Extreme moorhen enthusiasts; petrol almost-theft; Caversham musings

The OU contains at least one member of staff (possibly more) who's really looking out for moorhens. At least two notices have been posted on the noticeboard over the last couple of weeks warning staff not to drive over roaming moorhen chicks on their way off campus. There are already two 'Moorhen Crossing’ signs (left) by the ring road near the church, which have been in situ for as long as I’ve been at the OU; I noticed that several more, more temporary looking ones (right), have recently been added. Can't say I've yet seen any moorhen chicks on campus, but given the level of interest I imagine any driver who squashed one would be hunted down and made to pay.

While booking a hotel room via Premier Inn's website last weekend, I noted that Ruth's company Capricorn Writing appeared in the drop-down list of addresses in our street, against our house number. How official. Also noted from the list that 'Berkshire & Oxfordshire Massage' appears registered at number 51, next door to us. I think it's all perfectly respectable - Terry, the owner, is a physiotherapist and I believe knows his tenants through work.

Also on the theme of small businesses, Ray told me at breakfast on Monday that he has now wound up Home Counties Turf Care and is just calling himself 'R Clark Landscaping'. More down to earth, I guess.

Amusing snippet from the latest job hunt: the University of Reading are looking for a Lecturer in Clouds. Cute.

Following up my 14p windfall from Intelligent Finance: my financial good fortune continued last week with a £5 win from the Cats Protection League weekly lottery. (Actually they're now just 'Cats Protection' - apparently the name was changed in the late 1990s, so I'm behind the times.) I signed up for a regular donation to CP last year - unusually, at the persuasion of a man with a stall in the Oracle - and have been waiting to win something ever since. Ideally money, but a cat would be acceptable.

Went for dinner last Thursday at my colleague Rebecca’s new-build house in the new Redhouse Park development in the north-east of Milton Keynes. Rebecca has recently moved into Milton Keynes with her two daughters, after some years commuting in to the OU from a village somewhere up near Towcester. Spent some time admiring the wonderfully light, clean interior with, I’ll admit, a touch of envy, especially given its freedom from rabbit droppings and puddles of wee¹. Rebecca had cooked a vegetarian curry for Matt and Guy and a chicken dish for herself and me. I pondered that it must be quite unusual for the two women to be the meat-eaters.

Compensated for having to spend much of the weekend completing a report on the OU’s performance in this year’s National Student Survey by getting today off in lieu. My job does not officially entitle me to TOIL, but Judith is understanding about such things on an occasional basis. Feeling revitalized after a super day breakfasting at Carluccio’s on coffee and a Breakfast Bread Tin, then a few hours retail therapy followed by a swim and steam room session at the leisure centre at Wolverton, which I have now switched my allegiance to as it’s cheaper and nicer than Bletchley and seems more geared up for adult swimming.

Did, however, start the day by doing something I have never before done in the over 25 years I have held a driving licence. Stopped at the BP petrol station at Emerson Valley to fill up. Filled up, opened driver’s door as if to get handbag, got in, started up and drove off back out onto the H8. Immediately I’d pulled out on to the dual carriageway I realized I’d missed out a crucial stage of the process. Sped up in the outside lane to the next roundabout muttering “Shit! Shit!”, returned to the forecourt and presented myself in the shop to pay. The man seemed understanding and assured me diplomatically that I wasn’t the first person to have made that mistake in a moment’s inattention. Relieved, though also realize I probably now project such an air of middle-aged respectability that I’m unlikely to be an obvious suspect for criminal activity.

Local (Caversham) news, mixed with a few architectural notes:

Plans for a new free school – The Heights Primary School – in Caversham Heights are causing local controversy. The new school is to be located temporarily in a site quite near us, on the old Caversham Nursery premises off Gosbrook Road. It’ll be fine as long as no one expects to be able to park in the immediate vicinity … Came home on Friday to a invitation to a public meeting on 6 August re the plans for the school’s temporary location. As the public meeting was on a week night, I duly sent an email to the representatives of the new school, intending just to issue dire warnings about not thinking they can park anywhere on Falkland/Westfield/Cromwell Roads, but inadvertently then veering off into further commentary including use of the word 'snobbery' and the phrase 'undermining the state education system'. Possibly should have stopped at the parking bit.

The Heights Primary has been started by a group of parents (of course), supposedly to address the lack of primary school places in North West Caversham. (There are in fact a number of primary schools in Caversham, but it doesn’t help that everyone seems to want to go to Caversham Primary on Hemdean Road. Bring back catchment areas?) The core of the controversy appears not to be local objection to the free schools programme but the plans for the school’s permanent location. The Education Funding Agency has bought a site in Upper Warren Avenue, one of Caversham's most exclusive roads, to locate the school subject to planning permission. The site currently houses a split-level flat-roofed house which I've always rather liked, but sadly it would seem to have been sold off for development. A group – Caversham Residents Against Inappropriate Development (CRAID), or perhaps better named Caversham Residents Against Development In My Backyard (CRADIMBY?) – is fighting the building of the school on the UWA site. Nimbyism aside, the site doesn’t seem an ideal location for a school, as UWA is a dark road with no pavement. There would however be ample room for parking – perhaps this is how most of the hyper-concerned parents involved propose transporting their lovelies.

Also of interest to those of us (i.e. me) fascinated by domestic architecture: I noted that a large Arts and Crafts house on St Peter's Avenue has recently come up for sale. See right; pic borrowed from Davis Tate's brochure. Not sure why planning permission has been granted for a two-storey extension, as this will surely spoil the proportions of the house, which seems amply large enough already. Wonder if the disused swimming pool will be brought back into use? A Google Earth browse of Caversham Heights shows that a few houses there have pools - would be nice I guess, though bracing for most of the year.

To finish off the architectural notes: Reading Post recently published some interesting pictures of Caversham Park Village in its earlier (and probably hey) day. CPV is less posh than it perhaps sounds from the name; it’s a 1960s-built housing development that was built on some land formerly belonging to the Caversham Park estate. The article has a link to Davis Estates’ somewhat self-congratulatory brochure from the period. The Reading Post article has some interesting pictures and links, including this piece about the older house Caversham Place that remained standing for a while while the estate was constructed around it. Don’t know where the public house was, as there isn’t one now on the estate – perhaps it was never built. CPV has some OK housing, but I find the estate a bit odd because of its strict adherence to the Radburn layout, which is a nice idea in principle but in practice, having to walk along footpaths out of sight of the roads (there are no pavements throughout much of the estate) can be offputting. The estate’s shopping precinct off Farnham Drive is now dreadfully run down with most of the shop units empty, which is a pity. This blog has a few more recent pics of the estate.


¹ Rabbit wee.