Julie's Boggle

I’ve been sitting with this blog entry for quite a few weeks now, but having come so far, I don’t want to leave it out, so here goes…

On the recommendation of a friend, we left on our Oban road-trip at 06h00… Which gave us plenty of time to see the sun-rise as we whizzed out of London on blissfully quiet roads. :yawn: Birmingham by 08h00 and Lancaster by 10h30, UK roads don’t get much better than that.

Aside from some minor navigational errors around Glasgow, and drenching rain most of the way, our drive went pretty smoothly and we made the entire trip in 10 hours! The last 15 minutes took us onto the tiny island of Seil (pronounced “seal”) over one of the narrowest and severest blind rises I have ever enocountered!

The Clachan Bridge (also fondly known as the “Bridge over the Atlantic”) spans a narrow finger of ocean that separates Seil from the rest of Scotland. And while picturesque, it makes for very nervous drivers as you can’t see anyone coming until you’re well over the hump and on your way down the other side!

(We braved this bridge 8 times in the 5 days we were up there because the closest place for air-fills was Oban on the mainland. )

Scotland has a bit of a reputation for having weather that is not particularly good – and it was trying hard to live up to it on our first day.

The weather report was predicting winds of gale force 9 so the boat wouldn’t take us out. One of our number was an Oban veteran however, and had several ideas for shore dives. We all got into a huddle on the dockside and eventually picked out our site, then it was back into the cars for the long drive inland.

True to form, the sun came out and shone brightly on our 2.5 hour journey to Loch Fyne along plenty of idyllic “single-track” country roads.

The diving at the other end of the drive was pretty good – even if it did mean getting changed in our cars (because it was pissing down with rain again by then) and preparing our gear on the non-existent verge of a road barely big enough to pass as a drive-way in South Africa.

It felt pretty odd wading into what looked like a giant lake, but which was also – very definitely – sea water. *cough-splutter* It was very different to diving in the channel, the place was just crawling with tiny hermit crabs, and there were lots of big brilliant red sea urchins dotted around.

The next day’s weather forecast was a little better and we did actually get to go out on the dive boat. But it wasn’t so good that we could go out to sea on that day or the one that followed…

So we did some other sea loch sites, seeing more of the life that’s unique to these slightly unusual environments (sea-inlet lakes), like squat lobsters, cup corals and sealoch anemones.

All in all, despite the lack of adventurous sites in the open sea, we thoroughly enjoyed the colourful and creature-rich places that we did get to visit, and came away with some really neat photos which I’ve put up onto Flickr if these shots whet your appetite.

Last night, I was in a dicussion about novel solutions to transport problems when the conversation turned to a spoof article I once wrote entitled Tube to be converted to underground cycle network.

Sadly the Brains Trust, the web site that published the article, seems to have vanished. I see the article itself has been ruthlessly plaigarised by a porn site :huh:. So I wouldn’t advise anyone to go looking for it.

I had also written several other articles for the Brains Trust which weren’t published. Looking through them nostalgically today, I spotted one which I now intend to inflict on you. (Note, it’s a bit dated and mentions Goldman Sachs who I didn’t work for at the time of writing). Here it is.

This week, the peaceful citizens of Westwick Gardens were shocked by a heinous felony. Some time between the afternoon of Sunday 22 October and the evening of Thursday 26 October, this VW polo was broken into and ransacked.

Stunned owners Tom & Julie Brazier were just popping down to the local for a quick half, when they discovered the crime. “We were just popping down to the local for a quick half when we discovered the crime”, said a visibly shaken Tom. The vehicle contents were left in a state of disarray after what police called an “untidy search”…

Yes, we too have now enjoyed the universal South African experience of “vehicle crime” in good old Shepherd’s Bush. Vital statistics:

• Entry was gained in classic American TV style by pushing a screwdriver under the door handle and manipulating the lock mechanism.
• Nothing taken (apparently our measly possessions weren’t good enough).
• Door handle somewhat damaged – so it’s the old question of do we pay for it ourselves or take a hit to the no claim bonus.

For the morbidly interested, the method of entry can clearly be seen in this picture. Ho hum.

We’ve enjoyed Google Earth and Google Maps for a long time now. Having exhausted the amusement of finding our house (and the table in our back yard!) and other diverse landmarks, they’re now back in the position of useful tools.

But it’s always fun when they add a new series of photographs for an existing area, like they recently did for London.

The top picture of the two above is the building site of our new office, near Liverpool Street station (far left). I saved that clip in August this year when it was aready a year or two old.

And below it, is the far more recent picture showing our new offices. Which funnily enough far look more like an artist’s impression than a real building! (Click here for the close-up.)

After getting the coffee grinder for my birthday, cappuccino for breakfast has become a something of a staple. There comes a time when an aspiring amateur barista starts to think about presentation. Having passed that point some time back and finding ourselves in Oxford street on other business, we popped into Selfridges a couple of weeks ago to see what they had on offer in glass coffee mugs.

After passing up a few likely looking, but searingly expensive candidates, Julie took the simple expedient of asking for directions. We were shown over to a display packed with Bodum coffee accessories at a price that feels better for people living just outside of Kensington. We came away with four mugs, and breakfast the next day was accompanied by the coffee you see pictured above. Mmm, frothy…

This morning we awoke at 06:00 (wincingly early for a Saturday ) to drive up to Stoney Cove to attempt our last practical test in the BSAC Sport Diver qualification. We started with a dry run so Frank, our instructor, could spot all the bits we were bad at and give corrective guidance. This was important because Frank is a stickler and would certainly not pass us if he spotted any mistakes in the real exercise.

Then it was a half hour break from the water to have a traditional cup of hot chocolate and bacon “cob”. (That’s what the menu calls it, but it’s a really a rather tasty bacon bun. Apparently it’s Leicesterese. I note that www.dictionary.com doesn’t know this meaning for “cob” either, but it does offer “a mixture of clay and straw”. Fortunately the Stoney Cove cobs don’t live up to this definition.)

After the break we jumped back in for the actual test, which seemed to go well. Afterwards Frank, a veteran instructor who likes to keep people on their toes, was tight lipped about how we’d done. Not wanting to appear over confident, we refrained from asking and instead nonchalantly engaged in idle chitchat during the walk back to the car for dekitting, as you do. Since we were parked a small distance from Frank we were able to move on to open speculation as we dekitted; the verdict: we didn’t know but were worried – there had been one or two little glitches, would they been seen as show stoppers?

Once we were done, we found Frank who broached the sensitive subject by asking us how we thought we’d done. What a tricky question: you don’t want to admit to any mistakes he might not have spotted but you also don’t want him to have to take you down a peg. So best policy, mention one or two little things to show you’re aware of them and then await his judgement. Which came very soon: we’d passed .

So now we’re sport divers which primarily means that we can dive to 35m instead of 20m and with a greater flexibilty in choice of dive buddies. For one thing, this is good because it helps club dive planning. For another, we’ve been diving to almost 35m already but that is risky from an insurance perspective – now can do it with peace of mind.

Tomorrow morning, early, we’re setting off on our longest UK motor trip to date.To Oban on the west coast of Scotland which is just under 510 miles, or 815km, away.

The AA’s website reckons it can be done in 9 hours and some change, Google‘s direction finder seems a little more realistic with about 11.5 hours.

Either way, not something either of us is hugely looking forward to, but it’s all for three days of diving. And the last dive of the season at that.

Apparently the Scottish west coast diving is supposed to be really good – let’s hope they’re right… More details will definitely follow.

Something we’ve been doing increasingly often since getting our first digital camera is creating panoramic images. This is a great time waster, but much fun. Here follow some of the images we’ve created over the last two years. If you click on them you’ll get larger versions of each image.

Hottentots Holland, Western Cape SA – February 2004

Manhattan from New Jersey – June 2005

Downtown Manhattan from New Jersey – June 2005

New York Harbour from New Jersey – June 2005

360° view of our garden – June 2006

Umzumbe river mouth, Natal SA – July 2006

Howick falls, Natal SA – July 2006

View from Gunther’s, Natal midlands SA – July 2006

Wraysbury dive centre, Berkshire UK – September 2006

The plans for our new kitchen are slowly maturing. Yesterday we had builder Des round to give us a quote for the installation. We were very happy with our conservatory work which Des did last year. Des is extremely Irish and a joy to listen to. He’s one of the few people we’ve met who would be very much at home saying, “Begorah”. We could go on giving him work indefinitely just to keep hearing his accent.

We also went to see Vince, our friendly but slightly muddlesome kitchen designer. After two hours of moving things about on his computer layout of our kitchen, we were fairly happy with it. The computer was then able to print out a number of “artistic impressions” of what the kitchen would look like.

I think we’ll take a picture of the real thing once it’s done and gauge how artistic the computer really is. In the meantime, here is our camera’s artistic impression of what the kitchen currently looks like. The comparison is good enough that you can see we’ll be gaining a lot of space by knocking the end wall through into the conservatory.

Vince is going to send us a quote on Monday. We managed to secure a copy of their price list though, so we’ve already worked out approximately what it’s going to cost. The good news is that it is only about two thirds of Vince’s original estimate of two weeks ago. The bad news is that it is still a hefty chunk of cash. It looks like we’ll go ahead though as we’ll be getting so much better usage of space from our kitchen and it will surely increase the value of the flat enough to soften the blow.

Our company office move, which has been on the cards for about, oh, a year at least, is finally getting started this week.

It’s going to be fun moving into a brand-new building specially commissioned for us, but it’ll also be sad to leave the current buildings, especially our main building, One New Change.

Many years ago. One New Change used to belong to the Bank of England. As a result, it’s quite a quirky building, with all sorts of elaborate walk-in safes, cages, and “refuge zones” (bomb shelters to the uninitiated) down in the basement levels. This gives it a rather unusual character for a city office environment.

Inside it’s an absolute rabbit warren and a complete pain to find your way around — mostly because it’s vast! (It takes up an entire block!) The building is also showing its age – particularly the air-conditioning system which repeatedly lost its will to live over the last few London summers.

For all that, I think the building has a certain charm. It’s got a pretty courtyard in the centre, a lovely swooping curve along the New Change street side, and its location right next-door to St Pauls adds a lot of atmosphere. It also helps that the IT department are housed in separate offices across the road where we can appreciate the aesthetics of the building without actually having to deal with it overly much.

(I love being able to see the gleaming top of St Pauls and the little tourists moving around on the top gallery from my desk. )

The sad news is that once we all move out — to our brand-spanking-new building over at Spitalfields — they’re going to be demolishing One New Change and putting up a “large scale retail development” – which I think translates as a mall, or thereabouts.

The IT Department are part of the first wave to be leaving, and they’re moving us next weekend. So this coming week is going to be mad with everyone packing up their stuff into crates in preparation for the exodus. I’m going to miss the last two days with being in Oban but I’ll definitely be filing an update once we’re all “moved in”.

Details on the company’s new building (shown above) can be found here.