Noah? Give Us a Lift?

I got caught up in the flooding this week, though not to any great state of discomfort. It did mean I had to spend an extra night away though and poor Fran was left on her own from Monday to Friday.

The week started off ok, with a trip up to Glasgow, which was gloriously sunny on Monday night. The travel agents had put me the far side of town for some reason - the hotel was probably a couple of quid cheaper than the one by the venue which was in the next street to the station I arrived at, but I then paid six pounds odd in taxi fares getting to and from with my bags... This sort of thing happens when the public sector is under close scrutiny to be cost effective - it becomes less so.

Tuesday night saw me on my way to Newcastle where I had another event on Wednesday and then on Thursday I went into the office for my annual appraisal and to wish Doug Belshaw well, as he left to go off doing exciting things with Mozilla (I'm using their Firefox browser right now, Doug!)

So even though I'd been away three nights I stayed for a later train and went out for lunch with the gang, catching the 2:20pm train for Carlisle to pick up the West Coast main line.

All went well for an hour or so. We went through a horrendous rainstorm and I saw a couple of flashes of lightning. Then we reached Haltwhistle. And stayed there.

After a while the conductor came and announced there were floods ahead and we couldn't go on. Also there were floods behind and we couldn't go back. Also the roads were flooded and the bus companies were refusing to come to the rescue...

So as we were at a station, we got off singly, then in groups to gawp up the track. There in the distance was a silver sheen of water and it was coming towards us.

Another 20 minutes or half an hour passed and I looked up from my book and saw a stream passing the train...

So we got out again and trotted to the front of the train.

The water had passed completely under the train and was still flowing under like a fairly fast stream.

Shortly after this we were told they would set off and try to get back to Newcastle. By this time it was gone 4:00pm and we had another hour at least to go before we would get back to where we started from.

We went slowly through the floods, crossed tracks and picked up people moaning at how late we were and a couple of real neanderthals of the type who make railway journeys that much more tedious.

Halfway there we heard that Newcastle station had been closed due to flooding...

Hurrah for Facebook - one of my colleagues had noticed my reports on there and despite the fact that it was gone 5:00pm I got a call asking if I needed a hotel sorting out. Unsure as to whether we would reach Newcastle I opted to stay at the Premier Inn near the Metro Centre and then when I got off there I realised there would be no buses and little chance of a taxi so phoned the hotel for directions to walk it.

The directions started by "Walk through the Metro Centre..." which was impossible as it had been evacuated so I skirted it and came to another precinct of shops who were all ripping carpets up and brushing waves of water out of their front doors. The roof of Ikea had come down. They had brought a new one out of stock but were struggling as some screws were missing or they had one strut too many or something...

Finally getting to the hotel they had a queue of would-be guests who were being turned away. Had I not been booked in by my wonderful team, I'd have been spending the night on a chair somewhere!

I finally got home at lunchtime on Friday after going back to Newcastle and going via York. Even so we got held up at Darlington because of animals on the line... Stranded fish perhaps...

Home felt good.

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Around and About

The week started with a train up to Glasgow. A few minor hiccups due to signal failures but once on the mainline everything was fine. The ground turned a bit white once up in the Lake District and then ccloser to Glasgow it got a bit more pronounced!

I had my meeting with the staff at the JISC Regional Support Centre for Scotland and met a couple of new staff and exchanged ideas with them over ways to engage the Scottish colleges.

Then it was back to the station as I had to get back down to Birmingham for the night ready for an event the following day.

It soon went dark, but I got a chance to snap a couple more photos on my phone from the warmth of the train.

It was getting on by the time I got to Birmingham but on the way from the station to the hotel I found myself in a Christmas market with German steins of beer, all kinds of sausages and frying potato and onions adding to the smells.

Whilst I ate in the hotel rather than in the street, I couldn't resist wandering back out to walk up the market and back.

There may have been no snow down here but it was certainly cool and crisp!!!

There were all sorts of stalls, from the food and drink, to jewellery, wooden toys and reindeer skins. Failing to spot one with a red nose, I breathed a sigh of relief and headed back to the hotel...

Large versions of the photos: motorway, farm, Birmingham, market stalls, waiting to buy

Bonfire Night 1981

A bit of a wet washout for anyone hoping to get a bonfire in tonight. Last night wasn't too bad but this afternoon Blackpool's had rain, sleet, hail, thunder and lightning. On Wednesday night, which was the night - 5th November - I was on a train coming down to Blackpool from Glasgow. No, I'd not been to the Manchester United / Glasgow Celtic match, I'd been delivering a workshop there for work.

I saw a very few fireworks as the train sped south through Scotland and not very many through the Lake District but once I got off the Glasgow-Euston express at Preston to catch my local train to Blackpool, the sky was constantly lit up by the flashes of exploding fireworks.

The photos are from my collection. I took them on 5th November 1981 when a few folk gathered to light bonfires on the beach. It was a low tide that night...!

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Blackpool Central Pier Big Wheel

I'm back! Yes, the new broadband setup has taken place and I'm now able to connect once more from home. All I need now is some time to connect from home...

So, once more apologies to those who were wondering where I'd got to, but even had the connection been a bit earlier I seem to have spent so much time away from home just recently I'm not sure it would have made a lot of difference! This week for instance, I left Blackpool on Monday and have been to Birmingham and then Glasgow. I got home last night to a raptuous welcome by Fran - along the lines of "Shush, I'm watching The Bill and Silent Witness..." Good to be home...

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What? A Week???

Ah yes... perhaps a little remiss of me, but it has been a busy week.

Since my last missive I've been to Glasgow, Lancaster, Newcastle and Edinburgh for work and there's not been a lot of time to devote to the blog! I've not taken the camera with me either on the trips I've been on.

Last weekend Fran and I drove up to Anchorsholme for a walk along the cliffs and a view of the Riverdance which is still there. As you can see from the photo it is now well and truly on its side and as fast as they empty the fuel out, it has to be filling up with seawater as the tide half submerges it twice a day. My guess is that if the March spring tides don't let the salvage people float her then she will end up being dismantled where she lies - or Cleveleys will have a new permanent tourist attraction.

The roads in and out of Cleveleys - which is the main Fleetwood peninsular road - has been horrendous at weekends with sightseers coming in to have a look.

In an non-customary fit of junk-throwing I unearthed a folder containing a load of old photography magazines from the early 1980s last weekend which have provided a few hours of fun reading through them again.

I used to buy Practical Photography every month, Amateur Photographer every week and Photography most months in the 70s and 80s. Practical Photography I see used to cost 80p in 1982... It brought a load of memories back, of sending off loads of photos and the joy of seeing one in print every now and then. Ex-PP editor Robert Scott also used a couple of photos in the Club Canon magazine and I came across a couple of photos of the gorgeous Collette Caton, a model who got noticed through Practical Photography's annual Photo Girl contest one year. I met her on the PP stand at a fair in Haydock and have a hideously underexposed slide somewhere that totally fails to do her justice!

Ah well, so now at least you know what I've been up to and now I've got to get ready for another trip. Shrewsbury, here I come!

Motorway Idiots

I spent yesterday evening driving back from Glasgow in a tropical rainstorm.

It never ceases to amaze me how suicidal some drivers are. I must drive 35,000-40,000 miles a year and doing that sort of mileage you see your fair share of smashes, upside-down cars and even cars/lorries on fire.

Unfortunately they are not always the ones who deserve it.

I'm not a slow driver but if you are driving fast then you have to look a long way ahead and react to what is happening. At one point 60-65 was as fast as it was safe to go in the weather conditions. The road was absolutely covered in water and anyone on worn tyres is straight away at more risk of aquaplaning.

Yet people were zooming past me, doing the odd thing like heading off to overtake a lorry who was in the centre lane then slamming on brakes when they suddenly couldn't see anything because of the spray from its wheels. Or driving up at 80-90 behind someone doing 60-70 overtaking in the fast lane and leaving it until the last minute to brake instead of slowing down gradually. Or forcing a driver in the central lane to suddenly brake down 20mph because they were unwilling to slow down 5mph themselves.

As far as I'm concerned if you're are doing more than 70, you should be watching for people needing to pull out into your lane and it should be you that slows down if necessary.

Consideration - that's what it's all about.

Still, all in all it was a quiet night. 193 miles and I only saw two accidents... There again, from those 4 cars that probably left at least 8-16 disgruntled or frightened or hurt people, counting occupants and immediate family at home wondering where someone was.

Glasgow City

As the new academic year starts, I'm back travelling the roads and rail networks of Britain again.

Tonight I'm in Glasgow, overlooking Glasgow Central Station - not an imposing view as these things go, but the double glazing is doing a good job of keeping the noise out!

Tomorrow Clive and I are delivering one of JISC infoNet's Project Management workshops to an audience of librarians. It's a while since we saw each other actually and at the moment he's still negotiating the M8 so who knows where he might end up.

My satellite navigation system needs a serious talking to, as it has a totally different idea than do Glasgow's city planners as to where the one-way streets are or which way you drive down them. It would have had me down three bus-and-taxi-only streets had I stuck to it rigidly...

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