The bells, the bells!

[alan refail]

Switch off the clock say tourists to Stow on the Wold.

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/ ... ticle.html

Should we change our local ways to suit tourists?

[oldherbaceous]

Not in this case we shouldn't.

[Elle's Garden]

My initial thought was no, but then I saw it was the night ones they wanted silenced. That is very tricky because locals will have tuned it out, but you need several nights to do that, not just one or two - glad it is not my decision.

[Clive.]

When we have folk staying at work...they all comment about the tower clock at night....it makes sure they sleep well on the second nights stay..

...but I bet they actually miss it when they go back home again..

Would not have been a problem last night...I omitted to do the Thursday clock wind. . It all went quiet after the chime of 8pm...
..so apologies to those that may have missed their sleep due to the missing chimes.

Where a friend of mine lives, in Sussex, the village clock does the quarter hours as well as the hour chime....it is quite a lovely friendly village sound.

Clive.

[Arnie]

This really gets up my nose they will only stay a couple nights and they want the chimes stopped give them earplugs and stop moaning about with it

Kevin

[richard p]

brother in law lives in a little village near malaga... his house backs onto a church which chimes every hour..... we sleep through it no probs.... do have trouble carrying the bottles of red up the zillion steps from the carpark though

[Primrose]

Oh it does make me mad when I hear stories like this. Why don't people do a proper reconoitre of the area in which they plan to live and find out all the pros and cons of the situation beforehand, and ACCEPT them?
I often lie awake in the night and hear our church clock striking. It's not an intrusive sound and I find it quite reassuring. Bells striking, cows mooing, and cockerels crowing are country sounds. If people don't like them, they shouldn't move near to where they happen.

[JohnN]

A zillion years ago a friend and I on a fishing expedition to Abberton reservoir in Essex stayed at the Cups Hotel, in Colchester. Our bedroom looked onto the town hall which had a ginormous clock which chimed every quarter hour! No sleep at all, it was a scene straight out of the film "Genevieve"
Snowing like hell here today, but local Tesco packed - wonder if they'll be trapped there all week?

[glallotments]

It's a bit like when we went on a tour of Europe and were scheduled to stop at the Rhine Falls - some of the 'travellers' commented can't we just stop for a cup of tea instead. Thankfully we didn't!!

Also when sharing a breakfast table with an English couple in southern France their comment was "Why can't they speak English - I don't understand a word they are saying?" If you take the time to travel anywhere you should see and experience what there is there not want to change things and make some effort yourself to be understood!

[alan refail]

Also when sharing a breakfast table with an English couple in southern France their comment was "Why can't they speak English - I don't understand a word they are saying?" If you take the time to travel anywhere you should see and experience what there is there not want to change things and make some effort yourself to be understood!

Nearer home - there are still English visitors to Wales who object to Cymry Cymraeg speaking Welsh in their presence!

There's a typical viewpoint here on Tripadvisor forum discussing Porthmadog.

Red Lion was scruffy and the women behind the bar were quite abrasive and prattled on in welsh.

And to round off the discussion, the same person says:

Thankyou to those who saw my point of view and to all those of you getting on your high horse, I wasn't saying the locals can't speak welsh but I have never felt so uncomfortable and unwelcomed anywhere I have ever been - I can't be doing with this them and us that does exist with some welsh people, we are all British People living in the British Isles as far as I am concerned. Both my partner and me definately felt like we were being talked about and felt an atmosphere!

[glallotments]

It does seem that when we don't understand something we think the worst. The people I referred to felt the same way about the French hosts when if they had understood what was being said they would have realised that the hosts were trying to be friendly.