This is the 3rd time this er, summer that we've had summer. To anyone outside the UK that might not make a lot of sense, to those of us who live here it makes perfect sense. Last year was all rain and floods which sadly claimed the lives of quite a number of people, the year before it was incredibly hot, which sadly claimed the lives of a number of people. This year it seems to be back to normal, sunny and hot for a week, mild and damp for a few days, overcast and rainy for a couple of weeks and then repeat, all this does is sap the will to live but this is what a life in Albion is all about.

As I may have mentioned previously, I am now working as a Technical Stage Manager at the UK's leading theme park, this year re-branded as a Resort (we have two themed hotels on site and a rather excellent Spa), Alton Towers. It really is quite fun and a little weird bearing in mind that this was a place that I used to go to as a kid, well teenager and be all thrilled about, to be honest it is still quite thrilling even now. The place really is incredibly pretty, set in 500 acres of Staffordshire Moorlands countryside it is quite uplifting to look at when you get to work in the morning, even for a cynical old sod like me.

 
 

See, nice isn’t it? Oh Ok, here's one of the rides then:

I am still doing the usual stuff; talking about getting some exercise and then failing to get around to it, procrastinating about bettering myself & reading all kinds of different books; at the moment they are ‘The Picture Of Dorian Gray’, ‘On The Evolution Of The Species’, ‘The Bible’, and book about Scottish Myths & Legends called, “Scottish Myths and Legends’ surprisingly enough. I am not sure what I am learning but I may be about to develop a belief system based on the supernatural evolution of a narcissistic aquatic tartan beastie. Hey it could be worse I could start a religion people could believe in, if such a thing exists……sorry did I really say that? Ooh on a good note the blasphemy laws have finally been repealed in the UK. FREEEEEEEEDOOOOOM! (As William Wallace famously didn’t say as he was tortured, contrary to the films’ ending.) Not exciting for a lot of you, I know but I think it is quite a move forward, now if we can just get RE (or is it RI nowadays?) out of school, separate the Church and State and convince the Intelligent Designers(?)/Creationists to stay out of the UK all will be good.

Well that’s all for now, I was nearly inspired to be witty today and it all went horribly wrong, maybe next time.
On the brighter side, I just cooked and it was lovely.

To get over the crappy anxiety of my last post, which by the way I thought was slightly funnier than some of you did, I went out on the town with Phil last night. Sounds impressive eh? Binge drinking, picking up women, dancing the night away in a club until the early hours of the morning and generally making merry.

It was something like that, two 41 year old chaps popped down the town, had a few beers in a few pubs and buggered off home at 12:20am. Not quite what you had in mind is it that? Yeah well, that is what happens when you get past 40, sometimes you recognise a bad night out for what it is and sod off home. No more of that "I'll just hang on for another hour or 2 and see if I can pick something up." Mainly because when you do that everyone else is as battered as you are and the results can be rather frightening. I don't speak from experience here, well OK, maybe a bit.

It wasn't that bad a night really, we were doing OK, we went to see Bernie who was DJ-ing at a pub in town and then we went onto a few more pubs, but when Phil switched to water for the last 2 drinks and all I wanted to do was have a spot of dinner and put me feet up, well....you know. So off to kebab land (not really it doesn't exist) that is to say that I went for a kebab while Phil got the cab and off we toddled. I got home and had a coffee and a kebab and now my flat smells suspiciously of chips, cheap meat and chilli and garlic sauce.

Today started a little iff-ily (I know, I made it up), as I had a slight hangover and as I say the flat was a tad pungent. But a pint of water, windows open and a cuppa and all seems right with the world.

Well tomorrow is back to work time, although not until 3pm (yay) and at the hotel so none of that working out in the cold and rain as seems to have been the recurring theme in my tenure so far.

Right-ho, time to go, the meat is cooking and it is time to add the sauce and get the pasta on.

By the way check out Stephen Fry's website and read his 'blessays', http://www.stephenfry.com/ they really are quite excellent and just what a blog should be. Of course he does have a brain the size of Kent, I am quite sure that it helps!

Byyyeee, for now.

Here I am sitting at the airport in St Lucia, thinking about the last 12 years of my life. I am watching a man who works at what serves as a café here. He seems to be quite content in his job, which entails me telling him what sandwich I want and he gets it out of the fridge that I am standing in front of and am able to get it from myself. I then order a coffee for me and my father, who is sitting here with me and there is a whole setup for you to do it yourself, hot water, packets of instant coffee, packets of sugar etc. but he makes it all for you. The point is, as I said, he looks to be totally happy in this work. I on the other hand have just left a job that I did not like, well not for the last 6 or 7 years anyway and the thing is in the 12 years I was there, I saw the Pyramids 3 times, Ephesus 4 times, the Temple of Artemis twice, I walked through the city of Petra and climbed over most of it. I went to the Valley of the Kings, the temples of Karnack and Luxor, the Coliseum in Rome and the Vatican.

During this time I have visited Africa, Australia, the North and South Americas, Russia, China and Japan to name but a few but still I was unhappy about it – the job, that is. Well from now on I don’t have to worry about it too much, on 5th December I made a bit of a boo boo at work, which was relatively big and should by all rights gained me a written warning. Unfortunately due to the fact that someone got out of bed the wrong side that day, I find myself a day later sitting at the airport waiting for a flight to go home and you know what? For some strange reason I am beginning to feel as happy as the guy serving sandwiches and coffee. Sure I don’t even have a job doing that right now but in time………well, let’s just say that now I have to find a job, let the adventure begin again.

It's still raining, although the chap who was coming on Monday to touch up up a few chips and scratches on my car did actually make it today, so that was a good start. Actually that wasn't the start, the start was a 9:30am call from Mother to pick her up from my sister's where she had spent the night after they had been to my Barry Manilow loving Aunt's house for dinner and and girly night chatting in the conservatory; not a musical conservatory, just one of those glass things that you have attached to the back of your house. Quite hot in summer and bloody freezing in the winter and possibly just about bearable in this weather.
I digress (surprisingly), so I went to get her, she asked if it was possible to go out on a shopping trip to try and find a particular garment that my sister had purchased for her from a certain high street retailers catalogue. The neck was too big and so Mum wanted a size smaller. Of course the shop didn't have it, the lady helping us was very....helpful, but every time the dear thing checked a stock level in her shop or another she insisted on telling us that the stock system was 24 hours behind. I wouldn't mind but she explained this 4 times in a terrible whiny dialect that in synonymous with the Potteries (for anyone not from the UK - and possibly a few from the UK - the Potteries is the area of North Staffordshire which encapsulates the 6 towns of Stoke-on-Trent, and makes pottery surprisingly enough - Doulton, Wedgwood etc.). The dialect, although softer now in the older generation than it was was I was a child, is as confusing for the outsider to understand as Geordie or Glaswegian, this is not a bad thing, just an observation. It does, unfortunately, sound horribly unintelligent and dare I say even moronic though (this is an observation and a bad thing). Whereas the other 2 I mentioned do sound lilting and somewhat charming.
I managed to go shopping for a few groceries with only #4.20 (where is the sodding pound sign?) in my pocket, which meant I could only buy what I needed so that saved me a few quid.
Next I went to get my hair cut, granted this was done on a bit of a whim and was not at all thought out. I now have a summer hair cut, rather like a U.S. Marine, not a fresh recruit mind you, it's short around the side and the back and with a bit of length on top. More akin to a Colonel or a Major, you know someone who has been around a while and does not have to have the degrading stubbly slap head whilst yelling Hoo Yah! every thirty seconds. Why do they do that? It can't work very well in the field approaching the Taliban can it? Imaging crawling across the Afghan dessert singing, "I don't know but I've been told, blah blah something that rhymes with told......Hoo Yah Sarn't Major" they would get shot to shit doing that!
So, my car is shiny, my head is shiny (in parts), it's still raining, Mum didn't get a new top and N**t's stock control system sucks as it can't track anything in a shorter time frame than 24 hours.
By Jove you live and learn don't you?

So, home again, home again, lah dee dah. It would be lovely if it were not for the fact that it has pee'd down nearly everyday for a week, I mean it is seriously wet out there. For those of you reading this (if anyone is reading this) living outside the UK who may think "It always rains in England, it's what it does!" Well yes and no; granted it does rain a lot but not as much as you think. Scandinavia should be especially grateful to the UK as we are the first landfall the weather systems make as they come up the Atlantic and hence we break the weather, get the rain and cloud and they get all the sun in summer, at least we have daylight in the winter.
Anyway, it doesn't always rain here, it just seems that way as it rains whenever you (whoever you are) visit. This truly is one of the most beautiful places on earth when the sun is shinning, there is nowhere like the UK on a hot balmy summer's day no matter where on the island you may be.
Mind you, as I said, it has pissed down for a week and a couple of days already and that is quite enough thank you. Especially when I have only been in the country that long on this vacation, it really is enough.
It now looks like I shall be back on the ship by the last week in August, two months on the Symphony and then two months on the Serenity is not too bad, a little change of scenery to keep the boredom away.
That's enough for now, it's time to make a meatball sandwich, set up my new printer, pour a glass of wine and settle down to read a little more Christopher Hitchens. You never know, I may even have a wander up to the pub, rain or not it is summer you know.
Ian