Category: old blogging

I’ve just had a lovely email from Laura, an aspiring weathergirl (I bet she hates that term!). She has a site here, which I’m linking because she said nice things about grayblog. I’m soft like that.

Good.

I’ve been busy all day making travel plans for my visit to North Carolina next week. The hotel that had been block booked for the wedding guests is fully booked, but I’ve got myself into the Marriott that is right across the street from the venue for the rehearsal dinner (whatever that is). It’s a little more expensive, but I should make up for it in saved cab fees, both getting to and from the rehearsal dinner, and also getting to and from the airport (yay for shuttle buses!). I’ve also booked the other hotels that I need, as well as a hire car, and have looked for ideas for ways to enjoy the Friday morning when en route from Rockingham to Charlotte. A trip to the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge looks interesting – I’ll pack my boots and plan for a walk for a couple of hours, if the weather is fair.

Proto-rants (i.e. ideas that are half formed in my head that I’m too busy to expand on, but present for discussion):

• Microsoft killing chat rooms to prevent paedophiles gaining access to kids. Well, this is clearly a move by MS to prevent their arse being sued in a big way by some litigious, aggrieved and (most likely) grieving parent. But the logic is akin to saying "kids get killed on roads, so let’s rip all the roads up and destroy all the vehicles! yay!"
• Report will show that Iraq was working on developing the beginnings of perhaps moving towards a programme to investigate the possibility of making some WMDs (I’d link to the news reports about the actual US-led task group that has come up with this gem, but I’ve got a date this evening and don’t want to be late, ok?). Perhaps. Maybe. The evidence? They had bunsen burners! Scary. Mind you, any secondary school class equipped with bunsen burners could, within minutes, wipe out your average small town. My response – WTF?
• Coats on dogs. To quote Dogbert: "It is equally impolite for animals to wear pants as it is for people to be nude". So Brian, please make sure it only happens in the privacy of your own home, or on that beach behind the shingle bank at Brighton, ok?

And remind me to tell you about the couple in last night’s hotel.

Birmingham to Caernarfon is 140 miles (almost exactly), if you start at the NEC and pass through Oswestry, Llangollen, Capel Curig and Llanberis.
Brian wanted to know.

The following was written this morning, in the same place as the post below:

Isn’t children’s TV awful? Still, it’s more interesting than the breakfast news this morning. Although watching teen actors is pretty painful. And must they all wear baseball caps at stupid angles?
Hmm. I think my policy of not having TV at home is vindicated.
Time for breakfast.

The following was written last night as I sat in the Old Mill in Elmley Castle, Worcestershire:

What a long day. I’m not sure how many miles I’ve covered today – about 350 or so, I think. I began at the Golden Pheasant hotel in LLanglldoflllwrynlllll, or whatever the village was called near Oswestry, with a pleasant breakfast and a fantastic view down the valley. This was followed by one of the most fantastically beautiful drives you could possibly take in this country, heading across country to pick up the A5, and then on past Snowdon to Caernarfon. A very successful meeting took place there, followed by hours of slog up the A55, M56 and M6 to rural Lancashire, not far from Blackpool. There I had an insightful visit to a grower, before slogging back down the M6 and M5 to Worcestershire. I’m now ensconced in The Old Mill, a pub, restaurant and hotel in Elmley Castle, not far from Evesham, who were able to put me up at short notice.
Tomorrow I have a meeting in the afternoon, but the guy I was planning to meet in the morning has yet to return my calls, so my plans for tomorrow might be slightly disrupted. Not to worry, I also had a phone call from Dave Kennamatic, so we should be able to make some progress on my windows. Hurrah!
All of this has taken place to the soundtrack of an old mixtape (remember them?) given to me by Robyn eons ago.

I’m pooped and hungry. Thankfully, the restaurant is still open.

Well, the trade show was excellent, if not very GLEEful, and I made some good new contacts, as well as refreshing some old ones. I also had coffee and a sandwich with Kearn and Paul C, who were both in evidence in professional capacities.
I have a meeting tomorrow in Caernarfon. I didn’t fancy driving all the way in one go, so I have booked a hotel near Oswestry, roughly half way. I missed the turning off the A5, and realised when I reached Llangollen. Consulting the road atlas, I saw an unclassified road that offered a shortcut. Well, the road is roughly as wide as the hire car and includes a few vertical inclines, but also furnished me with some of the finest views of my travels to date. A couple of photos were taken, so you’ll see those later.
This will be a very brief update, as telephone calls cost £0.20 per minute here, which seems incredibly expensive to me. Additionally, I want to go downstairs and investigate the bar and get some food in. And no mobile signal here either. But then I am in a lovely country pub hotel in a small village in the Cambrian Mountains, so I should really expect much else!

Off to GLEE, an exhibition for the garden and leisure industry, and not a place where everyone sits around being cheerful.

Well, I went into Warwick. When I left the hotel, nobody was in the restaurant. When I got back, there were two.
Warwick is a nice town. The Warwick Arms is not a good place to eat though. The food was unexciting. The service worse. And their machine wouldn’t take my credit card, even though I know it’s valid. But the people-watching was fun, so I’m glad I went.