A View of Strood

I am expecting to move home to Rochester within the next few months, saying goodbye to "Chateau John" after more than twelve years. It will be a sad time in some ways, but if I manage to secure the flat I am after, off Shorts Way near Borstal Village in Rochester, I shall have an elevated view over the River Medway looking toward Strood.

I am expecting to face new challenges and to experience fresh adventures in the new location; but whatever transpires I shall be nearer to the heart of Medway than I could ever be out here on the fringes — something of which I have been very much aware for quite some time. It is appropriate, now that I can leave this ward in the capable hands of the current councillors, to move away from what I have to acknowledge has become something of a comfortable existence here.

It is my earnest hope that I shall find that I am useful in the Rochester and Strood areas, once I have settled in, and fully intend to become involved with local matters in my new home area, as much or as little as the residents there would wish (an approach I took after moving here back in 1997).

This business of offering oneself is so important. I never impose, only offer; and it is with the knowledge that other folk have careers and family, and might not feel able to devote much if any time and effort to community matters. That is where those of us without such commitments can be of benefit, provided we come to this with the right attitude. My gut feeling is that there will be at least one unsuspected challenge for me up ahead — just as helping to save Rochester Airport from closure was something no-one could have predicted back in 1997.

It has been a very fulfilling time for me, here on (and working from) the Davis Estate these past years. If all goes to plan, as I in future look out over the river toward Medway Valley Leisure Park and other parts of southern Strood, as well as that part of Rochester, and perhaps wander over the footbridge toward Cuxton and Strood South, it will be with expectancy that there will be further work that my peculiar talents — such as they are — can be applied to with benefit.

Roll on those times!