Roland's Slab Laying Lesson (AKA Puma Program Ofice Community Day at PARC Essex)
This year's community project was to help finish a path.
Arrival was 0830 (well....except for Sean and Roland). First thing first - a bit of standing around and then quite soon after, a tea break
Soon after this was second tea break with breakfast - thank you Paul!!
Things were going well, Kieran danced whilst Mark pointed at stuff. Angela made a cracking job on the garden front and for reasons unknown to me, Twiggy mooned us all.
If Twiggy was not mooning us, he was doing his favourite hobby of puns. This is a piece of classic Twiggy:
The LL6 team then went 'tilt testing' in the GCP:
The first slab was layed - it was agreed (a rare thing amongst FMC employees) that it was a little low!!
Tea break 2 was taken and the Roland of the Drew arrived (apparently he went to see a man about stacking cars).
Roland was a one man slab laying machine. He had a 'system' - a long heavy piece of timber. Slab laying paced improved - not quite to the pace 'that a man can walk at' but not far off. The rain started and by lunch we were wet. Thanks to Angela for lunch - and happy birthday.
Kieran had recently attended a health and safety course.
Mark 'finessed' whilst Ian refused to spin Angela and Roland laid the last slabs.
There was a major pile up of various vehicles, but no injuries:
All finished and a team photo (less Twiggy, who was wet and Darren, who was in theory, on vacation)
Full pics here
More videos here
Cool new feature!!!
The etribes boys n girls have come up with another great feature.......music with your pictures!! Never realised how much a bit of music can bring pictures to life!!!
This is how you do it:
From your start page, click photos and then click into the actual album you want to add music too. Then, you should see a little link under 'slideshow' saying 'add music' - easy as that!!!
Kate Nash Concert - September 07, 2007
Friday night was scheduled to be a boring night in: cleaning the oven - trying to make it slightly more presentable to potential tenants.However....after the second layer of 'Mr Muscle' i received a text 'a spare ticket for the Kate Nash gig tonight at 2100'. An hour and a half later (after the most exhilarating motorbike ride), i was stood in the Bloomsbury Ballroom.
A great concert, but 50% of the audience insisted in talking, screaming at friends and generally making a lot of noise... ..it was actually hard to hear the words!!
Number 10
Number 10 is now mine....the 'Sold' board is finally down after almost 15 months after first going up!!!
10 days later
10 days after not finishing the walk i have finally started on the drugs and iceing of the ankle.....it hurts!
Thanks to mum, you can check out my name tag on my toe......these socks are from about 1993!!
Monday August 27, 2007
Up at 0800 and it was decided that, where possible, we would take short cuts….the plan was to get to Manningtree - Harwich was out of the question.
Eye inspection was the first on the agenda:
I was beggining to get worried about my eyes....were mine there?
The day started cooler and the knowledge that a shower was only a few hours away spurred us on. The pain was really kicking in. However, the pain we were suffering never came at the same time….when I was crying for my Mum, Nance would be jumping stiles, running and generally talking faster than I can listen. When Nance was in pain (not talking) I took refuge and savoured the quiet time - occasionally chuckling about the 'smoking dogs on leads' joke. We are both very competitive…..we knew when the other was down and made them suffer more! Nancy was having muscle spasms in her leg which caused her to unintentionally 'high kick'.....this was almost as funny as the smoking dog jokes!!
In some of my lowest moments, Nancy decided to sing - just to rub in how bad things were!
Another amusing sign...i know what it means, but have no idea why.....
Over the A12, into Dedham and tea and cakes at the local church.
On a high point near Lawford, we could see the sea (well, the river Stour). This, in my eyes, was the coast and the fact that we would be 13 miles short of our goal, we had still walked from Epping to the coast.
We heard the Manningtree railway crossing signal and attempted to speed up to make the train. We eneded up catching a later one! A chance to sit down….but not for long as we walked to the bus stop and home.
The 'Pain Relief' section in Sainsbury's was a wonderful sight!
Injury count - Blisters, tendonitis and spasms.....oh, and lots of general pain.
Wild animal count – no new ones.
Fruit stolen - none
Text messages - Clearly i was the winner and we stopped counting!!!
Mileage - 13 (67 total, 13 to go...another adventure at a later date)
