This afternoon before we returned the hire car we took a quick trip down memory lane visiting our old town of Horsham where we lived 20 years ago. This is in West Sussex and roughly 15 minutes from Gatwick airport where we have checked into a hotel for tonight having an early departure in the morning.
Horsham had so many fond memories and the beauty about visiting an old stomping ground is no sat navigation was required. The area has changed quite a bit with so much new development on what we once knew as green belt land and no housing was permitted. You have a vision in your head of what you remember and it takes a bit of deciphering and computing once seeing the changes as some were quite drastic.
The farm that I tried to purchase as a consortium back in 1998 s no longer and is now a full on housing development. Back then this was selling for 260K GBP and had 3 residential properties on the land ad it seems whoever got the deal had a big pay day. They say money makes money and this is certainly the case here as this is now considered prime residential property.
Driving through Little Haven which is a small village just on the outskirts of Horsham town there is no land left. My kids first school doesn't even have playing fields any more and I noticed 6 houses in the place of where there sports field once stood. This was an eye opener and one that I was not comfortable seeing as this is just not right. Where do the kids play and where do they have their sports days now? All this for the sake of building 6 new houses taking away from the kids. This would not happen in SA as schools tend to buy more land and never sell it off. The local councils in charge for allowing this are to blame and do not care about the kids.
We noticed some shops were the same so very little change there, but we knew we could never live here again and we have moved on. I think this was more about reassuring where we are in our lives and there is no going back. We are heading to Portugal tomorrow to see if this is the next chapter or not and more of a go and see type trip not looking from a tourist perspective.
I am not into this stuff as it is in your face wherever you walk and Reading has many of these multi colored crossings. The country is very woke and you cannot get away from it. I need to live in the country I guess.
England has changed so much over the last 20 years and not in a good way and why it would never ever be an option in the future. I may have been born here, but it could never be considered home again. Horsham was not as bad as Reading when it came to diversity which I am no fan of as it does not work and with these large numbers only causes problems and serious social problems. One would have to be a complete moron to think this is all going to work out. South Africa with all it's problems still offers a better standard of living and is 100x better than the UK.
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