Sunday 20 January 2008

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.

Monday 7 January 2008

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.