Wowzer. Dietary help too! More seriously, one does learn from these sorts of critical incidents. Went to bed last night and a worst case scenario popped into my head. Seeing as I'm still away for a few more days, and he/they know my address from my licence, what would happen if someone broke into my house (alarmed) and stole the letters containing new cards and the letters with the new pins?! Not conducive to good sleep. I did alert both my immediate neighbours to ask them to be extra vigilant. If I ever lose a card again, I will ask the bank or credit card company to deliver the new ones after I've got home. I might suggest that to my bank just to see if they've thought of such things.
No personal experience but I think I would contact DVLA and see if they can cancel your current driver number because of the risk of identity theft. Apparently you can open bank accounts, get credit, and open phone contracts etc with the driver number as ID. I don’t think your address being visible will be much of an issue - ****ers will try to burgle your house because they think they can get in or it looks like you have some good stuff, not because they know your name and where you live,
Thanks. DVLA have sent me a new licence and told me the old one would be invalidated by my request for a new one. However, the licence number is the same!! So in what way is it invalidated?? Just odd. Hopefully you're right about the liklihood of burglary. What a headache.
A little tale to highlight what we're talking about here with regards to these dangerous times. We visited the beautiful Jurassic Coast this week, staying in a lovely cottage in a quiet, but reasonably isolated village about half a mile from Chesil Beach. We arrived on Monday afternoon and checked into our self contained cottage. There's a lovely gourmet pub in the village, but unfortunately, presumably as we're in November, it was closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Being around 5 miles from Weymouth we looked up a Chinese restaurant that our Cottage welcome pack had recommended and booked a table. Well....from the moment we parked the car in a dimly lit car park we felt like we were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse! Everyone seemed as though they wanted to attack us. My senses were on red alert walking the streets till we found the Chinese. This had 4 tables, none laid out and 1 person taking orders for takeaways and manning the kitchen. A complete **** hole. He announced on our arrival that it was "cash only", which gave us our chance to make our excuses and run. We placed an order at the Domino's next door, but had to wait 20 minutes. We decided to take a stroll along the sea front, thinking it may be a bit more friendly. This was equally as alarming. Dodgy characters everywhere and at only 7pm. I was convinced we'd be mugged for our food on the nerve jangling walk back to the car. I suppose this is just a reflection of modern towns at night, but it felt as though we could easily have become victims, no matter how much we were on red alert.
Were you there? It was exactly as described. I don't spook easily, although I tend to make sure I'm aware when visiting somewhere new. You're probably mostly too pissed to notice what's going on around you.
We have friends who live in Weymouth and have visited a fair few times. During the day, seems fine with the boating community, folk on the beach etc. Not really walked around at night very much but judging by the closed shop units and some of the folk Ibe seen walking around, I can easily imagine the scenario described. I've always tried to be self aware and aware of my surroundings too but sadly let myself down on this occasion. If it feels odd, think pock pocket!!
Why are many coastal towns absolute ****holes ? Every year that I make our annual trip into Bournemouth as the kids like an afternoon playing slot machines, the place seems to be decaying more and more into poverty and depression. Scores of homeless, drug paraphernalia everywhere and more and more shops boarded up. Seems that’s not the only one and many seem to be going that way. Must be a reason
It’s as you see it Staines, Bournemouth has definitely been going downwards for sometime now. The shopping are has really closed down with a couple of larger stores closed down and the domino effect on high street stores and independents. The gardens is a shadow of its reputation. Most of the wealthier areas are outside of Bournemouth and away from the centre to be honest. There’s really not much to it as a town any more sadly. The only time I venture in is for a gig or two. Weymouth isn’t my favourite place either. Though if I was travelling to the coast I’d certainly be going for a fish restaurant than a Chinese - there are a lot of excellent restaurants across the Jurassic Coast and a couple of very good fish restaurants near Chesil Beach, you just have to do a little ground work and you will have an excellent evening.
I had a stonkingly awesome night out in a coastal town in West Sussex a very short while ago and felt very safe right up until 4am when my companion for the evening, a very beautiful and bubbly girl, invited me to her flat. I might start a separate thread for this.
Your account of Weymouth doesn't surprise me, it's happening everywhere. My fear is when the recession takes hold it will get worse. Even the quietest hamlet is not immune from what goes on in major cities
