Things I look forward to in life...

You know it says something about my life when I consider the high point of my working day is purchasing a bottle of Orange Lucozade then sitting at the station reading my Kindle whilst waiting for my train home...

Must be the Star Wars novels I'm reading.

Boating Trip #2

After Friday night's snarl up in traffic my day-trip around Poole harbour more than made up for the inconvenience... on a bright sunny morning we headed to the marina and boarded Dad's boat - a Jeanneau Merry Fisher 365. He bought it after selling his Jeanneau Sundance 36 about a year ago and hasn't had a proper go out in it yet, this was where I came in insisting that he and I take it out in the summer for a good going over!

As the boat is moored in Holes Bay we had to go under two bridges in order to get out into Poole Bay itself... one of them is newly built and an impressive bit of engineering:

The bridge is split diagonally and as they come down they fit together... clever!

We also went past the Sunseeker factory:

Some lucky rich git's bought one of those...

Once through the bridges and past Poole Quay our plan was to head around Brownsea Island using a channel that we haven't used in a long time, so long in fact, that Dad and his mate Roy (who came along for the trip) couldn't remember the channel marker positions, and they are both veterans of sailing around Poole harbour! Said channel took us onto the 'Wash Channel' which leads out past the Chain Ferry and into Bournemouth Bay, Dad opened her up and we headed out about halfway then turned around and made our way back into the harbour and headed for the channel to took us to Wareham.

Wareham is a quaint little village that sits on the River Frome, getting to it is via a circuitous up-river route that few deep draft boats can do. Fortunately our boat only draws roughly a foot and good thing too because we went aground slightly as we approached Wareham quayside and that was with a fairly normal Neaps low tide! Anyway we made to the quayside, tied-up and did what pretty much every boat-owning person does at the end of  trip - we went to the pub!

I love pubs by rivers ;)

After several pints we thought we'd best head back so off we went...

Once we were off the River Frome and out into the harbour we tried out the Merry Fisher's engine in an area that allows speeding (most of the harbour has a 6 knot speed restriction). The best we got was 14.1 knots but Dad reckons it'll be a bit faster once the hull has been cleaned and new anti-foul added.

By late afternoon we made it back under the bridges and into the marina... then we headed off for some much needed beer and meal... all in all a darned good day of boating and I even managed to avoid bad sunburn!

Boating Trip #1

 Well my trip down to Poole started badly when I got stuck in horrific traffic on the M40 which had been caused by two lanes being closed. It was so bad I was using my handbrake a lot and several times contemplated switching the engine off.

A two hour trip turned into a five hour trip, this is the 21st century ffs!

Still, after getting through the jam and after a couple of hours driving I was treated to a glorious incandescent sunset after driving through a rain shower.

Arrived at my dad's place tired but happy, now for a weekend of sea, sun, sunburn and beer!

Off the Grid

I haven't posted for a while because, quite simply, I haven't done anything worthwhile posting about... my life isn't exactly a walk on the wild side, it's more like a slow, shuffling pace by some begonias.

Anyway, I am off to do something interesting this weekend - I'm heading down to Poole and am going out around Poole harbour with my Dad in his boat... pics to follow.

Game of Thrones plot revealed… FFS!

Once again, an important plot point to an episode of Game of Thrones has been revealed to me before I've had a chance to watch the darned episode!

I'm sick and tired of these retarded journalists posting articles about the show literally less than a day after it was aired!

Can't you all find something else newsworthy to write about and stop thinking that all 9 billion of us have seen the latest episode?

Also - to Google, can you possibly put something in your much vaunted algorithms that either blocks a news article about TV episodes from appearing or at least append something like SPOILERS ALERT over the snippet text?

Really fucking ruined it for me now, I don't feel like watching that last episode.

Thanks a lot Daily Telegraph, I appreciate it (NOT).

A Little Piece of History

When people talk about history it's usually stuff like what Richard III liked to read when he was taking a shit, or fossils purporting to be from some bigass dinosaur… you know, stuff that only revered historians or palaeontologists talk about, not really the stuff that plebs like you or myself can ever know or understand.

However what I found whilst rooting around some drawers at work the other day is a little piece of history that CAN be related to and understood by most people, well, people who grew up in the 80's at least - a Betamax video cassette! Now this is a relic that can be held by someone from the 80's and bring back a flood of memories (fond or not).

I think it's safe to say it hasn't got JLaw's tits recorded on it...

Of course I nor anyone else at my workplace has a Betamax player so we can only guess as to what's on it, probably nothing juicy though considering what we do for a living but I'm tempted to get one so I can see what's on it!

RIP Christopher Lee

You were one of the best, scaring the shit out of me during my younger days watching Hammer House Horrors, right up to my adult life spellbinding me as the deliciously evil Saruman in LOTR.

Plus a special mention for your role in The Wicker Man, you made a creepy film even creepier!

Rest in Peace, Britain has lost one of it's national treasures.

Women's World Cup

England v France tomorrow, 6pm on BBC1... I'm looking forward to it :)

Go Lionesses!!

They seem pretty confident and I'm hoping that they'll outshine the lacklustre performance our male team turned out in the last World Cup.

Reign of Kings

I had a very productive weekend on RoK, I found a nice server with no-one one, not that I'd purposely looked for an unpopulated server as I thought that someone would turn-up at some point. As it turned out no-one came on for all the time I was playing, that meant I had access to all the resources on the server... built myself a nice sturdy, secure castle that should be a challenge for anyone looking to do any offline raiding.

Of course, who am I kidding? No matter how secure I make it, they will find a way but that's the nature of the game unfortunately... I'll see how it goes next time I log-in.

Ooh Trees!

Listening to the radio in my car... hnnnggg!!

I was on my way to Tesco in the car and was listening to Heart FM on the radio, Emma Bunton was talking about taking her bra off at the end of a long hard day...

I'm sorry but I simply couldn't get that thought out of my mind.

My annual walk home

Last Friday I did my annual walk home... 10 miles of pavement pounding and crossing roads loaded with heavy traffic, clearly not a dream walk through sun streamed forest glades overplayed with a feel good soundtrack we all see on TV. I aways do it to get an idea of where my fitness is going for the year. I split it onto eight sections and this is how they played out:

Section 1: Start out, feel good, this section is roughly the same distance I walk to the station so all good.

Section 2: My right shoulder is aching a bit against my rucksack strap, hmm, worrying, still got a good 7-8 miles to go.

Section 3: This section is a little bit treacherous because during part of it I have to walk along a thin grassy stretch alongside a very busy dual carriageway, said stretch turns into a very thin (one person width) bit of pavement with a brick wall on the left and the road on the right. Fortunately this bit of pavement leads up to a pedestrian crossing and a roundabout which, in theory at least, forces drivers to slow down, anyway I made it without falling into the road and becoming road kill.

Section 4: I'm sweating profusely now and I have a long hill to walk up, knees are beginning to sing now, almost to the top of the hill and an Irish guy asks me for directions, I don't want to stop and lose momentum but neither do I want to be impolite so I help him with his directions and painfully get going again.

Section 5: A water break, ahh soo good! Putting my backpack back on is uncomfortable because it presses my now cooled sweaty t-shirt against my back! Lower back is also showing signs of soreness, I grit my teeth and press on.

Section 6: I am now officially hallucinating due to tiredness and the heat, I start thinking random thoughts - work, home, what's for dinner. Shoulder still aching, knees singing a tune... I walk past several takeaway joints and suppress the urge to go in.

Section 7: This section is a killer, it's sort's the men from the boys, or possibly turns men into boys - bawling, crying baby boys when they see the double hill ahead of them, especially after the distance they've just walked. For me, it's a tightening of the rucksack straps, gritting of the teeth and a mental "COME ON" yelled from the tired recesses of my mind. People in cars are looking at me funny.

I stop to rummage through my rucksack to find my keys, the reason why I do this is because it's been bugging me for the last few miles that my keys are somewhere at the bottom of the rucksack and I just know that Sod's Law will make it extremely hard for me to find them when I arrive home... I simply can't have that happen.  This is the way a fatigued mind works after 9 miles of solid walking... I find my keys and put them in the side pocket, I feel better.

Section 8: Ahh, made it! This section is a blessed flat wonderland with a slight downhill section to massage my tired limbs, it's also the home stretch. There's a carnival in my home town and lots of people about, I keep my head down and walk through them, single-mindedly on course to home and the bliss of my couch and TV... I get a few strange looks. I arrive home, tired but exulted and I've done it for another year, my shins, knees and feet hurt! Still, that's why I do it on a Friday so I've got the weekend to recover.

I did it in 2 hours 51 minutes and, boy was it painful towards the end!

Photography #101

I took this one, again, with my telephoto lens, it was from a bird hide at a RSPCA sanctuary in Norfolk.

I used sport mode to better capture the birds' speed of movement as they kept randomly flying off, I did well to get four in one go!!

Chaffinch's and Tits galore!

Photography #101

About time I posted some photography, my last load of entries have been me moaning and drunk-posting...

I took this using my telephoto zoom lens using automatic settings, yes I know, very lazy, but sometimes when you're capturing the unpredictability of nature, speed is of the essence!

A ladybird, yesterday.

National train strike postponed...

Being as though this Thursday's train strike has been postponed, I have decided to postpone my planned rant about it including calling the union bosses arseholes...