Neighbours

[oldfella]

Our neighbour called in this morning, to asked if we would like our bread delivered by the local baker who renovated his old stone oven. When we asked for the details he informed us that the local farmers would supply the grain which would be processed at a local mill. The baker being a local man and family, will also be paid in part with Veg and meat from the locals. As the price for the bread is far less than shop prices, and the quality is so much better we have joined the club.

Will keep you updated
Oldfella

[marshlander]

How wonderful, just hope you don't have the 'jobs worth' brigade working for your local authorities. Friends near Telford, Shropshire joined a similar scheme in their village. It was started by a retired chap who wasn't looking to make vast profits, he just loved baking. His bread and pastries were fantastic. For years he ran successfully from his barn which he converted to a kitchen and to our eyes was perfectly clean. Unfortunately the powers that be insisted he box in any exposed oak beams in case dust fell off them and a catalogue of other requirements so he gave up

[oldfella]

Yep sounds like the country I left 20 odd years ago, but here my neck of the woods they have a different system. I will give you a couple of examples When i wanted to pump water 300 mts from the river, I did the correct thing, and went to apply for the forms to fill in. The head of the department looked at me and asked if my neighbour were Ok about it, when I replied they had no problem with it, he took the 5 forms back. That was 11 years ago.
We have Septic tank system, for all our waste water, that was installed at about the time of the Crusaders past this way and has worked perfectly ever since, Every five years or so a gentleman passes, and tells me that there should be a manhole inspection manhole at a certain point, and he then leaves informing he will back in about five years.
I should imagine that in the Countries areas of the Uk it is very much the same, but as I have not lived there for the 25 years I would not Know.

[Milims]

What a wonderful and very sensible idea! There should be more like that!
We now make bread for my friend. We took her a loaf and now she's "commissioned" us for two loaves a week, which she usually pays for with a couple of large whiskys!

[ajs88]

sounds great, really hope the scheme works out

[grahamhobbs]

Now that is a brilliant scheme and I hope he makes some nice rustic sourdough occasionally.

As for the infamous French bureaucracy, I once went to the local town hall for our village in France to find out about a planning application. Although it was a reasonable sized village, there was one person running the town hall, she did everything from pay the dustmen, to collecting taxes, to planning applications. She looked at my drawing and said that will do, she would show it to the mayor and we would have our permission. She was so friendly she actually spent an hour chatting to us about life and the village, etc,. That is French bureaucracy for you, compare that to England.

[Maykal]

I went to my local town hall to ask about planning permission to redo the roof. The guy asked me what exactly I wanted to do and I told him: remove the old traditional tiles, replace all the sagging battens with sturdier ones, replace all the old tiles except those that are broken/cracked which I'll replace with salvaged tiles of the same type. He just shrugged his shoulders and said it was fine and not to bother with any formalities as it was a straight like-for-like renovation. Similarly, whilst property hunting, I found another house I was interested in and asked the town hall about the possibility of knocking down a non-load-bearing wall and moving it a metre to make room for indoor plumbing. The response was words to the effect of "what you do inside your own house it your own business. If it can't be seen from the road, we're not interested."

The downside to this is that there are people in the village who have unsympathetically modernised their houses. Case to point, the house opposite me was a classic example of 19th century plasterwork in the local style. I'm rubbish at posting pics but click here and you'll see it: http://www.icomos.ro/hr/pdf/FISA%20SASCHIZ%20177.pdf. You can't see it well, but there is a good example of plasterwork just behind the tree in the 'A' of the roof. Many of the older local properties have some kind of inset plasterwork design, often a heart or something resembling a club or spade (as in the card suit).

Unfortunately, the house now looks like: http://mihaelagui.blogspot.ro/2012/07/saschiz-pit-stop.html (scroll down to the orange house). All the traditional plasterwork was hacked off, the walls were lined with polystyrene, plastered, and painted this lurid orange colour.

In many way, I feel a house owner should have the right to do what he/she will with a property, as long as it doesn't inconvenience neighbours (maybe having to wear sunglasses to look at your neighbour's house counts as an inconvenience!), and some of the planning restrictions in the UK are ridiculous. However, I really think more should be done to restrict the destruction of historical façades.

Same goes for small businesses. If people are happy to buy bread off someone, and are happy with their quality and hygiene standards, that should be their look out. Small local village businesses will soon go out-of-business if the quality drops, so they are more or less self-regulating.