On the 13th of September 2008 I moved to Lincoln to study computer science at the University of Lincoln. Fresh faced, excited to move out of my parents’ house and looking forward to experiencing phone signal for the first time, the 18 year old me was ready to start a new life.

Fast forward almost 5 years and it’s time to start again.

At the end of May I’m leaving this beautiful city to move to my other home from home, London. I will be joining Pro-G Media, the proprietors of the very popular and highly respected VideoGamer.com as their new senior developer.

I leave Lincoln with many many great friends, four great years of employment at the University of Lincoln, five JISC projects under my belt, and a new found love of coffee. I’ve made some great contacts at many universities around the country, I’ve attended tens of conferences and I’ve presented my “Introduction to HTML5 and CSS3” presentation more times that I’d like to remember. I even managed to fit a degree in too.

To those who’ve given me opportunities here, especially Joss Winn, I’m incredibly grateful, and I’m sure I’ll be back to visit soon enough. I’m going to miss working (read: eating bacon, drinking coffee and dreaming up crazy hacks) with Nick Jackson, Jamie Mahoney, and Harry Newton every day but we’ll all be living on the East Coast mainline so I’m sure we’ll be regularly meeting up.

I intend to remain in contact with the higher education and library developer community and I remain a strong supporter of the data.ac.uk movement and will try and take part in the discussions where I can.

I’m beyond excited about moving to London and tackling many new challenges, from actually moving to London (more on that later), to helping VideoGamer.com expand to a million daily visitors and beyond.

Not only that but I’m looking forward to being able to explore a different Sunday market every week of the year, go to far more music gigs than I’m currently able to, and I’m sure there are many delightful bars and coffee shops that I need to research and visit. Also I’m determined to live in a flat again that has gas hobs on the cooker - my wok can’t wait!

So thank you Lincoln, thank you Lincolnites, and thank you @unilincoln. London, please put the kettle on!

“The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye, the story of love is hello and goodbye…until we meet again” - Jimi Hendrix