Be positive about where you live and change will come

Did you read my column last week? What? No you didn’t? Tsk. I’ll let you off (this once), and if you did read it, my eternal gratitude from the four corners of Gloucestershire. And I’ll tell you for why: where we live is blooming great.
See, again, this summer sun has melted my mood and finally I am seeing things for what they are and, like last week with my message of ‘do things for others this summer’, my deed for you this time is once more simple but powerful: be positive about where you live.
Easy! I hear you say. But, think about it: we grumble. Oh boy do we grumble, and often with just cause. Take the pothole fiasco that was the Gloucestershire roads last year. Take the massive spate of burglaries and break-ins in Cam, Dursley, Yate – you name it. Take the shops that are closing down – and the big out-of-town, soulless facades that are taking their place. So go on, you have my permission: have a good old rant… Okay, out of your system now? Good. Because I want you to listen, all of you, and listen good: we now have to be positive.
See, this is my theory: the more positive we are about where we live, the better it will become. Shoot it down, dismiss the place where you live and work, and bang goes any prospect of change, of development of, quite frankly, unadulterated, daily joy. Don’t believe me? Look at Nailsworth. 15 years ago it was somewhat run down, but folk believed in better. Now? Thriving. Delis, restaurants, classy shops, the lot. Now look at Dursley. Bit run down in places, so easy to moan about right? And Yate? That Tesco too big?
Here’s the thing: be positive and change will come. Take the new Bank Café in Dursley. A former bank, it’s now a modern café run by local couple Amy Pain and Tom Burry, and how. It’s a café we need, a café that wouldn’t look out of place in trendy London. And customers are so pleased, so positive; even the landlords of the café are chuffed because they want Dursley to do well.
And so should we. Wherever we live, we should want the most for it, heck, for us. So go forth, reader dear, and be positive. Because the rewards it can bring can go on forever.

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