Goodbye Oldfield Road

This is our last night at our house on Oldfield Road. Most of our belongings are already packed up, so it feels like we are camping in our own home. The sunny weather today could not have been any more different to when we moved in twelve years ago – it was snowing! The house is also very different to when we moved in – every room has been plastered and painted. Some have even been painted twice. The garden has been redone, and the leaky wooden garage replaced with a bigger brick built one. As documented on this blog

There is a tinge of sadness leaving this house, not only because we put a lot of effort into the renovation, but this is where the boys grew up, so we have a lot of happy memories here. The house has also been in Jen’s family for a long time – her mum grew up here too, and even packing up today we kept getting reminders of Jen’s grandad. However, the boys keep on growing and we need more space…

Other than the memories, so things that I am going to miss:

  • The neighbours – we have been really lucky with our neighbours, on both sides. Being in a mid terrace you need understanding neighbours, but more than that it has always been nice chatting over the fence. I know the boys will miss this the most, although I am looking forward to being in a detached house. 
  • The wood burning stove – we had this installed in 2013, in place of the old back boiler (we also had gas combi boiler in the coal house). It is great to sit by the fire in the winter, even if we do not really need it for heat. I’ll also miss the ritual of stacking the wood and preparing the fire. 
  • The veranda – having sheltered outside space is so underrated, not just for a nice place to sit outside, but for storage and drying washing all year, whatever the weather. We liked the veranda so much that we replaced it with a virtually identical one as part of the renovations.
  • The outside toilet – I like that in the 21st century we still have an outside toilet. Especially as the toilet was liberated from the old Alvis tank factory before it was torn down and replaced with a retail park. It will be nice to have multiple indoor toilets though. Especially in the winter.
  • The location – Aside from the great community on Oldfield Road, it is very well located, close enough to walk to the city centre, but far enough away to be quiet. It is only a few minutes walk to the woods and Hearsall Common. The downside is that all the houses in the area are practically identical, not ideal if you need something bigger. 

Owen’s Ninth Birthday

This weekend Owen turned nine! It has been a really busy weekend (more on that in my next post), so I am only just getting around to writing this post. Friday, the day of his birthday, was very low key; he opened his presents before school, then went to his usual karate session after school and we got a McDonalds on the way home. We are going to got karting with a few of his friends later in the month when things have calmed down a bit.

Saturday would have been the day for a party, but Owen was already double booked, with a regional karate competition in Walsall and a regional cycle speedway race in Coventry. Fortunately Owen chose speedway. He had an excellent race, the way the numbers worked out, Owen ended up riding with the under 14s, rather than with the under 10s – this means four lap races, rather than the three that Owen is used to. That did not stop Owen from doing some of the best speedway riding I have ever seen him do, not only was he keeping up with competitor three or four years older than him he kept going right until the chequered flag. He came second, out of three, in the “B” final, on paper a worse result than his last race, but considering he was riding up a category it is a great result. I think riding with the bigger kids forced Owen to bring his A-game – if he was still riding with the younger kids he would have easily beaten them, most are only six or seven, but I do not think he would have needed to ride flat out to achieve it. This just shows how far he has come on after only three months of riding cycle speedway. Not only was his riding good, his attitude was great too, usually he would not react well to a set back, like racing old children, but he handled it well.

I also notice that Owen is getting a bit too big for the speedway bike that he is borrowing from the club – it fitted him perfectly at the start of the season and I had been looking to buy him that model of bike, but I will have to restart my search, looking at models with 26″ wheels.

My parents had come up to watch Owen racing, but after the speedway most of Jen’s family came round for birthday cake and a general catch up. As ever with Jen’s family there was a lot of cake, but it was good to see everyone and Owen enjoyed the fuss.

I cannot believe that next year Owen will be in to double digits, it does not seem that long ago that he was a tiny baby!