I decided if I was going to start asking the question, asking it of myself first was only fair. So here are two days.
4th May, 2016
A typical weekday workday; a session on the turbo trainer, and then on to a site visit at Haxby Road school via coffee with a friend at Your Bike Shed. The school meeting is to deal with Listed Building issues as part of changes we’re making to the school – the tricky side of making changes to history. The journey is by bike – I pull up alongside a fellow Environment Forum member at traffic lights in town. It’s the first really warm day of 2016 and we celebrate with a cheery discussion at the front of the traffic queue. From the school it’s onwards via picking up a Good Food Shop stuffed pitta (and narrowly avoiding messy consequences) to the chiropodists in town. Coming out I get a call from the site manager on a job in Fulford – could I call in? A ride down the riverside in the sunshine means it’s no major chore, and I meet an old friend – now retired – who’s just got back to York after a Brompton ride from Howden (“the wind’s a southerly, so I got the train there”), and he tells me he had dinner in the house I’m heading to, sometime back in the eighties. “Bloke drank a lot of port”. Carry on to the site and agree on foundation details which needed checking, and get a call from the chiropodists – they’d overcharged me accidentally, so could I call back in? Another sunny riverside pedal, and then back to my office – the basement under my home. A couple of hours dealing with emails and phone calls, and a short walk (up the steps in the back yard) to dinner and news of my partner’s day, watching the trains rattle past out of the back window. Another couple of hours preparing stuff for the following day, and then the sofa.
4th May 2026
A typical weekday work-ish day; out from the house across the back yard to the office – I know I said I’d cut back when I got older and greyer but there’s so much happening it seems a missed opportunity to step back. Sort out all the online work information exchange, and then sling the tablet in a rucksack and head for the tram stop. It’s early, and there’s a deer peering out above the crops in the fields. I never thought I’d move out of the town centre but when the chance came up to build on a custom build plot out at Whinthorpe, among like-minded oddballs – well, we signed up. Caroline’s packed up the shop, so sorting this place out is a good long-term project. There’s always someone I know at the tram stop – a chance to chat, gossip. The tram cruises up, we board and head into town – they feel so much more solid and permanent than a bus, I love ‘em. Most of the morning’s in meetings at the York Central design office – whoever finally came up with the idea of establishing a local collective to carry the detail design forward over the lengthy development process was a genius – there’s a real atmosphere of wanting to get it right. A long way off finished of course – another ten years? Maybe, but at least there’s A Plan. Lunch is a short walk into town – every year the weather’s weirder so short walks are good – but today it stays fine and shuffling meetings to tables outside cafes works well – WiFi everywhere so work happens everywhere. At the end of the afternoon it’s still sunny and calm and I regret taking the tram, so take a bike from the hire rank in Parliament Street and after a quick wander round the newly-pedestrian-priority Bishy Road head down the riverside, over the Millennium bridge and out of town along the cycle path. Lots of others out too – cars are so expensive to use that it only takes a whisper of sun for them to get forgotten. Food, and online to catch up with my daughter in London – thanks to technology I get to talk more – phoning was always just that bit too much effort, or maybe now she’s in her thirties she’s just got more time for the elderly!
My present, and My Future York. What’s yours?
Phil Bixby