It's funny the way life works out sometimes.
My girlfriend is originally from Brum, and moved down to Crawley in 2001 to live with me. Since then, she's never been totally happy there, but as there is work and I am there, she's stayed but always maintained that at some point we (or she) would move up to the Midlands.
Last year, the contract I was working on took a bit of a knock. Nothing to do with the credit crunch, but our customer decided to outsource most of their IT development to Tata, and so over the last few months of the year those of us from other third parties were gradually moved off.
My employer does have other work around the country, but of course it is not easy to find work at the moment (and that is partly due to the credit crunch as much that I could do would be in the financial sector).
As it happens, the job I have been offered (and which I started at the beginning of the month) is in exactly the kind of work I have been trying to get into for a year or so - Business Analysis. However, it is based in Northampton, which is not too easy to get to from Crawley.
What this has done is present an opportunity to relocate to pretty much the area that Jas wants to be in, and so this weekend we have been looking for a place up in Rugby (25 miles from work, 30 miles from her family). And yesterday we found almost a perfect house for rent.
It's going to take a while before we are fully moved out of Crawley, but chances are I'll be up north rather than back there most of the time. I'm not sure what this will mean for a blog that has in large part been based on Crawley (and is named for a former Crawley Town player).
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9 comments:
It will just have to turn into an ex-pat blog!
I am amazed, though, at the length you will go to in order to avoid coming over to Horsham to help me with campaigning :)
I can pop down for a weekend. I'll even dress up as a 'fat cat' if you supply the costume :-)
I hope it all works out for you Owen. What constituency are you going to be living in?
Well, there's been a boundary review in Warwickshire as it got an extra MP. So currently it's Rugby and Kenilworth, but for the next election it will be just Rugby
R&K was Tory from 1983 (when it was created) until 1997, when it went to Labour. The Conservative Jeremy Wright won in 2005, but he has decided to stand in the safer seat that's being created based on Kenilworth and Southam.
So it's a clearly a marginal that Labour could win if Wright's on the rat-run (a la Soames in '97).
Rugby Borough is usually Tory or NOC. (currently a Tory majority of 6) About a third of the borough is in the rural areas around the town. The ward I'm living in is currently Lib Dem. Warwickshire CC has a minority Tory cabinet. Sounds like an interesting political make-up.
It's weird, because another job I looked at was based at Renault F1 in Oxfordshire, which would have been in Dave Cameron's constituency. I did vaguely consider putting my name up as a candidate for Witney last year, just for the giggle.
Sorry that you'll be moving away. I've enjoyed our chats/discussions/arguments (delete as appropriate) over the years both on the train and in the Town Hall.
Still it's not all bad of course for you as you'll have a Lib Dem Cllr. [fx:very big grin]
Yes, Gordon. It will give me something to do to work out how to unseat them. That's cheered me up no end :-)
I remember over 21 years ago a Labour Councillor saying I would not win and then saying I had only "borrowed" the seat from him.
Four years later he decided to look for another seat to fight as he lost again and I've been there ever since.
So though I do genuinely wish you well in whatever you do when it comes to unseating my fellow Lib Dem Councillor I hope you don't do badly - but not as well as you would have hoped. :-))
I'm not likely to stand myself of course, but don't think I won't be campaigning.
I've just been to the local branch AGM and given up all my positions. No more GC meetings - hoorah!
I've heard you say that many times Gordon. I had a similar thing in Furnace Green when the defeated Labour councillor, Ray Calcott, said after the election in 2002 that we only had the seat on loan and that they would win it back next year. In 2003 I was elected and here I am six years later. He then said exactly the same thing in 2003 saying they would win it back in 2004. That was the last I heard from him.
But your party Gordon also makes these claims. After the May 2003 local elections, there was a letter in the Crawley papers from Linda Seekings saying how well your party had done and that it would be "sooner rather than later when Liberal Democrat councillors are elected in Furnace Green and Ifield".
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