'ot innit?

It certainly was today. Too hot to do too much in fact. We spent an inordinate amount of the morning and afternoon sitting by the pool and even after I gave up and came back to the caravan because of a sore bot, Hazel and Paul hung on and had a final swim. I saw a cuckoo when I  came back and tried to entice it to within camera range but only the sparrows were interested enough to come and eat.

Not such a quiet day.................but still quiet.

Hazel and I went for a late swim this morning and crossed with Paul coming back from his morning visit to the pool. After a snack lunch, we all went out to the local town beach and wandered along the front until we came upon a very nice beach cafe that also happens to be the cheapest in the area. There we sojourned for a while until Paul decided to go for a walk and Hazel for a swim. I walked down to the waters edge with her and exercised myself by taking several photographs of her both in and out of the water. We then waited for Paul to return and all walked back to the car. We have now had a pleasant meal together and I am using this opportunity to catch up on my blog and maybe chat to Russ for a while. He wasn't able to get online yesterday due to external forces so we might make it this evening, or not as the case might be.

Bonus time, not only spoke to Russ but Sal came on line as we finished and Hazel and I had a short chat with her too. Good day.

A quiet day.

We went to the pool and vegged then we bought some food and then we came back to the 'van and vegged. Hazel prepared a smashing meal and we are all replete, I am now waiting to chat to Russ via ooVoo. Life is good.

This is where we are.

Just to be awkward,

we did both. It was a beautiful day and we got away early so we just ploughed on. The trip into the Pyrenees was long but very good fun as there is so much to see. We drove in, of course, via the French main road. Even now, in late May, it is snowy at the top and the road goes above the snow line. We stopped a couple of times to take photographs and I also took some whilst we were moving. This one, to the right, was taken whilst we were above the snow and before we dropped down to the plateau at the top. Once past the snow, we drove into Andorra and took the road through to the capital city. We stopped to get some food and fuel, which is very cheap there due to no tax levy, and then drove out on the Spanish road. After a check by Spanish customs, we dropped down to almost sea level and took the coastal road back into France. It all sounds very  easy, and it was, but it took us nearly nine hours to do the round trip.

Panorama taken from the highest point on the French road into Andorra.

Panorama taken from the coastal road between Spain and France on our return journey.

Now there's a thing!

I sit at a table, I have a glass of aniseed cordial in my hand and the birds are singing. And, I am out on the terrace in front of the super duper deluxe caravan with doors that go all the way back and let the inside out and the outside in. Life is very cool, especially when the air conditioning is at full throttle! The party in the background is one of a series held each evening as soon as the rule about no motor traffic after seven comes into force. Next door begin the movement to the road and the family opposite join in soon after. The family around the corner bring their goodies to the tables and, after a sung grace, they all dig in for a couple of hours face stuffing and fun. Needless to say, they are all very nice people and we all get on very well together. We have not been invited as, I assume, they are all one big family and have this holiday every year just for themselves. We did a major shop today and spent a lot of money in the local supermarket. I finally got my syrop d'anis and have been savoring it all evening. Hazel has gone mad in the galley and produced a pork surprise that tasted very nice.

Tomorrow may be an interesting day as Hazel wants to laze by the pool and Paul and I intend either a drive into Spain via the corniche road or an all day excursion to Andorra, a tiny country at the top of the Pyrenees range of mountains.

Meanwhile, down south...........

We left our previous site at about 08.50 this morning and arrived here on the Med almost exactly seven hours later. This included several stops for various indulgences......... The difference in weather is remarkable, we have moved from severe hail and flooding to severe sun and wind. On balance, this is better.

Too much heat!!!

Hazel and I went down to the pool yesterday and decided to try out all the free facilities............... I'm glad they were free! The pool itself was very nice and I enjoyed it. The steam room was horrendous, I couldn't even get into it due to the fact of it seeming to burn me and me not being able to breath in there... Scary, very scary. The sauna wasn't quite so bad but it still seemed to be burning my face the whole time. I stayed about two minutes.

View Larger Map This is a close up of the area of the camp site where our caravan is. You can zoom out to see where we are relative to the rest of France and Switzerland.

It is better to be born lucky than to be born rich.

If no one else has said it before, I'm saying it now. We went to Montraux today and, although not the greatest place in the world, it was very pleasant and the weather was good. We arrived back at the site to find it laid waste by a freak storm that rained hailstones the size of golf balls all over the local area. The hail had shredded the foliage in the trees and dented several cars, it coated the road in ice and one hail stone hit our courier on the head and really shocked her. We got away with an upturned table...............

The new photo on the right is courtesy of Kathleen, our courier on the site who had the presence of mind to record the whole thing.

There is a first time for everything...........

and this is the first time I have posted from another country. Specifically, France as that is where I am spending a well earned break. We are in the Jura and hope to visit Switzerland on the morrow. There may be photos as I am working with my brother-in-law's i5 laptop on a very good WiFi connection.

A terrific drag act............

It hasn't helped that we have only had about 6 or 7 logs today. This is between 7 people and I have no logs in my queue either. I have been grubbing around offering to do simple jobs that I can finish before I go home at five but very few have come my way. I managed to fill my morning reasonably well but this afternoon has been a wasteland of finding things to do. I even ended up crawling on the floor beside the colour printer to look at the third tray and see if I could free it. I couldn't so the printer engineer will get all the fun. I have not missed being idle in the past 18 months and this afternoon brought it home to me just how lucky I now am to be working in a, normally, busy office. Pooh!

This is a diary!

That was just a reminder to myself that the whole point of this blog is to be a diary of my life. The trouble is, I keep forgetting. Something that should have gone in here last week was my medical check up on Thursday, all well at 2.3 and my dental check up on Wednesday, all ok, back in six months. Yesterday evening, I set up my fon wifi and checked out the ipod on it. Works well on my personal channel but couldn't connect on the public one. That may simply be a time issue as it can take up to 80 hours to get through the system.
Well, I hit level 40 by Tuesday evening so there's not much left to do for now There are no more levels yet and I won't be getting any more gold either so I am stuck with a physical limit to just how much further I can go It's a good time to take a break and think about whether it's worth continuing.
An interesting day at work, I cleared my logs, took on three more and cleared them as well. Tomorrow might drag a little................

39 and rising!!!

I have spent the day clearing logs at the speed of sound............ Well, fairly quickly anyway. I am now down to only two and that includes the extra two I took on this morning as well. One of the ones left is on hold as the customer is also away for the next few weeks and the other is just waiting on a call from the customer to close it.

In the meantime, I have not only hit level 39 in Blackwood and Bell, I have also gone on and am nearly half-way through the next level. 40 by Wednesday!

On Sunday, I was greeted by Corey with a run and arms out for a lift and cuddle, very satisfying. Samuel was not only very well behaved this weekend, he also came back to give me a kiss after he left the car!!!! Pigs may actually be flying!

Did you ever have one of those 'clumsy' days? I did today, I have spilt stuff, bruised myself and jumbled my words all day today. Still, better today than Wednesday.

I sometimes wonder

where all the days go. We have all put in our applications for the new system and, hopefully, we will all get a job out of it. David has signed his voluntary redundancy form so he is now bound to go. We have all, I think, gone for the higher level jobs as well as our own but it will remain to be seen whether we get one. I have been thrashing away at getting my desk clear of logs and have managed to get down to five remaining, only two of which are important enough to need finishing or re-assigning so that's looking good too. Hazels interviews are supposed to be while we are away but her boss isn't too concerned as she is the chair of the panel and she can re-schedule to almost whenever she wants to. I have just installed a speech only version of ooVoo on to my iPod in order to test it out before we go away in case I am able to use it from one of the sites.

Level 38 and approaching 39 rapidly on Blackwood and Bell so I may make level 40 by the time we go away.

The Arduino It! blog has not only passed 1000 hits, it has nearly reached 1100 in the space of just two days. It has also now had 44 countries take a look so I have installed the Google translator on the site to help as much as possible.

That's the way to do it!!!

That should always be said with a swazzle in your mouth, this week we celebrate 350 years of Punch and Judy.

Well, the application is almost ready to submit and we will then see just what happens. I am in the fortunate position of being on holiday when the results are to be processed so I should return to a done deal no matter what the result is for me. Hazel is in the same situation but her result is not as sure as mine, at least I should get something out of this. My colleague David has had his voluntary redundancy accepted so he will be off and away sooner or later. The intriguing thing is that the university seems to suddenly be worried about the numbers wanting to leave and is demanding that they stay on after the end of July. This is despite the claim that anyone who didn't submit a form or apply for VR would be considered to have given notice to quit at that time. The expression, "Cake and eat it" springs to mind. On a lighter note, the extended weekend was good for us. Saturday was spent discussing the applications, Sunday was spent with the family and, especially, looking after Corey whilst Lulu and Ian had an evening off for a change and Monday was our veg out day when I set up and used the system to copy from the Sky HD recorder to the DVD recorder.

Hi ho, hi ho, to make your troubles go................

Filling in application forms for your own job is about as low as you can get, I suspect. I have spent the best part of two days, spread over the week, writing and refining my application form. The process will have been worth it only if I end up with a job at the end of it. The number of lemmings who have opted for voluntary redundancy is now rumoured to be approaching thirty. Whilst this is fine from the point of view that there will be less people going for the available jobs, it also means that a lot of very talented and useful folk will be leaving the university for pastures new. As this will lower the level of talent here for some time, it's not so great. In a way, filling up the form has proved something of an insight for me into my own achievements over the past thirty years or so. I can now look back and see how much I have learnt and how much I have done with a somewhat dispassionate eye. Things which seemed very ordinary at the time now appear to have been extraordinary with hindsight. Running all those tiny radio stations in the 90's was hard work and a lot of fun but now I can look back and see just how much Bob and I acheived in those days when we didn't have the technology to do what is now very commonplace. Some of the things I have done here at the university on the Ratio Project seemed pretty simple at the time but, in retrospect, I did a very good job and sustained a very high level of quality over a long period of time. In fact, I only stopped when I was carted off to hospital with my heart trouble. Even that has a positive spin in some ways. It pushed me into retiring from broadcasting and coming to the university full time for a start. Working here has given me so many skills that are more applicable in the real world and, just as an afterthought, paid me more money than radio ever did.