Category: Day to Day Stuff

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Holidays are over!

Oh well, after a lovely fortnight off, it’s back to work. A teacher did come up to me yesterday and ask if I’d had a good holiday and then say that is ‘goes so quickly doesn’t it?’. Poor love, only 6 weeks off!

Our hols in Devon were great, even the day it rained so much that everywhere flooded. Funny thing was, the weather was glorious after that!
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Supermarkets

I watched Whistleblower on BBC1 last night. It was about some of the practices on the fresh food departments at a Sainsbury's and Tesco's stores.

Can't say I'm surprised at what they found (cleaning issues excepted). In the 13 years I worked in retail at various stores, similar things happened.
It's basically down to the fact that there are never enough staff and the managers are under such pressure not to blow their wages and waste budgets and to always meet their sales targets. The other hindrance is the fact that the stores have little or no control over what stock is delivered to them, so if too much stock is delivered, it is the store's problem.
The supermarkets can be extremely hypocritical at times! The customer always comes first – no, the profit margin always comes first!
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The Rules

This has been floating around for a bit now, but it's still relevant and the spoilt lazy kids of today should take notice!

Rule 1
Life is not fair – get used to it.

Rule 2
The world won't care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3
You will not make £50000 a year right out of school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.

Rule 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping-they called it opportunity.

Rule 6
If you mess up, it's not your parents fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
 
Rule 7
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites your parent's generation created, try delousing your own room.

Rule 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This does not bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9
Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10
Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. 😉

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Big Journey

While sorting out my old photographs today, I came across the ones I took 20 years ago today (Sgt Pepper taught the band to play…..!).
It was this day that I caught the following trains

  1. Etruria to Stoke
  2. Stoke to Euston
  3. Kings Cross to Edinburgh
  4. Edinburgh to Glasgow Queens Street
  5. Glasgow Central to Crewe
  6. Crewe to Etruria!

That was a great day’s line bashing. Couldn’t do it now of course, because Etruria is now closed and I don’t get free travel on the railways any more so it’d cost me a fortune!

Great day though!

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Daffodils

It's great looking out of the front door in the mornings at the moment. There are thousands of daffodils on the Marsh. It really brightens up the area and looks really nice. However, the local frackwits have started rip them up and kick them etc. Morons…….

I Wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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We’ve Never Had It So Good

Today as I sit in my office, drinking my tea, waiting for a teacher to come in and tell me that their whiteboard isn’t working because they’ve put the USB plug in the network socket, I think how lucky I am.

On this day in 1918, my great grandfather, William Edgar Wood, was crouching by a wall in France when he was blown to bits by an artillery shell. He was the same age as I am now – 35. He has no known grave, but is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission online and in the cemetery in Pozieres , in St. Georges Church in Newcastle and Stoke Station.

He died the day before his son’s, my Grandpa’s, 5th birthday – not nice.

So despite life’s annoyances, I guess things are not too bad…..

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Good Weekend

Just had a great weekend in London. I went to The London Festival of Railway Modelling exhibition at Alexandra Palace with my Dad and uncle. Got lots of goodies for my birthday 😉

Carol and I had a wander round and went on a ‘proper’ London Transport bus – an RM!

A good weekend!

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Sky TV

Well, herself has finally got Sky TV in the house! The installers came on Sunday, didn’t ring beforehand, like they were supposed to, and didn’t install an extra phone point. They just left a long extension cable – so helpful!
Anyway, time will tell if it’s any good!
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WHY?

Not content to be classed as being one of the worst places in the country to live, having the worst council and having one of the most incompetent county councils, now the Staffordshire Ambulance Service is to merge with the West Midlands one.
The thing is, our ambulance service is the best in the country and West Midlands, put simply – isn’t! So we get the short end of the straw – again…………
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London, England

I find it very amusing during American film or TV series, that whenever they show a new city, they always caption the city's name and state e.g. Los Angeles, CA.
However, when somewhere outside the USA is mentioned, the caption is 'London, England' followed by pictures of Big Ben, Tower Bridge etc. Now I know most Americans don't know much about the outside world, but you'd have to be fairly thick to assume that London referred to London, Ontario (that's Canada!) or London, Minnesota!
But I guess Hollywood has to make things as idiot proof as possible!
When Carol and I were in Canada, they showed foreign news on the TV. They made a point of showing the Special Olympics which were on at the time. In America, the only foreign news was Iraq and sod all about the Special Olympics. Says a lot really!