The Time Bubble

Great excitement on our trip to town this morning to discover that the new Poundland is now open. No new store due to open in Bicester has polarized opinions more than this one, before it even appeared. From those eagerly waiting its arrival to those denouncing its appearance as the nail in the coffin for Bicester’s High Street, everyone has had an opinion. Welcome to Bicester! And myself? Well I like to make my own mind up about things without any pre-conceptions drummed into me by other people. I’ve heard it all about Poundland – how it’s going to lower the tone, cheap and nasty, not value at all, will be full of chavs – yes these comments have all reached my ears in recent days. So what do I think? Well – any new store in Bicester I see as a positive – in the last couple of years we’ve acquired Aldi, Lidl and Wilkinsons and they have made a huge positive impact on the town. The range of things we can buy has increased enormously, as has the possibility of gaining v...

No particular subject today, so may not be one of my most exciting blog entries, but I shall do my best to entertain as best I can. As the last few days, in my life at least, there's been plenty of the mundane. About the most exciting thing to happen in the last 48 hours was the purchase of a brand new mop system from Wilkinsons! That's my life - but elsewhere, my heart goes out to certain friends who are going through difficult times right now. I am sure many of them would swap many of their current traumas for something so mundane as choosing a new mop. People can't always help the situations they get into - no-one should apportion blame, we've all got feelings, and so have those around us. We can't help who we fall in love with or what the consequences might be, we also can't control how other people will behave or react around us. For every one of us in a good and stable place right now, there may be another facing huge life changing decisions - which ...

I have been struck down for the 3rd time in the last 4 years with the Norovirus. If you have never experienced this then I hope you never will. It's something that hits you without warning, sudden agonising stomach pain followed by explosive diarrhoea and vomiting. When that's all over you get a raging thirst and down gallons of water. Eventually after that it's gone as suddenly as it arrived - except it leaves you weak and exhausted which takes a few days to recover from. When it's happening you literally feel like you are going to die. I had to get Claire to stay off work today as there was no way I could have left the house, even my room. I have not seen either of my children today, and have no intention of doing so, I'm fairly sure I am not contagious anymore but I'm not risking it. The first time this happened to me I was just setting up for Sunday night karaoke, this was back in 2008. I literally got the equipment set up, handed over to Helen and wen...

Well here we are on Wednesday, and I have not been on facebook since Sunday. And I am not missing it at all. In fact I am positively enjoying it. At last I realise what a slave I had become to that site. I doubt whether my absence has even been noticed, but there you go. I don't know as I have turned notifications off, so I won't get any emails to tell me if anyone posts on my wall. Which they rarely do anyway. Despite not visiting the site, I am still maintaining a presence through these blogs, which should send a link to my facebook page. Hopefully, anyway, the posting is a little sporadic, so if you are seeing this, hello! Now as for facebook, I think I am going to use it as a networking site, as originally intended. I have had a fair amount of business come my way in the past through people either sending me private messages or posting on my wall e.g. "Hi Jason, so and so here, it's my 30th birthday next year and wondered if you could do my disco". I p...