DJ's Posts

I've never run a charity or had to produce accounts for one (and I have no connection whatsoever with Snooky Trust) - but a quick look at the Charity Commission website seems to indicate that the Snooky Trust have to produce fairly simple/basic accounts because their income is below £25,000 pa at the moment.  On that basis, surely the Income vs Spending is not Income vs just cost of fundraising, ...

“We never had bombings ....” quote from majorp. Are you serious??  You need to go back over some history books or even just a quick google search to see how nonsensical that comment is.

Flo I’ve done the fly up and train back option quite a few times since they changed the return flight time and made it earlier.  Works very well but they will charge you more than if you were buying it with a return ticket. Don’t forget the Exeter to Waterloo route is usually cheaper than the Paddington route if using the train. UK rail fares now are ridiculously expensive unless you can book ...

I’ve had cause to visit relatives in hospital and also attend appointments myself this year. For the service and care provided, for 2 of those instances it was quite literally life saving care that was provided, the amount I paid in parking that ultimately goes to the hospital to give them more money is - I feel - a tiny thankyou for what they did for my family this year. If paying for parking ...

It is extremely frustrating to see an empty cycle path and then be held up on the road by cyclists. But it isn’t actually compulsory for them to use it, it is just advisory. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cyclists-59-to-82 Also, riding 2 abreast is perfectly legal and also recommended by some as a safer way to ride. Having said that, on busy roads or on bends they are ...

Apart from the fact that this is now descending into another political game of tennis - it is a shame that yet again the focus seems to be on only providing facilities aimed at holidaymakers or day trippers.  Sure, they bring money in - but we have thousands of residents who live here all year round.  They live and work in and around Dawlish and they have money in their pockets too.  The ...

You can doubt it all you want, but I guarantee that it will be true that people will travel to Teignmouth for the play park.  Just as I used to travel with a group of Mums to Decoy for our children to play at the park there before the Teignmouth play park was upgraded.  My children were just about too old for it by the time they finished it. The Teignmouth play park works really well and is very ...

Oh thanks for the link to that table of birth dates and retirement age Lynne.  I've just check and I'm actually a year better off that I thought I was.  So it is 67 for me now, not 68.  But you are also quite right, Lynne that this might be changed again.  As it may well be for men too - after all their retirement age has also been pushed back beyond 65.  By the time I retire, men and women ...

Just as well they are looking to reduce their numbers by 50 then.

They do look lovely when it's dark.

They are lovely. Thanks for posting them.  It doesn't hurt to be reminded of what a lovely part of the world we live in and how lucky we all are to live somewhere so beautiful.

Call recognition doesn't always work though. Anyone ex directory or phoning from somewhere with a big phone network, like the council or even your bank, can be shown as number withheld. I also had a call from a lady in Newton Abbott once (at work) that bizarrely showed up as International. Most firms get round the TPS thing by using overseas call centres or just plain ignoring it or claiming you ...

So going back to my previous post on the subject of catering - Lynne you now have the information you wanted.  To what purpose exactly?  What was the point?  Does it change anything about the weekend or the arrangements for the weekend?  Does it make any difference whatsoever?  I still don't get the point?! And please don't answer it with a blah blah tax payers money, blah blah whatever.  THE ...

The trouble with litter and the like is that as soon as there is some, it tends to multiply. It is about changing attitudes so that people don't litter the area in the first place, but also a change of attitude from all of us. The Council would have to spend most of its budget to keep every path, pavement, road and park clean and tidy 24/7. That's a ridiculous thing to have to happen. ...

sexist, ageist and offensive - all in one short post.  Congratulations!! are you suggesting that two neurotic, power hungry, old men would be better?

One of the reasons the Consultant has less time for NHS patients is because they are allowed to do private care for so many days a week.  NHS hospitals like private funded care because it helps with their bills and the Consultants like it because they get more money in their pockets.  If all Consultants had to work full time for the NHS then we would see a difference in care.  But their contracts ...

It strikes me that those who cry they should be allowed Freedom of Speech, rarely seem to want to extend the same privileges to those with an opposite view to their own.

Well I have a postal vote and I've already voted - so the goods news with that is that I can skip all the endless stuff about it on the radio, TV and newspapers and just get on.  Job done.

Well it was nice to see that the temporary lights by the wall at Lanherne have now been taken away. And a few days earlier than their previous estimate.

Dawlish is lovely a lot of the time and frankly every town is going to have bits (and people) that aren't lovely. As for expense, well it is no worse than many other places around.  There is a good community spirit in both towns although they do have slightly different feels to them.  I would say look at both with househunting, that's what we've always done and there are some lovely and unexpected ...

Well you never know, this might be a crafty plan to make sure the whole area is awash with traffic wardens (or whatever they are called these days) who will ticket as many wrongly parked vehicles as they can, which will end up making the council a HUGE profit on their investment of £100,000 So then will the profit be seen as a good thing or a bad thing!?

They truly are that idiotic.  Huge queues towards Exeter this morning and huge queues from Exeter this evening.  It's been like this all week.  No-one seems to have any sense when it comes to simple things like this.

Leatash, last few times we've been up to Central London we paid to use public toilets so they are getting extra revenue that way. The only free toilets were private ones like in cafes or museums. Prices ranged from 20p to £1. Even when I was small I remember having to pay to go through a turnstile to get into public toilets in the town I grew up in. Had the same for public toilets in Cumbria a few ...

Margaretswift55, there was no barbed comment in what I wrote and certainly none aimed at anyone in particular.  It was a general comment about the subject and posts on this site from all sides.  I am surprised you took it as being aimed at your personally, if I had wanted or aimed to do that then I would have been open and said so.  I didn't say so, because that was not the intention.  I also, to ...

I travelled on it to and from Torquay last night and was very impressed with how well the traffic lights at the Torquay end work to feed the traffic through and going over the top of Penn Inn was great.  The whole thing ran very smoothly and it was a much quicker journey than the old route.  A huge well done to all the civil engineers and construction workers for a job well done and delivered ...

Roberta I see that you instantly resort to using names you see as an insult, calling him Gideon. As if he had a choice in the name given to him by his parents.  And you also presume that you know my own personal or financial circumstances in that somehow I don't know people who will be affected by the changes. In fact I will be affected by the changes they are bringing in on Tax Credits but I ...

No HuwMatthew2, I didn't say that at all. In fact if you reread my post of 22 Oct at 23.04 you will see that I mention travelling TOWARDS Exeter and said left hand lane for straight on and right hand lane for turning into Sainsbury's or going full circle. So you may have misread that. On Saturday I followed a Nissan Micra from Dawlish all the way to the large roundabout at the far end of the ...

I am concerned with this because I drive on that road as do many members of my family.  Does that mean I'm not concerned with other things?  No!  It just means, on this thread, at this time, I chose to respond about THIS thing.  Did I watch that video and think "oh I cannot be shocked/surprised/outraged or comment about this because roberta might want me to be more concerned about her views on the ...

It is a shame that it has been left derelict for so long - as you say it is in a prime location.  Maybe the owners ran out of funds or couldn't get funding for a rebuild.

Don't forget about the large stones that get thrown around in waves that could hit anyone or anything in its way.  I remember seeing one of those photos in that shop in Park Road, Dawlish Blue I think it was called, that showed a large wave breaking over the station. The size of the rocks being thrown up in it were huge!!

OurSoul is right that there are no parking charges on the estate, but the original parking notices that were erected on the estate made it clear that there were time limits for parking and over and above that then parking tickets could be issued.  It's the same as parking on a road, for free, up to a limit of say 2 hours, but after that you can be ticketed. You don't need to display a ticket there ...

In many, many years from now, when the sea levels rise and the coast of the UK is pushed further inland, the Dawlish Sea Wall will probably still be standing proud as a testament to the sheer amount of concrete poured into it over the last years or so.  It will be fantastic to be able to walk all the way along the sea wall again.  You don't realise how much you will miss something until you can't ...

Teignmouth Hardware store, round near the Brunswick car park maybe?

Last year Teignbridge faced protests from some quarters about cutting the verges down when they were at their most useful to birds, bees and butterflies. Wild flowers and unmown verges are a haven for wildlife and insects. Yes they may look a bit messy but how nice to see nature of this kind being able to flourish.   This may be an accidental side effect of budget restrictions, but I for one ...

That is a very good article Lynne, thank you for posting it. When I moved out of my parents home and set up home with my partner, we had to go to the next County to find somewhere we could afford. And we ended up buying a new build tiny 1 bedroom starter home. The estate had a great mix of 1, 2, 3 and 4 bedroom houses on it which meant a great mix of age groups. Our neighbour had downsized on ...

It never ceases to amaze me that Margaret Swift can turn even the most innocuous sounding subject into another session of "me, me, me, it's all about me". You are a politician of the worst kind, you've forgotten that your are supposed to represent the views of ALL the people in the area you represent, taking all sides of the argument into account, and not just your own narrow view of the world. ...

I seem to remember Anne Marie Morris was advocating a breakwater right back when the damage was done at the start of the year. She may be saying an additional route but she certainly didn't seem to be suggesting getting rid of the Dawlish section. It it seems that the LibDems have jumped on the breakwater bandwagon that was already rolling, no doubt they are hoping people will forget they weren't ...

Brilliant!

That's really useful to know, thanks for posting that Lynne. My parents regularly go to London for hospital appointments and they use an Oyster card but I don't think they had any idea you could do this. I will pass the info on to them

All sounds pretty sensible to me.  It gets rid of one of the big bins outside my house, that usually has just about enough in it to cover the bottom of it and no more when it is collected fortnightly.  We have a home composter bought from the council a couple of years ago and that works very well for us as it does for a lot of our neighbours who also use home composters.  Anything from the garden ...