Some things, but not all, and not quite the ones I wanted

Christmas and the New Year, Kate, myself and two friends (Tash and Chris) went off to Arosa in Switzerland for a couple of weeks snowboarding and spending quality time together. It was epic and my 'boarding has improved massively (as I found out at the Lecht a while later - but more on that later). There was a decent amount of snow and some unbelievable conditions, although on Christmas Day the falling snow, which did give a wonderful surface, meant visibility was only about 10 feet and you couldn't see where the edges of the slopes were. Fell over lots, only big falls a couple of times though.
Spending time with Kate was marvellous, but the two weeks went too fast, as always happens.

Into the new year and Scotland had the coldest winter in decades, for which there had been a 1 in 7 chance of a colder than average winter for the northwest of Europe. People forget that the seasonal forecast is for large areas, not specific places. Some people think that the forecasts ruled out cold winters, but if you roll a die there is a 1 in 6 chance of getting a 5. No matter what the outcome, there was a 1 in 6 chance of getting a 5. But there's got to be someone to blame, hasn't there?

Moving on.

Work was quiet, so I managed to take the opportunity to use the service transport to the Lecht for a days boarding. Conditions were a bit icy in some places but generally awesome and it was the best boarding I've ever done. Also the longest session, for which I paid the next three days...
No photos of that, so you'll have to take my word on it.

Been working all the jobs we have, observing, forecasting at both stations, forecasting on the big desk; also found out how much my job is worth in the private sector. Turns out it's LOTS more than we are paid. Government say we should be paid just under median market value but the market is based on what we're paid. Go abroad (such as Australia) and you can get even more. Even with the exchange rates and cost of living, lots more. Not for me though, not yet anyway.

Friend (one of the Sarahs) has been in hospital a lot recently, she's got a rare form of MRSA called PVL MRSA (I think), so she's been in isolation having her system cleared, the rare times she's been out of hospital we took her dog for a bit of a walk on the beach.


Turns out I've got a lot to learn about taking photos in snow. Been recommended changing the exposure settings.

The house move has been delayed, partly due to weather slowing things down, but also problems with planning permissions; and still no news about the potential job development, but might hear next week, or the week after. Having said that I've started becoming an NVQ assessor, it's even more work that doing the sodding NVQ itself! The first assessment went ok, once I'd finally finished the write-up. Hope to get that finished by the end of summer.

Back to Exeter next week for more training, but now it's off to work for the night.

Catch up entries 3 - the last of these ones

Latest Catch up entry, written about the 21/12

On the way north I stopped off with Tash and Chris, drove right up from Andi and Sarah’s Halloween party, which was great although I did end up somewhat passed out in the front room with stuff written on my face. Fortunately not in permanent marker. Tasha had got some tickets for a play so I drove straight up and into Glasgow to meet them. Initially the plan was to meet them at theirs and we’d take the train into the city but there was some evil traffic so I was running late. We met up at a service station outside of Glasgow and we went into Glasgow in convoy, running from the car park to the theatre. I had no idea what the show was going to be, apart from the fact it had something to do with “Mrs Brown.” I thought it might have been something to do with Queen Victoria but it turns out it was about an Irish family and oh ye gods was it hilarious!!!! If you get the chance, there’s a whole set (four at the moment) of plays about Mrs Brown and they are very rude and very, very funny.
We had a relaxing day and then on my way home we dropped off at the Lecht ski centre for a days boarding. The nice thing was that pretty soon I was back to the point where I left of last season. By the end of the day I was getting some proper linked turns in, which was brilliant.
A couple of weeks after I got back up north work changed. We went from having just the four of us working 24 hours a day from Sunday night to Friday afternoon, doing 12 hour shifts, to working three (or two) shifts through the day from 6 am till the end of flying. There is now 24/7 cover provided by the regional unit but we have to use some of the charts from down south, rather than producing our own. That’s the bad side of things, but on the plus side we’re now doing many, many more briefings face to face with the squadrons, which is fantastic. I enjoy hooning around the camp in the works car and dealing with the squadrons face to face.
Apart from that I’ve volunteered to drive the weather survey van (some time, when I can) which is basically a set of sensors mounted on a small van, the idea being that we drive it on set routes in certain weather conditions, usually in the wee small hours. To make it a bit safer the office sent us on some skid prevention and control course (aka skid pan fun!) which was an absolute blast! I learned some things I hadn’t known before, including some emergency brake and steer techniques that were new. I still haven’t had the chance to go on a run yet but should get the chance once I’m back up after Christmas.
I’ve done a bit more on the slopes since the first trip back up, at the Lecht as it’s cheaper than Cairngorm and ok, the slopes and the snow aren’t as good as you’d find in France or many other places but it’s here and it’s enough to have fun with. When it comes down to it, I’ll take “fun” that’s an hour away from me and reasonably cheap, over “fantastic” that’s in another country and costs a bomb to get to any day. Especially if I can go there with friends. Of course, if I could go abroad with friends for about the same cost I'd be there in a shot (note to Tris, March good for you?).

Alot can happpen in 24 hours, more in three weeks.

Haven’t posted for a while so I think I’ll put some of what’s been happening up.
Let’s see, I was down in St Mawgam for a while with work, which was mainly great although having the exhaust fall off my car wasn’t so good. Sounded great but is a touch illegal. Back up via mum and dads, picked up some stuff and then to Scampton to sign the Reserve Forces Agreement, followed by the MMU annual dinner.
Driving back north the next day on the east coast (I prefer the west) and stopped over with T and C (not really sure why I'm not using their names, think it's to give myself "blog-cred").
When I got back up north, started to get settled into the new flat/bungalow, still had only one chair, an airbed and the beer fridge that mum and dad got me for uni. On the weekend T and C came up to visit, bringing bookshelves, storage boxes and (God bless them) a new single mattress! We went snowboarding on the Sunday on what can only be described as frozen concrete and towards the end I got the turns back. C goes boarding lots. Mainly at his local dry slope and once I get my finances sorted I think I’ll do something similar.
On the following Monday Si, who started his met training the same time as I did but spent a year observing (wish I had, would have REALLY helped) went to the bombing range at Tain. That was cool, watching the bombers come in and drop their little 7 kg practice bombs, practice strafing and loft bombing. Got a good feel for the physical layout of the range, which is good because we forecast for it. One of the things I hadn’t thought of was that the range is VERY low lying so storm surges can be a problem. It also cut short our visit as the tide was coming in and we had to leave or we’d be stuck there for another 4 hours or so. As it was we ended up driving through about 6-9 inches of water running at about 8-10 knots. If you’ve never felt that, it’s a strong current. We could feel the car being moved by the water. The road we were on had markers every six feet or so that I’d thought were just for snow but I soon realised that they were all that was keeping us on the right path. Like I said, fun.
And on the Tuesday I drove down to Leuchars, where I’d done some of my early training as an observer. Now I was here to learn the forecasting ropes ready to cover a few shifts for them. On the weekend I was over at T and C’s again, this time we went off to Stirling for a night out with the engineers, Nolan, Lisa, Sherl, Piotr, Stuart and the rest. Very messy, very fun. Needed it after the horrific performance by the England rugby team.
And that pretty much brings me up to date, the advanced driving thing at student rooms seems to be going well, lots of people reading it and a few commenting or asking questions. It’s here, and I’ll be adding to it tonight hopefully.

New Year, or "Arrrgggghhhhhh!"

But at least I didn't have an hangover...
To expand. This Christmas I've driven over 1500 miles to spend Christmas itself with my family then hoofed it back up to Scotland to be with a couple of friends (I'll call them T and C) over New Year. We'd made plans to go walking/camping over New Year's itself, which we duly did. Up to the Cairngorms on a route called the Minigaig. The group consisted of myself, T, C and the dog, Rossi. We had to drop one car at the end and one at the beginning (Dear Daihatsu, I bought a city car from you, you'll never guess what I've been doing with it...) so by the time we were walking we ended up being faced with the choice, carry on walking to the bothy (stone hut usually open but basic) which we weren't sure was there or open so as the weather was coming in and sunset wasn't far away we decided to find a good spot and camp for the night, possibly reassessing the plan once we'd had some scran.
We camped, cooked and got into our bags, hell we were pretty much asleep by 6, after having a few wee drams each from the booze we'd carried in. Did I mention the fact that it's the middle of sodding winter and we were all carrying close our limits in safety kit and supplies? Well, I have now.
C's tent is a Lightwave 2 XT, which is a big two person tent. Three of us could sleep in relative comfort, with the dog it was a bit more of a squeeze. The porch area is a great size, it's big enough for all of our kit and it holds up in poor conditions rather well.
After a couple of hours kip we were woken up by a bit of wind. I say a bit of wind, there was a trough passing over head which means showers and strong winds. I would put the winds at about 50-60 KT, which is around 55-68 mph. The tent was great, we were a touch nervous. By which I mean bricking it. Nasty though the idea was we were all thinking about worst case scenarios, if the tent failed what would we do. None of the options were particularly attractive. Fortunately, the tent held and after 2300 (11 pm) the wind eased somewhat but was still strong. We knew we would have to walk over a high plateau the next day in very strong winds, and the weather was turning showery with a definite blizzard potential so we decided to have breakfast the next day and then walk back. I'm bloody glad we did. Not only was the kit soaked (although my kit did all I could ask of it), but the snow showers hit us as we were driving back, the wind did what we expected and we were all a bit out of shape.
So we did spend New Year's Eve on the hill, drinking and praying that the tent would hold (well, I was) and then we walked out the next day. This left us with a few days to fill. So we did what anyone else would do, we all slept in (except T, she had to go to work on the 3rd) and C and I went snowboarding at the indoor snow slope in Glasgow. It's pricey but good, there's one at Milton Keynes and another at Castleford. Was good to find out that I can still board, even though ever time I tried to turn heel to toe edge on the steeper slope I stacked, usually at the top in front of everyone. Ho hum.
After leaving my friends further south I had to transport more of my kit back to the mess. My little car holds a surprising amount of stuff. C was amazed I think (Dear Daihatsu...). Now in my room I have bows and arrows, diving, climbing, snowboarding, walking/camping and mountainbiking kit. And two of what I believe to be some of the best coffee table books around. These are "100 Suns," a book about nuclear explosions (hey, I did physics and I'm a geek) and Banksey's book "Wall and Piece." I disagree with his politics and his methods but I do love some of his work. All I need now is a coffee table.

Oh and it turns out that you can get the nagging GPS patch, and does say things like "You NEVER listen!" Legend.