Storm
Just in time for the first predicted heatwave of the year, I thought I would take you back to february this year and the depths of winter. All in aid of an excuse to put up a video that I toiled late into the night producing. It’s nothing groundbreaking and unfortunately you’ll have to click on the picture to the left to link to it as I can’t host video on this site at present as far as I am aware. The video comes from my antarctic trip this year, the only time that I can recall where I didn’t think I would end the experience unscathed.
The Ocean Nova grounded at our furthest point south in the very early hours of the morning and we awoke to find ourselves in a sheltered inlet protected by the rocks we had grounded on. The evening that followed, however, saw the ship free itself, only to get stuck at an angle away from the shelter of the rocks, with the wind now blowing at close to hurricaine force into the side of the ship.
With the ship leaning heavily and the wind howling around the ship causing it to shift and sing along there was nothing we could do but wait as the night slowly enveloped us.
Credits for the clip go to me for photos, video & production. Karl McGowan for photos. There are a couple of photos I can’t place so if they are yours I apologise and if you want them removing send me an email and let me know. The music is the first part of The Lightning Strike by Snow Patrol. Hope you like it.
here’s to daisies…
Daisies. one of the more pleasant garden weeds.
newsworthy…
…and so the daily telegraph continues with its exposé of MPs expenses claims. I can’t actually remember how long ago it all started, but it’s making me think it has turned into lazy reporting.
“What can we fill the paper with today?”
“Hmm not sure, there must be something going on out in the world at the moment.”
“Yeah but that would involve finding out what was going on. How about we publish some more expense claims?”
“ok.”
It probably won’t be too long before it’s
NEXT WEEK IN YOUR DAILY TELEGRAPH – YOUR COMPLETE LIST OF WHICH MPS SHOULD BE SHOT.
including our easy 10 point guide to lynching your local MP
I think its getting to the point where i’m getting more news on world crises and such from Twitter, and that’s a bit worrying…
Derwent Reservoir
It was one of those decisions that had the potential to be completely stupid. However, amid Met Office predictions of thunder and downpours and fire and brimstone descending on the local area, I’ve been walking. Myself and Karl (one of the few people foolish enough to agree to do stuff with me) never seem to choose to go walking at sensible times, it is usually windy, rainy, january or failing poor weather conditions we normally take a different route to intended. Indeed it is probably our presence on board the Ocean Nova in Feb 2009 that caused it to ground itself on some particularly persistent rocks, but that is a different story for a different time.
True enough as we drove through Sheffield the heavens opened and the rain came down. By the time we turned off the A57 and onto the road that runs down one arm of Ladybower Reservoir the rain had cleared, and pulling into the carpark we noticed the mandatory old people who are usually to be found crowding out the benches kindly provided looked suspiciously dry, almost as if it hadn’t rained there at all. Then again, the mandatory old people may well have been taking up car parking spaces sheltering in their cars instead. 
Getting out of the car, thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, however, it was obviously the last gasp of the storm as the clouds parted and the sun appeared, and it stayed out for the rest of the walk.
Derwent and Howden reservoirs were pretty much deserted, it must have been more interesting sitting in the car park watching the ducks get in the way of cars than walking along by the water in glorious sunshine and dappled shade. The rhodedendron bushes were in flower lending bright spashes of pink to the scene along with the various shades of green and the beige yellow of the track. The reservoirs were unexpectedly low, giving the impression of being surrounded by little beaches.
We didn’t get to the far end where the little stream is and the bridge over it, though it is a good job we didn’t. We chose instead to turn back about 3/4 of the way there, partly due to achey legs and partly due to the path leaving the shade of the trees and our negligent lack of sunscreen, (you can’t sell sunscreen to an impressionable general public if you yourself are burnt to a crisp).
The walk covered about 6 miles in just under 4 hours, which allowed for lots of dawdling and eating of lunch, and took us down the right hand side of the reservoirs. This allows you to avoid the soul destroying detours on the left hand side road and has less uppy downy bits to it.
We got back to a much emptier car park and set off to The Ladybower Inn, which I fully recommend. Generous portions of very tasty food, especially the chips. We were the only customers when we got there and once we were in and sat waiting for food we were treated to the heavens opening once more with an even more violent downpour and accompanying thunder and lightning. We’d timed it perfectly.
There are a few more pictures on show, and they can be found on the gallerys of flickr and will no doubt slowly appear on here over the next couple of posts. So until then, enjoy the daisies below.
The Inaugural Impending Doom Meter.
We are told on a regular basis that civilization as we know it will end in the next few months due to an ever changing variety of disasters, plagues, elections and general turmoil.
It would not be feasible to quantify a level of current doom as once doom levels hit a certain level the world will be too busy dealing with aformentioned doom for me to be able to update the doom meter, therefore leading to readings that might be falsely reassuring.
Instead, I present an occasional feature of this blog – The Impending Doom meter.
Levels of Doom are established using a proven formula of magic and superstition. Any inaccuracy of the meter will either be down to ‘unforseen complications of an unspecific nature’ or ‘due to the sheer will and determination of the human race’.
___________________________________________________________
IMPENDING DOOM METER UPDATE:
REASON FOR UPDATE: Swine Flu cases in UK reach 1000
Current Level of Impending Doom (out of 10): 6
customer service.
The sun is out, the clouds are fluffy, the sky is blue. The garden is alive with bees and the less welcome flies. (not as many butterflies this year for some reason). So here is a happy post, or at least it will start off happy, look, its even got a pretty picture up at the top. But as with all my blog posts, who knows where it will go. I never know when I start, I often start on one subject and end on something completely unrelated, I just let my posts follow my brain.
So, for posterity, what is happening at the moment? Swine Flu has reached official pandemic status (I told you so), the UK government has gone into a quiet stage of meltdown instead of a noisy one and any other news appears to have dropped off my radar, so we must be beginning to enter the summer news drought where the papers fill instead with Big Brother news and stories of Grannies driving the wrong way down motorways on their old people scooters.
Every so often a topic enters my awareness and it then seems that for the next couple of days that topic keeps recurring. It may be I just suddenly start noting it more. This weeks topic appears to be customer service. It began when one of my colleagues pointed out a fairly lengthy comment about customer service they had recieved related to the company I work for, failing to go ahead and name and shame, but just accuse one particular branch of a variety of customer service failings. I am glad that further down the comment line was one from the company asking for specifics so something could be done about it.
It set me thinking as it immediately brought to mind a disagreement I had at a shop I worked in several years ago. The staff were getting giggly and conversation was starting to get out of hand. When I pointed this out in what I thought was a gentle way some offence seemed to be taken.
“Are we not allowed to enjoy ourselves then?”
“We’re supposed to be dispensing patient’s prescriptions, what are they going to think when they see you laughing and joking about instead of doing their prescription?”
“They’ll think this is a nice shop and all the staff enjoy their jobs.”
“Aren’t they more likely to think ‘where’s my prescription?’ and if an error occurs they’ll complain all the more because the staff were messing about instead of concentrating on their work”
mutter mutter grumble grumble.
Maybe I was wrong, maybe the customers would think ‘what a nice shop’ etc etc. and I agree that the people who do the work should enjoy their jobs, but I think there is a fine line to be drawn here and I think I have been in plenty of places where the line is ignored. I do wonder though, were the same situation as the original complaint were to happen in an independant pharmacy where it is not part of a chain but one pharmacy with the owner being the pharmacist, whether the same problem with customer service would be percieved or whether it would all be part of their friendly local service. Does the public have different requirements of larger and smaller companies, even though they are doing the same thing?
But customer service raised itself again when I went for a haircut. The easiest place to go is the local shops, and when I went in the little waiting area was crowded out with several people, and through the chatter I was asked straight through. The next 15 minutes was spent listening without choice, to the cackling and loud discussion on a number of topics, mainly focusing on latest attempts at easy weight loss, in acute detail. For most of the time the cackling was such that I could be mistaken that I had actually wandered into an audition for the witches of Macbeth. It was when I was done and was paying that I noticed that only one of the ‘witches’ was a customer, the other 3 were staff, all occupying the 3 seats meant for customers. I’m not convinced i’ll be returning. It doesn’t take much to lose a customer, it’s a lot harder to gain them. The place is on it’s third name in about four years.
the sound of silence
Well, the blog is into its second month. It seems to have fallen into a once a week update, so unless true inspiration strikes i’ll try and keep it that way.
No nice picture for you this week though i’m afraid. That’ll be two weeks in a row. Well hopefully the camera will be loaded up with pics in time for next weeks blog. It been far too long since I enjoyed the outside properly for a few hours. I need to find somewhere in the middle of nowhere and listen to nothingness for a while. I tried in my garden on monday when it was nice and sunny, but through the birds and the rustle of the leaves there was always the background noise of traffic.
I’m finding myself pulled more and more towards another Antarctic trip. That’s very unusual for me, I don’t class myself as a natural traveller. It’s calling me back. I don’t think i’ve experienced that before and i’m feeling kind of downbeat about it. It’s going to take an awful lot of saving again if I want to do that. I think I need to win the lottery or Premium Bonds or something.
