powers

delivery - will it happen?

There are 13 minutes before the morning four hour slot for my British Gas delivery of a new central heating boiler closes for ever. Will they make it?

blogging

It is three months since I blogged and Facebook is still getting most of my attention as I am aware (I think) of who is reading that. A blog is a soliloquy proclaimed to a darkened auditorium. Who is sitting out there? Who is listening?
I will return to this from time to time to scrawl an entry or two and maybe, one day, to archive it. In the meantime, go safely.

back again

It feels like ages since I wrote anything in this blog, which is remiss of me. I have been too busy doing other things, including, in an ICT context, learning about Facebook and linking up to loads of old Toc H colleagues and friends. Taking my daughter fishing last weekend was also an adventure, including catching a large crab. Thank you Llandudno pier.
Now I have found a way to automatically transfer my blog posts to my social networking page I shall write here more I think. Time will tell.

Oscar and Hepzibah

Oscar has a lot to answer for. He was sitting smugly in our garden as if nothing was wrong and without a care in the world. There was some evidence of a scuffle and Hebzibah was nowhere to be seen. Now, it is not too hard to work out that Oscar had committed an act of moral terpitude in connection with Hepzibah, poor girl. Indeed, it was even possible she was lying moribund or dead behind a hedge or bush, particularly as there were black feathers strewn across the lawn.

It is with huge relief that I can report the discovery of an indignant Hepzibah Hen in a neighbour's garage, where she was taking refuge from the unwelcome attentions of the feline fiend called Oscar. Long live Hepzibah!

colleagues

I have been reprimanded by those who dined with me in Cardiff at the Spice Root and whom I mentioned in my last blog post. They say I should have been more upbeat about them and indeed I should. They are: the illustrious Maggie 'Bad Cop' Smith and her most outstanding partner in crime Janine 'Adore-Dogs' Griffiths.

Swansea and Cardiff

I went down by car to Cardiff on Wednesday to meet with staff and then travel across to Swansea in preparation for the annual Wales conference about volunteering, which I was chairing. I stayed in a mediocre hotel called the Ibis, which was a bit scruffy. Thursday was the conference, which went well overall with numerous volunteers talking about their experiences, their learning, their motivations, their contributions and what management they received. The Liberty Stadium is an excellent venue.
On Thursday evening I was back in Cardiff at the Express by Holiday Inn (a better one than the Ibis) and liked up with two colleagues for an entertaining evening over an Indian meal. Excellent!
Friday was a meeting of the Social Justice and Local Government Forum preparing for our meeting with the Welsh Minister in November, followed by a terrible ploughman's lunch and the journey home in the afternoon/early evening. I took a new route to keep my spirits up and broke the journey at a couple of castles. Got home about 9.00pm. Rosie was at a party and Jennie was out.
Busy times.

Volunteer Centres in North Wales

I had an enjoyable and constructive time meeting with the managers of all the Volunteer Centres in North Wales yesterday in Wrexham. I even managed to find a car parking space easily which is a bit of a miracle. We discussed lots of things, including the Department for Work and Pensions volunteering programme.

I had heard that the town centre of Wrexham was being taken over by charity shops so I had a quick look - Red Cross, Barnardo's, British Heart Foundation (one furniture, one other stuff) and some local charities were evident. I am not sure 'taken over' was right, but the proportion is high.

Gardening and our groundsmen

Yesterday, for me, was a day outside in the garden in the sunshine. I managed to cut back all the small hedges whilst the hens scratched about by my feet and, at times, they were dangerously close to the electric trimmer. Harriet Hen was nearly decapitated, but somehow managed to duck at the last moment. Silly bird! She lays good eggs so it would have been a pity to lose her.

I left the border hedge which is far too tall to deal with from the ground. We will ask our groundsmen to give it its annual wash, cut and perm when they have time and before our dear neighbour goes through his yearly ritual of telling us he cannot see the sea any more.

Now, I mentioned groundsmen. Don't misunderstand this. They come to us for about half an hour a fortnight in the growing season, mob handed, to mow the lawns and perform very occasional other tasks, such as causing irritating bald patches on the lawn where the rotating blade of the mower has been set too low for the brow of a slope. They are not really gardeners because they don't have anything to do with designing, planting, nurturing or the suchlike. They mow and chop and that seems to be about the extent of it. However, we wouldn't be without them.

Barbeque and God

We went next door for a barbeque yesterday, arriving at about 1.45pm and leaving at just before 11.00pm. What a sunny and warm day! This was a gathering of Chris' family and friends, which happens at this time of year to celebrate the life of his late wife.

Much hilarity, many drinks, a few disagreements and a big discussion on God and religion all intermingled. Once this theological debate started it kept some of us occupied for rather too long probably. Suffice it to say we ranged over creation, evolution, the Bible, the big bang and "Mister God, This is Anna" amongst a plethora of other things. I recommend that book, by Fynn, by the way.

Today is also a beautiful day.

Blood Brothers

We went to see a performance of Blood Brothers at Venue Cymru last Thursday evening with Jennie's performing arts school and there was a standing ovation at the end. It was well deserved. The only surprise for me was that I thought I was going to a stage version of Band of Brothers, the world war two TV mini-series following some paratroopers through the war. We all make mistakes.

Top Dog of the Day

I have always said privately how much I love our finance department at work and now I am flattered to have been asked by its Director when I am going to resume blogging. At least, I think it was flattery. On the other hand, maybe he just has some sort of masochistic compulsion to read my ramblings and hates them with a vengeance. Who knows? Anyway, I like to think he adores my handiwork.

On the basis of that, and his encouraging response to questions about expenditure I want to incur (and make no mistake it is never easy for accountants to be encouraging about expenditure), he is top dog for today.

For the sake of clarity, I have not said how much I love our finance department because it varies and I keep it for private conversations . Suffice it to say that the Director has the Top Dog of the Day award.

great package holiday

My earlier satirical blog about package holidays has made some people on Facebook think that we didn't enjoy our holiday in Rhodes, Greece. Nothing could be further from the truth. We loved it. Peace and quiet. Swimming pool. Food and drink. Excellent.

There is much to be said for package holidays - just don't go on the 'trips' and get a ground floor room. Enough!

The curse of email

Why do people still send you work emails when you are away on holiday? Why does the work keep on coming in? Well, life goes on, that's why.

I have developed a method of reducing the stress from this flood, which is occasionally to look at incoming emails whilst I am away, particularly if it is for more than a week. It is often impossible because it is dependent on internet access, but it helps to know what timebombs are ticking away in the inbox. I find this far more relaxing than ignorance. Some people wouldn't, but I do. However, I do not expect myself to respond until I am back at work and nor should anyone else.

package holidays with greasy chips and hot bodies

I cannot decide whether or not I like package holidays. You know the sort - the ones with the bored travel company 'rep' who tries to make you feel welcome by singling out your family to be the only one without the 'welcome pack'. "Oh dear, we are one short, but you won't mind" and "Can I see your paperwork just to make sure you should be here? Nothing to worry about".

This 'welcome pack', if you had it, would tell you about all the rip-off trips to see distant and obscure carpet factories, candy floss spinners or sponge divers. In any of these places you will spend about three hours watching people work, thinking how tragic their lives are, and then being brow beaten into buying a silk carpet, unique candy floss or exceptional bath sponge for thousands of whatever-the-currency-is. Your rational mind will have been washed away by endless cups of sweet hot liquid, purporting to be tea, and you will only realise that the beautiful carpet is quite the wrong colour and design for your home decor once it has arrived through the post about 12 weeks later - if indeed it does arrive.

These holidays generally take place under an azure blue sky, in the blazing sun, by the beach, in a hotel with a swimming pool, and unavailable sun beds. Your room will have a balcony which is constructed with a low enough surround for the smallest child to peer over to enjoy the view of the local builders, at 6 in the morning, power digging foundations for the new hotel next door. If the balcony is carefully designed, the child will be able to scale the railings and fall unhindered and powered by gravity into the cement mixer or the swimming pool some six floors down. Bye bye.

Swimming pool is a misnomer. Actually, very little swimming takes place in a hotel pool because it is generally used as a means of cooling down by simply plunging into it with a very sweaty and very hot body. In fact, very sweaty is enough. You don't have to have a very hot body, but it helps. Where was I?

The food, oh dear, the food. There is a tendency in such places to produce poor quality British style food just because it is assumed that the British won't eat anything else, including good quality British style food. This is the 'greasy chips with everything' mentality. I don't know why they think that people from Birmingham, Bradford and Bognor Regis wouldn't like anything else. At least good British food would be a start - a spicy Chicken Tikka or king prawn fried rice for example.

At least on our just completed holiday in Rhodes we could find genuine Greek food in the local tavernas and nearly everyone spoke the lingua franca, the vehicular language, of, guess what? English. I have yet to go anywhere in the world where I cannot use English to communicate reasonably effectively with the local population where the vernacular was unknown to me. Luckily my rusty French comes back when I need it, but I digress.

The Austrian with whom I got chatting on the local bus in Rhodes assured me that there was no point in the British learning any language but English. He proclaimed that there is only one language which is used in international business and commerce and it is...well, we all know, don't we?

I didn't get onto the cultural and personal identity aspects of language as it felt rather pointless under the circumstances, but I did mention I had learned Welsh. He made no spoken comment but looked bewildered. With a broad smile symbolising the affinity and world peace which can only be maintained by effective communication and understanding, I bid him 'aufeder-whatsit' in his local language and alighted from the bus into the blazing sun.

Now don't burn, don't even allow your self a sun tan, because all this leads to melonoma and melonoma is a serious and potentially lethal skin cancer. Yet so many people still go on these package hols to the sun. Are we all suicidal or merely idiotic? Perhaps we just think 'well, I have to die sometime, so I want to have had a tan before I do'. I guess that's fair enough.

So, do I like package holidays? That requires thinking and you shouldn't have to think on holiday, so I've no idea. Now, where's that carpet factory?

goat

Yesterday I ate goat for the first time in my life. I wasn't expecting it to be so good.

rest and relaxation

Just at the moment I am enjoying a little rest and relaxation with my family. Wonderful!

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

This morning we had a 3 month contract review, with DWP, on the volunteering scheme which WCVA is working on in Wales with the Volunteer Centres here. This matches those who have been claiming Job Seekers Allowance for 6 months to volunteering positions, if they are interested in volunteering. Claimants do not have to do this, it is entirely up to them. This was a helpful meeting.

Chicago

Last night we went to the musical Chicago. On the stage were very attractive and scantily clad young(ish) women singing and dancing raunchy numbers with, I am assured by my wife Rosie, equally attractive men - this was prohibition era Chicago, after all. You know what happened to me that must be the ultimate embarrassment? I am sure you can guess, because it so often happens in semi-darkened rooms and most particularly in bed.... I yawned. Yes, I yawned and my eyelids started to close. I am still trying to recover from the embarrassment!

The musical Chicago is actually anything but soporific. Once I had awakened myself from my near slumber, I concentrated on the show and enjoyed it. Afterwards wife and daughter loitered around the stage door for autographs whilst I went for milk at Tesco. Well, someone has to do these mundane chores, don't they?

Translation from Welsh to Gobbledeegook

I have been asked to translate the blog I wrote in Welsh about the Eisteddfod using an online translation service in order to test it. I did and it leaves me bewildered and incredulous. It translates what I wrote as:

he went me girl Jennie , I go I I ' group Eisteddfod crookedly the I Dig today. He was ' I do much he people in he was going he y the field I see everything. I did I speak he things Russell Owen he Mantle ) , the Minister Health I Fade Hart AND Graham Benfield the prime workmen WCVA Nerys Biddulph Hughes he Brestatyn , Bran Targett he ' group Council signs Everything Wales I go someone he ' group embassy America crookedly London I go much he people friendly other also. we were we signs the field between 10 I go 4.30 o'clock. He was everything excellently!

Clearly the final sentence above does not refer to the translator. For my next trick I will translate English to Welsh. Let's try:

I am quite sure that this sentence will make complete and utter sense in Welsh when it is translated online here.

'Dwi eithaf 'n ddiball a hon ddedfryda ewyllysia gwna chwblha a draethu bwyll pryd dydy cyfieithedig online 'ma'.

Come on you Welsh speakers, how accurate is this?