Spring In The Air

That is metaphorically and actually. Each day that passes, it's getting lighter each morning earlier and earlier and at the same it, it's warmer. Yesterday was particularly sunny and warm.

Wednesday. 3.45 a.m. It's still and quiet on the weather front.

I have contacted Amazon regarding the missing DVD. This, via the online 'chat' function. It is the third attempt at sorting the problem. I am being sent a replacement DVD of the new, Stephen Spielberg directed 'West Side Story.' I have just this minute received an email telling me it has been dispatched and should arrive sometime today. I am still intrigued to know what happened to the first place containing a DVD. According to the Amazon website, it was 'received by the resident.' Not true. The delivery driver wasn't doing his/her job properly if that's the case. We'll wait and see what develops.

9.55 a.m. I was up early and my first outing with Alfie was around 6.20. Why hang around in bed when it's bright outside? Not sunny, but still bright. I don't think Alfie was awake when I went into the lounge to find him curled up in his bed. Never mind. I washed up from the evening before. I can't stand having dirty pots and plates in the sink, so I soon had it all done and put it away. We went out for another trot around the park at around 8.15, and then I thought I might just as well go to Sainsbury's. Go early mid-week and you avoid the crowds you would probably get on a Friday when people have been paid. Then I discovered that some bright spark had decided to rearrange the shelves in the store. I've been shopping in there for goodness knows how long, and you get used to where things are, but to suddenly find it all in different places is somewhat annoying. What is the reason for all this? No doubt they're preparing for something new in the store. I don't think I was the only customer to be somewhat lost as there were one or two others with annoyance written all over their faces. I do think if they are going to do this, they should at least have notices up telling you where the products have been moved too. Surely not much to ask. Never mind. Things will sort themselves out eventually.

1.30 p.m. There is a light rain as I write. Drizzle, I think the word to use is. It was similar to what it was like a few hours ago. Alfie doesn't like getting wet, but still wants to go out, but the moment he feels a raindrop on his back, he'll be back through the door and no doubt be curled up on either my bed or in his little nest beside the television. 

6.00 p.m. The 'West Side Story' DVD arrived at around 4.45 this afternoon! So that issue is now resolved.

There seems to be a rash of new game shows on television at the moment. BBC 1 has Pointless, which seems to be a more or less permanent fixture at 5.15 five days a week and now it's joined at 4.30 by 'Bridge of Lies', which is hosted by Ross Kemp, formerly of EastEnders. Then on BBC2 there's one I hadn't come across before called 'Lightening.' 'Eggheads moved to Channel 5 a couple of months ago and is on at exactly the same time, 6.30, that it was on when it was on BBC2. This might explain why the new kid on the block, 'Lightening' is on at the same time. Then ITV has 'The Chase' on at exactly the same time as Pointless. On ITV they have Tenable, Tipping Point and The Chase, one after the other. It really is taking it too far and totally unimaginative of ITV to just put one after the other. Why no drama in the afternoon schedules? The BBC has done rather well with their drama offerings, with Doctors doing well just after lunch, followed by such things as Father Brown and Shakespeare and Hathaway. Always good to watch that and pick out the cleaver Shakespearian connections, plot devices or character names worked into the plot. But it's a shame that BBC1 stopped showing children's programming in the 4-5 p.m. slot. I know they moved it all onto the BBC children's channels, but to just churn out endless gameshows really shows a total lack of imagination. It's obvious that game shows are cheap to produce, well, certainly when compared with drama. I presume the jackpots on Pointless (and other similar shows.) comes from the Television licence. As for ITV, it's just the slippery slope really, more dumbing down. Some questions on, for example, Tipping Point, are just plain embarrassingly easy, such as 'what colour is grass, or the sky?' Not really going to challenge a child for more than five or six really, or is that how they see their daytime audience? A lot of toddlers? Now, one doesn't expect Open University type programming (No, not like the 1970s lectures which were broadcast at nighttime for students.) Probably produced just up the road, here in Milton Keynes. But come on, at least have more difficult questions.

Television Documentary About Milton Keynes's 50th Anniversary

2017 is the 50th Birthday of Milton Keynes. I moved here in 2007 when I married Carol, having previously lived in Bedford, around 20 miles to the east. BBC television has shown a documentary about the town (I can never decide whether it's a town or a city, and it seems, do other people. Which is it? You decide.) It was built as an over-spill for London. Half-way between London and Birmingham and between the A5 to the west and the M1 to the east. The Grand Union Canal cuts through the town and is around half a mile from our home in Eaglestone, walking down the Redway. To some extent, according to this documentary which was co-producted by the Open University, which is based in MK, the town was built as a sort of social experiment. All manner of different architects were employed to have a virtual freehand in the design of the various 'villages' which were conceived within each of the 'girds' which make up the town.

The documentary was told from the point of view of one man, Richard Macer, who lived and grew up in the town, left to go to university and came back to visit the place again. His parents continued to live in the town, in Great Linford. He went to school at Stantonbury Campus, where Carol was a teacher before transferring to her current school, Milton Keynes Academy.

Milton Keynes has been the subject of quite a few jokes over the years, not least because of the number of roundabouts, and in particular the so-called 'Concrete Cows' which have become the unofficial symbol for the town. Also, described as 'dull', 'soulless' as well as uninspiring. Having lived here for a little over ten years I can say I have not found it to be any such thing. Infact, it's got plenty going for it. I particularly like the fact that there's so much open space here. As you'd drive along the grid roads you almost forget the fact that you are driving through a town at all, as the design of the place means all houses and most other buildings, can't be seen from the road, that there are plenty of trees to screen the grids which contain the 'village' like communities within them as well as cleverly landscaped sections, banked up with the plants and trees on them as well as having all housing beyond a fairly wide margin of each road, giving a pleasant feel to the place, unlike many other modern towns which have houses almost on the roadside. The town has been highly successful in creating employment. The rate of growth is amazing. The amount of homes being built is startling and Milton Keynes is expanding at a great rate. We drove across the town a few days ago and went past Crownhill, the area we originally lived when we were married in 2007. The fields along the side of Watling Street as you drive towards Stony Stratford and Wolverton have been developed and now it's all houses. On the approach-road from the M1, coming in from Bedford, there is a large amount of construction going on. Since I've been living here, a vast John Lewis warehouse complex has been built along that stretch of road, as well as for their partner company, Waitrose. The road system has been vastly improved, partially duelled along that piece of road, where there is a roundabout with an impressive steel statue of Greg Rutherford, the Olympic Gold-Medallist Long Jump winner at the 2012 London Olympic Games who lives within the Milton Keynes area. There is further building going on at the newly-improved roundabout which used to be a point where there were long traffic queues before it was widened and with new traffic lights and then going towards Newport Pagnall there is even more development of not just houses but more warehouses, no doubt going to be distribution centres for more companies. Infact, Milton Keynes has a higher rate of employment than more areas of the United Kingdom.