Welcome to my little cyber-inglenook - pull up a chair, the kettle is on.

Where do I start? My working life currently revolves around writing websites in the GIS world, but when I escape from the office I'm a full time crusader for my family, my various loves and the communities around me, both tangible and ephemeral.

But not for much longer. A new year brings a new job (more of which to come), a return to my roots, and a new style to the website. Appropriately enough, Pantone have declared turquoise to be Colour of 2010. "It is believed to be a protective talisman, a colour of deep compassion and healing, and a colour of faith and truth, inspired by water and sky." Well, that's good enough for me. The diary has got badly neglected but will catch up...

I currently represent Eaton Socon on St Neots Town Council. In 2007 I got the title of Transport Champion - not an official position and with no extra power, just a particular interest in a set of issues which affect the town. I take it upon myself to keep as informed as possible, and to be on the front line persuading, cajoling, networking, protesting, whatever gets the town a good deal. Obviously my colleagues spotted something in me - the inability to say no, probably - and 2009 brought, for better or worse, the title of Leader of the Council. And out of all those jobs sprang the Diary, which I hope will show that having persistence, diplomacy and a bit of chutzpah are every bit as important as holding the taxpayer's cheque book.

After a bit of a lull and a few false starts, a visit to the Tate Modern proved to be the inspiration to let the creative spirit start going again. Something in me just wants to put pen to paper. Now I've got a proper home of my own and this site will start growing again, although it still feels like I'm moving in and unpacking the boxes. Literally, in that some of my older pages just need a bit of brushing off. My favourite themes will soon no doubt become clear. Perhaps, though, they're best summed up by this from xkcd, one of my favourite web comics...

The new name is a big improvement because I'm not nearly as much of a ratbag (past readers will understand...) as I was!

The author on summer holidays 2006

So why not a conventional blog? Well, there were several reasons I avoided all the sites that make blogging easy:

• I quite like doing HTML from scratch, and it keeps me mentally fit!
• I prefer to organise things by subject rather than by date, particularly if I want to revisit things after a while,
• I have complete editorial control. That means I know my ramblings will never have tacky adverts or spyware attached, and will never suddenly become the property of some tycoon on the other side of the world.

It's also a resource for myself; somewhere I can put thoughts, links, pictures into some sort of order rather than just having them fill up my PC at home. There's nothing here that I don't mind sharing with the world, so why not?