The Good Life... ?

In The Good Life she epitomised the snooty, meddlesome neighbour familiar across the suburbs of Middle England. But, whereas Margot Leadbetter’s foibles were always forgiven, in real life Penelope Keith has been accused of taking her famous television character a step too far after her plans to build a café in a Highland village caused a storm of protest.

I've met Penelope on a couple of occasions and always found her to be charming. However residents in Avoch, mounted a bitter attack on the actress and her husband Rodney, after they planned to build a two-storey building in the middle of their village, despite local objections.

Penelope & Rodney were initially praised for tidying up the site, but some attitudes changed when they applied, through their company, Pencon Productions, to build a much needed tea room and cafe.

I'm all in favour of a new cafe - as you would expect (although the existing small cafe in Avoch has exceptionally good Eccles cakes). But the application was turned down by the local planning office - Even though it was to be sited on a disused service station and a hole in the ground.

It does seem that some planning officials are a trifle backward-looking, surely a development such as this would bring in much needed tourist trade -to help the local economy in this very sleepy village.

Yet instead they are happy once again to pass plans for new homes on surrounding greenbelt. I'm sure that many of the owners of these new homes would welcome being served a full Scottish breakfast by Penelope on a cold Winter's morning. Instead they will now have to take a drive through to Fortrose.

I'm even told Penelope will no longer be frequenting the area beacuse of this.

However, I've noticed a small shop for sale opposite the Post Office (almost a certainty to get planning for change of use), my own cafe in a sleepy village, with 100+ new houses in the vicinity, now there's an idea !

Sometimes an ideal investment may be staring you straight in the face and be a far simpler solution to the one you had in mind.

'Oh-Oh', as Penelope might say in her guise as narrator of the Tellytubbies.

Now if I can only persuade Mrs Jackson to be Head Chef.

Thank you for once again dining on my blog this week. I will keep you updated with the progress.

Mr Jackson.