Legal Alien » Wokingham

Due to the extreme weather conditions…

Bjørn — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:15:52 +0000

The south-east of England is closed. The buses in London aren’t driving. Part of the M25 is closed. I was supposed to go to Bedford today, but the “Highways Agency” agency suggested that you only drive anywhere if you really had to. Well, I was pretty sure I would be able to handle the snow, before moving to the UK we lived in the country-side in Denmark so we had to drive in the snow every winter. But I was afraid of venturing out and meeting the English drivers that definitely are not used to driving in snow during the winter. My son’s school is within walking distance, but he came home with a notice that “due to the extreme weather conditions all schools in the Wokingham area are to close tomorrow”. The weather right now would be considered straightforward winter conditions in Denmark, so we had a laugh over that. Click the pink excerpt below to see for yourself…

… Depending on the traffic

Bjørn — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:33:09 +0000

If you live near a large town or city in the UK, you have to add “… depending on the traffic” when you tell someone when you will be arriving, and that is irrespective of whether you use car or public transportation.

This morning I had to go from our village into Wokingham, a short distance of less than 3 miles/5 km and I was again reminded of how bad traffic is at the wrong time of day. The wrong time of day is unfortunately quite along time. Almost all of those 3 miles were spent starting and stopping and crawling along at a snails pace. I am usually able to work from home so that traffic doesn’t affect me, but it is not always possible to avoid. If I’m going into London by car, I usually have to double the amount of time that my Sat Nav/GPS tells me it will take. Taking the train isn’t always possible. If I arrive at the train station car park later than 9:30 it will be full, so even if I want to take the train it won’t be possible. Sometimes it seems like they’ve just given up on even attempting to improve the transport infrastructure in the UK.

I survive by living outside the M25 (a motorway encircling all of London, some call it the UK’s biggest car park), often working from home and not having too many meetings in London.

In series 10, episode 5 of Top Gear, they made a race across London by bicycle, boat, public transportation and of course a car. According to my Sat Nav, the distance they travelled is 16.5 miles/26.5 km. Again according to the Sat Nav, it should take 53 minutes by car and 1 hour 18 minutes by bike. I suggest you see the episode yourself, it is 22 minutes long and I won’t spoil the fun by telling you who was first.

Quality of life

Bjørn — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 01:38:55 +0000

This is old news, but my blog on living in the UK is new, and I wanted to boast tell friends and family about the cool place we live in the UK. So back in 2007, Wokingham (the borough where we live) was found to be the number one place in the UK to live in. What particularly pleased me was that we here have “90 minutes more sunshine each week than the UK average”

Unfortunately, the latest survey from 2008 has Wokingham in fourth place. I assume the 90 minutes of extra sunshine haven’t gone away though…

BBC: Wokingham the ‘best’ city to live
Halifax press release: Residents of Wokingham have best quality of life