Going Out!

Well it's pretty cold and windy here right now, but I've decided to take advantage of a possible window of opportunity and head out on the hills tomorrow. The wind is going to drop significantly the foreacst claims, although it will still be close to freezing higher up. I'm hoping to bag 2 Munros, which will take my tally for this year to 28. I made 29 last year and 31 the year before, which was my first year hill-walking. Depending on several factors, I may get another chance to go out before the year's end and make it 30 for this year. That would be nice!

Not that the annual amount is really that important. I just feel that I need to sustain a reasonable figure in order to be able to complete within 10 years. Yes, that's 10 years in total to climb all of the Munros in Scotland. That's my projected total time required to achieve such a feat. Well, there are 283 Munros spread all across the country and there is a lot of travelling involved. That's probably the worst part. I don't like having to drive for extended periods, especially not before a long walk. You do tend to stiffen up a bit enroute.

I've been thinking about which Munro I would like to be my 100th. It will probably be May/June next year before I reach that figure, but I'd like to tackle one of the scarier ones like An Teallach or Liathach for the event. Some people might suggest that those aren't scary hills, but I'm no climber, just an ordinary walker and I've seen pictures of them which have scared the hell out of me. Quite often though, in reality, they aren't nearly as bad as you tend to imagine. That said though, the Lancet Edge in the Ben Alder group gave me a couple of cheek-clenching moments and it's considered quite tame.

Marching Orders!

What a frustrating time. I'm getting booted out of my job, but I have to work for another month. It's humiliating really. "We don't want you here anymore, but you can't leave until we say so!" Leave me some dignity please! It is fairly ridiculous anyway. The reason I'm being edged out as far as I can tell, is mainly owing to my superior knowledge over my superior. Do you get that? His background lies elsewhere and my ability to make his lack of knowledge plain for all to see is clearly more than he can live with on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, I had to be disposed of! He laso has the ear of the boss, while the boss also fears the complexity of what I do and together their child-like ignorance in their interpretation of what it is I do has caused them to desire my no longer doing it.

That being said, if I'd had the chance I would have left before now anyway. I could see which way the wind was blowing. A general dumbing-down has been brought into play, which is clearly a necessary coping mechanism for those with the minds of children. I wanted out before they got me out and now I only have a month to find alternative employment. Unfortunately, I have to keep working during that period when I'd rather be using the time to look for a suitable post. I'm hopeful that I'll find something, but if I don't, well it's not the end of the World. I've suffered worse and survived. Anyway, I'm a firm beliver in "what goes around comes around", so those that shafted me ought in turn be shafted themselves. The sooner and the harder, the better!

Stitched Up and Shafted!

I have been stitched up and shafted and there's very little I can do about it. Don't you just hate it when that happens? Not in a small way either, in a significantly damaging to employment way! I'm still there for another couple of weeks yet though, but in essence I have been replaced and it reeks of cronyism. I don't think I even had a chance. The person who was appointed in my stead may well be a good friend of one of the interviewers. That's what I'm hearing behind the scenes.

I was only ever onto a loser, being interviewed to stay in my job. I wanted to leave anyway, just not by their choice, by my own. It's unfortunate that things have turned out the way they have. Unless I can find somethng suitable in the next couple of weeks I will be a man of leisure again for the first time in almost 7 years. It's ironic to think it's virtually 21 years to the day that I started my first full-time job.

I've gone through the whole range of emotions; anger, resentment, frustration, hatred, but I'm now slowly heading towards acceptance. It's a profession in which it's very difficult to know who you can trust. I learnt that mistake quite quickly, but nothing can stop others plotting your demise and for no other reason than a refusal to admit that their idiotic ideas are the only acceptable ones. These people have a very child-like view of the World and clearly they're still in the playground where they used to gang-up on others. Age is no barrier to incompetence and ignorance!!!

Ready for Distraction!

So, it's back to work tomorrow after two weeks off. It was meant to be holidays, but with a great deal of time spent decorating and very poor weather in general preventing me going hill-walking, it hasn't really felt like a holiday at all. Also, there is a great deal of uncertainty over the work situation. I can't really say what's happening, but of course if it goes badly I'll spill my guts... heh he he!

I've decided to try and sell my photos online. I don't know how well that will actually work in reality, but it seems worth a try. I'm using Photobox. I'm still in the process of setting things up, but needless to say, links will be added here later on. I have no idea what to charge though and I am assuming that ownership still belongs to me should someone decide to use one of my images for any type of commercial venture.

It seems that Winter has arrived here in the North-East of Scotland. We had large hail-stones yesterday and it's getting colder all of the time. Last Winter was the worst in many years, so I do wonder what's in store for us this time. Given government and council cutbacks it may well be a Winter of discontent regardless of what the weather brings.

Getting shot of!

The bedroom is finally decorated and furnished... yay! A King-size bed as well. Our first ever, what luxury! On the downside, I had to spend part of today disposing of our unwanted old stuff; carpet, bed, wardrobe, bookcase etc. I was somewhat aggrieved at being forced to give up my bookcase. Mind you, it was long since filled with books, which had began to spread elesewhere. With the King-size bed, there just wasn't space for it anymore. Never let it be argued that I'm not a reasonable man. I bowed to common sense on this one. My books are now secreted here and there out of sight. I have a lot of books...

Anyway... the dump, as I call it. Firstly I had to borrow my old man's trailer to ferry the stuff. Then I had to also borrow his car, since my car does not have a tow-bar. It took us two trips. Fortunately it's less than a mile from the house. I don't know why we call it the dump, because it's nothing like a dump in the sense of a landfill site. Mainly, it's divided up into skips and bays with separate areas for different types of material; garden waste, earth, rubble, glass, cardboard, polystyrene, metal, electrical goods, household waste, wood and synthetic wood. There are probably others categories that I haven't even spotted, but there's more than enough to be going on with when you have a trailer load of assorted rubbish. We were darting all around the place trying to deposit items in their correct locations.

Now it's all well and good, us doing our civic duty and sorting out all of these items for what we imagine will be recycling or disposal in another form. However, I do harbour certain doubts about what happens to rubbish here once collected. I heard a rumour that the Council must recycle at least 25% of paper rubbish and that the remaining 75% was being sent from the North-East of Scotland to French landfills. If that's the case, then we the general public really are being made fools of. No wonder our local Council are struggling to make ends meet, with massive cut-backs (closing and selling off village halls?). No matter how much money they make, they can't manage the budget. Why not? Because they are self-serving bureaucrats, out for themsleves. That's why!

Post Decorum Magnum

Well, that's the decorating done for now, a new carpet in and flat-pack furniture unpacked and assembled. I had to put together a 3-door wardrobe, which was easy enough until it came to hanging the doors. That took longer than all the rest of it put together. All that remains is for our new bed to arrive (king-size yay) and I have been promised a new computer desk. Something a bit more stylish and contempoorary than what I have a present.

The weather's turned very cold here. No hill-walking for just now. There will definitely be snow on the hills, which probably means I won't get to go up Beinn Eighe as I had planned. I might have to put that off until next year, unless we get a settled period sometime soon. The shorter Winter days really do prohibit ascending anything major and the presence of snow can double the time taken. That's why it's very important to put some thought into planning Winter hill trips. being out in the cold after dark, when the temperatures do really dip, especially higher up... that's a big no-no for me. I still want to get out though. It might just mean smaller hills, nearer home.

Marilyns

Hills below 2000ft in Scotland are classified as Marilyns. Sometimes when the weather makes climbing larger hills difficult, the wife and I prefer to go out and bag these smaller hills. Obviously a single hill is hardly worth the travelling, so today we did three of them: Hill of Foudland, Hill of Tillymorgan and Fourman Hill, in Aberdeenshire.

Hill of Foudland

Hill of Tillymorgan

Fourman Hill

With Decorum

I've been on holiday for a week now and besides our day out hill-walking at Glen Shiel (which was amazing), we've mostly been decorating the Master bedroom. We've gone for an oatmeal type colour for the walls and a dark biscuit type colour for the woodwork. We decided to go for something bold to add a bit of character, so we chose the wallpaper above and ran it around the room. Looks nice! Still waiting until next week before we get the carpet done, then we can look at beds. I suppose it had to be done, although decorating is probably my second worst leisure-time pursuit after gardening.

Don't get me wrong, I love gardens. Looking at them that is. I simply don't have the patience to nurture one. Anyway, we live in Scotland, who needs a garden? We've got amazing scenery all around us. I had plans to visit Beinn Eighe next week for some more walking, but the forecast is for howling gales and snowfall. Might have to look at a smaller target. It's always nice to get out, but I'm averse to risking life and limb.

You might still be wondering why I revived this blog after more than two years without posting. Well, I use to find it quite therapeutic posting here when times were tough. Those times may be returning. I hope not, but there may be trouble ahead!

Fab Day at Glen Shiel

On Monday the wife and I drove down to Glen Shiel to climb the four Eastern most Munros on the South Glen Shiel ridge. Given a fantastic forecast, with sunshine and no wind predicted, we were hopeful of a good day out. On the drive down it was quite foggy and when we got there the cloud was very low. As soon as we started walking though, we saw an eagle. A good omen?

The cloud persisted for a long time. We had to walk most of the way around the first Munro to reach the stalkers path which would take us to the top. At about 600m we started to climb out of the cloud. Was a cloud inversion on the cards?

What an amazing feeling being up above the clouds. We were loving it. If you wonder why people go hill-walking, it's for days like this.

It took us three hours to reach the top of the first Munro: Creag a'Mhaim. From there it took about 45 minutes to reach the top of the next Munro: Druim Shionnach.

An hour later we reached the top of highest Munro of the day: Aonach Air Chrith.

We were doing quite well at this point. Just over another hour later we reached the top of Maol Chinn-dearg, our final Munro of the day. We then started our long descent to the road.

We had to walk about 4km back along the road to the Cluanie Inn where we had parked. We decided to go in for a meal which was very good!

Our Summer!

I've decided to revitalise this blog to some extent. I always seem to be busy nowadays, busy decorating the bedroom today, off to do some hillwalking during the week. I have two weeks off, but still no time. I'm also putting some effort into my two new forums, so kindly pay a visit and if you like it, join in.

I have no climbed 82 Munros out of a total 283. I want to make 100 by the end of the year. I don't know if it's achievable. This Summer was a bit of a washout just like last Summer and the rest of the time work takes precedence it seems.

We went to Crete in July, visited Knossos and Spinalonga etc. It was very hot, here are a couple of photos I took:

Arnassis

Knossos

Spinalonga

Aghios Nikolaos

Back to the Future

Where have I been for the last two years? I wasn't abducted by aliens. I wasn't in hibernation. I was in fact busy trying to flog a dead horse... trying to build a career in education. I probably couldn't have chosen a worse time and circumstances haven't been entirely kind to me either.

Anyway, let's not make this fresh post too morose. I have created two shiny new forums, where I'm still in the early stages of trying to establish a membership. I have however built them around subjects which are very close to my heart and they look quite nice too, so I'm hopeful that they will spring to life.

My first forum is called "ancientstuff" and the main theme is the probablility that planet Earth has seen the rise and fall of advanced civilizations in the distant past. The evidence is fairly substantial and you don't have to believe in Atlantis to make this hypothesis work.

This is the URL: http://ancientstuff.maxforum.org/



The other forum I have created is for people with an interest in UFOs or alien lifeforms in general. It's called "iSAWaUFO" and it is a place to share personal stories of sightings, theories about UFOs and evidence including images and video.

This is the URL: http://isawaufo.lefora.com/

I would be more than happy for anyone of you to drop by my forums and participate freely, if either of these subjects are of interest to you.