Got back last week from a wonderful family holiday on a farm in North Devon called Torridge House. Twice we visited the nearest large town, Barnstaple. This meant driving to the Park and Ride, where we caught the bus. Unlike Park and Rides for other towns, you couldn’t fold down and stash your baby buggy anywhere, you had to take it on the bus unfolded – very awkward and uncomfortable. What amazed us was how naturally and without asking local people using the service took one of our two buggies on for us while we struggled with two small children and shopping, sat with the buggy and took it off at the destination. It seemed so foreign to what we are used to living in the urban sprawl of Medway. We’re not denying that simple acts of human kindness happen here, they do, but they are rarer, even with many more people living here. It made us hanker for a move some time to the south west (especially after having talked to some locals, too). I’m hardly biased against the urban context, as I am a born and bred Londoner, but it makes we wonder what we’ve lost in urbanisation that makes it so soulless. And don’t say it’s a London or a south-east thing, because I encountered the same soullessness when I studied in Manchester. Other than that, all thoughts welcome!