Jubilee bank holiday my ass!

So there you are its a Thursday before the Jubilee Weekend, first day at work for a week and its looking like the whole weekend is going to be a bit of a busy bitch! You are idly thinking that you might enjoy the extra Bank Holiday on the Tuesday cos you never work Tuesdays. Your boss asks you to work the Tuesday and just for the hell of it you say Yes!! Might as well bugger up the whole bank holiday as look forward to just the one day off!

I had some cracking weather during my week off her's a pic of one of the 3 hot air balloons passing over the cottage yesterday morning.  

Over at the logging area it was very hot when the wind dropped to nothing yesterday.  The view though was worth stopping to look at.  

Half a horseshoe!

I travelled over to Wales on Thursday night to have a go at the Snowden Horseshoe early Friday morning.  The sun was setting as i arrived and the clear sky looked a good sign for the following day.
0530 I set off and as expected the weather was exceptional even up on the very windy summit it was warm enough for just shorts and T shirt.
I started on the miners track and then went to the summit up the more arduous route to the left of Llyn Llydaw lake, well it was meant to be a training walk!
I'm calling this entry "half a horsehoe" as Crib Goch is part and parcel of the horseshoe but i came back down using the whole of the miners track.  I will be up on Crib Goch in a few weeks time on the Welsh 15 Peaks Challenge.  Here's hoping the weather then is as kind as it was yesterday
Follow the link for a couple of vids and a few pics.
https://picasaweb.google.com/hakuraman/20120525HalfAHorseshoe?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLLZkvmX95zRBg&feat=directlink

A view from the trig point at the top over to the Crib Goch knife edge.

Total time for the walk 3hrs 45mins.

Strange red/orange ball in sky!

A nice day to be off work!! and i'm looking forward to Friday when I will be going over to Snowden to do a training walk in preparation for the 15 Peaks challenge. Click the pic to peek at a video of Friday's Peak!

Paul's a cagey leather clad sprinter!

I have often wondered about this cool calm exterior that a colleague, lets call him Paul exudes.  In conversations over the last 2 days it would appear he has a bit more of a playful nature!!!!!

2 Lady colleagues, lets call them Debs & Linda report that Paul gives them a little wiggle as he cavorts around a "cage"! 

Let me explain for the international readers.  We all work in the local sainsbugs adhering strictly to the company ethic you understand.  A "cage" or "roller" is a 6ft high 2ft 6in square container with wheels that carries items onto the shop floor to be distributed to the shelves.  

It would appear that Paul has a show not dissimilar to a pole dancing routine that he will display at the drop of a castanet , the girls also mentioned "leather clothing".  I do hope he wears it underneath the uniform!    

Another conversation with a colleague Manager, lets call her Tracy brought out Paul's more playful nature.  He had been talking to Tracy and one of the store trainers and the banter had been that he "could take them both".  The details of the "taking" need not concern the more delicate reader here. 

When Paul was in a training session the trainer, in collusion with Tracy, managed at the end of the session to empty the room except for Paul!  At which time Tracy entered the room closed the door blind and reminded Paul about the "taking" and wondered if he would care to demonstrate his prowess.  

At which Paul remembered a prior engagement, maybe a "cage" routine appointment and left the room at some speed! 

On a more mundane matter today a lady had to wait more than she considered necessary to have a loaf sliced by one of the skeleton staff behind the bakery counter around lunchtime.  I had called for someone to slice the loaf twice before the customer was attended to.  As she pushed her trolley away she fixed me with a withering stare and said, "Is that what you call looking after your customers.  A little bemused i answered, "well now that you are already on your high horse why don't you just ride over to customer services and complain".  She chose not to answer!

Afterthought, Still no word on Daves job applicaton Re: the blog post of 11th May.  Keep those fingers crossed.  

Paul's not a 100% you know!

A colleague, lets call him Paul, fell foul of the mystery shopper at work (the local Sainsbury's) the other day and failed to gain the ultimate prize of 100% during his encounter by not obeying "the rules".

Let me explain, the mystery shopper is a company spy who is paid to visit stores and normally their approach is to find something out of stock.  This means then that the "colleague" is meant to first look for stock on the system and then offer an alternative if none is available.
Another approach is to ask you something about a product which is nowhere near your normal work area, in my case once I was asked about some champagne, whereas I work on the bread isle. You can then demonstrate that you "know your stuff".
So did the colleague, lets call him Paul, not know what a product was or where it was even.  Maybe like some encounters did Paul revert to the monosyllabic grunts favoured by our younger colleagues.  Did Paul not "make eye contact" with the mystery shopper, did Paul not "take the product off the shelf and show it to the customer".  Or maybe he didn't show that "he knew his stuff"
No dear reader Paul did not fall foul of any of these rules, he did however break cardinal rule number 1.  He did not say "Hello", when approached by the mystery customer.

WOW! Paul, tsk tsk!

Fingers crossed for Dave on Saturday

Not too an exiting week at the fun factory (local sainsbugs) this week everything going as planned by and large.  I managed to have 2 go's at bailing the waste cardboard from the compacter on Saturday as its the "Bakery" day for this task.
My last day of the working week was made all the more pleasant because the "Managers" had one of their "away days".  Its a kind of mass exit to some gin palace where they practice team building and are given team exercises to complete.  Obviously it works as they return refreshed and full of "team spirit" well for a while anyway.
Another ray of sunshine on Wednesday was when "Dave" sidled up to me.  Dave, his real name by the way! is the union rep a bit of a thorn in some peoples sides, however more to the point a pain in some peoples arses also.  He's a geordie, well a loud geordie and has a mind like an encyclopaedia which continually spills from his ruby red lips.  All in all he's a moaner, nothing can be done better than he can do it, no-one has done more than he at anything.  He will fight your corner if you are in the union very well, especially if its fighting the Bleeping management!
He approached me to join when I was a raw recruit but my previous experience with "Unite" was enough to point out that hell would have to freeze over first!
However I digress, management have disappeared on their "away day" although the cake Tracy brought in to take with them (I presume) I did ask if it was a bribe so she didnt need to attend!  Dave sidles and regails me with a tail about attending a job interview at the weekend.  He's going to try and secure a permanent job with the Unite union.  He was waxing lyrical about his qualifications and suitability for the job when I reminded him about his last job interview.
 It was some time ago when he went for a job interview and said there were only 2 people in for it but the other person, a woman as it happens was only there for "window dressing".  It was a pure case of "foot in mouth disease" because he didn't get it.  It all boiled down to him not being able to put a couple of formula in an XL spreadsheet he said.
Google what you want to do in XL and hey ho it WILL be there ready to use!

I pointed out to Dave that there would be a fair number of people delighted if he secured the job and had to leave and that there would probably be a party!  - - - The day after he left!!!!!
Fingers crossed for Dave on Saturday then!!!!!

15 Peaks Training Walk

I managed to get up to Kinder Scout last Tuesday and completed a good "Serious Hills" walk in preparation for the 15 Peaks Challenge in June.  The walk starts at the Snake Inn and takes around 3 hours.  It has quite an arduous start  with an almost 900ft climb most of which is going straight up.  There then follows a 3 mile ridge walk where you are continually having to climb up and over quite big boulders.
As you meet the Pennine way track there is a plunge down a 400ft almost vertical slope where at the bottom you see the waymark sign back to the Snake Inn.  The 3 mile walk back to the Inn is not exactly a cake walk being quite wet and demanding some concentration of where to place your feet.
Having said all that the views are stunning if its a good day which Tuesday was, you will be guaranteed to see,  grouse, skylark, mountain hare, and at least hear the cry of the curlew and buzzard.
Cut and paste the link below this pic to your browser  to see pics of the whole route.

https://picasaweb.google.com/hakuraman/2012050815PeaksTrainingFirstKinderScoutWalk?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOHz2rbjxtnoKQ&feat=directlink

Note added Friday 11 May.  Completed the walk again this morning in the most atrocious weather.  Very high winds freezing cold and snow turning to icy rain the whole way round!

Careful! - the bitch has a pork pie

Back to work tomorrow but here are 2 little anecdotes I missed from my "Oh crumbs its a Black Mark" post not long ago

At work there are a number of hand held devices belonging to various departments.  In an attempt to control them colleagues are meant to sign a sheet in the main office to indicate when you took it and brought it back.  This rule is flouted by almost everyone so you need to walk around the store looking for your departments handset.
Another device is a small networked printer and although you can keep the printer in your department the batteries need charging and thats done in the central office.
So there I am needing to print some reduction labels and the battery I picked up at the start of the shift is faulty and flat plus there are no spares in the office.
I wander around looking for a battery and notice in the GM cage there are 2 hand held devices in there.  This immediately reminds me of the GM colleague manager, lets call her June, moaning about "and the bakery had 3 handsets and nobody had signed for them!".  Now June is known for her voluble renditions about how bad every other department is so I make a mental note to challenge/wind her up about the handsets if I see her before the end of the shift.
 I find a battery and its fully charged so I set about completing the reductions.  I spy June approaching and say, "June do you know there are 2 handsets in your GM cage and no-one has signed for them.  She whips out her internal phone and calls a colleague, lets call her Vicky, and starts to berate her.
I mention mid call that "I was only joking" and she ends the call and says mischievously  "but Vicky will think i'm a bitch", I pause just long enough and add "And!"

When I was in the shop the other day, a colleague, lets call him Paul, mentioned that he had been told the shop second in command had had a Pork Pie thrown at him by an old lady.  I hope it was a "Taste the difference" one - - after all he is a manager!

Hey ho!

We dont do weather - just rain

I knew it! as soon as the hosepipe ban was imposed it started to rain and it hasn't stopped since.   Well thats not strictly true "we" aren't under the hosepipe ban and it has been sunny a couple of times, but you know what I mean.
The rain does seem to have come with a vengeance though after the long dry period we had, - - - now when was that?.
It does however give us Brits the chance to have a good whine about our favourite subject for conversation, "the weather"
The early plants in the garden have had a battering as well as some of the new tree growth and presumably the blossom on the fruit trees. We do have however a number of plants that do ok in the rain as the pic below shows.  I took this yesterday in between the downpours!

 Not quite fully in bloom but the carpet of dandelions on this meadow is shrugging off the effects of all the rain.

The field above is alongside the River Derwent and to give you an idea of how much rain we have had here's a pic of the summer level of the river last year.

Now here's a pic taken last Saturday after a prolonged period of rain

The level is up a good 5 or 6 feet.

The general temperature though has not been too bad and the early season mushrooms are in evidence.  St Georges Mushroom is named so, as it normally makes an appearance on April 23rd St Georges Day. Here's a pic of the underside of one I found yesterday.

Most surprisingly, well to us anyway as we were looking at the river level on Saturday we found a Morel.  It looked to have been kicked over and just lay by the side of the footpath.  I went on the same footpath yesterday and eventually found 6 all within a few feet of each other.  They are not commonly seen in the UK and we have "Never" seen one before.  The ones I found are no more than 200 metres from my front door!

Here's a pic of one specimen.

Its latin name is Morchella Esculenta its only seen in late spring and is classed as "excellent" to eat. Although we do pick wild mushrooms this is one we will leave in the hope more grow next year.