Christmas Cakes!

Yep, we've not even got to Halloween yet, and I've already got 5 minutes of "christmas 2010 videos" saved on my camera. For today you see, (and yesterday I spose) we prepared...

The Christmas Cake! Dun Dun Dunnn. Yep, apparently you have to let the fruit soak overnight in brandy to give it some flavour, and then you have to let the cake soak in er, cake, for about 8 weeks, to, well, give it some more flavour.
Fair enough. After a while of preparing it and shoving it in the oven, I had to cycle down to the next town to post a couple of parcels for ebay, which was nice and pleasant.
It would have been more pleasant if I hadn't have run into a pothole and gone over more or less on my face, but hey the only thing I hurt was my price and even the bike bent back into shape pretty easily so it was only a minor blip on an otherwise good day.

So yeah, I've started thinking what pressies to buy for people, my mum has started watching christmas movies, and my nephew has started circling stuff he wants in his very own copy of the Argos catalogue. Finances are becoming a bit of a stretch at the minute, as the money that goes out, goes out BEFORE other money comes in, so even though there's a fair bit of money going in both directions, I find myself fairly skint from time to time. Not to worry though, I will sort myself out through the magic of eBay :-).

Finally though, it seems my nephew's parents HAVE bought him a costume and some other stuff, so I'm looking forward to taking the lil guy around trick-or-treating on Sunday night, at which time I should have recovered from my buying-a-new-camera celebration hangover. I can give him the sweets and stuff I've got for him too, then :-).

Well, more to come on sunday I spose.

UPDATE 20:27 (sounds like a computer game or something): Well, after hearing a few fireworks in the past few days, I've just looked out of the window to see the first fireworks I've seen this year (not counting the early hours of January the first, obviously). Nothing major, sort of exploding roman candle thingies.

This reminds me to look forward to a miniature fireworks party type thing that my sister is having around Bonfire Night. I like this time of year, all festive and celebration-y :-).

Coffee, Cameras and Cresso...

20:21, the previous night:

Well, my nephew certainly likes his dens. Yep, after a short time of pleading, he's convinced me to build him another den in his bedroom. I've always been good at building them, and this one is no exception. Not too big, but it has a "light strip" where the bedroom light shines through the "ceiling" so he can play on his GBA, which seems to be serving as a surrogate DS at the moment. He can even sit on his little piano seat to play, which is cool as it leaves me more floor space to stretch my legs.
Actually scratch that, I've just tried it and nearly knocked the thing down on the top of us.

Present Day: Dun Dun Dunn...

I've never had writer's block before. Or whatever this thing is that seems quite similar to writer's block.
I'm sat here staring at the screen trying to figure out what to commit to paper, so to speak, and the words simply will not enter my mind. Maybe I'm distracted, I dunno. I've been sat here staring into space for 15 minutes.

And if it is writer's block, it's not actually true that I've never had it before (see Ink and Incability, september 2009), so maybe it's just a seasonal thing, I dunno.
Still at least it's given me an opening.

So, what's going on? Well, I'm still waiting for my coffee cup to come.
Yes, I bought a coffee cup. Quite a shiny and cool coffee cup. Me being the camera fanatic that I am, I saw this rather fetching replica of a Nikon lens, that serves as a coffee cup. They're supposed to be quite sparkly, turning the zoom ring extends the coffee cup just like a real lens, and the level of details is supposed to be very good. So despite the £15 price I decided I had to go and have one, so I've got one on the way. Unfortunately since it's coming from Hong Kong, I've "had one on the way" for the past 20 days, and it still hasn't turned up. Irritating since something else from HK that I ordered at the same time arrived 2 days later. Oh well, can't win em all.

Now, I've been looking at getting a second camera body, for a couple of reasons. There are various practical reasons, but the most important of which is that I'm a sucker for a good deal, particularly when it's something I wanted before someone offered me the deal.

The market, or the "high street" as it's affectionately referred to by hmm, let's call them "morons", selling the items would probably sell them seperately. So you have an undisclosed camera body retailing for £579.99-£729.99 (such an insane difference in price depending on where you go! We'll go with the cheaper prices). So yeah. £579.99. The lens that it comes with? Hmm let's go with the shop selling it for £209.99. Then it comes with a battery grip at £104.50 and 2 batteries at £20 a piece. Then it comes with a clever wrist strap thing at £45, and a lens filter at £35. Yikes, all you wanted was a camera and before you know it you've spent £1014.48. [Edit, 1st November: £1229.92 in total if your luck is sucky enough that you end up going to the most expensive places...]

Fortunately for me, my good old mate Nick wants to er, dedicate himself to his D2h, and in an effort to raise some cash, is letting me have the whole lot for £500! Not a small amount of money to spend, but a pretty damn good deal all the same! The awesome thing (and the understanding) is that, I dno't need the 18-105 that comes with the D90 - I've already got one :). So Instead of paying £450 for the camera and battery grip, I'm paying £50 extra for the lens, so I can sell it for £150-200 and reduce the kick in the wallet from the camera. Clever stuff :-).

Not much happening other than that I suppose, though with halloween coming up, my ickle nephew is lamenting the fact that he won't be going out trick or treating. Apparently nobody can be bothered to get him a costume :(.

Oh well, I'm sure we'll have tpo sort something out, at least sweets-wise. I'll be more open to the question once he's stopped acting up.

Concerns and Cutbacks

How do, folksies...

Well, I've been putting it off for over a week, I suppose I had best get it over with.

On the advice of the training staff at the training regiment, I have left army training. I am therefore no longer a training, or paid, member of HM Armed Forces.

What happened?
Well, it seems that my little episode on the top of the hill (the one where I collapsed and threw up everywhere - remember that one?) dented my confidence a little bit. Instead of looking forward to PT sessions, I warily looked across at them on the horizon in the same way that a kid would view a dentist's appointment with apprehension.

Unfortunately, that's not a healthy attitude to have in training for the Army, which as you can imagine has a habit of being physically demanding. The more PT we had, the more stressed I got.
At one point, I went down to the med centre complaining of stomach cramps, vomiting, chills etc etc, wanting to know what I had caught or whatever. All the tests came back normal, leaving one conclusion: Stress.

I'm not sure what to think of it now, I felt crappy, I hadn't eaten for a couple of days, token attempts at eating had resulted in me being unable to keep down whatever I had eaten (I'm trying to be subtle, believe me), I had stomach cramp, and I was basically too busy feeling ill to really concentrate on what I needed to do.

After my collapse on the run, the training staff had noticed me becoming more withdrawn and nervous leading up to, and during PT sessions. Of course I put 100% effort in, because I didn't want to let either myself down or my teammates down, but they could see that I really didn't want to be in phys, and was stressing about it. This coupled with the fact that I had been sent to Physiotherapy for a shin problem (where it was found I also have a knee problem (it never rains, it pours! (Hey it's that nested sentences thing again!))) raised questions about my ability to complete training without injuring myself (accidentally, that is).

So after a couple of informal conversations along the lines of "How are you liking it?" "I'm not, sir, I wish I was", the training staff decided the best thing for me - mentally as well as physically, I guess, would be to send me home.
I didn't know this - the first I knew about any decision having actually being made is when the sergeant casually slips into conversation "You're de-kitting tomorrow", which kinda threw me: One minute the powers that be knew I wasn't 100% happy but was still getting through it all, the next minute they'd decided that home was the place for me, for now.

But, a couple of days later, I'd said goodbye to all the friends (and all the annoying sods) I'd come to know over the past 7 weeks, and had been moved into a holding platoon on the edge of the camp where no one had to look at us, us dirty civvies-to-be preparing for a return to civilian life and whatnot.
Still, a very sedentary 6 days later, and I was stood on the platform at the train station with all my stuff, ready to come home. Three hours later, I walked through the front door of my house for the first time in 7 and a half weeks. The Army's gates had closed behind me.

But not permanently...

You see, it seems that even though I wasn't really enjoying the training, and was struggling to cope a bit at times, it was decided that (and noted in my official report that) this was due to stress, brought on by an aversion to physical training, itself brought on by me keeling over on that big sodding hill.
"Go home, work on your Phys, if you can smash your phys, you're sorted" advised one of the corporals. So they've left the door open for me, I've been discharged as unfit for army service, with a recommendation to return in two years. Granted, in 2 years I'll be 27, but two of us there were 25, one was 27, one was 30 and one was 32. So I woudn't be pushing the age limits, if I did return. "Don't stress about the 'unfit'" said another corporal. "You're not a bad recruit, it only means you're physically unfit NOW. Go home, sort your phys out, come back, and you'll be way ahead of everyone else cos you've already done half of it".

So here I am, sat at home, at my computer. The rest of the lads are finishing up their range week. I'm glad to be back home, it's good to be back.

Importantly though, looking back on my time at the ATR, I look back on it as a good experience. There were crap times and tempers got frayed at some points during the nearly-2-months I was there, but all in all, it was a very good experience, and I'm proud to have done it.

Will I go back? I don't know. That depends what happens in the next two years. I've only been back 10 days, I want to get my head together before I decide what happens next.
What I don't want to do is settle into my old routine. Time to start looking for opportunities to do things differently maybe. Some 3D work in the near future has already come up, let's see how that pans out.

Now I've got a nice awesome Cresso with my mate Nick to look forward to. I hear he may have an offer for me. Let's see how that works out too :-).

Ciao.

Like home, and yet not...

"And that", said the corporal, "is how you move under fire, carrying a weapon".

He looks around expectantly. "Any questions?"

Silence.

Without warning, the corporal tears off towards a nearby hill.

"THEN LETS GOOOOOOOO!"

We all chase after him, and as we approach the bottom of the hill, gunfire rings out from the woods skirting its edge. A smoke grenade is already sat by the side of the track, disgorging its contents, and as the soldiers in front dive onto their belt buckles and start crawling, the smoke obscures them from view. Another burst of full auto, and the remainder of the lads drop onto their stomachs and start crawling up the path, through the smoke. All that I can hear from the other side, is coughing from the lads crawling through the smoke, small-arms fire, the lads grunting with the effort of dragging themselves and their kit up the hill, and the ever present corporals shouting encouragement.

After an excruciating and exhausting crawl right up to the top of the hill, through the smoke, we start monkey running - that is, moving quickly on your knees and fists - faster than a leopard crawl, but you present a bigger target. Finally we reach the top of a large slope, which we have to roll down. So I do. With my kit smashing into my back, my arms tense trying to both protect my weapon from hitting the ground, and protect my face from the muzzle or sights, I roll down and down the hill. Over rocks, through brambles, and losing my sense of direction, I end up off the track that the first lads had flattened down. Still, I reach the bottom.

I stand up a little unsteadily, dripping with sweat, feeling a little weak and fairly dizzy. I'm flanked by a paid of corporals, both keeping a firm grip on each of my shoulders to stop me falling down.

"Well done, good effort! Now I want to hear you, all the way back to the rest of the squad".

I look and see them in the distance.

Knowing what to do, I summon up my remaining energy and sprint across the scrubby field, while screaming the angriest most triumphant and loudest war cry I've ever screamed. I reach the other lads, and more-or-less collapse in a pile, struggling to get my breathing back, to take my weapon off, and to take on some water.

One of the other lads is sat up, his back and head supported by two of his mates, with one of the training staff helping loosen his jacket. Seems the heat and effort got someone else today - three someones in fact - and it wasn't me.

PART ONE: THE EXERCISE

Yep folks, as you may have guessed, this week we've been on a field ex. Nothing special, just a lot of learning how to soldier in the field, instead of learning how to soldier in the classroom. Living outside, training outside, generally getting grazed, cut, knocked, bruised, battered, rained on, cold, wet and muddy. And shouted at quite a lot.

In addition to the lesson above, we learned a fair variety of other things. One of the more, um, interesting I suppose, was bayonet fighting.

Now if you don't know, a bayonet is that big metal stabby thing that fits on the end of a rifle, so when you run out of ammo, you can still stab someone with the front end and it will hurt quite a bit. It's about ten inches long, made of steel, pointy at one end, and is generally only nice when it's being used as a logo. Bayonets aren't generally designed for anything other than going out and making someone's day really miserable. But hey.

Of course, to look someone in the eyes and stab him with a big pointy bit of metal requires, hmm, a certain bit of aggression. So before the lesson, we were duly motivated. "Grenade Training". March along as normal, and all of the sudden one of the staff would shout "grenade". Jump on the ground, and crawl in the direction you were heading. He'd shout that it was safe, and we'd get back up and carry on jogging.

We did this for maybe 800 meters, from one training area to the other, diving maybe 30 times in total. At the end, we were pretty pissed off, having crawled/jogged up another bloody big hill and down the other side.

We get onto the bayonet range. The staff are supposed to wind you up during this lesson just to make you more aggressive, so we're not surprised when our beloved corporals suddenly turn into a bunch of shouty nasty bastards.

BUGGER:

To be continued, fire alarm has gone off back at the block and I need to go there for a roll call! Laters!

FIVE MINUTES LATER: Right. The entirity of one of the new sections of lads that has moved into our block was busy ironing. Nothing wrong with this, except they were doing it with the windows closed. Ten irons all producing steam and no ventilation makes for a sauna like environment, and smoke alarms generally don't like sauna like environments. Still, at least all my kit is safe.

"You've got 20 seconds to get some water down you". 21 seconds pass. "Too slow! Fecking follow me!" So we chase the corporals round the side of the practice range, up a hill, across the top and down the other side. Same old drill - whistle blow, we leap onto the floor and crawl. Whistle blows again, we jump up and carry on running. Through the course of the lesson, we do this 10 or so times, and the whistle blows decrease in time apart, so no sooner were we down, than we had to get up again.

After a couple of hours, we get taken to the testing area. Speakers in the trees playing dramatic war music and the sound of gunfire (yes really!) to make the place a little more atmospheric.

We pair off, one is the trainee, one is the aggressor, whos job it is to motivate the trainee, loudly and emphatically.

My first run round is the aggressor. I wasn't sure what was expected of me, but I settle into it pretty fast, and as my mate runs round stabbing the targets, I'm there screaming in his ear: "MOVE! FCUKING MOVE! FCUKING MOVE! STAB THE FCUKING BASTARD! KILL THE FCUKING BASTARD! HE'S TRYING TO KILL YOU!!"

My turn as the trainee comes, and the corporal motions us forward and tells us to take a knee (kneel down).

"Right" he says calmly. Then he grabs me and yanks me towards him, and starts screaming in my face: "YOU ARE IN AFGHANISTAN, OUT THERE ARE A LOAD OF BASTARDS THAT ARE TRYING TO FCUKING KILL YOU!DON'T LET THEM! YOU KILL THEM FIRST!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND" "YES CORPORAL!!"I scream."DO YOU FCUKING UNDERSTAND!?" "YES CORPORAL" I scream even loader. "Show me your war face!" After three hours of being screamed at, I'm in a pretty warry mood myself. With my nose almost touching his, I angrily scream at the corporal's face. "Right, good! Get going!!"

So I run round the 2 minute circuit with my mate screaming in my ear, bayonetting everything resembling a target. Following me is a guy with a video camera, who has been hanging round for a while, apparently filming the whole thing for a DVD the army is making. Cool stuff.

Finally we're all done and we get 20 minutes to sit down, drink water, and recover. A short night-ex later and we're back in the block, where we've been since, cleaning stuff and generally settling back down.

PART TWO: THE NEW LADS

Now apparently, one of the platoons was disbanded and has had its lads distributed throughout the other platoons. We've got one new section of lads. Unfortunately, we've also got their section commander. While I don't know a lot about this corporal,. he is famed for giving out AGAIs (military charges, kinda like speeding tickets without the fine, that usually end up in you getting a bollocking or extra work duty or both) at the drop of a hat. I suspect that the low morale problem that caused the other platoon to lose so many recruits that it was disbanded may now be affecting our platoon, as they say, the contagion has been transmitted to a new host.

Still, we've not had much contact with this corporal yet, hopefully that won't change. Regardless, there is now a definite atmosphere of tension in the platoon, and a lot of people are getting their feathers ruffled. With each passing week more and more potential soldiers are getting disaffected and leaving training. I wonder if I will yet be one of them. Time will tell.

Various goings on. Week 1 to 4.

PART ONE: STUFF

Okay, almost to week 4.

And yes, this is a very abridged version. I'm in the NAAFI (armed forces recreational center) and I have other stuff to get done back in my room.

After a traditional and rather upsetting tearful goodbye at the train station, the train journey was uneventful enough and after a couple of short hours, I found myself at ATR Bassingbourn, meeting the first of a load of new friends.

Over the course of the week I grew to know these people vaguely well, and as you can imagine, as time went on, these relationships improved. Eight new friends. Cool.

Towards the end of us initially getting settled into our accomodation, in walks a young lad, looking a bit lost, and nervous. He's bunked up opposite me so since we're practically going to be bunkmates, may as well get to know each other.

Name of Paul, 18 years old, from Perth in Scotland, a lively sense of humour and a bit of a temper. Still, we were getting on at this point so that didn't seem much of an issue for me.

Week one was filled with little more than getting to know the camp, our instructors, each other, and having death by powerpoint inflicted on us by various people, for many hours.

At the end though, we were taken off for a little camping trip in the woods, army style. Having constructed our shelters and got to know each other a little better, we were gratified when the heavens opened and the Cambridgeshire Ocean tried to come back down to earth. Time to put our shelters to the test. Paul and I, as we shared one end of the room, were bashad (living in a basha - a type of tent) up together, and had become pretty good friends at this point.
Did our bashas keep us dry, warm, and keep the water out? Well, yes they did actually. Unfortunately, the pair in the basha next to us had staked one of their pegs under the edge of ours, and as a result, all the water running off our poncho - the sheet making up the roof of the basha - ran into their basha.
Still, shouldn't have pitched up that close to us. The idiots.

Week two was where the paperwork drifted off, and we started getting into the swing of things. Loads of incredibly interminable rifle lessons, and after two weeks, the "restaurant" breakfasts, (for me) a sausage, a hash brown, scrambled eggs, baked beans, and a bowl of bran flakes - EVERY BREAKFAST - started becoming incredibly boring. The dinner and tea menus have enough variety, but breakfasts were something to be tolerated, not enjoyed.

My relationship with my friends had improved and we were all getting on well as a team at this point. Kind of important given the work concerned.

PART TWO: "HAVING A BIT OF A WOBBLE"

Week three brought with it a strenuous run over very hilly terrain, over grassy fields and through woods, no less hilly, and thick with roots.
I ran myself ragged, partly not to let my mates down, and partly because I had some of the Army's finest yelling at me in both ears.
I fell down, I got up. I carried on running.

I don't remember much after that, apparently I fell down again, and did not get up.
Rather amusingly, as one instructor was arranging care/first aid for me, the other who seemed not to be needed, was apparently throwing grass at my recumbent form, repeating "man up".
I don't find that unprofessional or wrong, the way it was explained to me makes it simply sound funny.

I remember being brought back slumped over the seat in a land rover, while mates including one of the corporals (who is one of the coolest guys I've ever met, incidentally) tried to keep me awake, checking whether I knew what my name was (I got it right, eventually), and before long, I got carried bodily through the air by three of my mates, onto an examination table in the med center.

Hmm. Loony blood pressure (92-50), very high temperature, sweating profusely, and hyperventilating. Not a very pleasant way to do things.
Eventually and after a perceivably long time, I started "recovering", but just to be on the safe side, I was carted off in an ambulance to the local civilian hospital about 15 miles away.

A stay overnight in the hospital between the worst snorer in the world, and a dear old gentleman who "seem to have lost my products" on a regular basis. A few checks in the morning, and after a BK meal thoughtfully provided by the orderly officer, back to camp into the med center where I was to stay for two nights.
Compared to the lifestyle I had become accustomed to, the med center routine was so sedate as to be almost like my home routine. Late to rise, early to bed, and very little to do except play with my ipod and watch tv. And get better, apparently.

On the second day I was allowed to visit my mates back in our room, where I was very upset to learn that Paul, what passed for my best friend here, had finally had enough, thrown a wobbly, and had reached a mutual agreement with the army that he was going home, to be a soldier no longer. This really threw me, and my mood darkened considerably over the night. I'd been having doubts of my own and I approached a couple of the staff for guidance as to whether I should stay or leave. Their job, they reminded me in a kind but definite manner, was to advise, not to make the decision. Hmm, better luck next time.

Eventually I was discharged from the med center, with a reminder to return the following monday. The provisional prognosis is heat exhaustion coupled with/arising from dehydration. Characterised by low blood pressure, Tachycardia, hyperventilation/profuse sweating and collapse.

What fun. Still, at least I didn't have to run the whole thing, nor did I have to show myself "correctly dressed" at 8 that night, after being told my boots were not shiny enough (yes really).

PART THREE: GO KARTING

Today, however, has been absolutely awesome. A nice sedentary day, we marched to the drill square (during which I (having been declared sick) was told to "Keep five metres behind the men, or they will become infected by your weakness" - which made everyone including myself giggle. I didn't take this personally, exactly the same has been said to other sickies on other occasions, and is meant as much as a joke as an instruction) to get onto the coach.

Fifteen minutes later and we arrive at the Go Kart track.
Now I've never been into go karting, for some reason it has never really appealed to me. But having not only not had to pay to go, but also actually being paid to go (technically on duty 24/7 you see), was what swung it for me.

My first go in a go cart? Yes. Wearing the traditional overalls and helmet, I swung myself down into the low slung vehicle.

The ride started like a bumper car, slow and sedate, but as the motor picked up speed, so did the kart, until I was touching 30mph. Now 30, with your arse 6 inches off the floor, is thrillingly fast, and I'd not got halfway round the indoor circuit (which in addition to a nice long straight, featured both a chicane and a few demanding hairpins) before I was grinning like a kid on his favourite fairground ride. I wasn't alone in this, everyone went together, officers, sergeants, corporals and recruits alike. Later, I began throwing the cart around a little bit, slamming the steering from side to side, shifting my weight around in the seat (taking a sharp corner at 25, your body [weight] is surprisingly difficult to keep centered in the seat) gritting my teeth, stamping on the brakes and accelerator, the ride became a full body workout. I perfected most of the racing lines, managed to crash twice (one time, a guy also clipped my right-rear and spun me into the barrier) got overtaken a few times and (woo!) managed to keep a train of 4 or 5 karts firmly behind me for the whole time I was out there.

Lots of video was shot, lots of people were shouted at (2 sections comprised of 10 lads each disqualified in their entirity due to bad behaviour (dangerous driving etc)), including the captain (who got a 1 minute pit penalty for speeding in the pit lane (I think), a leiutenant who got a firm talking to (for some unidentified reason) and a corporal who got disqualified for crashing into one of the other drivers. The awesome thing was because we all had helmets on it was difficult to identify our troop members. One of the people I kept behind me might have been one of the corporals, my sergeant or even the captain himself. Going back into the real world was the great equaliser, and it was nice to be "human" again.

We left in joint 7th place, out of 9 which wasn't good, but this wasn't really the point as we'd all had an absolutely amazingly awesome time. Having spoken to some of my section members, we have agreed that after week 7 (the point at which we are permitted to leave camp unescorted), it might be an idea for a few of us to get a taxi down there on the weekend and spend a few hours razzing round the track.

So yeah. Weird week, it started very badly, and ended on an absolutely amazing high.

We've been given the best part of the weekend off too, which is a rare, and very cool occurance. Which I'm now off to enjoy.

So all the best folks, sorry I haven't been around much, marching to march, boots to polish, etc.

See ya for now!

Farewell! For now!

Yikes, I spent ages and ages working towards this day, now it's arrived it's not entirely as I'd expected.

Yes, folks, I'm finally off to basic training. I'm partly nervous, and quite excited. I'm looking forward to meeting new challenges, and making new friends. Going new places, and having new experiences.

Unfortunately and as I have found out to my cost, my sentimental side which has never failed to make its presence felt, means that I am much closer to my family than I had thought. Rather than the start of something new, moving away feels more like the end of the world. Today's been quite an emotional day.

But, as I've always said, life has a habit of finding equilibrium, and things will just return to a new state of "normal". I'll get used to it. Besides, I'm back up in seven weeks, and I should be able to see my parents in less than that. And I'm told I should almost certainly be here for christmas, possibly for the annual trip to Gainsborough too, and with my new-found wages, that's definitely something to look forward to, onwards and upwards as they say.

But still, I can't help feeling like today is something bad instead of something good.
Time will tell I guess, I'll remain hopeful. I've already promised everyone that I will be in cnotact as much as possible, and that includes this blog. I'll update as and when, but it won't have skipped my mind either way.

See you soon, I hope :-).

Whitby...

With my time living with my family on a permenant basis rapidly coming to a close, my mum and I have been taking advantageo f the excuse to spend quality time together. My dad for his part never really spends much time with anyone, but does seem to be being more civil with me with one or two exceptions.

So I woke up a couple of days ago, after only a short period of sleep, and off my mum and I go. She won't tell me where we're going initially, so it's a bit of a mystery. For old time's sake, we go past my old workplace, before going up past the crappy falling-down flat where I used to live.
It's still crappy and falling down, just so you know :-).

Eventually we pull into a Little Chef for some breakfast, where we have a lovely Full English breakfast (which I surprised my mum with, by eating it in its entirity - except the mushroom), which was really tasty.

Off we go and my mum reveals we're off to Whitby. Now I hadn't had much sleep so its at this point that I start feeling tired, so as we go further across Yorkshire, I try to resist the urge to fall asleep, with varying amounts of success. The weather's a little grim, changing from cloudy to raining and back again several times.

We disappear over hills, up and down various steep gradients over the North York moors, through the village where they film Heartbeat. As expected, the place was crawling with tourists and Heartbeat fans from countries all over the world, including dozens of Japanese tourists, who allegedly take photos of everything, including the roads, the sheep (many of which seem to be suicidal as they like to play chicken - aha ha aha etc with the cars) and even each other. Eventually though, my mum says she can sea the see (?) and before long, we're in Whitby.
Looking for a place to park. Which takes aaages.

Eventually we find somewhere to park and I have a look around.
The weather is grey but not cold, the place seems pretty busy, so off we go.

Now Whitby isn't a flat place. There's a lot of hills and cliffs, and we come to the top of some of the cliffs overlooking the city.

Now, a phobia is defined as an "irrational fear". I'm not certain that an instinctive terror of heights counts as irrational fear, or an inbuilt survival mechanism that stood the evolutionary test of time. Either way, I look beyond the waist high safety barrier, to three or four foot beyond where the scrub and plants end abruptly to see their leaves hanging out into empty air, masking what, from the top, looks like a terrifying sheer drop. I didn't want to touch the safety barrier - I didn't even want to go near it, so I just sort of hang around and watch a young Herring Gull squawking at me intently.

Eventually, we walk down what seems to be a huge flight of steps, going from the top of the cliffs to the bottom. The stairs are nice and wide, and not too steep, and there's a sturdy guardrail at the edge. But I still find it an uncomfortable task to have to walk down these very high stairs, looking - as walking down stairs requires you to - down to the bottom, which is a fair old distance away.

Eventually though we get to the bottom, where I look up and see that the cliff, while high, is neither as high as it looked from the top, or as sheer or vertical as I had expected. As I said to my mum at the time, from the top I didn't want to go to the edge. From the bottom, I felt I could happily climb it with equipment.

We wander round the town for a while, looking at various things, eating seafood (not me) and visiting various shops. We stop in the middle of the town for a drink (I had an "nicely layered" ice coffee with hazelnut syrup, which I immediately de-layered and drank happily) before moving on and continuing our tour.

We come to one of the two (four if you're picky, two if you're very picky (two are sea walls not piers)) piers, and as we walk along the sea wall, though the ground is level, the drop from where we were walking to the ground /water either side of the sea wall once again becomes quite disconcerting. Eventually though, we come to the pier itself, which is where I must admit, I had tremendous fun. In a sarcastic type way.

Well, here's a pic, which will save me a big long explanation. As you can see, that's a fair old drop. Yes, there's a sturdy wooden deck above the concrete, but what you can't see is that the deck was made of wooden beams, that had gaps between them of anything up to a couple of inches. The effect was that of walking above a large drop, on a semi-transparent uneven floor. To a dude like me who is averse to heights, it was pretty disconcerting. Eventually though, I make it to the end, passing others who have equally nervous expressions, whos efforts to avoid looking down are noticable. After ceremonially touching the railing at the farthest tip of the pier (to say "THERE I have reached the end!) I take a few photos while I'm at the end (conveniently forgetting to take any of the pier itself) to prove that I got there, and slowly, we head back.

I return to the end of the pier, and at the end see some steps leading downwards to the lower "deck". They're sheer and very steep, and not particularly inviting, but hey I bet I could get a few decent photos, so I very (!) carefully and slowly edge my way down the 19 scariest steps I've ever walked down. And lo and behold, I take a few photos, before almost equally slowly climbing up and returning to the more solid concrete walkway of the sea wall itself.

The weather's turned nice at this point, so we wander round having a great time, looking round more shops etc. The day was pretty much a nice day of enjoying the sun, taking photos, and generally enjoying each other's company, which is really what I think family is about. Weird words from me I suppose given how much I keep myself to myself, but hey.
I take plenty of photos many of which I'm pleased with.

Eventually, we head off back to the car, and on the way there I buy an obscenely priced ice cream (£1.90 for a normal ice cream cone!), and pop into a local shop to buy some stuff for my ickle nephew.
We leave with a toy Jellyfish (which he's taken home with him), a laser sword (which he broke into two bits a couple of days later) and three huge awesome glass gems which he seems to like, and which go well with his treasure chest.

We drive off, having had a very good day, down the coast to Bridlington. Bridlington is a place where I've been going since I was little and I still love to go there. Normally we make a big day of going, and we used to count down the days to our regular trips there as kids, so the somewhat off-the-cuff "Oh we'll go to Bridlington for our tea" takes me somewhat by surprise, but that surprise was very welcome.

Dusk has fallen and the lights are beginning to come on, and the place is pretty quiet. Still, doesn't stop me having the best battered-sausage and chips I've ever had (which is weird because various reviews of the restaurant indicate that other people found the food really bad) with batter that is both crispy, chewy, and full of flavour and the same time.

As the sky darkens and the streets go quiet, the lighthouse in the distance comes on, its light noiselessly flashing across the bay, making the place seem even quieter than before. I've always found the seaside a lonely place to be at dusk, not sure why.

Eventually though, enough is enough, and we head home as I try and play scrabble on my ipod. The weather worsens and the rain starts coming down. Eventually though we get to the Humber Bridge, (and its little toll booths with a light that to my delight, goes "Ding!" just like something out of a cartoon, as it changes from red to green) and cross it, before disappearing down other porly lit motorways, making our way back home.

After a long long drive, eventually and finally at long last, we arrive home, and despite our tiredness, manage to spend a good hour or two talking about how much we enjoyed the day.

And so there we are, an absolutely fantastic and very very enjoyable day out with my mum. One that I'l have fond memories of :).

Anyway, here are some shiny pickatures, including the "best" graffiti I've ever seen :-). Ciao.

Oaths, Towels and Barbecues...

...Well, the 27th finally rolled round, and getting my shiny shoes and nice suit on, I went to the AFCO to swear my oath. Thanks to heavy traffic, I managed to get there about 5 minutes late, but no one seemed to notice.
Again, from the waiting room I was led "backstage" through various corridors and down little microstairs deep into what must have been the opposite side of the building. There, we had a couple of sergeants takling to us, answering any questions we might have, sorting out paperwork and whatnot...

Eventually the parents come in, followed by the Major, the senior recruiting officer for the area.
He talks for a while, explaining how proud we (8 of us were there that day) should be, how well we've done, and how we should take the opportunity that we've been given to get an awesome carreer etc etc, and gave us a short video presentation.

Afterwards, we were instructed to stand, and as one, swore the oath, making us all ceremonially at least (not legally - that happens when you sign the contract on the first day of training), the latest additions to the Army. A proud moment for me and my mum, who had gone along to witness the moment :-). The Major congratulated us, and emphasised that we should keep in touch with our families during training. Something I took to heart as despite my advancing years (ok, well, 25 - lots of the lads there will be 18 and 19, so yeah, advancing years), I'm a bugger for getting homesick.

I was given a certificate to commemorate the occasion, which I put in my clever black file thing that has my rail tickets in it (this will mean something to me in 10 years time maybe).

Afterwards, with something of a spring in my step (I don't know whether my mum had a spring in my step, but I did have a spring in my step) we wandered around for a while, shopping for various items that I'll need, not the least of which was a rather shiny (and oddly shaped) steam iron, as well as loads of shoe polish, brushes, clothes brush etc etc. We also had a nice. meal in one of the local citybargastroresturantypubthingie whatever the heck they're called these days (A nice pub serving nice food by day, a rowdy nightclub at night), where I had something or other. Err, Baconburger with curly fries and Jack Daniels sauce, as well as some sponge thing with chocolate sauce on it, as well as ice cream. We wandered around a bit more, buying other items, I saw one thing that I thought was really cool - a microfibre bath towel - lightweight, thin, but very warm and absorbent. Why do I care? Because it folds up into a tiny pouch and dries super quick, meaning it would be very practical for training. Unfortunately it was very expensive, so we left without one, and after a leisurely walk around, eventually set off home. Not before my mum bought me some writing paper and envelopes, though.

A few days later, ostensibly to make sure it was working and "burnt-in" properly, I set about ironing a T-shirt which went quite well. I learned that even new irons, even new irons with "anti-drip", can drip bloody hot water on your feet if you're not careful.
I also learned that using copious amounts of steam while ironing is no substitute for washing the garment in the first place, as it was a crumpled and smelly t shirt when I started, and a perfectly flat and smelly t shirt when I finished.
Oh well, can't win 'em all.

WORK

Rather oddly, it absolutely threw it down during the start of my last weekend at work, and I got thoroughly soaked. Not to worry though, as it was a nice enough shift and the tips weren't bad. Especially since one very lovely customer tipped me £4.50! The soon-to-be-outgoing manager at the time, was nice enough to grant me a large pizza, which I took the opportunity to pile high with toppings, turning it into an artery-clogging monster of a pizza (Quadruple cheese, triple pork, beef and ham, and pepperoni and red onion, topped with sage and onion stuffing and more cheese, all on top of a special 1/1 mix of salsa and spicy pizza sauce).

I turned up, a day later, to what was to be my final shift, and it proceeded well enough. Tips weren't too bad, not helped by me losing £2 in the till (robbing sods always try to cheat you out of your tips (They don't but they rarely pay attention to what goes in)), and off I went on my last delivery ever. Assuming I take 15 deliveries a shift, that works out at... Hmm. 2,280 deliveries since december 2008.
I took the opportunity, after completing the delivery, to go back to work the long way, looking at the clouds, the trees etc, riding my teeny and annoying but ultimately faithful and reliable scooter, back to the shops for the last time. And that's it, that's all she wrote. I don't work there any more.

BARBECUE/BARBACUE/WHATEVERCUE

The day after, we all went along to my sister's house for a cool barbacue, a nice opportunity for a family occasion, to see me off. There was plenty of yummy food (not including the quiche I took which was crappy), Sausage rolls, dangerously cooked burgers, traditional frozen-in-the-middle-but-burned-on-the-outside sausages.
Another interesting contraption was a "Home Draught" thingie, a giant 10 pint (nearly 6 litre) bottle, with a CO2 cartridge and a little lever/tap thing, the pair of which turning it from a giant bottle of beer, to a cute little "pour-your-own-draught-beer-straight-from-the-bottle" affair. Not sure how this differs from the traditional "pour-your-own-beer-straight-from-the-can" arrangement that I'm used to, but it seems a significant enough change to do so. I liked its novelty value, but unfortunately, the first jolt sent the CO2 out of suspension, and turned the tap into a high pressure beer-foam blasting device, suitable for creating a drink consisting of an inch of flat beer, and 5 inches of foam no top.

All said and done though, the barbacue was great. The weather was nice, the dog was playful, the food was great, the company was nice etc etc. It was a nice family occasion :-).

TOWEL

For some reason, my mum and dad went out during today, and returned to announce that they had a gift for me. Expecting something like a customised pencil or an embossed ruler (I'm a natural pessimist), I was very happy and surprised to be presented with one large-size microfibre towel. And the little thing is amazing. It's thin, light, it feels insubstantial but the spiel on the box promises me it won't be. The remainder of the day I've spent building a lego UFO for/with my nephew (vaguely time consuming), playing Walking Legs with my him (enjoyable), as well as trying to teach him to fly helicopters on X-plane (futile). So later I'm probably going to grab some supper and maybe have a bath so I can test out my new towel. Either way, I'm busybusybusy. Lots of stuff to do.

Here are some pics, got to go or else I'll get nothing done! Have fun folks :-).
EDIT: I'd upload more pics, but my computer is telling me that (amazingly!) it's out of memory. It's got 3Gb, how can it possibly be out of memory? Oh well.

EDIT EDIT: Public Clarification. My dearest big brother would like me to point out that he was responsible for bringing us back home the other day after my dad threw a wobbly. I didn't actually say how we got back, but now you know :-).

The truth about Cats and Frogs...

So I've had a pretty cool day. Starting off with a lovely meal in the local pub with my rents, my sis and my ickle nephew, watching the F1 (Alonso won - apparently!), before going to see how my Grandad was doing. We stayed and chatted for a while before taking a tour of his now thriving herb/flower garden.
The tree he's always had growing there, is still growing. The flower beds are full, and the greenhouse is full of tomatoes. Bees buzzed about the place, and the lavender and rosemary were noticable by their fragrance.

Later on, I went off to work, nothing special whatsoever. The shift came, the shift went.

On the way home, I saw in the distance, a cat. A very attractive animal of indeterminate gender, completely white, except (I swear the world does this to mess with my) its tail, which was marked in bright bands of tan, brown and black.
I approached and the cat stared at me, before scooting off a few meters, miaowing reluctantly at me. As I beckoned the cat back to me (I like animals) I noticed that its attention was directed instead at a frog, almost at my feet without me realising it. Incredulously, I watched as the cat walked back to the frog, sniffed at it, and even pawed at it in that "what are you?" type way.
The frog remained stoic throughout and didn't move a millimeter. I bent down, as the cat darted off, to see that the frog was actually a real frog, and sure enough, yep, a real frog.

I then spent five or ten minutes trying to entice the cat away from the (dark green and black) frog who was evidently thinking "if I stay very still - (on the light grey tarmac - stupid amphibian) - the cat won't notice me", and the cat was having none of it. Eventually, I whipped a sheet of cardboard out of my bag and started literally bumping this frog in the butt with the cardboard to try to encourage it to hop away from this rather put out cat.

A guy walked past, walking his dogs. By way of explanation I offered something along the lines of "To my left is a cat, to my right is a frog, I want to stop the frog becoming catfood".

Or as they sing, "Kittehs to the left of me, froggehs to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with no fcuking help whatsoever actually". Eventually the dude turned back and came back this way, even as the cat tried to paw the silly amphibian again. As he approached, I managed to piss the frog off enough to make it jump up the 10 inch wall in front of it into the garden in front, onto a load of spikey flowers, where the cat followed it beyond my reach.

The bloke came over, and his dogs started growling at the cat, which instantly arched its back. I explained my valiant frog-saving efforts to the guy, before explaining "it's not my garden".
"Do what you have to, if the owners complain, I'll back you up". Heh, sounds so noble doesn't it.

Anyway, as the dogs growled at the cat and as the cat hissed at the dogs, I butted the frog on its butt till it gor thoroughly bored and hopped into some bushes in the middle of the garden, well out of the cat's reach.

Woo, go me!

Okay, so as my sister said "It's a frog!" Which apparently makes it not worth the effort, in her eyes anyway. But then we've got two goldfish who apparently don't qualify as "life" in her eyes either. So I'll take her morals with a bucket of salt, if it's all the same :-).

Frankly, I didn't want to see a living animal get turned into confetti, and in the event, the jumpy lil guy didn't. The cat left, pissed off, but not half as pissed off as the frog would have been in the cat's jaws. For all their fluffiness, they're evil little bastards, cats.

So hey, that's today's good deed. Summary: I saved a frog from a cat. Heh.

I spose you had to be there. Still, someone out there considers it effort well spent, even if he does have webbed fingers, green skin and big goggly eyes.

:-).

Shopping Trip!

With myself!

Yes, after a bit of waiting (or perhaps own waiting) I finally got some paperwork from the Army confirming their acceptance of me, and my start date and suchlike.
I was called in yesterday to go through some paperwork with them, so after an incredibly bad night's sleep (friday: 9am-3pm, then 11pm until 2:30am on saturday - and then completely unable to sleep before eventually getting out of bed at 8:30am) along I went, signed a couple of things (that's basically all it was), and had the rest of the afternoon to myself, with a big packing list of things to take.

See, in addition to all the shouting and running around and climbing up trees etc etc, There is actually a lot of classroom work involved in training. With this in mind, I wrote down some of my packing list, and went round a tour of the local shops to get various items on it.

First stop? Breakfast, actually. Turning up in Mcdonalds nearly half an hour after they stopped breakfast, I asked nicely if they had any McMuffins (my favourite) left, and they did.
So I sat downstairs for a while eating my breakfast and reading through various paperwork and whatnot, and eventually set off out round town. After a fashion. You see, (and I didn't know this), 3 or 4 times a year, apparently, Sheffield has a continental market (which continent exactly? There were chinese noodles, polish cuisine, flowers from holland, coffee from italy, curries from india etc etc), and as a result, the entire pedestrianised shopping area was full from one side to the other, with market stalls sellinf a huge variety of fantastic and interesting and (in some cases) very nice smelling goods. Everything from African handmade art items, wood carvings etc etc, to Chinese noodles, Italian Gelato, North Korean paranoia, and German beer.
And one of those cool things we saw in london, a huge barbecue pan thing suspended over a fire. All this under the huge circular span of the Wheel of Sheffield, which as usual was rotating in its circular type way.

For some reason, maybe it was the lack of sleep, the strange and wonderful smells from the market, the fact I had money to spend, or the lovely weather, I was in a really good mood, and for some reason, this mood persisted throughout the day. I actually found myself smiling a lot, laughing at jokes I'd normally consider crappy, and seeing a couple of toy stalls, smiling at the idea of my lovable ickle nephew playing with some of them. I was in a mood to be very nice to people, a state of genuinely wishing the world well, and to be honest, whatever the reason for it, it was wonderful :-). I dunno maybe I breathed someone's drugs in accidentally or something.

Remembering the toy stall, I resolved to buy something for the ickle guy in my travels.

So I wandered round here there and everywhere, buying "masculine hygeine" products (extortionately priced razors/blades, shower gel, etc etc) and stationary stationery (the stationery didn't move about) like marker pens, nice gel pens and other cool stuff, for all the classroom lessons.

I wandered to one of the hardware stores and bought some padlocks. For some reason, all three padlocks (they were a 3 pack) take the same key, and each padlock came with two keys.
So I have three identical padlocks with six identical keys. Bizarre!
Now maybe because of the lack sleep or whatever, I found myself blissfully drifting round most of the day, walking right past stuff I wanted to buy, several times, while trying to find it.

I also came out with the comedic concern that if those six keys fitted my padlocks, I didn't want to buy them because maybe everyone else who bought those three-packs "from any other Wickes in the country" would be able to open mine with their keys.

Fortunately I realised my incredible stupidity before I left empty handed (the hardware store was a bugger to find), blinked, turned on my heel and with a sweet smile, marched back to the counter, padlocks in hand.

Eventually, after buying some hungry hippos for my nephew (who didn't get one because he was an absolute little sod!!!) yesterday, I returned home, and resisted the urge to sleep until about 10pm when I fell asleep during a documentary on sniper rifles.

Today, I woke up, having slept well, and went out with my parents to enjoy some time in the sun at the chip shop.
Unfortunately my dad got a strop on at "being excluded" from conversations between my mum and myself (twice he's butted in and twice he's politely but firmly been told to mind his own business) and drove home, leaving my mum and I at the chip shop.

Not to worry though because the weather was lovely, and the chips were amazingly good.
Deciding we were going to walk home, my mum send me to the shop opposite to buy some bottled water, and I laughed inwardly when I saw what greeted me.

Just inside the shop, the owner had a shelf, neatly filled up with various kinds of cider, White Lightning, White Dragon, White Cobra, White Viper, White Reticulated-bloody-python, Diamond Ice, Diamond Jack, Diamond White, more diamonds than a bloody jewellers. Oh, and Frosty Jack's.
Below this he had two shelves of Lambrini. All straight at the front of the shop, opposite the door.

Now for people outside the UK (the citizens of which would immediately find this amusing) who are wondering what is funny, all the brands above, some of which may or may not exist, are firmly thought of as, Hmm. Budget drinks. That is, Cheap drinks. Inexpensive but strong drinks, usually entirely made with synthetic ingredients (In the same way that a fast-food fizzy orange isn't made from oranges, I doubt any of those ciders have ever seen an apple) that can (and usually are) be bought by underage teens with their pocket money, thus allowing even impoverished teenagers to get drunk and go round smashing windows with hammers and whatnot, and generally keep the police busy.

It's nice to see just how keenly this shopkeeper follows the needs of the local community.
Well it made me smile anyway.

Here are some pickatures. Only one of them is visible at the moment, the others I forgot to upload, but here they are anyway. I wanted to get some of my puppy, at special request, but I'm afraid I have one of my last shifts at work in 40 minutes and must go!

Bye for now :-).

PART TWO: PUB MEAL

Sunday 25th:
Had a nice sleep, and went off to the pub to have a nice pub meal with the family.
Was quite nice for us to get together and a nice day was had by all.
Popped in to see grandad afterwards, and then had a bit of a cycle ride round the park.

Also took some more photos for Lexi :-). Our puppeh continues to be a cute and awesome and affectionate little girl :-).

Yikes, the rain! (or, "A Dog and a DS")

Well summer didn't last long!
Isn't a year weird unit of time. Short enough that you can remember back over several (or tens of, depending on your ancientness) of them, but long enough that you can forget things. Things like, oh, whether it's sunny or whether it pours it down, in a particular type of year,

Yep apparently, July - the height of British summer, despite the fact that we've had 30+C days a few times already this year, is traditionally rainy. It rained yesterday, it rained this morning, in fact, it's rained all day. But since it's July, it's sort of a cool rain, not a nasty cold one. It's the yearly equivalent of a summer break, that is, a break from summer itself, with two or three weeks of wet weather.

Anyway, all that rubbish aside, yesterday, my sister turns up carrying an unknown puppy around. She's had experience in the past rehoming animals and this one was just the latest of her temporary wards. In she comes with the puppy, and it's an adorable lil creature, black and white, with a little nose, floppy ears and HUUUGE pleading eyes. Kinda like this.

Off I go to the shops with my nephew, to fetch some milk. When we get back, my mum says she has a surprise for me. When I ask what it is, she gestures to "our new dog". Yikes, didn't take long for my sister to find a new owner, but us? We've not had a dog for ages.
Still, my dad is retired and in another 10 years or so my mum will be the same, so I guess little-dog (as my nephew named her) will be good at keeping them company.

Also yesterday, my brother's wife/sister in law/whichever she prefers, gives my nephew her DS, which I thought was extraordinarily nice of her. My nephew had been DSless since some point in the indeterminate past where he left his own DS outside, on his garden trampoline, overnight as it rained heavily. Yeah, real good thinking, little fella. I'm amazed it didn't get nicked before it got wet, as the residents of my sister's old neighbourhood seemed to (in general) be a very light-fingered bunch. Still. He's delighted because now he can play on "his" DS with the games everyone's bought him, and better yet, he can play his favourite game boy advance games too. Though sadly, not his old game boy ones. Still, he's looking forward to playing "the indiana jones" game (Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon) on a backlit screen for once.

Not only do we have an awesome new doggy (who loves nothing more than chewing people's hands/feet, and weeing on the carpet), not only does the lil dude have a DS again, but, we've actually found his camera too!!

Okay, none of you guys knew anything about this - last time we went to twin lakes, he took his camera with him. It came back too, in fact I was even sure I'd seen it in the house afterwards, but it was nowhere to be seen, and we've turned his room upside down. However we found it earlier today, in his car, so now he has "his DS back" AND his camera back.
And we have a new doggy!

Finally, my nephew has already started going on about things he wants to put on his... ...list. That list, the list, you know? Where you ask for presents and stuff!!!
Yikes, it wasn't until October last year that he actually started thinking about what he wanted to put on his list.

We tidied his room together too earlier, and by that I mean I tidied it and he took toys I'd just put away out to play with them, while I put them back again.
Now, I have an odd habit when tidying, which I inherited off my mum. Don't ask her why or where it started but it's always been "the done way" in our family - or as my sister cruelly observes "just you and mum" - to listen to music traditionally listened to at the time of year where certain lists become quite important, while tidying. Which got me in a rather festive mood. In July. Which wasn't helped by me then becoming all festive and nostalgic and watching last year's home videos from that ol' festive time, which, you'll notice, I'm deliberately not naming, so no one can accuse me of talking about that while we're still in July.

So hey, in the meantime, the rain continues to come down, and the festive videos continue to get played. I'm gonna eat an angus burger later, and maybe have an early night.

Here are some sparkly pics in the meantime: (Well, one. I forgot what the second was and couldn't find the third!)

Yikes, the sun!

Would you know, we're actually having a genuine summer here, complete with nice weather, hayfever and everything.
I guess it's important for me to emphasise to myself that we do in fact have summers, because last winter seemed to go on for ever. But then I guess winters always do.

So what's been happening? More of the same I guess. My nephew continues to swerve unpredictably between being awesome and cute, and being infuriatingly badly behaved, work continues to be as sociable as it's ever been, and I'm trundling through life quite happily, I suppose.

I did decide to throw a little bit of cash at my iPod though. Having bought all sorts of weird and wonderful ayapps, as well as organising loads of videos and suchlike to view here there and everywhere, I was a little put out when my faithful earphones finally stopped working a few weeks ago.
I was much more put out when the seller I bought the replacements off, first sent me some fakes, and then told me he'd send me a second pair after the first pair fell to bits.
I am still waiting for the second pair. Not that I care anymore, as I've made alternative plans.

Yep, after saving moneys and whatnot, I finally decided to buy some nice and shiny Klipsch Image S4i earphones, with shiny integrated remote control type thing, and I have to say that they sound absolutely awesome. £90 well spent (They're available for less, but last time I spent "for less" I got "less" and had to buy a second time).

I also bought a Zagg Invisible Shield to protect the ipod, and while fitting it was an absolute sweary swearword, it seems to be doing its job quite well. The protector hasn't got so much as a scratch on it, which makes a nice change because the cheap plastic ones I used to use, used to last a couple of weeks before needing replacement.

So hey, that's it, that's all, there is nothing going on in my life at the minute, apart from...

Yeah my sis, nephew and I finally went swimming again a few days ago, and it was nice to get back in the water. Afterwards, we went to a local chinese buffet type place, where I had a very good meal of all sorts of things, washed down with ice cream, various unidentified but tasty foodstuffs, and lots of toffee cheesecake. Not a bad night out. Must have more of them.

Now, let's see if this heatwave arrives. Today's supposed to be very hot. We'll have to see, hehehe...

PS: Don't mind my half-assed photo, I was in a rush.

The third and fourth days of summer (and cadbury world)...

Yeah folks, they don't run consecutively. Until tuesday, the weather has been absolutely rubbish.

Well, with the changing weather, another trip to Twin Lakes was on the cards, and again and as usual, lots of fun was had. The dangly bungee rope trap thing is still roped off, but there were a few new attractions including a load of very loud lambs in the petting zoo, as well as a cute little simples (1 2) in the don't-pet-unless-you-want-to-lose-a-finger-zoo. As usual, lots of fun was had.

My nephew spent plenty of the journey there trying to guess what the various trucks on the motorway were carrying, as well as telling me that truck stops that you can use to get some sleep and to refill with diesel don't actually exist in real life, because "it's only a game" which was quite cute of him. He hasn't been on the truck game for a while, instead he's spent a lot of time zooming around in various cars that I made for him on Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Still, a fun day out for all. Again, plenty of time was spent running round, swinging, hiding, bouncing, siding, all sorts of interesting things. A quick meal and off we went again with the whole having fun thing.

A couple of days later, I got dragged along rather unwillingly (after having had no sleep whatsoever), to Cadbury World, what I originally took to be a dull and uninteresting visitors center at a grimy factory.

A fairly lengthy drive, and we drove in one side of Birmingham, and out the other. First impressions: Grimy, big, not very pleasant. But look closer and some bits of it are actually really nice, so I suppose it's like any major city in that it's got its nice bits and its crappy bits.

And as for Cadbury World itself, in reality, I'm pleased to say, it was a fantastic day out. The price of the ticket included plenty of chocolate which was handed out by nice staff, we got to see various bits of the factory with boxes of chocolate whizzing around on conveyor belts, and huge robots picking up the boxes and stacking them up and whatnot. Not only were there also little video presentations telling you about the history of the chocolate, but at one point there were practical demonstrations as well. As I said at the time, I'll certainly never look at a bar of chocolate the same way again, and Cadbury World seems to be a major PR winner for Cadbury's :-). There was a shop where you could buy souvenirs and stuff, including some of the biggest chocolate bars I'd ever seen, and some of the weirdest chocolate products I'd never seen.

Since we were in the area, we had a nice little drive to Stratford-on-Avon, a town which may be famous for being the birthplace and lifelong home (more or less, I think) of a certain Bill Shakespeare. We parked up, and like a pair of foreign tourists, got on one of those open-topped tour buses so we could take photos of various interesting parts of the town. Informative and amusing. Why amusing? Because the audio commentary kept skipping bits and replaying bits it had already played, so you had to listen carefully in order to not go home believing that William Shakespeare was in fact born in a local hotel.

At one point, through the beautiful and sunny Warwickshire countryside, wind (and tree pollen liberated by the numerous collisions with low-hanging branches - ouch my eyes!!!) blowing over us, and only the audio commentary and birdsong to listen to, I looked up to notice that there were not one but three gliders floating over the bus, which gave the whole thing a very surreal atmosphere. They glid (glide? glided? glidded? thanks eddie) silently over us for quite a while, before disappearing off behind the trees.

We got back and had a wander through the town itself, seeing street theater (some people in a small garden outside Shakespeare's house passionately performing the "Get thee to a nunnery" scene from Hamlet, some Living Statue people, and lots of very very old buildings, including one pub which had been "selling ale since 1594"(!).

Finally stopping off for something to eat, we went to a very pleasant pub (The Red Lion, Stratford (opposite a shop where they sell one of the biggest remote control planes I've ever seen)), where I had an awesome meal (chips and burger with bacon and BBQ sauce - very very good) and a nice beer.
At one point, my mum accidentally knocked what was left of the beer over, so the lovely staff kindly gave me a brand new one. Great result - 50% extra free :-).

A nice trip back, and getting home, I exchanged exhausted pleasantries with people before going to bed and having the first sleep I'd had in 28 hours.

In other news, I did eventually plump for a G19 keyboard, and to celebrate getting it, I also bought an awesome mousemat for £3.04 (RRP £18.99 apparently). The keyboard's awesome, changes colours (it's quite entertaining) and has a screen that I use (with some downloaded software) to display important system information, so while I'm sitting around on my computer, I can see what it's doing behind the scenes :-).

And that's about it. The weather's nice, I'm in a good mood, and now I'm off to have some more chocolate. Yay. I might go cycling tomorrow.

Here are some sparkly pictures (the first one is a composite).

The Second Day of Summer!

Ever notice when people talk of things like Summer or Winter, they speak about them as if they were abstract concepts, rather than actual times of the year? I suppose that (in the UK at least), it's difficult to imagine something like summer while sitting the other side of the window from a rainstorm or gentle snowfall. That certainly wasn't helped by last year's almost complete absence of seasons. We had spring, spring, a little more spring, and then an absolutely frozen cold winter, if I remember correctly.
If I don't remember correctly, then it was probably just foggy or overcast all year.

Why is this relevant? Because instead of gradually flapping about and eventually appearing, summer seems to have hit us with a very definite thud this month. We've had a few "really nice, but the breeze is a bit cool" days in the past few weeks, but today was a "incredibly nice, the breeze is made of hot air!".

Well.

Yeah, today the heat has been midway between "great!" and stifling. I went out for 45 minutes for a quick cycle round, and managed (i think) to get myself sunburned again.

Later came another shift at work, out on the scooter in this summery heat, jacket open, wind through the t-shirt sort of thing. Not a lucrative shift, but it was good to see everyone about.

Tonight was the real eye opener though. Walking back home at 10pm, notice that even in a t-shirt, the breeze was warm. The moon was (is) bright, and everyone was still up.

From any of a couple of dozen garden parties came music, the sound of people cheering (football or playing xbox or something), people laughing, and the smell of beer, or perhaps a late barbacue. Every now and again some guy on a CD would passionately sing "ohhhOhhOhhhhh" (that's all I could make out) presumably as part of some song or other.

Through the woods, towards my house, yet more garden parties, beer, happy chatting, and carribean music. Lights were strung between tree branches, giving the whole place a party atmosphere (appropriate really).

Yeah, it looks like after getting sick of being kept waiting (remember the hailstorm a week or two back?!) summer has appeared with a show of force. This can only be a good thing.

Part Two: Keyboards

Yep, after two years of faithful service, my shiny, immaculate and 100% working Logitech G-15 V2 has failed, after having a drink accidentally dumped in it.
If you remember back, I bought it to replace my original Logitech G-15 V1, which also failed after having a drink dumped in it.
I've got some tips in the tips jar so maybe a G-19 is on the cards. I haven't decided.

Part Three: Bike Lessons!

My sister was good enough to bring my ickle nephew's bike round with her, so I could fix it up after some two legged rat on the nearby sinkhole estate wandered off with it and broke it.
With a little patience and a new brake cable, I managed to get the thing working again, fully okay, and my nephew was very excited.
Off we went to the park and took him for some practice. I can't say he took to it straight away, but over time he seems to be taking a greater interest in it, so who knows, maybe we'll be having bike rides with him in the park before long.

The park has been getting a fair bit of use by us, recently. We went for a little trek and discovered not only a tree growing on the edge of the stream that has roots like ladder-rungs (you can just climb straight up), but I found that the hill near the river was mostly made of good quality clay, and as I demonstrated to my nephew, you can make things out of clay.

The next hour or so was spent by digging clay out of the side of the hill so my nephew could make clay balls, literally just balls of clay. I put mine in a hollow under a nearby tree, neatly piled up, but hidden from plain sight. I'll go and check one day to see if they're still there. My nephew for his part became incredibly attatched to the three he had made, and decided he was going to take them home and paint them gold, so he could put them in his treasure box. Fair enough I suppose, so we went and got him some paint specially for the purpose.

Finally I figured I'd show off an awesome lil picture my nephew did for me. He's become something of a star wars fan recently, probably due to it being on cartoon network a lot.
My nephew came home from school one day and gave me a picture he'd spent ages on, drawing for me. I love it to bits. I've annotated it so it will make more sense (Notice the remains of the shot battledroid, to the left of R2, that I completely failed to point out. Haha my ickle nephew has great attention to detail when he wants to :D).



Ciao!

iPods and ipsos

Well, this is a new experience.

Far from being slick and sleek, at first impression, blogging on here from an iPod seems to be a little fiddly. Not to worry though because it's certainly a new experience. It would be fantastic to be able to blog from anywhere where I can get a wifi signal.

iPod blogs will be a little different to my pc based ones. Less pictures, less hyperlinks, perhaps, because it seems a bit more fiddly than writing on my pc. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

So what's going on? Well I'm in for a long night (as are many other people) because over here in the UK, it's election night.

Yep, the long awaited General Election, allegedly where we have an opportunity to shake the house of commons around a bit and see what crap falls out. The expectation is that the current Labour government will suffer heavy losses as their primary opponents, the Conservatives, fill the a large proportion of the still-warm and by then, very recently vacated of seats.

As you'd expect, the news stations are going nuts, featuring "LIVE"/"ALL NIGHT" etc etc coverage, complete with fancy graphics and one organisation even projecting a huge bar graph up the side of St Stephen's Tower (the tower that houses Big Ben (the name is given to the bell, not the tower), at the houses of parliament.

For my part, I've been out to vote. Who did I vote for? None of your business I'm afraid, hehe, elections work like that I'm afraid.
So now I'm watching the live coverage, an. Enjoying a badly chilled lukewarm beer.

Ciao for now, will update later maybe.

Picnics, Pork Pies, and Precipitation...

It's been a boring couple of days. My early afternoon rises have been occuring later and later, creeping closer to evening every day, pushed by a lack of discipline preventing me from going to bed until I'd done absolutely everything I wanted to do in the day. Days of 12pm to 4am are not unusual for me, but hey, this is nothing new.

Today I got woken up after five hours or so of sleep. Do I want to go out for a picnic.
Of course, I don't want to go for a bloody picnic, I want to go back to bed. But, since my sis is coming over and bringing the dog, I thought I may as well get up and go along.

So we get on with the preperation for the picnic. Various containers are hunted for, and everything seems to go quite well. Eventually, it's time to go, so off we go.
Stopping for a while at one of the supermarkets, we eventually arrive at our picnic spot, a nice big stretch of moorland/cliffs, casually dotted with big sodding boulders, some the size of basketballs, others the size of trucks. The largest were the size of buildings - it's a nice enough place (53.319689,-1.622687) on google maps - I think that's our bunch of rocks right there.

Out come the blankets, out comes the food (including the yummy (for him I suppose!) dogfood so the dog can join in the picnic, and we sit down and have a nice old time eating yummy things.

Of course, we're eating happily for no more than five minutes, and my mum is the first to feel a raindrop, and slowly but steadily the rain increases, turns into hail, turns into a hailstorm.
In may, during a picnic.
Bloody hell.

Still, we cover the food up, hoping that the weather will blow over.
It doesn't, it gets much worse. The hail, fairly torrential now, and the lead-grey sky that surrounds us in all directions (well, generally up, rather than down, but still) convince me that it'd probably for the best if I pack some of the food away.

Eventually we beat a hasty retreat to the car, and have one of the few in-car picnics I've ever had. Oh well, we'll have to try again in the summer. The food was nice.

We get home and eventually I go back to sleep for a couple of hours, during which time I have an awesome dream about my awesome new car that I haven't bought yet, which is cruely curtailed by my evil, yet incredibly cute ickle nephew, who wants to show me a picture he's drawn specially for me :-).

Since then I've been finishing off the last of the picnic food and generally sitting about doing not-much.
So hey :-).