Welcome to the Centre M.K.

Well what do I know about living around Milton Keynes?

I do know that if you can afford to put fuel in the car and eventually get there, after sitting in the traffic for god knows how long and negotiating the roundabouts that send you totally in the wrong direction just to swing you back on course at the very last minute. Just in time to get you to a stand still at a set of traffic lights only to witness the cars around you swelling and vibrating with the god awful crappy rap gangster music that the youth of M.K. have decided to adopt, (for some reason a lot of people think that they are gangsters even if they are on there way home to their mum to get their tea and a cup of coco).

Looking out of the window so as not to get eye contact with these car drivers incase you get stabbed or thrown from a bridge, only to see amidst the sea of pollution the “red ways”. This is the network of paths that every day people walk to work, or take the dogs out for a stroll or to get knocked over by a cyclist (I've even seen motorcycles ripping along them at high speed). Often to be seen is a lone female with head down and fear in her face trying to get somewhere, no doubt wondering if the mugger or rapist that was reported a couple of days earlier is hiding around the next bush, or is it the bloke following her with the dog? or maybe even the person she has arranged to meet from some seedy Internet chat site?

So the traffic is on the move again, the kids are on the lookout for the famous concrete cows which now reside out of most peoples view in the shopping centre (well, last I looked anyway), thank god. I mean, what's the point? Concrete cow? What is wrong with a real cow? Anyway you get to your long awaited destination. The shopping centre.

I've driven around those parking areas for a good hour before now and turned round and come straight back home again, but if you do manage to find somewhere to place your pride and joy more often than not it'll be in the most expensive bit and will be parked so close to the car in the next bay (not forgetting the row and the argument with the bloke in the car coming the other way over who saw the space first) that you can almost guarantee that when you return (assuming that you find your car again in the sea of shiny metal) that you'll have a dent or at least a chunk of paint missing from one if not two sides of your beloved and well cleaned motor (yeah maybe not cleaned).

The outward journey is always a relief. Well, you've probably just spent a good four or five hours struggling with the crowds in the “Centre M.K.” and watched as your other half spends all you hard earned cash on clothes that don't even get worn, and lugging oversized bags advertising the fact that you are a muppet for spending so much money that you can't even go for that well earned pint tonight that you promised yourself before you left.

Welcome to the “Centre M.K”.

Gibbo.