Welcome to England where, if it snows just once full inch, the entire public transport system will grind to a halt. And this morning I woke up to almost two inches so you can imagine the chaos that’s caused.
There’s no trains to Brighton, the buses are off and it took Katie over an hour to get to work this morning! So I thought I’d get up and see what all the fuss is about.
Walking down to the seafront, there was something of a party atmosphere. All the kids whose schools had been closed were chucking large snowballs encrusted with rocks and glass at each other. I joined in by playing the ‘because it’s snowy I can’t see where all the dog turds are’ game. Fingers frozen and faces aglow the fine people of Littlehampton made the most of the apparent catastrophic transport system failure.
Even this little guy was out enjoying the weather. I spotted him and got a few snaps from a distance, but then he landed right in front of me and proceeded to pose for the camera. Right little show of he was.
So in conclusion, snow is fun and, for some reason, disables 100 tonne express trains.
As close friends will know I made a big move in August, one that saw me packing up my life in Walsall and moving 200 miles to the south coast. The last two-and-a-bit months in Littlehampton have been fun to be sure, but very different to my life in Walsall.
I just want to say a BIG thanks to all the people who’ve made me feel so welcome, and an equally big thanks to friends in Walsall for being so supportive of me moving away. It’s great to have joined a new church, where I’ve been made to feel very at home, but sad to have left behind such a great community.
So, here, are a few highlights from the past two months…
By the way, you can see the full set of photos (in much higher quality) on Flickr
I like a trip to the cinema. The popcorn, the overpriced drinks, the sticky floor. But recently I’ve become a bit dishartend with the whole thing. I still like a good (or bad) film but something has been lacking in my cinema going experience.
That was until Katie took me to the Dome Cinema in Worthing. This place is what cinema’s should be (what they used to be) and a LOT more fun than your local 100 screen mega-max.
For a start there’s a friendly atmosphere, the staff are obviously enjoy their jobs (or at least act like they do). And the whole place just feels different - if cinemas could have the x-factor then this one would have it in spades.
Then there’s the bar - and the fact you can take your drinks in with you. A Big BIG plus from our point of view.
It just feels good to be in the building (no matter what film you’re watching) - like you’re having a real treat in an atmosphere of people who enjoy the same thing as you.
You know what? This sterile corporate shit really isn’t for me - we need more places like the Dome - it’s what makes Britain great!
The weather was warm, the food was amazing and the wine was cheep. After 7 nights in Italy drifting around Lake Garda, being awed (and a little romantic) in Verona and getting (very) lost in Venice the reality of being back to work has hit like a tonne of bricks.
But I prefer to think of the amazing time we had.
As we landed at the tiny Besica airport we realized that the turbulence we had just endured was in fact heavy rain that drenched us as we ran from the plane to the cover of the arrivals lounge. From there we found ourselves sitting in the hire car, rain pounding on the windscreen, trying to get used to the uneasy feeling of sitting in the passenger side with a steering wheel in front of me.
By the time we reached our hotel we’d driven on three motorways and had a tiny disagreement with a barrier. Thankfully the wing-mirror was unharmed and the rain had stopped to reveal blue sky. Things got even better when we got into our room - it was clean, big and had a balcony from which you could see the lake (sort of) through the trees.
We spent the week exploring Lake Garda’s small towns and excellent restaurants, and venturing out to Verona and eventually Venice after planning to go on Wednesday and finally getting there on Friday - Due to a couple of days missing the train. Whoops!
My favorite place by far was Sirmione which was at the end of an tiny outcrop of land that juts into the south end of the lake. We spent an evening at the naturally heated spa followed by dinner at L’Archimboldo run by a really friendly guy who’s English was better than ours. If you’re going to Lake Garda Sirmione is a must.
Venice was amazing. Stepping out of the station, you’re immediately greeted with throngs of people walking up and down the banks of the Grand Canal. Wow!
We took a water taxi up to St. Marks Square and stopped for lunch and some shelter from the hot hot sun before we ventured into St Mark’s Basilica and mooched around the Square, avoiding the millions of pigeons that randomly landed on anyone they fancied, whether they had food or not.
We then set off around the labyrinth-like city on foot, exploring the seemingly unending passageways and tiny bridges. Needless to say we got horribly lost, and only just made our train back to the hotel. But I loved Venice, a day was just not enough.
In usual style, I took nearly 700 photos - and you can see some of them over at flickr. Oh well.. Back to reality I suppose.
I’ve been involved in Kidz Klub (admittedly on and off) in Coalpool for a while now, and this year I got to design the boards we use as a backdrop to the games and stuff we do with the local kids.
I’ve loved working with the whole team over the last couple of years, and all credit to Esther, Sarah and the guys for the sterling work they do.
Unfortunately, we’re up against it as Walsall Council in their wisdom have decided to stop charging us the £20 per week rent we used to pay and increase it to £100! How nice of them. Obviously the KK needs to keep going, so any fundraising ideas (or indeed donations) are gratefully received.
I put together the original design in good old Fireworks, the scale was a little off tho.. whoops!
The design was then transferred onto the boards using a combination of bits of string, pencils and one massive ruler. Hannah then got to work painting…
The finished thing (although not quite the same as the original) turned out alright… Dee provided some lamiate stickers for the 4 points (which looked awsome, thanks Dee).
Sunday saw me and Katie meeting half-way between our two home towns in Oxford (yeah, long distance relationships are a bitch). And man, the weather for late September was amazing! So off we trottled on the open top bus, and had a day of touristy-magic. Including a trip to the Turf Tavern, a pub which was unsurprisingly full of American tourists and Oxford students not having the kind of conversations that I remember from University.
But not just that, oh no, not me and Katie! We went all out crazy-go-nuts on the tourist trail stopping off at the Oxford Story a trip back 900 years into Oxford history, and then (much to Katie’s delight) a bit of shopping at Alice’s Shop.
But, I think the pinnacle of the day was Oxford Castle Mound. Not that the mound itself was that amazing, just a lot of dirt, but the security system for keeping people who’d not paid the one pound entry fee was pretty much state of the art.
To get on the mound you first have to go in the shop and buy yourself a ticket. Upon exiting the shop you then make your way to the mound itself. Before ye can pass, ye must buzz the buzzer on the 5′ (possibly electrified) gate. Then, when your identification has been verified using a series of voice and DNA checks, the gate is opened electronically.
As we came down the mound we passed a guy who’d obviously missed the sign that said “this mound cost’s a pound” and was chased down by the huge guy who worked in the shop. I wouldn’t have liked to get on the wrong side of him.
So was the mound worth a pound? Well, we damn well made sure we got our monies worth! A whole 30 minutes we sat on the mound. It was quite a moving experience.
Okay, maybe not a tan but you can certainly see the sun-burn line on my neck thanks to a groovy new haircut. What a week I’ve had in sunny (aka drizzly) Littlehampton, home of my No.1 lady-fan who also took a few well earned days off work.
So back at work again and last week feels a million miles away. This coupled with the impending winter and uncertainty about my future finds me in a melancholy mood this morning readers. Where oh where has our summer gone? Only a few weeks ago we were set for another heat-wave, and now we’re facing the arse end of August and hurtling towards colder weather faster than a greased-up fat man on a steep hill.
Perhaps it’s also because I’m moving out of my house that I’ve been in for six months this weekend. Admittedly I haven’t been there much, but I enjoyed my time at Drayman Close.
So all this leaves me feeling like I’m hanging on my the skin of my teeth, waiting for this storm to pass and coming to the realisation that I have no-one to blame but myself. Maybe it’s post holiday blues, but I suspect that’s just a contributing factor. I’ve felt God in all of this, I have had people I didn’t expect shore me up at times, and for that I’m very thankful.
So where now? What now? I guess I’ll just have to find out…
On my Friday lunchtime stroll in Lichfield park today I was surprised to find a whole load of Cowboys and Cowgirls gathered in tents, tee-pees, motor-homes and caravans for the Wild West Weekend. Ok, so Lichfield isn’t in the Midlands, but it’s near enough. Besides it’s a clever title right? Right??
I love Lichfield for stuff like this, we’ll randomly get interesting things in the park, but this has to be one of the most surreal ones I’ve seen to date. Especially the shootout at the OK Corral, where two guys shoot at metal targets about half a metre in-front of them
Wish I’d have had my camera with me rather than just my phone, those guys shooting stuff would’ve made some pretty cool pictures. Oh well, just thought I’d tell you about the random craziness that is occurring this weekend. If you’re interested, get down there. It’s on til Sunday apparently.
Oh, and I resisted the lure of the Coca-Cola today!
I work in a little village just outside of Lichfield called Kings Bromley. Usually it’s a sleepy little place, the local pub only opens 4 days a week. But yesterday afternoon, I looked up from my desk to see this…
Within minutes our usually quiet little lane had become packed with cars and people all clammering to get a look at what apparently was a major event for Kings Bromley. By now the fire had spread beyond what you can see in the photo, but I decided that if I didn’t get out now, I may never leave. Not because of the fire (although it was massive, and the noise it made was awesome) but just the shear volume of people.
When I (eventually) pulled on to the main road, and made my way back along past the fire there was about 20 cars stopped trying to get a glimpse of what was going on. By now there were about 6 fire engines, plus some guy with a vat of water on a trailer (I dunno what he thought he could do with that).
This morning there was no sign of the festival like atmosphere of last night, just a sad smouldering mess in the top field. Still, I guess the ground will be mega fertile now…
Update: As the fire damaged the power-lines, I got the afternoon off!
according to the Wayback Machine roobottom dot com is 5 years old, erm, yesterday! Given my lack of posting lately, it’s surprising I remembered at all, but being just a single day late is pretty good going I think.
While we’re on the subject of posting, give Steve’s Webcam a look, you may at first glance think “this is just a webcam of a random back garden” and you’d probably be right, but if you’re into piles of wood or indeed when he does get the archives working on the offical site you can probably spot me getting out of the car at around 3.30pm yesterday (9th July)… Then you’ll, you know, love it.
OK, sorry, but that’s it again for now. Why? Simply because I don’t feel like writing much at the moment. I know I must be disappointing litterely tens of fans, but you guys will have to cope without me for a while. sorry.
