Saturday 2nd November 2024

And to the weekend, but this week with the reality that I will lose something like 50% of it due to travel for work.

News of that in the coming days.

Another dull grey day, light winds, but with nothing really to do, and with a huge backlog of shots to edit, there wasn't much pressure from my brain or photographic desire, so other than some hunting and gathering, we would do little. After the first coffee, off to Whitfield, now broad daylight again thanks to the clocks going back last week. And run round getting stuff for Jools to eat while I'm away, then back home to drop the baggage off before going back out to the car hire office on Townwall Street to pick up a car for the forthcoming week.

Lots of extra paperwork to fill in, then given the electronic key for a tiny Hyundai hybrid.

It struggled to get up Jubilee Way, at least accelerating up the 1:5 hill from 30mph.

We will have fun next week.

Back home for breakfast and put the shopping away, put the radio on and then.

Nothing.

We listen to the radio through the morning, have sausage and bacon buttes for lunch, munching away as the first footy games kicked off.

I watched the Championship game while editing shots, then sat on the sofa with Scully to listen to Radio 5 and watch the videoprinter on the BBC red button.

Norwich played well, despite a minor injury crisis, which deepened as the match went on. City took a 1-0 leave with a worldy, but lack of depth off the bench allowed Cardiff to score two late goals.

Sigh.

Then get ready before going out. Picking up Sean and Ange before coming back to St Maggies to The Smugglers where we had a table booked.

A table of six young ladies were shrieking with laughter at stories being shared, we sat and chatted, looked a the menu before ordering (for Sean and I) ribs.

The main course was splendid, so much so we also ordered a cheeseboard each.

Too much food, another tiny morsel and I would have popped.

So, we paid and left, dropping Sean and Ange off back in town, before coming back home, as the last dregs of garden fireworks fizzed and popped in the jet black sky.

Friday 1st November 2024

Friday.

And so to the last day of the week, bin day too, and a day for trying to complete work tasks, as I off travelling next week.

I was up at six, Jools was just leaving for yoga, but for me a coffee was waiting.

I checked the world. Its still going to hell in a hell cart, so no change.

And I start work, with tasks being ticked off one by one, including the monster that is the travel expense app.

Sigh.

I talked to colleagues, swapped news and advice, did more tasks, had breakfast, worked more, had leftover fritters for lunch. And a glass of wine.

Because it felt the right thing to do.

I close the laptop down at one, packing my work bag, then going to sit outside to watch the garden.

Not sunny. Not warm

All was good until a sparrowhawk swooped in making all other birds dive for cover.

It missed all the small birds, and sat for five seconds on the grass, and as I raised my camera to take a snap, it took off.

Excitement over.

Earlier, the sky was filled with dozens of seagulls riding a thermal higher and higher, squawking as they wheeled and rode the rising air.

Then were gone. At quarter to two, Jools arrives, so we go straight back out to Jen's for cards, as John wants to be home before its dark, the clocks going back knocking an hour off our card-time already.

We play, and all were in a good mood, even John. Jools had bought him a book on nonsense verse, as he was quoting some last week, and a small craft project she finished that his wife never started.

I win at Meld by five points, netting the 80pence jackpot. Then John won Queenie, winning the best part of a fiver with a run of four cards.

We asked Jen if she fancied fish and chips. She didn't really, but liked the idea of not having to cook, so accepted. Jools went to the chippy along the road, and soon came back with wonderful crispy freshly fried food, and a bucket of chips.

Back home for a brew and feed the cats, then settle down for another quiet evening watching football and sipping whiskey.

The end is nigh

Jools has suggested how much better it would be to retire in Spring rather than the end of summer. And I can find no reason to argue, as long as we could afford it.

So, next month when we go to see the pension guy, we will ask him to recalculate an earlier date amybe from the start of April, when we are due to head to India.

So, that's the plan.

For me, work is longer enjoyable. I don't feel I offer the company anything, or what I do offer, they ignore. I may as well call it quits. We also have a ew manager, and in my experience at this company, will be my 11th manager is just over 11 years, and only two of them have been any good, the rest from ignorant to incompitent and worse.

Some managers you are pleased to speak to, others make your heart sink when you see thename either come up on Teams or the phone.

Life is too short to work with a poor manager. I mean I'll give the FNG a chance, but what we've heard, it's not good.

We shall see.

I left school in May 1982, right at the heart of Thatcherism and her war against the unions and state run industries. My generation had little hope of work, just a string of schemes with no chance of a job at the end of the six month placing, just being cheap labour to be exploited and let go so they could bring in another mug.

I worked in Boots, at a garage, did four hours as a short order chef (with no training), sold double glazing before getting a job in a chicken factory. I stayed five and a half years, and had "prospects". I was offered a (poor) salaried position the day the offer to join the RAF came. I chose the Blue Suits.

Fifteen years later, I left on bad terms, one bad SNCO killed what was left of my career, but had a place to live andmoney in the bank. I lollygagged aorund, burned through my savings and was nearly bankrupt.

I took to the ocean wave, surveying for three years, travelling to Indonesia, Norway and Kazakhstan​ before my second employer went bankrupt and I lost my job.

Sigh.

I fell into the wind industry, and here I am.

Worn out. Fed up fighting. Fighting to make things better, against a machine that doesn't seem to understand it has to get better. I have no more fight, if the machine wants to argue, I will just give up, raise my hands, turn round and walk away. And keep on walking.

All the way through, its to people I worked with that made it all bearable: Flod, Dick, Rambo, Scarecrow, Jap Sniper, Frub, Essex, Jooly, Jilly, Rory, Dick, Dave, Phil, Rune, Stffen, Henrik, Anni and dozens if not hundreds of people, whose friendship and warmth I treasure. Even if some don't appear to feel the same way.

So it goes, so it goes.

Thursday 31st October 2024

The week ploughs on, but the weekend gets ever closer.

In a change, there was to be sunshine and maybe be warm enough to sit on the patio and be on Chough watch again.

Though none seen.

I sleep until six, and look at the promise of a fine dawn out the back of the house.

A day in which I had to finish the final draft of the audit report to send it out for comments, tackle the nightmare that is the computerised travel expense app.

And try in my small way to be useful to the company.

Indeed, the early clouds cleared, and although it was hazy, more than enough warm sunlight seeped through meaning I could have brews and lunch sitting looking at the birds and insects, tough no butterflies seen.

The last trimmings and mowings of the autumn take place, filling the air with the summer sounds f rotary equipment. But evening, that would be replaced by the whizz bangs of fireworks.

It is that time of the year.

In a surprise move, once work is done at half two, I get the hoe out at try to find the twisty path in the back garden, and clear a very large grassy clump from the drive.

Does it look like I did munch? No, but it is now possible to walk down the garden on the brick path once again. We can do it again in the spring before it all grows like crazy again.

Dinner is courgette fritters with bacon and lots of grated cheese. We've not had these for weeks, so it was a real treat to have them.

Oh no: no football!

What are we going to do?

I have no idea what we did, but it took most of the evening, and so wet to bed just before nine, pooped even though I had done little.

We had no trick or treaters all evening. In truth this is a street for middle aged folks and older, so was to be expected. I can't remember seeing any decorations out of any house either.

Wednesday 30th October 2024

Why did I have y camera fitted with the big boy lens all day?

Because I can reveal we have seen a new species seen in the garden.

I had put peanuts out late the night before, so some dawn on Wednesday, there was a good selection of corvids feeding on the ground: magpies, carrion crow and a raven.

But one was feeding, and took off as I went into the utility room, so the movement must have spooked it, but there was no doubting the red bill holding a peanut.

Later, I saw either the same or another Chough, flying over the garden, then call, and do two loop the loops, something I have never seen any other corvid do, and indeed is one of the identification tips.

Last year some red billed Choughs were released near to Dover Castle, and this year at least one pair bred.

But this is the first time I have seen one, other than in Spain.

Other birds seen included the usual clutch of wood pigeons, goldfinches, house sparrows, dunnocks and a wren.

Also feeding was the family of brown rats, one I snapped as it dashed out to gather a nut from the turf off the lawnmeadow.

That was exciting.

About the only thing that was. Until late in the afternoon, there was an emergency department meeting (never a good sign) and news that another interim manager had been appointed.

So, more change.

Eleven managers in ten years, and the first one, Bo, had been in charge for several years. One lady, was our manager for barely a month due to changes.

The only constant is change. Apparently.

Once the afternoon ends, I make chorizo hash, and wash it down with a new beer, an 11.5% imperial stout which cost seventeen quid for a small bottle.

Was robust in the extreme.

And, as ever, the evening was spent recovering and watching football.

Tuesday 29th October 2024

It gets no lighter in the evenings, I can tell you. With the cloudy and overcast skies, light begins to fade from about four, and dark soon before five. And there are seven more weeks of less light until just before Christmas.

The loss of light was really obvious before an after our trip to Tuscany. Felt like summer, or light until well into the evening before we left, then when we came back, an hour less light, or so it seemed.

And in the mornings, it is at least just about getting light as I get up between half six and seven, though dawn came slowly due to the clouds, a half-light giving way to a flat light. But it was light.

I am enjoying work again, so begin work, with the task to find places to stay on my trip next week. Instead of using a something like Hotel.com, I use the company travel portal, and find chain places with parking, though out of city centres.

But it'll do, as I a travelling for work.

Then there is the travel expenses from my last trip to upload. Take pictures of receipts, upload and then work out VAT rates.

And so on.

The day moves on, not much happens. So that by midday I was ready for yet another audit.

I was the ringleader for the audit, some 15 people attending, and as it turned out, talking over each other for four hours on headphones, which was a bit of a pain.

But we end dead on time at four. Time for a brew and chill, before making dinner for Jools and I.

I had made a ragu through the day, the pot simmering all day, and the goodness simmering down to a meaty, spicy goo. I cook pasta once Jools got home, I grate some cheese and mix it all before serving.

For the evening there was the delights of Fleetwood v Salford, which was better than it had any right to be, with Salford getting a leveller 9 minutes into injury time.

All 20 of Salford's fans that had travelled, went wild.

Monday 28th October 2024

It is Monday again, and over the next few weeks I am travelling to both France and Denmark, so that it will be December before my work travel will be over.

That being said, I have travelled less than most in our small department, and see the light at the end of the tunnel now. In that for next year's planning I will only be there eight months or so,

I also have a backlog of shots to post on Flickr. I am now coming to the end of shots from the trip to France and Tuscany, so I am now editing shots from the same month, though it is is the 28th October, and soon a new month.

Travel also means travel expenses, and submitting them to the Danish tax authorities, so rules have to be obeyed, no matter how stupid and petty.

The reality of the travel expense app on the intranet is always better than the thought of it, even still it was after lunch before I started the task.

Monday morning dawned all red and angry, so I took shots of the blood-red sky to the south east, which soon faded to pastel shades as the sunrise approached.

Mails to sort through, and calls to return, and so the morning slipped though my fingers.

Most of the afternoon was spent preparing jambalaya, something to have when Jools came back from aquasicse. But I got a call at five, her heart wasn't in it, so had cancelled, so leaving me with a rush job to finish off the jambalaya, add rice and frozen, bit cooked shrimp.

It was done by quarter to six, just time for Jools to pour a cider and me to open a new bottle of red wine, and we sat down to eat.

Spicy, but bearably so.

There was football in the evening, Blackpool v Wigan, though I went to bed with twenty minutes to go, so missed Blackpool's leveller late in the game.