Church

This morning I went to St Michael's Church in Wigan with Mum and Dad. I have not been to church for ages and it was quite strange going back and seeing people I knew from my childhood.

I was explaining to Mum that Cameron and Alasdair were also going to church this morning but not one she would want to go to. Sarah had booked them in for another climbing lesson at the climbing centre in Dundee, an old converted church.

It is sad when churches are no longer used but at least converting them into climbing centres gives them a new lease of life and keeps the building in good repair.

Birthday Girl

 

Today is Mum's birthday and I am spending the weekend in Wigan. I am here on bed and breakfast and the rates are excellent. Also today I have been teaching Dad how to transfer pictures from his camera and email them. This was one picture that Dad emailed me on Mums birthday

Gift Aid

St Michaels Church each year runs a gift day and this year the members of the church were asked to decorate the church with their favourite childrens characters from story books.

Mark, my brother created the Three Little Pigs and represented St Michael's Institute.

Trip Down Memory Lane

Today I am driving from Worcester to Chesterfield to meet a client. On route I passed close to Loughborough Uni.

I decided to check it out as I graduated from here back in 1990. Oh my word just writing that made me feel old.

Wandering round the Student Union a freshers rep wanted to know if I was lost. Lost - No, out of place - yes!

One student thought I was a professor as I was dressed somewhat differently in a shirt and tie compared with the rest of the people near by.

I continued on my trip down memory lane, walking past the purple onion, on my way to Royce Hall. I was horrified to find out my room in Royce Hall had been taken over by Rutherford Hall.

I was feeling lazy and did not walk to the engineering block. Anyone who knows me from uni will know things have not changed

National No Car Day

I am working down south again and this morning it has just taken me 55 minutes to drive 5 miles. My boss told me that I had just driven at the wrong time. In Scotland we can drive anywhere any time. Can't wait to get home.

My car problems have continued this week. When I picked up my hire car I had been given a 1.4l 207. I will be driving over 1500 miles this week and had requested a "large" car. If I was to keep the 207 I would have had to remove the front seat just like Officer Hightower in Police Academy.

National car hire stated that the car I had been allocated was an upgrade. I would hate to think what car I was going to get. They had no other cars they could offer me as they were "out" of cars. Ironically the day I hired the car was "National No Car Day" - quite appropriate.

Anyway I managed to get to Glasgow in the 207 before my company travel desk said if I drove to Edinburgh Airport they could swap the car for an Insignia.

At Edinburgh I got a 2.0l SRi Insignia (Happy Days)

The Crannog

 

Yesterday I went as a parent helper on Alasdair's school trip to the Crannog Centre on Loch Tay.

A crannog is a type of ancient loch-dwelling found throughout Scotland and Ireland dating from 5,000 years ago. Many crannogs were built out in the water as defensive homesteads. Whilst at the Crannog Centre the children learnt about the Celts and got to use some of the old wood turning, flour grinding equipment as well as trying to light fires without matches

Avertical World

 
Today the Peach clan headed towards one of Dundee's indoor climbing walls -"Avertical World". It was an old covered church which seemed appropriate seeing it was Sunday.

I always used to joke with Mum that I had been to church. Cameron and Ali have been climbing with the cubs and school and were keen to carry on. Sarah and myself had not climbed since Cameron was born and boy did I know about it. Since then I have put on 3 stone, 10 years older and it certainly has taken its toll.
 


Well we all survived and had a great day climbing. Ali loved climbing and Cameron loved abseiling down. I would have liked a lift or escalator.

The photos are Cameron on his last climb of the day and Ali just doing a bit of bouldering in his laid back pose

Circus Circus

 

Well tonight I have just got back from the circus. I can't remember when the last time I was at the circus. Mark (my brother had got some free tickets) Anyway I had called in to Wigan on my way back to Scotland and went with Mark, Susan, Heather, Rachel, Louise, Matthew and Mum and Dad.

Great Weekend In Oban

 

You are probably looking at the photo and thinking what was great about that. Well it was one of the rare opportunities that Sarah and myself get to disappear on our own for the weekend.

The first weekend in September the boys were off camping with the cubs for the weekend at Lochgoilhead so Sarah and myself headed for the west coast of Scotland. Needless to say it rained all of the time, but we had a great weekend. My wife is great, here I am taking her away for a romantic weekend and she lets me drag her round Oban distillery. Sarah can't stand the smell or taste but I was in heaven.

On The Road Again

I am down in Worcester at the moment. Scottish and Souther Energy (the company I work for) is a great company but sometimes has some crazy ideas. Each year the company declares 2 random months their employees are not allowed to fly on business. This year they have declared July, August and now September as "No Fly" months.

As a result I have had to drive from Perth to Worcester. Fortunately I have a decent car, well at least I thought it was. This time I am driving the new Vauxhall Insignia. This has been voted one of the best cars in 2009. I am not sure what model I have but it can't pull the skin off a rice pudding and when I look in the rear view mirror it looks like I am looking through a letter box.

Not sure what Jeremy Clarkson would say but I would like his job.

The Study

As a result of my new job I am spending quite a bit of time away from home and when in Scotland I work from home. I have finally managed to get the study somewhat more organised to facility working here. My desktop computers are now up and running well but nothing is perfect.

I have just broken my laptop keyboard (the j key). Thankfully not that many words require this key (only 3 so far in this post) Lets hope I can manage to avoid using that letter as it is a pain to type it when the key is completely missing.

Anyway now that the study is sorted hopefully I can spend more time on the computers and try keeping this blog upto date with more frequent posts. Anyone who knows me will know that I will fail on this challenge before I even start as writing letters, emails or any other form of communication is so rare it only happens once every blue moon. Ask my friends Peter and Suzanne. (Quick plug for Suzanne's blog)

I am also hoping to get a half decent website up and running having spent serveral hours fighting with a webserver to get Apache and PHP installed. Finally managed it so on with the lessons so I have something to show for my efforts.

anyway must get back to work.

PS - I managed to succeed using only 3 of the letters I can't type. Happy days.