Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Hi everyone - hope everyone is well.

It's been a few days since I've placed an entry into my log. Maybe it's because very little has happened since the weekend.

It's at that "more month than money" stage, that is we're waiting for pay day - which for me is Monday officially.

I have been surprised as I have gone round how many people have already got their Christmas Decorations , if not already completely up, at least partially up. I, for one, will be trying to leave the decorations till at least 2 weeks before Xmas Day - and to be honest we are usually bored of them by January.

Best wishes to those who want them up now - but to be honest - why?

I'M Back!!

Hi all - hope everyone is well.

Well I'm back - I have managed to "survive" the course and have returned unscathed. It wasn't quite the set-up I expected, but then I wasn't really sure what I was expecting in the first place. Although some of the information about the products and the like, I already knew, there was plenty to keep me interested.

Like a lot of the courses I've been on recently, a substantial portion of the course was based on "Customer Satisfaction" - but that point can be driven in too long and too often, so that the purpose of the lesson can be lost in "repetitiousness" of it all. But never mind - I always try my best for the people that I am working for - and that will never change.

Our beloved leaders have just launched a Home Computer Package, along with Internet access and set-up by a trained engineer (and that's me - and several others - hence the course) - and this is a bit of a departure for us.

We shall have to see how it goes

I'm going on a Course Tomorrow

I'm a little nervous tonight as I sit here typing this entry.

Tomorrow night, after work, I have to make my way up to Wigan ready for a two day Computing Course.

The thing is, I'm not very good at going away from home. I will have to be away for over two nights - I really am "a home bird".

Maybe it will be OK, and I'm sure that it will.But even so !!!.

It has been so long since I have been away from my family for more than a few hours. Other lads go away on Task force teams (that is going away to other work area's to help out with high levels of faults due to bad weather and the like) - and they seem quite happy to do that. But they are them, and I am me - and unlike my "Public" persona, I always feel that I am a shy, retiring sort of person (although other people would say something different).

I know that I will be Ok - but it is still something I worry about.

Will let you know how things go when I come back at the weekend!

What a Week?

I am here, in front of the computer, in the dull early light of a late Autumn Friday. It's 7'ish, the house, for the minute is quiet as everyone else is asleep, it's nice to be able to sit here alone sometimes.

With the weekend hurtling its way towards me, I am sat here wondering what has happened to this week? - mind you I sit at the Computer wondering the same most weeks.

It's has. I suppose, been very little difference to many other weeks, but then it has been an individual.

Liam started the week being ill and unable to go back to school until yesterday (Thursday).I have my Sinus's he has his ears. Mind you, Liam's does seem to be clearing up slowly.

Fireworks night has been and gone ( and my Kids have been to several Bonfire parties), and we are now to the inexorable climb towards Christmas

Laura has just been what she has always been - a Lisa Simpson clone. She has just been moved to a higher teaching group in her year.She does her homework without beings asked(something you could not say about her brother) and in fact sometimes we have to slow her down a bit, otherwise she would spend to much time doing School work - she still has to have enough time to be a child. She has been to her weekly Brownies Meeting (another Bonfire type party)

What has happened to the weather?The nice crisp Autumn days have seemingly already dissolved into the gray,wet and cold days of an East England Winter?

Roll on Spring

A Visit to Lincoln

Friday was going to be one of those days. The weather forecast, for the afternoon at least, was horrendous. Anyway we had arranged to go to Lincoln for a look round the Castle and the Cathedral.

Although I have been to both places several times in my Childhood (I was born in Lincoln), and my lad, Liam, has had a School type visit, it was mainly my “baby” (and if she reads this I’m very, very dead) who wanted to go and have a look.

We were due to go in the summer, but something else had happened, and the visit had to be posponded.

Anyway, this time plans were made, including a visit to my Godson and his School Friend Mother.

Anyone who hasn’t been to Lincoln before – you really ought to go – History and Good Shopping – a mix to cover most people.

This was the first time that even I had had chance to go round the whole of the Castle. Try climbing to the top of the Observation Tower (not for anyone with vertigo), the steps are dark and winding, it was hard to imagine how anyone in full could even get through the door, let alone climb to the top of the tower.
This visit was also the first time that I have ever seen the West Gate open (and it has been open now for quite a few years). A must for anyone with the time is to walk the length of the ramparts – what a view of the city. You could stand there a imagine the vista down the hill and out across the Lincolnshire Wolds.

A must for anyone visiting the Castle at the moment is to go and see the Magna Carta exhibition. What a piece of history in it’s own right – it’s such a small document for the impact it still has on British History. If you can get the attendant to explain the story behind its conception. He gives a wonderful presentation and definitely gives an alternate view on that that’s normally available.

Anyway after a good wander about the Castle, we took a short walk to one of my favourite places in the world – Lincoln cathedral. Just a short walk across the cobbles, through the gateway, and there is one of the most impressive buildings in the world. I know everyone has their own personal favourite place – but this is certainly one of mine.

A slow and steady walk through the various halls and Chapels, it is a feeling that is very hard for me to explain. It is a mixture of awe, majesty, sadness and joy. The sadness was for my Dad. He was born and bred in Lincoln and he was the first person to take me round the Cathedral as a boy. He would have been so proud to see his Grandkids going round the places he loved – asking, enquiring. In one of the side chapels, Liam and Laura both asked if they could light a Candle for their Grand dad. It was very difficult to keep the tears back at that point.

Sometimes they drive you wild, and then other times?

There was a set of sculptures, placed below some of the wonderful stained glass windows – “The Stations of the Forest” I think they were called – and they followed through the story of Christ, but you were allowed to feel the forms as they stood there. You could feel the grain of the woods used – the cold and sharpness of the nails. Brilliant.
Then we went to look for the Imp. It took a few moments to find – it was that long since even I had seen him. But we found him, sat high up on the pillar, gazing down , ready for his next bit of mischief.

We slowly wandered back down the far side of the Cathedral, occasionally popping into one of the small side chapels, looking into the main choir area. Then it was time to move on. We stopped off at the Chapel where we had lit the Candles for my Dad, just to see how far they had burnt down..

Then it was out into the heavy rain of a very grey late afternoon at the end of a Dull October. Onwards to tea with our friends.

Halloween is over, but is it?

A bit of an odd header, but the reason is this.

Last night, LivingTV ran a live ghost hunt on Sky Satellite TV(and via Cable I suppose). This Ghost hunt was at Dudley Castle in the UK Midlands, and has quite a history of Ghost's , strange events - the "Full Monty" as it were.

Now from the outset I ought to say that ,although I don't out and out believe in Ghosts, a couple of experiences I have had in various places make me a partial believer in some thing that I'm not so sure about.

The other thing, I suppose, that you have to bare in mind is that the program is also a form of entertainment, that's how they make their money after all - but even so!

I have watched most of the "Most Haunted" series, but of course this is a full nights ghost hunting condensed down for a 30 minute program.

Last night , however, for me at least, was something else. The Most Haunted team had set up their stall at Dudley Castle, focusing on seven particular areas, five of which were real ghost spots, the other two being "Red herrings". The other thing they did was to set up web cams in four "secure" areas of the castle - the kitchen, the undercroft, the shop and the museum - so you could actually view the various rooms whilst at the same time watch the program investigate the various sections of the Castle. Some thing else I should point out at this point is that I didn't watch all the program - it ran until 01.00 - 01.30 in the morning, and I must have fallen asleep around 12.20.

The premiss of the program for anyone who hasn't seen it is that the Hunt team is made up of a presenter , Yvette Fielding (from Blue Peter if anyone out there can remember her doing that), a team of "Psychic" Investigators-Scientists with various pieces of detection equipment and the like (The "Proper" Science if you like) and then the team is completed by the actual TV crew (who normally get involved as watchers) and a Spiritual Medium - Derek Acorah.

Now before I saw any of these programs - anyone said anything about Mediums like Derek, I was very much the sceptic, talking to the dead? who they kidding. But I have been very impressed with the information Mr Acorah has come up with ( and a lot of the information has been verified since) - so I'm not quite the sceptic that I once was.



Anyway back to last nights program. What a show - no other way of putting it - as a form of Halloween entertainment - brilliant. But then the basic support of the program - the Ghost Hunt - also brought up a few things that have pushed me even more towards the believer and away from scepticism. Pieces of electronic and electrical equipment failed. There were strange noises, something even scared the wits out of supposed hardened News Paper reporters - but the main "evidence" if you like was the web cam in the Kitchen area.

My eldest was still up - he wanted a look at what was going on too. We had been hopping from one web cam to another without seeing anything other than castle walls and the dark night sky's. Anyway I had just gone to make a drink when Liam shouted me back thorough to the computer - he was watching the web cam of the kitchen. At this point the camera had panned up to a set of windows several tens of feet up (obviously they had been windows looking out on floors that no longer exist) - Liam just said look at that - I looked and saw what is commonly known as an Orb. I discounted that as some thing falling through the air - then Liam said No - can I see the face. And sure enough - there was what looked like a face in one of the upper windows to the left of the picture. At that point the camera then scanned down to the bottom of the kitchen - focusing on one of the entry doors form another part of the castle, to see the shadow of something moving across the doorway. At that point it was fairly obvious? to me that there was actually some light source lighting up that door way - surly it was someone walking past out side.Then the shadow crossed back in the opposite direction, but this time it seemed to cross out of the fall of that particular light source and continue on to disappear at a point that normal experience would tell "It can't happen there".

The camera then scanned to another part of the kitchen and then several moments later,back up to the windows - now no face just an empty window. I looked at Liam and he looked at me - what's going on?

Anyway - 30 minutes later, the presenting team reported that the phones and the like had gone mad with people reporting the very thing we had seem 30 minutes before, with the crew going off to investigate whether anyone had gone into "the no-entry" zone around the Kitchen - they came back with,as far as they could ascertain, there was no one in that area. When the Most Haunted team went into that room , several of them started to feel sick(one of them being Yvette who had already done one of her famous 100 yrd dashes in the Canal Area - mind you you wouldn't find me there on my own , in the dark, on Halloween) and Derek Acorah came up with the goods as such, and detected several "energies", with the information supplied being confirmed by an Expert on the Castles History .Strange or what.

I must add - I was also impress with the Psychologist - he was just the right balance of scepticism against the obvious atmosphere of a lot of people wanting things to happen

But still? Pity I fell alseep - would liked to have seen the end of the program

Does anyone know which of the sites were the false ones? Could you please let me know be leaving an e-mail or by going to the comments page on my home website.(There is a feedback form and/or a forum link