More A606 Closures in Rutland

There are more road closures on A606 this month, this time between Hambleton junction as you leave Oakham and Barnsdale Hill as approach Stamford. This closure is to allow for essential resurfacing work to take place which will take 3 weeks to complete according to Rutland County Council.
 

The road will be closed from 10th November until 28th November 2014 and will not reopen at weekends. A diversion will be in place, which will see local traffic routed via the C8324 Barnsdale Avenue and B668 for the duration of the closure (as shown in the map above). 

Due to weight restrictions on some of the smaller roads in the county, heavy goods vehicles will be diverted via the C8326 Manton to Edith Weston road and A6003 (as shown in the map above).

The closure also will effect buses using the road and people using the number 9 service between Oakham, Stamford and Peterborough should expect some delay in there journey, although at the time of writing it is not clear to the extent of this delay from the information provided by the council. Note there could be a knock on affect to the number 19 service between Oakham and Nottingham because of the why the two service work together.  

This is the second major closure of the A606 this month. Currently the road is closed just north of Langham for similar road works and will remain closed until this coming weekend. 

Christmas comes early at Tescos

It amazes me how every year that Tescos in Oakham starts Christmas before they have even put the fireworks away. This year the run up started today and the Christmas tree appeared at the entrance to the store and hanging signs in the store itself.

Guess it was a good bet they would start the Christmas festivities soon, after all they started selling tins of Christmas chocolates and Terry's chocolate oranges back in early October. Every year they seem to sneak in the Christmas stuff earlier and earlier hope people will be tempted to buy.

Next the shops will be playing wall to wall Christmas music and the poor sales staff will have to endure the looped tapes over and over again, until soon they are so fed up with Christmas they can't wait for it to be over, and some customers will feel the same way soon.

Personally I just wish they would let us get at least through fireworks night before they start on Christmas. In fact mid November would be a better time, with just about 5 weeks to go before the main event. To me, the more the shops extend the run up to Christmas the more they spoil the time of year. 

Lucy turns 7

It has been a long long time since I saw my little princess, Lucy. Far far too long to be without her charming smile, beautiful blue eyes and her massive big hugs. I love her and always will. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her.

Today is her birthday and she turned seven this year. Every time I get to Halloween I remember the  events that lead up to her birth and that moment I pushed my little girl into the sunlight streaming though the hospital window. It is a time I will never forget. I miss her terribly and just hope that one day I will be able to see her again. 

If you ever read this Lucy, just let me say I hope you had a wonderful day and remember that Daddy loves and always will. I will never forget the time we had together and the smiles and the fun. God bless you little princess.

Subway to open in Oakham

It been announced that Oakham is just about to get it's own Subway franchise to add to all the coffee shops, sandwich shops and restaurants we already have in the High Street. Soon the only place you will be able to buy anything but a lunchtime solution will be the charity shops in the town. Question is how long before they start selling tea, coffee and cake like help the aged in Melton.

Rutland is currently one of the few places in the country that you won't find a McDonald's or a KFC, but after the announcement of a Subway franchise one wonders how long before they both open a restaurant in Oakham. My guess is by the end of 2016 we will have both in the town. 

The sad thing is franchises take money out of the local economy while locally run sandwich and coffee shops do more to support it, and it be those local shops that suffer. In terms of jobs the coffee and sandwich produce on only low paid and unskilled work, normally undertaken by young workers.

One has to wonder how many coffee shops and sandwich shops the local economy can support in Rutland before we see a new type of death in the High Street. These type of operations require a high throughput of customers to make a profit, and if you can't get the footfall then these businesses will close.

Halloween

Halloween goes back to the time when the Celts parts of the UK and parts of Northern France. Back then November 1 was their New Year's Day. They believed that the night before the New Year, 31st October, was a time when the living and the dead came together.

The Celtic new year was eventually taken over by the Christian church and they named it All Saints Day or All Hallows. This was a special holy day to honour the saints and other people who died for their religion. The night before All Hallows was called Hallows Eve. Later the name was changed to Halloween.

Many people of that time also believed that the spirits of the dead would visit the earth on Halloween and that the evil spirits would cause problems or hurt them. So it became a tradition that on the night Halloween people would dress up with costumes that looked like ghosts or other evil creatures. They thought if they dressed like that, the spirits would think they were also dead and not harm them.

Originally the people in Europe would carry lanterns made from turnips, however the influence of America reaches far and now in the United Kingdom we use pumpkins. These we carve and by putting candles inside them we create lanterns. The other idea that has come over from America is trick and treating, turning something that was once serious into something that is fun.