In the spirit of trying to blog both interesting and gawk-worthy posts to this blog, I thought it might you might like to see some of the photographs from our weekend in Robin Hoods Bay, in the north of England.

We left early on Thursday morning, and returned on Sunday evening. All of the photos can be clicked to see them (bigger) in Flickr.

Just to set the weekend off to a good start, the sky decided to fall upon our heads on the way north - as can be seen from the above photo, visibility in the car was pretty horrific.

This is the view we woke to on Friday morning - Robin Hoods Bay, with the village on the hilltop in the foreground.

If you manage to make it down the hill into the bay (lots of overweight holiday makers seemed to be making very heavy weather of it), you got to go for a paddle on the beach.

Main entertainment on the beach seemed to be evicting harmless sea creatures from gaps in the rocks. Think about it from their point of view - they spend hours finding a safe crevice in the rocks to survive low tide, and then a blundering giant pulls them out and stares at them before throwing them back into the nearby water. (That’s Wendy and her Dad btw).

A few miles up the road lie the remains of Whitby Abbey, which we wandered around for quite some time. Whitby is perhaps famous in that Henry VIII didn’t destroy it when he dissolved the monasteries - so he went back the next year to finish the job off.

Some impressive stone-work at the Abbey.

As can be seen in the above photo, I had turned into “Tourist Postcard Man”, and was taking jigsaw-worthy photographs by the time we visited Staithes - a little further up the coast.

It was a good weekend. Our main reason for going was to greet Wendy’s parents who had walked the 192 miles from St Bees in the Lake District to Robin Hoods Bay in Yorkshire - the famous “coast to coast” walk. We met them en-route on Thursday afternoon and walked the last few miles with them. Predictably the rain fell like cats and dogs just to make them feel good at the finish.

While listening to their various stories of high adventure while traversing the hilltops of northern England, Wendy and I began wondering about the chances we might have to follow in their footsteps - but with the (hopefully) imminent arrival of adopted children, our future is very uncertain at present. I have visions of walking the fells with one kid strapped to my front, another to my back, and another in a buggy behind.

I’ll shut up now before I start on about kids not being allowed to climb trees and eat dirt any more.

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Tags: Holiday, Cumbria, Robins Hoods Bay, Coast To Coast, Whitby Abbey

We are sat in bed watching Jaws on the television on the last night of our break away from “normal life” (I say “away”, but we have had continual phone calls from relatives, friends, and my work).

Robin Hoods Bay has been wonderful - very much “what the doctor ordered”, but tomorrow morning we have to return. We have many photos, all of which will have to wait until our return to be uploaded - mainly due to my connection being reduced to the woeful T-Mobile mobile phone.

It works, but only just.

On a related note, while wandering around a coastal town this afternoon I happened upon a board games shop, and walked out with an apparently wonderful game called Carcasonne. I’m now looking forward to playing it with our friends.

Board games have replaced the pub for us in terms of providing chances to meet and catch up with friends. This seems like a very healthy thing.

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Tags: boardgames, holiday, robin hoods bay

After waking up in the early hours of the morning with a wicked stomach ache I decided it might be prudent to work from home, rather than brave a two hour train journey.

Luckily I can work from home - mainly due to the wonders of broadband internet and virtual private networking - but it left me feeling pretty bad about not going in. The part of the software development project I am working on is already late, and I know as well as the next person that “being there” with the team is much more useful than being remote usually.

The flipside of working alone feeds into a character trait that could be seen as negative - particularly by human resources people. I sat down at the computer at 8am this morning, and didn’t really walk away until 10pm this evening, apart from the odd break to make a cup of tea. I even ate lunch over the keyboard.

I did it out of choice. When you work on something particularly complex (as today’s development was), it takes so long to construct the system in your head - in order to work on it - that you don’t want to leave it in an unfinished state.

I spent hour upon hour this afternoon and this evening finding what many might term “bugs”, but that I might describe as “unexpected ways the user might try to use the software”. Perhaps “unexpected functionalty” is a better term. This could wander off into a discourse about ergonomics, and user interface design, but I know better than to even start unless you want to fall asleep standing up.

Software development is amazing when you take a step back though - take today for instance. I wrote programming in C#, Javascript, HTML, DHTML, SQL, and even stored procedure syntax. That’s getting on for 5 different languages. Somehow I can do this, and yet I can only speak English, and a smattering of French (Petite Anglaise would be sorely dissappointed if she knew how rubbish my french really was).

While plugging away at the programming earlier a helpdesk call came in from another client, and I was called on my mobile.

“Should you even be working if you were not well enough to travel?”

“I’m well enough to work - just not brave enough to spend several hours on a train with no toilet within sprinting distance”

The unexpected result of spending the day (and night) working was that I had perhaps the most productive day’s coding I have had in weeks. With little or no distractions, I was “on it” for the first time in a long time.

Long may it continue… well, at least until Thursday, when we fly the nest and travel to Robin Hoods Bay to meet Wendy’s parents - they are coming to the end of the “coast to coast” walk across Britain.

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Tags: work, softwaredevelopment, hours, illness, alone

A few weeks ago while browsing through the book store at Paddington Station in London, I came across a book where the author had “traded up” from a paper clip to a house over the course of several hundred trades, and had written about his adventures.

It got me thinking - about how delightfully funny, and slightly eccentric it might be to attempt something similar. Perhaps make everything a little more innocent, and a little more fun though.

This is what I came up with…

Swap Everything

I have started a new blog at wordpress, called Swap Everything. To get things started, I am offering up a bag of marbles to swap, and would like people to comment with things they will swap me for it.

I will pick a winner every few weeks, and “do the swap” - and then offer up the thing I just swapped for anybody and everybody to offer swaps against. And so on. Each time a swap happens I will of course keep track in the blog of where an item came from, and where the previous item went to.

I don’t want to get anything out of doing this - I just thought it might be a fun thing to do.

Do you have anything you want to swap for a bag of marbles?

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I apologise for the lack of posts to this blog over the next day or two. I am reading the Harry Potter book to avoid the story being spoiled by the idiotic news coverage surrounding it.

After finishing “The Deathly Hallows” I am going to finish reading “This Book Will Save Your LIfe” (very good book, incidentally), and then move on to “His Dark Materials”.

One day I will get around to reading The Lord of the Rings too. It’s almost amusing when people find out I have still not read it.

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Tags: HarryPotter, Deathly Hallows, His Dark Materials, Books, Reading

Guess what this is…

Yes, it’s the opening few paragraphs of the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. I am of course not going to show any more of it than that - especially after reading about the threats Bloomsbury threw at TechCrunch (they were hit with a cease and desist just for mentioning that the book had made it onto PirateBay). Like TechCrunch, I am not going to link to it.

The electonic copy of the book is all over the internet now - it’s everywhere.

Needless to say, I ordered my “official” copy of “Deathly Hallows” from Amazon last night - with a little luck it should arrive by Sunday morning and I can then try and read at least some of it before friends start badgering me.

Are you going to buy a copy?

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Tags: HarryPotter Deathly Hallows Book Final

While walking through the tunnel towards the east-bound circle line train at Paddington this morning, I could see a train in the distance with it’s doors open. At first I wondered which side of the platform it was on, but noticed a young man staring out of the open door towards me - unless something had gone very wrong indeed, I can never remember the doors on trains opening out towards the tracks.

With several hundred people in the tunnel between myself and the train, I resigned myself to missing it. Drawing closer, everybody in front of me obviously went through the same emotions, and as the chances of “making it” rose, a dawdle turned into a brisk walk, and then into a run.

Everybody made it. Unfortunately everybody made it in time to stand on the same train for ten minutes without it moving. “We apologise for the late running of this train. This is due to a safety alert on the train in front of us at Edgeware Road”. Several people around me started cursing, and I wondered how they would feel if it had been a bomb and people had been killed.

Finally the train pulled away, and I found myself hanging from the railings in the middle of the carriage with my messenger bag pinned between my feet. Due to the number of passengers, reading my book was out of the question, so I just tried to keep out of everybody elses way.

While hanging there, I noticed a young woman facing the door, engrossed in one of those magazines filled with celebrity news and photographs. I wasn’t aware that anybody ever actually bought them -  this proved that they indeed do, and without knowing the young woman I mentally disregarded her.

Having lost interest in her, I took notice of the Japanese gentleman stood directly in front of me. It seemed strange that in such warm weather he was wearing a long (very smart) black coat. I peered over his shoulder at what he was reading, and found several pages of Japanese text. Interestingly (to me) I realised he was looking at a Microsoft Outlook email. Even with most of the wording on the page translated into Japanese, my brain figured out what it was.

While looking at the front page with it’s maze of Kanji characters, I wondered about fonts, keyboards and all sorts of other issues surrounding non-latin character sets. Then I noticed that one part of the email was in plain English - his name.

Hiro Nakamura.

If you have seen the first series of Heroes (probably the best series I have seen in many years), you will understand the title of this post - “Nobody Will Ever Believe Me”. In Heroes, a Japanese character called Hiro Nakamura appears to Peter Petrelli on an underground train after warping space and time to deliver a warning to him about the future.

The Japanese gentleman didn’t turn around and tell me “Save the cheerleader, save the world”, so I’m assuming either that he wasn’t “the” Hiro Nakamura, or his time hasn’t come yet.

And there I was wondering what to write about this morning.

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While walking through Paddington station this evening, I found myself a minute or two early - and took the chance to do what very few in London seem to; I slowed down.

I walked slowly, and instead of picking my route through the hundreds of commuters, looked up and took notice of them. A small army of furrowed foreheads turned corners ahead of me and treated me as one might some kind of obstacle. A bollard.

Suddenly I became a hindrance to those behind me too - but unlike the older generation who seem to have no concept of anybody but themselves, I made room for people to pass me, and will admit to being distracted as a shapely figure tottered past on heels. I’m human.

Okay. Another distraction. I am by far the tallest person sat in the group of seats I chose on this train, and the gentleman opposite has just found the need to extend his legs out straight - either side of me. I meanwhile am sat here like some kind of “crash position” robot, backed into my seat such that I don’t invade anybody else’s space. This appears to be an invitation to overweight badling people in their fifties, who obviously can’t sit up straight - they assume the Homer Simpson television watching pose.

While talking of overweight people, a gentleman is sat diagonally across from me, and is trying to use a laptop. We laughed some time ago in the office when one of my colleagues came back from a site visit having witnessed another contractor who had reached such a girth that he could balance his lunch on his stomach while sat at the computer. A lofty goal no doubt.

Back to the gentleman sat across from me. He cannot sit on the train and use his laptop. The shape and size of his body demands that his legs are splayed at 45 degrees - invading the space of passengers either side of him, and the laptop is clung on to as it slides down his body towards the floor, half on his belly, half on his thighs. I dare not take a photo. Trust me - it is a unique sight, and one which I shall not forget in a hurry. To finish the scene off, he occaisionaly stretches his arms into the air in a very Kong like fashion.

The chap sat opposite (he of the invading legs) is now asleep, with a huge grin on his face. His paper is rolled up, tucked under his belly for safe keeping. Should I kick his leg accidentally on purpose? Perhaps not.

I’ve been using the word “perhaps” far too much recently. I need to either look up some alternatives, or re-structure my sentences. Note to self - “you should have done English at college”.

Through a gap in the seats I can see another businessman absent mindedly stroking his hair while reading a book. When he really gets into it, his head cocks to one side. He has a bald patch - no doubt caused by a really exciting passage in a book.

Oh - this is rich - the overweight chap is now making a phonecall, only he cannot hear the person on the other end due to the background noise of the train. Rather than make the call later he is repeatedly calling back and shouting “Hello”, “Hello”, “Hello”, and then peering at his phone in a rather aggrevated manner.

Aren’t some people strange when they relax… there’s this younger chap across from me - also with a laptop, who is tapping away on his keyboard, headphones on, and looks for all the world like he’s about to crash in an aircraft. Perhaps he is playing a game? Or maybe he is petrified of trains and is using the laptop and a motivational MP3 to block out the experience around him. Given his neighbours (the two overweight gentleman), I’m not surprised at his tense expression. If the train hits anything sideways, he’s a dead man.

Outside the train, the suburbs of London are giving way to fields, and rows of electricity pylons. An occasional burst of sound denotes our passing through a station, or another train on adjacent tracks. As I type, we flash past “Iver” and slow to a crawl. We are behind a slower train on the approach to Slough, of “The Office” fame.

In perhaps half an hour I will be leaving the train for the walk home, where those who have left London together and sat in close proximity - and yet total seclusion - for the past hour will suddenly notice each other as they walk from the station. The singles will glance up and down each other as they step from the train. Young men will give way for the girl they have noticed on the train, and old people will push in front.

I will make my way through these unspoken conversations and trudge home - looking forward to a cup of tea, a sit down, and the story of Wendy’s day.

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Tags: Commuting, People, People Watching

It’s 7:11am, and I’m sat on the train waiting to leave for London once more. Apart from my eyes feeling like somebody has rubbed sand into them, I have managed to survive on four and a half hours sleep. I may struggle later. My body is busy overheating now - despite the air being decidedly bracing outside, and my sitting here in a shirt, I am cooking. Lack of sleep does this to me.

This morning finds me wearing more casual attire than is typical - chiefly because I forgot to wash my work clothes and, after shaving, had no time left this morning to iron anything. Wearing semi-casual clothes to London doesn’t quite feel right - while surrounded by be-suited corporate metronomes the feeling will be magnified. I will not fit in.

The train seems to be travelling especially slowly towards Bourne End this morning - perhaps because it is early, but more likely because the track hasn’t been maintained for the last 30 years and is in a horrific state of disrepair. The maximum speed seems to be somewhere between one and two miles per hour.

A siren signals our crossing of a road and impending arrival at the station. Time to change trains.

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Tags: London, Commuting, Train, Early, Sleep, Tired, Casual, Clothes

It’s 00:21am, and I should be in bed. I have to get up at 6am to travel into London for another day of commuting, software development, banging my head against a desk, and wanting to chew my own arms off to the elbow.

With that in mind, I have just read Sarcomical’s post “Clinging“, and convinced myself that it might be a good idea to share some of the things I either carry with me during a typical working day.

• I carry three “passes” on a typical day. The first is a photo season ticket for the over-ground trains, costing several hundred pounds a month - thankfully paid for by my employer. The second is an “Oyster” card for the London Underground train network - allowing me to walk straight through the turnstiles without stopping to buy tickets. Finally, I have a door swipe card for various “important doors” around the building I am working at the moment.
• My wallet sits in my right trouser pocket. It has very few coins in it, and far too many receipts that I should destroy. When it becomes unbendable I will empty them into a bigger pile of receipts at home.
• My mobile phone sits in my left trouser pocket. It also doubles as an alarm clock, a camera, and emergency access to friends and family. Through the wonders of Jaiku I receive updates on friends around the world throughout the day. The phone also doubles as a modem for the Macbook.
• From my right shoulder (while walking to and from the station) hangs my messenger bag, which should perhaps be termed “the bag of holding”. It is vast and contains many wonders - among them;
• Keys. Due to a shortage of pockets if not wearing a coat, my keys go into the bag. The keyring is a caribina from which a Victorinox USB penknife hangs, and a no-name 2 gig member key. I have no idea what is saved on it. The penknife has my password file on it, encrypted ridiculously (I pray I never forget the password).
• Apple Macbook - provides a window from the train and the office to real life, the blogosphere, music, and the internet at large.
• Moleskine Notebook. Unfurled during the quieter moments to scribble introspective rubbish, and carried into meetings for expert doodlage.
• Parker Fountain Pen. Makes writing somewhat more bearable, and improves my handwriting through the shame of producing spider-scribble with such a nice pen.
• Parker Roller Ball. Matches the fountain pen. Used when feeling lazy, but not lazy enough to pick up a biro.
• Chargers for every electronic device about my person.
• iPod Shuffle and headphones. Prevents me from totally losing it while accidentally listening to fellow commuter’s conversations on the London Underground (last week it was several businessmen talking about their colleague’s wife swapping party - my iPod was flat).
• Deodorant. Call me vain, but I would like to think it won’t be quite so horrific for a girl that has to be squashed against me on an underground train if I don’t smell like some of the people I have been stood far too close to.
• A Rain Coat. In England, the rain coat holds a similar importance to a towel in “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. It can be worn, or sat on. Very useful. Wearing it increases your pocket count dramatically.
• On Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings I can also be seen carrying a second laptop in a normal laptop satchel. It’s my work machine, and weighs more than my entire messenger bag. If mugged on the underground I will use it as a devestating weapon.

So there you go. You may have visions of this person struggling through the travel network with bulging pockets and bags hanging from shoulders and hands - and you would be wrong. This assemblage of “stuff” has been refined to fit neatly and tidily about my person and my messenger bag. I obsessed over the choice of a suitable bag for days. It is perhaps the closest I have come to the female shoe/handbag dilemma.

Oh crap. It’s nearly 1am. That leaves me with 5 hours sleep. I really do have to go to bed.

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Tags: Commuting, Bags, Laptops, Macbook, Moleskine, Fountain Pen, iPod, Deodorant, Underground, Oyster