Tag: Charlbury

Moving again…

This isn’t a weird thought. Instead, this is therapy for me. So please indulge me. This is me pouring out all the thoughts in my head at the moment in the hope that it will make me feel better. I’ve had a hard few days and I need to share. First, the background.

We’ve been grumbling and rumbling about moving house for just over a year now. When our eldest found out he had a place at a grammar school 40 minutes away we first seriously talked about the prospect of a move. We had casually talked about it before when he decided to take the exam for the grammar school. But once he had a place, the conversation went up a level. When we did have that first serious conversation, my reaction was to burst into tears (this was last March). I was happy for our son but upset about the prospect of moving. I didn’t want to move. In my mind, it was imminent. I wasn’t even close to being mentally or emotionally ready. I had only just about stopped grieving for our move from Charlbury to Shrewsbury (and that took me five years to accept fully!). But then time passed. I returned to that happy place of denial. We got on with life. A whole year has now passed. We have spent this last year making the house a little prettier, partly for ourselves and partly for a ‘future’ move that didn’t ever seem to appear. It was just that, a ‘future’ move. It was transparent. It wasn’t set in stone.

We lived in the left-hand cottage

We lived in the left-hand cottage before moving to Shrewsbury

The problem I have now is that that ‘future’ has now arrived. Last weekend we all realised that there is nothing now to stop us moving. The house is as pretty as it is likely to get. So last week, after a couple of days of realisation, we decided that it was time to contact The Estate Agents. The ‘future’ was just about still at that point the ‘future’. In many ways, even last week I was still in denial. However, yesterday those Estate Agents came round. They appeared in their suits and with their leather brief cases. They sashayed into the house with their shiny shoes and ‘ooh lovely original features’. They had come into the house, invited, looked around, and made judgements. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like them. How dare they?

We want to sell your house

We want to sell your house

My reaction to these visitors? I was a mess. I was an emotional wreck all day. I cried four times in total. Why? Because although my head sees the need to move, my heels are struggling to dig themselves out of the ground. For my children, I accept the need to move. But for me, I love my life here. I love it. I really do. I am happy. Content is me. I have friends. I have purpose. I am busy. I just love it. I’m a school governor, I’m the publicity stroke marketing guru for the school PTA (or Friends of Crowmoor as they are called). I have lots of friends whom I am extremely fond of. I may only see them twice a day and often we only exchange vague pleasantries but they mean the world to me. I go to Zumba once a week. (And yes, I shed a tear at Zumba last night but thankfully nobody noticed.) I love Zumba. It defines my Mondays. I love Shrewsbury. I love the fact I can zip into town on my scooter and get myself a coffee within ten minutes of leaving the house and be in Waterstones shortly after. I love the atmosphere here. I’ve met so many weird and wacky, normal and kind, amazing and wonderful people. I love the fact that our cat is called ‘dirty bit of grit on the floor’ in Salopian. I love the cobbly streets, the quirky shops, the weird-sounding Meole Brace which I still call Melrose Brace. And I just feel at home here. This is my home. It’s taken me eight years, but it is firmly my home.

But we have to move. I fully accept that. And a good chunk of me is excited about it. New house. New roots. New environment. And I have every confidence that we will find a nice new place to live, a house just as lovely as this one. I am sure I will meet more lovely people who will become friends. I accept that I will form new bonds and have new experiences.

I can’t expect my son to commute for seven years, leaving at 7.15am and back at 5.30pm (that’s on days he doesn’t have a club). The boy is exhausted. If the next boy goes to the same school (which he would like to) then living here is even less sensible. But emotions and common sense are not good bed fellows. My life is governed by my heart, not my head. So I am struggling at the moment.

He won't have to commute so far soon

He won’t have to commute so far soon

This is only the first stage in the process. Tomorrow we are going to tell one of the chappies with shiny shoes ‘yes, you can try to sell our house’. So the sign will go up. But the end isn’t quite here yet. The last time we decided to move house it took two years (hindered slightly by a flood). So watch this space. But, dear Shrewsbury friends, if I suddenly burst into tears for no apparent reason over the next few weeks, this blog explains why. When the times comes to leave, miss you all, I will. Back to visit? Oh yes. That is, if you will have me.

Why don’t dogs poo white stuff anymore?

This was a weird thought I had walking the streets of Shrewsbury the other day (ironically, not whilst on the toilet).

White dog poo

White dog poo

Incidentally, but not unrelated, until I moved to Shrewsbury I hadn’t been particularly bothered by dog poo on the streets (at least not since adulthood). I had not noticed much in the way of dog poo on the streets of the three places I’d lived in over the ten years prior to coming here: Japan, Oxford and Charlbury. In fact, I was quite shocked when we moved here at the sheer quantity (not so much quality, that relates to the white-poo thought) of dog poo on the streets of Shrewsbury. Do Shropshire’s dogs poo when the urge takes them whereas Oxfordshire ones wait until they get home? Or are the owners to blame? Do Oxfordshire owners carry those handy little poo bags whereas Shrosphire owners don’t bother? I suspect a mixture of the former and latter. However, I digress. Today’s thought is about the quality of poo, not the quantity.

No poo on these streets

No poo on these streets

I remember dog poo featuring in my childhood quite a lot (we always had a dog, who pooed, and I suspect the streets of Stafford in the 1970s and  1980s were similarly plagued by sporadically dumped excrement as the streets of Shrewsbury are in the 2010s). Dog poo is something I remember seeing, studying, stepping in (embarrassingly) and stepping over (fortunately). Dog poo, was sometimes white. Now, in Shrewsbury at least, dog poo is always brown.

Why?

I’ve asked the Internet. The Internet claims that it is to do with there being less bone marrow in the diets of dogs. Less bone marrow equals less calcium. Calcium is white and crumbly. So less calcium equals less white and crumbly poo.

That was easy.

I just need to get the dog owners of Shrewsbury to CLEAN UP THEIR BROWN SLOPPY POO PLEASE!

If the owners won't do it...

If the owners won’t do it…

I like collecting interesting roundabouts and scary corners

I’m not sure that this classifies as a ‘weird thought’ but I think it classifies as weird so I’m half way there. I like to collect interesting roundabouts and scary corners. I will introduce a few here. I’d like to explore more.

There is a roundabout in Oxford affectionately known in our family as T.S.R. which stands for The Scary Roundabout. The real name of this roundabout is the Headington Roundabout. It was this roundabout that was responsible for sending me hurtling down the M4 to London with a boot full of food shopping, including icecream, on a very hot August Sunday afternoon many years ago. That was a very scary moment. I had taken the wrong exit.

Does this look scary to you?

Does this look scary to you?

I used to DREAD going around this roundabout when we lived in Oxford. I had a temping job once where I had no choice but to go on this roundabout to get from home to the place of work. I was so glad that that job only lasted only two weeks.

There is a roundabout in Shrewsbury that, in contrast to T.S.R., I find quite lovely because of its unusual shape. It is known to us in the Collins family as The 50p Roundabout. It isn’t even a roundabout as it is shaped like a 50p so it isn’t round (albeit a 50p with too many sides). My children also call it the rabbit roundabout after we were told that a colony of rabbits live on the roundabout (I’ve never seen any rabbits there). It is officially known as Meole Brace Roundabout (incidentally I like to call Meole Brace Melrose Brace after a rather naff US drama of the past).

Do these live on the 50p roundabout?

Do these live on the 50p roundabout?

The famous 50p roundabout

The famous 50p roundabout

There is a famous roundabout in Swindon I’d like to visit someday. It is known as the ‘Magic Roundabout’ and looks like a dalliance with death to me.

And the winner of the best roundabout in the UK is...

And the winner of the best roundabout in the UK is…

Another roundabout worth a visit might be the roundabout that was voted the best roundabout in the UK by the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society (yes, such an organisation does exist) in 2013. It circles a duck pond (almost as cute as rabbits).

The duck pond roundabout in Kent

The duck pond roundabout in Kent

And after visiting that one, I want to visit the roundabout that houses a windmill (winner of the best roundabout vote in 2012).

Have you ever been around this roundabout near York?

Have you ever been around this roundabout near York?

As for corners, I have two corners I am especially fond of. The first one is between Aberystwyth and Borth. It is the scariest corner I have ever had the pleasure to drive along. It is on a mountain side and it has an angle of about 40 degrees (or 320 degrees from the outside).

Which way to the scariest corner in Britain?

Which way to the scariest corner in Britain?

The second scary corner in my collection is between Charlbury and Chipping Norton. This corner sticks in my memory because my husband had to drive me from Charlbury, where we lived, to Chipping Norton, where the nearest hospital was, while I struggled not to give birth to my second son in the car. It was a particularly icy night in early March. I will never forget that roundabout. It marked the half way mark from home to hospital.

Do you know the scary corner between Charlbury and Chipping Norton?

Do you know the scary corner between Charlbury and Chipping Norton?

I hope this odd hobby of mine makes me more interesting than a train spotter. Perhaps I ought to start a note book of corners and roundabouts. But first, I want this book!

This is going on my Christmas list

This is going on my Christmas list