When Two Become One - Dundee and Angus Local CHAT THREAD

[TeaAndTunnocks]

The merging of the sites seems to have done funny stuff to active convos on here, so here is a new chat thread for all Mnetters in Dundee and Angus.

How are you all doing? If you don't know me yet, I am the Local Editor of the Dundee Angus site, and will be working hard to get the site filled with great places to visit, tips for classes and shopping, and lots of wine or coffee fueled meetups.

I have just been moving house this past week, which is why it has been very quiet on here, but am hoping to be back up to speed next week.

Soooooooooooooooo, how is the weather where you are? I am in Dundee and it is snowing but not lying. Can you believe it? Where is our Spring gone?

Oh, look my names changed to what it was on my current local site.

waffly here.

I will try to remember to check in here from time to time.

Where by the station is your DH working. I used to work in the Nethergate building sort of across the road.

There are a lot of civil service buildings there now I note.

Hi Lentil, glad to see you over here.

How are you doing, Peh? That always sounds a bit rude, doesn't it?

Hi, bank.
DH works around Nethergate, I'd rather not be too specific as I haven't namechanged and am pretty identifiable on here!

Fair enough.

I've n/c'd for local but am superman, thought I'd sign in here instead of rambling about how great dundee is on the other thread :)

Hi, I come from Blairgowrie, which was getting a bit of a slating on the other thread! I actually really like it here, having lived away and come back when we had the dc's. DH works in Dundee.

I don't come through to Dundee that often, usually to shop. I think that it is really on the up though, so much being built - DC's want to try out the new swimming pool sometime soon. I have a friend in Dundee and recently spent a lovely afternoon in the DCA drinking Pimms with her and got the last bus home - am classy like that!

BlairNed - my friend used to live in blair but worked in Dundee. After work every friday she would go out and get arsed then get the last bus home to blair with her macd - she must have done this for about 2 years before she grew out of the habit :)

I have family, through marriage not blood, in blair and used to frequent The Bal when we used to go up but we havent been up for a few years and i dont think they go quite as much as they used to either.

I used to get the last bus home on a friday too, sometimes. It would be the same bus. But probably not the same years!

I've been to Blairgowrie but only once or twice and not for yonks. I didn't realise it had such a fearsome reputation.

My sister lived in blair and still has friends there she always liked it I think. I'm a terribly untravelled dundonian - I've been to perth and glasgow for shopping and that's about it!

I still prefer dundee though - perth is really badly set out in the town centre even tjough they have almost all the same shops as dundee, Glasgow is just too big I go up and down buchanan street then home again because I'm knackered

meeny one of my fav shops that we go to glasgow for is Arnotts or House of Frasers as it is known now - no idea why they moved out of Dundee.

other half works in Perth so we dont go there much. Edinburgh is nice too and good for shopping - if your feeling flush go to The DOME for lunch - its a gorgeous building.

I'd love if we had a house of Fraser now, I remember the old arnotts for one reason only - a screaming temper tantrum age 3 it's zara these days I think.

My mum spends half her life these days in Edinburgh I'll get there eventually if she gets her wsy she loves it, although she cycles so I have a feeling I'd meet up with her once I arrived safely off the train

Blair is no worse than dozens of other small towns, it has it's rough areas like everywhere does. It has a thriving high street with loads of shops, and very few empty premises. Loads of places to eat and drink. peggy I live quite near The Bal! - used to go there, not so much now have dc's.

I loved Arnotts for all the Athena type posters on the top floor in the 80s. It was all punky blusher pics and lamborghinis. Awful stuff.

blairned you would know my family as they live pretty close to the Bal too, you would walk there in about 4 minutes from their house

That is the first I have heard of Blairgowrie being dodgy, Blairned (love that name, btw).

I think that every town has their share of undesirables. Not convinced that Dundee, or even Lochee is as bad as some are making out. There are some schemes in the town that I would say are worse, like Kirkton, but I am sure those who live there would say different.

It really depends on your immediate neighbours to a large extent. We took a walk through Charleston recently and there are some lovely pockets there. Some of it is rough as anything, but other bits are really ok, and the houses are very cheap there.

Anyone else think that the cheaper areas of town are going to get more popular with young families, as they are all we can afford?

And another thing - I love the Ferry but wouldn't have bought a house there, even if we could have afforded it because it is the wrong end of town. DH travels through to G'gow several times a week so living near the Kingsway is a huge bonus for us.

Blair does have a bit of a mixed reputation, and of course it has its' problems like everywhere else, but I think it is a great place to stay. I have stayed in Edinburgh and Glasgow, worked in Paisley, and I feel safer and happier to bring up my dc's here. That said, they are now 11 and 13 and at the age where there is not so much for them to do now - the older ds gets the bus to the cinema at Camperdown and I take him through to The Factory in Dundee.

peggy you have got me intrigued now!

LED my mum was brought up in kirkton(bottom of helmsdale av) and i used to work there for about 8/9 years - i had to walk most places and regularly carriedquite a bit of money becuase of my job and i never had any trouble at all during those years. some of the houses i visited were terrible - some people just didnt have money but other houses were manky and they were just dirty - you would wipe your feet on the way out some were that bad however most of the people were decent if a little rough.

i used to travel to edinburgh a lot and living at magdalen green was really handy for that - other half works in perth now and travels through dundee every day but at 7.30 in the morning it only takes minutes to get through, getting home can take a little time but its not that bad. you know traffic is bad in dundee if your held up for 15 mins :)

with regards to you other thread you mention laings - we used to live in that place for a few years then it went downhill. I worked in duck slatterys which then changed its name to Bar Chevrolet - other places i remember was Fountains in brown street, coconut club, destihls, cloisters, angels, silks,

Hi BlairNed

I was really surprised at the reaction I got on the other thread for suggesting Blair as a poss place to move to. Like you I left Blair for quite a few years and came back about a year and a half ago having had my first child. OK the benefits of grandparents living locally for childcare support was the major factor but there's no was I'd have decided to bring my children (I now have two) up somewhere if it was as bad as some people were making it seem.

I actually have great memories of a very happy childhood in Blair, fair enough, we lived in a very 'naice' area and my parents still do but I had friends from all parts of Blair and Rattray and never had any hassle. We can't afford to live in such a 'posh' area but where we are is still nice and our neighbours are great. Two parks within a five minute walk, the new school is about 10/15 minute walk which will be great when my two are older, can walk to the High Street or be in the countryside within 10 minutes by foot as well - what more could you want?

We've both said the same - every town/city has it's less desireables but Blair is on the whole pretty good. Like I said on the other thread it depends on who you choose to associate with really.

Thought it was funny that people were going on about how great 'The Carse' villages are - lived in Errol before coming back to Blair and while it was ok there wasn't really much to do, very few shops and the icing on the cake - for neighbours I had a junkie and two ex cons from Castle Huntly, one who had done time for manslaughter, the other for murder! They were actually lovely but doesn't really fit with the image being given my some of those who were slating Blair.

I've not been to The Bal in years but had many a good night there when I was younger!

As you can see from my username, I miss Dundee

I used to live in Charleston and like you say LED it does have some not so nice bits but the street we lived on was lovely and had very nice neighbours too. And the houses are very cheap - we made a lose when we had to sell up 2 years ago. We wouldn't even be able to buy a shed for that price where we are now.

I worked at Ninewells so it was a perfect location for us.

Also lived in Glen Clova, then Alyth, then Forfar before the bright lights of the city

Peggy
I would love to live on Magdalen Green. Not just because it sounds so wonderful, but because of the view and the proximity to the Perth Road.

Mucky
We had a wander through Errol recently and found it really naice. They have built a lot of new houses though, so can imagine that it used to be very quiet

MissSunny
I thought about Charleston, because the houses are really cheap, but the resale value was very off-putting. I have seen houses there on the market for quite some time. Where we are now, most houses sell quickly.

LED we manged to sell ours quite quickly. Left in the October and was all done and dusted by the new year but we only sold it for 1K over what we'd paid for it 3 years earlier and with a 120% mortage it wasn't good for us but at the time we had very limited choices.

It was a mid terrace 2 bed place with a massive garden - we wouldn't get anything for that price down here so are now stuck renting for the foreseable but could easily get better for less if we moved back. Just wish DH could get a reliable job and we'd be back in a flash.

My job is that specialized I could get it back even being away for almost 3 years

Tbh, I think we are going to have to get used to the fact that house prices are quite stagnant. I remember being amazed at a neighbour in Germany who was selling her house, and said that they would get £20k less than it cost them because 'you have to take depreciation into account'.

It's only been in crazy UK that we've expected a rise in house value every year.

We didn't think we'd be able to move to Scotland but a job came up unexpectedly and here we are! Hope the same happens to you. We didn't even consider moving down south cause I knew we couldn't afford the houses there. Especially on UK salaries, which are a lot lower than what DH was earning in Germany.

LED it was nice but it has its drawbacks too. lots of students about and it can be quite noisy at times. It is hard to find a parking space at times if you dont have your own space. I liked it most of the time but towards the end of my time there i was getting a bit fed up of the place - unfortunately we wanted a house and couldnt find anything in that area which suited (we wanted something which was period rather than a new build) hence the reason we ended up back in the ferry. I would still move back to that end of town in a minute though as we really liked it there.

As you say led Errol is on the whole really nice. I only left a year and a half ago and there was a fair amount of the newbuilds in place and a lot of work ongoing. It was an ideal place for me and my DP as I worked in Perth and he works in Dundee but there wasn't much to do.

The pub had just closed down, there was one restaurant and a couple of shops. The park was ok and there was a baby/toddler group where everyone was really friendly but for shopping and any other activities you need to travel to Dundee or Perth. A taxi home after a night out cost about £25 quid so didn't tend to do that much!

We stayed in a really nice old hotel which had been converted into flats and was refurbished right before we moved in. The landlord was the owner of the local estate. Have a look at his house! www.errolpark.co.uk/gallery.htm Do you think that's 'naice' enough for some of our more demanding MNers? Anyway the landlord often got prisoners preparing for release to work on the estate and if he liked them he would keep them on after release and arrange accommodation for the in one of his many properties which is how I ended up with my unusual neighbours.

As I said, they were really nice and were nothing to do with our reasons for leaving. I just wanted to make it clear that you get people of all sorts living in any village, town or city.

I'm another one who would love to live on Magdalen Green. I lived up at Blackness Avenue for a couple of years which was great and often walked the dogs down on Magdalen Green.

Mucky
That is gorgeous! And I have just realised that we were there when we were looking for an event at Megginch Castle. We thought that this was a part of the Megginch estate, and that the event was finished.

DD is very interested in Victoria Drummond, who was the first female marine engineer in UK.