The Time Bubble

Bicester residents were reacting in shock today after plans for an ambitious new HS4 railway line were revealed by a new Government White Paper. Work on the new £20 billion line linking Bicester with Heathrow Airport could begin as early as 2018 if the man behind the scheme, local entrepreneur Gerald Mincen, 46, gets his way. The new line would provide a direct link from Heathrow airport to a new state of the art railway station on the current Gavray Meadows site. Mincen explained “This new line will really put Bicester on the map. We don’t want visiting foreign nationals wasting unnecessary shopping time visiting Buckingham Palace or Stratford-Upon-Avon. Now they can forget about all of that and come straight here in less than half an hour”. Coming soon, to an outlet shopping centre near you. When questioned on how the project was to be financed, Mincen added “We envisage funding the entire project out of Bicester resident’s council tax contributions. Obviously these will...

Here's a thing. Such is the way of the world that we're always under pressure to upgrade and improve. We have to have the latest phone, the fastest internet connection and so on. Or do we? Yes, we have come a long way from the early days of the internet when it took half a day to load a page on a 28.8k dial up modem whilst our parents wondered why they couldn't get through to Granny on the phone. But a recent experience has made me wonder, how fast do we need to go? After all. there is no point buying a faster model of a road car that can do a top speed of 140mph rather than the 130mph of the next one down when the speed limit on the motorway in the UK is 90. Sorry, I mean 70. Unless you are planning to drive around the Nurburgring in it, that is. So what about Broadband, how much do we need? Well, when BT Infinity came along a few years ago, like all good technology fans I welcomed it with open arms, ordering at the first opportunity and taking my internet speed up t...

So moving day finally arrived! So many things to think about, so many plans - would it all go smoothly or would the best laid plans crumble to dust? Well, I think it all went pretty well considering. I picked up the van on Friday tea time as planned and was able to get the first load in on Friday night. The kids were safely away for the weekend with grandparents so we were up early on Saturday, all set to head for the new house to check in at 10am. By the time I got there, Rhys and Charlotte, my helpers. were already there so we were able to get started nice and early. I was finding it pretty hard work, physically, but I was coping. One of my greatest fears in the weeks leading up to the move was that I was going to do myself a mischief. With Claire already crocked with a broken ankle there was no way I could afford to be anything less than 100%. Mindful of doing my back in three years ago and spending months under a chiropractor I had been incredibly busy in recent weeks with all ...

We finally did it! Yes, here we are, in our new home up on Kingsmere, a move that has been almost a year in the planning. During that time we've investigated all kind of options, been very close to relocating altogether, but ultimately decided to settle here. Why move? Well. we had been living in our house in Chapel Street for 7 years, and for a further 3 years before that in the house next door to that. Over the course of that decade, life changed in all manner of ways that I could never have envisaged when I arrived there back in the summer of 2006. Back then I was fresh out of a relationship break up and moved into the small cottage in an attempt to make a fresh start. I was 36, I had a thriving social life, and it's fair to say my new place was my bachelor pad for those first few months. Within a year or so, things had changed. I met Claire, settled down, she moved in and less than a year later we were blessed with Ollie. The house we were in was barely big enough f...

Yesterday, Claire & I walked up to the new Kingsmere estate to see the brand new school. It has been built to accommodate children from the new estate and to replace the 150 year old St Edburg's site, the oldest school in Bicester. A random picture of some houses on Kingsmere (I couldn't find a picture of the new school). As long term readers will recall, I was an opponent of the original plans to do this. Not only from the selfish point of view that the old school was practically on our doorstep and the new one is half an hour's walk away, but from a traditionalist point of view too. The thought of the lovely old building , which so many generations of Bicester children had passed through being sold off to become offices or something filled me with sadness. We've known this was coming for a long time and it's been a major influence on our long term plan to move home, but here we are, still here deliberating about where we are going to live and the new...

I often cite through my blog how happy I am with the way I have my life set up and it is indeed true. How I earn my living, where we live, all of it is absolutely perfect for the stage our family is at. However, nothing stays the same, and so here I am at 43, almost exactly half way through my working life, with one career already behind me and the focus currently very heavily on bringing up the boys and being the house husband - with the DJ'ing as a very welcome way of earning money during hours which don't impact too heavily on the parenting. We have a lovely home which we rent from a friend, could not ask for more. Though things are changing, there are a lot of new homes here and people moving in, so it's not quite the little oasis in the centre of town that it always has been but I can live with that for now. But I do need to start thinking ahead about changes in the future. After all I am 25 years away from retirement and really don't see myself lugging speak...