A little gem

Found this link on another blog.

http://manvers-street.com/pages/wtf.html

Having fun

Settled in well to bus work. I have to say when it was announced the NX work would be going I did not think I would enjoy Bus work and expected to be working some where else by now. However, the last few months have been good fun.  I do not miss the luggage, hot coaches early starts, motorway delays etc etc., but it will be interesting to see how I feel in 12 months time! Anyway now looking forward to the end of the months when we have a few days away in Bournemouth.

At 6's and 7's (well 4's,1,s and 2's)

Been on lates all this week and it it has been an eye opener. I had the 'last to Bristol' Friday night, the centre of Bristol amazed me To say the least there were plenty of 'distractions'! Also I was surprised at the amount of 'city marshals' and that St John had a small field hospital set up!! After a while I began to think this is a little sad, in that people seem to feel the only way they can entertain themselves is with ten pints of lager inside them, and then expect others to pick up the pieces. Also all the campaigns against smoking I did not see any smokers lying in the middle of the road, being sick on doorways or throwing punches at each other. Perhaps the time has come to focus the same anti smoking type campaigns on drinking. Had the same problem with change with the public once again surpassing themselves with at one stop two £20, one £50!!! and even a credit card (does any bus company in the world take cards?) I politely asked if they would carny that amount amount of change in a Bus in Bristol at 0015. Yesterday was all city work and the first part was  4, 1 and 2's. This is the old 2/4 route broken up. It is a very nice route taking you past most of the Bath landmarks and giving some amazing views of the City. However as a driver you end up wondering 'which way am I going?'
Next week back to earlies which means I should be home by 1430.

Shift work and ankle update

As you know I work shifts. This has advantages and disadvantages. However I have nearly always worked shifts so I have got used to it and I can usually work around the shifts. The only thing I find difficult is attending Church on a Sunday. For example this week I do not finish work until 0030 on Sunday morning and start again at 0500 on Monday. I really would like to attend Church on Sunday morning but common sense says it is probably more important to ensure I have enough rest. I am sure the Lord  understands as I still try and read the Bible and pray. However, what is difficult is to keep up to date on Church happenings. By not attending on a Sunday I do find I sometimes miss out on Church activities. maybe I should suggest an email mailing list or a Facebook group?
For those of you who may be interested my ankle is still attached to my leg! Seriously though it has now been six months since the accident! I still get some pain when the weather is damp and also if I do any very long distance driving. However given the nature of the injury I am thankful just to be able to walk!!

Laptop

As some of you may know I enjoy computers. However I have always been one step behind with technology. I have never worried about this working on the bases that if it works that is fine. Anyway on our return from New Wine I found that the main PC downstairs had died. It appears that when it had been shut down it had 'hung' and somehow lost all the partition on the hard drive. I very rarely make 'impulse' purchase but I had to go to Argos (other shops are available) I found myself looking at the laptops and before I knew it I was leaving the shop with a nice new laptop!! I have now had i for a couple of days and I now know how slow my old PC was!! I can now watch all the iplayers, and everything happens so much quicker and is a hole lot easier. I now have six months to pay for it so rest day working here we come!!

New Wine Finished

Well finally have some time to sit down and review New Wine. This year has been something special, as you know I was a team leader and I have learned so much about myself and about others and just how much can be done if you get a team working well. There has been so much amazing stuff I cannot list it all.We had great fun and it was amazing to see how a young, new team can gel together. We had our share of lost children, lost parents, found children, found parents. I  am finding it hard to list all the amazing things I saw during the two weeks. I had an amazing team which made my role so much easier. To all of them I say 'thank you' for their hard work and support. I had some amazing feedback from delegates saying how impressed they were with how the stewards worked so you can be very proud of yourselves.I think the one thing I will remember was on week 1. We were able as a team to attend the Workers Celebration, this is a time when team members can worship together. As I stood there I saw the whole team worshipping together as one, smiles on their faces, it really brought a tear to my eye.
I had to go back to work on the Sunday so no chance to chill out, good week though with all country work which I enjoy. Off now until Tuesday so enjoying some quite time except there are resurfacing the road outside the house!!

New Wine Week 2

Into the second week of New Wine. First week was manic. We were short of stewards so ended up working from around 0800 up to 0000. I had a very young team some of whom had never been to New Wine, so a steep leaning curve. I  was concerned that given the age of the team we would have problems with some of the tasks, however with the correct guidance and support most exceeded even their own exceptions. The team quickly gelled together and I felt very proud of the way they worked. I hope they take what they have learned here back home with them. I would like to thank all the people who were in my team for all their hard work and support it made my role as team leader a real pleasure.