son_@_motherofdeath.com

2012-01-21T18:06:00.004Z

Feet in the clouds

I've just finished reading Richard Askwith's book 'Feet in the clouds. A tale of fell-running and obsession.' I am not a fell runner but it's something that I'd like to try at some point. However the feats that they pull off sound virtually unbelievable.

An ongoing theme in the book though is a discussion about why people do this rather obscure activity. I think it's summarised well in a paragraph towards the end of the book (page 324) which states:

There is a code of honour among fell-runners which places one's obligations to one's fellow runners firmly above one's obligations to oneself. Not all of them live by it - but a surprisingly large proportion do. I think this is because, almost by definition, fell-runners are people who are ambitious neither for prestige nor for profit. Instead, they are motivated by a thirst for joy: the joy of being totally absorbed, as our ancestors were, in wild environments; the joy of throwing off the straitjackets of caution and civilisation; the joy of finding and pushing back limits; and occasionally, the joy of doing things that one had thought impossible.

I'm touching on that thirst for joy at times when I run, and can appreciate how much more so it must be when pitting yourself against yourself in the wild hills and fells.

2012-01-21T17:59:00.001Z

A good day of running

Today was a day of running an unexpected distance, but punctuated with periods of non running.

I was originally planning on running to parkrun, doing it, and then running back which would have been a total distance of around 25km, 80% of which would have been off-road. For various reasons that didn't work out and so I got a lift to parkrun and then then ran that as a rather lonely 24 minute pacer, as the person who'd requested that I pace at that fell behind on the first lap and then never caught me up.

After parkrun I went for a coffee in Napa Bar in Roundhay with others from parkrun and then decided to run to Pudsey as I needed to exchange a compass in Go Outdoors. I'd bought the compass a few weeks ago but discovered that it didn't point to north. Well actually it could point north but if you then rotated it by up to 20 degrees to the east or west the needle simply moved with the compass body. It was therefore very difficult to know where north actually was and you could have ended up significantly off from the intended bearing. I guess the needle was binding on something but there was nothing obvious obstructing it so I decided the best thing to do would simply be to swap it.

I therefore started running around the ring road from Roundhay to Pudsey, estimating that the total distance would be about 10km. It turns out that the ring road is longer and hillier than I'd realised from driving it and it was actually just over 15km, but the run was quite enjoyable with a few prolonged hill climbs in there to make me work fairly hard to keep a fairly even pace. I then of course had to get back home so ran back around the ring road to the vicinity of roundhay (another 15km) and then having stopped at Thomas' to fill up my water bottle did the final 6km home. All in all it was around 42km with 550m climbing in it, quite a bit more than I'd anticipated and probably wiping me out for the rest of the day which will not help with completion of my tax return.The other thing that made it a bit harder was that I was carrying a rucksack with a coat etc in it, and that weighed about 5kg.

2011-12-06T23:30:00.000Z

Advent - Day 6 - Coincidences (retrospectively)

Tonight I went around to a girl (S) from Mosaic's house to help her out. She's currently training to be a barrister and is doing a 1 year course at a private university in Leeds. As part of her course she had an exam on Thursday and was preparing for it.

The exam was not a written one, but a role play situation where the situation was that she was meeting a client for the first time (which apparently often happens just before a hearing). The barrister will have been provided with all the witness statements that the solicitors acting on the case have prepared and has an hour to interview the client and advise them on the best course of action with regards to what they should plead. S often practices these with her colleagues on the course but as they were all preparing for the same exam, and had the same supporting papers, wanted to practice with someone else.

I had to read the witness and police statements and then play the role of the accused in the interview. All I knew was what I could glean from the documents and I was free to say what I wanted and take any approach that I wanted to build on these and give my perspective.

The interview lasted for an hour and whilst it was quite hard work for me I think I made S work even harder by being fairly awkward at times, asking questions that went off topic and making her explain everything many times over. Based on my understanding of the situation I decided to admit to one offence and plead guilty but to deny the second offence that I had been accused of and to want to plead not guilty. This was a surprise to S who had not considered that possibility in her preparation and so went away to make sure she was fully conversant with the implications of this potential outcome.

It turns out that on the day of the exam, the client (played by a briefed actor), took exactly the same approach that I had done, meaning that S had a perfectly prepared set of recommendations and could advise on the likely outcomes of taking this approach.

My thoughts today were about those who people consider to be lucky, or fortunate. It's true that we don't know the future and however well we plan there can be things which occur which we could never expect or foresee. But irrespective of this I feel that preparation is important. I don't know what I'm preparing for at present because I don't really have a vision or goal. That doesn't worry me in the short term, but what does worry me is what I need to do to get that vision / goal. I think it probably requires me to stop and take time out, something that I'm not good at doing at all, ever.

2011-12-05T23:15:00.001Z

Advent - Day 5 - Nothing

Today has been a busy but productive day at work but not getting back until quite late this evening meant that I couldn't do some of the things I'd have liked to such as ringing my family. I'd all kinds of thoughts rushing about in my head - fragments of ideas of things I could reflect on. When I turned off the lights and lit the advent candle though all I found myself doing was stopping and thinking about absolutely nothing. It's not easy catching thoughts as they start to filter into your head and putting them away for attention later but simply stopping and looking at the flame has helped take away some of the stresses and worries of the day.

There was quite a release in being aware of so many things that I could rationalise, analyse, prioritise or hypothesise about but consciously not doing it then and there. Often I find myself responding to situations without thinking things through and by being so impulsive probably often don't spend my time or energy wisely. I jump first and then look. I reply to the trivial urgent emails but at the expense of the important non-urgent ones. I update my status on facebook so a handful of people who don't really know me think something particular about me rather than picking up the phone and talking to the people who really matter in my life. I read the news on the computer rather than just getting on the the decorating.

Taking control of my time through consciously doing nothing, even for only 5 minutes, has been enlightening.

2011-12-04T23:36:00.000Z

Advent - Day 4 - Matthew 1:21

Yesterday I received my first Christmas card in the post. In of itself that was nice although it did make me suddenly panic that I needed to do my Christmas cards and send them very soon.

On the envelope I noticed the stamp. It had a picture of an angel and the text Matthew 1:21. Looking up this passage in the Bible it's where an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins."

I'm sure that some would preach an entire sermon on that single verse, but the thing that struck me as I was stopping and thinking today was about how non-secular a statement that was to put on a stamp. Apparently the Royal Mail alternates each year between secular and non-secular themes. It's refreshing in this age of political correctness and attempts to please everyone that such strong messages about what the Christmas story was actually about when it started can still be maintained.

It's strange being by myself this advent. Many of my friends are busy talking about Christmas and putting up their trees and decorating their houses but my heart is just not in it at present. Their focus is on having a special time in this cold and dark part of the year and I certainly can't blame them for that. With a half painted house and trying to keep myself busy as much as possible the thought of getting the decorations that Niki and I used to share out of the loft and putting them up in the house isn't welcoming. I think it'd be too painful. My advent this year is therefore proving to be fairly frugal and bare, but structured in that I'm enjoying taking time out to think each day.

2011-12-03T22:00:00.000Z

Advent - Day 3 - Promises

This morning I had a run which was useful to clear my head. It often seems that during the week I get busy and tired, and in doing this can loose focus. Whilst running I mulled over some stuff that has happened in the last few days (some positive, some negative and some just confusing). Some of it was stuff that I just needed to stop trying to be in control of and simply surrender. The thing about surrendering control is that it's easiest when you really trust the person that you're giving the control to and know that they have your best interests at heart.

Later today, whilst in the office I noticed that it was starting to rain on one side of the office whilst being sunny on the other side. It prompted me to realise that there would probably be a rainbow, and there was; a beautiful double bow spanning out from the church on the hill opposite the office. It reminded me of the story of Noah and how the rainbow represented evidence of a promise from God that he'd not cause the earth to flood again.

Reflecting today I thought about what promises I make. I think that at times I promise stuff too lightly when even as I commit to it I realise that I can't keep my word. That's not how I want to be or how I want to be perceived by others. I want my promises and my word to be dependable by others.

2011-12-02T22:00:00.000Z

Advent - Day 2 - Uselessness

I today received an email from an old friend. Someone who I never knew particularly well but always had respect for. We'd got back in touch through facebook and have some similar interests in the form of working in related fields (I know it's sad that I count work as an interest) and both enjoying running and travel.

Anyway, this email was very personal. It was a privilege to receive it as it felt that the person was confiding in me in a way that they would struggle to confide with others at present. However, as an email, it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to reply to. Not because I didn't want to, but simply because I had absolutely no easy answers. When you feel someone's pain it renders words useless at times.

Whilst watching the candle burn I focussed on what messages I could share from my life and experiences that may be of relevance or use. I'm not even sure that sharing anything factual would be useful. It feels as though the best I can do at present is to let them know that I'm reading what they say, that I'm thinking of them, and that irrespective of how turbulent life is at present that there will be a way through it, and that that way need not be negative and destructive.

I feel useless but will attempt to simply be me and trust that what I try to communicate will come across right and will hopefully instil a small glimmer of peace. I don't like this feeling though. I'm a long way from my comfort zone.

2011-12-01T21:57:00.001Z

Advent - Day 1 - motivation.

Louise Mann has kindly made and sent me an advent candle this year. She's done so to Niki and I in the past but we'd never got into a routine of using it. This year I'm going to try and light it each day and spend the few minutes that it takes to burn to the next number simply being still; stopping and making time out from the business; and letting my mind dwell on a topic. Where this will go I have no idea. If you have any positive pre-conceived ideas about me I suggest you don't read these as I suspect they're going to be quite difficult at times.

Today my thoughts turned to motivation. What is it that motivates me, and specifically why do I run? I enjoy it, but I also like what it does to me. I want to be slimmer, more healthy, more attractive, seen as an active kind of person. A large part of what motivates me is (I'm a bit ashamed to say this) attracting others to me. It's not selfless, seeking to help others have a better life, or other such noble causes but focussed on me. Even at work I'm generally motivated by doing a good job so that I get recognition. I don't really feel that my job is that productive or making a real difference to the world, but I wish it were. I think that work is a topic that I'll be thinking about more over the next few weeks. My prayer for today would be that when I'm doing things in the future I may be prompted to take a few seconds to consider why I'm doing it, and to potentially reassess my motivations and what they align with.

Like a book

2011-11-23T22:26:00.001Z

On Sunday evening I was talking to a friend of a friend (who I'd probably now call a friend). In the course of the conversation we talked about splitting up with Niki. She asked me how I felt now, four months later. I started to say 'fine, happy, confident, enjoying life, etc' but couldn't. I just froze. How did I feel? A whole mix of things I think but I don't know which one is the most significant feeling as they're all intertwined and it keeps changing.

I feel a sense of loss regularly from all that we shared and no longer share. I feel pain about the impact that it has had on me and her. I can't understand a lot of things, particularly about how things have worked out. I don't feel angry which surprises me at times and worries me at others, but I certainly don't feel apathetic. I feel renewed - finding out who I am again and trying to be the person I feel that I am. I feel free, but not sure what this freedom really means, or what I'm free from, or why I didn't feel free before, or whether I really was free before and I'm now overcompensating with other things to try and convince myself that life is better. I feel hopeful about the future for me, and also for her. I feel love from my family and friends. I feel grateful that things could have been a lot worse. I feel that my heart has been broken, and the tears I've cried have washed something out of me that will never be replaced. I feel as though I've lost a benchmark that used to be an ultimate leveller in my life, but am finding other benchmarks - probably even more absolute and true. I feel myself, but I'm scared to explore who I am. I feel that I don't need to compromise who and what I am but that I'm probably doing that more than ever. I feel ultimately selfish and selfless, sometimes both at the same time. I feel confused; the future is not clear; plans and aims and aspirations have all changed but I'm in control of the confusion and opting into it. I feel responsible and suddenly weighted with some serious things to handle by myself. I feel alive, and yet sometimes all I want to do is curl up in bed pulling the duvet over my head and sleep until another day as I'm too scared to face the world. I feel insecure. I feel that I'm having more opportunity to find joy in the little things in life.

How do you say these things? I obviously could not. I stammered a bit, started to say a few things and then went quiet. The hug she gave me told me that I didn't need to worry. I think that I must have emotions which can be read like a book. I obviously can't keep anything internalised. As she said she could see how difficult it was for me I believed her, and if I tell the truth it is difficult.

Today I came back from a run feeling alive and well, cooked a beautiful quick tea (if I'm allowed to describe my cooking in this way) of grilled salmon with red pesto on top and crunchy beans, broccoli and spinach and sat down to eat at the dining room table in front of a vase of flowers that I'd bought myself to brighten up the dining room. As Radio 2 played '...dry your eyes mate, there's plenty more fish in the sea' I simply felt alone. It's at times like this that it's difficult and I just will the phone to ring.

2011-11-21T20:00:00.001Z

Rosedale Ultra 2011

This weekend I did my first ever trail race, did my first ever ultra-marathon (31 miles / 50km) and also won my first ever race. It also happened that all three of these occurred in the same event; the Rosedale Ultra 2011. I can't credit much of it to my running ability as it was purely a case of staying on the path whilst the leaders all managed to turn off it and incur significant additional miles.

I decided to enter it a couple of weeks ago, and bought a pair of trail shoes last weekend. This week was the first time I'd tried them out, and up until Saturday when I did the event I'd run a total of less than 20km in them. All my preparation had consisted of was buying the relevant maps of the North York Moors, marking them up with the route coordinates and trying to work out what the likely or best route between the route coordinates would be. The maps were a nightmare as the length of the run went onto both sides of one map and one side of a second map. The seasoned runners had managed to download relevant map sections and piece them together to have a single laminated map that they could shove down their coat or roll up in their bag. I was clearly unseasoned having made the maps even larger and heavier by buying the waterproof versions. However I had run through the route quite a few times in my head so I knew what to expect in terms of rough orientation, places where there would be challenging climbs, and potential faster sections. At the start line I also realised how much bulkier my kit was as I was there with a full day bag whilst most others seemed to have streamlined tiny bags or even just large bum-bags.

The fact I didn't know much about long distance running was probably plainly obvious. When one guy realised it was my first event he seemed concerned and checked that I'd plenty of electrolytes and Vaseline. I had neither (and didn't know why I'd need them either) but didn't want to seem unprepared so nodded unconvincingly.

On the day it was very misty. There were about 30 of us doing the 30 mile route and when it started there seemed to be a clear group that were walking at the start and about 10 - 12 runners that set off at quite a pace. I didn't think that I'd be able to keep up their pace but similarly did not want to walk from the start although I accepted I'd be doing a lot of that later. I therefore tried to keep up with the faster runners in the hope of not having to think too much about navigation and simply being able to follow. The first few kilometres were generally uphill and I managed to stay with the back of the group but was slowly dropping back as the pack spread out. That didn't concern me as long as I managed to stay in sight of the last few runners which I did. Visibility was probably a couple of hundred yards.

At about 5km into the race we were running down a road, when I saw the couple of runners in front of me turn off to the right. I assumed that that was the way that the rest of the group had gone so carried on down the road to that point, and indeed it was marked with tape. I turned onto the track and started to run down it but then thought that it didn't feel right. There should not have been a right turn in this section as we were meant to be turning off to the left to get on the alignment of an old railway. I slowed down not sure what to do as the guys in front of me stopped being visible. I was in a dilemma. Did I continue to follow the guys to make navigation easier or did I stop and get out my maps etc and look at the route. I really didn't know what to do and realised that with every second that passed I was loosing time dithering. Finally I decided to look at the maps and take a bearing. The path was going SSE, a direction that we should never be taking in the beginning of the run, and was therefore wrong. By this time I could not see or hear anyone and didn't know where the path was meant to go so I went back to the road and noticed a marker tape on the other side. That was probably where we were meant to be going so I started off down that track but still not really sure. In the next 500m there was more marker tape and I then saw a house appear out of the mist. I stopped again, got out my maps and tried to locate where I was by the house. Just as I'd done this a female runner came around the corner and it transpired that she was doing the 30km and was fairly sure this was the right route. We therefore ran together which was really nice.

After a few km the pair of guys I had been following the wrong direction appeared behind us and quickly overtook us. They'd realised that they were going the wrong way but the others had been too far in front for them to alert them. At the first checkpoint the pair stopped to take off coats etc and I got in front of them, maintaining that lead until the point we left the railway to climb up onto the top of the moor. As I'd just finished the steep but short climb they also appeared and started the climb. At that point they can't have been more than a few minutes behind me and were probably catching me fast. However I never saw them again. I don't know if they missed another turning or what, but all across the very wet and muddy top I kept looking over my shoulder expecting to see them bearing down on me but to my surprise it was just me and the moors.

The route was generally well marked but there were quite a few times (probably between 8 and 10 that I did stop to look at the map. I got lost at one point going the wrong way across a field and having realised that I'd not seen any markers for a bit had to take a bearing to get back onto where I guessed the path would be. On another occasion I got the route wrong through a golf course, and had to climb over a wall and under a hedge to get back on track. Looking at the map there probably cost me a few minutes, but it worked out okay for the leader of the 40mile option as he came across me there and simply followed my lead to get back onto the path where he promptly and justifiably overtook me and headed off rapidly out of sight - running up the hill where I could only walk.

Basically I just took it steady. Trying to run downhill and on the level but accepting that the uphill sections would be walked. I did get tired, exhausted and emotional. I found out that flapjack and fruit and nut mix were good foods but malt loaf was not. It was so sticky that there was no way I could eat it whilst walking, so I ended carrying two whole loaves around the entire course with me. I didn't stop at the checkpoints any longer than absolutely necessary to fill up my water bottles. I appreciated the support on the checkpoints but when told that I had an 11 minute lead did not believe that there was any way I could maintain that. I fully expected to be overtaken at any point in the last 15km. It was hard work - very hard work, but generally I managed to do each 10km length in just over an hour until the last section which took nearly an hour and a half as I was flagging significantly by that point. Had I been overtaken I would not have cared. I had nothing else to give. In fact when I suddenly came back into Hutton le Hole and found myself at the finish I could not believe it and felt very emotional. In fact I cried a bit.

How could I who had never run anything more than a marathon before and who had no experience of trail running win an event? Simply by not going wrong I think and keeping on going as fast as I could for as long as I could, even if that was only walking up a hill or limping along a level section of road. I did take time out to regularly look at the maps and in the conditions I think that that was a sensible investment in time. It's certainly something I'll do next time, along with repeatedly look over the maps beforehand to visualise and remember the route as much as possible.

There's quite a bit of discussion on various forums regarding the fact that all the leaders went the wrong way and no-one called them back. In response to this I don't feel guilty. Most the group were significantly in front of me, and I could only just see the two guys I was following. I didn't know where the leaders had gone but assumed it was to the right as that was where the pair I was following were going. I feel that I took a risk by stopping. Had I know for certain that it was the wrong way then I would have certainly shouted to them, but as I didn't I could have compromised myself and my race by stopping and spending multiple minutes looking at the map, taking a bearing and trying to establish were I was, only to then find out that they were right and to follow them but having lost the benefit of being near them. It was a difficult situation to be in, and I think the fact that I felt a bit out of my depth with it being my first race made me feel very nervous about challenging or questioning much more experienced runners.

This is the link to the results on the Race Adventure web site.

The below are the grid references for my future reference should I want to do the route again. Something in me tells me though that next time it'll be the 40 mile option that I go for. Not to try and win it (as I saw the incredible fitness of the guy who did win it) but purely for the challenge.

704903 - Start
704930 - High Snapes
717939 - Left onto grass verge by road
720945 - Railway
683989 - CP disused railway
681011 - Pass over stream
697998 - Left turn off track uphill
702005 - Cross over road
705011 - Right turn
744994 - CP on road
751983 - Left path
764968 - Over stile into woods in field corner
773965 - Right turn
777938 - High muffles
759917 - Past Spiers House and Cropton Cabins
751908 - CP at road crossing
749925 - Left after bridge and short road section
732943 - Past Hollins Farm
722955 - CP at golf club
724938 - Pass close to Ana Cross
729909 - Right turn on edge of Lastingham Village
721903 - Right turn onto road after Madalene well
713904 -Left turn into woods
708901 - Left track in field
705898 - Through small gate onto road (Beware traffic)
Finish in village hall on other side of the road.

2011-10-24T21:18:00.000+01:00

Kalymnos

Last week I was on holiday in Kalymnos with two friends from work and another friend of theirs. It was fundamentally a climbing holiday, and as such was really enjoyable. The rock was amazing, comprising predominantly limestone, but with a variety of different types. These included really sharp crimps on very technical walls, tufas, solution pockets, cracks and crystaline deposits all of which offered very different climbing experiences. Most of the routes were really well bolted, and this gave confidence to push hard in the climbing. There seemed to be very little wear or polish on the routes which is probably due to a lot of the development on the island being in the last ten years. As a climbing venue it is probably the best that I've ever been to, and certainly somewhere that I'd like to go back to. There's over 2500 bolted routes on the island and in the week we were there I did 53.

The scenery was spectacular with most of the climbing that we were doing being on the precipitous west coast. The cliffs formed an escarpment rising about 500m from the sea, and whilst all the climbs we were doing were single pitch routes up to 30m long, it was great to be in the hills and have views up and down the coast. Where we were climbing we could look down over the blues of the Mediterranean Sea and see the fishing boats slowly make their way across the bays. It really was idyllic. The weather was also friendly with it generally being warm and sunny, but not too hot. There were a couple of cool days at the start of the week but these simply made us appreciate the warmth more when it did come. Dioni swam more than the rest of us, but on the last day all of us lads stripped off to our underwear and went for a swim on the way home. The water was cool to enter but really pleasant to swim in. You'd not catch me saying that about the North Sea in mid-October!

It was fun being there with Nick, Dioni and Oli. We all go on well, climbed well together, supported and challenged each other, and learnt from each other. Everything was laid back, with there being no particular stresses or aggravations caused. It was nice to get to know Oli for the first time, and I look forward to climbing with him again in the future.

The accommodation in our two studio flats was basic but comfortable, although a little more hot water would have been nice. However at 10 Euros each per night it was good value. We had plenty of really good food, a lot of it from the friendly mini-market directly opposite our accommodation, and drank a fair number of nice colds beers in the evening after a good days climbing. There weren't any wild nights out, predominantly as we were all exhausted and virtually falling asleep by 10:00 each evening!

So why am I writing this? It's not really to talk about the holiday as although it was fun, really good fun, it felt as though there was something missing. This is the first time that I've been on holiday without Niki for years. It felt really strange, and not in a nice way. Whilst there were good times shared with the others, it really did feel as though I was missing someone special to share it with. Achieving a challenging climb was enjoyable but without Niki to share it with it somehow didn't feel so satisfying. Discovering authentic Greek island cookery was really tasty, but without Niki to share it with it felt rather bland at times. I guess that this is something that I'll just have to get used to. It's a different way of living. Suddenly instead of having a soul mate who really understands you and you really understand them, you're interacting with people you don't know so well and where there are a lot more social conventions and expectations that must be followed. The worn fingers, bruised shims, scratched arms and cut hands could be covered with plasters, climbing tape and Climb-On and are now, just a few days later, well on their way to recovery. Unfortunately I haven't found any such treatment for the perpetually present and sometimes intensely piercing pain inside.

2011-10-24T20:51:00.000+01:00

Toby and Pippa

A couple of weeks ago I was heading to Castleford to go shopping, and was then immediately driving over to Manchester to stay with some friends prior to the Chester Marathon. As I was driving over I realised that there were two ways I could go; either by Garforth or directly down the A1. I suddenly thought that if I went via Garforth I could call in on some old friends, and assuming that they still lived there, catch up with them. I'd not seen these people for about seven years so considered it likely that they may well not still be living in the same place, or even if they were, unlikely that they'd be at home or that it would be convenient to see me.

Having umm'd and ahh'd about it for a few minutes I decided not to call in, but resolved to try and go and see them in the near future. The main reason for this was that I was already late in departing for Manchester, and I didn't want to delay this further. I proceeded to Castleford and got on with my shopping, which was predominantly for warmer running clothes as the winter evenings are making running in my short shorts quite a 'bracing' experience.

In one of the shops there was a horrendous queue due to one of the tills not accepting card payments. I nearly didn't bother staying in the queue, but the thought of having to either go to other shops to find a similar top or to come back on another day seemed excessive so I decided to bear the queue out. As I'd just paid, I turned around only to find Pippa (one of the old friends) standing there, and Toby (her husband and the other old friend) waiting at the back of the queue.

It was great to catch up with them, and although we only spent 10 minutes or so talking it was really good. Again, as with a few other blog posts that I've made recently, I don't think that this can be purely coincidence.

2011-10-10T23:01:00.000+01:00

Chester Marathon

On Sunday I did the Chester Marathon, which was hard work but generally good fun.

Nervously waiting at the start.
Needing the toilet although I'd just gone.
Chatting to Pat for the first 15km.
Great support - names on numbers helped.
Eating flap-jack and it seeming to work out well.
Meeting and conversing with interesting people.
Finding the course to not be very flat at all!
Running with the two guys for most of the last 10km
Beating my best expected time.
Having absolutely no energy left at the end.
Waddling - having the same walk as another runner.
A hot shower. So good.
Gels - not tasty but seeming to be effective
The last 6/7 km being so very hard. Like running through treacle. Having to consistently fight to stop the temptation to walk.
Talking to and meeting interesting people all the way around.
Lady with dates on her t-shirt. Pancreatic cancer. The impact and why I'm running it.
Run forest Run.

2011-10-05T23:00:00.000+01:00

Ripples

(Started on Friday 30th October) This is probably going to be rambling; an unqualified brain dump from my whirlwind mind tonight for which I make no apologies. I worked late to try and finish a presentation, and then when comparing what I'd done to the brief realised that I'd missed out a fairly critical section of the analysis. This means that I have two options. I could leave it until Monday, spend most of the day doing that, issue the presentation late and be a day behind on the already over long list of things to do next week. Alternatively I could go into work over the weekend (maybe Sunday afternoon) and catch up. I'll see how I feel tomorrow but suspect that it may be the latter. The presentation is very interesting though as I'm currently analysing the results from a Health and Safety survey that we carried out on 1200 people in Yorkshire Water, and the contractors and consultants that work for them. The findings are quite illuminating and I'm sure I'll share more on that at some point.

Anyway, that took me to mid-evening after which I went to Tesco for bread and as a bonus found a couple of nice pieces of mackerel reduced in price by 75% which formed my tea, along with potatoes and peas. I guess it's a homage to fish and chips but was totally unintentional. I've also bought a couple of sea bass to cook tomorrow and am looking forward to them already. If it's nice weather I may even barbecue them.

Back to the topic of this narration...

I've been thinking a lot this week about actions and their impacts both seen and unseen, known and unknown. I get scared sometimes about who I am, what I'm really like, the negative impact that I may be having on others without even realising it. That's one of the reasons I want to continue to know myself better and so be able to consider how others may see me. The ripple comparison is quoted endlessly, but it still seems valid here. Your actions can be like dropping a stone in a pond: the ripples disseminate out until they lap up on the banks. In their ever expanding circle they'll rock or splash against anything they pass. Let me tell you about one of those ripples that started this week.

Last weekend went for a run. I did a couple of circuits between my house and the Doctor's and on the second circuit popped in for a flu and pneumonia vaccination. That was all okay and by the time I got home I'd done about 16km. I wanted to run a bit further as it was my last chance to get in a nice long run before tapering down to the marathon so decided to run to Thomas's house to drop off a birthday card for him. This would have made another 13km round trip.

As I was running there my right hip was hurting quite a bit. It seemed to be getting worse. I didn't have a phone or any money on me so couldn't stop and get any pain killers. By the time I got to Thomas's house it was really quite sore and I was going to ask Thomas if he had any ibuprofen but when I go there he was just getting into the car with his family and parents to go out to the park. I didn't want to delay them so didn't say anything and just handed over the card and carried on my way. Well, tried to carry on my way. Unfortunatley my hip was so painful that I could not run and so I decided to start walking back towards home, accepting that it would take me about an hour to get there.

I thought that I could try and hitch a lift but didn't hold out much hope of anyone stopping to pick up a sweaty runner in the back lanes north of Leeds. To my surprise the fourth car to pass stopped, and two women in it asked me what was wrong. I explained that I'd been out for a run but my hip was hurting. It turned out that they were just on their way back from parkrun and so sympathetic to runners! They also happened to be going through Bardsey and insisted on dropping me off at my door. I don't think I could have been any luckier (or looked after as is probably the case). In passing through Bardsey Kirstie (the driver) pointed out a house where her parents lived which does make it a very small world. I felt so incredibly grateful for their help and support, and also felt particularly guilty about being so sweaty so the nice leather seats of the very smart mini.

Having got back and sat down with a bag of frozen peas on my hip, I set to thinking as to what I could do to say thank you to Kirstie, and having thought of a few options, decided to send a notional gift to a charity of her choice with a charity cheque. I therefore wrote it out, leaving the charity name blank and put a covering note on it to explain that she need only write the name of the charity that she wanted to make the donation to on the cheque and give it to the charity, who would be able to claim the money from my account. I then put it through the door of her parent's house later that day, in an envelope marked for her attention.

To my surprise later that week I found a note through my door thanking me. I'm not going to explain in detail what she'd given the money to or the reason for her choice of charity, but suffice to say I wholeheartedly agreed with both. Her note was very moving, and made me appreciate the small but hopefully meaningful positive impact that this gift will have had on other's lives. It's a case of ripples. A chain of events. Outcomes which I'll never know the details of, but can trust that will have occurred. It's humbling and at times sobering to realise how much we depend on others. Our lives are integrated with those around us. We're shaped by the ripples they create and shape them with the waves we generate.

Similarly, on Friday I chose to wear the t-shirt I got at the Great North Run to work, with a Pancreatic Cancer UK badge on it. Only one person asked what the badge represented, and so maybe there were no ripples caused by that, but I sent a text message to Andrea to let her know what I was doing. Her reply to my message that 'I was wearing my GNR t-shirt and pancreatic cancer pin with pride' was 'That's really made me smile! X'. Again a ripple, for reasons that won't be obvious on this, but I and potentially others may appreciate.

2011-10-01T15:40:00.002+01:00

Loneliness

On paper today should be an almost perfect day. Beautiful weather, spending time doing things I enjoy, catching up with friends, eating good food, sharing my life with people I care about, and the list goes on. However I feel lonely. I miss Niki. I feel very alone although I'm surrounded by friends.

2011-10-01T04:46:00.001+01:00

An expensive free sport

In my mind running was a free or cheap sport. However as I'm getting into it I'm realising that there's a lot of people making a lot of money out of it. The implication of this is that it's you and me, the common punter, who are at the base of the pyramid and expected to pay for a lot of things we're told we need or want.

For example running shoes. They cost £50 as an absolute minimum yet we're told we should replace them every 500km. That works out at a minimum cost of 10p/km, and with a lot of shoes being nearly twice that price it's probably cheaper to pay for the fuel in your car to drive a few miles into town than to put on your running shoes and run there.

Another example is running events. I like just putting on my shoes, looking at a map, and going for a run. However if you want to enter an event or race you'll need to pay an entry fee. For a local short distance event (say 10km races) you'd be paying between £8 and £15. I've just looked at the booking form for the Edinburgh Marathon next year and that is £48 or a bargain £29.50 for the half marathon. In addition to that they then try and sell you add-ons. If you did a few of those a year it would be the cost of a holiday and so I don't think that I'll be entering many formal events next year. Similarly there are companies organising long distance runs such as following the route of Hadrians wall on a 2 day run from Carlisle to Newcastle. The cost of this ranges from £120 for an early entry into the solo non-stop category to circa £180 to do it over two days as a normal person. There's no way I'd be willing to pay that kind of price to someone to do a run when in my head I could probably organise something similar with a group of friends for a small fraction of the price.

In the face of all this exploitation it makes me realise how good value parkrun is, with it being a free event for everyone. The vision of the organisers is to be commended, and I thoroughly support their sponsors including Sweatshop who are committed to helping people get into running. I realise that this is building their market which they'll make money from, but the fact that they're removing entry barriers is I believe a good thing.

2011-10-01T00:14:00.000+01:00

Great North Run 2011.

What a day that was...

Coincidentally meeting all 4 people from the running club.

Aiming for 5 minute kms and doing it in 4.40kms.

Loving the running. Feeling strong, fit and that it was within my capacity. Getting to the end and feeling that I could make a good start at running back.

Legging it down the steep hill at the end.

The support - oranges, water, etc

The accidents - spitting on person

Bands on all the roundabouts.

Sharing comments.

Everyone running for a reason.

Perfect weather - drizzle on the hills.

Watching the Red Arrows over the sea.

Being polite to Andrew.

Time

2011-09-18T22:10:00.002+01:00

On Friday I went to the fruit and veg stalls in Leeds market and had three remarkable encounters. I've got out of the habit of getting fruit and veg from the market, because as although it is about half the price of the supermarket it does take a bit more organisation as you have to remember to go into town at lunchtime and need to carry all that you've bought back to the office. I do like going there though as the choice and atmosphere are really fun, and I like the experience.

The third encounter was when I went to a stall for a couple of bananas. I looked at the bananas on display and picked a couple. As I handed them over to be weighed the stall holder seemed to wave me away. I was a bit confused, and wondered if he didn't sell his stock in such low quantities. I obviously looked confused as he then waved me away again and said that I could just have them. I was quite shocked, and again this probably showed on my face. Inside I told myself that I could not possibly take the bananas and so jokingly bantered with the stall owner that there was no way I could do that. He eventually insisted on weighing them and showed me the price on the scales - 28p. I gave him 40p to which he gave me 20p change. We both smiled at each other, I said thanks, and went back to the office slightly confused but grateful and happy. A simple encounter with another human involving niceness was a breath of fresh air.

The second encounter was with the guy on the stall selling nice English Cox apples. They were 2lb for 60p, but I fancied a few more than that as they are so deliciously crisp and juice. I therefore asked for about one £ worth. He started putting apples on the scales until the total was £96p. At that point I expected him to stop or maybe swap one of the apples for a slightly larger one, but instead he put another large apple on the scales taking the total to £1.13 and then charged me £1. Again, such a small gesture but one that just seemed selfless and generous.

The first encounter, and the main one that struck me in it's significance, was on a stall that I've not been to for probably a couple of years, but used to go to and once bought the lady who works on it a bunch of flowers. As I was waiting in the queue the lady (I really should find out her name) clocked me, but I didn't know if she'd recognised me as it's a busy stall with hundreds of people using it each day and I was a small time customer who'd not been there for a couple of years. When I go to the front though she smiled and said "Well hello stranger". She looked at me and smiled and we exchanged pleasantries for maybe 5 or 10 seconds. Whilst we were doing this the market hustle and bustle carried on all around us. People were asking her the price of bunches of coriander or whether they could buy a whole box of mushrooms, but she just held up her hand to silence them and listened to what I was saying whilst maintaining eye contact and smiling. For those few precious seconds I felt the most important thing to her, and that made me feel a million pounds.

I realise that it may well sound silly, but her taking time out to ask about me, to be interested in me and to really want to know how I was sent a powerful message to me about the importance of giving people your time and attention even when there may be multitudes of other demands on you. I hope this is something I'll remember to pay more attention to in work and out of work.

It also reminded me of a number of stories in the bible relating to Jesus. Whether you believe in the claims that the bible makes or not, some of the stories in it are very poignant simply as tales, and this encounter reminded me of a few that are told about Jesus. How when he was busy and thousands of people were flocking to visit him, he took himself away to make time to spend with his friends and followers. How he spent time with people that the Jewish society he lived within hated and even considered evil. And how by him spending time with people, and valuing them for who they were not who others considered them to be, he helped them to live better lives for the benefit of those around them.

2011-09-03T22:28:00.001+01:00

Tiring

Although it's only been a four day working week it seems to have been so much longer. I think it's partially due to running on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Between the three of those I did about 60km and another 6.5km today at parkrun. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get in another 20 - 25km in the morning before going to church. It's certainly the most that I've ever run in a single week but I've really enjoyed it. I am however looking forward to being able to run a bit less in order to have more time to do stuff on the house.

The reason I'm running this much is that I want to have a fairly respectable time in the Great North Run and the Chester Marathon. In these I'm aiming for sub 2 hours and 4.5 hours respectively. The former is probably achievable but I'm more worried about the latter. The running has certainly been helping with my blood sugar levels though, and assisting with loosing some weight, which can only be healthy. Another reason I run is that it allows me to clear my head - to stop thinking about anything else other than average pace, distance, instantaneous speed, routes, footwork and my body's condition and response. At the moment these windows of intense concentration on the minute by minute challenges of running distract totally from anything else such as work and home life.

Today was also emotionally tiring. Niki came over to carry on sorting through stuff, predominantly the books that we have. It wasn't easy for a number of reasons but it was really good to see her and have a chance to talk a bit. One of the many things that is so sad about splitting up is the loss of a friend who understood parts of me so very well.

Why I love where I live.

2011-08-31T23:12:00.001+01:00

When we bought this house in Bardsey, one of the criteria associated with choosing it was that it had to be within 5km of a reasonable crag. As it turns out I've hardly climbed at the local crags but have done a fair amount of running on the lanes, tracks, bridle paths and foot paths around here.

Yesterday as I was running along a track I came into a clearing in the wood and found myself face to face with and about 10m away from a deer. We both paused and looked at each other and I'm not sure which of us was the more surprised to see the other. After a few seconds it bounded off into the undergrowth and I trudged on through a particularly muddy patch of the route. However our meeting had made the run worthwhile and formed a pleasant change from the endless rabbits which try to race me or cut me up.

Tonight as I was finishing my run the brilliant pink sky had faded and dusk was firmly establishing itself across the fields and hedgerows. My only companions were the bats silently weaving their way along the lanes and passing within feet of my head. It reminded me of a trip to Chester zoo last year with Niki which was memorable in more ways than one. The relevant one was that we went to the bat house, where if you stood in the caves, you could feel the bats flying around you even when you could not see them. Running along the lanes with the bats I felt so alive, relaxed and at one with the world.

This is why I love living here. I think that I'm a country boy at heart, forever searching in the urban jungle for green respite.

2011-08-29T22:14:00.000+01:00

The power of God, music, reflection or something else.

This afternoon I went to hear the St Peter's Singers perform the Johann Sebastian Bach Mass in B minor at the Fulneck Moravian Church in Pudsey, Leeds. I didn't want to be there early as I didn't particularly want to meet people and that was lucky as although I'd left just under an hour to get there I ended up getting caught in traffic associated with the Leeds carnival. It transpired that I got there just a couple of minutes after it has started and got a nice discrete seat upstairs out of sight of most of the audience, orchestra and choir in case I happened to be lulled into a snooze by the music.

Niki was singing in the choir and as I'd not said that I was going to be there I didn't want to surprise her by suddenly entering, or appearing at the interval. I therefore kept myself to myself and simply enjoyed the atmosphere and the music. In fact it was very fortuitous that even at the interval when we walked close by each other I wasn't recognised.

Anyway, going back a step, when I was travelling there and during the first half I ran through a number of situations in my head which could have occurred. What would happen if her parents or other friends had come along to watch and I accidentally bumped into them? Would it be awkward, or even worse uncomfortable or embarrassing for one of us? What if she didn't want me there? What if it seemed as though I was getting in the way, or even worse as I'd not said I was going, stalking her in some strange way? What if I met someone that I didn't particularly want to meet? These and other associated stressful thoughts kept going through my head, evoking feeling that were not pleasant - loneliness, sadness, pain, jealousy and anger.

That is until part way through the rendition when something (although 'everything' may be a better word) changed. I suddenly realised something that I'd been wondering about, scared about, and dreading finding out about had probably actually happened. I don't know how I knew that, but somewhere inside me I just suddenly did. If there were signs that I was reading I was not even aware of the signs being there, let alone having significance. It was at that point that I would have expected to feel anger, offence, resentment or ill-wishing towards certain others, but I didn't. Instead I felt peace. I don't know how to describe it more eloquently than that. As the music washed over me, it seemed to wash the negative emotions away and leave me with feelings of acceptance and goodwill. That may sound overly flowery, and I wish I could describe it better, but the feeling of peace is one that I've felt a few times over the last month. I'm certainly not saying that I feel it all the time, but on occasions there just seems to be a supernatural and unusual peace which I do not expect but certainly appreciate.

Maybe it was something to do with the music... I was sitting in the gallery, with three horn and trumpet players beside me, and as the complex, intertwined, building, waves of music rolled up from the orchestra and choir below they were met with such sharp notes from the brass that it felt as though the music was being created all around me. This was a true surround-sound experience. However, I personally feel that it was more than just the pure physicality of the music, but was an engagement with what the music meant. The music was powerful. It felt like an industrial machine - driving, shaking, rhythmic, deep, throbbing, perpetual, strong, reverberating - and communicated some messages without needing to hear or understand the Latin text. At times it built gradually and at other times suddenly and explosively. At times it was simple and easy to follow and at times it seemed incredulous that the single choir and the four groups of voices it contained could create such a rich, intertwined and complex sound. At times the patterns were maintained and orderly, but at times each bar brought a new interpretation and build that perpetually continued like endless waves rolling up a beach and gradually bringing in the new tide one inexorable inch after inexorable inch.

But whilst the music was incredible, probably partially aided by the character of the church and the arrangement of the audience around and above the players, what I felt must have been from more than the music itself. Surely?

Later this evening I was told that the event I'd been scared about, but had had my realisation that it had probably happened, had indeed happened. Hearing that did hurt; deeply and intensely initially, but the pain was surrounded by other emotions. Emotions of love (for Niki and others), peace (again) and good will rather than negativity. This was not a superficial benevolence, a giving up of hope, an opportunity to escape or to point a finger of blame, an opt out, or simple escapism, but of accepting a situation, knowing that whilst it was a horrible place to be in I could somehow feel peace (that word again!) through it. Will this feeling continue? I don't know. I do know that it's not going to be easy going to bed tonight and trying to clear my head of any thoughts that arise, or going to work tomorrow, but this-afternoon and this-evening have been special.

Looking back to eight hours ago when I left the house I didn't expect to find out what I found out, to have pre-emptively realised what I was to find out, or to have felt what I feel about it. It's been a strange and eventful bank holiday Monday, but one that has been unexpectedly unifying and assuring rather than negative. I'd never have anticipated the events and outcomes.

2011-08-19T22:31:00.000+01:00

Church

I've been going to Mosaic, a church in Leeds, for the last few weeks. The first three words that spring to mind if I were asked to describe it would be interesting, peaceful, and natural. Let me explain a bit more about these.

It's interesting because it's different. It appears to be a community of people who really care about each other and are there to support each other. Acceptance and love seem present somehow, although if you asked to to explain in exactly what manner I'd struggle. It's more a feeling that I have when there, gleaned through watching how people interact and treat each other and me. It's a feeling stimulated by the feelings I have during the songs that we sing.

I'm also finding it peaceful. That may be because it gives me something to think about other than the situation I'm currently in. I used to go to church when younger (and probably wiser), so maybe it's a reconnection with the feelings of reassurance and divine control that I had then which is bringing peace to the situation that I'm experiencing. It may be though that being there causes you to consider a different perspective even if I don't feel that I can totally step to that point where that different perspective is mine. If you believe in God, and that he is a god who loves us, and wants the best for us, and wants all of us to support each other (irrespective of whether the supported believes in god or not) as he would if he were on earth, then that's a very different perspective to that held by many. It does not focus on personal gain but sets a very different context for living your life.

Feeling natural is partially counter-intuitive. I'm going there as it's a church which is similar to churches I went to in the past. I could easily slip into the way that they do things without really thinking about it, taking ownership of it, and passionately believing that it was something which was real and essential for me. However, there is something still holding me back. I don't know what I believe, and I don't want to simply pretend that I can believe without really challenging it and making certain that it's the right decision. In one sense it's not an easy decision, although some would hold that it's probably the easiest decision that anyone could make. I don't know if I'm being stubborn over this or why when it does feel 'natural' I'm not accepting its naturalness by letting it gradually absorb me, rather than standing on the edge until I decide I want to step in.

In an example which is partially linked to all of the above, a few weeks ago the sermon was based on a passage in Ecclesiastes. The main message was that we should trust God to provide for us, and that we should continue to be generous in our giving to others. All very well I thought, but at the moment cash is an issue to me. I have a regular monthly donation from my salary to a charitable account to allow me to make tax efficient donations to charities, and on the Monday after the sermon I requested a form from work to allow me to temporarily stop payments to this account so that I'd have a bit more disposable income to dispose of. With the form in front of me on the computer screen I remembered the sermon. There then ensued a couple of minute internal dialogue with a voice of reason saying that I should stop the payments to be able to prioritise what I needed to spend money on, whilst something else (possibly my conscience) saying that although my financial situation may not be easy the money that I could give to charities etc would make real differences to peoples lives, such as those suffering in the Horn of Africa currently. Eventually I decided that the 'right' thing to do would be to carry on with the donations.

Later that lunchtime I was browsing through the latest list of items being offered on free-cycle. I'm never normally successful in anything I ask for, and to tell you the truth there is often little on there that I need. However in this instance there was a nearly new double duvet listed. I needed a double duvet and so responded requesting it but expecting to never hear anything back. To my surprise I got an email 20 minutes later telling me that I could have it and could collect it on my way home from work that day, which was very convenient as the house of the free-cyclers was about 2 minutes out of my way when driving home. This saved me having to buy a double duvet which I would otherwise have had to do.

Some would say that this is nothing more than a coincidence - I made a decision to carry on donating a certain sum of money to others, and happened to be offered a duvet. Other would quote it as an example of God looking after me. Me, I don't know, but situations like this make me ponder.

Trade descriptions?

2011-08-14T22:51:00.001+01:00

I cut my hair this evening but then realised I'd run out of shampoo so decided to wash my hair under the tap and then have a relaxing bath. I thought that I'd treat myself to a few bubbles and ago looked around in the cupboard to see what I had. Lurking at the back I found half a bottle of 'Lux Glowing Touch Indulging Cream Bath'. Apparently 'it will leave my skin with a beautiful glow I can see', and 'beautiful glowing skin gets noticed - it draws people closer to you'.
I somehow doubt that my skin will be covered in a 'light reflective veil of Shea cream and delicate skin brighteners', but will soon see... If it does have much of an impact tomorrow could be interesting at work! If it in fact turns out to be little more than a bath full of bubbly fake tan I'll have some serious explaining to do.

2011-08-06T13:18:00.002+01:00

T-shirts

This morning a strange coincidence happened in that I received two t-shirts in the post. One was from the Bramham run I did a few weeks ago. As I had not registered in advance for it they had run out of t-shirts on the day, but promised to send me one. They honoured that promise, but in sending me an XL when I requested a medium have probably guaranteed that I'll never wear it. It may do for a charity shop though as someone may want it for gardening or painting.

The 2nd one was a Pancreatic Cancer t-shirt (Medium). I'm fairly sure that that one will get a lot more wear in the run up to the Great North Run.

It just seemed strange that for probably over 2 years I've not had a t-shirt arrive in the post and then suddenly 2 arrived at once.

However, if we consider probability it's probably not that unlikely but just very noticeable, which reminds me of an interesting discussion I had yesterday. A friend at work made reference to a chart he had seen that gave the probability of people of different ages reaching the age of 100. As people got older the probability decreased, showing that the life expectancy of people born today is a lot longer than those born 50 or 100 years ago. The colleague in question stated that as he was now 60 he had approximately an 8% chance of reaching 100. In discussions with friends I did not initially really understand this, as I held that surely when you are newly born there is a greater probability that you will die from illnesses and diseases that old people have had survived and built up resilience to. Taking the arguement to the other extreme end of the scale you could argue that 1 day before your 100th birthday you had a probability of well over 90% of reaching it.

Upon reflection though I see that I'm mixing up two different approaches, but I'm struggling to be able to elucidate my thoughts. Can anyone help spell this out clearly? I think that what we are really looking at is the compounded probability through someone's life that they will live to the next day. As health care improves these probabilities increase. Therefore there is more chance of a newly born living to 100 than a 90 year old across the full sample set at any one point in time. However on a daily basis, the probabilities that need to be compared is that of living to the next day. It's more likely that a 25 year old will live to the next day than a 99 &364/365 day old person. However, the odds are still fairly good for the person on the day before their 100th birthday, even if they are 1/10 of that of the 25 year old.

This is why I didn't do statistics. I just can't seem to get my head around it.

2011-08-05T22:38:00.000+01:00

Thanks John, Mary and Max

John lent me the film 'Mary and Max' to watch, and having just finished watching it I'd recommend it to anyone. It's not happy at times, but the tag line at the end is brilliant - 'You're born with your family, so thank God you can choose your friends'. It's a film about what's important in life, and in this instance it's not what you achieve but who's there alongside you as you get there. Sobering, poignant, powerful, hopeful, refreshing, bittersweet and inspiring.

Jeff Giles sums it up very well in this review.

I don't know if you can watch it on-line anywhere, but the trailer is on youtube.

2011-08-02T19:26:00.000+01:00

Why I hate facebook - 1

Recently I've been getting into Facebook as a good way of staying in contact with friends, family and aquaintances. I've enjoyed using it, although probably still have to learn the right balance of status updates. I doubt that many people are that interested in most of what I posted about. In fact, in relation to this I recently heard about the results of some research which suggested that when someone updated their facebook status it was predominantly aimed at a specific target audience of one or two people. To those few the update would have relevance, however for everyone else to find out that you had cornflakes for breakfast or had 'checked in' at the railway station may not be so interesting.

However, I'm now starting to change my mind. Facebook is an unsentimental piece of software with no consideration given to how people may be feeling. Today was the horrible day that Niki and I agreed it was time to change our facebook status. Now no longer will the absolute clear proclamation at the top of each page be "In a relationship with Niki Hart", but it will be Peter Wilkie - Single. That says so much. One of the most painful things about it is that suddenly 'friends' will know who I've not had a chance to speak to and tell them about it face to face. In the on-line world it's very hard to draw a veil of discretion over anything. Suddenly in a click all the good from five and half years of being together disappears as though it never existed. That's never what I want. And the worst thing of all - the message that facebook displayed - "Your relationship with Niki Hart will be cancelled upon saving".

Cancelled! How can a relationship be cancelled?! What a horrible phrase to use. However a relationship was, and in ours there was so much good, it can not be cancelled. A cancelled cheque ceases to exist but getting to know someone intimately and shaping each other's lives over a prolonged period can never be cancelled, or it's very existence denied. The ripple effect of the last five years will extend throughout my life. I am who I am today because of Niki, and that's something that I'm proud about and thankful for.

2011-07-31T22:08:00.000+01:00

Pain, peace and calories.

This weekend has been particularly painful. Niki has been at a wedding of some friends our ours in Aberdeen; a wedding that we were both invited to but that only Niki is going to. Whilst Facebook is a useful tool to keep in contact with friends and family, it can be painful to be continually reminded about how much fun your friends are having without you.

On top of that Hope and Social were having a garden party today. I'd have liked to go, but as Niki was going with a colleague from work it didn't feel appropriate. However, the pain of knowing that she was there with someone else enjoying listening to a band that we'd enjoyed together so much during our relationship brought me fairly low.

However, in contrast to both of these low points (which pretty much extended for most of the weekend), I went to a church service this morning. It wasn't a Damascus road experience, and wasn't easy at times as I was feeling quite emotional, but to my surprise I found it very peaceful. Something about that place and the people and their approach brought a real sense of peace into me.

The final pain from the weekend is a purely physical one. This morning before church I went out for a 16km run, and did this in 1 hour 27 minutes. The average pace was 5m and 26 seconds per km, which I was quite pleased with as if I manage to keep that pace up for a further 5km on the GNR I'll do it in just under 2 hours, which is what I'm aiming for. In doing the run I apparently used 1350 calories. Only another 2150 to go (without increasing my daily intake) and I'll have lost a pound.

I think that I need to focus some more on hill training in my runs this week so will be trying to include as many climbs as possible on a couple of short runs during the week. I felt okay when running but now am starting to feel quite stiff and sore. I think I'll have a steady day tomorrow.

2011-07-31T21:45:00.000+01:00

Price comparison site for media

I've just used this site again (2save.co.uk) to find the cheapest price for a couple of CDs. I know that the number of companies that this scans is limited, but having shopped around a bit I still could not find anything cheaper than the lowest price that it listed. It also seems to be very simple to use, and for me that's an important thing.

I bought the Adele album because I keep hearing her songs and they are so emotive that I'd like to be able to listen to all of them. The second one is by a group called Fountains of Wayne. I've always liked FoW, and when their latest album had a good review in the Independent this week I decided to treat myself.

The third CD (which 2save could not find) is by an artist called Christina Perri. I've only just discovered her as I was driving into Leeds today. A song was playing as I switched to Radio 2 that had a beautiful sung line with a melody that I just could not get out of my head. The radio didn't say who the artist was so I noted down some of the lyrics and then googled it. Apparently she's only got one album out, but from listening to a couple of tracks on-line I love it. I ended up getting that through CD Wow, who suddenly seem to have got very expensive.

2011-07-17T21:47:00.000+01:00

Today

Today was not the best day of my life, to put it bluntly. I don't know if I've ever tried to keep myself so busy simply so that I don't have much time to think. I'm sure that I'll post more about that at some point in the future.

The day started off with a 10km race at Bramham Park, a local country estate. The weather was poor as was my preparation for running anything over 5km, which is the furthest distance that I've run for most of the last couple of months. That said, it seemed to go okay. I'd targeted a time of 50 minutes and managed to to it in just under that, with fairly consistent pace most the way around. It was nice seeing a couple of people I knew on the way around including a colleague from work who I caught up with on one of the hills, but then lost again, and the brother-in-law of one of our friends. The rain actually helped in keeping it cool. I was certainly grateful for my Garmin GPS trainer as most of the km markers were in significantly the wrong place. If I'd have been trying to assess my pace from those I'd have had no chance of keeping an accurate pace.

On the way back I went to do a bit of shopping and then had a late lunch, before being invited to the Harrogate Wall with Joe for a few hours. Joe is a seriously good climber, dispatching 8a's with apparent ease and complaining to the wall that the grades were too soft and that there were not enough harder routes. I didn't find the same problem, being fairly tired and distracted, however it was really good to catch up and have a chat.

Finally, the third leg of my non-conventional triathlon was cutting the grass. The weather has been consistently wet for the last couple of days and I think is forecast to continue like this for the next few weeks. As it has stopped raining mid-afternoon I grabbed the chance to give the semi-dry grass a quick cut. Followed by cooking dinner, cleaning up, blogging, and now heading for a bath and bed, where hopefully I'll sleep deeply and pain-free.

The Advertising Standards Agency

2011-06-24T23:45:00.001+01:00

A couple of months ago I saw an advert on television for Nutella. The advert made out that the spread predominantly contained hazelnuts, skimmed milk and cocoa, neglecting to point out that the main two ingredients were sugar and vegetable oil. I found the add misleading, particularly as they were making out that nutella was a healthy option and so complained to the Advertising Standards Agency.

The ASA responded quickly saying that they would investigate my complaint but then I heard nothing. I forgot about it a bit and assumed that it'd been filed in a draw of minor complaints that would only be addressed when they'd nothing more substantial to address. That was until yesterday when I received a 5 sided letter detailing the investigations that they had made on behalf of myself and the other 31 complainants including Which Ltd.

In conclusion it seems that the Ferrero lawers, marketing and public relations team had done a very diligent job in defending the company and the complaints that had been made were deemed to not beach the advertising standard code. I don't mind too much although I still consider the advert to be inappropriate as the ASA have obviously done a thorough job.

I've never made a complaint like this before but would certainly not hesitate to use them again. Their approach seemed very through, professional and balanced.

2011-05-08T03:36:00.000+01:00

Weightlifting ant

I should be asleep now, but for some reason woke up at 2am and have not been able to get back to sleep since then. I'm currently sorting through bookmarks in Firefox, deleting a lot and trying to put the remaining ones into some type of logical file structure. If that doesn't put me to sleep then I'll move onto the paper filing...

In whiling away the early hours of the morning I found this picture and BBC news article that I came across a year ago and always meant to blog about.

The image shows an Asian weaver ant hanging upside down on a glass-like surface and holding a 500mg (0.02oz) weight in its jaws. It was taken by zoology specialist Dr Thomas Endlein of Cambridge University as he researched insects' sticky feet. The research shows how ants change the size and shape of the pads on their feet to enable them to carry heavier loads.

Three things attract me to the image.

The composition and simplicity of the picture whilst conveying a scientific message and stimulating thought.
It reminds me of how fascinating ants are, both in the feats that they perform individually such as this one, but also how they function as colonies.
The thought of how long Dr Thomas Endlein must have spent trying to get the ant to lift the weight and then to carry it upside down. Sometimes I think that I have an unproductive day at work, but I guess that he must also have felt that quite a bit when trying to take these pictures.

2011-05-06T21:53:00.000+01:00

Ben

The following picture were taken by Simon, my brother-in-law when he, Hannah and Ben, their now 18 month old son and my nephew, came to stay last weekend. Ben is georgous and absolutely loved just playing out in the garden. Some old pegs kept him entertained for hours (as they did me actually now I come to think of it!)

Ben reading a climbing book. Can you tell why I love him yet?

Me explaining some of the intricacies of a double rope system to an attentive audience.

Ben looking decidedly unsure about whether he wants his socks and shoes to be put on by Niki (with some past their best tulips in the foreground.)

2011-05-06T21:38:00.000+01:00

Parkrun No. 4

Last week was my fourth Parkrun, and the first that I'd done with Niki. Unfortunately it caused Niki to have an exertion migraine which inflicted quite a lot of pain on her over the forthcoming hours.

On the plus side, it was the first event where I've had supporters there. The people running the event and the marshals are always friendly and supportive, but on Saturday Hannah, Simon and Ben came along to watch. Ben seemed to really enjoy clapping and cheering on the tree times we ran past, and laughed lots when I detoured off on the final lap to run up to him and mess up his hair. It was really fun knowing that people were watching out for you but didn't feel too pressured.

Last Saturday we did the Roundhay Park run, rather than the Hyde Park run that I normally do. It is a bit closer to where we live and a newer event. Because it is newer there are less people running it with there being about 60 participants instead of around 150 at Hyde Park. The Roundhay course feels harder work though. It certainly contains more vertical climbing and the vertical climbs are steeper than at Hyde Park. I think that I'll go back there tomorrow and see how it is to run it a second time. If there's anyone who wants to join me you'll be more than welcome.

2011-05-06T21:23:00.002+01:00

Fluid Mechanics

Fluid Mechanics is the study of fluids and includes how they interact with each other and their properties and responses under different conditions. We did some elementary fluid mechanics at university as it fed into the hydraulics modules on the Civil Engineering degree, but some of the other engineering degrees, such as mechanical, went into a lot more detail.

One of the things I love about working with water is that it is inherently logical. It flows downhill. It utilises energy in getting around bends and in regions of turbulence. Its energy (in my applications) is normally directly related to its elevation. These simple rules help it make sense in my head.

However when I see images such as these which the BBC have produced, it makes me realise the beauty and complexity of water and fluids. I don't know why I find these pictures so captivating but I really do. Maybe it's the fact that there is order, logic and explanation in the apparent chaos and randomness. Maybe it's because they each illustrate something about fluids and their properties which is partially intuitive but also contrary to so much of what we normally assume and consider as liquid. Maybe it's because these are real - in that they are not simulations but very cleverly captured images used as part of scientific advancement and thus blend the skills of art and science.

2011-05-06T20:59:00.000+01:00

Getting older

Yesterday it started to rain for the first time in what felt like a month and was certainly longer than two weeks. The garden has been slowly drying out and as on Monday we'd transplanted some plants from a rockery into one of the flower beds we were watering them every evening. My first thoughts when it started to rain last night were 'That'll be good for the garden'!

A sudden realisation of how priorities subtly change over time.

2011-04-12T21:07:00.000+01:00

Blood donation

Last night I gave blood for the first time this year. It was a really fun experience which was something I was not expecting as normally it is something I do out of a sense of duty, but do not really enjoy.

I'd booked an appointment after work at the donation centre in Leeds, and turned up a few minutes early. The place was deserted and I was seen to straight away; a change from the last time when I was kept waiting for at least half an hour getting myself more and more nervous. The paperwork was completed in a few minutes and I went straight through to donate. There were quite a few platelet donors in, but no other blood donors, and so I was promptly shown to a bed and introduced to nurse Denise, who would be taking my blood.

Denise was vivacious to say the least. During the donation she did not stop talking! We covered everything from why we lived in Bardsey, the age of the pub in Bardsey, beer festivals, crazy dancing at beer festivals, Wales, Pontefract and liquorice and most of that was before she'd even put the needle into my arm.

During the donation the conversation turned to 'knocking houses' as apparently there was one opposite the donation centre and apparently you could sometimes see scantily clad ladies smoking from the windows if you were in the right beds. I wasn't apparently but know which to ask for next time... It then went on to the time she was asked if she wanted to be a dominatrix by a lady at the Cow and Calf pub in Ilkley, and how if she'd accepted she could have made roughly £27k in four months. All through this I was trying to make suitable responses but was not quite sure of what the etiquette was in a conversation like that. I certainly didn't know what to say when she started to talk about a fetish party in Covenant Garden when she'd been asked upon entry if she wanted a ribbon. (She hadn't known, and neither did I, that a ribbon was a sign that you wanted sex whereas being ribbonless indicated that you were not participating).

Although the conversation was distracting, she was also a very good nurse, and the donation was the least painless that I've ever had. The only slightly strange thing was that the Blood Service now have a new recommendation. In order to reduce the risk of fainting they encourage you to repeatedly clench and relax your buttocks as you are donating. That's all well and good, and I obeyed their recommendation, but was distinctly aware of how dodgy it may have looked as I was listening to Denise telling her slightly risque stories as I was there slowly thrusting my hips up and down whilst laying face up on the bed...

2011-03-15T21:15:00.000Z

Parkrun No. 1 and Collingham circuit No. 1

On Saturday I took part in my first 'Parkrun'. What is Parkrun you may say, and to avoid me simply repeating information on the website I suggest you follow the link and have a look at it yourself.

I was quite scared preparing to leave the house on Saturday morning and turning up at Hyde Park in Leeds. New situations, particularly where there is uncertainty about what is going to happen, make me feel uncomfortably. I wouldn't say that I'm shy, but that I like to know what is going to happen. Needless to say everything was all fine. The marshals and other runners created a feeling of community and it was a privilege to share in their event particularly as it was so well organised and fun. At the start they even had a round of applause for the 10 of us who were dong the run for the first time.

The 5km of running itself went quite well. I hung well back for the first km to try and pace myself, and then found someone who's pace I felt I could keep up with to follow for the rest of the run. The course basically comprises two and a half circuits of the park, and it rises and falls gently. I found that quite enjoyable as on the up hill sections there was a reason why it felt like hard work, and on the down hill sections I got a chance to get my breath back a bit. Towards the end I upped the pace for the final 500m and finished it in 26 minutes and 14 seconds feeling quite happy. Apparently this means that I finished in 155th place and was the 104th gent out of a field of 274 parkrunners. I came 19th in my age category SM30-34. One of the things I liked about it was that it's a free and very accessible way to ascertain your performance and in addition was very friendly with a wide range of people walking, jogging and running it.

Last night I felt like doing another run so did a new route from home to Collingham along the A58 and back along the back lanes to Bardsey. This run was slightly longer (4.85 miles or about 7.8km) and I took it at a much steadier pace, particularly as I didn't want to put undue pressure on my knees before going skiing for a week. It was a bit hillier but was delightful running all along the top of the hill looking over the valley and lights of Collingham and Bardsey. I'm looking forward to building up a bit more endurance and being able to explore the areas around here in the evening. At present I'm finding running quite relaxing and so hope that this carries on. I think a key part of this is simply doing it for fun: not pushing myself too hard and to the point where it's excessively painful as this will then reduce motivation to do it again. It also helps to think of the positive benefit I hope it will have on my diabetes control, weight and climbing ability.

2011-03-15T20:33:00.000Z

A prickly friend

This week has not been the best so far. I've been feeling tired and stressed at work, and evenings seem to be disappearing rapidly. Tonight I came home after doing a bit of food shopping on the way back, only to find that the heating was not working again and the house was chilly, to say the least.

I decided to have a fire and so went outside to fill up the wood basket. As I stepped out of our front door a hedgehog was slowly nosing its way up the drive outside our front door. I stopped. It stopped. It looked at me, and I looked at it (having turned off my head-torch so as not to affect its eyes). It looked quite large, healthy and awake; not that I have much experience of hedgehogs. I didn't want to scare it by walking towards it and so patiently waited for what was probably less than half a minute before it turned away and padded back down the drive.

I know that it's not much, but the simply sight of a simple hedgehog suddenly made me feel a lot more relaxed. It's nice to live in an area where there will be such creatures in the garden, at least until they're helping themselves to produce from the vegetable garden we hope to start.

2011-03-12T15:13:00.000Z

Typical...

We're off skiing in a weeks time. This time next week we'll be in the resort, and hopefully checking in to our hotel prior to going and sorting out our ski equipment. Looking at the weather forecast though, I think it may be better to hire mountain bikes as this week looks to be warm and wet, which even I as an amateur skier recognise will not make for nice powdery snow when we arrive. One of the things I'm worried about is that the forecast indicates that it's going to be warm at night, and this may mean that the snow cannons can not be used as they need a temperature at least a few degrees below freezing to operate.

Warm conditions, with no artificial snow may not be conducive to improving our skiing abilities, but may result in lots of walking and other activities. Uno anyone?

Our hotel is on one of the slopes above Morzine village. When we booked this we thought it would be great as it would allow us to ski in the Morzine / Les Gets area easily, and our ski holiday included the opportunity to buy 2 for 1 local ski passes. However if the snow is not good there we may end up spending most of our time on the other side of the resort, and having to get all the way down into Morzine at the start of the day in order to catch the ski bus around the mountain; the very same ski bus that drove immediately past the door of the hotel where we stayed before.

However it turns out it'll be nice to have a week off work, and even if the snow is not great I'm sure we'll have fun. We can always go to Scotland when we get back for some nice snow.

2011-03-05T21:54:00.000Z

Phones

In addition to central heating systems (which randomly seemed to be working this evening but not producing any hot water) I seem to have an ability to destroy phones. We've only just had a BT phone line installed, and so been able to use our land line. However today I tried to make a call on our phone and realised that the handset is not working. If anyone has been trying to call us since it broke (which I have no idea when this was) we'd not have been able to hear the phone, and even if it had rung we'd not have been able to answer it as when we pick it up it just makes a faint humming noise. Actually having said that I'm assuming that it's broken and not that some very patient but bored person in a BT exchange is playing a practical joke on us by humming down the phone line whenever we pick it up...

I've dug out an old phone of Niki's which does seem to be working and so hopefully this will last until we get a replacement. The only problem with this is that it's been used so much that the numbers have worn off the key pad. I know that it's silly, but the way the numbers are configured on the phone pad is different to that on a keyboard or calculator, and it confuses me a bit. I know that 1 is in the top left, but do not automatically know where 6, or 7 or any of the other numbers apart from 5 would be. I think this is due to normally using key pads which are configured differently, and being a bear with a little brain.

2011-03-05T21:45:00.000Z

New things

Today has been a day of doing things for the first time. It started off with sweeping the chimney; and given the amount of soot that came out I think it may have been the first time it had ever been cleaned. Nick was helping me out as Niki is in London this weekend, and between us we removed a whole black bin-bag, and three vacuum cleaner bags full of soot. It seemed to be quite sooty all the way up which surprised me as I thought there would be more in the lower section. We also found out that the chimney is only just shorter than the sum total of the poles I've got and so I'm quite pleased that it's that way around.

The second thing I did today for the first time was to cook a dish with kidneys. Obviously I always have kidneys when I cook, but this time I was cooking with Lamb's kidneys. I sliced and fried them with lots of coarse cut onions, a bit of pepper and a bit of oregano. Served with fresh runner bean they were delicious and I'd certainly cook with them again. I'm going climbing tomorrow and feel that with a good dinner like that in my I'm certain to climb well and have a fun day.

2011-03-04T20:08:00.000Z

Sods law

Why is it that our heating and hot water can work virtually perfectly for six weeks, and then choose to not work on the one evening when the outside temperature is below freezing and I've been for a run and so am really looking forward to a hot bath?

I'm wondering if there's something wrong with the temperature sensor in the boiler and it's somehow inhibiting the operation if the temperature gets too cold. It's also annoying that it seems to fail at a weekend, and during the week when it would be easier to get the plumber out to see it.

2011-02-21T20:20:00.000Z

In the deep midwinter

In the deep midwinter, snow was falling snow on snow,
Into this deep mid-winter, Niki and Pete did go.
They were all dress up in gear, for to have a run,
And as they trudged up hill on hill, were they having fun?

Yes indeed I think they were, for whilst twas cold and dark,
They actually enjoyed it quite a lot for it was a fun lark.
The Great North Run is quite far off, but that's no reason why,
To put of training for another day, when it is warm and dry.

Yes, we've started. We've both got places in the Great North Run this year running for a pancreatic cancer charity that is raising funding for research and education. A friend of ours recently lost her father to pancreatic cancer, and so we're both feeling motivated to help in this cause.

I'm certainly not very fit at the moment, so doing some running is good. To date though I've probably spent more time in the shop buying some running shoes than actually running, but we have been out twice. Today my knees didn't hurt so much which was good, and I actually found it easier to run in the dark as you could not really see how slowly you were running or quite how much of the hill there was left. I'm sure the training will not be fun at times, but it's good doing it with someone else as it gives you the motivation to put your shoes on and get out there.

2011-02-19T09:37:00.000Z

Giving in (1)

One of the best things about moving into a new house is the process of clearing and packing the old house. In doing this recently I found a buried treasure in the kitchen - A January 2005 jar of Mum's marmalade. I recently decided to treat myself and so opened it.

Wow. It was amazing. From the crystallised sugar on the top, through the sweet yet intensely bitter body and the chunky peel. It really is a spread to savour, and I'm using it as a weekend treat. It's too good to eat quickly before rushing out to work.

It is now over half used and I know that it was the last of my stored collection of home made spreads. I think that it's time for me to learn how to make jam as there's a limit as to how long I can continue to live of kind donations from friends and family.

Thinking about jam, fruit and garden produce leads me on to thinking about our garden. We're only just starting to think about how we may want it to look in the future. Last weekend Niki tackled the rockery at the front and cleared that out whilst I continued attacking some of the more rampant bushes in the hedges. I think that for now we'll just liberally sow mixed flower seeds so the front at least has some colour over the spring and summer and will hopefully win some approval from the others on the street. We're trying to avoid worrying too much about the back garden as yet... It's mature and fairly low maintenance which is good, but I'd like to start thinking about a vegetable plot and somewhere for the chickens.

The problems is though that there are some quite large trees in our neighbour's garden which overhang ours and make it quite dark. We need to speak to them about whether they want to keep them, as if they do it'll affect what we can plant and where we can plant it. I'm thinking that I'd like to have some fruit trees (this is the link back to the jam) at the top end of the garden, and am also harbouring a secret fancy for a home-made sauna up there at the top. One of the reasons for this is that in Chile we had a great sauna in a self-built facility, with a simple wood stove in it. I can imagine retreating up the garden and spending a relaxing hour or so talking with friends in the sauna. Maybe it's not practical though so I'll wait and see if the urge passes.

2011-02-02T20:58:00.000Z

Day 6

This post is late, the reason for that being that my computer decided to delete it when I posted it and I couldn't be bothered at the time to re-type it.

Day 6 was brilliant. Good weather again and skiing as a group in the morning. We did some fun runs and it was great to see how everyone had improved over the course of the week.

In the afternoon I went off by myself and covered quite a lot of ground. This was mainly nice steady blue runs, but with a few reds thrown in for fun/excitment. I repeated the red I'd done with my instructor the previous day and on the way back re-tried the red that I'd chickened out on earlier in the week and had to climb down the side of. It wasn't easy and at first I found myself traversing the piste unable to turn until I reached the end of the piste. I realised that I probably could not side slip all the way down so had to shuffle back enough to give myself space to try and turn. As soon as I'd done one turn though it was all ok. I may not have looked particularly graceful, but I felt reasonably in control.

As that run had gone ok (meaning that I'd survived) I decided to do another red run down the mountain into town. This was down the main slalem run that drops off the side of the mountain beside the main lift up. I'd seen loads of people do it during the week and always wondered how on earth they could do it. I soon found out as once I'd started going down the run there was no turning back! It was steep, icy and frightening but I steadily linked my turns all the way down. My legs felt tired at the end, but it was worth it and an exillerating end to a great week skiing. Maybe next time I'll do it with a bit more style.

2011-01-21T18:03:00.001Z

Day 5

Today was the best day of the holiday so far. I loved it.

We started by heading over to Les Gets as I'd booked a private lesson for a couple of hours. Lisa, my instructor, was brilliant. She worked me hard but gave so many useful tips that I felt that I improved significantly. At the end of the session we did a red run and it felt fine; scary but achievable and safe. I'm now at the point where I feel I can parallel turn quite competently, and it's now a case of practising this on a range of different routes. I always find it easier if I'm following someone though...

In the afternoon Niki and I skied together which was really fun. As it'd been a tiring morning we took it easy and did a nice serious of runs in the Les Gets bowl before heading back to Morzine and skiing most the way down the mountain. The skiing was a combination of tracks through the forest and some steeper runs. It was really fun to ski together, particularly when our strengths complemented each other. It's sad that tomorrow will be our last day here.

I want to be skiing again soon.

2011-01-21T06:17:00.003Z

Day 4

The good. An afternoon spent doing new blue runs with Niki, Joanne and Piers. Achieving a speed of nearly 60kph on a nice straight run with Adam. The fact that we got a little bit of real snow.the strange and beautiful halo that appeared around the sun for 5 minutes while we were on a chair lift. Only falling over once. Pushing myself, feeling a bit scared, but loving it. A great dinner of onion soup, tartiflette and lemon merange (sp) pie. Sharing that dinner with friends and having a lot of laughs. Feeling happy and confident.

The bad. Not really getting much tuition from our instructor in the morning and so not feeling as though I'd progressed as much as I could have.

The ugly. Slipping over in a bar after we'd had a drink at the end of the day skiing, falling flat on my back, bruising my elbow, shoulder, and pride.

2011-01-19T19:55:00.002Z

Day 3

It had to end at some point and today was that point!

The lesson this morning was not particularly challenging for a number of reasons. The instructor seemed to be suggesting things for me to do to improve without actually watching how I was skiing, and spent very little time skiing with me. The conditions were not particularly conducive as there was low cloud, freezing temperatures and artificial snow atop ice. The skiing was OK though but we were limited as to where we could go due to differing confidence levels within the group.

After lunch we did some more easy runs but I felt that I wanted something with more of a challenge and so decided to go down a long blue to the base of the mountain with Piers. Suffice to say things did not go smoothly. I'll write in more detail when I'm not using my phone to do so, but in summary we ended up trying to go down a run which was closed, diverting onto a red run, getting scared and deciding to walk down beside a steep bit of it, in doing so dropping my skis and watching then slide about 200m down the run, climbing down beside the run by kicking foot holes into the icy snow, and then having retrieved the skis feeling very tired, disheartened and generally down, and still having to continue to the nearest lift in order to go back up the hill in order to get a lift down. All the time we were climbing/sliding down we were near a ski lift and were subject to regular taunts, abuse and jokes from above.

2011-01-18T21:26:00.001Z

Day 2

Today was another good day. The weather was fine, the company fun, the tuition challenging and the skiing exciting (generally). I felt that my turns improved and I think that one of the reasons for that was that I realised that I was more scared of falling on my left than my right side of my body, meaning that I was more committed when turning to the left. With that piece of the puzzle in place it became much easier to turn.

For a lot of the afternoon we skied as a group on some of the easier slopes, but at the end of the day some of us went back down the blue runs to the town that we'd done yesterday. Today they felt a lot easier and more under control which felt really positive. I'm hoping though that tomorrow is a bit more challenging and that we go to some new areas.

It's great skiing with Niki; following in each others tracks and encouraging each other to do and try things. Niki's much more technically competent than me but I think I'm a bit more foolhardy and will tend to throw myself down more stuff.

Another good thing about today is that I didn't fall over when getting off the chair lift at all. I did on other occasions, but that's only to be expected (our so I tell myself).

I'm also hoping that I sleep better tonight as recently I've been struggling to get to sleep and often waking up in the night.

2011-01-17T17:43:00.001Z

Day 1

Today was our first day skiing in Morzine. I woke up excited and a bit nervous. Breakfast was simply an exercise to fuel up for the day, and then we were off; striding along the road to where we got the first bus to the bottom of the lift. The first lift was a cable car and hence not too scary... unlike the chair lifts which when trying to get off later in the day I fell off twice! Three of us had a 2 hour lesson first thing, and we spent that on the nursery slope trying to remember how to turn and control our speed along with the three, four and five year olds, all of whom seemed to have no fear.

For some reason I struggled to turn to the left. Turning right was fine (well as fine as someone who has only had limited inside skiing experience can be) but turning left was a nightmare. I kept getting 3/4 of the way around but my uphill ski was catching on the outside inner edge and stopping me going all the way around in the turn. I thing it's due to a combination of not getting enough weight over my right foot and not swinging my left foot in enough.

It, was fun but after a couple of hours on the nursery slope I felt like more of a challenge, and that happened when skiing with the others before and after lunch...

We spent the rest of the day doing some blue runs. The snow wasn't great with there being quite a few icy and slushy patches and they certainly made it 'interesting' on some of the steeper sections. I felt worried and scared quite a lot of the time but certainly enjoyed it; the views, the sun, the feeling of speed, the feeling of being in control (sometimes), and spending time with great people. Tis true that the lifts didn't work out too well, but that's something for tomorrow.

2010-11-14T04:39:00.002Z

I feel bad

It's not because we're going on holiday today and I've a stinking cold and only managed to get a couple of of hours sleep last night, but due to a situation with my house.

Yesterday at 1.00pm a Polish couple and their mother (not sure whether she was his or her mother) came to view our house, and expressed an interest in it. I asked them how long they were planning on being in the area, and they didn't seem very sure. I therefore offered them a reduction in the rent if they were willing to sign a 1-year tenancy agreement rather than a 6 month agreement. They seemed interested in this and said that they'd contact the people they are currently renting from on Monday or Tuesday of next week and let me know when they would be available to move in. They were unsure on the notice period that they needed to give. All well and good... I was happy as I'd found tenants for the house but had been quite flustered and forgotten to ask some key questions such as what jobs they did.

At 2.00pm another couple came to have a look around, and loved the house. I seemed to connect with them a bit more and they seemed a bit more caring and thoughtful, offering to take off their shoes etc as they came in and complementing us on what we had done. At the end of their look around they said that they were interested in the property and would get back to us to confirm it. When asked as to how long they wanted to be in the house they said at least 18 months, with it potentially being longer. This is as the lady is training in the vicinity. A few hours later they rang and emailed to say that they wanted it.

We decided to proceed with the second couple, not least because we felt they would appreciate the house more than the others, but because they would be paying the full rent, and will hopefully be here for a reasonable time. I therefore emailed the first couple saying:

Thank you for viewing our house today. I'm sorry to say that the people who viewed the house after you this afternoon also liked it, and wanted to rent it. As they were looking for a house to rent for 18 months to 2 years, I have decided to rent it to them instead as having long term tenants in the house is a large benefit to myself.

Thank you again for your interest, and I hope that you find another property that you like in the area. Should the other people's references etc not be suitable, or there are any problems arising, I will of course contact you to offer you the property again if you have not found anything else in the meanwhile.

I've just picked up an email back from them saying:

ohhhhh and i have already phoned my tenants and told them that we found something else and that we will move to your property within a month. Shame you didnt tell us that it IS important for you to sign the agreement for a longer period of time couse we would go for it! Couse we're as well looking for a house to rent for a few years time and not just one year.

We just thought that you wanted to sign the agreement for a year and after the year just renew it. And we also thought that we were the only people to view the house.

I feel bad because they were nice people, they did like the house, I had kind of offered it to them before the second couple came, they were there first and I'd misunderstood what they wanted. I've learnt a lesson not to be so hasty, and to be more open with people. I should have told them that they were not the only people viewing it so that they didn't get their expectations and hopes up so much.

2010-11-12T23:44:00.002Z

The time has come...

For us to move house. Our completion date of the 26th is now rapidly approaching. I'm going into the Santander tomorrow to pay off the outstanding mortgage on this house with the money raised by re-mortgaging my other house. It feels like quite a historic moment, and when we've transferred the rest of the money to the solicitor for completion I think we'll finally feel that we're actually getting a new house, as well as being fairly broke!

Our Pontefract house is now on the market, and looks good on Rightmove although the photos are a bit dark and grainy. In fact we had a couple come and look at it on Wednesday and they asked why we were moving out as we'd obviously put quite a bit of work into it. I wasn't quite sure what to say. The reason we're moving is not to do with what the house is like, but its location and the fact that we want something which is both of ours from the outset. I thought the couple who viewed it were quite interested, but I've not heard from them since so guess that they can't have been. There's two more couples viewing it tomorrow though, so it would be good if one of them wanted it.

Validation

2010-11-04T21:55:00.000Z

Validation

We just watched this short film. It's slightly predictable, but in a really nice way. It's the kind of story that great children's books are based on. The kind of story that you can read again and again and again but still feel warm inside. It's the kind of story that I want to share with you because its only in its sharing that its meaning can really be demonstrated.

You are great. Whether it's your attitude to life, the way you quietly intervene in stressful situations, your unique perspective, your caring nature, the fact that you want to make a difference to those around you, to do a good job - whatever it is you are doing, to make others feel relaxed, to accept others for who they are, to point out peoples good and not their bad, to be always available, to look good, and to share a smile with those around you whether you expect one back or not.

2010-11-02T19:55:00.002Z

Amazing bats

Whilst eating tea I've been watching a David Attenborough documentary on mammals. This one is predominantly about bats, and it's amazing. There's a species of bats which live in Texas that each night fly up to between 1km and 3km up in the atmosphere to catch moths which are are using the air currents to travel north from the topics. Each night the bat population of one cave will eat 120 tons of moths, which seems to be a huge number.

In the winter this particular species remains in the caves through the cold winters. The air temperature outside is down to -20 degrees C, and inside the cave icicles form on the walls and ceiling. The bats slow down their metabolism to almost nothing and go into a deep hibernation. David's team used a thermal imaging camera to show the fact that they have hardly any body heat being emitted. At intervals the males awake, take advantage of the deep sleep of the females to mate with them, have a drink of water and go back into hibernation. The images of the bats awakening, warming and then cooling back down were incredible.

I find it fascinating to learn about things like this.

2010-11-02T19:45:00.003Z

It has happened.

Today, whilst in a meeting, I missed a call from our solicitor. The message he left confirmed that this morning we have exchanged contracts. Yippee. We're now buying our new house. It's been a long process to get here but hopefully it's going to be straightforward from here. All we've got to do now is get ready for our new house, and I suspect that it's going to be quite a bit of work.

This evenings tasks are to unpack my tools from the car from the weekend, tidy downstairs and take some pictures for advertising this house to rent.

2010-10-29T21:40:00.002+01:00

Home sweet home

Today has come and gone. It was the day when we hoped (again) that we'd exchange contracts on our house, but it was not to happen. Apparently our solicitors could not get hold of the vendor's solicitors...

We're hoping that it goes through on Monday, with an expected completion date of 26th November. I'm feeling confident about this date although there's no reason I should be as every other date we've been told or suggested has not materialised.

If everything goes according to plan we should be nicely settled in our new house by Christmas! Now that's exciting.

2010-10-26T22:28:00.002+01:00

Another slippery slope

Last night I had a three hour skiing lesson. I fancied trying skiing as most the rest of my family love it but I've never really had the chance to get into it. Niki's been on a couple of ski holidays and likes it, as do quite a few of my other friends. I think that it's an expensive hobby, but one that offers the chance to get out and about in beautiful scenery and exercise for a week.

About 6 months ago Tesco clubcard had a good deal where you could get four introductory hours of skiing tuition at Xscape for £100 in clubcard reward tokens, i.e. £25 pounds in Tesco clubcard vouchers. I sent off for the reward tokens, and then the skiing company promptly changed the deal. None the less, getting three hours of tuition, including all equipment and clothing hire didn't seem unreasonable for £100, and if I'd not used the vouchers for this they would have been wasted. As it turns out it was probably very good value as I was the only person on the lesson. Apparently they book up to ten people onto each lesson, but obviously Monday evening in October is not a particularly busy time.

I loved the experience. I wasn't a natural and struggled a bit with balance and turns, but felt that I was making progress. It was certainly hard work and by the end of it my legs were not doing what I was willing them to do. I'm strongly considering booking onto the next set of lessons in order to continue learning and improving, and then will certainly want to go on a skiing holiday to be able to put my newly found skills to the test. In fact I'm already checking the weather forecast to see if there are any early indications of whether this is going to be another cold winter, because if so I may be able to do some skiing in Scotland...

I only fell over a couple of times. The last time was right at the end of the lesson when I was trying to get my skis off and as such was quite uneventful. The first time though was a bit more alarming. We were using the lift to pull ourselves to the halfway point on the main slope from where we were setting off from. I'd used the lift a few times and was quite comfortable with it, however I was a bit scared that I'd not manage to get off in time and would be pulled to the top of the large slope. On one occasion I got of the lift a bit early, and much to my surprise started to slide backwards down the slope that I'd just been dragged up. I'd got off just too early, and my skis were just on the slope rather than the level section. As thoughts of sliding all the way down backwards knocking people of left, right and centre flashed through my mind I realised the only way to stop myself was to throw myself down, which I promptly did. Luckily at that point the lift operator saw me and stopped the lift to allow me to escape back up the slope.

2010-10-15T21:13:00.002+01:00

Beating the system

ASDA have introduced a system where you can check on-line whether your shopping there was actually cheaper than any of their main competitors. About a month ago, I popped into ASDA to buy a few bits and pieces, and spent a total of £16.94.

The next day I thought that I'd try out the system and so went onto the ASDA website and entered my receipt details. The site promptly informed me that my shopping in ASDA had been 51p more expensive than if I'd bought it at Tesco, and so took me to a site where I could download a voucher for 51p. Brilliant, I thought to myself - I've beaten this system. Although ASDA are proudly claiming that they're the cheapest I doubted that many people actually go on-line to check, and that even fewer can be bothered to print out the voucher, and that even fewer actually remember to take it into ASDA to claim their few pence. But I wasn't going to be one of those. I'd printed my voucher and arranged it neatly on the desk so that I wouldn't forget to take it in.

Today, when clearing the desk I found the voucher. It expired on 07/10/10. Whoops. I've just been beaten by the system.

2010-10-13T13:45:00.002+01:00

Why?

I've just spent the last five weeks working really hard on a bid with our Dublin office for a big wastewater project around Dublin. It had to be submitted at 12.00 today, and resulted in little sleep last night. I've just found out that it didn't actually get submitted until 12.05 today and so is unlikely to be accepted.

I'm shocked that this could happen. We've invested so much time and effort on this that to throw it all away at the last minute (or five) makes me feel very frustrated.

Anyway, I'm off to bed for a bit so that I'm not a grumpy boy when Niki comes home from work.

2010-05-03T10:32:00.002+01:00

Kitchen action plan

Today we're making the most of the bank holiday to potter. To do those things around the house that have been accumulating for the past weeks and we've never got around to. We did have some other plans, but due to unforeseen circumstances these have changed.

In tidying up some paperwork, I came across my 'plan of attack' for the kitchen. I thought that I'd post it here to remind myself how much work it was and how I'd be stupid to do it again. That doesn't mean that I won't though!

Plan how to arrange the new kitchen in the available space.
Buy kitchen, including making changes to the kitchen plan to accommodate what units B&Q have in stock.
Collect kitchen flat pack and store somewhere in the house.
Buy and collect kitchen work tops.
Buy kitchen accessories such as plinth heater, extractor fan, and splash-back, dishwasher and cooker.
Strip plaster from walls.
Remove coving from ceiling.
Carefully strip plaster and filler from the electrical cables in the wall.
Buy plasterboard, plasterboard adhesive, corner strips etc.
Buy new flooring.
Remove existing radiator and associated pipework.
Clear out and pack up all the old kitchen units.
Strip out all the old kitchen units (with the exception of the sink as water supply still needed to kitchen for plastering etc).
Take old kitchen units to dump.
Strip two layers of tiles and thick layer of plaster from the walls.
Take 4 car loads of old plaster to dump (NOTE - get a skip next time).
Strip out old flooring.
Take old flooring to dump.
Disconnect and remove sink unit, leaving sink plumbed in so that the tap can be used.
Install electrics for new plinth heater, extractor fan, washing machine and dishwasher.
Drill holes through wall for new waste outlet from dishwasher, washing machine and sink.
Excavate into floor to remove old gas pipe feed to old boiler location.
Move water meter from old location to new. This involved freezing the incoming main to the house, cutting into this, installing a new stop tap, moving the water meter and replacing the pipework to the boiler and house including leaving stub ends to allow the new sink to be connected in the future.
Fill in holes in the floor with concrete (using polystyrene around the incoming main to avoid corrosion and potential damage).
Plasterboard walls.
Tape plasterboard sheets in preparation for plasterers.
Strip off architrave from doors in kitchen.
Plaster kitchen walls and ceiling.
Install window boards to the two windows.
Install new damp proof course and lay laminate floor.
Shorten door to fit over newly installed flooring.
Erect base units.
Place base units and fix to wall and each other trying to level these approximately as you go.
Wire in plinth heaters.
Install strip along wall to support work top where there will be no units.
Work out location for sink on work top, cut hole for sink, seal around edges of the cut worktop, fix sink to work top.
Fix worktops to base units including making joints and connections.
Connect plumbing and taps for sink. Connect waste pipe and traps etc for sink.
PVA walls to seal plaster.
Paint walls (twice).
Paint ceiling (thrice).
Assemble wall units.
Mark out height of wall units on walls.
Install hangers for wall units.
Install and connect and level wall units.
Install extractor fan.
Wire in extractor fan
Buy tiles.
Install tiles around work tops.
Grout tiles.
Install washing machine and dishwasher. Plumb in washing machine and dishwasher (including external pipework).
Fit plinths to base units.
Fit cornices and pelmets to wall units.
Fix architrave to new doors.
Fix skirting to walls.
Undercoat and gloss skirting and architraves.
Paint window boards.
Wire in new cooker.
Install stainless steel splash-back behind cooker.
Buy light.
Install light.
Relax.

2010-05-01T08:50:00.002+01:00

I think that I've seen it all now!

The election campaign is hotting up here in England. I've been following the televised debates over the last three weeks, and have not been that impressed with any of the Leaders. My feeling is that :

I don't trust the Conservatives to sufficiently prioritise the right measures to help the economy move out of recession. It's all to easy to be able to criticise when you're not responsible for the decisions being made.
The Liberal Democrats are promising too much to be able to deliver it all, and maybe fail to appreciate the painful compromises which are almost inevitably required in leading the UK. They seem to be basing a lot of their policy on society wanting to change, and I don't really know whether this will happen. This coupled with the fact that their local candidate looked to be about 12 on the mailing they sent out has lost them my vote.
Labour have experience and have governed well, but the focus needs to be on more than simply gradual, progressive improvement. I trust Gordon Brown's leadership, but would like him (or the Labour party generally) to be a bit more visionary.

Discussing this with a friend last night I noted that I was annoyed by the questions that all the parties are avoiding answering. The questions that really probe what the painful impacts of their manifesto promises will be across society. Spending cuts are inevitable, but I'd appreciate transparency on what this will mean to me. Questions such as what services will be cut, and whether this will require increases in tax, are important to me as I feel that I am part of the economic productivity of this country. I am happy to pay tax, but want to understand why I am paying the level I am and to have assurance that this is being handled prudently.

The choice of where services are cut will be very difficult. The proponents of military spending, infrastructure investment, schools, hospitals, pension provision, and all the other significant demands on the government's investment will all be arguing as to why their priorities are most important, and how they are delivering more for less. Demonstrating financial prudence will be essential for all.

That said, mis-management and poor stock control by the MOD has an interesting affect. On the MOD's Disposal Services Authority's website, you can currently purchase a set of USED thermal Long Johns for £14!

Whilst I've contributed to this country's future by placing my postal vote, I don't think I'll be supporting the MOD's funding through this initiative.

2010-04-29T21:28:00.002+01:00

Blood donation

The last time I went with Niki to 'assist' her in giving blood, I didn't fare too well.

The rules / recommendations on diabetics donating blood have now been changed. As long as you are on not on insulin and are of good health, you are now allowed to donate blood. I've been aware of this for the last year but had not actually got around to doing it, partially as I've only done it a couple of times prior to being diagnosed as being diabetic, and never really enjoyed the experience.

About a month ago an email went around at work. Someone had arranged for a mobile blood collection unit to visit our office, and they needed about 45 people to donate. I put forward my name and immediately started worrying about it. How much would the needle hurt? What if I felt so faint again? What if I was not well on the day and so would have stopped someone else donating who could have done so? The advantage of having put down my name, was that I felt compelled to keep it there by the unsaid peer pressure of the other people on the list.

When the day came around I was scared, but this proved to be totally unfounded. Answering the questions and explaining all the non-standard responses (such as why I'd been a malaria area in the last three years or had spent four weeks or more in Southern America in the last two years) proved to be the most time consuming and challenging part of the exercise. To be sure it wasn't comfortable when the needle was put in, but it certainly wasn't too painful. And having done it I felt so very good. I'm certainly going to do it again as I feel that I'm contributing back to society when I do so.

Having given blood I wondered what was done for blood provision in the Falkland Islands when it is needed. The costs associated with separating, screening and storing reasonable volumes of blood across the range of blood types could be large. Maybe families donate when one of their members needs blood? Maybe it's imported from England as necessary to maintain strategic stocks? Maybe it is actually acquired and stored on the Islands. I think that I'll have to ask Mum the next time I speak to her. I guess she'll know as she currently works in the hospital in Stanley.

2010-04-29T19:33:00.003+01:00

Sons of Korah

As a result of a donation made to the Bible Society, I'm now on their mailing list. Whilst I'd not normally really pay much attention to the emails they send through, I noticed one that arrived in my in-box today. It was about a band - Sons of Korah - who are playing a gig in Sheffield in a couple of weeks. There was a link to a YouTube page with some of their songs on it, and so I clicked on it.

Songs of Korah play psalms from the Bible set to music. Whilst this may sound like a bit of a strange combination, many of the psalms were originally written as songs. I've always felt that music has a power to connect with my emotions and feelings in an often surprising and meaningful way. Having listened to a few some of the songs sound very similar and not particularly special. I quite like the one for psalm 73 though, and will add them to my bookmarks in order to visit their site again.

This is what Songs of Korah say about themselves.

Sons of Korah have endeavored to bring a unique contemporary flavour to a traditional idea. The biblical psalms have preoccupied composers and song writers for millennia. They have been the primary source for the worship traditions of both Judaism and Christianity going right back to ancient times. With their unique acoustic, multi-ethnic sound Sons of Korah have achieved an intriguing re-creation of the musical drama of the psalms. From lamentation to songs of jubilant praise, from battle cry to benediction, from exclamation of awe and wonder to reflections of tranquillity and perfect wisdom, Sons of Korah provide a compelling portrait of the world and experience of the psalms.

Sons of Korah believe that the psalms contain a particularly pertinent message for today. They speak powerfully to a postmodern world that is generally more interested in what the biblical faith looks like from the inside than its abstract doctrinal expression. And for the church today the psalms present a compelling challenge to the often one-dimensional and romanticized spirituality that we find it so hard to move beyond. The psalms portray a rich, multifaceted and real spirituality.

2010-04-18T20:18:00.002+01:00

A sore finger

This has been a weekend of finishing off stuff on the kitchen. Saturday morning saw us adjusting the hinges on the cupboards, fitting the handles, replacing the pelmets taken off to fit the cooker splashback, and fitting the last bits of plinth. We swapped the doors around on the fridge to make it more logical for the kitchen layout and tidied up the dining room. Having fitted architrave around the doors and some small bits of skirting board we had a nice Thai green curry for supper.

Today Niki finished off the grouting of the tiles and I installed the window boards. We also filled around the architrave and skirting board ready for sanding down and then undercoating. This afternoon though we went out to have a bit of a play on some rocks at Crimple Beck Crag. We started of on a S, and then there was a fun looking E1 that I fancied. I did it and found it surprisingly achievable. It was scary, but there was only really a couple of moves that were above protection, and were that difficult. All in all it was quite an achievable climb, and certainly didn't feel two grades harder than that which I normally achieve.

Having completed the E1, and Niki seconded it, I was tempted to try an E2 adjacent to the E1. This turned out to be very different. There was a peg runner at half height, and no protection up to that point. Three times I didn't manage to get to the runner, and had to jump off onto the bouldering mat, and one time I fell off, wrenching my finger a bit as it was in quite a small finger hold. After a bit of TLC, and applying liberal quantities of climbing tape to the scratched finger I managed to get to the peg runner and also back this up with a small friend. At that point I assumed the upper wall would be easier. It wasn't. I spent quite a while trying to work my way up on some very small and fingery holds, but in the absence of anything even half good for my feet persistently failed. Niki's belaying was certainly put to the test as I fell off the route more times than I think I've ever fallen off.

I think it's a climb I'd go back to try again, but will certainly need a bit more finger strength to be able to do it. For now, I'll just nurse my sore finger for a bit.

2010-03-12T22:20:00.002Z

Responsibility

For a significant proportion of last year I was working on the High Speed 2 project. I can say this now that the findings have been published by the Government. As part of the Arup tunnelling team in London I was actively involved in investigating a wide range of route options out of London and across the Chilterns. In this team I was involved in the design of the first 50km of route including the options for serving Heathrow. On this very computer I have all the possibilities we looked at in a series of Google Earth layers and I have spent literally hundreds and hundreds of hours creating, appraising and refining route options. The intention of all of this is to create a railway that meets the aspirations of the Government established body HS2. These include short journey times through achieving true high line speeds, minimised impact on the local communities and environment, and cost efficiency.

By being the project/route engineer on this section of the line to Birmingham I was intimately involved in the alignment design. It's therefore interesting to see the interest in the outputs which we produced. The HS2 report was submitted to government at the end of 2009, and on the 11th March 2010 the government formally responded. The response can be found on the Department for Transport's website along with supporting information including the report that Arup wrote and our drawings of the finally chosen preferred route. The BBC are running a feature on it entitled 'High Speed Rail: In your back yard'. This provides an accessible way of obtaining the route alignment for the preferred route in a series of plan and profile drawings.

Go ahead - have a look and a play. I was basically responsible for the alignment shown in the first 9 'dots' that you can click on. Each and every kilometer of this route has been carefully considered to minimise it's impact and to provide a really high quality line of route, and in doing so there have been very serious considerations. I appreciate that every house we pass near will be affected by noise and visual intrusion. I understand that the construction of this line will have impacts on the surrounding communities. There will be rare ecosystems that we pass through. Roads will need to be diverted. We will impact on other rail services. In places this will be a change to the landscape.

But through all of the optionioneering I believe that we have fundamentally produced an alignment that balances all the necessary constraints and considerations. I'm not claiming that the alignment is perfect, but that it is simply a reflection of the maximum possible extent that it could be developed in the tight timescale available. There may well be revisions to this alignment that would improve it and I am certain that these will be discussed and progressed over the coming months and as the project goes out to consultation. However, I'm proud of what the Arup team and the design team I was part of in London have achieved on this.

It's also important to note the effort that Booz-Temple put into this project as the appointed environmental consultants. It was certainly a privilege to work with those in Booz-Temple who I had regular contact with. Their robust challenge and practical experience in the delivery of similar large infrastructure projects strengthened each of the options which were carried forward in each sift of the project's evolution.

2010-03-12T22:04:00.002Z

Another busy week.

And it's absolutely flown by. I'm not sure where it's gone but looking back at all that I've been working on it's no surprise that I've not really been sitting about twiddling my thumbs. We've a new project in the office. It's working for a very large client in the Middle East and is certainly a very exciting project. At the moment it's being kept quite confidential but I'm sure that shortly I'll be able to blog about it. There could be questions asked about the sustainability of the project but putting those slightly to the side for one moment it's certainly a project that contains plenty of opportunities. For example this week I've been doing the outline design for a 7km long pipeline comprising four 1.5m diameter rising mains, and in addition doing the concept design for sewerage and surface water networks for a development covering ten square kilometers. It's not every day that you get to do that (for which I'm actually quite grateful as we're working to some incredibly tight timescales).

It's one of those project which results in me always feeling as though I'm fighting to catch up. Coupled with dedicating some time to a pre-qualification questionnaire for another bid and reviewing a colleagues reports for their ICE membership submission I hardly seem to have seen Niki. Luckily this weekend should change that.

Another bit of good news we heard today is that we've been appointed to the Yorkshire Water technical consultancy framework for the next four years. This should mean a fee income to the office of approximately £10m over the next four years, and so justifies all the hard work that went into the bid. I absolutely hate writing bid submissions as I always seem to spend a vast amount of time scrabbling around trying to find the right information and project examples. It's very hard to compile text that is consistently accurate, persuasive, readable and positive, and bid writing is the one place where this counts the most (apart from a blog of course...). I spent many hours working on the bid, as did many in the office to lesser and certainly greater degrees. Coupled with the very intensive interview process we went through a couple of weeks ago, it certainly was a very trying experience.

Having been appointed I think that it's critical we quickly set out how we are going to be working with YW in the next 4 years and demonstrate our approach and capabilities consistently from day 1. I don't think that I'll be part of this process as I'm currently working in another part of the business, but in this industry who can really ever tell!

2010-03-08T22:06:00.003Z

A great walk

On Sunday I ended up not climbing but having a really fun walk. I didn't anticipate how long it was at the outset, but 24km later I'd certainly enjoyed it. Having parked near East Keswick I headed across to Harewood and walked illicitly through a beautiful valley to Eccup Reservoir. The path around Eccup was quite busy but once past the reservoir and heading north I was again on deserted bridleways. The sun was shining and the Red Kites and stags in Harewood estate also seemed to be enjoying it. Having run away from some scary and lively cows in a field I got to the River Wharfe and followed this back to East Keswick.

I think these wanted feeding...

Almscliffe in the background. I could see climbers on the top. The colour of the trees was amazing - very autumnal for a spring day.

Harewood Bridge. I love the texture of the stone used in the bridge. It's also interesting to note that the bridge has been extended in the past. The sun was getting lower in the sky by this point making interesting contrasts between the light and shadows.

Playing with focal depth to take some more abstract pictures.

The peat stained water looks more like oil.

The snowdrops were out all along the river bank. I've never stopped to look at these in detail before. They're so delicate and the green markings on the shorter petals accentuate the shapely form of the flowers.

Pretty colours and textures on the shingle beach.

2010-03-07T09:44:00.000Z

Yippee!

The sun is shining, the forecast is clear and I'm going out for a walk. I'm wondering whether I should in fact be going climbing but at present I feel a bit flabby so just want to burn some calories. I'm planning on going out around Harewood Park and wish I had a camera in case I see anything nice. Instead I'll make a mental note to research and try to buy a camera later today.

I think that I'll throw my bouldering pad in the car just in case I fancy a bit of a play at Hetchell on my way home...

2010-02-19T22:14:00.002Z

What a week!

Thank goodness it's over. Having been working on a bid submission until 1.30am on Tuesday and 2.30am on Wednesday I think I could have justified not going to work on Thursday or Friday. Coupled with working in Birmingham on Monday and today and so doing about 500 miles of driving I'm looking forward to the weekend.

I don't think that next week will be much better as we've the final interview for a big job that we're bidding on Friday and a 2 day preparation session on Wednesday and Thursday. That only leaves Monday and Tuesday to try and get the rest of the work I need to get done. In addition to that I need to develop and practice two presentations which I've to give at Friday's interviews before Wednesday.

However as we've just lost bids on two jobs I was lined up to be running I have no idea what I'll be doing the week after next!

2010-02-19T21:36:00.002Z

Relax, have a glass of wine and lower your blood pressure by reading this little story.

Two balloons get married and have a little baby balloon. At first they all sleep together in the same bed - but eventually the baby balloon gets bigger and they have to put him in a separate cot. The baby balloon accepts this reluctantly but one night, as he lies there, he finds himself wishing he were back in with his mum and dad... so while they are asleep he squeezes in between them. But there's no room in the bed so he lets a little bit of air out of mummy balloon, a little bit out of daddy balloon and a bit out of himself. Then they all fit snugly and baby balloon sleeps happily.

But in the morning he wakes up to see his dad glaring down at him. 'Look what you've done!' says his father, 'You've let me down, you've let your mum down and worst of all - you've let yourself down.

Hee hee hee.

2010-02-13T21:39:00.002Z

etyres

This week I received the annual letter from the DVLA informing me that my tax disc is about to expire. I therefore went online to renew it, and discovered that my MOT is also about to expire. I've therefore spent this week trying to make sure my car is ready for its MOT, and will be trying to get one booked for this week.

I knew that the tread on my two front tyres was getting low, so decided to replace these in advance of the MOT. In the office there was a leaflet about etyres, a mobile tyre fitting company. I went onto their website and had a look at their prices which seemed very reasonable and so ordered a pair of tyres.

The service was great. I'd given my fitting address as the work address on the online form, and early the next day I recieved a phone call from Manny, their local fitter, arranging to come to the office at 1.30pm to fit the tyres. He arrived on time and did a prompt job replacing the tyres in the office car park. The convenience of this was great, and I think that I'll certainly strongly consider using them again. I think it'll be hard to be certain that they are the cheapest, but the ease of being able to choose which tyres you want online and then have them fitted the following day certainly counts for something.

2010-02-13T09:12:00.002Z

Johnny Rook (Striated Caracara)

These are some pictures of a Johnny Rook on the Falkland Islands. A near threatened species of which the majority of the remaining world's breeding pairs live on the Falkland Islands. In my personal opinion it's not a particularly nice bird, but then I'm not a particular bird lover. What was interesting about them though was how tame they were. When we were eating they'd come and stand a few metres away and I'm sure that if we'd left any food alone for a few seconds it would have been the last we'd have seen of it.

Breaking into and eating a stolen egg from the nearby penguin colony. The penguins hate these birds and when under threat from prowling Johnny Rooks will squawk loudly and attack with their beaks. However the Johnny Rooks are relentless and will continue probing until they find an egg or a chick they can fly off with and devour. When you watch it, you really are seeing the way the natural world operates. It's not a 'fluffy' documentary here, it's brutal relentless hunting every day, the impact of which is an empty penguin nest for this season.

The Caracara's nest on the ground. The pairs stay together (at least during the period the chick is on the nest) and defend it through swooping on anyone one or anything which comes close.

These pictures were taken on the Neck at Saunders Island. The birds were strangely un-aggressive and made us question whether the warnings that Mum and Dad had given us of needing to avoid the nests and have a walking pole to defend yourself were over-cautious. The next day we found out that Mum and Dad were certainly right. As we walked along the headland looking for Elephant Seals we came across another nesting Caracara and a young chick a few metres away from us. As we were stopping to take a picture we heard a sound. Looking up, the mate of the bird on the nest was flying towards us - fast, straight and at head height.

We ran.

Quickly.

The mate didn't stop, swooping inches over our heads screeching loudly as we ducked as low as we could whilst still trying to run.

Three times he passed over us until we were far enough away from his/her nest. We certainly learnt our lesson then and ensured that we gave a wide berth to any other nests we spotted. At least we had the benefit of being warned about these birds, which this poor guy (who thinks that he may have looked like a rabbit!) wasn't.

2010-02-13T08:55:00.004Z

Relationships

I've more than a passing interest in the political relationships between Argentina and the UK due to my parents living in the contested Falklands at present. To keep up to date I subscribe to a Google news feed on the topic of the 'Falkland Islands' which results in me getting a daily email with links to any new posts or news stories on the internet which use the words 'Falkland Islands' in them. It's quite interesting, often returning blog entries from cruise ship passengers which have called there or tales from other visitors. At the moment there are a lot of articles being generated about the forthcoming exploration oil drilling campaign that the Falkland Islands are shortly to commence. This is causing political unrest, with Argentina stating that the drilling is illegal and the UK and Falklands strongly refuting this.

I don't know how this is going to play out, but at present all the communications seem to be fairly terse, probably partially for political strategy reasons.

Whilst thinking about Argentina I was reminded of a short BBC article that I saw a couple of years ago and bookmarked to blog about. It's about an Argentinian girl. I won't say much more than that but that it's fairly seriously written. In the context of the article I just love the penultimate paragraph and every time I read it I can't help but laugh - the journalist must have loved writing it and it's such dry humour.

2010-02-13T08:19:00.003Z

Photography

Whilst I was on holiday in the Falkland Islands my digital camera, a Casio Exilim Z1050, broke. It wasn't a particularly expensive camera, but I'd had it for just over two years, and liked it. I thought it took good pictures, with representative colour and fairly intelligent focussing. It was also quite simple with sufficient pre-set options that I rarely needed to change many of the settings. The only thing that I thought could have been improved significantly was the flash - this seemed to be used too much and when used resulted in very 'washed-out' images.

I'd used it a lot when on holiday and just out for the day as it easily fitted in a pocket. As such it worked well in conjunction with Niki's larger but much better quality camera. We'd often take very different pictures but I like to think that they complemented each other. I'd taken it climbing quite a bit and that was how the screen had got damaged on one occasion when I was squirming along a ridge on Arran and forgot that I had it in my chest pocket. (To tell the truth even if I had realised I'd have still carried on squirming as I wanted every single square millimetre of my body in contact with the rock at that point.)

Having taken it to few camera shops I've found out that it will cost at least £70 to replace. It's likely that the sensor has failed. As such I don't really think that it's worth repairing it which is a disappointment. Primarily because I don't like change and this means that I need to try and decide what camera to have next, but additionally as I don't like spending money that I don't need to and it feels wrong to have to replace a camera jsut two months after the warranty has expired. It also doesn't feel very environmentally friendly - I'm just another small part of the consumer focussed world creating ever increasing demands on the world's resources.

In contrast to my easy, light, point-and-shoot approach to photography I recently came across this short audio slide-show of the work of David White, a photojournalist who set out to recreate some of Robert Howlett's images. Howlett was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's photographer and died 150 years ago from a fever, most likely caused by exposure to poisonous photographic chemicals. White created a copy of a very early camera which is likely to have been very similar to that used by Howlett. I like the pictures shown on the slide-show as some are not exceptional but when you see the picture of the camera it becomes apparent how much work must have gone into setting up each picture. This was from an age when photography was rare, innovative and the cutting edge of technology. When every image was carefully crafted rather than simply being grabbed and then stored permanently on ever growing computer hard drives never to be seen again, a trait that I am certainly guilty of.

2010-02-01T22:24:00.002Z

Sustainability

At work we have an excellent series of intranet and email forums. These allow anyone to post a technical question to the forums which are most appropriate, and anyone with the necessary knowledge or experience in the company can then contribute answers. The forums are also useful as they are saved on the intranet site and are searchable. They're therefore a source of knowledge for the future.

Today an interesting question was raised by a colleague in Singapore. He wanted to know if anyone had any previous experience in the design of an 'innovative' water storage facade wall for a multi-story office development. The basic concept was that captured rain water would be stored in tanks on the outside of the walls. I think this is an idea that an architect has suggested.

Whilst the idea of rain water capture is a good one, and one that is used all around the world I guess that in this case it is being used to try and obtain extra BREAM or LEED points and hence obtain a higher building sustainability rating. I have nothing against this in principle and think that local options for water supply must be encouraged as much as possible, but question whether this proposal is really sustainable if the full life-cycle is considered. My concerns are that:

1) Storing water on the outside of the structure will inevitably require the structure to be strengthened. This will mean that more structural materials will be required, with associated increase in raw materials, transportation costs and associated CO2 emmissions.

2) The water will be stored in a series of individual tanks. These will need to have flow directed to them and a method of removing the water from them. Even if this is achieved totally through the use of gravity it will still require a complex system of valves and automation that will require electricity and depend on a computer permanently running to control them. It may even be that the water needs to be pumped out of the tanks, in which case this would result in additional electricity use.

3) Having been stored the water may have developed bacterial growth which could be harmful even if the water is only used for flushing toilets and other low grade applications but it forms an aerosol. The water may therefore require treating with UV or another energy or chemical method to ensure it is safe for it's intended use.

I don't mean to be negative but I'm just not sure that this is really sustainable. When considering sustainability it's essential to define the system boundaries correctly. There was a case many years ago when the manufacturers of both disposable and reusable nappies were claiming that their products were the most sustainable and backing that up with glossy calculations and reports. The reason they could both make absolutely conflicting claims is that they were both choosing to include or omit various parts of the life cycle of the product in their assessment. In fact, I think that choosing representative system boundaries is very difficult and where the real skill lies in undertaking sustainability assessments.

Maybe I don't appreciate the wider picture. It may be that the architect has developed a concept based on using the water to absorb heat from the sun during the day and hence significantly reduce the amount of energy needed in the building cooling systems. At night the water could be circulated through a heat exchanger and the low grade heat utlised for energy generation. Alternatively there may be ways of using this water which I have not considered and in the future most buildings will incorporate this technology.

2010-02-01T20:00:00.000Z

Man Rules

Occasionally I get sent a funny email at work. Normally I just chuckle and delete them but this time I thought it was worth circulating a bit.

At last a Man has taken the time to write this all down. Finally the man's side of the story.

We always hear 'the rules' from the female side... Now here are the rules from the male side.
These are our rules! Please note.. these are all numbered '1' ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports: It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done, not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials..

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colours, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a colour. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say 'nothing,' we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine...Really

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as football or motor sports

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this.

Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight; But did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

2010-01-31T16:44:00.003Z

Compulsory purchase

I've never taken the time to understand how a compulsory purchase of a property works in this country. I probably should have as I've often wondered about the statutory time-scales and how the purchase price is agreed. I'm sure that there are fairly comprehensive and fairs systems in place in England and the UK, but suspect that this may not be the case in certain parts of the world.

In the light of this I was interested to read an article which was talking about Russia's 2014 Winter Olympics. In the article the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that "Only 15 projects were delayed because of problems such as land confiscation and I have urged the relevant departments to speed up the compensation process for compulsory land confiscation in these cases". I'm wondering whether I'd be as confident in obtaining fair compensation for my property were it to be subject to one of these compulsory confiscations.

2010-01-28T20:19:00.003Z

For when 2's company but 3's a crowd

Please don't misinterpret this posting. I am perfectly happy in my relationship with Niki - perfectly happy. This post is simply because the following website caught my eye in an email I was sent from ukclimbing.com.

The email contained an advert for a website entitled Outdoorduo; a new dating website which has been set up for people who enjoy being outdoors. I've limited experience on dating websites but I am aware that at times you can spend a large amount of time trying to sift through people to find someone with a common interest. At least with this website you know that you'll have a common interest with the people who are on there. Additionally, and personally I think this is an excellent idea, you can (apparently) search for people by the type of activity they enjoy - and I didn't mean anything rude by that!

One of the things that I think will be interesting about this is it will allow a serious research project to be carried out into the attractiveness of the participants of different outdoor activities. Surfers are always lusted over by most women I know but this will allow an objective assessment of whether this is purely psychological or whether there is any truth in it. Personally I think that climbers can be much more attractive particularly as it is a sport which provides all over body exercise in a way which kayaking for example is unable to...

I think that climbing is quite a couple orientated sport. It certainly requires you to enjoy spending time in the company of the person you are climbing with. In the case of this climb which took months of effort, the views appeared spectacular though. I'd love a challenge of climbing a big wall like this!

2010-01-25T23:28:00.002Z

Wind turbines

Let me ask you a question. Which way does a wind turbine face?

I always thought that they faced into the wind - i.e. the blades of the turbine were on the windward side of the supporting mast. However when we were in holiday in the Falklands (more to follow on that soon) there were a lot of small turbines on the farms in Camp (anywhere outside of Stanley), and I noticed that on these the blades were downstream of the mast. This resulted in the wind blowing past the mast and then spinning the blades around. It didn't look 'right' but did seem eminently logical as that way the blades are always downstream, and as the wind shifts around the assembly on the top of the mast will just turn around to always be downstream.

When I started to think about this I wondered how on conventional wind turbines the blades are maintained at the up-wind side as the wind would always be trying to spin them around to the down-wind side. I wondered if I'd always been wrong and never realised that normal wind turbines had the blades on the downstream side. It concerned me a bit that I could have been so unobservant. I did remember though that old fashioned wind mills did have a wind 'rudder' on the back of them to perpetually orientate them into the wind.

Today I remembered my considerations and investigated what Wikipedia had to say on the subject. It turns out that I was right and modern wind turbines do have the blades on the up-wind side. However these are held there by a wind sensor detecting the wind direction and then operating a motor to force the turbine to be facing the wind. Apparently the main reason for this is to avoid fatigue of the turbine blades. If the blade is on the up-wind side it will normally have a fairly even wind force on it. This is not strictly true as often the wind will be less nearer the ground, and this is one of the reasons that turbines blades do not pass close to the ground. If there were different wind pressures on the blade as it turned round it would bend by different amounts in each revolution. This could start to induce stresses and fatigue potentially leading to material or joint failure. If the blade was down-wind of the supporting mast this effect would be increased as when the blade was directly behind the mast and so sheltered from the wind it would have virtually no force on it at all. This repetitive bending of the blade would affect its life.

I think that the blades of the turbines in the Falklands are formed of a plastic type material which from my limited observations appeared to be quite flexible. I guess that this avoids the potential issues of fatigue and may be a design feature to allow the turbines to cope with very different wind speeds including some very strong storms.

2010-01-25T23:09:00.002Z

A useful website

When I'm at work I sit near one of the business administrators. He's one of the guy's who's responsible for keeping track of projects financially and sending out invoices. Just the other day he stood up and explained to us that he'd just been looking at four unrelated projects that had been completed in the last year. The total cost of each of these projects had turned out to be exactly £13 less than the maximum agreed fee - a strange coincidence. At first he'd not believed it and thought that there must be an error in the spreadsheet such as the formula in each cell looking at the same reference cells. Upon closer examination he found this was not the case and the £13 difference on all four projects was in fact reality.

He didn't believe that it could really be due to coincidence or random behaviour. I wasn't so sure, particularly as I've just finished reading a very good book that Niki bought me at Christmas. Entitled 'The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives'. One of the reviewers on Amazon describes the book as below, which is a review I'd agree with.

The is another one of those fascinating books that I would put into the category of "behavioural economics". To be fair, it probably has a much wider appeal than that and will be of interest to anyone interested in popular science.

The book provides fascinating insights into the way our brains are wired and the way that we process probability and randomness can lead us to misinterpret events. For example, if we take the three events below and ask people to rank them in order of their probability, they will often put C before A or B. Yet, statistically it is the least probable (based on both A and B have to happen so it is impossible for the probability to be less than A or B).

A. My company's profits will increase next year
B. The economic climate will improve next year
C. My company's profits will increase next year and the economic climate will improve next year

Why is this? As Mlodinow puts it "if the details we are given fit our mental picture of something then the more details in the scenario, the more real it seems and hence the more probable we consider it to be - even though any act of adding less than certain details to a conjecture makes the conjecture less probable".

Fascinating stuff! And this book is full of such examples based on our peculiarly human understanding of conditional probability and randomness. In fact, I got halfway through this book and found it amusing that I was finding conditional probability so interesting! Just goes to show how well written it is! Highly recommended.

The book was really excellent - so much so that I've already lent it to a friend - and I'd recommend it to most people. I thought that this business administrator would also appreciate it and so tonight ordered him a copy. However I wasn't prepared to splash out any more than I needed to so bought it through The Book Depository. It was the cheapest I could find it and worked out at less than half price including free postage. I'll certainly be considering them again in the future (as long as the book now turns up)!

2009-09-29T21:12:00.003+01:00

I have a great family

Sometimes I can get overly focused on what's happening in my life; where I'm planning on climbing, the plans that Niki and I are making together, what's next to do on the house, how to perform well at work, what the balance left in the bank account at the end of the month is, and a series of other issues. At times these can become of sole importance, and I loose appreciation of the fact that I'm part of a family. A family with three siblings, each of whom are very different, but each of whom is very special.

Last night I happened to communicate with two of them vocally and one of them via text messages. It suddenly made me re-realise how varied and busy their lives are, but what amazing people they are. Each is walking a different course in this life, but currently stepping up to some quite significant challenges. Challenges I don't think I'd have the courage, determination or ability to handle. Apart from what they're doing, they're all people I'm proud to be associated with, purely for the type of people they are. They're the kind of people I would wish were my friends and here I am lucky enough to have them in my family.

Sure, it's not all plain sailing, and that's probably due at times to my pre-occupation with what's going on in my life. The physical distance between us probably doesn't help, but that's no excuse. I'm really excited though to be able to be a part of their lives.

2009-09-29T20:43:00.005+01:00

Holiday

Last night I lay in bed and read through a guide book to Font. It's so exciting. There seem to be so many great circuits to play on and I really can't wait to get out there. I started putting markers in all the places I thought we really should go to, but by the end of the guide book realised that we'd need to be there for at least two weeks to even visit all the places I'd marked, yet alone do a reasonable proportion of the problems that they contained.

The impending trip is even more exciting as on Sunday night we set up our new tent in the sitting room to try it out before having to set it up on the campsite. I'm very lucky that Niki bought me such a great tent, and it was only as we set it up and got inside it that I realised how good it really is. Secretly I'm hoping that we have some really windy weather in Font to allow us to test how good it is.

The only problem is that I'm suddenly starting to come down with what feels as though it's going to be a horrible cold. My sinuses have been aching all day, and my nose needs blowing with ever increasing frequency. It's about every 5 minutes at present, from nothing this morning. I really don't fancy struggling to breathe as I'm doing a tricky problem in font, but I'm sure it will be fun none the less. I must remember to take my warm jacket though so I can wrap up warm when not climbing.

2009-09-24T04:42:00.002+01:00

ASDA home entertainment

This week I placed my first order with ASDA for a book. I've never previously found ASDA to be cheaper than some of the alternative on-line retailers, and their site is not one that I'd normally go to to check on the price of a book. However, this week I was looking for a particular book and I came across the www.2save.co.uk website. As with many other price comparison websites, this simply lists the price of the books from a number of different companies, and includes the delivery cost so that the total price is immediately obvious. The website had the same least total price from a company called 'The Hut' (whose website didn't seem to be working well at all and so lost my custom) and ASDA.

Although I was only spending £6.33 I thought it was worth checking if either The Hut or ASDA had a cashback offer through Quidco. It turned out that they both did, and the cashback percentage was about the same at 3%. Whilst the £0.18p cashback isn't significant, I thought it worth buying via the Quidco site and so proceeded to do so.

Registering with ASDA was easy and straightforward. They didn't ask for superfluous information which many retailers do, and I was certainly impressed with the easy of the entire transaction. I was also impressed to receive an email within 36 hours of the order being placed informing me that the book had been dispatched. The final thing which impressed me, which I didn't realise when I placed the order, was that if you order multiple items, they send them individually in order to speed up the delivery time. This is something that Amazon do not do, and in the past I've had to pay for multiple delivery charges as one item I want has not been immediately in stock. Whilst I'm not advocating ASDA over any other site, they've impressed me so far, and I'll certainly be bearing them in mind for future on-line purchases.

2009-09-18T21:09:00.004+01:00

Mobile phones

Some people consider their mobile phone to be vital to them. At the moment I'd quite happily be without mine. The problem isn't so much having the flexibility to use it, but the fact that people always expect you to have it on and be in a suitable frame of mind or location to talk to them.

At work, whenever a client rings me on my mobile, I feel that it's intruding into my workspace in a way that a desk phone doesn't. If I go to the toilet or to make a cup of tea, I have to check my mobile when I get back in case someone has rung me and left a message, which I'm then compelled to respond to. With the desk phone they would have been told that I wasn't there or someone would have taken a message.

I think that often the problem is solely with me not being in the right frame of mind. I find it hard to focus on more than one thing, and when I'm doing something like walking down a street and someone tries to speak to me on my mobile I find it hard to focus on them and to actually engage with them. I think that's actually the crux of the issue - I find it hard to engage with people over a mobile phone.

I don't know why this is, but somehow it doesn't seem as real when I'm talking to them. Sitting at home, even with a cordless handset but on a land line, feels more personal than talking (or texting) on a mobile phone. Maybe it's something to do with the quality of the signal and the amount of background noise that mobiles often pick up; it's particularly hard when the other person is in a car, and struggling to make out every other word makes it hard to be responsive. I guess that's why it's often hard to talk to my parents in the Falklands, as the quality is often poor and the echos on the line can make it difficult to really engage with what they are saying. Conversations easily become very functional rather than emotional as it's hard to understand or convey the subtleties of emotion when tone and intonation are obscured. I find it hard to describe a beautiful scene, or how I was feeling when I find myself shouting, having to repeat stuff, not knowing if the other person is understanding what I'm saying, or being distracted by background noise all the time.

It's also probably an issue of commitment. If someone has dedicated the time to ring me up and speak to me, they probably do really want to speak to me. If they're ringing me on their mobile whilst they wait for a bus, it makes me wonder if they really wanted to speak to me or simply if they were looking for something to do until their bus arrived. When someone rings me on my land line I feel valued. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it stems back to boarding school, when there was only one pay phone in the building the 1st and 2nd years stayed in. If it rang, someone near it would answer it, and then go and try and find the person who the call was for. It was always very exciting to be in your dorm, or the prep room and someone to come in and say that you had a phone call. You'd stand there in the corridor, outside the matron's room and speak to whoever had rung you. Everyone else walking past would see that you were on the phone... Could it be that my 'love' of landlines is because they awaken a feeling of being wanted deep within me which I don't feel with a mobile? Could the way forward be to start to appreciate my mobile more for the fact that it does provide a way for people who really want to contact me to do so?

2009-09-09T22:47:00.002+01:00

Apparently 'Life is happier for taller people'

The following article caught my eye in the Evening Standard this evening. It stands in contrast to an article I read recently in a climbing magazine which stated that being small was an advantage in climbing terms. The basis for this is that if you are say 10% taller, your muscle dimensions are typically 10% longer, wider and deeper. The strength of the muscles though will probably not be 33% stronger (1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1). This will therefore result in smaller people having a better strength to weight ratio, and possibly explains why some children are able to climb so very well even without bulging biceps. Ever since mistakenly pointing this out to a climbing friend of mine who happens to be taller than me, he's reminded me of how much better at climbing I should be due to my diminutive height. It now seems as though he's claimed the upper hand in the happiness stakes.

'Taller adults are happier with their lives, new US research claims. The study, published in science journal Economics and Human Biology, said people of greater height "live better lives", evaluated their lives more positively and were more likely to report favourable emotions. Men who said their lives were the "worst possible" were almost an inch shorter than the average man.'

2009-09-09T22:39:00.003+01:00

Papua New Guinea - a natural treasure trove

Having lived for a number of years in PNG, I was interested to read the stories this week about the new flora and fauna which has been found in an extinct volcano in PNG. The pictures on the Guardian website are amazing. It would be incredible to meet animals which had so little fear of humans.

My concern at the moment though is the damage that we as humans are wreaking on this world. There are forgotten or lost corners like this, but how many more are we destroying around the world in our quest for resources.

2009-09-02T20:56:00.017+01:00

Light sculpting

A few weekends ago we went to the Lake District to celebrate Niki's birthday with a group of her friends. We stayed in some camping 'pods' in Eskdale. I may have blogged about these before as we went there earlier in the year for a long weekend. They're basically little wooden huts which you sleep in. The advantage of them is that you don't need to pitch a tent, and they're quite roomy and warm. One evening we managed to fit 12 of us in one of the pods quite comfortably, although that certainly made it quite warm... They also have a bit of a porch which offers some shelter when cooking in the rain etc.

It was fun as we had 5 pods which were in a circle and faced each other giving us our own area in the middle for cooking etc.

One night Niki, myself and a friend of ours, the very talented Mr P, started to experiment with taking some long exposure pictures on Niki's camera. The below are two of the results showing what can be achieved with a 10 second exposure and a torch. We also took quite a few of us drawing around each other and creating special effects. Maybe I'll post some of these soon.

Mr P. in front of a Pod with Niki and I outlining it.

The pod containing the sleeping Ms J.

2009-09-02T20:39:00.001+01:00

Umbrella – i-phone application

I keep getting caught out by the rain. I'll set off to work when the sun is shining and the day looks beautiful, but by the time I come to leave work, or need to go to another building for a meeting, it often seems to be pouring with rain. I've normally left my umbrella or coat at back at home, so end up either buying a new umbrella from the nearest vendor to the office, staying in the office until it dries up, or trying to get home making the most of any available shelter I can find under trees and overhanging buildings.

This week, the latter of my options has inspired me to think of a potential new application for the i-phone which if I developed it, I'd call 'Umbrella'.

In central London there is actually quite a bit of shelter that you can find from the rain. I think this is predominantly due to land rights, where many buildings are permitted to extend over the pavement when they achieve a certain height. There are also quite a few tree lined streets, and shops with shades in front of them. My idea is that this could be catalogued and used in an application. You'd type in where you were and where you were going to, and the application would determine the route which would offer you most shelter. It would even go down to the degree of detail of stating which side of the street to walk on, and whether it would be beneficial to cross the street to reach more shelter on the other side.

The location tools would be interfaced with other i-phone applications, such as the existing mapping software. The way I'd configure the route optimisation to work would be to permit a 15 - 20 % increase in length of route between the origin and terminus points of the trip. In a similar way to how I guess a satnav system considers the average speed on sections of road to work out the quickest route, this application would consider all the possible options there were within this 15 - 20% range of route lengths. The shortest route would be the optimal in terms of exposure to the rain, but this may not offer much cover. By walking on the other side of the street or on a parallel block it may be possible to be much more sheltered. A range of options could therefore be considered and the 'optimal' route selected.

There would be quite a bit of up-front work in cataloguing the shelter along each streets around central London. I estimate that this could be done in a couple of weeks, if I spent most of each day walking around. The application could be initially released to cover only central London and progressively widened out. My initial thoughts are that I'd categorise the shelter on a 5 point scale where '0' would mean there was no cover, 3 was heavy trees and 5 was a substantially overhanging façade offering total protection.

I’d need to employ a programmer to write the software itself, but don’t think that it would be too complicated or expensive.

My marketing strategy would be to release a slim-line version as a free download, but that this would only permit a certain length of route to be analysed. If people paid for the full version (at a very reasonable rate of £1.99 for the download) they would get a range of additional features. The main one of these would be a realtime link to a weather forecast system which would feed in current wind direction information. The direction of the wind would be used to further refine the route as even buildings which were not overhanging would offer some shelter on their leeward side. The full version would also include ‘refuge’ points, where if the rain became particularly heavy, good shelter could be obtained.

I guess a lot of this is common sense, but that doesn’t seem to stop other applications which are also common sense becoming profitable. I’m sure that now someone will tell me that it’s already been done!

2009-09-02T11:02:00.002+01:00

A fun weekend

This weekend I got to spend two great days with my parents. They've been back from the Falklands for the last month, and were able to come up to visit prior to heading back on the RAF flight departing tonight. It was really fun to see them and spend some time around them.

On Saturday Mum and I sorted out the garden which we'd let get a bit overgrown and then the four of us went out to Robin Hoods Bay for a walk and an icecream. The coastline along that part of the Yorkshire Coast is pretty - not stunningly impressive but attractive.

On Sunday Niki and I started to plan our Chile and Falkland Island trip in more detail whilst Mum and Dad went to Church. After a leisurely lunch we went for a walk from Wentbridge to Kirk Smeaton and back again.

It felt so good to be able to see them and speak to them. They're enjoying their time in the Falklands and are prepared to be there for more than Dad's initial two year contract, should the opportunity arise. It was particularly good to hear that Mum was feeling that the Falklands were the right place to be at present. They're both obviously fulfilling important roles in the local administration, hospital, church, community. Knowing that they are satisfied and enjoying the challenges they are faced with makes the fact that they are away easier to handle.

2009-08-20T20:59:00.002+01:00

Frustration

I'm sitting on the train back to Leeds. It's been a long day in London and I'm feeling quite exhausted. Tomorrow also looks busy as I've got to go to site in the morning for an 8.00am meeting as there's problems at Naburn. My boss is on holiday, and suddenly it looks like the entire works could be at risk of failing its discharge consent as a key part of the process is failing. Suddenly everyone is asking me what should be done, but I've not really had any involvement in the scheme over the last 12 months. In being on site in the morning I've got to miss another couple of meetings I'd scheduled to have in the office, the problem though is that these are quite key meetings.

It doesn't help that I'm feeling hot and fidgity and can't really settle on the train. I should be reviewing some spreadsheets, but really can't be bothered.

I've realised that I don't really like working in London. It's stressful and a distracts from what's really important in life. The question on what to do about this though is a challenging one and one that I'll need to consider over the next few weeks.

2009-07-23T20:47:00.003+01:00

Train travel

This week I've travelled from Leeds to London, from London to Birmingham, from Birmingham back to London and from London back up to Leeds. I'm not sure on the exact mileage, but it's probably in the order of 600 - 700 miles in the last 4 days and it's been quite nice to be able to do this distance on the train. Whilst it may at times be a bit cramped, or the sockets may not work in certain seats, or there's a bit of wasted time whilst you wait for the train, it has actually been quite relaxing. It's certainly easier and quicker than driving the distances and has avoided the need to find parking spaces etc. I've also been able to use the time relatively productively and to do both work and personal things (that sounds a lot worse than it was) that I needed to do.

The only aspect that the system seems to fall down on is with regards to interconnectivity. Whilst the travel between the nodes is quick, efficient and reasonably priced (for a single person but there would be per-capita efficiencies if there were multiple occupants in a car), the frustrations have been around getting from my house to the station, or from the station in Birmingham to the office. For public transport to continue to attract passengers (and also investment) I believe that it needs to consider how people use it.

I don't know what the answers are. It certainly seems that we can develop good transport links between hubs, and that this can be at a range of scales from a local bus station to a large railway station or airport. The weak point in the system seems to be addressing how people get to these locations, and the inter-connection between different modes of travel. For example the train times on my local trains from Pontefract to Leeds do not correlate with the times the main trains to London set off from Leeds. And there's a series of busses that run from Pontefract to Leeds, but none of them take different routes. This means that none of them go nearer the office than any of the others.

I guess that some of it must relate to demand for services, but this could result in a chicken and an egg situation; which comes first? My attitudes to travel are being changed through enforced use of the train for work purposes. It's only through this that I'm starting to question whether there are other times when I may be able to use the train or a bus instead of driving. For the last 10 years I have generally considered myself to be dependant on my car, but maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe I need a non-democratic enforcement of a change to the system to change the way I behave for the greater good.

Maybe part of the solution lies in changing how we use our cars. If I could easily find a lift share, or offer lifts to others in a hassle-free, efficient manner then this is certainly something that I'd be interested in. If I could easily hire a car by the hour for a cheaper rate than my car costs me then this could be of interest. If my written commitment to using the bus to commute to work was matched by the bus company being flexible and providing more services along the routes I and my compatriots travel then this could change the way we address public transport. Maybe public transport needs to become less 'public' to meet us midway to our very 'private' forms of transport - systems that allow flexibility, efficiency and services that are personalised to each individual as much as possible. It poses an interesting question of both engineering and sociology.

2009-07-23T20:19:00.002+01:00

An 'interesting' week in Arup

This week has been another fairly turbulent week in Arup. On Tuesday it was announced that there were going to be a further 99 redundancies, but targeted in specific fields of work, and at senior staff across the company. Luckily none of the fields listed are those I work in, and I'm significantly below the grade of staff that they are seeking to 'shed'. It does show though that the economic situation is continuing to affect the company, and that unless things improve there could be a need for further redundancies in the future. I guess that at the moment my job isn't as secure as it was a year ago, but at least the tunnelling team seem to be quite busy.

In the context of this it was also interesting to read on Monday night in one of the London papers that I happened to be given at the tube station that the said same Arup had just invested £60m in one of the buildings we currently rent. I think I agree with the principle of this as it seems to be quite a good investment. However nothing had been said within Arup prior to the announcement in the press. In fact, it was only late yesterday that a posting was put on the intranet site announcing the fact that we'd bought the building and the reasons for it. Apparently we've taken out a mortgage to buy the building, but it's cheaper to do this than to pay the £4.6m rent each year. The other advantage is that at the end of the mortgage we will have an asset that should reduce our overheads. I just hope that we've not invested our pension pot in the building and that the mortgage is a fixed rate.

2009-07-23T19:39:00.002+01:00

Kitchen appliances

I'm currently living in a nice household in north London during the week and a much nicer household in Leeds at the weekend. Living in these two different places makes me realise a little bit about my idiosyncrasies and personal preferences. For example the house in London has no toaster and no microwave - they didn't even have a washing up brush until I bought one. The reason for this is the lifestyle they lead, where they rarely cook or eat in the house at all. As I much prefer to be able to cook and eat whenever I want these things are important to me though.

Another key difference is that they have a combined washer and dryer. As trying to wash, hang up and dry my clothes would be a bit of a logistical nightmare due to the limited nights that I stay in London this has proved to be very useful. However I've still to really get the hang of the dryer. The shirt I wore today has a very waxy stain all through the chest pocket. I can only assume that left something waxy in the pocket prior to putting it in the wash. The heat of the dryer has caused this to form a liquid, percolate into the fabric of my shirt, and then set as it cooled. I've never had a stain like it and think that it may mark the end of this shirt's loyal service. Niki's been telling me that it's time to retire it to the rag bag for a bit now, but the combination of this and the frayed collar and sleeves leaves me no choice.

The problem was that I didn't realise when I put the shirt on, nor before I left the house, nor on the walk to the underground station, nor on the tube where a few people looked at me a bit strangely, nor as I walked into the office, nor at any point for the first hour that I was there. It was only when I went into the toilet at about 8.30 (luckily before most people were in) that I saw myself in the full height mirror and realised what happened. Suffice to say I promptly put on my jacket and kept it on through the meetings I subsequently had even though everyone else had taken theirs off. I didn't think it would look very professional in front of the client... Why should they trust my engineering opinion and advice if I can't even work out how to use a washing machine!

2009-07-23T19:15:00.002+01:00

Retreating

I'm currently on the train back to Leeds, and what a relief it is. The week has been frantic, and even if I didn't go to work tomorrow I'd not have a problem justifying a full week's work on my timesheet. It'll be nice to be able to be able to keep my head down in the Leeds office tomorrow and just get on with some work. This week has primarily comprised a series of quite important meetings with a key client, but not much time between them to actually do any work.

That said, it is a good experience. The project manager for the work package I'm working on is currently cycling from London to Paris, thus leaving me to try and ensure progress is made. This means that I have to delegate, something that I've never been very good at doing.

I think there's probably two reasons I often struggle to delegate. Primarily I'm a bit of a control freak. If I do the work it'll be done to the standard I want it and in the way I want it. I guess that this is linked to a lack of trust or appreciation of the person I'm asking to do the work for me. At the moment I've a very competent engineer working with me though and I'm happy that she'll do a good job. I'm finding that it's actually very empowering to have good people working with you as I can focus on working out what we're meant to be delivering, who we need to interface with, how to plan the project and do some of the practical engineering. Whilst I'm doing this though she's focusing on the deliverables and actually getting on with the job. By delegating work I can actually achieve more. It should not have taken me six years of working to recognise this, but unfortunately it has; potentially due to there rarely being anyone for me to delegate anything to as I was the bottom of the pack and picking up everything that everyone else in the project team passed down to me. In fact today I had three people in the London office and a couple in Leeds working on things I asked them to do. Just today we probably achieved more than I could have through a whole weeks work.

The fun thing though is that I feel I know enough to be in this position. I know a reasonable amount about the job, have a clear idea about what we need to do, and the quality of product that I aspire to deliver. I'm able to communicate this with the people I'm working with and thus manage the work that we need to do. Through this I'm sure I'm building skills that I probably should have already developed further. I also know enough about the job to be able to review what they are doing, and suggest where this needs to be taken further. It's a case of utilising and steering the expertise and capabilities of others. This situation is only enjoyable as I know about the project. Should I be working on a project I didn't really understand it would not be much more than a programming exercise, matching manpower with work items from a programme. I guess that's what true Project Management is about, but it's the combination of managing the direction of the project whilst still being actively involved in its technical delivery that I'm finding exciting, stimulating, pressured and tiring!

I think the second factor that's affected my desire to delegate in the past is the fear that if I gave away my work there could potentially be nothing left for me to do. I get a lot of my sense of achievement from what I achieve. I think I felt that if I wasn't achieving it personally then it didn't really count. This feels different now though as delegating isn't a case of me not achieving something but managing how we as a team achieve what we need to achieve. It is the achievement of the team that matters in the environment I'm working in.

2009-07-16T22:31:00.005+01:00

Work / innovation/ reliability

I'm currently working on a confidential project at work. It's a feasibility study for a potential future infrastructure project in England (and potentially Scotland). There are a number of valid drivers for the scheme, but these do not mean that the scheme will necessarily go ahead. Even if the scheme progresses it would probably be at least ten years before it was completed. It's a large scale scheme with the cost of just 1km of some of the tunnels I'm considering is more than the annual budget of the Falkland Islands. It is in the early stages of option appraisal and feasibility assessment.

I'm enjoying working on it. It's both challenging and exciting to be involved in the very earliest stages of a project like this. Every day we're trying to understand and determine what is important for the project to succeed, and how best to develop options that meet these drivers. There's a lot of uncertainty and as such there needs to be careful consideration to how we work to avoid undertaking excessive amounts of work that is later aborted as options develop. As a result of this we're undertaking quite robust designs at this stage, and I'm starting to get worried that we may be being overly robust.

For example when I'm considering tunnel portals, I've been told that each tunnel entrance should have a clear distance between them equivalent to the diameter of the tunnel. This is based on minimizing disturbance to the adjacent tunnel as the second tunnel is driven. Similarly the design is based on maintaining a distance from the top of the tunnel to the surface of at least one and a half times the diameter of the tunnel in order to control settlement. The problem is that this requires a significant quantity of land to accommodate the tunnel portal, and in some of the locations I'm, looking at this means potentially encroaching on people's gardens, houses, schools and industrial properties.

I'm not saying that this will not need to be done in the course of the project, but through my research I've found examples of where these parameters have been significantly reduced. For example when a series of 8m diameter tunnels were recently constructed under Antwerp to serve the newly modified Antwerp Central station, these started with a clear distance between them of less than 1.5m. To be sure, this required extensive preparation works and monitoring during construction with mitigation plans in place should problems develop. But it could allow the necessary corridor to be reduced by around 15m with associated benefit to both the construction cost and impact on surrounding people and property.

I'm a little concerned that by being overly robust in our designs at present, the scheme may be demonstrated to be unviable. We're taking a safe approach to the design and costing, but at present due to time constraints we can't do more than this. We're providing a text-book design, but many of the great projects being delivered in the world at the moment have had to challenge the text book, to think about problems differently, and to work out how to solve problems rather than simply circumvent them. It takes an extraordinary approach to solve extraordinary problems. Arup have made a name for themselves from being innovative, but you can't deliver innovations on every project. I guess that over 95% of our work is simply based on delivering robust schemes which meet the client's requirements. This is straight forward engineering to solve problems. However there are times when we are called to pull together our knowledge in a special way or to a new unique problem and to develop an innovative solution which will be efficient and operate effectively. I guess I'm just looking and hoping for a bit more of this type of thinking to make a really great project rather than simply a good and functional one.

In a similar vein, if we consider the Antwerp Central station again this was recently modified to provide for new High Speed trains through it. The station is an old building, and comprised a ticketing facilities at ground level with the platforms on an upper level. There was not sufficient space to accommodate the new platforms so these were constructed beneath the existing building. This involved excavating down two stories below the existing station (actually done from underneath) whilst the station was maintained in an operational state. The settlement of the station was carefully monitored and corrected for using compensation grouting to inject cementitious material into the ground under pressure to compensate for any settlement. The station has won universal appeal for the modifications, but it would have been all to easy in the early feasibility stages to say that mining under an existing structure such as this would involve unacceptable levels of risk.

What I'm trying to bring to the project is a bit of challenge, but I don't know if I'm getting anywhere. It's made harder as this is not my field of expertise (if I really have any). I'm struggling to know which elements of the design can be optimised further, and which are already optimal and unable to be refined further.

2009-07-14T21:51:00.002+01:00

A compliment?

This week I'm back down in London. Today has not been particularly good; having slept both poorly and inadequately last night and been deluged under a sudden unwelcome influx of emails this afternoon. Strong coffee has helped me to the end of the day, but the only thing I can see on the morrow is an ever impending set of deadlines which I have no idea where I'll find the time to do the necessary work for.

As tomorrow night I've my first Spanish lesson, I decided to cook a proper meal tonight which I could then eat the left overs from on Wednesday and Thursday. I headed out to Netto to get some ingredients and to generally stock up my shelf which is looking a bit bare. I decided to make stuffed peppers and to have these with rice. Having managed to remember most of the ingredients I would need (apart from onions and mixed herbs), I decided to get a bottle of red wine on the basis that this would complement the mince and also be nice to drink.

At the checkout I was asked how old I was. I laughed a bit and told the cashier that I was 31, having been born on XX May 1978. He asked for ID. I looked in my wallet for my driving licence but unfortunately didn't have it on me. The rather elderly Jew in the queue behind me watched in surprise as the cashier refused to sell me the bottle of wine. Apparently their current stance is that if the person looks under 25, and can not prove that they are over 18, then Netto will not sell them alcohol. I tried to explain that I was certainly over 18, and that I'd passed through my entire 20's but he didn't believe me.

I guess it's a compliment that he said my face looked young!

2009-07-01T22:13:00.004+01:00

Glastonbury 2009

I'm still trying to catch up on sleep from Glastonbury. I'm not sure why, as it wasn't that wild a weekend.

Once again Niki and I were there volunteering with WaterAid, and once again it rained quite a lot. This year was a lot more enjoyable though and the mud only achieved a depth of a couple of inches rather that the 6 - 9 inches of sticky clayey mud that developed last time. The rain was also sufficiently interspersed with sun to give periods when it was quite pleasant to just wander around the site and soak in the atmosphere. My new wellington boots and comfortable socks certainly helped to make it more enjoyable.

The latrine team. In the background you can see the African style pit latrines that we kept clean during our shifts. We have a reputation on the site of having the cleanest toilets, and we did our utmost to maintain this.

Me, wearing my pom-poms with pride. I asked for a more masculine pair of socks in Blacks when I was looking for some long socks. The assistant smirked a bit as they informed me that these were the only ones they had. Although I felt a bit foolish wearing them at first, they were so comfortable that I came to appreciate them.

The tools of the trade... Disinfectant and toilet paper. I figure that we probably had about 8,000 people use the toilets whilst we (WaterAid) were manning them. It seems like quite a lot but is actually only 5% of the people on the site. The toilets were only manned for 12 hours a day, and were used unofficially outside of this time. The first shift in the morning involved quite a lot of cleaning as a result of people using them inappropriately overnight.

Niki looking gorgeous and sporting a WaterAid arm-painting. It didn't come off all day, and seemed to be very resilient until it came in contact with our sleeping bags at which point it became suddenly transferable.

Niki delivering a watering can shower to a happy punter.

2009-06-22T09:38:00.003+01:00

I won't be going to South Africa this summer

I've just had an email from Engineers Without Borders informing me that 'unfortunately they had a number of very strong applicants and won't be able to offer me a place.'

I'm slightly disapointed as it would have been a great opportunity. However this summer is starting to look busy, with Niki's 30th birthday, more weddings, and mum and dad visiting from the Falklands already in the calendar.

Progress is also being made on the house, so hopefully soon climbing and generally not doing house stuff can revert to being a higher priority. This weekend we finished painting the sitting room, stairs and landing and prepared to have a carpet fitted. The preparation work included laying underlay (until I unfortunately ran out) and fitting carpet gripping strips to the doorways in each room. The rooms are looking good now and will hopefully look even better with the carpet done. There will then just be a few more jobs to do before they're totally finished. It's only small things such as finding and hanging new curtains, fitting the ceiling roses to the ceilings and re-attaching sockets and light switches.

The carpet is being fitted on Tuesday ( I didn't dare tackle the stairs myself), and we've agreed not to just put everything back into the rooms. We'll only put back stuff that we really want to keep, and will thus try to re-organise and rationalise the amount of pocessions that we have in the house.

2009-06-19T21:05:00.003+01:00

An application

Today I sent off an application for a job; well not really a job so much as a short-term placement with an orgainsation called 'Engineers without borders'. Details of the placement can be found here but are also copied below in case the link is removed from the website. I guess that I'm not likely to get it, but it would be really interesting if I did. I'm sure that some would think me strange to be paying to volunteer my time, but I feel that I need to do something a bit more 'constructive' with my time/job at present. I don't know if this will lead anwhere, but at least it's trying out something to see if this could be a future opportunity.

Introduction:
An opportunity to assess the feasibility of the first long-term EWB-UK/EWB-USA collaboration to assist with the implementation of distributing locally manufactured Alcock Hydraulic Ram Pumps to local community vegetable garden co-operatives.

Background:
The high prevalence of HIV and tuberculosis combined with the need for parents to search for work in urban and mining areas means that many children in KwaZulu Natal are looked after by their grandmothers. In order for these women to support their grandchildren they run Community Vegetable Gardens. This supplements their family’s diet and makes a small contribution to the family income. Up to 6 hours a day however is spent collecting water to irrigate these gardens which reduces their potential yield and causes health problems.

To help combat this EWB USA-JHU has been working with David Alcock to create a distribution chain for the locally designed Alcock Hydraulic Ram Pump. It is hoped a number of these will be installed at the community garden co-operatives to increase yield, improve member health and increase income as more time can be spent at the market selling their produce rather than irrigating the gardens.

The distribution of these pumps will be the responsibility of a second local partner, The Zakhe Agricultural College. Here, it is hoped, a small facility will be set up to manufacture, test and maintain the pumps. An initial phase of this has been the installation of two ram pumps by previous EWB USA-JHU volunteers at the college. The technology of the pumps is now being incorporated into the curriculum and it is hoped that they will be able to use this learning to sustain a manufacturing and distribution facility.

Roles and Responsibilities:
You will be assessing the project for its potential as a long-term placement for an EWB UK volunteer in the summer of 2010. It is proposed that long-term EWB-UK placements will assist in empowering Zakhe Agricultural College to sustainably disseminate and implement the Alcock ram pumps.

In addition to this you will be:

Assisting EWB US-JHU volunteers with the installation of two ram pumps in two garden co-operatives.
Conducting a social survey of a previous pump installation at Ndwedwe Gardens to assess it impact.
Assessing the potential of a reservoir irrigation system.

If it seems appropriate from your assessment that the project is suitable for an EWB UK placement in 2010 there will be an opportunity for you to become project manager, be part of a project support team or even volunteer yourself.
Volunteer Requirements:

Water engineering, hydrologist, geologist background (essential)
Travel experience (essential)
Overseas development experience (preferable)
Driving license (essential)
Experience of needs assessing (preferable)

Expenses

The volunteer will be expected to cover most, if not all, expenses or seek their own sponsorship.
Flight: ~£800, Food and board: £5-£15/pn, Plus other travel expenses such as vaccines, insurance etc…

2009-06-19T20:54:00.002+01:00

Good Climbing Etiquette: One interpretation of the Harrogate Mountain Club Arran meet in May 2009.

Font, the finger wearing stones in secluded French forest glades, this Spring missed the privilege of being blessed by some of the finest feet in Yorkshire, as the HMC turned their back on the south and headed north. North, a land of instant gratification; a land where there’s no need to wait to get married to your true love, a land where if you want your pizza deep fried you’re welcome to have it so, and a land containing pure unadulterated rock of such splendour and magnitude that those who in awe touch its textured skin will forever bear its memory and most likely scars. North, a land where pretences count for nothing and your true inner being is revealed through the lens of nature’s uncompromising magnificence.

Specifically, the gently decomposing granite masses of Arran’s precipitous crags, clean cracks, eternal slabs and broken backed aerial ridges cast their mutinigenic spells deep into the hearts, minds, passions (and watches) of nine members of the HMC. Drawing them closer with fevered excitement as every day approached, even the questionable weather forecasts could not quell the surge of plans, purchases, packing and personal aspirations that insurmountably grew.

And then, on Friday 1st May 2009, the day had arrived. 3 laden cars, released from the confines and predictability of Yorkshire sped North into the great Unknown. An Unknown flirted with by members of the group in years gone past, but an Unknown that was to be whole-heartedly embraced and explored by the team as they drew close to it and melded with its raw physicality. A physicality of rock, running water, fire, ice, fear and passion. But a physicality that was so much more than the unforgettable, gut-wrenching and life-affirming grandeur of landscape, seascape and sky.

It was a gentle Unknown; a soft, enticing, taunting, captivating and stimulating physicality fleetingly captured for a second in the warbling harmony of the nameless folk singer and the plucked guitar melodies. In the silhouette of the stag on the skyline silently watching over his kingdom. In the mellow aftertaste of the final nightcaps under the stars. In the soft intertwined murmuring of the field-birds and the brook across the fields. In the sun as it turned the dew on the spider’s webs to diamonds as it emerged from the shoulder of Goatfell. In the contrast of the roughly shattered boulders lying in the river bed of worn, polished pebbles. In the radiant primroses growing on the banks of the tumbling mountain streams and the fractal patterns of the fern fronds emerging again this year to carry on the cycles in existence for the last millennia. And finally, in the manifest touches of friendships deepening, minds melding, and understanding growing between these nine individuals sharing this common Unknown.

And it is here, that I as scribe have a duty to consider, categorise, and capture the collective experience into a record. Not to try and detail the vivacity of each second spent on this island (which will inevitably be dimmed by time’s relentless onwards pursuit of newer experiences, leaving only selected neural connections to feed into future HMC lore), but to analyse and collate, drawing out the common threads and weaving them into a representation of the original. A representation that can not hope to capture the technicolour detail which will inevitably be percieved differently by each and every one of us, but to form a monochromatic image of those three days. An image that whilst will inevitably be moth-eaten, faded, stained and out of focus, but that will prompt the memories of those who read it in the future, and bring reassurance that the feelings then experienced were real. At this point I unreservedly state that all inaccuracies in this record are mine, and that without the contributions of the entire group, I would have captured but a meagre proportion of this.

And so now the context is set, I present my thoughts on the ‘themes’ of the weekend as I consider these to be the logical form to provide structure to the diversity of the our experiences. Themes which by themselves are individual and specific, but are (I suggest) all aligned with the ethos of the HMC. Themes united in my perception by the embracing arms of ‘good climbing etiquette’.