The Clent Hills

Well… I’ve arrived. I’m early, though, so I’ll go for a walk before anyone else turns up.

A pointer

…to things to come. The eagle-eyed amongst you will spot the Clent Hills marked on the toposcope. A few hours previous to this, I had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with Chris and meeting Bill Phillips and Chad at the legendary National Trust refreshment kiosk in the Clent Hills. I can confirm without doubt that the bacon sandwiches are the finest known to Man, especially when accompanied by a lightly fried egg. A few photos will follow, although conditions were far from ideal (please remember that Chis, Bill and Chad were there so perhaps you will understand what I’m saying…).

Now Bill happened to work at the site for a while (I believe he was a Bacon Sandwich Taster) and knew the chef (who, apparently, used to be HRH Pricess Anne’s chef [I'm never sure if I'm being wound up with some of these tales!] and Bill suggested it would be nice if we had some bread pudding later on. So we set off for a walk in the typical English summer’s weather (a bit nippy, grey and occasionally wet) to build up an appetite. Lo and behold, when we returned there was some super bread pudding, still warm from the oven.

After eating this and mindful of the full English breakfast I’d had at the start of the day in the hotel, I thought I really ought to have a little stroll when I got back to Church Stretton. The “little stroll” was just over 8 miles up some steep hills and I did not finish the walk until 8.55pm; it was getting vey dark by then!

This toposcope was at the summit of the walk, Pole Bank on the Long Mynd. None of the hills marked were visible as a thick mist shrouded the hilltop and preventing seeing more than around 100 metres in any direction.

On Sunday morning, my walk featured both Ragleth Hill and Caer Cardoc, both marked here.

Black & White – 2

It’s not often I will post in black & white but I thought I’d make the exception for the weekend.

I wonder if this is Messrs. J.E & F.J. Atkinson themselves? They certainly seem engrossed in the serious business of driving their traction engine. From one of the Great Dorset Steam Fairs. This year’s event will be held on 1st – 5th September – details here.

Black & White – 1

It’s not often I will post in black & white but I thought I’d make the exception for the weekend.

This is a piece of artwork from somewhere in New York. I can’t think where in New York to try to find more information about it but I can recall that it was cold and damp that day; funny what will stick in your mind! From December 2008, I think. I can’t find any of the original images taken from that trip which is bit of shame.

“Abandon hope all ye who enter”

As we come towards the last few months of life in the Mad House, I thought I would share a view of where I spend my days engaged in work of “national strategic importance”. It looks quite nice from the outside, and it is even quite nice in parts of the ground floor and on the 3rd floor (which house the corporate offices and HM’s office). However, money obviously ran out as we moved up through the building and where I am on the 6th floor is probably something Dickens would recognise (well apart from the computers, that is!).

There’s a family connection here; my brother’s company built this entrance way (and thus it explains why the two pillars need to be blocked up on bricks!!). Despite his involvement, it seems to work quite well

At one time, we had both this building and the one in the background but now we occcupy just the one building and parts of that are empty and yet we still have plenty of space. Mad House 2 which we are due to occcupy from November is about a quarter of the size and we’ve been practicing “new ways of working” (ugghhh!!) – i.e cramming one’s lifetime’s pocessions into a storage area the size of a shoe box, clearing the desk each night (takes about 2hrs), getting it all out next morning (another 2hrs) and seeing if we can fit 150 people into a toilet cubicle (although we have been assured that there are sufficient toilets so everyone can each have 30mins a day “private time” in there!! (I wonder if we need to book?).

Luckily, I can do my work anywhere where there’s decent broadband speed. I always refuse to go to meetings because they are generally a complete waste of time – email me, tell me what you want, why you want it and I’ll do it or tell you why I can’t and we’ve already found that the local pub has wi-fi! I usually work one day a week from home and I can see that increasing to around 3 days/week – even I need some time to pick up the office gossip.

Actually, I’m looking forward to going there – my gym is around 200yds from it (and they have wi-fi too!).