. Customers demand cheaper products, companies drive down cost. We can't blame European workers for the fact that our companies here in the UK have historically been able to pay lower wages. A higher living wage is certainly a good thing, but this skills shortage and the massive inflation we're suffering at the moment cannot be seen as a positive effect of Brexit. Quite the opposite.

Wages certainly needed to increase, but it won't be long until you're in a Norway type situation with a pint costing £12. It wasn't just the ability to pay less that attracted employers to foreign labour, it's the fact that in general they work better and harder. There are a lot of jobs that Brits just can't be arsed to do anymore. Fruit picking, meat processing, catering and hospitality, even care work.

It's been supply and demand. British employers unwilling to invest in training or wages, it's no wonder the void is filled by cheaper foreign workers. It's coming back to bite them in the ass now though. Catering jobs are being advertised with around 25% higher salaries than 2 years ago. It'll all contribute to the already skyrocketing inflation rate.

Knowledge is there to be mined. I've a list as long as my arm of people that have helped me and it's my duty to pass on whatever knowledge might be useful to other people

I like to think that it's the quality of the independent consultant consulted through the ordering process......the guy that had the first Trakmet machine in the UK and has been to the factory 😎 🤣

It goes a teenie weenie way towards making up for the money I lost importing from Scandinavia after 2016 on the crappy exchange rate