With the end of summer rapidly approaching the last few days have seen me busy in my garden reaping the fruits (and vegetables) of my labours. With sunset now before eight o'clock there is only an hour or so of daylight left after I arrive home from work. Where did the summer go? It seems only the other day it was the beginning of May and I was looking forward to relaxing in a deck chair with a glass of lemonade on warm summer evenings.

This year saw an expansion of my vegetable growing activities and I'm beginning to regret it. With nearly one hundred and fifty potato roots to dig up I have found it a struggle but the sight of fresh potatoes emerging from the ground more than compansates for the back breaking work digging the crop up. At the time of writing this blog my living room floor is covered with potatoes drying out ready for storage and what a sight it is.

The harsh economic times are making quite a few of my friends think of growing their own food but what happens if you don't have a garden? Well, after doing some research I was surprised to learn there are still quite a few allotment sites in the Wycombe area managed by the Council where anyone can apply for their own plot.

In my neighbourhood there are so many houses with neglected and overgrown gardens which to me seems so sad. Every year the Council organise a competition for the tenants in Council owned properties to see who has the best kept garden but sadly there isn't a similar competition for private home owners. Perhaps there should be a competition for private home owners with a cash prize for the winners as an incentive for more people to take interest in their gardens?

As for me, well, an entire apple tree is waiting to be picked and some more lettuce seeds need sowing as there's still time to get another crop before the winter sets in. The credit crunch may soon start to bite me but at the moment the only crunch I am experiencing is when I bite into one of the wonderful apples grown on my own tree. What more could anyone want?

With the credit crunch beginning to bite prices are rising and lots of people I know are beginning to get worried. It isn't just the price of petrol that has risen as the prices of other goods are rising too. I was in a town centre supermarket the other day buying some cooked meat when the person standing next to me picked up a packet of sliced ham and turned to me and said “Do you know this has gone up 10p since last week”.

Luckily most people are law abiding citizens who will go without if they can't afford something but sadly there are those who resort to stealing in times of hardship. As far as I'm concerned all cases of theft are despicable but house burglary is the worst of all as returning home to find your house ransacked is not a very pleasant experience indeed I have witnessed the aftermath of several house burglaries.

Today’s criminals are very clever and use a multitude of ways to discover if a house is empty before burgling it. There was a news article on this site the other day warning of door to door salesmen who knock on the door of house to see if anyone is at home. These days you never really know who is calling at your door. If you answer the criminals can over power you but if you don't answer they may think the house is empty and try to break in. The worst thing that can happen is coming face to face with the burglars while they are burgling your home which can turn in to a very dangerous situation.

I have an ingenious way of dealing with the surprise knock on the door. I make sure that both my front and back doors are locked then I nip upstairs and open an upstairs window to see who is there. This way there is no danger of being overpowered and I have the upper hand as the callers are caught off guard by my appearance from above!

One of my neighbours was burgled a while back and what amazed me was the amount of damage caused inside the house. My neighbour had locked all the internal doors so the burglars used a jemmy to force the locked doors open causing damage to the doors, door frames and locks. The culprits were never caught so they got away with the crime which I think is awful.

The sentences handed out by the courts are obviously not strong enough otherwise they would serve as a deterrent. Perhaps it’s time the punishments for burglary and other crimes were raised? What do you think?

Over the past few weeks I have been looking forward to this Bank Holiday. Usually I am the sort of person who prefers to stay at home but for once I was determined to go out and enjoy myself. A picnic seemed like a good idea and the thought of lazing in a deck chair at a local beauty spot on a sunny Bank Holiday Monday did seem like an awfully nice idea.

I had not decided on the location for the picnic as that was to be a surprise. I would make the decision literally as I walked out of the door of my house. Sunday evening was spent packing a few sandwiches and a bottle of pop into my trusty picnic hamper in preparation of my impromptu outdoor eating fest.

On Monday morning I woke at 11am and looked out of my bedroom window at the grey and sunless day outside. The trees in the neighbourhood were blowing around in the stiff breeze. Determined not to be put off by a little cloud I got dressed and opened my door where the milk and papers were already waiting for me. There was also a flyer was sticking through my letterbox advertising a local shop and its special Bank Holiday offers. Life was going on as if it was a normal day and the other residents seemed to be oblivious to the Bank Holiday.

If the milkman, paper delivery people and shops are working as normal then what makes this day special from all the other days? When you think about things it’s only a handful of people such as the office workers, dustmen and bank workers who actually have time off on the Bank Holiday. Is this fair? Surely it should be a day of holiday for all?

Now I felt guilty at going off on a jaunt into the country with my picnic hamper after all what right do I have to enjoy myself if all the other workers can’t have the same privilege? Looking at the grey, overcast sky also helped me to come to the decision to cancel my picnic. As for the sandwiches, well, I set my deckchair up in my living room in front of the window and enjoyed my picnic at home. Having a picnic in my living room may be a little eccentric but my conscience is clear and at least I was warm and dry.

Once again a Bank Holiday weekend comes upon us. Sadly it’s the last holiday weekend until Christmas and it’s also the last day of the Olympics. I have been busy recently and didn’t see much of the sporting action but the few moments that I did glimpse really impressed me especially seeing our athletes winning so many medals.

To mark the handover of the Olympics to the UK there will be a series of flag raising ceremonies throughout the UK indeed there will be one such ceremony outside the Council offices in Queen Victoria Road. I’m not against having a celebration but is it really such a big deal that hundreds of flags are required to be raised throughout the UK?

It seems such a shame that Wycombe could not play a part in the 2012 games. The Handy Cross sports centre was supposed to be replaced with a shiny new sports complex to open 2011 but on the 11th June 2008 it was announced on the news section of this site that the plans have been delayed and the new centre won’t open until perhaps 2015.

If only the new sports centre had been built before 2012 perhaps we could have offered our sports facilities to the athletes coming for the London games. In 2012 Wycombe’s sports centre will be a building site so the townspeople will be unable to have a go at the sports they will be seeing talking place on the television.

I wonder if the hype given to the London games will inspire anyone to take up a sport and become a world class athlete. Who knows? The other day I was feeling a little sporty myself and decided to go for a run at lunchtime. I covered a mile in just over 20 minutes. If I ever decide to attempt the feat again I will take a chair with me so I can have a rest half way through. Do you think I’m in with a chance for 2012?

With the drive to cut our carbon footprint came the campaigns to persuade people to get out of their cars and start walking and cycling. Unlike a car there is no requirement to take a riding test, have insurance or be a minimum age to ride a bicycle on the road.

Riding a bicycle is quite a dangerous activity on Wycombe’s busy roads but what amazes me is the fact that some cyclists think they own the road. Only the other day I was sitting at the traffic lights at the junction of Desborough Road and Bridge Street when a cyclist shot up the inside of the queue of cars and jumped the red light.

The most dangerous cyclists are those people who are cycling for exercise. For some reason they seem to think they are still in the gym and go pedalling along with headphones on listening to music. How on earth can they hear approaching traffic with headphones on?

On two occasions this week I have seen pedestrians wearing headphones step out in the road in front of cars. If they had not been wearing the headphones they would have heard the cars coming. Luckily neither of the pedestrians was injured but having a car screeching to a halt close by gave them a fright.

Walking in the High Street at lunchtime today I counted no fewer than ten children on bicycles dodging in and out of the pedestrians. One child who must have been about nine or ten did not even have a saddle on his bicycle.

The poor car drivers are targeted for using mobile phones whilst driving but what about the pedestrians and cyclists wearing headphones? They are just as likely to cause an accident but there is no law against them. If a bicycle goes through a speed camera unlike a car there is no way he can be traced.

Do you think cyclists are a danger on the road?

Yesterday evening I had a few moments to spare and ended up browsing the Thames Valley Police web site which lists the incidents for which the police are appealing for help from the public. It amazed me how many incidents have take place in Wycombe.

So far this month eleven items have been posted on the police web site appealing for witnesses, giving crime warnings or updating the public on investigations concerning Wycombe. The crimes range from attacks in the street to attempted murders and rapes.

So where did these incidents take place? In Castlefield or Mickelfield? No. To my amazement a significant proportion of them took place in the town centre including a serious assault in Bird Cage Walk and a rape in Frogmoor. Recently I spoke to one of my friends and was shocked to discover that even he had been badly beaten by muggers late one evening in the town centre.

The other day I took a walk up Desborough Road and once again encountered the drunks staggering along asking passers by for money. There were also some very intimidating yobbos hanging around harassing people as they passed by. Even I felt threatened and put my hand in my pocket to hold on to my wallet and crossed over the road to avoid them.

It appears that you are safer walking the streets of Castlefield than in the town centre. People avoid Castlefield because the perceived threats of crime but the same people walk without concern in the town centre where there is a real threat of crime. Is crime out of control in Wycombe? Do you feel safe walking about in the town centre?