Normal Weather Resumed

Well we did pick the right week to go to Devon. Weather has resumed its state of absolute miseryness. Coming back up from London town it was bucketing down yesterday evening. The river down the road was the highest I've seen it in a long while. Won't be sitting on this bench then.....:

Devon!

Right. Apologies for not doing much on here, but haven't been here all that much to do stuff. I abandoned Bec at the beginning of last week to meet up with colleagues from work who had hired a converted barn type place in deep Devon. This was not a training exercise or anything official at all, more on the lines of taking advantage of shifts to book it at an off peak time. Got my new phone with camera on it with which took a number of photos of the scenery and surroundings. Hadn't quite figured out how to use the camera properly then so some of the photos aren't the best.



There were about 14 of us down there. The place slept in total 18 as reflected by the enormous outside picnic table! It was called the old winery but whether there was a history of winemaking in the building I never found out.


Monday was spent recovering from the trip down. I went down on the bike and got rained on all the way to Salisbury. Saw stonehenge from the roadside but didn't stop to take photos as I was a bit fed up with the aforementioned rain. However by the time I got there things had dried and cheered up enough to have a barbecue and have a shandy or two (maybe).

Tuesday we went to a nearby activity centre (entertaining moment with satellite navigation and a whole load of cows en route) where we undertook an assault course. This was a messy muddy and very wet affair meaning I have no photos of it as I sensibly left the phone locked away somewhere warm and dry. There are however some very good photos of me (taken by someone else who had come up with some excuse or other not to partake), launching into a pit of muddy water with sufficient velocity to completely obscure myself when I land in it. It was quite an attritional affair and the belt on my trousers disintegrated, meaning I had to complete the course with a bodge job of a donated shoelace and ripped strips from my t-shirt.



The weather was by now scorching and we went back and checked out the pool, and pulled the table tennis outside onto the grass. For when this activity got too much we generally sat down, put the world to rights (as you might just expect a bunch of coppers to do) and check the fridge was working properly by collecting a beverage every so often.


Wednesday myself and a couple of others wandered down to the nearby town and after a very nice lunch (mmmm, steak sandwich) headed off on the Heritage coastal trail to Ladham Cove (suspect memory, but I think thats what it was called). I have learned something from being married to Bec and took suncream with me. I didn't burn, a couple of the other guys did!!! I came back later that day, which was earlier than most of the rest of them who came back on Thursday, in order that I could spend some time with Bec before going back to work.




Overall a nice couple of days with work people in a non-work environment a long way from London. It was a shame it wasn't a week later so Bec would've been on half term and could've come down (it wasn't an exclusively job do, people brought partners), it was a top place in very rural surroundings (complete with 100 decibel cockerels in nearby farms) that meant a very relaxing break from London grime and grind.

Slacker

Will update on here soon, honest..............

Dawn of the living dead

Is pretty much an accurate method of describing my current state of alertness. Had a bonkers night last night with a right old Police Camera Action style chase of a car all round north london. That meant I finished late (he crashed, didn't manage to catch the driver, annoyingly, just his passenger).

I was planning on staying up all day as at some point our new sofas were scheduled to be delivered (hurrah! farewell, old tatty sunken second hand things) but by half ten I gave up and fell in a heap on the spare bed. I couldn't even face walking the 5 metres to the main bedroom. Next thing I know its midday and they're knocking at the door. They had been here for all of 10 minutes before mog decides to attempt to sharpen her claws on them. Errrrrrrrrrrrr no you don't.

I'm not going to be so sad as to post pictures of them. Come round and see them! Alaskan people are exempt from this and can have photos on special request, if they really want.

Have seen Bec for all of hum maybe 20 minutes since Tuesday what with the joys of nightshifts. Am on some days off now so can be almost like normal people for a week or so!

Have a phone line now, always handy. It died on Tuesday, spent about 15 minutes on BT's automated "press one if you think these automated systems are immensely irritating" fault reporting system. However, at the end of it all it went "we are sorry, there has been a fault in the system, we are now transferring you to an operator". Why couldn't they just do that in the first place? Grump.

So yes back to having a phone line and t'internet. I did question the wisdom of the advice given by BT that I could track the progress of the fault online when I couldn't access the internet due to the existence of the fault in the first place. Can't whinge too much though, it was sorted within 24 hours of being reported. Was less amused at the several line tests (i.e. phone ringing repeatedly) at 1pm when trying to sleep cos I'm on nights! Grump. (Again.)

Right. I'm off to do stuff in the garden. It may involve power tools, so if you never hear from me again, you know why.

Even Bigger Hurrah!

I'm on days off. Much better.

A tale of gore with a scene straight out of Saw was the job from the weekend that'll remain in the memory longer than most. It was bad enough my uniform trousers have had to beincinerated they were that contaminated. I'll spare you the details, suffice to say the source of the blood is alive and awaiting hospital procedures.


On a somewhat lighter note I am determined this summer to get back into some kind of regular biking. I've had my mountain bike which was horribly expensive (especially to an a-level student as I was at the time!) being sadly underused for the last couple of summers. So I've gone and bought some new bits and bobs for it and myself, and I will be using it more this summer!



I went out this afternoon for a pootle about. Having only had 4 hours sleep after getting into bed at 8am it may seem a daft thing to do, but it was nice- sun on back, a nice breeze, and I wasn't in any particular rush to go anywhere, I just went out and enjoyed the fact I was nowhere near London.



Having said that, there were bits when I was belting along a country single track when I remembered how much fun off road biking is. The off road aspect makes it that more unpredictable than road riding and I was having a right old time belting along down the sides of fields and woods.


I took a couple of pics with the ever-present phone.....Somewhere southeast of Wheathampstead:

Twisty knobbly bits with roots sticking out of ground to catch you out

Slightly easier blat along a field

Greenwall tunnel (ha, ha.) Will probably be impassable in a couple of weeks time

Its not as easy going about on two wheels when you don't have an engine I tell you! But still good fun. And I can't lift the motorbike over fences.........