Yearly Archives: 2004

The 150th boat race

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Rosemary and I visited the London Wetland Centre run by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.  This is a 40-hectare area converted to wetlands on the South Side of the Thames by Hammersmith Bridge.  It is remarkable because of its location in the middle of London.  The trip had been organised by the Berkshire branch of the Cambridge Society to coincide with the 150th boat race.

We had a guide tour round the centre and saw many birds.  I think Rosemary was pleased to see a couple of Avocets.  There was supposed to be a Bittern in the read beds, not spotted.

Afterwards we watched Cambridge win the boat race from the South Bank at St Pauls School.  A nice supper had been laid on after the race.

Big Fat Repack

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Went to the Big Fat Repack at the Reading Rivermead Lesure centre.  I arrived at around 12.45 hoping the ZIP queue had died down.  No way, so I helped Brian Hickman pack his reserve.  He had been the first down at 11.30.

I then joined the queue to practice my reserve deploy.  Success it opened with no problem and was not inside out or with crossed lines.

Then I packed the chute with the help of another Brian from the Annecy trip and Brian Hickman. 

Sorry about the dearth of news

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Sorry about the dearth of news.  I have been travelling to Edinburgh each week, so there has not been a great deal to say.  This coming week I have the first two days in the office, so I am feeling quite relaxed as I write this on Sunday evening.

The last couple of weeks have been quite cold, with Northerly and Easterly winds blowing.  Apparently there has been quite a bit of snow around.  As usual none has fallen at home, or in Edinburgh.  So there have been no delays on the flights.

The ants at home appear to think Spring has arrived, never seen them invade the house so early in the year.  At least they are busily eating the Nippon.

Edinburgh and Rosemary

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Nice week in Edinburgh.  Rosemary flew up on Monday and back on Friday for £31 with Flybe.  
She took quite a few tours in the old town, Ghost tour, the Castle (I have still to hear the one o’clock gun), the Royal Mile where she visited the law courts.  She visited the street under the law buildings where Iain Rankin set a scene from one of his Rebus books.  On the Rebus visits we went to the Oxford Bar for a drink.

We met up each evening for supper, once with some colleagues from work, twice at the Petit Paris, and once for Haggis, Tatties and Neaps in a local pub.  Unfortunately the weather was poor.  First time in Edinburgh I have had rain fall while I was out on the street.  So bad one day we had to move hotel rooms because of a leaking roof in the Apex International.

Edinburgh yet again

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Well another week in Edinburgh with a mixture of rain and sunny days.  Going home though was rather a bind.  Started off by having to check my luggage in, this was the first time ever I had not taken my bag as hand luggage.  Plane though was larger then usual, and the trip back to Birmingham was well ahead of schedule. 

Having two buses to meet the plane must have caused severe confusion for the ground staff. The second bus which I boarded had to wait with its doors locked and us on for 15 minutes while someone was found to open the doors to Arrivals.  At least I did not have to wait for the luggage to appear on the carousal.

Next to the car, and as I looked for the fascia to my new MP3 car CD player, I tried to turn the interior light on.  Oh no, it was already on, battery was flat.  As I walked back to the NCP office, I thought luck was with me, I met an NCP man with a battery pack going to start someone else.  I will be with you in 10 minutes he said.  Thirty minutes later I stopped a car park bus and they radioed for him.  On my way he said.  Another 10 minutes and he was with me.  To be fair he had been called back to the multi story to help the police arrest a man breaking into cars.  Soon the car was running and I was away.