About Me

Larbert, Scotland, United Kingdom

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Growing pains?

At lunchtime today we had some small pondering about when was grown up - 21, 22, 23, 24 or is it not age related?? This discussion included the 4 pillars of grown-up-ness - car, live in life partner (we are very PC), mortgage, proper job.

The main reason for the discussion was that most of us are now approaching having 3 of the above, some lucky ones having all 4. but we don;t necessarily feel properly grown up. Maybe this all changes next week when we get paid and we have responsibilities....or maybe its a gradual process or morphing from students to adults.

Thoughts?

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Hospital

Running on Monday night on C4 at9pm.

It's factual, accurate and sadly likely to end up reflecting a chunk of my life from now on....

See here on 4OD (until end of August)

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-hospital/4od

It's also annoying enough to make you want to shout at the TV.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Bridging a gap


DSC02525, originally uploaded by djw1981.

On Thursday I was across in Fife seeing a friend for a meal, and on my way to kill time I stopped off at North Queensferry, and took this picture of the Forth bridge.

A Saturday off

Today is an interesting day. The first Saturday in ages when my diary was empty all day. i had a few 'could do' things but nothing I 'had' to do. I then checked back to find this was my first free Saturday since the end of revision, and going back before that, thus my first free Saturday since October 2009. So almost nine months.

And what have I done with this bonus thus far? Well.........I fell asleep reading the Saturday paper, woke up, listened to the 'Now Show' live instead of on podcast; went for a wander round Glasgow and the Merchant city festival, had a nice coffee and am contemplating what to have for tea at a sensible time.

Normal service is resumed next Saturday with doing sound for an event, the following week is the Fringe, the one after I'm at camp, then working my first weekend and at the fringe again to round off August!

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Time to move on

The first part of moving on has happened i guess.

Graduation has happened, GMC numbers and certificate have been received, induction dates and details have been receved, and I am slowly turning my flat into something more like ahome after 18 months of being an extension of a library.

After getting a safestore unit in june, i have moved all my notes from my first degree and years 1-3 of medicine togetehr with old receipts, camping stuff and even my christmas decorations into the safestore box. This has left me room to get all my books onto my bookshelves and leave my desk and table free to eat from!!

I even bought my first CD racks, after ten years of owning CDs (I thought I'd see if they stuck around before investing in a storage solution) and was so happy with it I even bought one for my DVD's. this tidy up and organisation hopefully makes my flat look less like a students work area and more like a relaxing living room. i can;t help thinking though that when I sort out my new fridge freezer and some new kitchen flooring the flat will look a bit more homely and less studenty.

Still one step at a time.

Holidays and delays

I thought I had posted this last week but it seems i clicked 'save as draft'
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Just back from holiday in Gibraltar. Though the journey back seemed almost as long as the holiday. going out we were beset by a 4hour delay at Edinburgh airport due to Spanish and French air traffic controllers strikes. they don't actually walk out, just reduce the number of planes they control so they cause inconvenience but still get paid (please note BA cabin crew etc). This meant a whole 3hrs sleep at Gatwick before getting up for the early morning flight on to Gibraltar which was a mere 45 minutes late (same reason as above).

Gibraltar was nice and surprisingly for a small peninsula half filled with a huge rock there was quite a bit to do, including a chunk of sitting in the sun on a beach or by a pool reading a book. We even spent some time on top of the rock watching planes coming into land and the connected road closures - the main road runs across the runway at the airport. Whilst up the rock, one of the resident apes also stole my brother-in-law's ice cream, much to his displeasure.

The day we arrived had been misty and muggy but the Sunday through Friday were clear bright hot days. there must be something to do with travel for the Saturday we were coming home dawned overcast and windy. We got to the airport early (Dad aims for 15 minutes before check in opens) and checked in before heading through to the small departure lounge, which rapidly filled up with passengers for three flights back to the UK - easyjet, monarch and BA. all were showing a 40 minute delay. Just at the time the first plane was due down, we got an announcement saying that due to the wind and poor visibility, the easyjet and BA flights were diverting to Malaga airport.

15 minutes later they announced that BA would be attempting another landing in 30 minutes but that Easyjet had cancelled their flight and we should all queue up for a new flight. a rapid sprint back to the check in area saw us join the long queue to rearrange flights. We managed to get seats on the 2230 from Malaga (it was about 1300 at this point0, but with self arranged transport to malaga airport. the airport staff advised that the express bus did not run on Sundays so our choice was a taxi at 150Euro. This we did and arrived after visiting a Spanish cashpoint and being forced to decide if my debit card was 'Current account', 'savings account' or 'credit account'. Turned out that it only gave me money if I clicked 'credit account', so I assume that is what I have.

Malaga airport is soul-less devoid of character, devoid of shops and aimed solely at budget airlines and the charter market. As was becoming a common pattern, the 2230 flight left at 0030 next day allowing me some time to book a room at the Gatwick Hilton - their last remaining room. The minor issue being that I wanted it for 3 - myself and my sister & brother-in-law. The room was allegedly a 'compact family room' with a double bed and 2 bunk beds, but Hilton said it could only sleep 2 adults and adults could not use the bunk beds. Aye right. After checking in around 3am, we found that the lower bunk suited me fine.

Next morning we headed over to the terminal to check in for the Easyjet 1500 flight to Edinburgh. Which suddenly flicked on the online departure screen to 'contact airline' whilst still being open for check in at the airport. a quick sprint to the airline desk confirmed that it was in fact cancelled. The next Edinburgh seats were Wednesday, but they had Glasgow seats at 2100 but no guarantee that the plane would run. As we pondered the cost of rail tickets or car hire, I called BA and managed to get us 3 seats on the 2100 BA to Edinburgh (where the car was). After another 8 hours in Gatwick, we took off almost on time and made it safely back to Edinburgh.

Time to dust down my travel insurance claim forms now and write the story with supporting evidence for them.