Blogging

Hopefully I’ve finally caught up with my blogs today. When I was away to Holland/Belgium I took lots of pictures and have been trying to sort them out. Hence me neglecting my blog for a while. But taking the work laptop home on the train has given me an opportunity to blog on th e move. Just got to upload them all tonight whilst still uploading my picture onto the Air-Britain website.

The Great Escape

Poking around the trig pointing website this morning. It has been two years to the day since we last logged a trig point and that was only because we were in the New Forest having a picnic and just happened to find a nice picnic spot close to a trig point. We must have been living in Bournemouth at the time. This brought back memories of living on the Townsend Estate in Bournemouth, with all though horrible neighbours. No way could I ever go back to living there and so glad that thanks to Sue’s help I managed to escape.

Band practice was good tonight. I’m feeling really good about my drumming. I know I’m getting better which is something I didn’t think of when I was playing the guitar. I know I’ve got a hell of a long way to go on things but given practice I am really confident that I will become a competent drummer and e able to hold up my head in any company. Dave’s more professional attitude and me buying a metronome has really helped..

Trigs

Sat on the train this morning. Go to Southampton, Looked across to see if I could see my mate gottle on his train and my other mate Tim also on the same train, when I noticed the woman who was sat in front of me get up and move to the doors. I recognised her as being a regular on the train but normally she gets on at Southampton rather that getting off. No sooner had she passed me then she reappeared at the other end of the carridge and sat down. Was I seeing double? Does she have a twin. Does she have a lookalike. And if so does she know that she has a lookalike? Its all too much for me first thing in the morning.

Still, as I’m sure you’ve already read on Sue’s blog we had a roofer come to give us a quote tonight and our mortgage adviser came with some forms. The latter also being a goeocacher and a trig point spotter. Strangely enough I was looking at an OS map earlier in the evening and noticed a trig point not far from where we live. After the papers were signed we chatted about trigs, looked at maps etc. I had to admit that its been a while since we logged any trigs. Generally we only log trigs that we find whilst put geocaching or just out for a walk.; So we’ve only logged 12 of them.

Brown mess in the Kitchen

Bank holiday Monday and its raining. Woo Hoo!!! Now my internet connection is free evenings between 6pm and 2am and all day Saturday and Sunday. Which is generally the only times I’m home anyway. However it would be nice if I could use it on a Bank Holiday as well. But no. As far as the system is concerned, today is Monday, So I’d have to pay for phone call charges if I used the interner before 6pm. Wasn’t too much of a hassle as ABPIC was still down. However still got loads to sort out before they go onto ABPIC.

Went to Hobbycraft as Sue wanted some stuff there. Bought myself a ‘make you own clay teddy bear kit. Came with three colours of clay, brown, white and red. The latter two were OK but the brown clay had gone real hard. Tried to microwave it to soften it up and that worked a bit, but not much. So added some cooking oil to it and that worked, but I’ve added too much and now going to have to wait for it to dry out a bit. So at the moment I n the kitchen is a brown, wet blob that looks like a small piece of s**t. The things you have to do in the name of art.

How to Complain

Was going to spend the weekend getting as many photos from my Holland/Belgium plane spotting trip onto ABPIC, but fat chance of that happening. They have decided that this weekend to move the site to a new server and now the upload doesn’t work.

Did a morning trip to Costa Coffee with Sue., which was nice. The over to ‘The Works to see if they had any decent books in. Bought one called ‘How to Complain’. Companies watch out.

Chilled out for the rest of the day, watched a film and relaxed.

Hedge Trimming

Forecast was for a sunny day, so I was hoping to get in some decent plane spotting via openatc.com during the morning and evening. Fat chance, kept coming over too cloudy. Planned to trim another section of the front hedge this afternoon. No way was I going to get it all done but if I do one side today and the other some when over the rest of the weekend.. Got the trimmer out and realised that I needed another extension lead. Quick visit to Homebase and I was trimming the hedge. Well trying to the branches were quite thick and kept jamming the trimmer, which gave a really load, ear piercing sream when it does. Did one side with the trimmer and wasn’t feeling too tired so talked the other. Big mistake. The second side turned out to much worse that it looked. Produced tons and tons of clippings. So our long term compost bin (with twigs, leaves etc in it) was filled up again, plus any bag we could lay our hands on was filled. Even the big industrial bag that blew into our garden once, and we never bothered to return was filled up, and the top of the hedghe still looks bad but even I can’t reach it. Going to top off the hedge once all the current clipping have been taken away, or composted. Spend the rest of the day sorting out my photos from the Microlight trade day at Popham a few weeks ago.

Band Practice

Dave has obviously decided that we need to act a bit more professionally at band practice and rather than standing around trying to decide which songs to practice, he’s done a list of songs, which were going to practiced in the order they were written down. Also him and simon are writing some songs and they have decided that they would use the time before I got there to work on them. Before moving to the main part of the practise. Ie once I’ve turned up. Before they would practice a couple of songs and then when I arrived, they would practice them again. Then work on their own material. We’ve decided that this isn’t the best use of the time available to us.

Time together

Back to work. Boo Hoo. I’ve delibereaty not blogged about work for ages. You may remember that I wasn’t having a good time of it. Well something have improved other are exactly the same or worse. I’d better not say too much at the moment. Just to say that I’ll look forward to the day I finally leave this place, and the sooner that happens the better. I don’t think I’ll blog anymore about work until after I leave and then I’ll just want to forgot all about it.

Spent some real good quality time with Sue. We just sat and watched TV but it was really nice just to spent time together after a week of aircraft spotting, conference and band practice.

Day off

I got the day off work today. To recover from my trip. Trouble is woke up too early and so don’t feel up to much. Still can crack on sorting my photos from the trip to upload onto Air-Britain Photographic Library.

Band practice in the evening. Starting to feel real good about my drumming. Ok my standard is still rubbish but I’m feeling more comfortable behind the drums

Coventry

Had originally booked today off work, but had to go to Coventry for a conference. The company that supplies our mapping software has recently been taken over by a big American company. Who in turn was taken over by another company. So I guess this meeting was just to reassure us that everything was going to be OK in the future. Well if that was the plan it didn’t work. The big American company obviously had no idea how UK local government works. Their top bod suggested a World User Conference and asked us how many of could make the trip to Seattle. No-one raised their hand. One had to point out to him that we can’t expect the Council Tax payers to pay for such a trip. We don’t have the budget for it. A trip to Coventry is all we can afford. Although Liverpool Council people did say it would be cheaper for them to fly to Amsterdam than drive to Coventry. We left the conference early as the last bits in it were not relevant to us. I’m glad that we did leave early, Chance to have some quality time with Sue that evening.

I'm just a laughing stock

More Belgium airfields today. The last one we visited was Wivelgium in Belgium. Strange place with so many hangers being outside the perimeter fence of the airport and so and aircraft wanting to get from hanger to runway having to taxi along a public road. Must be very strange driving along and seeing an aircraft coming the other way. One of the hangers was a maintenance place for helicopters. They thought it was high amusing seeing 50+ British plane spotter rushing around with notebooks and camera, shouting out the number and all desperate to find out the reg of the helicopter tucked away in the back of the hanger. For one guy it was too much he was laughing so much he had to go and sit down. Oh well, glad we made someone’s day.

Nice people

Off to Belgium and more airfields. Weather isn’t helping us. Many aircraft hangers being locked up with the pilots not flying their aircraft today, so totals were not as good as they could be. Still the people at the airfields were all very helpful and tried their very best to accommodate us, when of course there is no need to help us at all. So we were all very grateful for that.

Holland

Having left Southampton at 10 last night and travelled through the night to get to Holland I thought that I would feel as rough as hell. Normally I can’t sleep unless I’m in a bed but even though the coach was really cramped. I still managed to get a fair amount of sleep. Not my full eight hours I’m used to but a good amount and feel OK ish today. Good days spotting as well. Did feel a tinge of sadness at Teuge Airfield in Holland. I used to have a Dutch pen pal who was even madder on aircraft that I am. Teuge was his home airfield and where I first met him. Unfortunately he died a few years ago at the age on 30 from some for of diabetes related illness. He had just got his dream job as well. All very sad and this was the first time I had visited Teuge since his death. I was thinking of him as I was walking around the airfield.

Aeroprint Tours

Took the day off work today to get ready for my trip plane spotting my way around Holland and Belgium. My good mate Eric from Aeroprint Tours is running the trip. Apart from the trip to RAF Shawbury last year I haven’t been on an Aeroprint Tour for ages. Each year I get his brochure for future trips and dream about going on one of his trips…. One day I’ll do one of his long distance trips, Japan, USA, South America, Russia oh that would be great.

Bad Birdwatching Book

First Sunday of the month and that menas a trip down to Costa Coffee with Sue. Then a quick visit the The Works bookshop. Bought a book A Bad Birdwatchers Companion by Simon Barnes. I’ve read his Bad Birdwatcher Book and thoroughly enjoyed it. So glad that

Microlights

Went to the Microlight trade fair at Popham today with my mates Jimmy, Paul and Mark. Great day out. A log (with photos) will appear on my Popham page is due course. Did Farnborough and Lasham on the way home.

Paul did bring round some boxes of books/magazines for my stall at Popham. It will be a really challenge to sell them. I don’t think there will be any demand for them.