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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask for your DFL (down from London) stories

246 replies

holidayspotlocal · 28/08/2021 18:05

Living in the West Country and we are currently inundated with tourists. Great to have the money in the local economy and I hope they have a lovely time on the beach. However, some are obviously from cities and have no idea what life is like here.
We call them DFL - down from London. (they may be from other places tho)
Most worrying is the lack of knowledge about tides, rips, crumbly cliffs etc, and the sheer rudeness to hospitality staff. Plus they drive shiny 4x4 Landrovers that can't squeeze into a passing place without the parking sensors going off and they can't back up on the lanes.
Last week I heard one say 'Where has all the beach gone? I'm sure there was a lot more sand this morning'

OP posts:
cultkid · 28/08/2021 18:39

Glad to know you don't depend on them for your well being then??

All cars beep on country lanes it doesn't mean you can't drive them

Maybe you lot should use some of the heaps of money we spend down there on trimming back your ridiculous bushes and improving your roads?? Do we say that? Do we slag you off for not knowing how to use large, busy roads or navigate London?

Stinks of jealousy to me! Not a good spirited thread

I live in Margate btw, I'm really glad people have come here from London. I am not from London but not from Margate. It's improved my town so much. I was very depressed here before it became more vibrant.

Don't be a knob

TheLovelinessOfDemons · 28/08/2021 18:40

We're from London and live next to the Thames, which is a tidal river......

gingercat81 · 28/08/2021 18:43

Are you the same lady who featured in a newspaper article about this in Salcombe recently?

dworky · 28/08/2021 18:46

Only Londoners or a proportion of all tourists?

purpledagger · 28/08/2021 18:48

I'm a DFLer.

I was visiting a friend in the countryside once and my sat nav was directing me to drive through a river. My friend told me it was a ford.

PyjamasAndWellies · 28/08/2021 18:51

Ditto tourists visiting london, standing on the wrong side of the escalator and then stopping dead at the bottom

Heronwatcher · 28/08/2021 18:53

Haha, yes wait till you see some people, we call them bumpkins, in the city, who don’t understand how to use a tube map, spend 10 minutes searching for their cards in front of the barriers (soooo dangerous when a crowd is building up), walk on the wrong side of an escalator and step out in traffic because they’ve never seen a multi-road crossing.

Turmerictolly · 28/08/2021 18:54

.

JADS · 28/08/2021 18:55

I'm a DFLer*. I'm loving seeing all the tourists back around Oxford Circus. The theatres are open again, restaurants and shops busy. Thank fuck for that.

*I actually live in Zone 5 and was born in the Home counties so I'm not sure I really qualify. I have also lived in the SW. YABU

Peppaismyrolemodel · 28/08/2021 19:03

Tough crowd this evening OP Grin
You do seem to have hit a nerve..

Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 28/08/2021 19:10

I went into a tourist office in the Lake District once and asked for some family / local walks only to be met by a contemptuous look up and down and a “”Well I hope you are not taking the children in THOSE trainers!” I was on a walk around the town and wasn’t planning to go up a hill that afternoon. I can imagine her blathering on to someone about trainers, our ill preparation and a possible mountain rescue call out.

ForkedIt · 28/08/2021 19:14

Oh for fucks sake, I’m well aware that I’m a bumbling country bumpkin every time I go to London. I probably walk too slowly, follow locals to cross the roads because I can never ‘see the gap’ and look an idiot as I stand and pivot on every corner trying to work out which way my google maps is sending me. I can be light hearted about it Hmm

Doesn’t mean I didn’t lol when I heard a university student say she was disappointed by the amount of rain in Cornwall as she thought ‘it was supposed to be a holiday destination’ Grin

Treezan82 · 28/08/2021 19:15

I live in London and went to Cornwall on holiday this summer (stayed with friends who live there) and the car thing is me - driving in country lanes is impossible!!! When we were there last year I literally got stuck in a lane that turned into a footpath. Our Cornish friends think it's hilarious. But then they get their turn when they come to us- once they were baffled by how to get a bus.

Also you're welcome (for the money we spent which boosted your local economy).

adreamofspring · 28/08/2021 19:17

Such an odd thread. I’m from a norfolk costal town and we don’t have this saying even though there are tonnes of tourists this time of year.

OP you do know that London is the most visited city in the country for tourism?

BlackberrySky · 28/08/2021 19:21

@Treezan82

I live in London and went to Cornwall on holiday this summer (stayed with friends who live there) and the car thing is me - driving in country lanes is impossible!!! When we were there last year I literally got stuck in a lane that turned into a footpath. Our Cornish friends think it's hilarious. But then they get their turn when they come to us- once they were baffled by how to get a bus.

Also you're welcome (for the money we spent which boosted your local economy).

I also find this tricky in rural areas. What would very definitely be a footpath where I am from turns out to be the actual road!
Palsy · 28/08/2021 19:24

I'm willing to bet that although OP 'lives in the West Country', she is not from the West Country. Where did you blow in from, OP?

We bumpkins know which side our bread is buttered.

And we also know how to use the fucking tube, thanks very much.

nc8765 · 28/08/2021 19:27

@Redyellowpink

I live in the south west..many people here own 4x4s...and there's always some local teenage boys jumping off a rock into the sea and having to be hospitalised with a bleeding anus.

Let's hope you never go to London and misunderstand anything or annoy people by going through a tube barrier with a paper ticket

😂

nc8765 · 28/08/2021 19:31

I'm a 4x4 driving DFLer. I can't stand the provinces. Only reason we staycationed this year was because of Covid restrictions abroad.

TanginaBarrons · 28/08/2021 19:36

I live in a mad tourist seaside town 2 mins from the beach which is heavily populated by paddleboarders, surfers and wild swimmers.

I have no idea how to do any of the above and would definitely get caught in a rip or probably die in the sea if my more knowledgeable friends didn't help me. Does that make me a joke in my home town?!

doublemonkey · 28/08/2021 19:39

OP you should hear what they say about you when you visit London, with your stopping in the middle of a busy pavement to gawk around and standing on the worng side of the escalator.

LakieLady · 28/08/2021 19:40

I was a DFL 30 years ago, but think I'm pretty much assimilated now.

A couple of weeks after I moved here, I went to a party and, at getting on for 2am, asked if anyone had the number for a taxi firm as I needed to get a taxi home.

Cue much laughter, as it was explained to me that the taxi firm (singular!) didn't operate past midnight, except for pre-booked journeys, and Christmas Eve/New Year's Eve.

I was ribbed about that for a few years afterwards. Oh, and my small town has finally caught up with the times and taxis now run all night.

My townie mate came down for the weekend once, and announced she could hear a cuckoo. I listened, and told her that it was a wood pigeon.

After a pause, she asked "What's the difference between a wood pigeon and a clay pigeon?".

LakeShoreD · 28/08/2021 19:40

Plus they drive shiny 4x4 Landrovers that can't squeeze into a passing place without the parking sensors going off and they can't back up on the lanes.
Nonsense. I don’t know whose driving offended you but I doubt it was Londoner. We tend to be excellent at manoeuvring because street parking is at a huge premium and it’s rare to be blessed with a driveway so we get a lot of practice manoeuvring our Disco Sports into tiny spaces.

fizbosshoes · 28/08/2021 19:42

Every thread like this seems to think tourists en masse all drive 4 x 4s and are all rude entitled dicks .
There are people like that everywhere.(hopefully a minority) I'm sure there are rude people who live in Devon and Cornwall, and people who drive 4 x 4s. I live in a very untouristy area and we get rude entitled people here to but thankfully they are a minority. The other day some idiot parked over the turning space in a narrow lane where my DS sports club is. I had to drive up the (cul-de-sac) lane and turn in someones drive which I felt bad about doing and wouldnt have had to if he hadnt behaved like a twat. It happens everywhere.

Also you forgot to mention that all litter in Devon and Cornwall (and probably Somerset, Dorset, Norfolk and the Lake District) is down to tourists.

Treezan82 · 28/08/2021 19:43

Thank you for making me feel better!

Mincepiesallyearround · 28/08/2021 19:43

I have friends in Hastings who sneer at the DFLs who come down for a sunny weekend. They get cross about DFLs crowding the shops and bakeries…forgetting that they were once DFLs who came 20 yrs ago and never left!