aspiblog

A double event today. I received my OCR Customer Service Level 2 and Business Skills Level 2 certificates and also completed the Sage 50 course.

The Nicotiana and Geraniums  planted for Helen are flourishing (see photos). The broad beans at the allotment have been ultra bountiful (three large harvests to date and I have hopes of a fourth this Sunday).

A selection of photos follows. I have attached them enbloc rather than separately, but if you click on any individual picture you can view the whole gallery at full size.

The reason why so much time has elapsed since my last post is that I have had a hectic week. My Nephew was staying with parents from Friday afternoon until Wednesday morning and I wanted to miss as little of that period as feasible, so I was away from the computer for almost all of that period, and after a day at Learning Works the last thing I was going to do was anything on a computer so no blog yesterday either.

I had a public meeting to attend in Norwich on Thursday night, which meant an overnight stay there, and I also needed to harvest broad beans from my aunt’s allotment in King’s Lynn on the Friday and to be in East Rudham by midday (or so I had been advised). Normally when journeying between Lynn and Norwich I use the X8/X29 servcie run by Norfolk Green because it is cheaper than the X1 and Castle Meadow is nore conveniently located for my purposes than the main bus station, but the above constraints meant that on Friday morning I had to use the X1. The only bus that would serve my purposes was departiing at 6:30AM.

Thus I arrived back in Lynn at 8:15, headed to the flat, unpacked and then repacked, before dashing for the allotment with a couple of plastic bags. A whirlwind 15 minutes of picking (all I could spare) and both bags were full. I then returned to the flat, picked up by bags for East Rudham and headed for the bus station in time for the last bus that would have me in Rudham by 12. After all this on my part, Simon and Zac were then so late that the lunch at Thams (A pub cum Thai restaurant in West Rudham) had to be shelved, although mummy got back from Repton in time to join us for the actual lunch.

On Saturday, mummy, Zac and I had an enjoyable morning shopping in Fakenham and then made pizzas for lunch (at Zs request). mummy, Z and daddy went to watch a showing of the rereleased Jaws at the Fakenham Fleapit (official name Hollywood Cinemas) in the evening, while I attended to the supper, my signature Chicken and Coriander dish (see my first ever post for the recipe), and though I say it myself, even by my standards it was excellent.

On Sunday Z, daddy and I went to Extreeme (their spelling gimmick), an adventure playground utilising some exceptionally tall trees. The wall-less hut (see picture) that serves as their visitors centre had a log fire burning, and at times daddy and I were very grateful for this (it was not the most summery of days). The various ways of progressing through the trees above ground-level certainly lived up to the establishment’s name (there will be pictures either in this post or later). I think this could be improved by the addition of an orthodox treetop walk such as there is at Denmark, Western Australia for those of us who are not averse to viewing trees from amongst the canopy but not care for having the crap scared out of us.

On Monday I had to attend a supervised jobsearch session at Seetec, starting at 9:00, which meant getting the 7:57 bus in to Lynn. We had been planning to visit the allotment but it rained so hard that this was abandoned. On Tuesday I finally I got to start the Sage 50 course (another trip into and out of Lynn, starting with the early bus).

On Wednesday, having said goodbye to Zac the previous night, mummy and I set off early, and she dropped me off in Lynn, where I had time to change in to office clothes and get down to Learning Works for my day as a volunteer (which went well as always).

 

A couple more pictures in this post – Zac and companions on a forest swing and the view from the rooftops, which for reasons the picture makes apparent I declined to go outside to take! I will include more shots from extreeme in future posts.

The weather has been vile this last week, to the extent that for the first time since 1964 the first two days of a test match in England have been absolutely washed out. This has meant that I have not needed to deploy the watering can for the last few days as there has been enough from the sky. England with the series already won should be going all out for a third victory, which means that if they end up batting first they should look to declare before the close of play today.

Both today and tomorrow could witness historic achievements at the French Open. If Maria Sharapova beats Sara Erani she will join the select group of players to have won all four grand slam titles. The Men’s final meanwhile cannot fail to prove historic: either Rafael Nadal overtakes Bjorn Borg by winning it for a seventh time or Novak Djokovic becomes the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four grand slam titles simultaneously.

Learning Works continues to go well, although I am still waiting for a start date for my Sage 50 course. On my last visit I actually marked some practice assessments for a learner, which I had not previously done.

The View from the Rooftop is a shot taken through the living room window…

 

The anti-austerity meeting I attended in Norwich was good but not as good as it should of been, although I enjoyed catching up with people I had not seen in  a while. The problems were caused by the chair, who was far too fond of the sound of his own voice and who failed to keep the meeting within a sensible time frame. It took the chair ten minutes to introduce the two speakers, and in spite of a number of people leaving he failed to close the meeting until 9:30, which made two hours twenty minutes – too long.

The moment of cricket history occurred only a few minutes ago as Nick Compton, grandson of the legendary Denis, reached 1,000 first class runs for the season. He missed out by only a day on joining the select company of WG Grace, Tom Hayward, Walter Hammond, Charles Hallows, Don Bradman (twice), Bill Edrich, Glenn Turner and Graeme Hick in reaching this landmakr by the end of May.

Todays View from the Rooftops is a rare shot taken through the sitting room window…

England have secured the series against the West Indies by winning the second test. Also for the second time in two matches it was a thoroughly good game of cricket with both sides being in promising positions at various stages. In addiition to these Strauss scored another fine century giving him 21 in tests, one behind the joint leaders among England batsmen, Hammond, Cowdrey and some yorkshireman whose name escapes me. One final and highly unusual second in two matches: The Man of the Match award went to a bowler again, this time Tim Bresnan.

It is my birthday today, but because people are away today we had a celebration at the Crown in East Rudham on monday. I am treating myself to a trip to Norwich today (there is a meeting I would like to attend in the evening, and I still have some of my present from Hilary to spend). So far I have purchased The Plan by Steve James, an account of how Fletcher and Flower engineered England’s rise from bottom of the test cricket world in 1999 to top in 2011, and Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, a book that provides a scientific basis for morality, and has been described by no lesser person than Richard Dawkins as a “game changer”.

Two for the price of one on View from the Rooftops today, one a crescent moon, and the other a sunset shot featuring the Granaries.

I have just completed a ten week work placement at Learning Works, an organisation whose King’s Lynn centre is located conveneintly close to my compact town centre flat. This was combined with an NVQ in Customer Services which I have also successfully completed.

How successful was my work placement? Well last week I had two issues to resolve. Firstly having enjoyed the placement I was keen to maintain my involvement with Learning Works, and secondly and even more important I wanted to gain a Sage qualification to open up some more possibilities jobs wise. On Wednesday of last week I offered to do one day a week as a volunteer at the same time as seeking to arrange the Sage course. Naturally the new arrangements had to be confirmed by head office, as did details of the Sage course. In exchange for my servcies as a a volunteer they will fully fund the Sage 50 course, which suggests I have done something right.

Changing the subject completely, congratulations to England on getting out of a sticky situation to go 1-0 up in the Test series against the West Indies. When Pietersen was out England were four down for not very many and defeat was a very real possibility, but Cook and Bell sa\w through the danger. All in all, this was a pulsating Test match. Games like this are only possible over the long haul – formulaic fifty over stuff and bish bash bosh twenty over stuff rarely if ever produce a match that remains in the memory once it is over, though the latter is always an entertaining spectacle while it lasts. In a deserved sharing of the honours Stuart Broad was man of the match for his 11 wickets while Andrew Strauss won the Champagne Moment for the stroke that completed has first test hundred since Brisbane 2010. The Champagne Moment is awarded by the TMS team what they consider the most memorable moment of the match, and the trophy is a magnum of the product.

The King’s Lynn Civic Society are doing a feature on living above the shop, so here is my own idiosyncratic contribution:

The advantages of living in the High Street (ignoring those which attach to this specific flat) are that one has shops on one’s doorstep, everything that is needed on a regular basis being purchasable somewhere within comfortable walking distance. Also, the bus and railway stations are close by, so travel out of town is straightforward when needed (though no bargain, with a return bus ticket to Fakenham costing £6.10 these days). The only negative to set against these general advanatages and the specific advantages that my place has of its own is that on Friday and Saturday nights the proximity of various pubs and bars is made loudly and sometimes unpleasantly obvious – especially if you stubbornly insist on keeping windows open to let air in to the flat.

Today’s View From the Rooftoops is a shot taken by lazy expedient of opening the door, pointing and clicking…

A cobination of a drought being declared and the cricket season starting was obviously too much of a temptation for the weather gods to resist. The world snooker championship was some consolation, especially the play of Ronnie O’Sullivan.

My placement at Learning Works is still going, and I am near completing the Customer Service course I have been doing.

Not much else to say except enjoy the photo…