Going, going, gone......

I started this blog in May 2007 to chart the path I would follow as i put my house on the market. little did I know it would be two and a half years later that I would be reporting the conclusion of the journey.

Yes, I have finally exchanged on the sale and vacate the property on 6th November. I will be leaving London to live away for the first time in nearly 40 years, and will need to locate the nearest source of London Pride or Youngs Ordinary to avoid my liver going into shutdown.

Thanks goodness for the internet which will allow me to follow the local issues and sporting prowess of the team which i have followed for much of that time.

A lot of things have happened in the time the house has been on the market. Maxine and I have become grandparents, our oldest son, Tim has married, and our oldest daughter is engaged. A few friends have passed away, and we have mourned their loss.

We have travelled a fair bit it has to be said. Peru, Brazil, Egypt, Portugal, Chicago, Edinburgh, Rome. Paris and Cyprus have been on our schedule, as well as a cruise around the islands of the Mediterranean. At that should stand us in good stead now that my Company has cast me adrift by making draconian changes to its final salary pension scheme.

I met the CEO yesterday and asked him outright why I should stay in his Company. His reply was hopeless, and as a colleague of mine once said, 'when the lunatics start running the asylum, its time to leave' . I think they are, and I am. ETD is scheduled for 5th February at the moment which will make the England v Wales game at Twickenham the next day a bit of a blinder.

So the blog has fulfilled one role, and now it takes on a new one as it tracks my progress through early retirement, life in Scouserland and potentially a few entrepreneurial projects. Watch this space one may come to a road near you........

Tom Toms

I have never got round to embracing the sat nav culture. I guess its part of the macho 'I know where I am going' philosophy which the family would be delighted for me to ditch. Together we have discovered more back doubles, dead ends and dodgy areas than a sat nav could ever get me to drive through.

The Scouse House is not on some sat nav systems, which means we are often talking delivery or visiting drivers in, but I had to laugh last night, when, at about midnight it sounded like the Tardis had landed in Chis.

As I pulled back the curtains, there reversing down the road was a juggernaut, a huge juggernaut if that is not tautology. Silver Cres is just that, a crescent, and when combined with Thorneyhedge Road it will allow you to turn back on yourself along Chiswick High Road. If, therefore, that is what the lorry wanted to do, the sat nav was accurate in its directions. What it clearly did not take into account was the fact the hairpin bend at the top of the road is impossible to navigate in a lorry when a full compliment of residents vehicles are parked up.

How the trucker reversed all that way without damaging a car was a great testament to his driving skills. No sign of Billy Piper though.