Category: Uncategorised

Location: Carradale

Where?

Carradale. Scotland. Find Glasgow. Follow the M8 up to and across the Erskine Bridge. Past Loch Lomond on the A83. To Tarbet. Turn left. Head west. A lot. Arrive at Tarbert. Keep going. Don’t stop until civilisation is a distant spot somewhere on the horizon behind you.

Rain here isn’t an inconvenience. It allows houses to advertise that they have running water. Broadband is something “Townies” have. Hell, dial-up is a revelation. And what I’m using. Grr.

As for the roads. Wow. OK, so they’re narrow. They wind. They’re dangerous. But by hell, they’re fun! And no speed cameras. They’d be a bit pointless – there’s nowhere you can go fast enough to set one off. Still, some crash barriers would be nice. Those ditches, fields and huge precipices look far too inviting at times.

Up here for the night dropping Elly off with her folks and amazingly stupid/cute dog. Back home via Glasgow tomorrow. I might even get a night at home. Woo.

Well, time to finish my bottle of Dog then settle down and watch Auf Wiedersehen, Pet that Elly’s parents kindly taped for me last night. See you on the flip side. If I don’t run out of fuel before I reach the border tomorrow.

Incidentally, I’ve done some checking. The site I was at the day I got caught on that speed camera tell me I left site at 10:51am. This is according to their security logs. After I left, I headed home via Gloucester’s ring road. This takes me nowhere near the A449 though I have used that road in the past when I’ve been heading home from Swansea, Cardiff, etc. Basically, places off the M4 which Lydney isn’t.

The thieving, money-grabbing ******** (sorry “speed camera enforcers”) reckon they caught me doing 85mph near Llandenny at 12:19. Sorry, but at that time, I’d have been somewhere approaching the M5/M6 junction, I reckon. Bear this in mind – I finished on site at 10:51. The next day I had a ticket for a match in Wolverhampton and I live in Bradford. Neither of these destinations (I did, incidentally, head right home and drove down to Wolves the followign morning) would require me to be anywhere near the A449 at that time unless I got well lost, which I can confidently say I didn’t.

Whistle-stop tour of the UK over the last couple of week. I went from Dover to Glasgow in one fell swoop. Saw my lovely little cousin for a couple of days and spent far too much money on her, but she’s the closest I have to a little sister or a daughter and she’s worth every penny!

I then headed even further north to pick Elly up. She lives in some far-flung place called Campbelltown near the Mull of Kintyre (old hippies may have heard of this courtesy of Paul McCartney’s old band. The one that’s not the Beatles). From there, we visited Gloucester and London, then the NEC as I drove round with work. Basically, she needed a break and to see something other than fog, sea and sheep.

It’s currently 3pm-ish on Sunday and I’ll be heading off to Glasgow again in a couple of hours. Another job to do and an Elly to return home. Then Lincolnshire. And Wales the week after next *sigh*

Aside from that, I left a bag at my hotel in London. D’oh! Staff are kindly sending it up to me, but this does mean having to fork out for the postage. Just some things I bought when I was down there.

Anyway, short but sweet entry. I had other stuff to whinge about but will leave it till I have more time!

In Deal, about 8 miles NE of Dover at the moment. Working for Geest tomorrow with a chap called Gary who got lost on the way here. Nice hotel, although the sound was a little crap on Sky Sports 2 (well done Boro, by the way. But don’t expect an easy second leg) but let’s face it – Playboy TV is pretty awful. I mean, what’s the point in porn when you can’t see anything?

My current question is whether to go on a booze cruise to France after work tomorrow. Nice to say I’ve been, but I just got back from somewhere where Black Label Smirnoff was going for £6 a litre.

That bit below was all done on Sunday morning. I was due home about 3pm on Sunday. I got home at 5pm on Monday. I’ve missed a garage appointment, a dental appointment, a football match (about to go watch it down the pub despite having a ticket) and a whole day of time. And predominantly due to the weather and the inneptitude of Neilson’s management staff.

Due to snowfall and a broken snowplough, the usual route from Plas De La Casa to Toulouse was impassable. Another route is available – through Andorra, into Spain and back up. This would mean an additional 3 hours on the journey. Bear in mind that as we couldn’t get to the airport, the people who arrived there couldn’t get onto the resort, so the rooms we’d just left were vacant. The coach we were on was the one they’d need to reach them.

A decision was made – after we’d been in the coach for 3 or so hours, to head further down Spain to Barcelona airport. A hotel was booked and a flight arranged at lunchtime the next day. Time to Barca – maybe 2 hours.

Time taken to Barca – 8 hours.

The driver didn’t have a clue where he was going. The hotel was on the Costa Brava, a good two hours past Barca. And the driver kept telling the rep “another 15-20 minutes”, which is what she told us. 12 sodding hours on a coach. One meal break at a service station run by the world’s most rude services attendant, and with virtually no cash left from the week.

The dinner promised when we arrived at the hotel that evening was stone cold. Not surprising as we got there after 2:00am. To cap it all, we were up at 6:00am to get the bus back to the airport.

I can only say the reps were superb. But whoever made the decisions – and the coach driver – were a bunch of useless *******. Letter of complaint in its way…