Persistent

Things....

It’s been a pretty busy weekend. I managed to finish at 4pm and so for once made the drive back to Newbiggin in the light.
It gave me a chance to photograph the hills at Shap which are peaked with snow at the minute.As usual you have to look at them through the roadworks, but that’s the UK road system for you.

Simon invited 20+ friends to his 18^th party at our house this weekend of which exactly 20 arrived filling our house with noise, alcohol and sick, but they were great kids and Simon obviously chooses his friends carefully and wisely.
I would be happy to see any of them again, apart from the one that was sick and one other.

Simon was only just 3 when I first met him, and it has delighted me through the years to see him grow. He is very much his own man, but he has grown with many of my mannerisms and has developed a similar sense of humour to me. We both love Monty Python and Guinness, good grief, what more is there, maybe there’s something to be said for genetics, but I think that there are other things involved too. I know the photo is blurry here, but in keeping with Jasons Blog I was just wondering if anyone thought he looked like Wallace from Wallace and Grommit in this one.

I’m in Warrington for another week, same orange room and rain. Luckily I brought the special hat.

Pity I left it in the car…..

Andy is a miserable old bugger

It's very wet

It's raining, and here is a big Centre 21 puddle.

My name is Ian and I am a miserable old bugger

Tom at the office has found my blog.
From it he has deduced that I am a miserable old bugger with little or no sense of humour. He even had the cheek to compare me to Victor Meldrew.
All this just from reading my blog.
How long before blogs are used for profile building by the international law enforcement agencies. How long before I get accosted by undercover MI5 agents for being a gripey old git just because I’m walking down the street complaining about the litter.

AND hang on….doesn’t he look like he’s a bundle of laughs.
Oh and he wears silly woolly hats.
Mumble….mumble….grumble….

I can’t say that I am over impressed with Warrington.
I know that I am probably a bit spoilt at home having the open grasslands of Northumberland to my left and the seaside to my right. There is nothing here like that. Every square foot that can be built on has a building on it, or has had a building on it and is now being re-developed. The largest patch of grass that I have seen has been at a road junction and was used to divide traffic into two lanes.

Every night when I travel home I see the lads from the houses near where I am staying playing pass with a football in the supermarket car park as there is no other open area.
The rivers and canals still run with the colours of heavy industry. The whole place has a look of steel and brick and I can’t understand why anyone would want to live in this.
 
Centre 21 used to be the end of a canal, the soft mushy canal is still sort of there. You can see it out of accounts window, yellow grass soft mushy ground, but actually standing out most because there is nothing built on it. I think there may

have been a house built there once, but it sunk….and now only the green bin remains.

Some pics of SCS and Centre 21 for you

It just got smaller

The grass is always greener, isn’t it?

There I was in my little room on the highest floor up the steepest steps, upon which I struggled with my many bags into the loft that was my hotel room.

Using my nicest manners and best speaking voice I explained that I would like a different room, maybe ground floor en-suite of course.
The deal was done, the promise made….next week Ian….you will go to the ground floor.

So I arrived yesterday and was ushered into an EVEN smaller room. A small single bed room with no space to swing a mouse. A small bathroom with a small shower and a very small sink.
The bathroom was so small that the only space available to hang the toilet roll was above the toilet behind your head and up 3 ft.
This negated the morning swinging the mouse exercise in favour of a backward ‘Reeeeach & Streeeech’ with a crinked neck.
The single bed was against a cold outer wall and I was overall not happy.
THEN…the man in the next room decided to have an argument with his girlfriend very loudly ‘you’re a slag, that’s what you are, bitch’. Apparently she’s a bitch and a slag, maybe in no particular order, but he did make sure she knew.
The other rooms off the corridor were not en suite so there was a constant flow of banging doors as people entered and left the bathrooms, there was also the sound of much manly bathroom farting and burping.
The cigarette smoke was so thick in the corridor that I had to wear fog lights and then that started to creep under my door.

In the end I went back to the desk and explained that I now realised that I was in fact a pigeon and that I wanted to go back to the loft.
My nice warm loft, with it’s double bed and it’s orange bathroom. Mine…..

I am a total dismal failure...it's true

I had it, It was in my hands, two traps went down.
The humane nice person 'green' mouse trap. Thats the one where the mouse that you plead for me to save ends up living in your house....maybe.
The nasty this'll break yer fingers if you put this down wrong trap that splats the mouse everywhere.
Two traps.......your choice mouse.
It took the humane option, it wandered in, the door closed behind it it was trapped.
I found it, I showed Rebecca, look I said, its in the trap...awww its so small and cute.
I took it downstairs ready to take it outside so that it could find somewhere else to live. It seemed cruel making it travel all squashed up in the humane mouse trap so I tipped it into a bucket. Small mouse...BIG BUCKET.
In 2 seconds the little bugger was out and heading under the washing machine. I swear in human terms it must have jumped 20ft straight up....I am so useless. I had it, it was captured.
For some reason I had the urge to whistle the tune from The Great Escape as I was getting dressed. later that afternoon there was a snap from the not so nice mouse trap.
It looks like it got to eat the Peanut butter before the trap went off.
There may be more. I'm not in favour of the mices now, there are 4 nasty traps and 1 humane one down....take your pick mousey...

:-(

I'm really missing Rebecca this week, its been a long week and I want to go home.

Snug

I'm back home, I have tonight (Friday) All day and night Saturday and through till 4am Sunday.
I have a box full of chocolate from America which puts my recipricol box to shame. I now 'need' to send Ruby more chocolate to get over this feeling of inadaquacy.
Meanwhile, here is a picture of the desk I am working on, three pcs, 2 running different multiple Putty sessions and one doing the project management and paperwork, also a wheelie chair to jump between them when it gets busy.
And I should say that it's constant, high pressure, challanging, always working against time, heavy on 'correct paperwork' and all mine.
Did I say that I was enjoying every minute of it?
It's nice to have the brain tested again, I was starting to miss it.

A change of view

The bulb in my room blew last night so now my little room looks like this.

and it was very cold.

Maybe I have outstayed my welcome. I think I will come home tomorrow .