Slip sliding away!

Last Thursday I was Swindon at the National Self Build & Renovation Centre. It hasn't changed much since the last time I was there, but the demonstration houses inside never fail to amaze.

And going backwards in time again, on Wednesday I was on a Search Engine Optimization course. I didn't realise how much I didn't know!

This weekend at Brands Hatch was very, very soggy.

Add to that one of the cars in the first race on the first day dumping oil around half the track, which created an ice rink effect on some of the sharpest and fastest corners, and we had a fun-filled weekend.

A spectator put together the video here, and I think it shows a good snapshot of what the weekend was like.

I hasten to add that, quite apart from the spins and tumbles, there was some excellent racing going on, with cars going to head-to-head with sometimes three or four vying for that top spot.

There were many bumps and bruises, and possibly the odd broken bone, but as far as I know at time of writing (and I stand to be corrected here), no one was seriously hurt. Although I'm given to understand that the five-point seat-belts in the Mini's may need to be reviewed given the anatomical arrangement of the gentlemen drivers and their propensity for crashing and rolling...

From posh gardens to truck tours



After the joys of the Henley Re-GAH-ta on Friday, it was off to the Hampton Court Flower Show on Monday, which was full of new and interesting ways to lay out one's garden.



Most were very clean and neat, kind of zen, and more fashionable than imaginative. But there were some that stood out even if it was just one small detail. 

LORAS garden.

The LOROS garden of light and reflection, for example, was aimed at patient therapy and relaxation. It would not have looked out of place at a Centre Parc spa, but it was the water feature that I particularly liked - a ball of flowing water which was then channelled through the patio to the pond area. 


Night garden - in the dark.



Of particular interest was the night garden, which looked stunning in it's evening environment - lots of LEDs mixed in with a central pond and a patio on one side, a lounger area on the other - all inside a darkened tent.

There was a fungus garden, which needed to be viewed through rusty periscopes, but looked beautifully alien. The only problem was finding it, because the sign was quite small, and it looked like a bunch of rusty bins until you realised that the 'bins' were in fact the periscopes.

There was a garden - more of a pond than a garden really, that was bizarrely beautifully with its bowl of air, hedge and girl inset into a lake.

Pink!

Then there was the bright pink garden which is only forgiven because it was there for health of the Waterworks variety.

A lovely pub lunch by the river finished off the day which was just lovely.

On Wednesday I was in Reading for the opening of a truck - I'll leave that one to your imagination. The interesting bit about this trip was picking up a date for Saturday night on the M20.



I only noticed the car in the first place because he was trying to climb into my boot at Junction 10. We kind of vaguely played tag up the M20, which amused me a bit. Then at the M20/26 junction he pulled alongside with a note ' UR gorgeous!' which made me smile a lot.

We definitely played tag along the M26 and came across the junction with the M25 which was at a crawl as usual. 'Come here often?' was the next sign after we'd integrated into the crawl.

After a couple more cutely cheesy exchanges he tried to give me his phone number, but my pens were in the back, so I decided to let fate play the hand. We got close enough side by side that I was able to throw my business card through his passenger window thinking that the wind would probably take it.

It was a spot on shot - he called me later and we went for a drink Saturday night. He's very sweet, but totally not my type. Having said that, he was a much better conversationalist than many, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

In other news, I've just had valuations on my little house, which it turns out should give me exactly the right amount to sell up and buy a boat. A little bit too exactly, but still. Enough to look at lead-times and advanced costs before making that leap.  

Sand martins in quarry

Dozens of sand martin families have given their seal of approval to Lafarge’s unique, eco-friendly, sand alternative made from recycled glass.

The birds, which as their name suggests, like to nest in sand banks, have colonised an envirosand pile at Lafarge Aggregates & Concrete UK’s Willington site near Bedford. It is the first time at any of Lafarge’s 40 plus aggregates sites that the birds have adopted the envirosand as a suitable nesting site.

Simon Bryant, site manager at Willington, said: “Martins are renowned for nesting in stockpiles of natural sand but we’ve never before encountered them in our recycled products.

“The martins like the sort of material which is soft enough to dig in but hard enough to remain stable. Although Envirosand satisfies these criteria we didn’t think it would be quite their cup of tea but it seems about 60 pairs decided to move in. It has been quite a surprise.”

The martins’ nesting areas are protected by law which means the envirosand stockpile is now out of bounds until the chicks have hatched and the families have flown.

It means a few weeks of inconvenience for the site but Simon is stoical, saying: “Where you have sand you will get sand martins. We are used to it here at Willington, although obviously the birds using the envirosand this year has thrown us a bit of a curve ball.

“I guess it shows just how like the real stuff our envirosand is. We’re just glad the martins are happy and healthy and are impressed they’ve picked the green option.”

Modified Live drifting pics

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Henley Regatta

Video from the river cruise we went on yesterday. Low resolution especially for those with slow connections!

Soho Square

After holiday, the first week (well, four days), was what I would call nicely busy. Spent Thursday at a meeting in Soho Square, which was very pretty.




Then the weekend was two very long days at Modified Live at Brands Hatch. While there was some traditional racing, the key events were the drifting championships, which were impressive.

Although more impressive was the gymkhana where drifters took paying passengers around a course of cones in the paddock.

There were some gorgeous paint jobs going on too, very detailed, even going so far as to extent the painted themes inside the engine bay.

Wales was wet.

Monday I took a day-trip to Caerphilly. Contrary to the baking heat in the East of England, Wales was raining. At just four hours each way, one can get a decent meeting done without an overnight stay, which is rather useful.

The Building Center.

Tuesday in the office, and went to The Building Center in the evening. They have a scale model of central London in the lobby there, which is more or less kept up to date - it's worth seeing if you happen to be in the area.

Wednesday and Thursday were in the office - had a panic Thursday morning when couldn't find purse, as I couldn't remember seeing it since Tuesday. Finally found it Thursday evening, but only because Callie and Rio were having a squabble and I dropped things under the sofa that needed rescuing.

Friday was another very long, but thoroughly enjoyable day, at the Henley Regatta until the traffic on the return journey. A 25 mile tailback on the M25, and the M20 closed at Ashford which caused a gridlock meant that I got home at 10.30 pm.

The Regatta was fun, and quintessentially English. It was lovely to see the men making as much of an effort as the ladies in their caps and blazers. And the arms on those rowers - there was a lot of fanning going on that wasn't entirely due to the heat!

Returned to find tribe giving me Extremely Dirty Looks - I think this is due to the fact that they have more or less been abandoned over the last three weeks, with little attention time. Or perhaps it was because I went shopping and failed to bring back treats.

In any case, this morning I was determined to have a lie-in, and managed to not wake up until 11am. Tribe was surprisingly happy with this, as I woke up in furry, purring three-point restraints, which makes me very happy.

What we got up to

On Thursday, we went to Bath. Along the way we saw things that would not be out of place in a Chevy Chase movie. Like the plastic polar bear that had been pointed out to us on a previous occasion, that sits on top of a small building. Apparently its awsomness was too much for a pickup truck that forgot that which side of the road it was supposed to be on and had a meeting of minds with a lamppost.

Or perhaps the street that is, in fact, Tucking Mill Lane, but the signage has all been very well amended to replace the T with an F.

Or the car in front which decided to drive on the wrong side of the road for a while, for no particular reason - he didn't even seem to be drunk.

Bath itself was very civilised, and I traded in the gift voucher my boss had given me for my birthday and got the Zelda, Twilight Princess game.

In the evening we went to a pub that was under new management in a very well to do village. The car park was full of range rovers and jags, while the customers were stereotypical horsey brigade types. The food was good, and the atmosphere great.

Friday was spent in Glastonbury. We were hoping to see some druid types, but didn't, although there were definitely some witchy types. Went shopping at the Clark's outlet center in nearby Street, which is really very cute for an outlet centre. Oh, and we saw the very muddy field that Glastonbury Festival was going to be held in.

Saturday the weather, which had been good to us, turned. Nasty, horrid rain escorted us on the drive back from Wiltshire to Kent, and it took us twice as long to get back.

But it was a very lovely week and we did loads.

Sunday was all about washing, cleaning and ironing, while Monday, although technically holiday, was about cleaning out work email, and preparing for return to work. Because boss is on hols for a couple of weeks, so I wanted to hit the ground running on Tuesday. 

In between all that, made a start on Zelda. It took all weekend to get through the Prologue, so slightly could be a long, long game. Gave up when I found that catching warthogs on the Wii is more difficult than it looks. Had tea with friends Monday evening.

Wednesday was spent at Longleat, a place I really love, along with Port Lympne. There were new things to explore, and they've created more opportunities for getting people to part with their money to feed the animals. And yes, we were suckered in, but you know what? The experiences are worth it.

Does my bum look big?

The meerkats have moved from their residence by the lake boat and into a section where they are the star. One can walk among them - or more correctly, one can walk along a little path and they can walk among you. And your handbag.

I have also found a new animal to adore. There was an enclosure that boasted the residence of an anteater. All we could see was a bowl of goo at one end, and a thick wooly mat on top of... something.

Then a little part of the mat moved and a little snout appeared, followed by two legs, followed by a much larger appendage that grabbed the little snout and legs and pulled it back under the mat. A few seconds later, the little snout reappeared along with the two little legs and then the two little back legs and then the rest of the ickle baby anteater.

He wandered about like a Muppet puppet for a little while until the mat     got up, and transformed into a very, very large anteater. The mat was, in fact, its very very fluffy tail. Big anteater flung tongue out to bowl of goo a few times, followed baby around for a short while, before grabbing it. It turned around cat style, tucking baby in, and threw tail back over the pair of them.

Anne the elephant - the one that has been all over the papers this spring, was there. She seemed very lively and was out and about with an attendant film crew. I guess for Animal Park, or something like.

But Daa-aad!

In the animal handling hall I got to play with a baby tarantula, a couple of snakes who wore all adorable, particular the constrictor who, I think, was using my shoulder to spy on the guinea pigs.

Have you ever tried carrying
antlers this big on your head?

We went into the main house - the first time I've been there, and it's old, amazing and mad. Hundreds of years of history are contained within, but with little apparent order - which made it more interesting in many ways than the usual dry stately homes.

Perhaps sadly, the most interesting thing for me (as my interest in history is passing at best), was the special showing of a copy of the painting 'The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies' from the BBC show 'Allo 'Allo.

I had a week booked off, and the Wicked week leading up to it was manic at work, with the issue due out as well as setting up and coding web-stuff for while I was to be there. Thursday and Friday were a bit panicky, but got there just in time. Which meant that the weekend of 10 June I had the girls down, and in between Formula One updates, had a bit of a retro time watching The Monkees and Buck Rogers.

On the Monday, we went down to sis' place in Wiltshire for a week of R&R. The drive was rather more excellent than anticipated, and having left Kent just before lunch, we arrived just after. Having seen signs on the M25 informing drivers of long delays at Stonehenge, we were rather surprised by this.

Home-made pizza for dinner was scrummy. I'm fairly indifferent to pizza on the grounds that there is usually far too much dough and not enough topping. But this was the complete opposite, with the base simply there to hold the toppings. I approve!

Tuesday, we went with sis and little dog to Cheddar Gorge, which very much likes dogs and provided water bowls at every turn. We pretty much explored the place from top to bottom, including inside the caves.

 And we even went adventuring to find the dragon!

I don't recall whose bright idea it was to climb the stair case of doom in such lovely weather, but I for one, feel no need to do any more exercise for the rest of the year!

Actually, the staircase wasn't too bad all the time one thought there was a good view and a bench to sit upon from which to admire it. But no, one had to further climb a tower with too many holes to get the splendiferous view, and there was no bench at the top of that either.

We went to the Yak and Yeti for dinner, a Nepalese restaurant which doesn't serve goat, but is nevertheless very lovely, and I much enjoyed the floor-sitting as opposed to table and chairs - very reminiscent of Egypt. And we were very well looked after, too.