I am so sick of signing in to websites.
eBay. paypal. ezboard. amazon. flickr. blogger. gmail.
wordpress. orange. the bank account. the savings account. tesco. yahoo. fucking charlie chan.
YES it's me. Just like it was twenty minutes ago. Remember? Or do you have the brain of a goldfish?
bloody things.
Recently, I got to experience the current UK airport security measures first hand, when I flew down from Newcastle Airport to the south of England on business. I thought I was doing well; I was careful to not pack any liquids with greater than 100ml volume, and carried them in a separate transparent bag... But I was scuppered when my scrawny tube of facewash was found to have originally contained 150ml... The security officer dutifully confiscated it! There was only about three blobs' worth for the jobsworth to sling out... I shrugged away, muttering about how rediculous that was, but mindful to not curse any louder than a stage whisper, for fear of the legendary backlash of a bodysearch.
And yet ... Lo! What yonder shop was sited just inside the screens to the departure mall, but a big Boots concession full of all sizes and shapes of toiletries and cosmetics. Coincidence?
And yes, those bottles of soft drinks that folk were made to leave on a table just before the barrier could be replaced in any of two or three shops nearby, at over-inflated prices for the captive passengers.
My return trip was equally tedious; my last appointment was cancelled. This meant that I was dropped off at Heathrow early, five hours before my booked flight. A quick visit to the desk confirmed that if I wanted to fly on the one which left in an hour's time it would cost me about three times the amount which the whole trip had cost ... So I comforted myself with the fact that this airport recently won an award for being the second best airport to be delayed in, or something. Turned out to be ok as long as you liked costas, boots or whsmiths...
Prior to going through security, there was a spotty youth employed to gleefully tell us to make those two bags into one for the scanners - I struggled but one went inside the other. We also had to take shoes off to be x-rayed...
Post-security, after a coffee and a wander, I found an observation lounge giving a fantastic panorama of a very busy take-off runway. It had everything from jumbos to little tiddler ones; the jumbos look really slow and heavy, it's amazing they can take off at all.
I was so bored, I almost bought a book.
Eventually got back to Newcastle and it only took me 5 minutes before I was free and away driving home. Woohoo!
It was only when I got home and started unpacking that I discovered I'd carried a 150ml bottle of flammable alcoholic handrub in a sidepocket to my bag I'd forgotten was there!!!! Oops!!
Yesterday we drove up towards Newcastleton to investigate some standing stones on forest land.
map
Parking at the gate at the eastern end of the plantation, we took the path uphill through the pine plantation. It's a slog of about 1.5 miles uphill, but decent underfoot, and it was a dry, cloudy and windless day. We caught the occasional view of the surrounding landscape between the trees, but it was rare.
On the way up the hill, we passed an interesting collection of amberish blobs hanging from a naked tree. I think it might be some sort of slime mould, but not entirely sure (?).
We were hoping for some larger wildlife, but there were no nibbled pinecones, although there were various different types of poo so there must be something here bigger than a rabbit. There were a couple of large ponds so perhaps check back in the summer as it may well be home to some amphibians.
The area at the top of Windy Edge is boggy and (as you would expect) covered with hidden treestumps and branches. Normal instincts to use the hillocks as dry stepping stones became scuppered when in fact they were rotten chunks of wood!
That said, there was some lovely moss and lichen action, if that's your thing, including treestumps with tiny forests of their own. 
The standing stones (in fact, a ruined circle) were a bit disappointing, as one was well on its way to not being standing anymore, and the other one had won the race by being flat to the ground and about to be swallowed by monster moss. The only evidence that this was once upright was the typical weathering pattern at one end, found on lots of sandstone monoliths. 
The cairns were very, very interesting, hard to illustrate with a photo! We thought at first they were one rediculously long Long Cairn, as the piles of stones were close together to a length of about 100 metres; but there are actually two round cairns too, all in a line. 
One of the stones had a fantastic clump of pinky quartz set in it. 
The weather became brighter as we yomped back downhill. The moss on the path had been rucked up by some sort of foraging beast, perhaps pheasants (but we didn't see or hear any) or maybe just blackbirds...
On the way home we satisfied the requirement for fish & chips I'd been resisting all week! (stayed off the deep-fried mars bar, though.)
I received a phonecall late on Friday night suggesting that I switched on the TV and see the news about a train crash which had just happened about 40 miles south of here.
My family's first thought was for a cousin who was involved with Pendolinos and training the drivers (he was fine, obviously). He was one of the first people to learn how to drive one in this country, and has passed his knowledge on to others.
It was quite impressive seeing reasonably-good pictures coming out of that area near Tebay / Kendal, which is near to one of the few patches on the motorways still difficult to get radio reception. As Friday turned into Saturday and the news-channels' reports got more repetitive (Q: "What can you see of the crash from where you are" - A: "Nothing it's pitch black") so we went to bed and knew by the morning everything would be clearer.
When I saw the pictures, wow! How impressive! Last year I got to travel on one of these Pendolinos and I can say honestly that I felt completely safe (if a little claustrophobic because of non-opening windows).
I've got no problem taking a repeat journey, in fact I am really looking forward to it, and intend to invest in first class. Trouble is, you can't buy any more than 12 weeks ahead (how daft is that?)
And bravo to the driver of the train, and all those who trained him.
(what a strange word "train" is)
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