Welcome to the second installment of the traveling blindman. Firstly I have to give mad props to my mate Ro Karen from the Starbase. This wonderful picture you can see above is a result of my vanity and her mondoincreadblebrilliant photoshop skills. And also thanks to the MYSS crew for putting me on to Zoitochi in the first place, what an awesome film.
Secondly I was hoping that this would be a more regular thing than it so far is, but I have discovered that I have to be in the mood for writing, and that’s not all that often I’m afraid.
This weeks victi… er location for my inane ramblings is Alderly Edge.
Now may of you will not have heard of this delightful little town in Cheshire, but then again many many of you will have. You may not know why, it may just be a name stored in your subconscious and you have no idea how it got there. Well I can help. Its because Alderly Edge is footballer central.
If you play for Manchester united, you tend to live either in Alderly Edge or Wilmslow. Most notably the Beckhams used to have a little place there. Well I say little, more like a mansion. I know this because I had to survey the house directly adjacent to theirs for blinds.
It looked lovely, I mean the wall and 2 security cameras you could see from said property looked very nice.
Now many southerners have a rather skewed view of anything north of Watford gap, we have a well known and much beloved saying in the UK, that of ‘It’s grim oop north’. Now I used to be one of these people until I moved to the midlands, yes thats right, I am not ‘oop north’ there is rather a lot of ‘north’ above where I live.
So imagine my surprise, this misconception firmly in place, when I drove through the land of Landrover discoveries, Bentleys and Aston Martins that is Alderly Edge.
And again the surprise when I began to get jobs in the area for several thousands of pounds in these rather opulent properties. Now unlike many of my old London clients, the ones here seemed much more ready to expound about the rich and privileged living in their locale.
I remember one customer saying ‘oh from up your ladders if you look east, see those roof tops, that’s where David Seaman lives’. This of course was supposed to in someway impress me, the lowly blind man doing his job. Little did this person realise that having done said job in London, more specifically St. Johns wood, Chelsea, Chiswick for over four years, I had already seen the most grotesque and outlandish extravagances and excesses that money could afford one in their place of residence. Added to this, I hate football and couldn’t really give two shits about where these overpaid ball jockeys live (hmm was that too harsh). So when I was noticeably unmoved and underwhelmed by the proffered information, he stopped showing off and we talked about his springer spaniels instead. Much more my thing 
So to describe Alderly Edge:
To look at it as a town it really is nothing special, its just you know its supposed to be posh because the shops are all hairdressers and alfresco coffee shops. Want to buy a hammer? forget it, down the road to Macclesfield for that sonny.
The funniest thing I have observed there to support this view is the two pubs that are on the road to Wilmslow, almost right next to each other. One was a Hungry horse/fun factory type family pub, you know 2 meals for a fiver type deal. The other was a nice country pub with gourmet food. The Hungry horse is now shut down and the other has had a massive facelift, I’d bet £10 I wouldn’t understand half the dishes on that menu.
Due to traffic difficulties in this town I soon started using a back way through the town center. This takes me past one of the most posh primary schools I think I have ever seen, which also sums up the area quite nicely. This is the kind of school where the school run consists of every parent in town driving their kids to school. You’ll see no dayglow jacket wearing train of pedestrian children walking through these gates. I swear that some of these people live in the next street along, but they simply have to drive as how else will all the other parents get to see the brand new vogue with personalised number-plates and chrome trim. Or the hip Dads who drop the single kid off on his way to work in his Ferrari Enzo.
Now I may be being overly harsh in this post as there is one thing I will grant (some) of the people who live there. Being away from London seems to have a positive effect, and on the whole, certainly the people I have worked for, they have been more amenable and treated me more like a human being than some of their contemporaries in the capital.
I don’t despise success or money, if you’ve earned it great, but for those who think that their net worth somehow makes them superior and gives them a pass to treat others as pond scum… in the words of my forum namesake……suck my balls.
