At lunchtime today I hurried out of my office and made my way to see Wycombe’s new £5.6m Library. When I walked in the door there were no books to be seen just some lifts and a door leading to a small and poky stair case making me feel that I was in a car park rather than in a state of the art Library. I decided to take the stairs and after a short climb arrived at the Mezzanine floor on which there was a display on woodworking in Wycombe.

The items on display included a Windsor chair, some woodworking tools and a stuffed squirrel in a glass case. The display did not include any modern multimedia learning aids whatsoever and quite honestly I could have put on a better and more educational display from the items in my garden shed. Why didn’t they have a video running showing how a Windsor chair is made? Why wasn’t there a Windsor chair for the visitors to sit on and see how comfortable it is?

I left and went up more stairs to the first floor where the books were. Here I asked directions to the books on Wycombe’s history only to be told they were on the top floor so off I went up more poky stairs and eventually found the local interest section. On the top floor they also have a large number of computers for readers to browse the internet with although you have to pay to use these.

It would appear that the library has been used to fill in an odd piece of land left over in the complex and the design appears to be based on a multi-storey car park complete with lifts and stairs to all levels. In the old library the Children’s books were on the ground floor so prams could easily be pushed in. Now everyone has to queue for a lift or (if the lifts are broken) walk up the stairs. A vast sum of money was spent building the new library yet the land purchased was not big enough to have at least some of the books at ground level.

The library is not open on a Monday which mystifies me as people want to learn all week however the books inside are excellent and I spent most of my lunch break reading through the books on old Wycombe and reminiscing but sadly the failure to have easy and quick access makes the building a terrible let down and not worthy of a town of Wycombe’s status.

It should have been a temple to learning but the readers have to hang around waiting for a lift or face climbing the 87 steps in a poky staircase to get to reference books on the top floor. For £5.6m we should have been given something far better than this. The old Library had its faults but in my opinion it was far superior to the new one.

Have you been to the new library? If so what do you think to it?

According to a news report on this site yesterday the madness on the M40 started a year ago on the 31st May 2007 when three people were killed and 11 injured in a three vehicle pile up. Since then on the same stretch of motorway a total of 75 accidents requiring fire brigade attention have taken place claiming six more lives.

On the rare occasions that I drive the stretch of motorway the driving standards of the other motorists leave a lot to be desired. With cars whizzing by over the speed limit and lorries making mad overtaking manoeuvres its no surprise to me that so many accidents have happened.

So what has been done to make the road safer? Well, it appears nothing. The last time I drove that stretch of motorway there weren’t even any warning boards to indicate that there have been a spate of accidents on the stretch of road. Surely it can’t be a coincidence that so many accidents occurred in such a short stretch of time? There must be some common factor involved.

Has anyone come to any conclusion as to what could be causing the accidents? Is it driver fatigue? Is it speed? Are the vehicles travelling too close together? From what I could read in the news article it appears that “the number of fatalities in the road over the last 12 months did not reflect the safety record of the road as a whole”. So basically the statisticians are drowning out the increase in accidents in the South Bucks section.

Did those people lose their lives in vain? How many more will die before anything is done? Who knows? One thing is for sure, you won’t find me driving on that stretch of motorway if I can help it. It’s just too dangerous.

According to a news article on this site yesterday there are plans to install security cameras in the town’s cemetery to combat vandalism. It says a lot about crime levels in the town when even the cemetery has to have cameras to combat crime.

Personally I think the cost of almost £65k to install just two cameras is a complete waste of time and money as the cemetery is such a large area that it would require a whole network of cameras to keep it covered. There have been CCTV cameras in Wycombe town centre for years but still there is crime so I fail to see what purpose such cameras serve. As soon as the cameras went up in the town centre the yobs started wearing hooded tops to avoid detection.

Many generations of my own family are buried in Wycombe cemetery and I am a regular visitor there. From what I can see vandalism by yobbos is generally not a big problem and on the whole things are pretty peaceful there. The biggest loss of gravestones in the cemetery happened a few years back when the powers that be conducted stability tests on the stones for health and safety reasons. The stones that failed the test were simply laid down or propped up and removed after a short time.

Despite the spread of CCTV throughout our towns crime is still rising so it can be argued that it has little impact on stopping crime. There are now home CCTV systems available so you can wire your house up to see who is prowling around and I predict that in the next few years home CCTV will become as prevalent in residential areas as those infernal security lights that switch on when you walk up to them.

Vandalism may be a small problem in the world of crime but CCTV is not the way forward. We need real policemen on the beat to catch the yobbos in the act and tough sentences handed out by the courts rather than having “You’ve been framed” style videos of the crimes being committed. What do you think?

Nostalgia is a funny thing. It can hit you whenever you least expect it.

I went to the Beech Tree with a friend for lunch today, I haven’t been inside there for a few years; sat in the garden a number of times with different people, but not really been inside. I walked in, and memories hit me.

I went there with a boyfriend when I was 18, in the summer. We started off sitting inside, but the sun lured us outside, where we shared a plate of chips (being poor impoverished students), and having a couple of drinks. I can remember it being really hot, a lovely August day, with me being a complete girl about the wasps, and my boyfriend being very manly and getting rid of them. All of a sudden, it started to rain. It absolutely hacked it down. We took our chips, and sought shelter inside the pub. We must have sat there for 20 minutes, until the thunder started, and then we decided we should make a run for it, as I didn’t live too far away. That five minute run sticks out in my mind as a time when I felt completely carefree, I had taken my shoes off to run, and my feet were touching wet warm tarmac, with the smell of wet pavement hitting my nostrils, a smell I associate very strongly with summer.

My friend and I ordered our food, and, due to today’s charming weather, went and sat in the conservatory area, with my chair facing the play area. Cue another trip down memory lane.

When I was younger, my parents didn’t go to the pub specifically to go to the pub. I can remember the only times that they went to the pub was as a treat for my little sister and I, so we could play on the slides. The place we mostly went was the Beech Tree. The slide there hasn’t changed since I used to play on it, which is just fantastic. It has been repainted, and is still very very safe, but it is wonderful that it hasn’t changed. As I sat there, white wine spritzer in my hand, munching on a burger (gorgeous, by the way, food is recommended at the Beech Tree!), I could so clearly remember my sister and I playing all sorts of games, being princesses in the castle of the slide, and being kidnapped, pushed down the slide, with my parents watching to make sure that no one was injured during the course of the kidnapping.

Once I had finished recounting these recollections to my friend (who, to her credit, didn’t walk out in boredom), I started thinking about how lucky I am. Not only to have these wonderful memories, but to still live in the town where I grew up, where even memories I didn’t realise I possessed could be conjured up just by walking into a pub.

There are places like that all around Wycombe for me, and it is times like today when I am so glad I returned to High Wycombe, because, for me, there really is no place like it.

Over the past few days I have been thinking to myself about Wycombe and all the good things about living here. I would like to share with you four reasons why I think Wycombe is the best town around.

1. Transport. Wycombe is at the centre of an excellent transport network. Thanks to the M40 the cities of London, Oxford and Birmingham are within easy reach. The upgrading of the railway in the early part of the 20th Century provided us with excellent rail access to the rest of the country. Wherever we want to go we can get there in a jiffy and Heathrow airport is just a few minutes away giving us access to the whole world.

2. Services. Thanks to Didcot power station we'll never be short of electricity. Located just a few miles away it's far enough to be out of sight so we get the benfit of the electricity it produces without having to see the cooling towers or experience the pollution. Apart from a few minutes today when did Wycombe last have major power problems? Water is in abundance thanks to the underground aquifers replenished by rainfall on the lovely Chiltern Hills. When did Wycombe last have a water shortage? Not in my lifetime. Due to our height above sea level we will never be flooded and our houses are safe from rivers bursting their banks. With our own fire, police and ambulance stations the emergency services are only a few minutes away if you need help. Everything a town needs to support life is nearby.

3. History. We are so lucky to have so many historic houses and buildings close by. Whether it be West Wycombe Park, Hughenden Manor or the lovely buildings in our High Street you will be hard pressed to find so much history in a single town. Just look at the Parish Church. What finer piece of architecture could you want in the centre of a town? Magnificent!

4. Shops Wycombe has some excellent shopping facilities in the High Street, Chilterns Centre and Desbourgh Road. The department store in Cressex can provide us with luxury goods and anything else we may require and it’s got free parking too! If we do need anything else London is about thirty minutes away by train.

To sump up you could not find a better location for a town and we are very lucky to live somewhere that is so perfect. If only the little niggles of daily life (most of which are created by the dabbling of the powers that be) were sorted out it would be heaven on earth.

Can you think of any other reasons why Wycombe is good?

On Saturday I was very busy. I got up early and spent the whole day in my garden. Early on the air was filled with the sound of bird song and the gentle rustling of the leaves in the trees but as the day progressed human activity drowned out the sounds of nature.

By 2pm the air was filled with the incessant scream of small two-stroke engines. A neighbour nearby had decided to cut his entire lawn using just his petrol strimmer. Has he never heard of a lawnmower? It would not have been so bad but he kept revving the engine up rather than keeping it at an even speed. To complement the strimmer a yobbo was cruising around the area on small motorbike which kicked up and awful din as he did circuits of the neighbourhood.

Then there was the ice cream van. If I hear the teddy bears picnic played by the chimes of the ice cream van once again I am going to scream. It would not be so bad if the van had several different tunes to play but the same monotonous tune over and over again is a bit much. The tune could be heard being belted out as the van approached in the distance and again as it went away to torment another part of Wycombe.

To round the day off as I lay in bed trying to drop off to sleep I was serenaded by several groups of drunken yobbos as they staggered along the road singing and shouting at the top of their voices.

Quite honestly I think there should be a law created to ensure that peace and quiet reigns in the suburbs of the town. There is so much talk about the environmental pollution from cars but very little is heard about noise pollution and the nuisance it causes. Does your part of town suffer from noise pollution or am I just unlucky that my area is blighted by the problem?