Journal: July 2007

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Back down south
Sat 28/7/07 (Link to this entry)

Bah. I'm writing this from my home in Camberley, my holiday up north having turned out to be all too short. There was a good reason for my choice of dates back when I booked them, but I'm damned if I can remember what it was. Oh well. The last couple of days up north were somewhat frantic as I tried to fit in seeing everyone, something which I think I just about managed. I also got to return to the karting track at Cambuslang and record a reasonably good time on the new track layout, which was nice.

It occurs to me that I teased my mates with tales of seeing a Lamborghini Gallardo on the way home from archery on Sunday but never showed them the picture, so here it is:

It's been fairly taxing working my way back into things at work these past two days; there's been plenty to do and I was very tired as I tried to catch up on sleep and fight off a small cold. Indeed, I had a fairly difficult time of it trying to stay awake yesterday afternoon as I tried to debug a Java problem. Thankfully, the presence of Chris at the next desk helped me stay alert - you never can be too careful around people who are prone to random acts of violence and cruelty. Can't let him get ahead in the wind-up stakes either... :-D

From Kelvingrove to Glencoe to Mugdock
Mon 23/7/07 (Link to this entry)

It's been a busy week for me on my holiday back home in Scotland. I've been immersing myself in the best the country has to offer, especially including the accents and dialect - I can't describe how good it is to hear words like driech and bawbag again after so long down in Sassenachland :-D

On Tuesday my sister was through for the day so we took a trip to the Kelvingrove Art Galleries, seeing as she hadn't seen them since their renovation. As I'd been earlier in the year, we mainly toured the upper floor to avoid the bits I've already seen, but it was equally good to go back and see the fun displays from last time like the floating heads below.

Image nabbed from RodBegbie on Flickr. I forgot my camera :-/

On Wednesday I got to do something which I've been planning to do for literally years - go camping with my long-suffering best friend Ford. TC, Gus, Fraser and the pair of us took a trip up to Glen Etive (which lies just to the south of Glencoe) and stayed for a couple of nights. The scenery, as you might expect, was utterly stunning - just what I needed after so long in the flatness that is southern England.

During our stay, we climbed most of the way up Beinn Mhic Cascaig (a 2,834ft Corbett which lay adjacent to our campsite), made a small campfire (no decent burning logs for miles, dammit), and had great fun crossing the river using a bridge made of four steel cables (it had a little cart to go across in but it was shackled up). When I took the below video, we were thinking of camping on the other side of the bridge. That idea rather quickly went out the window ;-)

I've thrown together another little gallery of photos from the expedition which is available here.

I'm not sure whether it was a small cold or just plain dehydration, but I felt like arse after the trip so I spent Saturday doing a bit of R&R and ploughing through the latest Rebus (which was most entertaining). I also caught the Grand Prix qualifying, which was entertaining enough to make me watch the recording of the race the next day. I wasn't disappointed - utter carnage at the start and lots of overtaking and excitement. I think they should hold all races in the wet - makes things a lot more interesting!

The reason I wasn't watching the race live was that Sunday was the day of the 11th Green Hollow Clout, my archery club's biggest event of the year. It was a very good day - the weather held up well and there was a goodly amount of craic flying around. It was good to see a lot of faces I hadn't seen for more than a year. My only regret is that a sore throat prevented me from doing my usual clean-up duties at the buffet lunch and dinner :-(

Only two days left up north as I type this - I'm making the long trip back down south on Wednesday. I've still got a fair bit to fit in, including seeing one of my oldest friends and returning to my old stomping grounds at Cambuslang ScotKart. They have a new track layout - could be interesting...

Wild strawberries, cool t-shirts and homemade pie
Tue 17/7/07 (Link to this entry)

I've never been one for making a big fuss about birthdays, but this one's been a bit special since I've spent it back up where I belong in Scotland. James and Kim seem to have kicked off a trend of people giving me cool t-shirts, as I've recieved two more so far three more (cheers Lizzy :-D ). I wonder if people are trying to tell me something about my dress sense...

During the day I went for a walk with my parents around Loch Chon and it was great to get out and about amidst the Scottish landscape. The camera got a fair bit of usage and I've made a little gallery out of some of the pictures I took. It's surprisingly difficult to take pictures of mist without it going all washed-out looking :-/

We enjoyed our fair share of luck on the walk. The rain threatened but rarely broke, but the humid conditions made for some particularly impressive cloud formations on the hillsides around the loch, which was very purty and made me feel right at home. The best bit of the walk, though, was when Mum noticed a crop of wild strawberries at the side of the path which we merrily gorged ourselves on. These little berries each contained at least as much flavour as the big ones you get in the supermarkets, only in a much smaller, more succulent package. This is the way strawberries should be - sweet, natural and free :-D

After returning home, Mum set to work over a hot stove which produced easily the best food I have had since... well... the last time I was up north. For dinner we had her patented Quorn and gravy pie (with soggy pastry... mmmm....), followed by homemade rhubarb crumble for pudding and rounded off with an obscenely rich chocolate amaretto cake with marzipan and cherries. After months of my own unimaginative cooking, I can't emphasise enough how good that meal was. I really must learn to cook and bake sometime.

Homeward bound
Fri 13/7/07 (Link to this entry)

After two weeks of being pretty much constantly on the move, I'm not letting up this weekend. Tomorrow I'll be making the 420-mile trip up north to spend some time at home. Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to it. It's been far too long since I've seen my family and friends and I'm really looking forward to going karting with my mates and shooting clout with my archery club, two things which I haven't done for over a year.

This week's been another busy one as we've been continuing to attempt to scuttle the new interns' ability to learn by keeping them out until late at night. On Tuesday we introduced them to our rigorous badminton/bowling scheme on Tuesday nights and followed it up on Wednesday night with a party at Kim and James' house which carried on well into the small hours.

Sadly I ended up being utterly exhausted on Thursday morning, having drunk a bit too much on not enough sleep or food, so most of the day passed by in a woozy blur of tiredness and grumpiness. That, however, was remedied to a great extent by James and Kim who gave me an early birthday present which turned out to be utterly inspired. I shall be wearing it lots over the coming weeks and months :-D

Now all I need is a shirt with the loud, startling turkey-like noise I deploy when sneaking up behind people in the lab. We've had to start wearing ear defenders in there recently so its effectiveness is greatly diminished :-(

New Minions!
Sat 7/7/07 (Link to this entry)

Well, we have our new intake of fresh meat new interns for next year at work. It's been a good laugh around the office this week as we try and get the new guys up to speed whilst doing all the work we usually do in a given week. They're all learning quickly though, so it looks like we'll be well set for the months to come.

This week's been one of the most hectic for me since coming down here. Everything seems to be happening at once. Over the course of the week I've fitted in a trip to Basingstoke to pick up a new laptop for Maddy, I've played my usual badminton session, I've been to a pub quiz, I've had a big fallout with one mate (misplaced texts = bad), I've been to see Die Hard 4 with some considerably better mates (cheesy Willis one-liners = good), and I've been to the pub with our new mates and introduced them to our rigorous weekly chemistry and two-dimensional physics lessons (also known as drinking and playing pool).

This weekend I'm planning on relaxing and recharging my batteries a bit. I was so tired last night that I went to bed not long after getting in from work and didn't get up until about ten o'clock today. Since then I've been busily catching up on the things I had been intending to do all week, like updating the archery websites and setting up Maddy's laptop for her. I've also just finished watching the qualifying for the British GP, which was very exciting. I'm very impressed by the new qualifying format - it makes better viewing than the actual race!

Smoking is dead, long live the smokers
Sun 1/7/07 (Link to this entry)

Today's the first day of the new ban on smoking in public places in England. This has been in effect in Scotland for a couple of years now, but I guess we can't really expect the Sassenachs to keep up with the civilised world ;-) . It's nice to think that I'll no longer have to worry about stinking of other people's drug habits when I go to a pub - well, unless someone spills their drink on me...

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