Ivy - As mentioned in the most recent post, there is an awful lot of ivy everywhere, particularly on the trees (and our back fence)
Very beautiful - the verges, hedges, trees, fields and hillsides are all particularly beautiful - and the same can be said of the harbours, rocks, islets, inlets and sand of the shoreline
Campervans - I reckon there are more than 20% of houses with a campervan parked on the drive. Whether people use them, rent them out or live in them and rent out the house during TT is currently unknown - but there are lots of them and they are not cheap - the nearby garage has a few for sale, nothing special, but the price for second hand ones is about £40k - a lot of money to have on the drive.
Multiple cars. - more than half of the houses seem to have at least 2 cars, with 3 being very common. When you add in the campervan and the boat (lots of them too) it makes for crowded drives
Nearest neighbour - in case you thought I was exaggerating
Motorcycles are actually something of a rarity! OK, there are plenty about during the TT, but in general on the roads they are uncommon (and scooters are almost never seen)
Nice cars - there are quite a lot of fancy sports cars (think Aston, Lambo, Ferrari, McLaren, A8 etc). I guess you can give them a real blast on the TT course (dont think there speed limits there), but otherwise they are for posing (aren’t they always?)
Friendly - The people are very friendly and polite - workmen, bus drivers, shop assistants are all polite and talkative. Hello, Goodbye and Thank You are always heard.
Birds - there is a lot of bird life. We have seen something new on every one of our walks (ok, we will run out at some stage, but way more variety and numbers here than we had in Spain)
Public transport is excellent with everywhere seemingly well serviced by buses (and we have steam trains, trams and horse drawn trams too)
Trees I had forgotten how much I like proper deciduous trees. A frugal diet of Mediterranean Stone Pine has given way to an abundance of different deciduous trees
Dogs - Nearly everyone has a dog. Just about everyone we see while we are out walking has at least one dog - and a huge percentage of the people on our estate have them too. All sizes and makes, but nothing too fierce (=illegal) seen so far.
Manxmen and women. A huge amount of the population are island born and bred. - and very proud of the fact. Most people have a Manx accent which is a very soft scouse to my ear. (And note that the population on the IoM is about the same as Mijas!!)
Deliveries are wonderful compared with the hassle we used to have in Spain, constantly having to tell couriers of yet another parcel company how to get to our house. Here we have early morning post with Amazon parcels included.
Clean and tidy - you quickly come to appreciate the almost total lack of litter. People do seem to have more of a civiv responsibility than elsewhere (and council employees dedicated to clearing chewing gum and odd detritus left b y the inconsiderate few)
There is little (actually almost none) graffitti. Maybe it was the threat of “the cat” in the old days that instilled this responsibility!
Banks are in abundance - with most of them being new to me (but then it is an offshore tax haven they tell me)
Churches are everywhere. Not sure they are any specific denomination, but a noticeable amount of them. Not been around on many Sundays to check attendance figures.
Pubs aplenty and with proper closing times during the afternoon. Local beer is very good too.Our nearest pub is the Viking (=50yds). More of a restaurant in the evening with excellent home made grub (if pricey drinks and limited wine)
Road conditions are not the best - in fact the surfaces are pretty poor in my view (but I guess they concentrate their efforts on the TT course)
Staff in shops are generally very helpful (like most of the people) I guess they are just more northern than southern !
Oh, and if I were to start a business here it would be renting cherry-pickers as the number of houses with scaffolding is huge, but cherry-pickers unseen
.. and another thing, all outside workers wear hooded sweatshirts - and with building workers , always with the hood up under the hard hat!
Lots of narrow roads and plenty of parked cars - when you give way, the other drivers always wave thanks
… and the cars are never uber or bolt or whatever , they don't operate here
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