Eliza Carthy says bollocks to Nick Griffin

Eliza Carthy had an article in today's Guardian in response to an article listing the musical tastes of "the world's most evil men" that suggested Nick Griffin was a fan of English folk music. You can read her article here. It includes links to the original article. Her final paragraph is a pithy response to the article...

"At the moment I'm touring with the Imagined Village, an English folk band that includes British Asians alongside guests such as Billy Bragg and Benjamin Zephaniah. You mentioned Folk Against Fascism: we support their attempts to distance folk music from the far right. Bollocks to Nick Griffin. And because talk is not cheap when it comes to this, bollocks to Christian Koch. It's just not funny."

For more about Folk Against Fascism, click on the logo

Nottingham Contemporary Opening day

Today saw the opening of the new art gallery. It officially opened to the public at 10 am. The local press warned of major queues and roads being closed. We went along at 10.30 and walked straight in. The gallery was crowded but not so much that you couldn't see the art works on the wall.

I enjoyed the David Hockney stuff and will probably go back for a longer view. Frances Stark's combination of words and scribbles didn't do much for me but others seemed to enjoy them. I was amused by her kimonos as giant telephones sculptural pieces.

We participated in a piece of interactive art work by writing on pieces of card that were put on plinths in the downstairs performance space and got a couple of free t-shirts by completing a questionnaire but didn't get a chance to try out the cafe bar. We will be back in there at some point as they had a couple of Castle Rock brewery beers on hand pumps.

I'll be back to take photos when the weather is a bit calmer...

Mitch Benn at The Lakeside

We've had tickets for ages to see Mitch Benn do his comedy/music thing at the Lakeside, so it was shame that Sonia came down with a headache that afternoon. Luckily, it was my nephew Edward's birthday and he had no plans, other than getting to a new level in some on-line game that the young people distract themselves with these days.

I dragged him along (he didn't take much persuading) and we settled down to enjoy a great gig. the Nottingham Evening Post review was positive. The highlights for me were the prog rock version of the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" and his heavy rock anthem "IKEA". Edward seemed to really enjoy the rap version of Macbeth, though not sure that it would be a good idea to consider it as a form for his dissertation...The "Break up song" at the end of the second half had wonderful (but very rude) word play, and his encore of "A Minute's Noise for John" (a tribute to John Peel) brought the house down.

He was available after the show to sell and sign CDs and chat to us. His web site is: www.mitchbenn.com

For more of his work, here's his "Break Up song" (with rude words) on You Tube..

A short break in Ironbridge

We had our usual autumn break in the little Shropshire village of Ironbridge, yet another World Heritage Site. We stayed at a wonderful Bed & Breakfast called The Library House for 3 nights to give us two full days to visit most the museums in the area.



Wednesday

We arrived late on Wednesday morning to be greeted by Lizzie who helped us unload and gave me a residents' parking pass for the local pay & display car parks. After parking the car and walking back, I found Sonia and Lizzie sat in the lounge with a pot of tea and slices of sponge cake waiting for me. Also waiting for me was Fizz the dog (who has her own page on the Library House website). Lizzie was very helpful, suggesting places to eat and drink, as well as "local's tips" about what to see and where to go.

Once we had unpacked, we headed out for a stroll to get our bearings. Sonia popped in to a local hairdressers (The Picasso's) for a trim while I wandered around near the bridge taking a few photos (for a change). Once Sonia was suitably shawn, we did a bit more wandering before sitting down to enjoy a pastie and can of pop at Eley's Pie Shop, overlooking the bridge. We bought ourselves a couple of Ironbridge Gorge Museum Passports. These gave us an entry into all 10 museums in the group at any point in the next year (so any we didn't get to this time round could be revisited later).

After lunch, we tried to follow the local guide map we had picked up from the helpful tourist information people in the Bridge's Toll House. We eventually ended up high on Lincoln Hill, looking down on the bridge and the gorge.



From here we had to climb down a lot of steps to find our way to Paradise...



Paradise of a sort was found at the Ironbridge Brewery, where we stopped off a refreshing pint straight from the brewer's own pump. After a walk back to The Library House, we rested before heading out to a local pub, The Golden Ball Inn for the evening. The directions we were given meant we headed up the hill via a park. This meant a lot of steps under frameworks that should have been supporting flowers but they were gone for the autumn. All those visits to the gym paid off as we reached the pub without collapsing in a heap. The beer was very good, Ludlow Gold, and the food tasted great. My only complaint was that there were too many chips for me. After the food we settled down in the main bar for a few games of dominoes (who says we don't know how to have fun) over another couple of drinks. After the landlady broke the handle off the beer pump serving me (to much laughter all round), we eventually decided that we would head back to the B&B but decided we would follow the road and street lights rather than try the path through the park in the dark. We made it back in one piece and settled into the large and comfortable bed.

Thursday

Thursday morning started with an attempt at a healthy breakfast (my eggs were poached rather than fried) but overcast skies. We headed out for the day in the car, leaving the gorge to visit Madeley to pick up some cash from an ATM and a copy of the Fortean Times for me. We then tried to visit the ruined Buildwas abbey but it closed on 30th Sept...so we headed down the gorge back through Ironbridge, over the Jackfield Bridge, and headed up the narrow winding road to the Maws Craft Centre. Most untis were closed as it was before 10 am, so we gave up and headed back down the track to the Jackfield Tile Museum. We used our Passports to get in and spent the rest of the morning wandering amongst some beautiful tiles.



On the way out we stopped off in Fusion, a new building in the grounds of the museum that houses Designers and Makers. We came away from Kinki Glass with a couple of samples of works from Nikki Williams.

From Fusion, we headed back over the Jackfield Bridge and headed up to Blists Hill Victorian Town. Again, we used our passports to get in and headed straight to the pub for lunch. As the skies were still overcast, I decided to make of the photos of the Victorian Town in black and white. We did a lot of walking, stopping off at the various shops and workshops. We stopped off for a cup of tea in the Forest Glen Refreshment Pavilion before heading into the woods to find the Hay Inclined Plane (a two track railway that linked a canal at the top of the hill with the River Severn in the valley below. We eventually made it back to the entrance after a ride on a clay mine train into the hill side.



We made it back to middle of Ironbridge late in the afternoon and booked a table at Restaurant Severn, based on Lizzie's previous recommendation. As we headed out for the evening, we met up with two other sets of guests who were staying overnight. Lizzie had poured them each a large glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and invited us to join them. After a bit of polite chat about their experiences of the UK, we left the Aussie visitors to plan their evenings. The maitre d' at the restaurant was surprised to see us arrive on time as "guests from the Library House usually have a drink before they get to us" and arrive a little later than planned. The aperitifs were gorgeous little sausages served with mash dip. We carried on with wine for our meal and I can heartily recommend the restaurant if you are visiting Ironbridge. I had the pork followed by raspberry parfait while Sonia had the beef wellington followed by the belgian chocolate and coffee torte. We eventually headed back to the Library House raving about how wonderful the food had been.

Friday

Friday was a sunny day so we filled up with the cooked breakfasts and headed out in the car to Coalport. Parking at the China Museum, we put on our walking boots and set out for stroll along the banks of the Severn. We crossed over the Memorial Footbridge and found our way onto the Severn Valley Way. A slight detour down to the river bank meant we came across some beautiful flowers on our way to the Coalport Bridge.




From there we walked back along Coalport High Street to the China Museum. Yet again the passports allowed us entry and we wandered around looking at how china was made.



Walking back to the car we stopped off to visit the tar tunnel, a brick-lined tunnel where the bitumen still oozes through the walls.



We finished the morning with a visit to the Museum of Steel Sculpture at the top of Coalbrookdale. This wasn't covered by the passport. From here we headed down the dale to the Museum of Iron where we had a late lunch. I found the museum interesting but didn't take many pictures. We heade across the road to visit Enginuity, an interactive Design & Technology Centre. The good thing about visiting a "hands on" museum like this after 3.30 on a Friday afternoon in October is that there were no kids to get in the way of the adults playing with the water and levers etc. Again, no photos because I was too busy "learning"...

After all that excitement, we headed back into Ironbridge and stopped off at the Brewery to pick up some bottles to take home. When we got back to the centre of the village we ended up driving down to the Jackfield bridge and then back up to the car park on the other side of the Ironbridge itself. This gave us great views of the village lit in the early evening sun as we headed back to the Library House.



Before heading out for the evening, I waited for the sun to go down to take some night shots of the bridge using my gorillapod, the wide angle lens and the cable release.



We took Lizzie's advice about which was the better of the two Indian restaurants in Ironbridge and tried our luck at Pondicherry in the old Police Station. We were shown upstairs to the former courtroom. The food was not your standard meat in a sauce served on a bed of rice. The menu emphasised locally sourced ingredients, and the rice came in a small pyramid on the side of the plate. Sonia really enjoyed her mutton curry and my lamb was cooked to perfection, with a well flavoured sauce to complement it. All this was washed down with a bottle of wine. We were too full for a dessert, although we were tempted. As we staggered back to the Library house, we stopped briefly to look up at the stars in the clear sky.

Saturday

It was difficult to leave on Saturday morning as our stay had been so enjoyable and we still had some museums to visit. A quick stop off in the local newsagents to pick up some biscuits for the folks back in the office, and I walked over the bridge to collect the car. I then had to drive away from Ironbridge to get to the Jackfield Bridge before I could drive back to pick Sonia up outside the Library House. All in all, I really enjoyed our short break. The museums, pubs and restaurants make for a great stay...and we still have some places left to visit on our passports so we might just make it back within the next 12 months.

The finished photos are available on Flickr.com in my Ironbridge break October 09 set

Nottingham Beer Festival 2009

Well it's been a few days now and I think I can remember what a good time I had, based on feedback from others...

Friday night was wet on the outside so I met up at 7.30 with Bill and Chris to get very wet on the inside, thanks to the nice people at Nottingham CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) and the City Council. We paid our £10 which got us into the festival at Nottingham Castle, a souvenir half pint glass, and two beer tokens. To speed up serving and to remove the need for the servers to handle cash, you buy a token for £1.25 from the CAMRA sales table which then gets you a half pint of your chosen brew from the people by the barrels. We decided that we needed another £5 worth of tokens on top of the two we got at the gate.

We weaved our way through the crowds, sampling beers as we went, and bumping into old friends (including a lager drinker!) and acquaintances. I was pleased to see so many young people at the festival - as I explained to Chris, we need the next generation of real ale drinkers to make sure the breweries are there to supply us with decent beer once we retire...

Once we had finished our 6 samples, we had to make a tactical decision. In the words of the old Clash hit - should we stay or should we go? As it was after 10 we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and headed out of the marquees into the fresh air. After a brief stop to unload some of the fluids we had taken on board, we got into a waiting cab and headed up the the Lincolnshire Poacher. We met up with a few friends who had not made it down to the castle that evening and I had a couple more pints. Apparently we were well behaved but found most things funny (so it sounds like we were giggling drunk). Knowing my limits, I finished off my second pint and wandered out to hail a cab home.

I must have enjoyed the evening because Sonia said that I told her about it three times before I fell asleep.

The morning after wasn't too bad. I found two souvenir glasses on the side in the kitchen and then remembered that Bill hadn't wanted his so I had bought him a pint in exchange (that explained the second pint in the Poacher!). After a visit to the barber and the shopping run, the hangover had gone and I was ready to face day properly...getting ready for our niece Lauren to come for an overnight stay while her mum and dad went to a gig in Birmingham.

Give me another year and I might just be ready for the next Nottingham Beer Festival.

Bad Shepherds

It has been busy few days for going out. After the comedy of Marcus Brigstocke, we returned to the Nottingham Playhouse to see The Bad Shepherds play their brand of punk songs in a folk style.

Lots of fun was had by some of us playing "spot the intro", trying to work out what the song was going to be. Those of us of a certain age recognised the songs before others in the audience. The intro of The Jam classic "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" was a revelation, as was the mixing of parts of "Whiskey in the Jar" into "Teenage Kicks".

Examples of what we enjoyed is available on You Tube...
A cover of The Sex Pistols' God save the Queen...

Here they are singing The Steeleye Span song "All around my hat" with a punk twist to the lyrics...


They are back in the area at Lowdham in the Spring...might just go along

Marcus Brigstocke's God Collar

A Sunday seemed an appropriate night to go to see a debate about religion disguised as a stand up comedy routine. I really enjoyed Marcus Brigstocke's "God Collar" as did the reviewer from the Nottingham Evening Post. His ability to insult so many groups with humour would probably upset those of a nervous or overly religious viewpoint, but the audience was ready to put aside their prejudices and follow the debate.

Marcus Brigstocke's website is www.marcusbrigstocke.com. He has quite a few items on You Tube, most famously his rant about the three abrahamic religions on the Now Show on Radio 4...

Birthday BBQ August 09

100 miles to London
Originally uploaded by bob watt

Dereham, the town where I grew up and went to school, is in the middle of Norfolk. I still return to visit my family, and we headed over there back in August for my Mum's birthday.

This year, the celebrations were combined with Rowena's birthday. Surprisingly for an Aussie, she had never had a barbeque for her birthday because it was usually winter weather in Australia.

It was also an opportunity to say goodbye to Mike and Denise before they headed back down under. As usual, a few photos were taken and these can be seen by clicking here.

Lisbon Holiday

Lisbon Day 5 33 Torre De Belem front from boat
Originally uploaded by bob watt

We visited Lisbon for our summer holiday. Details can be found in the blog I wrote up afterwards: Lisbon Holiday 09.

Tuesday 23rd June: getting there
Wednesday 24th June: our first day wandering
Thursday 25th june: cultural chilling...
Friday 26th June: a day trip to Sintra
saturday 27th June: Parque das Nações
Sunday 28th June: tram and boat trips
Monday 29th June: butterflies and bus trip
Tuesday 30th June: heading home

Newcastle Big UK flickrmeet

Sunday 24 Tyne Bridges from Sage,
originally uploaded by bob watt.

19th April 2009 was the 4th Big UK Flickrmeet. This was held in Newcastle.

We stayed at the Premier Inn next door to the old Tyne Tees TV studios. It was nostalgic to walk past the entrance that featured each week on The Tube. Memories of student life in Leicester and getting ready for Friday night out on the town...anyway, back to the weekend's events.

We had Friday night to ourselves so we wandered the city centre before the main drinking hordes appeared and found a restaurant near the Tyne bridge that could fit us in. Beautiful local lamb washed down with local real ale. Wandered across the road to the Crown Hotel (I think) and had a pint or two in there while admiring the stained glass windows before a stroll along the riverside back to the hotel.

We met the the rest of the Flickrers at Newcastle railway station the next morning. While standing around, Sonia met her old friend Annie who now works in South Shields but she was on her way for a day out in York. Once the gang had gathered we headed off around the city taking photos of people and landmarks. The finished photos are available in my Newcastle Big UK Flickrmeet set.

I met back up with Sonia in the late afternoon as she had decided that watching me take photos was not that exciting when there was a whole city of shops and cafes to visit (and keep warm in). We had a meal in a restaurant near the hotel, overlooking the Millennium Bridge, which were washed down with cocktails. We slept well that night.

Sunday morning brought blue skies, so we visited The Sage before heading off to Haddon-on-the-Wall for a pub lunch on the way home.

Bristol Valentine's weekend

Bristol cranes 01 bw, originally uploaded by bob watt.

Valentine's weekend was spent in the wonderful city of Bristol. We booked ourselves into a nice hotel overlooking the the Bristol Bridge and within easy walking distance of the shops, market and other attractions.

We also took the opportunity to meet up with Rowena for the second time and had a meal with her at the Mud Dock cafe on the night we arrived. As she had to work, we set about entertaining ourselves by visiting the SS Great Britain, seeing Romeo & Juliet after a charming meal, and taking various river trips on the water taxis. We also went ove the clifton suspension bridge a few times

I took quite a few photos that can be found in my Bristol Valentines Weekend set

Oh dear!

Well, so much for my good intentions back in February. I didn't manage to keep it up to date. In my defence I have been busy on Facebook and Flickr, as well as at work.

I've just added he ability to post photo from Flickr onto the blog so that might help me post more often (assuming anyone will bother to read it). So the next few posts will be playing with the linking tools...

One year on

It's been over a year since I posted anything here. Have been busy with work and Flickr. Will have to do something about it.

Watch this space.

Australian "What have the unions ever done for us?" on YouTube

Anyone familiar with the Monty Python film "The Life of Brian" will get the reference...

It made me laugh.

Good news/bad news

The good news? I've got the promotion to become the Team Manager at long last.

After taking the post on in a temporary unpaid capacity back in Sept 05, I've been covering all the duties except the line management of the team - organising the workload, sorting out IT issues etc etc.

When the post was finally advertised a couple of months back I got an interview but they couldn't separate the two internal candidates (only 4 points between us out of a possible 150 I was told). So we were given a project to do that involved some joint working on drafting a job description and then coming up with your own proposals for a restructuring and producing a couple of managerial risk assessments for not doing anything and for implementing your proposal.

The second interview was last Friday morning. I was the second one in having lost the toss. Finished the interview at about 12.45 having been in there since about 11.15 and was called back just after 1 to told I was being offered the job. The had to go to lunch with the interview panel and the unsuccessful candidate. He was obviously not happy with the outcome but had the good grace to congratulate me and chat over the meal.

After such good news, what could possibly be the bad news you might wonder?

After 20 years, I've stood down as a union activist. I couldn't continue in my many union roles and be a full time team manager. So I have told the branch that I am no longer a steward, convenor, or Communications Officer, and have told the regional office that they I am no longer Chair of the Finance Committee, a member of the Regional Committee, Regional Council delegate, or Chair of the Notts County Forum.

I'm carrying on briefly to produce my last edition of the Branch Newsletter and to keep the website up to date while someone else is nominated/elected/"volunteered". I'll be writing a "how to guide" for both the newsletter, the website and the branch blog to hand over to the next lucky person who will spending their weekends hunched over a keyboard trying to fit 3 articles into space for 2 when a 4th article would mean you could have an extra page that meant no need to squeeze/edit.

I've been at this union steward business a long time. I got roped in back in Stevenage - "Bob, can you just hand out leaflets in your work place?" back in 1987. Within 2 years I was vice chair of the NALGO branch and a delegate to the Eastern Regional Council. After the move to Nottingham in 1989, I became the local steward for my workplace and have worked my way up through numerous restructurings and elections to become a departmental convenor and Branch Officer as well as taking in various roles in the East Midlands region.

I survived the merger conferences as NALGO, NUPE and CoHSE became UNISON - being delegation leader for the first two years after merger was stressful - herding cats would have been easier than trying to get 8 ex branch secretaries to recognise that they were now all in one branch and couldn't vote how they felt but had to follow the mandate of the members' meetings we'd held back in the branch a few weeks before. My unofficial policy from the merger came to fruition - the "old generation" retired and us "youngsters" outlasted them to become the leadership of the union and we now have new activists who only know UNISON. After 20 years, it can be argued that I'm now one of those who needs to step aside so the next generation can get on with it. So I've done it. I wish them well.

My advice to the next generation?

• Don't make "no" your automatic response, ask "why?" instead.
• Be honest.
• Recognise when you don't know the answer and say so. Don't make it up but go find out and then get back to the person who asked the question.
• If the member is guilty as charged they need to be told that it's about mitigation, plea bargaining, or jumping before they're pushed
• Negotiating on the basis of a "half truth" can undermine your position now and for all future negotiations
• Some people will never be happy with what you do but they'll not be willing to come up with a suggestion of what they would do instead. Ask them if they want to become a steward as they feel so strongly about the issue - they'll either shut up or stand up
• Make links with others so you can learn from each other
• Think! Union negotiations are more like chess that poker - it's not about the cards in front of you but the next three moves after this one (badly mixed metaphor but I hope you know what I mean)
• It's not easy but the satisfaction of knowing that you are doing the right thing for the majority of people for the majority of the time will help you sleep at night.

So that's it for me as a union activist, not sure what I'm going to do with the spare evenings and weekends but it'll be something productive - might finally clear out the garage, put up the shelf in the bedroom, and sort out the dripping kitchen tap...

evaluation and restructuring report

The last couple of weeks have been pretty manic at work. The Job evaluation scores came out on 17th October and people now know what the scores they got back in March mean in the pay packet. Those who have lost form a significant minority (that includes me) of just under 20% while 75% will gain and about 5% stay the same. Some of the losers have been very vocal in the anguish with personal attacks on the negotiators on the webpage of the local paper and setting up an e-petition.

I've not been complaining much as we remembered to lodge an appeal back in March about how the evaluation of our job was wrong on 10 out of the 13 factors, plus the job has changed since 2002 (the date for the scores) and we have registered the changes for re-evaluation, plus it is about to change again after a recent restructuring. On top of this, I have up to five years of pay protection to sort things out and the employer has agreed to a thorough review of all jobs to see if responsibilities etc can be increased legitimately to maximise JE scores.

What has been interesting to see is stewards who argued in the past so strongly that we must do something for the low paid front-line workers being unhappy with a set of proposals that do just that. The advice you are usually given is that JE schemes traditionally result in 1/3 going up, 1/3 going down and 1/3 staying the same. One of the complaints on a message board was that the person had been to a meeting where he was told that 40% would go up, 40% would go down and 20% stay the same, and he was unhappy that the proposals were for 75/20/5! I'm not sure how having more winners and less losers is a cause for complaint...

It was also interesting to see the number of managers who spent the day the results came out posting messages on the local paper's website about how badly their team had been treated in all this. My personal view is that their time would have been better spent supporting their staff rather than hiding in their office typing messages about how bad it all was.

A bit more talking and a bit less typing would have suited me if they were my manager.

I'd want them to reassure me that the changes to the job since 2002 have all been recorded and sent for evaluation, that the appeal that the manager had helped with back in March (they did help their team lodge an appeal, didn't they?) would go some way to sorting out the problem, and that as a manager they hadn't spent their time in the original interviewing saying that "the team doesn't do that, I do it as the manager".

And just to make life interesting, the second interview for the promotion has come round. The two candidates have been given a task to carry out on Tuesday afternoon that involves rewriting a job description and producing a report on how to restructure the team to include the posts covered by that job description. We interviewed the people who do the job on Wednesday
morning, drafted the jd that afternoon, got it checked by the people in the post, and I am typing this after spending the second day working at home on the restructuring report that has to be handed in on 1st November. I then have to produce a risk assessment of not carrying out the change and of carrying out the change that has to be in on 8th November for an interview on 9th.

Better finish now so I can get things ready for Sonia to come home with the shopping.

Goose Fair 2007

We went along on Thursday night to meet up with Bill, and Chris & his kids. Took a load of photos, which got edited down to these on Flickr.com.

Got another load to sort out from the Saturday visit with Stephen and Molly, and some more photos from the Sunday day out at the Leicester Space Centre and the Melton food show.

long time no blogging

Well it's been a while since I last posted anything here. I was drafting a write up of our holiday in Malta (for Flickr pictures: click here) back in March but have been busy on so many other things at work and home that I've failed to keep this up to date.

Since then I've been taken away to Bowness near Windermere for my birthday in May (photos here), had my uncle Michael visit from Australia (introduced him to British real ale pub culture of sitting around, talking and taking the mickey out of the gang while getting sozzled before stumbling into a cab to get home), and been over to Londonderry and the Inishowen peninsula of Donegal to visit most of Sonia's relatives (photos).

In between these holidays, we've continued to try to do something different on the first weekend of each month: visiting Lincoln (photos), the Riverside festival (photos), and Cropredy festival (photos). The latter weekend was spent with Sonia's aunty Julia and her husband Joe, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

I've also been round Nottingham quite a bit taking photos. The Heritage Open day meant I was able to get into the Bromley House private subscription library (photos) and the Adams Building (photos), while the Big Wheel day out at Nottingham castle meant we were able to get into a luminarium, Levity II (photos). The latest jaunt out was an early walk into Dovedale, up and over the hill to Stanhope before trekking back down to the car park for a picnic (photos).

I hope to keep this blog updated a bit more often, but must go now to make Sonia's tea as she's due in from her new job soon.

Sunday walks

As part of our get fit regime for the new year, we have started to go out for walks on Sundays when the weather permits.

The first stroll was through Sherwood Forest. I took a lot of photos as usual and you can see the results here. I had a go at using a long bow near the Major Oak. The long bow was taller than me by several inches. Managed to hit the target with most of my arrows.

Last week we went for a walk along the old Grantham Canal. Started off near Harby and stomped our way through the mud between the hedgerow and the reeds. We crossed over near Plungar, following a footpath that took us through a stable yard before cutting back across the fields and disused railway tracks down to the canal. It was below freezing when we headed out (ice on the canal and the swans struggling to act as icebreakers) but had warmed up to +5 deg c when we got back a couple of hours later. We had a picnic lunch of olives, parma ham, and coffee sat on the back bumper of the car watching the swans resting on the canal bank before heading off to the warmth of home. Again, took a lot of pictures that can be seen here.

Christmas and New Year 2006-07

It's been a hectic few weeks and this is the first chance I've had to post for a while.

We went over to Norfolk for Xmas to see the family. Drove over on the morning of Xmas eve and the roads were very quiet so didn't take as long as the horrendous journey when we went over for Dad's birthday (over 4 hours). Walked round to my sister's after lunch and had a play on the Nintendo Wii. Edward was able to show me how to play various games and everyone else felt free to sit on the sofas making "humerous" comments about my technique. A quiet evening in front of the TV having a few drinks with my parents. Xmas day was a late start, (nothing to do with the "few drinks") but I had a delicious breakfast of scrambled egg and smoked salmon on toast and we then settled down to wait for Alison, Andrew and the kids to come over before opening the presents. We created a small mountain of wrapping paper (which was tidied up for the recycling bin), thanked people for the presents they had given us and had a bit of a play with the toys (my racing grannies were funny as one of them kept veering off). We then had a go at playing a board game version of "Deal or No Deal" that Sonia and I were given by her brother David's family. It kept people busy making the little red boxes before we could start, and several readings of the rules to work out what we were supposed to do, but it kept us busy for a while until it was time to set the table for the big meal. Sensible portions of turkey, roast & mashed potatoes, etc etc etc were followed by Colston Basset Stilton and Port for Dad and me. We all settled down to watch the movie and other stuff on the TV while the food went down and after a while Gemma's boyfriend Chris turned up, so we had another round of present opening before a light supper and Dr Who. Once everyone had headed off we had a few more drinks in front of the TV before collapsing in bed. Boxing day was quiet. I checked the local paper shops to see if The Guardian was available (it wasn't). We had a visit from Elaine and headed back to Nottingham after lunch as Sonia had to be at work the next day.

Wednesday 27th December was a cold but clear morning. Sonia headed off to work, grumbling about the lack of leave and the rota that meant she had to cover the office. I waved her goodbye before wrapping up warm and catching a bus into town where I met up with friends. The three adults and four children walked down to the canal to find a narrowboat owned by John, a mutual friend, who had offered to take us all out for a trip. Once we had found him moored near Castle Marina, we left the kids and hit the nearby Sainsburys for the vital supplies of bacon, cobs and beer. We got underway and headed off towards Beeston and The Trent. I took lots of photos along the way and these can be found on my flickr.com site. We made it through the lock at Beeston and after turning round on the Trent moored near the lock before heading to The Victoria pub for lunch. A couple of pints and a good warm lunch later and we were back through the lock and headed back to John's mooring at Castle Marina. We left John to secure the boat, with some promising to meet him in the Lincolnshire Poacher for a few pints. I headed home to see how Sonia had got on at work and to down load my pictures.

The rest of the week was spent quietly at home, playing with the pictures for posting on Flickr, buying & installing updated antivirus software, buying a "pro" account for Flickr, and sorting out some UNISON case papers into date order ready to send to the lawyers.

New Years Eve came along quietly, and stayed that way. We caught a bus into town before they stopped running and met up with friends in the Lincolnshire Poacher. Once they had all gathered together we headed over to Chris' house to see in the New Year. It was all very civilised, no vomiting, no smashing of glasses, just lots of beer, food and "a good time was had by all". I think we left at about 1.30 a.m. and managed to flag down a black cab on the Mansfield Road who took us home for £10.

New Year's Day was not as nice as New Years Eve at first. A bit of a hangover - self inflicted, so no sympathy forthcoming. We decided we needed some fresh air and a walk so we drove over Attenborough Nature Reserve late in the morning. We couldn't get into the car park as it looked like everyone else had decied to do the same, so we turned round and drove off to the canal and weir at Beeston lock top take some pictures after a walk along the canal that I had cruised along on Wednesday.

The next day (Tuesday 2nd Jan) was my first day back at work and I had back to back meetings: 9 to 11 meeting of UNISON stewards in the department, 11.30 to 12.30 Joint Trade Union meeting with stewards from the other unions in the department and then 12.30 to 1.30 a members meeting about the restructuring of the County Council. By the time that had finished, and I had to spoken to some members who wanted me to come to a meeting in their workplace I barely had time to drink my home made soup before I headed home to write up the notes of the meeting, prepare some letters and deal with some other UNISON paperwork. Not a wonderful way to see in the New Year at work, but necessary given all that's going on.

You can see why I've not posted, been a bit busy.