That was the week that was

Well, here we are, it's Friday and everything is quiet so I thought I'd add a few words during lunch.

I've had the pleasure of spending 2 days in our county town of Trowbridge this week. It's quite an interesting place to go, it's history dates back to well before the 12th century. In more recent times, it was a mill town, and quite a wealthy one if the sizes of some of the properties is anything to go by. However, the town centre is slightly blighted by the nearby sausage factory belonging to Pork Farms Bowyers. The locals have complained for years about the smell of cooking coming out of the factory chimneys and although the company have gone to great lengths to minimise the smell, on a warm day with the wind in the right direction it's nearly enough to put you off your BBQ.

Why was I in Trowbridge - well, I had a couple of client meetings to discuss their requirements for a web presence. Lucky old me!

As for the rest of the week - NASA finally managed to get it's latest mission to Mars off the launch pad. After a couple of cancellations, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was finally on its way, ETA March 2006. Perhaps it will help explain what happened to our ill-fated Beagle 2 mission in 2003.

In another good news story for space, the European heavy lift rocket, Ariane 5 successfully launched the heaviest ever communications satellite in to earth orbit. This 6.5 tonne beastie is destined to assist global corporate communications. Dunno why they need it - can't the bosses just shout a little louder?

Of course, it could not be all good - NASA have decided to ground the shuttle whilst they try to solve this issue of the main fuel tank shedding foam. The next launch (Atlantis) was scheduled for September but NASA now say that nothing will happen until November at the earliest - of well.

My heart goes out to those poor people at Heathrow airport. A wildcat strike by a catering company has brought the airport to its knees. Illegal secondary action by other Heathrow staff have meant that British Airways has had to cancel all of its flights and many other airlines are suffering knock on effects. I actually feel sorry for the passengers and BA, the actual action is through no fault of theirs and yet they have to suffer the brunt of militant union action. Hmmmm...one can almost hear the cry "Bring back Maggie Thatcher - this wouldn't have happened in her days".

And last, but by no means least, the England cricket team manage a great score against Australia (currently the world's best cricket team). Let's hope the bowlers can build on an impressive start by our batsmen and make this another memorable victory, taking the series score to 2-1 in our favour.

Well, that's it for now, I need to go and get some more work done, hope you all have a great weekend.

Cheerio

The Shuttle has landed

So, the space shuttle has safely returned to mother earth - after a delay of a day. NASA say it had to come down today otherwise the crew would have run out of food -and more importantly, their air purifiers would have run down their essential supplies leading to a build up of carbon dioxide.

So, a heartfelt "welcome home" to the crew of the shuttle and a hearty congratulations to NASA for returning to space. Of course, the big question will be - when is the next launch? NASA will tell you that they need to resolve the issue of chunks of foam arbitrarily detaching themselves from the external fuel tank. Well, I have a solution - why not just make a gigantic condom and roll it down over the external tank prior to launch. Of course, the thin rubber ones that are available over the counter wouldn't be up to the job - no matter how stretch and extra-large they are but surely something could be fashioned out of carbon fibre?

Anyway, that's enough for today - there have been more posts to this blog over the past week than over it's whole earlier life - my little fingers are plain tuckered out from all this typing.

See ya later peeps.

August weekend

Well, that's the end of the weekend, and what a busy weekend it proved to be, exploration and picnics with the children.

On Saturday we went to the nearby Savernake Forest, home to 1,000 year old oak trees. The Big Belly Oak is probably the oldest and it's rumoured that if one were to dance naked 12 times around the tree that the Devil himself would be summoned. Sadly, were I to dance naked anywhere I think the area would be vacated immediately, the Devil would hide his head in shame and I'd probably be carted off to the local loony bin (insane asylum)

After picnic food, snacks, dessert and an all essential cup of coffee we set off to explore a tiny portion of this ancient woodland. Sadly, the wildlife appeared to be hiding - although I did see a deer from the car when we were leaving. However, despite this lack of wildlife, everyone enjoyed themselves and the girls and I had a great game of hide and seek amongst the trees.

Sunday took us further afield. First we visited Stonehenge, the ancient stone circle that has its origins deep in the past, 3,000 yrs BC. Of course, we don't know really what it's purpose was but it is truly a magnificent and stunning piece of work, and testimony to the ingenuity of the people who moved stones (some weighing over 40 tons) hundreds of miles and then erected them in to the design we know today.

From there we drove to the lesser know Woodhenge. This dates back to 2300 BC. However, because it was comprised of wood, much less is known about the design or it's purpose and consequently, like Stonehenge, it remains shrouded in history. Because it's a lot less popular than Stonehenge - less to see so less attractive, we chose this as our location for our second picnic of the weekend. Again, standard picnic fayre of sandwiches and salad.

Moving on from Woodhenge, we went on a crop circle hunt. Wiltshire is home to a wide range of crop circles annually and Alison had heard of a particularly complex circle near Alton Barnes. This was actually a star shape with Aztec type marking on the inside. After a climb up a steep hill, we found a location which overlooked this complex design.

On the way home we passed through another ancient site, the stone circles of Avebury. En route to Avebury, we passed yet another design cut in to a cornfield. This was a more swirly pattern, but none the less interesting for that.

Avebury is the largest stone circle in Europe and pre-dates even Stonehenge. Even less is known of its purpose, but - like Stonehenge - it is believed to have some religious purpose.

After that, we took a leisurely drive home, in wonder and awe at the ancient history that lies on our doorstep. We often are so eager to explore exciting towns and cities that we are apt to overlook the history on our doorstep. The danger is that we see it every day (metaphorically speaking) and tend to take it for granted. With ancient sites like Stonehenge and Avebury comfortably less than 45 minutes from home, it is dangerous to make such assumptions. To do so would be to remain in ignorance of some of the most significant artifacts of ancient Britain.

Summer 2005

Welcome to what is one of an infrequent range of updates.

In my last post, I expressed uncertainty over my job - well - happily for me I was able to keep my position, sadly for one of my collegues, they had to accept redundancy.

More bad neww was that my lovely little Honda Coupe expired. Head gasket failure and other associated issues meant that it was too expensive to repair. If the time had been available, it's something I could have undertaken myself but, ole father time just was not kind enough so i had to "splash out" on a bit of a runabout. Never mind, this red Mondeo goes well enough, has more space for the family and is kinder on my back. Not such a sporty little number tho...oh well.

In the news we saw England awarded the 2012 olympics...hoooray...but we saw the increase in terrorism hit the streets of London. Having lived through the attrocities commited in the name of a free Ireland, this is something I despair of.

It was brought home to me very recently because we took our eldest daughter to the railway station in town - she was returning to Wales. At the station, we saw fully armed police (not just hand guns but fully automatic weapons) patrolling the platforms. It was both reassuring but also a little chilling in that it really brought the realism of the terroist threats from London down to our front door.

So, we live in fearful times, we have to place our trust with those in authority in the hope that they are able to keep us safe!

Be good, be careful, be safe.
Andy - signing off for now.