Thursday night skippeting

…in me-diary-style. Just in case the lack of sleep wipes it all from my brain later.

Being swung round by the elbow as a greeting. Rain and dripping buildings. Cocktails, although only appropriately-themed ones. Giant mutant silver ferns and angels that were all the wrong type. Tables with identity issues and mistaken identity of an Angel ep. Toilets all conspiring to torment me. A very scared waiter who may have guessed any number of things about us. Vegetable shortages. Skippet’s mint imperial. Old woman hairstyles and Litterbug (The Musical). The weirdness of being back somewhere that was my life 2 years ago, with someone who doesn’t at all belong there in my head. Oh – hitting of said head against wall panel due to laughter-induced collapse. Many laughter-induced collapses. Entirely non-intimidating glares and confirmation of how to *asterisk*. Flubbles the Tribble. Keys, and key-holes. Just general chat which surprisingly enough covered like, just the same variety of topics as emails do…but which hurt my ribs even more. A bed created of a jacket, a towel and a ribcage-dedicated pillow, with a strangling sleeping bag to round it off. Getting up before dawn. Surplus milk given to someone who otherwise would have had none…and the scalding of an oesophagus in the cause of tea. A carrier bag intent on self destruction (did you clang across England or was it more of a final smash?) and finally a gorgeous sunrise.

*nods sagely*

A good 12 hours. And only 5 of them wasted on that pesky sleep business.

Navel-gazing

Introspection. Good thing? Bad thing? Recommended only in moderation?

I've been doing a lot of it lately. Some on purpose, some involuntarily when my mind has been idling. I feel...kind of like my life is not where I want it to be. But I don't know where I do want it to be, and even if I have an inkling of that I have no idea how to get there or how to keep the things I like about my current life.

That's the on purpose musings, because I feel I ought to figure some of this stuff out.

The involuntary...I think, somewhere in my subconscious, I'm scared that if I don't constantly re-evaluate myself, compare myself to those better and brighter than me, run through all the rules by which I run my life and see whether any of them are contradictory...I'll slip. I'll end up somewhere I never, ever wanted to be - and yet be unaware that I've ended up there. So I sit and I look around me and I evaluate where I am and compare it to how I think the world should be. And then possibly expand to why do I think the world should be like that - and which is wrong - what I'm doing or what I think I should be doing? And that can lead down whole other pathways of thought, and before you know it it's two hours later and I'm dreadfully dissatisfied with myself.

I'm not writing this for affirmation that my life is good, or advice, or any of that. This is merely to wonder whether other people do this too? I think a lot. I sit around a lot on my own and let my thoughts wander where they will. Sometimes, that's fictional characters and storyline possibilities. But sometimes it's me, and the world, and everything else. And yet...I get the impression most people, most of the time, don't do this. Or if they do, they're hiding it really well. But I don't think I'd be me without it. In fact, I'm slightly scared of just stopping doing it, one day.

Hmm.

West of the Fields (Part Two)

I was absent over the weekend because I went on another short break to the narrow-gauge Ffestiniog Railway to mess around at doing some work and to drink quite a bit. But this time I had a digital camera with me and so can share the full experience with you all this time.

*watches audience quake in boots*

Um so…was picked up at work on Friday afternoon and we drove over to Wales. There is no way I could ever take my own car on one of these trips – it is such a macho pissing contest of who has the best car and who can drive it round corners very very fast indeed…or sometimes, it’s not a car, sometimes it’s a supertruck.

This is a Pinzgauer, a military truck, and one of these always gets brought by a guy who works for them and is using the long-distance trips to road-test the vehicles. They’re pretty cool, anyway, and we raced this one pretty much all the way from Shrewsbury to Knockin (home of the Knockin Shop, groan). On the way over we all stopped for a pint and a discussion of how people were tempted to take up smoking just so that they could smoke in a pub before it got banned. We then proceeded over the higher roads to Bala and on to Blaenau, which meant we were driving through countryside covered in snow…but sadly I was having to concentrate too hard on not being travelsick in the back as we went into hairpins at 50mph to take any photos. We lost the truck behind us at this point as, as we later found out, they’d found themselves going round a corner sideways and decided to drop the speed just a tad.

This is Minfford hostel, as seen from the yard below it – the hostel is owned by the railway, which means cheap accommodation if you’re a volunteer but does also mean that the tv room is likely to be inhabited by miniature 12-yr-old trainspotters with greasy hair, a Book of Railways and a clipboard. Seriously. We ran away in fear.

So on Friday night we got a taxi into Porthmadog and went for curry. Generally a good night, with enough drinking to lead to consideration of possible porn careers for some members of the party.

At about midnight, 4 of us decided to head back and, as is traditional on these weekends, decided to walk back instead of get a taxi. The walk back takes about 50 minutes, half of which is spent crossing the Cob, one of those roadway-across-the-mouth-of-a-bay things. On Friday night this was incredibly exposed as the cold wind blew down off the snowy mountains to the east. Do not let the guy in the middle fool you – he is just showing off. It is frelling freezing at this point.

I think other people carried on drinking after we got back but I dropped into my little bunk bed utterly exhausted and slept like a Trojan log. (Mixed metaphor? I’m sure logs slept as well in Troy as in anywhere else.)

On Saturday I was working in the yard, with this bunch of freaks.

All we were basically doing was taking up old rail and laying new, right next to the bit we did last time, except this time we had far fewer people and we were only working on it for a day, so basically we only got the old rail and sleepers out the way, and about half of the new ones laid properly. Was good straightforward work, though. This is a photo from lunchtime I think…shows all the new sleepers waiting to go in (the random bricks were our best attempt to mark where they’d need to go so that we could dig holes for them).

This, said the bearded and slightly odd man (well, what did I expect) who was working with us, is an S-chair. That means it is Heritage. So it goes on a different pile.

Taken from the yard while we were working – an actual train on the actual line. Pretty choo choo. Another girl got to go for a footplate ride on that one in the afternoon. But she didn’t get to operate a valve like I did, so I controlled my rampant jealousy (I may possibly have been getting a little fed up with shovelling ballast by this point).

Saturday evening degenerated into utter drunken silliness, womble porn and fruit-based thumb wars as seen below. In the foreground can be seen many shot glasses lovingly crafted from apples, too. Also pizza with beer spilled on it.

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous weather – this is the view across the Cob to Porthmadog in daylight when you can actually see it.

This day I was working down at the railway works – this is a photo taken standing on the Cob, looking back towards the works

- helping to put up an overhead crane (which was lifted into place somewhat precariously by a jcb that really didn’t fit inside the shed). Photo below illustrates why you shouldn’t use flash photography around hi-vis.

So anyway, jobs included drilling holes in the concrete and bolting the stanchions into them, climbing up ladders to tighten nuts & bolts in fishplates, oh and of course grinding. Bad photo but ee – sparks. Which don’t seem to some out too well in photos – there were a lot more of them in real life. Also, isn’t my long-tailed hi-vi dinner jacket thing just the best fashion accessory ever?

Other random photos taken include the gunpowder truck (this was originally a railway line which served a slate mine)

the makeshift picnic table for lunch (and look…those are cups of tea…and one of them’s mine…)

and, to finish, the absolutely gorgeous view to the east of snow-capped Snowdon, head still lost in the clouds.

And then we came home. The end.

Absenteeism

I'm done!

I will not, repeat not, be playing with my blog any more until next week.

I don't care what you all think of it, I don't care if Myo jumps up and down and demands the borders back, I don't care if it blinds Jes beyond recovery, I don't care if the new range of titles is a whole swathe of references which completely bypass Kepp.

I will not be on the internet this weekend.

And you know...it actually feels like a relief.

So this is how it's gonna stay, folks. Deal. ;)

Snow Squirrel

Photos from this Sunday's walk in the park.

General parkscape:


Why there is heather still blooming in March I don't know, but then I also don't know why we had heavy settling snow in March either so I guess, all round, I'm just a bit unknowledgable. But the two were pretty together.


A wintry tree near the entrance which I should thank for reminding me to do something with my blog later on:


And at the other extreme, a defiant primrose (I...think...I feel a bad daughter for not knowing all names of all garden plants beyond possible doubt) which wasn't going to let a little bit of freezing put it off.


And best of all, the squirrels were out because there were so few people around. I took many blurred photos of squirrels running away from me until, for some reason, this one decided to pop out of a tree fork a foot away from my left knee.


Aww. Well...aww if you like squirrels. Like me. Unlike two women joggers I once met in Hyde Park when a squirrel had just climbed up my leg (I have no idea why...do you think squirrels are like dogs?) who practically squealed and ran away. Well...I suppose as they were joggers the running away part was inevitable, but the squealing was a little unnecessary.

Anyway. Pretty. And probably the last of the year, so I just thought I'd share it.

Whose woods these are I think I know

So.

Still playing.

This background was just a quick doodle to see if my idea would work at all, but I find myself rather liking it now. And I like the colour system on my puter at least.

Any complaints/suggestions/adoration?

Capitalism

On Wednesday, I had to go down to London for a meeting.

On the train home, I pondered bloggish thoughts.

I love London. I do. I’ve never lived there, but every time I visit…its energy just kind of fills me, makes me feel all buzzy. I love its vibrancy and its modern melting-pot nature, and I love its staidness and its still-Dickensian-if-you-find-the-right-corners feel. I love the names, the names I knew before ever I visited the place: Chancery Lane, The Strand, High Holborn, Mornington Crescent – names that in one way or another have entered my brain and gained associated poetry over the years. Most of all, I think, I love its sense of purpose. Most cities feel like they just kind of happened…like they only really serve a purpose as a focal point. London feels like a capital. Like every street, every building, every worker in it has a purpose.

And yet…and yet. Could I live there? I doubt it. I couldn’t work in the high-profile stuff that makes it feel so unique – a high-pressure environment is exciting, but I don’t have the mental strength to survive it for long. And if I was just living out on the fringes, doing average stuff…I’d rather do that elsewhere. Somewhere where you’re not locked in by the M25, somewhere where there are still fields and mud when you need them. Where you can tell it’s a stormy day by more than the fact that a building-top flag is waving.

But there is still the magic, still the pull. I would still prefer to go to London for a day than any other British city. There’s a fantastic feeling that for millennia, people have been there – and their traces are still there, inherent in every odd twist of an alleyway. And that it is still developing, still not done…Britain as a whole is definitely an ex-power but London doesn’t feel like one at all. Even on a wet, windy Wednesday in March.

Strange, how one can love something and yet feel entirely unsuited to be a part of it.

Socket Tool Kit

Shiny.

Perambulatory Ponderings; or An Addled Amble

Today I went for a walk.

Prepare yourself for many pointless pictures.

But first: a map. Aren't maps great? They're less great once I've scribbled on them badly in Paint.


My route, obviously, is shown in blue (the first and last ten minutes to get to that roundabout have been omitted purely to infuriate my stalkers - I like a dangerous life). It should be noted that I had no route when I set out: I just took whichever paths presented themselves. With the result, as may be seen, that I ended up walking back through a suburb. Ah well.

But first of all, after pulling on a fetching woolly hat and stepping out into the chilly blue day, there was the walk out through Markeaton Park. A prettyish little place, which I took some photos of once before intending to post them here, but then never did.

In Britain, one must always feed ducks. Even if they are in fact canada geese, and even if you're freezing standing there - ignore the snow, it can't possibly be cold if the sun is out.


Okay, that's the only photo I took in the park on the way out, so moving on: I followed the Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk (why? I mean I know Derby was as far south as he got, but I highly doubt that while he was here he went for a walk through some fields) until it landed me in a rather boring little village, whereupon I struck off on my own on the first footpath I found. Which, as it turned out, was incredibly difficult to walk on, thanks to the just-melted and copious mud. But a British walk wouldn't be a walk if there was no mud.

Look - a double hedgerow, like that one in Persuasion. Now all I need is an ex-lover who can walk along it and talk about me (while getting his feet muddy).


As I walked on, I pondered many things. Things such as how very green grass can be; my slight guilt at walking past a church on a Sunday; swiftly followed by a resolution that I was not going to start debating faith with myself while out for a walk; how much I like the way that walkers always smile at each other and say hello; how gorgeous even the simplest food tastes when you're outside and have done exercise; whether my muscles should really ache as much as they were doing after only an hour's walking; and how a cow byre can smell so repulsive and yet so wholesome all at the same time.

Plus other, more photographic things such as where were these two planes going and why was one trying so hard to catch the other up...


...how very pretty old English farmhouses can be...


...indeed, just how very English the countryside looked...


...and how beautiful deciduous trees can be even in winter.


I also had occasion to ponder why it is that I never remember to charge my camera up before expecting to use it. Luckily, it kept itself alive, but with many complaints.

I amused myself for a whole two seconds at this point with the thought 'two roads diverged in a cabbage patch...'


But sadly I was all-too-soon back in civilisation (no snarky comments from the Southerners, please), where I gained many odd looks. I am choosing to believe these were due purely to the muddiness of my shoes and trousers.


I decided suburban people weren't worth worrying about, and confined myself merely to horror at the fearsome sight of the snowdrop army having infiltrated even such a respectable neighbourhood as Allestree. Sadly, however, none of the photos I took of this atrocity came out worthwhile (I suspect sabotage). However, we should not allow ourselves to fear, for the Catkin Resistance has them thoroughly occupied for the moment.


Then back into Markeaton Park, where once again there were hundreds of Brits making up for the dullness of our island by forcing ourselves to enjoy it despite that. These two kites were a Swiss aeroplane and a rather impressive dragon - both controlled by rather small children, and both kamikazed rather spectacularly shortly after I took this photo.


Final photo of the day, as the blue sky finally succumbed to the big grey cloud spreading from the west - maybe it's my job getting to me, but aren't narrow-gauge steam trains cute?


And then it was time for a short walk back to my flat, a long drink (non-alcoholic), some hot cheese & bacon soup (mmm) and a nice bath to attempt to pretend I wasn't so unfit that a two and a half hour walk stretched my muscles.

*yawns*

Snowy Saturday Sus

These are the pictures I would have posted yesterday, had I not been unavoidably detained in chat.

Ahem.

So I thought those of you in warmer climes (*is in no way glaring at Myo and her oh-so-cold 21C nights*) might like a blast of icy wind in your lives, and those of you in colder climes might like to be amused by just how easily I get excited by snow.

I got up yesterday to find that Friday evening's snow had survived the night and made it into the bright blue Saturday morning. The first thing I see in the morning is the view out of my bedroom window onto the roof of the wing of the other half of the house - yesterday morning, happily populated by a couple of birds warming their feathers well away from the snow on the roof.


Upon actually opening the window and leaning out, I was able to continue the great Hobbling tradition of Photos From Our Back Windows.


I then toddled quickly outside and took a photo of my street, lit by the rising sun.


Purty, ain't it?