Our First Residents in the 'Glen'

Apparently this is what the blocks of houses around a paved over courtyard is being called at 63 Glen Road. 'The Glen'. Some people will buy into anything it seems. 😝

The rest of Glen Road will, I think, just ignore the eyesores for the foreseeable future. We live in Glen Road, not some mythical lifestyle concept of concreted over gardens called the concrete 'Glen'. Until the next house comes down (maybe No. 44) and the ugliness creeps outwards.

Lights have been appearing in some of the houses, so I assume some of the cramped and garden-free houses must have people moving in and, yes, some of them have to park on the road as they don't appear to have a car park space (or so it seems? I may be wrong about the parking space). 

The 'gardens' (see patches of dirt) would reduce anyone with any sense to tears. Not only are the plants in a shallow layer of heavy clay soil over gravel, those that have been planted are less than 30 cms high and do not look as though they will last long.  I assume they were chosen for the same reason the Council choses shrubs. Boring and extremely durable.

There are small shrublets and Chatham Island Forget Me Nots (by the look of them). I hope they fare better than ours did. The plant, when it flourishes, looks glorious with shiny green leaves and lovely flowers the bees will like. Ours sadly did not like the terrain but I think they thrive in Wellington's Botanical Gardens.

I will keep an eye on them as I hope to be proved wrong and they all grow healthy and tall enough to catch the rubbish that blows up Glen Road. 

The houses still look charmless, and characterless. Little more than glorified dog kennels really. 

I need to share this!! It's a quote from an estate agent about the development: 

"Location, location, location! You will be just a hop, skip and a jump from Stokes Valley Shops." What they don't mention is the fact that the supermarket, while staffed by lovely friendly folks, is extremely small and basic. For a big family 'shop' you would have to visit Silverstream New World, a 10 minute drive away. 

There is a lovely pharmacy and not much else. It is very much part of the local community but it is not the expansive 'shopping experience' the estate agent promises.

Stokes Valley is not central to anywhere, it is equidistant from Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt. You have to drive to get anywhere. So, it's location is not a big selling point, it is not even that quiet anymore. 

The view from the top of Glen Road is the kind of blighted view arriving all over New Zealand's urban areas. Tall, plain, sometimes ugly settlements. No gardens, virtually no greenery and nowhere for kids to play except a tiny concrete 'entertainment area' as the estate agents so cutely describe them.

The amount of greenery diminishes with each development. Tiny inadequate little non-native flowering cherry trees and the like are no substitute for gardens full of shrubs and bushes. 

Update on13 November: They have turf!

As each house is demolished and each garden concreted over more birds are forced out of Stokes Valley and the Hutt Valley as a whole.

This is the house and garden that was there before. I knew the old lady who lived there and her dog Bertie.