Pain & Strain

Well, what an enjoyable little break that was. I've been back a week now following our trip home to Devon. Stayed for 7 days at my Mum & Dad's in Teignmouth. Every day was a hectic social whirl (bar the first Monday, which involved appointments with our dentist in Dawlish). Managed to catch up with our many friends by nipping out for drinks, meals etc. It now seems a long, long time ago. I had planned to update this blog during last week but on my 2nd day back at work (Tuesday) I managed to strain my back. Following the failure to materialize of my allocated minibus (I still don't know where it got to!) I was instructed to take a vehicle stationed on the annexe at Workington bus station. As the air temperature was about 1 degree above freezing it was not a good day to be given a vehicle in which the heater was non-functional. After 2 hours driving this mobile fridge the fact that my core body temperature was lower than a snake's belly surely contributed to the pulling of the muscle as I reached to retrieve my driver's bag from below the seat. I continued to drive to the end of my shift but I'd completely seized up by the following morning. I've had to take 3 days off, something I was loath to do with this being a new job, to try and recover. Fortunately last week's rest days were Sat. & Sun. and the first of this week's is Mon. Hopefully I'll be fit for duty on Tuesday (4.25 am start!) As a consequence of this malaise today is the first time I've been able to sit in my computer chair for more than 2 minutes at a time. I've put a couple of photo's on from sunny Devon, as well as one I took today in not-so-sunny Cumbria!

Busman's Holiday!

Yeeeesssss! Sixteen, yes, sixteen days off. At long last I am on the "proper" rota at work. I can now at least make some sort of fist of planning my life a good distance ahead. The fact that the next 3 trainees have passed their tests and completed their route learning means that they move on to the "All Duties" rota allowing me to move to the minibus rota. Having a line on the rota doesn't improve shifts or hours but it does mean I'm less likely to get all the crappy duties in the same week. Being handed a rota line has worked out very nicely for me as my 2 rest days this week were yesterday and today. Add that to the fact that I have 2 weeks holiday booked as of tomorrow and it's a bit of a result. By the time I get back to work on the 4th of Feb' I'll probably have forgotten how to drive a bus! The second week of my fortnight will involve a trip home to Teignmouth to see family and friends I've not seen since we moved here at the end of July. To say I'm looking forward to it would be a major understatement. Luckily my step-daughter will be taking up residence at our gaff whilst we're away, meaning that Simba, here, won't have to be sent off to the cattery. Below is a picture of the Haig Pit Mining Museum at Kells, on the cliffs above Whitehaven. I often pass it whilst driving the 1 service so popped up to get a piccie this arvo.

Hardware Failure!

Right then, here we go. There's been no update on here for some time due to the catastrophic self-destruction of my PC a fortnight before Chrimbo. A boot-up failure of the hard-drive motherboard ensured that its time was up. Fortunately my local PC repair man assured me that even though the unit itself was beyond saving the information within it was recoverable. Above is pictured my new PC which arrived on Thursday hot-foot from Dell. Thirty quid for an external hard-drive enclosure for the errant motherboard enables the transfer of all data to the new set-up, and mighty relieved I am too! Had a quiet Christmas and New Year, fortunately no buses ran on Christmas, Boxing and New Years' Days so I had a few days of well deserved rest. Back to reality now though, 04.25 'til 11.25 today. Day off tomorrow though. Don't intend to do much.