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September 22, 2026

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Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read.  This week Val suggested I write about ice cream because when we joined them for The Ged Party in Stratford-upon-Avon, the weekend before last, we found a vendor selling whipped Kelly’s Cornish. Val and Mick have known singer/songwriter Ged Roberts for 35 years, so Donna and I took the opportunity to attend ‘Ged's Party’. Donna caught several trains to join me after school and we came back quickly on Monday in time for meetings. We were last in Stratford, in 2024, when the national finals of the young trader were held.. Everywhere we went that day was rammed: we also went to Clarkson’s Farm and his pub. This time in Stratford, Donna and I went on a river cruise and visited the butterfly farm and Shakespeare’s grave. The whipped Kelly’s Cornish evoked childhood memories of family holidays on the Isle of Wight. My father recalled an ice cream vendor dispensing the same amount of whipped ice cream into every size of c...
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September 15, 2026

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  Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read.  Over the Summer we did a fair bit of filming,  which will be shared with you soon. When civic invitations started rolling in (for Donna as Chair of West Sussex County Council and me as her Consort) I had the idea of Tim’s Travels . We have now filmed eighteen episodes, as well as several episodes of our new project. In the last week we have shared Episode 7, which is the iconic Needles on the Isle of Wight. Unsurprisingly, as it's so scenic, it was well received: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YVcHcdCHz9tfgguSX0iXBKct4AY0WpYH/view?usp=drivesdk The meetings, public and private, are in full swing. On Wednesday, Donna and Val had a long Chichester District Council Planning Committee Meeting which included applications from the City, Loxwood, North Mundham, Westhampnett and Woodmancote. In the evening we all had the scheduled monthly Full Selsey Town Council Meeting which included reviewing Council docume...
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September 8, 2026

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  Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read.  The six weeks of Summer are becoming an increasingly distant memory now schools are back. We hope you enjoyed them, and have some lasting memories. We had some odd nights away, between civic and our other commitments. We began with Kensington in late July and were shocked at how parched Hyde Park was. We also stayed in Nottingham to revisit some of Donna's family roots. The other places we managed will feature in the remaining episodes of Tim’s Travels . If you missed it, this is Episode 6, Staunton: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LMLgDkx9ljPu4gm7j5mf43ANq55e7p-W/view?usp=drivesdk   Unfortunately, as you may have seen from Donna's posts, I contracted an Upper Respiratory Tract Infection which left me dehydrated and caused problems with my low blood pressure during a visit. I am grateful to St Wilfrid's Hospice and to A & E at St Richard's, who dealt with things in an exemplary way.  We'd als...
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August 3rd, 2026

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Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read. I also want to thank a newer reader who kindly pondered, on Next Door, about the cost of thickening sea ice with seaweed after reading last week’s blog. Thanks also to the RNLl for the ever popular and warmly received Selsey Lifeboat Week.  You may have noticed we have not put out a sixth episode of Tim’s Travels this week.  We have an increasing number banked, including some Isle of Wight specials, ready to share in the Autumn. Ali is kindly being a second pair of eyes, and particularly enjoyed two of the forthcoming episodes because they brought back happy memories of places she enjoyed visiting. Like all parish councillors, Ali is a volunteer. We all give our time and other things in kind like our electricity to run computing devices to check and respond to emails, etc. Intriguingly, there may come a time when we are paid to use it: - https://theconversation.com/soon-there-will-be-so-much-electricity-you-mi...
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July 27, 2026

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  Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read. Amazingly we put out our fifth Tim’s Travels this week, which was mainly filmed in Hotham Park, Bognor. Upon seeing it, Ali kindly sent me some photos of a family trip of hers five years ago. My parents met when they were training to be teachers in what is now part of the University of Chichester. The campus overlooks the park so they used to go for walks around it. They took us there regularly when I was growing up, and the train and paddling boats I have very fond memories of are still there today. Apparently lots of grandparents take their grandchildren on the train because like me they went on it when they were growing up too. Hotham is a great resource and retains its trees and vegetation. It reminds us why green spaces are so important and why we need them so much. There has recently been criticism of plans to restore 30% of nature by 2030: - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/13/england-rewil...
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July 20, 2026

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  Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read. We were recently reminded that it is a small world when we filmed the fourth episode of Tim’s Travels at Wakehurst Place near Ardingly because we bumped into some neighbours. As we are doing more digitally, and younger generations embrace technology more readily, I asked Gemini about youth unemployment in the UK; it is 735,000 16 - 25 year olds, or 16.2%. There are also a million NEETs (not in education, employment or training.)  This compares to overall unemployment of 4.9% and the EU average of 14.6%. I find this sad because futures are potentially blighted. If you want to do a country by country comparison, this article should help: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/europe-youth-unemployment/   Last Monday, July 13th, I had Chichester District Council’s Corporate Governance and Audit Committee which included the Internal Audit Conclusion 2025 - 26 and Treasury Management Outturn. We also considere...
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July 13, 2026

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Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read. We have moved the day we put this out to help us further expand our range of content. If you check on a Monday evening, the latest post should be up before the social media promos go out on Tuesday.  Donna as Chair of West Sussex County Council (and I as her Consort) have attended two further events, both civic and charitable. We also went to one that came to me as Leader of the Opposition of Chichester District Council organised by high profile care leader Donna Ockenden .  You may have seen our third Tim’s Travels which was filmed at the second civic event we attended,  in Horsham. It proved to be a walk down Memory Lane for me as I went to secondary school there. Since then we have attended the service of thanks in Chichester Cathedral for the District Foodbank, and the House Drama Final at Bishop Luffa School. Understandably I found this to be a bit of a busman’s holiday but at both events we were a...
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