I was reading
about people who work away from home, most usually travelling and spending the
week in London and then back again at weekends. It came as a shock when I
realised that for about 8 years I was also a 5:2’ er living in Oxford in the
week and meeting up with my wife at weekends. Most often I travelled back to
our home in the Midlands but on about 1 in 4 my wife travelled to me.
I should say
straightaway that we always saw this as a temporary state of affairs even going
so far as to put our Midlands house on the market for a while. Becoming a 5:2’
er arose largely by accident. I was offered a job returning to a company I had
left some years earlier. It was an attractive offer but the difficulty was it
was based at Pangbourne near Reading. This was too far to commute. I had quite
enough long distance commuting for a year from Wilmslow to the West Midlands
before we sold our previous house.
Our children
were established in school, my wife had just got a permanent job after a series
of temporary posts. The new company were ready to help with local accommodation
so it was an easy decision to become a weekly boarder.
Initially I
had a flat at Bucklebury ( where Kate Middleton hails from ) and then I bought
a small house on the outskirts of Oxford. Preparing to move our family, with
the elder children leaving home, my youngest, Frances, moved to an Oxford
school. It turned out my eldest daughter Alison went to Oxford University.
Initially we didn’t see much of Alison as she entered university life. However
I suffered a stroke and Alison informally “boarded” Frances in her university
room so Frances could continue at school.
This
arrangement we used for about six months with my wife taking us both to our
Oxford house Thursday to Monday and the rest Frances spent with Alison.
Fortunately they were ( and are ) close and if the university authorities knew
they turned a blind eye.
After the six
month period I was able to return, part time at first, then increasing to full
time. Both before and after my stroke our routine would be to drive back to the
Midlands on Friday evening returning to Oxford on Sunday evening. During the
time I was doing the journey the M40 opened which made a huge difference nearly
halving the journey time. I learned to avoid busy traffic times or to avoid
busy spots. I had some very good fortune one day queuing into Banbury which was
a major bottleneck. As I waited the car in front turned off down a side street.
I followed through a convoluted route around Banbury which I found worked well
and which I used until the motorway opened.
Our weekends
in Oxford were very interesting. Because of the large student population Oxford
supports theatres,museums, concert halls etc. far more than is normal for its
size. It also has wonderful bookshops; again far more than usual. We happily
spent weekends browsing shops and I’ve never been to theatre so many times in
my life. Frances was particularly impressed by the graphic novel shops ( comics
to ordinary folk ) of which there were at least two.
Apart from
all of this the villages around, particularly those on the river Thames, are
full of interest. My Oxford house was near to Sandford which was a delightful
river side village.
Like most
places there were rough areas. I lived quite near the Blackbird Leys estate.
Racing stolen cars was the local sport and we had the police helicopter around
often. The area roads were modified to make racing difficult with raised kerbs
and speed bumps.
Before I had
a stroke I used to cycle around Oxford. It is a city geared to bicycle
transport with cycle ways or cycle routes everywhere. After the stroke my
balance was too poor for cycling. From my house there was a wonderful back
street route into the centre while the circular road has a cycleway all along
its Eastern side.
No comments:
Post a Comment