Steve's Blog

Been a while since my last update I'm afraid. There has been a lot happening during the intervening period. Carol has joined me in Wales and we have had to put our house back on the market.

It's nice having Carol with me in the evenings but consequently I don't get to spend time on the comuter, hence the lack of updates.

We got a phone call from the estate agents a week last Thursday telling us that our buyers' buyer was dragging his/her feet over exchange of contracts because they had to sort out the split of proceeds from the home jointly owned between them and their ex-partner. Then the following day the news that they had pulled out of the chain and we had effectively lost our sale too. Our buyers still want the house but they now have to resell their house. Our estate agents recommended that we put ours back up for sale too. We understand the reasoning but surely this means that we will lose our new house too because they will be given the same advice?

Carol called around to see the couple whose house we wanted to buy and was surprised and embarassed to find that their agents hadn't informed them!! They were a little shocked and equally as disappointed as we are. Good news is that as this is the second time this has happened to them, the fact that they haven't found a house themselves yet and that they don't want to go through the whole process again they are willing to wait for us to find new buyers. We have two viewings this weekend so fingers crossed.

Work is still good. I have completed three plug-ins now. A Task management system, a newsfeeed reader and a contacts database. The newsfeed reader was quite interesting as it is a batch process that reads an XML feed at midnight each day ionto the local database and that is then used to display news in the plug-in. Every day is different and the hours just fly by.

We have a TV crew coming in on Monday to film us at work. If Auros are successful at the Shell Business awards this will form the basis of a video projected onto a huge screen at the back of the stage during the award ceremony. God help them if they are still eating their dinner!!

I'm getting used to the mountains again and I really had forgotten just how pretty the valleys can be. Cwmcarn has changed quite a bit since I left in the early eighties. All the coal mines have gone and have been replaced by neat modern housing estates with almost identically designed little houses with newish cars parked on their block paviour driveways. A far cry from the dark and imposing pit head winding gear and rows of wash houses that I remember passing on my way to school. The supermarkets have seen off nearly all of the shops that used to line the main street of the village. Jack Hatfields cycle shop, Jandrell's newsagents, Stephen's clothing, the wool shop, the two butchers, Brace's bakery, Jones' furnishers, Dylan's chemist, The Italian cafe, Prosser's tobacconists and sweet shop, The outdoor off-license, Jandrell's paint and wallpaper shop, a shoe shop, the Cooperative supermarket and at least a dozen greengrocers. At one time there was even a cinema! All now gone and all that remains is a few stragglers and an open all hours corner shop owned by asians. The Cwmcarn Hotel is still thriving and hosts regular weekend rock bands. It was a honeypot for the youth of my day too. We shunned the more traditional Cwmcarn Working Men's club for the brasher, brighter and far more expensive ale of the Hotel.

There has always been the tourist attraction of the Scenic Forest Drive. Cwmcarn Forest Drive is a 7-mile scenic route through the rolling hills and green mountains of one the country's largest urban forests. It's drawn visitors ever since it opened in the seventies. Now, however, it is a Mecca for all mountain bike enthusiasts UK wide. It has some of the scariest and most potentially lethal 'black runs' of any site in the UK. My sister-in-law lives in a bungalow opposite one of the hillsides that the bikers hurtle down lemming like toward one of the many huge jumps that spectators can stand under and wonder in awe as the young cyclists fly overhead. She has witnessed some quite spectacular accidents and knows of at least one fatality. The ambulance service has now taken to placing their on-call vehicle at the foot of the Scenic Drive at weekends to save the journey when the inevitable call comes in. The Scenic drive is very picturesque for all that frenetic activity and if you get a chance to visit I can recommend it.

I'm starting to feel at home in Clifton and take a walk most lunchtimes. The student population has swelled enormously since the second and third years returned. I now have to queue for my lunch in Subway!

We are planning on driving back to Bourne most weekends ostensibly to keep an eye on the house but also, more importantly, to get some peace and quiet away from the families bless 'em. Funny how absence can make the heart grow fonder. Bourne looked so very pretty as we descended down along the A151 from Colsterworth last night. I wouldn't swap my mountains though.