The Time Bubble

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...

Yes, it's half-time for the year, the last day of June is upon us already as time continues its ever increasing pace through another year. It seems we look forward so much to summer coming and once it gets here it flies by so quickly. Mine tends to be marked out by sporting events. It's Royal Ascot, then Wimbledon, the British Grand Prix and the Open  golf. Already we are in the thick of Wimbledon and the Grand Prix is today. Once Wimbledon is over I always feel a sense of disappointment, as if the summer is passing me by faster than I can grab hold of it and enjoy it. I'd like to pretend that my little social calendar includes hob-nobbing it with the beautiful people at Ascot and Wimbledon but in fact the more realistic truth is that rather than cucumber sandwiches on the lawn it's a bag of crisps in front of the telly. I can't blame the kids for that either because I never went to any of these things even when I didn't have kids. Now I can see the advantag...

No - that's not an exclamation from Robin in the 1960s Batman TV series, though I am sure he said it at some point! No in fact today was my second son's baptism. Because of the unusual way in which we work - i.e. I am usually working over the weekends and off in the week, we arranged this to happen as part of the Wednesday morning communion service at the church. Unlike Ollie's baptism, we decided it would be just a quiet affair this time. We asked our very good friends Lynda and Duncan to be godparents and they were delighted to accept. So just before 10 I collected Ollie from school and we all met at the church and enjoyed a very nice service from Teresa, who is the vicar at St Edburg's. Ollie was very well behaved throughout - he is definitely getting better on these big occasions. I do enjoy Teresa's services as she talks a lot about everyday events, and even for those who attend special occasions who are not Christians, there is still plenty to be taken o...

I can't understand why more people don't make their own bread - and yes that includes using a breadmaker for all those clever dicks who say that you aren't making real bread if you are using one. This sparked off a sarcastic debate on Facebook the other day, which ended with me comparing the comments to other things e.g. " I didn't really have milk in my tea this morning because it didn't come straight from a cow's tit.  And it wasn't real tea either as I didn't sail to India to pick the leaves before breakfast, it was a PG Tips teabag". Point made I think. There seems to be this opinion that using a breadmaker is somehow cheating, but if it produces perfect bread every time then why is it cheating? I don't hear this about any other modern labour saving devices so why is the breadmaker singled out for derision. The Panasonic SD253 - still going strong after 7 years. Anyway, 30p a loaf, that's how much I've got my costs...