No mortgage, kids and no responsiblity?

[MisterE]

God damn I'm like the guitar baby of the group - I'm back to being an apprentice

[JohnB]

I got my electric guitar out of my trailer today. It's only been in there for 5 months. My mandolin has been in the van all the time, and I've actually been playing it quite a bit lately, after a long gap. My 2 acoustic guitars are in store, but I can play the electric late at night through headphones and not disturb my neighbours on camp sites. I'm spending Christmas and New Year on a site with no phone signal, so I can stay off the b****y internet and do some serious practice.

Next year I'll have to think up some ways of earning a bit of money. Anyone got any work for an itinerant accountant?

[bigjim]

Hmmm. Not sure what I'd do with my life if I ended up like this. I'm probably tempted to go along the lines of what Cat said, find a narrowboat to live on and find me a wife who doesn't mind the back to basics living whilst eking out an existence as a radiographer. I'd look to learn some practical new skills as well like woodworking and mending stuff although unfortunately I've never been any good with my hands like that and technology at school wasn't my favourite subject.

Either that or I wouldn't mind working as an organic vegetable farmer somewhere.

[RevdTess]

Well I'm gonna be debt free by the summer having finally paid for my MSc at CAT, and the debts I racked up doing it. My plan is to stop giving money to my useless toad of a buy to let landlord, and buy a narrowboat. I have lots of friends on the canal here in Oxford, and fingers crossed, with our latest planning battle victory (did anyone see the Observer yesterday - apparently there was a big article on it and I missed it - bugger), the community boatyard may soon be up and running again in some semblance. Once esconced onto said narrow boat, I'm going to cut down my work hours, do a little freelancing for other green consultancies on climate change stuff, and have time to learn things. Plus maybe pick up a PO aware fella who doesn't mind living in a home with little in the way of running water and limited electricity.... i.e. someone with a bit of foresight!!!!

That's awesome. Didnt hear about the boatyard victory!

[Miss Madam]

It's a temporary victory for now, unfortunately Tess - but fingers crossed we win out in the end, the toads from Spring Residential are going to appeal. The planning meeting was wonderful though, we had some great speeches from Philip Pullman who likened approving the development to be akin to seeing a birds nest and dropping a brick on it. Permission was refused for the development (commuter flats and buy to let slums) on various grounds (including failure to include 20% renewables), including, explicitly the lack of community boatyard facilities. Something the planning officers (who were so biased toward the developers it was UNREAL and indeed rather fishy) failed to mention. Luckily we have some wonderful Green Party councillors who spotted this and made it a condition of refusal, which means that any future planning applications for the site need to include a boatyard. In the end the development was rejected unanimously by the council. Spring didn't even speak in its defence. We're waiting to hear about the appeal now - fingers crossed. The whole process has been amazing in terms of community building, it's definitely brought the diverse folk of Jericho closer together both boaties and bank siders, and makes me more hopeful in the light of peak oil. Danza very kindly sent me a link to the Observer article on the fight if you want to read more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story ... 54,00.html

[RevdTess]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story ... 54,00.html

Thanks so much for the link. I love the towpath community where I live but the one in Oxford has always sounded particularly lovely.