Gales in Wales

It had been a rushed morning as the two families aimed to be ready and leave before the day moved on too far. For today was the day that they were all going to visit Portmeirion, the small man-made village conceived and designed by the idealist William Clough Ellis. Situated in the north-west of Wales passed the slate mines and Snowdonia, the bay is very secluded.

Your faithful protagonist had mentioned the day previously, "the only thing we must make sure is that we don't go to Portmeirion when it is raining, because there is very little that we can do inside." At the time we were all leaving, the sun wasn't exactly forth coming but at least it was starting to put its clothes on and was looking for its hat.

The beginning of the voyage, from the shared cottage near Conwy, was struck by disaster. The golden winged chariot that is used to transport myself and my loved ones had a tyre that was losing air. We pulled into the only garage within 100 square miles and to our dismay the Air machine was out of order. No air, who would have thought? On closer inspection we found another machine for HGVs that had air attached so we pulled up next to it. After repeatedly attempting to inflate the tyres there was no way that it was producing any air.

Woody, however, the clear thinking, visionary in the accompanying vehicle came to our rescue, when after a quick look noticed that the start button needed to be pushed to begin. Hmmm, whatever...

Another twenty minutes driving time brought the worst possible outcome, and the main purpose of this blog. The heavens opened, and instead of releasing angels to ease the worlds problems, there came such a volume of water descending from the sky that Noah could be seen in a neighbouring field putting a few pieces of wood together.
It wasn't just rain. It was the heaviest, fattest, wettest rain that I had seen for a long time. Just perfect considering where we were going. A village with a lot of private houses, and really the attraction is walking around outside appreciating the beauty of the individual architecture and aesthetic works of art. When we pulled up in the car park neither family left their car. Both were plucking up the courage to venture forward.

Finally we did make it though and thought that it would be best to try and get in somewhere to eat lunch first. This we achieved after walking through the torrent of rain as it battered against ourselves. Not only were my shoes wet, my clothes wet, and my face wet, but the water was even beginning to seep into my soul.

We had lunch, which was simple yet effective, and afterwards it was as if we had passed a trial set to us by the gods. The determination that was required to not turn back and to blindly continue to the goal pleased the ethereal deities and we were rewarded with dryness and even clearness.

The weather improved so much that by the time we had reached the beach, which is nicely sat in the bay with acres and acres of sand moving out to an estuary, the sun was even warm enough to see Dylan running around in his pants running in to the puddles that were probably caused by the rain rather than the sea.

We even had an ice cream and I bought some filter coffee which brought on its own disaster. Later that evening after one cup I went on to break the cottage cafetiere and had to buy a new one for thirteen quid.

The day turned out to be lovely and we learnt that if you strive through adversity then you will be rewarded eventually.

Plant Pranks

This week saw the end of one era and the beginning of a new one, hopefully. I have moved out of the finance world and into the world of Project Management. It is a conscious decision and one that I hope I can succeed at, although it is out of my comfort zone. This is part of my decision to move jobs; the idea of leaving my comfortable job to achieve a more rewarding job that will hopefully use my strengths more. But like any upward step it is a little daunting, but fear not your dashing hero is not going to crumble just yet. Self-confidence has never been lacking before and a little wobble probably does me some good.

So part of the process was to move office. I am still based on the same site but now I have moved past the laboratories, past the animals, past Eeyores Gloomy Place, and WOL's house, the Shire and the Forest of Endor, and finally to the other side of the mini village which I call "work". I have an office with one other person, which in itself is a change from the open plan environment that I have been used to, and this person works part-time which means that Mondays and Fridays I'm on my own.

So the story takes us to the Friday just gone, the first day in my new job. I turn up wanting to obviously make a good impression, to act professional and make the other people in my team not feel as though they've just brought a right Muppet into their fold.

The way things go down at my work is that when you move office you cannot do it yourself due to health and safety, so a moves team ask you to sticker things up with your new office on, they provide you with big crates to put your personal belongings in, and then they move it across. The night before I had prepared everything to come across, including a printer that I was attempting to bring with me because my new office didn't have one and means a 100 yard walk to retrieve prints. I also thought that I would play a joke on the lady who used to sit next to me by putting a sticker on her house plant that she cares for.

So Friday comes and as usual in my world, the sun was shining and the blue sky was faultless aside from a few vapour trails punctuating the clearness. I await the delivery of my boxes, and sure enough the guys came into my office with a trolley containing all of my belongings. Happy Days, I thought to myself. They then handed me a plant pot that contained soil and nothing else. Where once there was a tall, erect trunk emitting from the earth there was now a void of life, as desolate as Portsmouth in a drought.

"Excuse me, mate," I said to the first man. "There was a big plant in here. What's happened?"
"Oh, yeah, we were going to say, we had an accident in the van and it fell over. This is all we've got left."
"But it's not mine, you see, it's the lady's who sat next to me." I explained with not a small note of fear.
"I'm really sorry, but this is it. Can you ring her and apologise from us."
"Hmmm. Yeah, ok. Thanks," I said dismissively, and the two gentlemen left.

About three seconds later it dawned on me that this was a wind up. a) there was no way if that was the truth they would have told me like that, and b) I had just noticed that the pot was different.

A quick call to Helen, the lady that sat next to me, soon followed, where I explained that she had been rumbled and it didn't work. After a brief denial she soon came clean, and it had transpired that she had made it in to work before the team had turned up to remove the boxes, had seen the sticker on the plant and decided to play a trick on me to serve me right. Fair enough, I thought, I probably deserved that one.

She then went on to say if I had noticed anything else missing. I looked around and then realised that they had not brought the printer either. Apparently the PA of my old department had explained that we were not allowed to move printers around and so she had blocked the move in the eleventh hour. Bummer.

I hung up and continued to open the crate that held my personal belongings. I did not expect this to be the source of even more tom foolery but like a pirate opening Captain Jack's treasure chest my eyes opened wide as I lifted the lid.

Along with the files, stationery, picture frames etc that I had housed in there not 18 hours before, was also a ream of shredded paper, four big packs of water machine cups, and at the bottom I found my water bottle full of the cup a soup that I had put in the crate in powder form.

I then spent the next half an hour having to remove the shredded paper and dispose of it in the bin trying not to make a mess of my new, clean office. Whilst listening out for any of my new colleagues so that I could intercept them before they could see for themselves the type of people that I had left.

I started to think that surely this was over the top in response to my harmless little joke with the plant, and my mind started thinking of revenge. Later that afternoon I noticed that the lady who was instigating this childish activity was in a meeting. I stole across the site in my car on a specific mission to kidnap. When I arrived in my old office, sure enough she was missing, and I ventured over to her desk.

She is the type of person that has small soft toys adorning her screen, and a quick movement possible by my ninja training, and I was away with an elephant and a rabbit. When I made it back to the sanctuary of the other side of the site I took some photos of the two animals in tortured positions and sent them to her with a ransom note, demanding a heartfelt apology by the end of the day or a rabbits ear was being sent to her.

As expected the apology came through and the toys were released without injury. So all in all, a very low profile start to my new job where I think I maintained my professional image, and exhibited the integrity to which they have bought in to. Hopefully it will now calm down and I can get on with the new challenge uninterrupted.