Tryfan Troubles

Bruised and achy today thanks to funtimes climbing Mt. Tryfan near Llyn Ogwen on Saturday. We took a path directly up the crags, then had lunch at the top, then came down a slate gully to make it a very short distance walk, but a high effort adventure! We even saw mountain creatures. Goats or sheep, not sure which. On Sunday it was much less active for me as I was just a slightly cold observer of our friends doing some rock climbing. Nice to have a shorter drive than on our previous jaunt to the Lakes with same friends, but I still conked out somewhere on the A5, and only woke up at Telford. Heck, it makes the journey seem shorter.
Last week was a mixture of different activities: library, Excel training, charity shopping, and a major tidy up of the garage. Pooped by the end of it. Still no full time work - come on employers, it's been six months since I last had a full time job! I'm great - hire me!
Phototime!

Cue silly poses.

Mountain creature.

Tryfan from below

Climbing the crack

Llyn Ogwen

Back here again

After three weeks taking phonecalls for a local visitor attraction, I'm back on the job hunt. I've not been doing it full time since the design firm went quiet. Four applications in currently. Hopefully this will lead to some more interviews. In the meantime, have had lots going on in the evenings. We saw the new Bond film, and liked it. Tap classes are going well - still enjoying it. Musical theatre has been a bit wonky because the MD hasn't been around, but we had a good session last week.

Over the weekend, I headed up to the Lake District and saw Blackwell Arts and Crafts House, which is a superb building. On Sunday I walked up the fells at the south end of Coniston and had great views across the surrounding area: sea to one side, and snowy mounts to the other. M6 is a nuisance, though we did see some fireworks from the car window. This weekend will bring visits to Gloucester and the Rainbow in Digbeth. Further invitations for coming weeks include the Christmas market, a trip to Llyn Ogwen and also to the Hollywood Costume exhibit at the V&A museum. Anyone fancy giving me a lottery win?  

Blackwell Arts and Crafts House

Coniston

View across Coniston to the Old Man

The sea!

Lake District hills, with Grizedale Forest

Links
Blackwell Arts and Crafts House
Hollywood Costume exhibit
Birmingham Christmas Market
The Rainbow

Somewhere in Shropshire

Returned from a weekend in Shropshire - it was sunny yesterday and foggy today. I even managed to get some photos of the countryside while out hunting geocaches. Driving there from the Midlands is interesting - very very twisty turny roads if you aren't using the motorway to get there. We even managed to gatecrash a party yesterday, quite by happy accident. It made a change from answering phones and making bookings all week for a very busy local tourist attraction!

House on the left from 1509, and a Norman Church

Autumn

Autumn is most certainly here! It is cold, the radiators are on, there are squirrels everywhere, and the trees are suddenly ablaze with multicoloured leaves. It even hailed today! It is all a reminder of this time last year, when we were living in Vancouver, and seeing the best and worst that Autumn could throw at us. We invested in heavy-duty raingear: Vancouver shops are full of it - casually making light of the Pacific Northwest tendency for incredibly wet weather! We also had beautiful, cloud-free, bright days that just made everything gleam.

Having had a look through last year's blog posts to find appropriately Autumnal Vancouver pictures, it is quite odd to find that I am in the same position again - unemployed, seeking work. Hopefully this will change soon, but for now I am keeping busy with temporary positions. Useful for finding out about new workplaces, meeting new people and getting some money in the coffers. So, Vancouver pictures can be found here: http://www.adamdaisyadventure.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/keeping-busy.html .

Another 'keeping busy' task today was helping to set up this new website: www.agh-electrical.co.uk. This is the website for AGH Electrical - local Electricians in the South Birmingham and Solihull areas, registered and inspected by the NICEIC (National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation Contracting). Friendly, trustworthy and with their own set of promises! 

Links
Vancouver blog
AGH Electrical

Bad blogger

Bad blogger indeed. Apologies for the total lack of updates. It really is appallingly bad. However, I guess I can say it is down to having some additional temporary work. It is great to be busy, though it is not permanent. The duckpond job didn't happen, unfortunately.

However, having the odd weekday free does allow for pursuit of some additional fun activities: yesterday we went out to Earlswood woods to find geocaches! The first one was so well hidden we didn't succeed in finding it, but managed three more and another after lunch. Geocaches, for the uninitiated, are small, hidden items that you use GPS coordinates to find. On smartphones there are applications that list these hidden items that you then use a map, hints and a compass to locate. Hints yesterday included 'step' and '12 trunk tree'. The one that was 'magnetic' was brilliant: hidden upside down inside a road barrier! Nobody but a geocacher would have any idea it was there. If one gets removed, there's nothing of particular value, and therefore not a huge loss. Good fun.

Friday was The Wizard of Oz at the Crescent Theatre, Saturday was spent planting seedlings in Malvern, and Sunday was a trip to the Electric Cinema to see Untouchable - absolutely great.

Do you know any children aged between 7-16, interested in singing and dancing? If so, they are invited to audition to take part in Queensbridge Musical Theatre Society's performance of The Wizard of Oz at the Solihull Arts Complex theatre between 18-22 June 2013. The date of the audition is Saturday 20 October 2012. For more details, please contact Sabrina Handy on 07917333915 or sjhandy2382@gmail.com. Rehearsals will take place weekly in Kings Heath. 

And now for some more jobhunting - just as tricky as geocaching!

Links
Geocaching
Crescent Theatre
Untouchable at the Electric Cinema

What it is to be tired

Gordon Bennett, I'm tired. We had a whistlestop jaunt in Devon this weekend, meeting and partying with family, playing in rockpools and a well-earned pub dinner, a mile or two from the village of Nomansland! I kid you not. We barn-danced, which was hilarious. We held live crabs - they tickle! We (I) found a sandwormy-fishy thing while building a small sandcastle of great potential. We looked at a hermit crab, and hoped that another, larger, crab wouldn't exemplify the wild outdoors when confronted with a trapped fish.

We made friends with the cats at the Mitre pub, and admired the satisfying honk of an old car horn, and the toot of a bugle, relics from the wall of the pub. (Good job she couldn't reach the scythe...) The B&B was superb. Lovely hostess, great house, absolutely fab veggie breakfast, and she produces the most amazing wicker basketwork. We all left wanting to come back for the class! We even saw an owl on the way... and thank goodness for satnav systems...

All that in two days. And now I've got some temp work for the week - the early finish is nice, particularly as it is fairly close to home. The interview at 5.15 yesterday was a challenge after a day of work though! (But it had a duckpond...)

Two Moors Way B&B Link

Google Analytics

Just been experimenting with Google Analytics... hopefully I'll be tracking all sorts of things on here now! I haven't been the most proliferate correspondent recently though... It is tricky to find the subject matter when days are filled with hosting, feeding and seeing relatives, or in pursuit of work. (No news yet - boo!) However, I did manage to conquer a few of the Malvern Hills at the weekend. Perseverance, Pinnacle, Third Land and almost to British Camp. Good fun gadding about with family.