Thanks for speaking with us Ken, can you tell us about the early days living here?
When we bought this in 2008, we used to spend five months of the year in Spain. We used to go in January and come back in June.
Did that for 10 years after I retired. But this, we like this enough to stay – because people over there used to say to us, oh you’ll come to live in Spain, will you? Well, no, because we’ve got this to come home to.
When people ask where I live, I say Langport Riviera because at the weekends there are people with canoes and people on paddleboards and motorboats and all sorts. The café just below us is busy. It’s great.
Do you mind me asking you, what you did for work before you retired?
I worked for Clarks the shoemakers as a style developer. The designer would give me their brief and then I’d have to go to the factory get a pair of shoes made, as per their brief. Show them, and they’d probably say, no we mean like that. This needs altering, that needs altering. I did that for about 30 years.
Was it something which drew you to living here in the first place?
It was purely walking out onto the balcony and just seeing that view and just thinking well where are you going to get that from?
It took us a little while to knit into the community because we were away so much of the time. We have [committee] meetings twice a year but we wouldn’t be here for those meetings. Somebody would email us and say, you know, such and such, someone ask that we do this and is that okay or are you happy with it and we’d email back and say, yes or whatever.
It took a long time to knit in – my wife was sort of knitted in quicker than me, because when I came back, I was saying well I’m going golfing anyway [laughter]. But I enjoy living here. It suits me.
But you’ve settled into the community now?
I like the idea of being in the community. The fact they’re gardening once a month and Duncan used to be a fruit farmer, so he knows what he’s doing. I’m not a gardener. My late wife was more of a gardener than me and so, you know, it’s a little get together. Start off with gardening, then we have a bit of a coffee, and you know just chit chat for a while.
Do you have a favourite memory living here? Is there something that sticks out during your time here, you’ve been here since pretty much the beginning?
The lady who lived next door got a lot of us to build a pizza oven in the garden. I think she just went onto Google and put in how to build it and away we went. We’ve had a few parties out there over the years. It’s called wassailing or something. Which is drinking cider – in my mind just drinking cider in the garden [laughter].
Sounds great. I hope we get invited to these parties now.
Yeah. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.
