It’s true that Lymington has been branded as snobby and held up as some kind of paragon of nimby-ism. Now whilst that is true to a degree, and not wishing to sound like Kevin McCloud at his most verbose, the town has to look like a Georgian town. If it doesn’t, then it’s little different from many cloned market towns in this country with the same shops and the same gridlock come summer. Yes the main shopping street might appear to require climbing gear to get from bottom to top, it might have an old-fashioned (ie not farmers) street market every Saturday, but in essence people visit because it is not like many other market towns. In some degree it still clings on to it’s historical character.

So is all the talk of preserving the architectural integrity and character valid? Well, to my mind it misses the point. If Lymington changes too much then it will lose many of its visitors. If it loses too many of its visitors it will lose more of its businesses. It really is as simple as that. So when the current re-developers of the riverside site on the now demolished Webbs factory came up with a new plan, it raised more than just eyebrows. The artists impression was of a series of five storey buildings right on the river front, amounting to over 300 dwellings in total. Regardless of the improbable access for that many dwellers and cars of dwellers being just one small road literally a few feet from the level crossing, how was something as modernistic as that supposed to fit in with the historical quay virtually next door? The more cynical amongst you might suggest that it wouldn’t have to fit in because the development was so high that the quay wouldn’t be seen. It would appear that there is some leeway on the part of the developers, admitting to have ‘lost their way’, but perhaps you would excuse me being just a tad cynical as to how much of a detour they end up being willing to take. Anyways, for those concerned enough to type their objections, gen up on the latest developments (sorry) and get started here.

Whilst there is a lot of local opinion against that development, there is very mixed opinion on another ongoing saga. No, not the 18″ that had to be taken off the height of the new development at Avenue Road/Lower Buckland Road, in one word ‘Wetherspoons’. To drink cheap beer on not to drink cheap beer? Actually I suspect that should probably be ‘cheaper’ rather than ‘cheap’. Once again the Quaint Georgian Town has been accused of snobbery. I have gone through some of the aspects of this change of use application before and shall not revisit them. But it looks like the weight of opinion would seem to be swinging in favour of Wetherspoons albeit that one online support group would appear to be run by someone in Portsmouth. Not sure whether more people drinking in Lymington would make much of a difference to Portsmouth, but there you go. Regarding this issue I have been contacted by Richard Stokes who has put some thoughts on his somewhat eclectic site here. I can’t say I endorse all his views or opinions on the subject, but I still suggest you read them. Never hurts to at least attempt to understand as many aspects as one can now does it?

So how to get rid of an unused and unusable area which used to be a coal and wood storage area between the house and garage in a way which might even have Kevin McCloud salivating? Obviously the right builder is everything. Get that wrong and you’re staring down the wrong end of a very uncomfortable visit to the bank. So you go with a recommendation from friends and comfort yourself that even though you are going to have to wait six months before anything even starts, it’ll be worth it because no good builder ever says “We can start next week mate”.

Having decided on the builder, small local family firm, and the price, at the top end of expectations, we finally get a starting date and our teabag consumption goes through the newly Veluxed roof. First phase is all over very quickly, followed by visits by plasterer and builder to complete snagging list. For those that don’t watch Channel 4 and More 4, a snagging list is a list of things the builder can’t initially figure out how to do or the householder assumed they didn’t have to mention needed doing. Enter tiler who it turns out also emigrated down south from near where we used to live and also has elderly relative challenges. I instantly like him.

One difference we had not anticipated, being rooted in the 5 minutes to all you need urban lifestyle, is buying stuff. The nearest big shopping centres are Southampton or Bournemouth, both some distance away. What this means is that you have to plan ahead and take half a day just to go to M&S for anything other than food and underwear (new M&S food and undies store just opened in Lymington, you could hear the huge collective sigh of relief from south of the High Street). Whilst the Internet has been a godsend, there are some things you really need to see, like when buying tiles for the floor. In more rural areas you get used to seeing a lot of diversification out of necessity, but it still came as a bit of a surprise when the tiler told us to visit a nearby farm for tiles. We dutifully went with my visiting mother in tow, literally turned left and drove around the back of the cowshed to find Gallo Ceramics next to another unit selling bespoke wooden buildings. Had we gone straight on past the cowshed, we could have bought some carpet or a bike. May have lacked the polished marble effect floors of some shopping centres, but I really liked it.

Hopefully by next week sometime, the tiler will have come and gone and we will have a ‘space’ to finish decorating. This leaves us with the most fraught issue of them all. What do we call it? It’s sort of a conservatory except it has a tiled, pitched roof and two brick walls. We could call it a garden room but that is a tad pretentious for one of us. I fancied buying one of those tiny orange trees from a garden centre and calling it the Orangery, but the cat wasn’t keen. There’s bound to be a specific term for it, probably Italian. I could watch some more property design programmes, but that’s how we got here to start with.