Autumn preparations

Blue sky

Cloudy moment

The weather the past week or so has been a bit unpredictable - we have had some heavy rain and some beautiful sunny moments - often in the space of a few hours! Of one thing there is no doubt - Autumn is here.

Spiders' webs

Still flowering

We have been out in the garden this afternoon preparing for autumn - the grass has had its last cut of the year, the shrubs are pruned and the leaves that are on the grass have been picked up ready for the real downfall to begin. 

Hops - anyone for beer?

Blackberries

Most of the flowering is over for the year and there is an abundance of seeds and berries. I have been trying to persuade the bird population to take advantage of the fushia berries (and so create a new generation) but so far without much success. The annual hop crop of SE7 is in full swing.

Path rediscovered

At the far end of the garden (where the compost bins live) we discovered that a small landslide had covered the path. Rich dug it out again and I created a small retaining wall either side so hopefully there will be no more path incidents!

The problem is that the foxes spend a lot of time playing in that area - they are number one suspects in the path disappearance - but I think if the path can survive until a rainfall that should bed it in nicely.

 

King Frog

Most of the toads seem to have gone off to hide under dark damp places or wherever they go for the winter but the King Frog and his entourage are still around - and last weekend King Frog was out enjoying the sun.

Tubes on strike

The anticipated chaos of today's tube strike has descended on the capital. I started my journey early this morning as I was pretty certain that would have to find an alternative route. The easiest thing to do would probably have been to take to the main line trains... but I figured that is what everyone else would be doing and they would be mobbed... added to which I still have to get from Charring Cross to the office which is probably not the best spot to try and pick up a bus. This leaves two alternatives; get the bus all the way (which involves three different buses door to door) or get the boat. It was a lovely sunny morning so I opted for a trip up the Thames (thanks to Rich who prodded me in the right direction!). The buses in SE7 were quite quiet. North Greenwich was quiet too - the station there is actually closed. The boat service at North Greenwich was also quiet (it is a bit of a trek from the bus station).

Greenwich from the boat

Waterloo Bridge

The Thames Clipper is a great way to travel. A little expensive - but on a sunny morning like today it was great. No overcrowding as standing isn't allowed. You can surf the web or whatever with your phone all the way and even get a cup of coffee.

There is a bit of a petrol smell if you sit out on the rear deck, but it is a small price to pay for such a relaxed commute. I sat and kept track of what was going on with the strike on Twitter and the hash-tag 'tubestrike'.

'Boris Bikes'

The only draw back of the boat is that it leaves you at Embankment which is still a bit of a trek to the office - I really wish the commuter boats would go to Westminster! I walked up Northumberland Avenue, and a lot of the 'Boris Bikes' were in their stands - journeys completed, I guess. This was confirmed later when I encountered another full bike stand with several annoyed looking cyclists unable to dock their bikes and checking the status of other local docking points on the screen - all of which were also full. I wonder if someone who has trouble balancing on two legs would manage on two wheels?!

I saw more regular cyclists than I did people on the hire bikes - but Embankment/Trafalgar Square always seems full of cyclists at that time of day.

As I made my way through Trafalgar Square I saw a number 9 (which would take me to Piccadilly and the end of my journey) which was absolutely heaving. I resigned myself to walking the rest of the way - to my delight the full bus was followed by another number 9 - totally empty. What luck!

All in all I only added about a quarter of an hour to my overall journey and felt a lot more relaxed because of it. The real challenge, of course, is getting home again when the concentration of journeys start in one place instead of across the city. That I am not looking forward to at all.

Best not to bother, really.

Tube strike

Tonight's 24 hour tube strike is set to cause major disruption across the entire network, and the wider London transport system. The full impact won't become clear until the strike starts, TfL have already made contingency plans including marshalled taxi ranks, escorted cycle routes and extra boat services. If your tube service is disrupted consider some of these options especially when heading home from Central London as bus services tend to be massively over-subscribed. Best advice, check TfL's website before you travel.

As I was renewing my season ticket this morning the helpful lady at the counter reminded me that they were going on strike this evening. Hers, she informed me, was one of the jobs under threat. Regular readers will know that I'm not generally in favour of strikes - there never seem to be any winners and the general public always seem to be the losers. I do agree with the need to preserve ticket offices though. Using two crutches I find the self service machines extremely difficult to deal with - I've also never managed to get them to sell me more than one ticket at a time; I always queue for the ticket office. That said - there often seem plenty of extra staff at tube stations with several 'manning' the gates.

My journey this morning had a premature disruption when I arrived at North Greenwich to discover that the buses were using the 'emergency' stops on the road and not the bus station. The bus station itself was shrouded in blue and white "do not cross" police tape - although only a couple of officers on sentry duty were visible. It turns out that there were several stabbings last night and the police were investigating. Hope they are finished now as my journey home tonight doesn't need any more chaos than strictly necessary!

Tube strikes (again)

The tube strikes earlier this year turned out to be a lot of fuss over nothing from where I was sitting as I didn't notice any disruption at all. The next batch looks to be much more disruptive as maintenance staff are joined by drivers, station staff, etc. 

 

The first strike is on 6th September (good grief, that is next week!) and you can see all the latest on the BBC website.

My Irish experience - day 1

Last Friday I was out of my bed at half past four to begin my trip to Ireland. A short cab ride through the rain-washed streets of London took me to City Airport, just as the sun was thinking about rising. By the time I landed in Dublin a few hours later the sky was blue and the sun was shining; a perfect start to my short break.

I collected my hire car (a very nice Fiat Panda) and bunny-hopped through the car park as I got the hang of the fact that the gear stick wasn't where I expected it to be and that the pedals were at a slightly different elevation. I then left the environs of Dublin and headed north-west towards Enniskillen. The road soon turned from dual carriage way to a rural main road - the sat-nav was in charge and took me through some lovely countryside. I stopped by a loch soon after crossing into Northern Ireland to switch my phone's data capabilities back on. Data roaming may be capped but I still didn't want any large bills.

The journey only took a couple of hours and I arrived in Enniskillen far too early to check into my hotel. I took a trip round the castle which had some exhibitions on local history and also housed the regimental museum of the Inniskilling Dragoons. There was a brief moment of panic outside the museum where I had to reassure myself that the currency of Northern Ireland is sterling... of course it is as it is part of the UK - but they have their own banknotes.

I did a bit more driving around waiting for check-in time and found myself on a scenic drive. I stopped at Topped Mountain which was advertising a view-point. That isn't a mountain, I thought to myself, it's a hill. So I decided to go up. I haven't seen the movie "The man who went up a hill and came down a mountain" but that seems like an apt title for my experience. Out of breath, soaking wet (a heavy shower appeared from nowhere) and not wearing the best shoes. The view was worth it though.

It was finally check-in time, but the next problem was finding the hotel. There is a time to stop listening to the sat-nav and use your eyes as I drove past the place three times before I found it:

Sat-nav: Arriving at destination on left

Nat: No, we aren't

The room was fabulous. We have a king size bed at home and this was even bigger. There was a lovely sofa, a 32-inch TV and a balcony door. After popping to the convenient Tesco for some lunch, shoe polish and more books (I'd nearly finished the one I'd brought with me) I met up with a couple of friends in the evening for dinner. We had a very Irish curry (!).

It was off to bed early to make sure we were in good form for our journey to the wedding we were all attending the next day.

Geo-tagging

Everyone know that your SIM card in your phone allows your location to be traced. The only people that used to have to worry about this were those on the wrong side of the law - but the advent of so-called smart phones has changed all that. Now it isn't just the SIM card that can locate you but often enough a built-in GPS chip... which gives ever more accurate location data. Very useful when you are lost and want to use the map to find your way. There are a whole host of of other Apps that want to know where you are (and sometimes what you are doing).

Why would you care? Often enough the Apps are just trying to deliver you better geographically based content. There isn't usually any sinister ulterior motive. The perceived problem is that constant streams of Geo-data could allow a comprehensive picture of someone's habits and likely location to be built up. Cited examples are allowing thieves to target houses they know will be empty.

The latest purveyor of geo-locating, whipping up a frenzy  of (mostly negative) publicity is Facebook's new 'Places'. I must have been sent a half dozen articles already telling me how to disable it since is launched less than a week ago - here is Lifehacker's version if you are interested. 

 

I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about so I went to the Facebook App on my iPhone. Sure enough right in the middle of the content page there was a new choice 'Places'. So I pressed it to see what would happen.... nothing - it hasn't got to the UK yet!

I think it is going to be a bit like Foursquare and allow you to 'check-in' places. Just another endless stream of irrelevant minutiae that we really don't need to know.

Multi-media

A report in the news last week highlighted that the average Briton spends half their waking hours consuming some sort of media. Not only this, but in the seven hours available the equivalent of nine hours is fitted in by multi-tasking... watching TV and surfing the web at the same time, for example. I find this utterly unsurprising. I often sit with my laptop (or iPhone) whilst watching TV... and spend very little time during the day not using some sort of media - be it TV, internet or iPhone.

What always amazes me is how so much has changed in so little time. Growing up things were very different.

When I was a very small child (we're talking late 70s/early 80s) we had one telephone in our house, it was an old bakelite type that lived in the front hall. There was no scope for using the phone anywhere else in the house (other than as far as the cord would stretch from the incoming point). The TV set (which lived in the sitting room) was a massive affair, not really the screen but the cabinet that it lived in; when you wanted to watch it some time needed to be factored in to warm it up first... and there was a choice of three channels. There was the radio too... and amazing one that live in a side-board type construction which a record player, or a small portable one in the kitchen, MW or LW only.

By the mid 80s the number of TV channels had risen to four. Our house now had two telephones (achieved by a second point installed upstairs) although you were still limited by how far the cable would reach. The stereo system had gone upright, and included a cassette tape deck and radio on LW, MW and FM. The cabinet TV had finally died and been replaced by a more modern unit, with a VHS video attached. It was around this time that computers came into our lives too. Our first was an Atari... a keyboard with a cartridge slot and a joystick. No hard drive, although you could write programmed to cassette tapes!

You can see from the above that my family were always slow technology adopters. Things like TVs and computers only got replaced when they ceased to function, not just for the joy of upgrade.

Towards the end of the 20th century the number of terrestrial channels in the UK rose to five; although it took some time for the fifth channel to be nationally accessible. Telephone handsets were now going cordless which meant you were no longer limited by how long the cable was, although if you wanted more than one handset you still needed extra points. Satellite and cable TV were now expanding viewing horizons (although not in my house) and PCs were now relatively common (although not at this point affordable) - and if you wanted the internet you used a dial-up modem. Portable music was either a walkman (cassette version) or a portable CD player - CD players having joined the hi-fi stack. Mobile phones had been around for a while by this point although mostly for business purposes; now just beginning to become popular for personal use. 

Somewhat out of character for my family but my dad was an early adopter of mobile communication. First of all he'd had a pager... remember those - you called a number and left a message and the recipient dialled in to collect their messages (kind of like voicemail). He then had a car phone... a mobile phone that is stuck in the car - but pretty good handsfree technology! He even had a mobile phone... one of those great big bricks, that was barely portable.

So into the 21st Century. Everyone has a mobile phone, and most people take them everywhere and never switch them off. Landlines are not longer limited by sockets but consist of several cordless handsets communicating with a base unit. For music vinyl and cassettes are pretty much history... even CDs are less popular as MP3 files on computer and MP3 players on the go are pretty much universal. The five terrestrial TV channels now compete with a host of other channels on cable, satellite and freeview - and TV is going digital. Radio is digital too - you no longer need a physical radio, the TV set and computer can now do the same job. Computers and laptops are affordable and common place, connection to the internet is rarely dial-up but now 'always on' broadband. DVD players (and now Bluray) have killed the video player  but if you don't want to rent/buy movies you don't need either as your satellite, freeview or cable box will record to a hard drive.

In the 21st century you can make phone calls on a computer, listen to the radio on your TV and do just about anything with a mobile phone. Technology is a wonderful thing - now wonder we spend half our lives attached to it!

Taking a break

I am just starting my two weeks summer holiday (at last!). This year, more than most, I really feel I need it. The press might have told us earlier this year that the recession is over but I haven't noticed much evidence of it in my corner of the world. Work is hard... there aren't as many jobs around as there should be, yet somehow there is more work than can be done in regular hours. The last three months have just been one thing after another and it has been exhausting! I've put it all in a box and hidden it away for the next fortnight.

The world of kittens

Here's the thing... I've never had kittens before. Until I lived with Rich (and Molly) I'd never even had a cat before.

Yesterday we adopted two kittens.... two 3 month old bundles of black fur who go by the name of Tinks (Tinker) and Cass (Casper). They cam home with us yesterday evening and commenced causing chaos around the house. Any place a kitten can jump or squeeze (and some places that they can't!) are fair game. They have no common sense and no fear and think nothing of leaping from unlikely bits of furniture to even less likely bits of furniture. They do have a tremendous capacity for fun... they will chase anything that moves, including, but not limited to, feathers, stuffed mice, balls, and each other!

I wear earplugs so they didn't keep me up last night - but  I think I was the only one as the two cat demolition derby explored their  new home. Tinks is the more extroverted - he will climb over anything (including  people) to get where he is going, and seems to like to follow people around
the house rather than be left alone. Cass is fluffier and stouter than his  brother (I think we know how the greedy guts of the family is going to be!) he's more introverted and seems to prefer sitting under and behind things rather than on them.

Who's this other cat?	Walking the high-wire
I think I want that one!	Time for a cat-nap
Feeding time at the zoo	They'll never find me here

The excitement of exploring finally seems to have worn them out - they are both now sleeping on our bed (too bad for me, as I was going to go back to sleep!).

Philosophy (2)

Skywatch Friday (32)

Cotton-candy Sunset

Join in!

iPhone

I finally decided to update my iPhone to iOS4 this weekend. Several of my apps seem to no longer support iOS3 so I had no choice but to bite the bullet. The upgrade process took HOURS. I left it going over-night in the end... it would insist on backing up the phone which is what took all the time.

So now I have the shiny new upgraded system... no multitasking for 3G phones but there are other good things.

iOS4

iOS3

The look has been given an upgrade with the permanent dock now looking more like the images I have seen of the Apple computer desktops. There is also now a fantastic option to group like items together - which saves screen space.

There is also an annoying inclination to archive email messages instead of deleting them. This can be switched off under the email account preferences in Settings.

I think this is actually version 4.01 so maybe it was a good thing I gave it a few weeks for the bugs to be ironed out as I've not had any problems so far (touch wood).

Always connected?

The thing about my iPhone was supposed to be that it would keep me connected... give me time to read emails and blogs and things.

 

You can see from this screen shot it hasn't been working as my unread blog count has spiralled (2nd button down on the right).

I've now added a push reader which updates automatically - but that hasn't helped the backlog!

I love reading blogs as much as writing mine so I must find a system that works... or read fewer!

Summer

Summer has been invading our garden the last few weeks. The birds, the insects,
the other wildlife and the plants have been flourishing.

Bumblebee	Damsel-fly
Frog out after the rain	Summer fruits
Butterfly	My favourite birdbrain

Baby sunflower	Sunflower growing...
...and growing	Grown!

Dun-billin'

When I'm not sitting blogging or surfing the net... when I'm not relaxing at home... in other words, when I'm working - I'm a quantity surveyor (QS).

Maybe you have never had anything to do with the construciton industry and maybe you have no idea what a QS does. Well, the clue is in the name... we're kind of like the accountants of the building industry. If you know what a QS is and does you can stop reading here and just give me your sympathy for my billing trials... otherwise, read on.

When a developer wants to construct a building he engages a Design Team - and Architect, a Structural Engineer, a Services Engineer and a QS. When the rest of the design team has finished designing it is our job to measure it up and tell them how much it is going to cost.

During the course of a project we monitor the costs against the original budget, sometimes we administer the contract, we advise how much the contractor should be paid and when the job is done we settle the final account.

The past six weeks we have been preparing a tender. This is the point where the client sends out the design to contractors and after a time they come back with their price to construct the project. A big part of a traditional tender is the billing. This is when the QS sits down with all the drawings and measures up the quantities to enable pricing.

The one we are doing at the moment is "without quantities" which means the contractors get a blank bill. The purpose of the exercise is firstly to interrogate the drawings and make sure that they can be priced, secondly to produce the blank bill and lastly to enable a pre-tender estimate to be completed (giving a benchmark against which to measure tenders).

The problem with billing is there are dozens (and dozens) of drawings, specifications and all sorts of other information that has to be taken on board. It takes several people a lot of time. Half an hour ago I finally finished my measurement (hurrah!). Sadly I'm not done yet as I still have to finish preparing the preliminaries document - this is the instructions that underpin the entire contract and it runs to well over a hundred pages.

Looks like my mountain isn't quite climbed!

I hate commuting (part 1,227)

The Jubilee Line was not at its best this morning, which is unfortunate as neither am I.

I'm working a rare 5 day week this week (and 3 days next week) to get a deadline met. I'm tired, stressed and more than a little bit grumpy.

I missed the excuse (sorry reason) that the severe delays were affecting the line as I had my iPhone playing music to me. It was obvious that the signs in the bus station warning of the delays were not idle threats as soon as I got to the platform - crowds that were four or five deep at each door.

Fortunately the train wasn't full so I managed to squeeze on. The fact that both my hands are holding crutches so I have on means of holding a rail didn't seem to bother my fellow commuters - I managed to jam myself into a corner to reduce the risk of falling over. Crutches aren't like stabilisers - they don't help you stay upright on a moving, lurching tube.


Off we trundled. At Canary Wharf a few people got off and an unfeasible amount packed on. Even more unlikely at Canada Water nobody got off and a suitcase and buggy decided to force themselves in (even though there really was no room). We stayed at each of the stations, gently broiling in the heat, for five or ten minutes each. Bermondsey (where trains are inclined to stop for unreasonable lengths of time even when there are no problems on the line) brought another long wait, and amazingly two more passengers into the already over-subscribed carriage. At least my fellow traveller who almost knocked me off my feet did put a hand out to steady me.

You get the picture. It was slow, it was hot, it was packed.

I realise that in the rush hour when the train is very busy it is difficult for people to give up their seats to those who need them. I couldn't have manoeuvred top a seat even if I had been offered one. What annoys me is that nobody even seems to think about it. Not only did nobody offer me a seat but at least half a dozen people nearly kicked my crutches out from under me. Luckily it was so jammed I couldn't ever have fallen over!

Skywatch Friday (31)

Pale moon rising

Join in!

Paper colours

Last weekend we went to my niece's christening. The wedding in the church immediately prior to the christening left these gorgeous paper lanterns dancing in the trees.

Summer afternoon in the garden

I'm not sure that it is actually 35 degrees in the garden this afternoon, that might just be because the wall the thermometer sits on is in the sun... it sure is hot out there though.

The birds aren't much in evidence (probably sitting in a nice cool and shady tree) but there a lot of insects about... especially the damselflies around the pond, the butterflies and the bumble-bees.

Bumble-bee

Damselflies

The Pond Fish

Mrs Frog

World Cup Football

I'm not a big fan of the World Cup. I'm not, in fact, a big fan of international football generally. I discovered football late in life... I was in my early twenties by the time I first saw a football match  as my family where far more interested in cricket and rugby when I was growing up. I was taken (by a boyfriend, of course) to see  Charlton play one dismal Saturday. We sat in the bottom of the East stand right on the pitch. Over the next few years I was taken to a fair number of matches and started to support Charlton. My early highlight was the famous play-off final in 1998 when Charlton prevailed over Sunderland to win promotion to the Premiership. This was the day before my University finals... but it didn't stop me attending the match! Eventually I got a season ticket which I kept for about a decade. There have been good times (promotion) and bad times (relegations); Charlton (and a mutual friend) even introduced me to my other half.

I've picked up some other teams along the way... my other half is Scottish and supports Celtic so I support Livingston to keep him company.

This love of football has never managed to transfer to the global stage. I just can't get excited about the World Cup... in fact the more the papers tell me I should care... the more media frenzy there is... the less I care if England win. 

So we came to last weekend. England managed to limp through the first round into the group of sixteen where they were to face fierce rivals Germany. I was at work on Sunday so I didn't see the game, but along with a couple of other colleagues, we followed on the internet as England struggled and eventually failed.

And so the recriminations began. It is the Manager's fault, it is the over-paid footballers' fault, it has to be somebody's fault. At the end of the day the English might have 'invented' football (well, codified the rules at least) but on an international stage they just never manage to perform. 

The strangest about the game last weekend during which a goal was not given to England, even though replays show the ball crossed the line... there was a similar controversy over Hurst's goal in 1966 which won England their only world cup... which digital technology shows didn't cross the line - what goes around comes around, I guess.