The lake, part of the Cotswolds Water Park, was immediately behind the family home, part of an upmarket development of large properties, many with their own private landing jetties.
Upmarket development plans include a golf course at Lake Burabay in northern Kazakhstan and a smart resort on the Caspian Sea – leaving critics wondering who will frequent such places: wealthy Europeans and South East Asians, after all, are unlikely to choose Kazakhstan as a place to hone their backswing or sun themselves on the beach, they suggest.
The Alba, another new upmarket development but in the more suburban central district, has sold 12 of the 18 available units, with prices averaging 2,100 dollars to 2,500 dollars per square foot for freehold units of 1,852 to 2,250 square feet, or 172 to 209 square meters.
A map showed how close it lay to the City and the "increasing number of upmarket residential developments" along the canal banks.
The man claimed he was abused during a decade of his childhood when he was driven to "parties" in the Home Counties, including to flats at Dolphin Square, an upmarket residential development near Westminster.
The place is evermore upmarket, with riverside developments of cafe bars and the like, but it's not all sheen and no soul, the good people of North Yorkshire would never stand for that.
What we get now, he says, "is a very upmarket kind of development, whose services and facilities are for educated, sophisticated people with money in their pockets".
The first person I spoke to was Colin Blaney, a former career criminal who lived in Central Salford, Manchester, while its upmarket Media City was in development.
Sales at One Hyde Park and other luxury London property developments helped boost upmarket estate agency Savills in 2010, as it recorded an 88% rise in underlying profits.
Like its hero, I was alone, abroad, knackered, staying at a bland upmarket hotel, in a Stepford development, increasingly unable to distinguish between people.
