To rels for Christmas.

Currently in a jam on the A38. Police search unit went past and then some sick bastard fell in behind him to take advantage of the traffic parting. I hope he gets stopped.

Dubbing in Spanish

Why when dubbing a film, do the Spanish feel it necessary to bleep out swear words. Duh! Why don't they just substitute another word when doing the dubbing?

My Garden

I like my garden. It's a glorious Sunday morning. The sun is in an almost cloudless sky and there's a tiny bit of a breeze moving the tops of the bamboo. Bees and other insects are buzzing. The stream is bubbling. Unfortunately the rest of the world is starting to wake up and disturb the peace. Annoying motor bikes, road noise from people going out for the day. On such a day as this I'd much prefer to stay away from all the stress of others getting in the way. There's always someone who upsets the intended tranquility. On the water it'd be thrashing around creating too much noise and wake. On the road it'd be some nursev driving so slow as to almost be going backwards. Obviously everybody else is entitled to enjoy themselves as they see fit. For me I'd rather do it with less interference. Hence on days like today when everyone and his dog wants to go out, I'd rather sit in my garden enjoying it.

Bar closed

Just got back from a few drinks at a small cafe bar we call the Gun Shack. The fact that the hotel restaurant and bar was not open again got my curiosity going. Was the staff off ill? Were they under some sort of hygiene restrictions? As I walked past reception I asked the lady behind the desk why. She looked at me as though I was a small child, when I expressed suprise at the simple self evident fact that it is closed for the whole of August.

Waiting in Spain

So far the rain shows no sign of falling on the plain.

We've been waiting at the warehouse since about 0830.

There was a little bit of receiving to do but that only took 40 mins or so.

Other than that we've been sat listening and watching the downpour waiting for a truck to pick up a set of shipments for the Magellan.

This happens quite a bit here.

We're told mid morning but that probably means just before lunch. The waiting might not be so bad if it wasn't for the rain.

Starting to feel a bit hungry now but of course we can't leave in case the truck arrives. They're not eager to work in this kind of weather either.

Just confirmed that the truck is arriving.

Probably just like Webster and still half a world away. It's not as if I haven't got stuff I could be doing in the office. Could have a cup of tea as well.

20 minutes later we get the truck but now we only have 30minutes before lunch. Arghh !!

Thankfully the forklift driver carries on til it's done, and we're only 10mins late.

Now we can get changed and leave the port for lunch. Needless to say it's still raining and we're getting soaked.

Extreme gardening

I'm just about healed after nearly 2 weeks of pain and hobbling with my left foot.

Just before I left for work, a fortnight ago, I suddenly felt the need to add more water collection to the current towers. This required access to the back of the shed, which was guarded by 5ft high brambles.

Not a problem, just get out the petrol strimmer and away we should go. I put on the bright orange coveralls, the safety glasses and the hearing protection. I couldn't find the work boots, and thought my crocs would be sufficient.

You can probably tell where this is going.

It took about 20 mins of serious work to clear the growth. I was quite surprised not to find any trace of wildlife in there.

Anyway I got plenty of thorns in my feet and crocs, duh, but didn't think much of it as it's never been a problem before. Indeed it wasn't until a few days later that I thought anymore of it, when the inside of my big toe got infected. Again I thought I'd be able to brush it off quite quickly, as I always have.

Not so gunga din.

After nearly a week at work, slowly getting worse, I eventually swallowed my pride and asked to see a quack.

As my Spanish isn't up to describing the pain, symptoms, my muppetry etc. Luois came along with me. Every morning for 5 days I've been going to get my toe cleaned and squeezed. My gods that was bloody painfull. At the start of the treatment the quack prescribed some pain killers. When I picked them up they were ampules, more suited to injections for a horse, than swigging with orange juice.

The last few days have been particularly gross. Solid green lumps of sika flex like substance have been dragged from a very large hole. Still, there's very little pain there now. Just waiting for the weeping to stop. That's not going to be easy when I have to walk around the warehouse all day.

Weather not as expected

Well here I am back at work again.

Before I left, comments were made about how nice and warm it would be to work in Spain. We'll wait and see I said.

So far, after about 3 days, it hasn't lived up to their expectations, at all. The weather starts off quite cool in the morning, then warms up during the day to peak mid afternoon and then starts to cool off again. It hasn't got either too hot or too cold just yet. It hasn't chucked it down with rain yet, but we did have a little drizzle yesterday which could quite easily have turned nasty.

The time difference doesn't quite match what was happening at home either. Now when I wake up for 0700hrs the sky is still quite dark, and stays light gone 2200hrs. I think Spain should go to the Portuguese time frame which is an hour later than the rest of Europe. Seems daft to me that the whole of Iberian peninsula isn't on the same time zone. This would work geographically as well, as you'd just switch time zones when you cross the Pyrenees.

The weather back home doesn't look too bad.  Temperature in the high teens, light winds and over the last few days just a bit of rain.

Train travel

Going to London at this time of year on the train is simply marvellous. Green rolling hillsides are interspersed with the golden polls of newly harvested hay. This is even before you get to the section of track which hugs the coast. When the weather is clear, like today,it beats travelling by air any time. Just spotted a large pod of dolphins off the Dawlish section. This even caused a few of the business types to pause! Just a shame we couldn't stop. Tide is in. Some of the sailing boats look excellent, reflected in the almost mirrored water . Not sure I could leave them tied up for so long. Still I guess we all have to work to earn the time off. All too soon we're heading back in land, across the flat flood plains into Exeter. From here it's a relative sprint to Reading and then Paddington.