Sometimes a little change must be embraced

I hired a van and moved all my worldly goods last weekend, leaving myself with just the cats and the boy to take down in the car once I finish work.

The van was lovely to drive but still not something I was used to, so I decided not to do things like fiddling with the radio to find local stations as I drove down south.

I picked a preset button and plumped for Radio 2.

Radio 2 is a great station if you want to listen to a wide variety of easy-on-the-ear music.

It doesn’t play only chart hits on a loop like Radio 1 does or music strictly for the older person a la Radio 3, and it’s not as serious and talking-based as Radio 4.

But this is on weekdays.

Weekends are a different matter. On Saturday and Sunday it goes a bit peculiar and I tend to avoid it.

I ended up listening to Liza Tarbuck’s show.

It was one of the oddest radio programmes I’ve heard – and I grew up listening to Radio Cornwall.

People were being encouraged to email in with stories of ‘strange things that have happened to you’.

They obediently did just that.

One woman had been walking along when a squirrel dropped a bag of boil-in-the-bag rice on her head.

Another had looked out of her bedroom window to see a large goldfish in the middle of the trampoline in her garden. Still alive.

It was weird, but strangely fascinating, radio.

The following day, having left all my things in Cornwall, I drove the empty van back up to Salisbury.

I stuck with Radio 2, and this time caught Richard Madeley’s unique interview technique in action, followed by Elaine Paige with songs from musicals.

I found myself bombing along the A30 yodelling along with Julie Andrews to High on a Hill with a Lonely Goatherd.

The trip went remarkably quickly, and I found myself laughing out loud at some points.

I resolved not to write off something a bit different without giving it a good try in future, and to embrace things that might turn out to be refreshing however dubious I might be to start with.

Moving and starting a new job is a big wrench and a little nerve-wracking, as change always is.

I’ll miss my friends and colleagues, and I’ll miss Salisbury and all the lovely people working for a local newspaper brings you into contact with.

But life moves on, and while looking forward to the future I’ll always have my fond memories of Salisbury and the Journal.

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