First trip to Belfast for 2011 today, so an earky start for me, far too early. Straight forward drive to the airport but loads of standing water and fairly heavy rain. The terminal was fairly empty but the queue for security was long, so I paid the £3 to jump the queue.
I realised I had forgotten to bring a pen with me to do the Sudoku puzzle, which the Independents advanced one is my challenge for the 1hr flight. W H Smiths wanted £3 for their cheapest pen which I declined, I did a scout round and found a “Great Britain” pen in the tourist shop for £1.49 so I settled for that one.
The flight was on time but we were bussed to the plane so the speedy board was looking at risk. Easyjet have a cunning strategy for the situation they get only the back doors of the bus opened and ask us to board the bus and move to the front, then at the aircraft they open the front doors first, simple.
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First day back a work today but there is still time to add some birds to the year list. I was up early to get to work in good time, we have been preparing to merge two limited companies for a few months now and today we go live. It was dark when I left the house but much lighter by the time I got to the canal, just in time to see a Kingfisher zip off into the distance. You would be surprised how easy it is to see a kingfisher, you just need to spend some time near water eventually one will turn up. Usually you just see an electric blue flash flying in t straight line about 1-2 feet off the water surface, nothing else looks the same. If you are really lucky you might see one perched. Once at work it turned out not to be the busy day it promised to be, we (in IT ) did our bits then we spend the rest of the day waiting for Finance to do the reconciliation. That means the really busy day will be tomorrow. My window at work has a great view over a field where lots of wildlife can be seen. Today I saw a fox, green woodpecker and a buzzard, which meant that over the day I had added a further 3 birds to the list. The green woodpecker was interesting as usually you see them on the ground eating ants, but this one was in a tree acting more like a Greater Spotted woodpecker. The buzzard was also unusual in that you usually see them up in the air, but this one was one the ground most of the time and flying just short distances. It did that for about 10 minutes, then eventually disappeared. The big storm is on and I am waiting for EZY196, which is delayed. My colleague Paul who is waiting for the flight to Heathrow is also delayed.  Snow dome Last night I went sledging in Milton Keynes at the snow dome. It was a work outing, which the sales depart arranged as a team building exercise and they decided to invite the rest of the office. We were told to be there by 18:30 but in reality we did not need to be there till 19:00 when the sledging was arranged to start. I guess that is OK for those people who always turn up late but penalises the punctual people. We were all split into 4 teams of around 10-11 people, and we then did sledging races on plastic discs with handles each side. The races were all variations on the theme of a relay race, starting with simple one by one just sliding to the bottom then the next one, to the go down and run back up, and then onto everyone in a train.  Everyone at Snow dome Running up the hill reminded me why I gave up sledging to take up skiing, with skiing you get dragged to the top of the hill with no effort. I felt for the smokers amongst us they must have really been suffering. After the “Pink Panthers” were controversially awarded the winners title, we all went to Frankie and Bennies for some fast food. All in all an enjoyable night out with work colleagues, I look forward to what we might do next time sales have a team building exercise, I guess we will have to wait a couple of years to find out. You may remember that earlier this year I posted a blog entry about finding a claw of a Signal Crayfish on the canal tow path on the walk to work. Well this morning I found a whole live one, I have posted a video of the blighter on you tube for you all to see. They are quite vicious so I handled him with care, whilst getting the footage. If I waved a hand above him he raised his claws, and I suspect that he would have nipped me given the opportunity. On the way home I came across a man in an inflatable boat with an electric engine, he seemed to be putting out fisherman’s keep nets. When I asked what he was up to he told me he was catching signal crayfish to turn into bait for fishing with. Apparently the harvest was variable sometime many sometimes only one or two per net. I wished him luck and went on my way. Oh and for the record I had a couple of birding moments today, first a sparrow hawk was chasing a swallow/martin outside my office window, then on the way home two grey heron were chasing each other round and about.  Segoe Hotel I am stuck at the Seagoe hotel in Portadown, Northern Ireland and tonight was my third night. I have been working my way through the menu, I don’t eat meat but I do eat fish so the options can sometimes be limited. On my way home from work today I came across a pigeon that did not fly away as I got close, he/she was really trusting. On closer inspection it was in a poorly state but seemed to be looking for food. I took quick video with my trusty camera and you can see the footage here. My walk to and from work takes me along a strecth of the Aylesbury arm of the Grand Union. The farmers have been recently cutting the grass to make hay and I noticed this morning that this means that the hares have no where to hide, and so it makes them easy to spot. In one filed I saw around 6 or 7 all sat together in a group, in a field next to the A41 Aston Clinton bypass. Stuck at Belfast City I thought I would have one last go at this. As you can tell by this post I was successful. 1. Pair your blackberry to your windows machine, via bluetooth. 2. Set up an Internet APN. Click Start > Settings > Control Panel at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”internet” Click OK. 3. To configure dial-up networking, complete the procedure that is appropriate to the operating system you are using: Click Start
The duck at work is still on the nest, I am getting a bit worried that it might be too long perhaps thee is going to be no hatching at all. According to a website I found it takes 28 days so actually that is imminent. |
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