So I forgot I hadn’t posted this. Oops.

We left Todi and had a mammoth drive through Italy, Switzerland and France. It was slated to be 10 hours of driving, but things didn’t go to plan.

Leaving Todi, we hit Italian rush hour which was a bit interesting and I had to concentrate hard to avoid the other cars. It felt like the worst of London driving. We made it to Florence quite quickly though where we’d planned a quick stop to post some postcards that we’d not managed to get stamps for. Well, that was the plan. Our detour into Florence took an hour, going through some beautiful sights and via the main sorting office (that doesn’t sell stamps). Eventually, I dropped Sean off next to the main train station and kept running circles around the block until he came back. Turns out the train station sells stamps…

The weather closed in on us at this point, with heavy rain following us up all the way to Milan. Far from being an interesting and fun drive, this was a hard slog. It wasn’t until we started up into the mountains that the rain eased off a little, but we rapidly hit the clouds and so our progress was slowed down once more. We were aiming for the Gottard tunnel and after weaving my way around queues of lorries, we finally got there.

The tunnel is, I’m sure, a feat of engineering. I certainly appreciated it for that. The drive, though, is boring. It’s a tunnel. Think of the Limehouse link, only 15 miles long and you’re pretty much there. There is, however, a radio station broadcasting inside the tunnel with emergency information, which I thought was quite nifty, though it’s not signposted well enough for someone driving along the motorway.

We came out of the Gottard tunnel and started the journey towards France. It felt like we were past the crux now…which was the wrong feeling, since about 10 minutes north of the tunnel, we hit a traffic jam. There was traffic as far as the eye could see and it was all stationary. After sitting there for a few minutes I turned the engine off, as did everyone else. Within minutes, the road was packed solid in both directions and we settled down for a long wait, with no idea what was going on. Luckily, we’d packed some food for the journey, so we had somethign to eat. It was quite surreal – high in the Swiss mountains, in a picturesque valley with chalets all around us….and cows. Now, I though the Swiss cow bell was a cute little tourist trinket. Turns out, they actually use them. So we’re sat there with a herd of cows next to us, all of which wear bells. Who knew – after a while, that noise gets intensely irritating.

Eventually, after about two hours of delay we got going again – the road narrowed ahead due to roadworks and just at the entrance were some fresh skidmarks and broken glass by the side of the road – which answered the question of what was going on.

By this point the journey wasn’t so much fun as “let’s just get there”. We were both ready to go home and it was only necessity that made us stop in some services just inside Switzerland near the French border. We were starving and needed something, even if it was service-station sandwiches. What we got was just incredible.

We walked in and looked around, getting our bearings. To our right was the restaurant which, at ten o’clock local time, I was expecting to be closed – but it wasn’t. We shrugged and wandered over, before being assaulted by an incredible array of sights and aromas. They had a number of areas, each selling a different kind of freshly cooked food. We looked on in amazement and chose Chicken Cordon Bleu which they cooked in front of us. It wasn’t a five star restaurant, but it was certainly something that Little Chef and Moto could learn from. It sure as hell was not Burger King or McDonalds.

We set off again and got to the hotel just around midnight, having had to call them en route to find out why they weren’t where TomTom said they should be – turns out this is a common problem and her first question was “Do you have satellite navigation?”. She gave us directions from there to a village with the same name as the street we were on about 2 miles away. Reception had closed down for the night when we arrived – this was a small local hotel and our keys were waiting for us on a piece of paper with my name badly mis-spelt.

Thursday morning, a quick breakfast after not enough sleep and we set off again, determined to have a better day. The weather agreed and after some patchy showers, opened up into a beautiful if slightly windy day. We make great progress through the French motorways and hit Calais almost 2 hours earlier than our ferry. A quick stop in a supermarket to take advantage of the cheap diesel and we drove down to the terminal. Without blinking we got put on the next possible ferry leaving in about 30 minutes and we mooched around for a bit admiring the drugs dogs at work. We even managed to get BBC Kent on the radio. We both smiled – I think we were both glad to be going home at this point.

We had a lovely dinner on the ferry – we stood outside Langan’s Brasserie for a bit before threw caution to the wind and decided to end the holiday in style with steaks on the way home. Very nice indeed, as was the creme brulee and, by this time, it was nice to have English accents around us.

It was getting dark by the time we got to Dover and with a reminder from TomTom to drive on the left again, we were back on British soil. Not quite home yet though – we drove to Slough where I met up with some of my work colleagues for a conference the following day. I was far mroe tired than I expected and on Friday, by lunchtime, I was falling asleep in the comfort of the conference and decided that I wasn’t doing any good here. I took off, met up with Sean in Leicester Square for some lunch and we drove home.

We both had an absolutely awesome time and certainly clocked up some miles. I’d like to do something similar again, though in a more comfortable car and with more time to spend in each place. Brussels was lovely and we want to go back there. We never really saw Zurich, and Strasbourg was a lovely surprise. I’m not sure I’d want to drive in Italy again – the other drivers make it very stressful. We’re already putting ideas together as to our next one, suggestions so far include the UK, north or eastern Europe and the USA/Canada.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve always said that the marque of a good holiday is when, halfway through, you realise that you have no idea what day it is. What the date is, what day of the week it is, how far into your holiday you are. When you’ve reached that point you’ve relaxed completely – you’re no longer tied into the weekly grind.

It’s actually day 12 today – I had to count that on the calendar! Staying in Todi has been fantastic for the both of us. The house we’re staying in is incredibly relaxing with fabulous views and peace and quiet abound. We’ve mostly read books, hung around the house and the swimming pool, had a bit of a walk and driven to town for dinner or grocery shopping once or twice. We’ve slept without alarm clocks waking us up. I feel more alive and refreshed than I have done for a long time. I do feel a little regret for not spending more time exploring the surrounds, but we needed the break to be honest. Besides, we’ve been invited back again next year – I don’t think we’ll drive next time.

We’re staying here with John (Sean’s Dad) and Sophie (his wife). They happened to have two friends staying at the same time (Bill and Sue) which wasn’t a problem – the house is a 3-bed Tuscan villa with a large living and dining room. So evening meals have been a mix – John cooked spaghetti bolognese one night and Bill and Sue cooked another night. So a few days ago, Sean and I announced that we’d cook – spaghetti carbonara. So we prepared, we got a recipe – it didn’t seem too difficult. We then had a bit of a spanner in the works with concerns over the eggs – you mix the spaghetti into the raw eggs and they kinda cook from the heat. So we moved on from carbonara and Sean and I scoured the internet and decided to stick with an Italian staple – Lasagne.

To be fair, I’ve made lasagne before, but only with the help of Mr. Ragu and Mr. Dolmio. This recipe called for making the ragu (the meat/tomato sauce) from fresh as well as the white sauce (actually a bechamel sauce). So, when we got the ingredients, we never realised how much of an epic it would be. We started cooking at just before 7pm and finally served a huge lasagne to serve 6-8 at 9pm – and we cut out quite a lot of the time the ragu is supposed to cook for! It was, however, an absolute resounding success. I served full plates for everyone and had plenty left over…until everyone asked for seconds. I don’t think I’ve ever had a meal go down quite so well. I also learned how to make a bechamel sauce – here’s a hint folks: make sure you have a whisk before you start. Doing it with a fork is bloody hard work.

So today is our last full day in Todi. We’re packing the car tonight for an 8am departure tomorrow. We’ve found a little hotel just south of Strasbourg which means we have some 8 hours of driving to do tomorrow (not including rest stops). Thursday night we have a ferry crossing to Dover and we’ll be in London for Friday where I have a work event. We had plans for the weekend but having experienced a long day’s driving on the way here, we decided to try and leave the weekend to recover and catch up on household chores – we’ve got almost a full suitcase of laundry! I think we’re both actually looking forward to going home now – to more familiar surroundings where shopping isn’t quite so much of an adventure and you can recognise “beef stock” (and not “beef soup”)!

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

We woke up fairly early in Grenoble and had some breakfast before heading off – we did find out that she hadn’t waived all the charges, just given us a credit towards our room of the amount we’d already paid – the night we stayed was some €20 more than our original room. Still, better than no credit at all.

It was a pretty long journey down to Marseilles, mostly on motorways. The terrain got progressively more yellow as we went, the trees and buildings becoming more meditaranean and the temperature rising. We found ourselves stopping for water a few times.

Driving in Marseilles was a nightmare and the route in to the city showed it to be a rough, industrial port. I’m sure there are nice areas of the city for tourists to see during the day, but having been through so many beautiful places, we decided to grab a quick sandwich and a drink in a little patisserie before getting back on the road.

It was a few more hours before we finally arrived at Aups having spent the last half hour or so travelling on smaller, provincial roads through some of the stunning Provence countryside. Aups is a beautiful small town which brought to mind memories of French towns from black and white wartime films. I fully expected to see a crowd of French resistance slinking around a corner away from a couple of German generals – my first impression wasn’t helped by the fact that as we got out of the car, an air raid siren sounded. Apparently it’s used to call the local fire brigade out…

We wandered around a little before meeting up with Sean’s cousin and headed over to their house – a beautiful little cottage. We spent a day and two nights here, just chilling out getting to know Eve and Patricio and the kids, Ishmael and Irene. We ate good food, drank good wine and beer and swam in a nearby lake.

Day 7 was yesterday, Thursday 10th, and we woke up early and got ready to leave. We had a long day of driving ahead of us and after saying goodbye to everyone, we packed the car and hit the road. By 10am the overhead signs were telling us it was 27 deg C and we soon stopped for a break on the mountains above Monaco. We hastily grabbed a few photos and took off again. The principle behind building this Italian road seems to have been to pick a point between the bottom of the valleys and the tops of the ridges and build a road along that line, building tunnels and bridges as necessary.

It was a long, long drive down to Todi and the roads got worse and worse as we went before finally ending on the dirt track that served as an access road to the villa. It had been a long day and it wasn’t long before we were crashing out on the sofa watching the sunset.

This morning we woke up to this view (picture to follow) from the balcony of our bedroom. I’m actually sat on the bed taking that one. It’s an incredible place here and we’re loving just chilling out and relaxing and NOT driving. We popped briefly into Todi today to do some shopping and pottered around before heading back and spending a lazy afternoon just chatting. I’m sat on the terrace writing this with the sun slowly falling towards the distant mountains and Sean playing on the guitar behind me. I’ve not had a watch or mobile on me today. It’s been magic. My biggest dilemma is currently whether I pop down to the swimming pool for a quick swim before dinner. I could get used to this.

Miles travelled: 1855

Our route so far (Google maps)

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

Waking up on Sunday in Luxembourg, the weather was overcast with low cloud, so we dressed up warm and headed into the center of the old town. Stopping outside the cathedral we took a few pictures but couldn’t head in as it was closing. We pottered around the shops for a bit with the cathedral’s bells ringing across the city and picked up a little breakfast before finally heading south, back on the road again.

It was a long slog down to Strasbourg with both of us quite tired. We pulled in and headed to the tourist inforation center in the main station. The station itself was incredible – they’ve built a glass lozenge over the old station which protects it. Modern meets traditional. From there we walked over to Petit France for lunch. This is the older part of Strasbourg and is absolutely stunning. We walked around, had some lunch and listened to a bagpipe player (he must be very lost) for a bit before getting back on the road again.

Next stop was Zurich although by this time we were exhausted. We looked at our options and realised that with a long day of travelling ahead, exploring the city was likely out of the question. We had a fantastic night in a very upmarket Holiday Inn before getting back on the road in the morning.

As we headed through Switzerland, the terrain changed from the soft undulating hills to steep, craggy mountains with near-vertically sided valleys. The scenery kept surprising us and we climbed up from Martigny and crossed the Swiss/French border somewhere high in the pass before dropping down into Chamonix. We decided to grab some time here and took the Montenvers train to the Mer-de-Glace Glacier. It was an awesome sight and we even got to walk inside the Glacier where they’d dug out a “grotto” and sculpted the ice.

It was probably gone 5pm before we left for the short drive to Grenoble and this is where we got unstuck. In booking all of the hotels before we left, I’d managed to book the Grenoble hotel for the Sunday night instead of the Monday night. Expecting to pay for another night, we dragged ourselves into the hotel and had a wonderful surprise when the woman on reception convinced her manager to waive any charges and just let us have the room tonight. Fab ending to an incredible day.

I’ve uploaded some photos to flickr already – there’s more to come when I have time and a decent Internet connection.

Miles so far: 1,163

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

Well, we’re on holiday. Leaving was a bit of a disaster to be honest – when I left the office part of the M4 was closed. I had to work my way home through small lanes and didn’t get back to the house until 1900 – we’d hoped to be on the road by then. A few problems with the alarm were fairly quickly sorted and before 2000 the car was packed and we were off. So far, I don’t think we’ve forgotten anything critical…

We stopped off with a friend in London for the night before getting up for an early start and heading down to Folkestone for our 0950 departure on the Eurotunnel. 35 minutes of train and we were in France – it’s pretty impressive on the convenience front, even if it’s boring: you sit in your car for 35 minutes of tunnel. Still, we were in Calais.

We quickly headed onto the motorway and headed across northern France over to Belgium. Nothing particularly exciting about the drive – it was over land that was quite flat, lots of agriculture. I was munching on a piece of M&S cocktail sausage when it went down the wrong way and spent the next 10 minutes coughing, so we pulled into a service station for a break. No sooner had we stopped than a wasp flew into the car – Sean whacked it with a cloth and flung it straight at me, where it stung me on the neck.

Once I’d finished swearing and Sean had finished apologising, we got ourselves sorted. Apparently, you have to pay 30c to go to the loo in service stations around here. That was a bit of a pain since we hadn’t stopped at a cashpoint yet…

Anyway, we got to Brussels with no idea where we were going and asked TomTom to take us to a car park in the center of town. A nearby Novotel pointed us to the tourist information center in the Grande Place….whereupon we walked into the middle of a huge beer festival. Of course, we were driving, so couldn’t take part much to my disappointment. After pottering around for a bit, we had a Belgian Waffle (what else would you eat in Belgium?) and wandered around taking photos before heading back to the car. We drove around a few of the sights before heading back out on the motorway. I’d love to come back here, it’s a beautiful city with lots to see.

The drive to Luxembourg was more scenic, crossing valleys although by the time we got there we were both exhausted – we’d not had much sleep the night before. So after a bit of food, we headed straight to bed.

Miles so far: 513

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

I haven’t been on a decent holiday abroad since…well, since I bought the house. That may be a coincidence…

Anyway, Sean and I have been planning a trip to Italy for a few months now and it’s almost here. Tomorrow afternoon, I leave work and drive to Cardiff to pick Sean up. The next time we’ll see the house, we’ll have drive through Belgium, Luxembourg, France, a bit of Germany, Switzerland and Italy.

I am, understandably, somewhat excited. Internet access has been sorted despite Vodafone being useless – thankfully, 3 are targetting users wanting some decent data rates at the moment, so I have a 3 SIM in my laptop’s built-in 3G card. It’s PAYG so I won’t come home to a £300 phone bill and it means that I can keep a record of the trip on my blog.

I’m just waiting for clothes to dry now and hoping the weather will last…

Update: Track my travels on Dopplr

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

I can’t remember my first Mountain Rescue job. I remember a search for a missing person while I was still training, but it’s lost in a blur of memories of trying to work out how to search for a missing person. I remember my first casualty, having chased her over the mountain all night, giving her the attention she so desperately seeked.

What is etched into my memory are two ambulance jobs I did as a first responder – my first red call, and my first cardiac arrest.

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The first red call I had came in the middle of the night. I’d gone to bed, my uniform next to me, the phone on the bedstand and the lava lamp left on, casting a red glow over the bedroom. I jumped out of my skin when the phone rang.</p>

“Hiya, it’s Ambulance control, can you take a red call please?”

I get the address and jump into my clothes, heart pumping, adrenaline rushing around my body. Still half-asleep yet completely awake, I drive off. 30 year old male, difficulty in breathing. Traffic is quiet, I catch the lights on green and I’m driving down the street looking for the address when I see the ambulance. Deflated, I realise I’ve been holding my breath and start breathing normally again.

I pull up and get out, gloves on, ready to assist, just in case – but the crew is stood in the doorway talking to the patient. I walk over and hear the conversation.

“So you’ve had the sore throat for 3 days, and it’s hurting when you swallow…” He turns and glances at me, nodding, acknowledging my presence. “…and the GP says it’s tonsilitis. Does your mother have a car? Right, well she can take you down to A&E if you really want then, but it’s a Friday night, you’re looking at 4 hours of wait. We’re very busy tonight – if you can do that we can get back to helping people who are seriously ill, like heart attacks.”

I catch the undertones, the patient doesn’t. Within minutes I’m filling in my paperwork. The crew watches me, I’m obviously not familiar with the layout.

“First job?” he asks. I nod.

“That was irritating.” I nod towards the house. “Tonsilitis?” I’ve just about managed to get my hand to steady enough to write. I’m not sure anyone’s going to understand what I’ve written.

The technician rolls his eyes. “Get used to it. About one in ten jobs actually need us, five are pissed the other four are hypochondriacs or timewasters.” There’s a shout from the cab interrupting the cynical view of the world I’ve just become privy to. “We’re off. See you later.”

The ambulance rolls away and I’m left in the street dealing with the disappointment, the adrenaline, the futility, the tiredness. I turn around and head back to bed.

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My first cardiac arrest came as a surprise. I’d been responding for months, now used to the dross and inability to actually help a lot of the patients – my Mountain Rescue medical training gave me skills and knowledge that I could not use with the Ambulance service – not in our protocols. I was in the kitchen when the phone rang – around 9am on a Saturday morning. I grabbed a pen as I answered the phone, looking around for a piece of paper and only finding the whiteboard on the wall.</p>

“Hi, got a red call for you.”

I write the address down on the calendar, and write “card arrest” next to it. I blinked. I read the address again. “Er…that’s about 500 yards from where I…from my current location. Show me mobile – count to 10 and show me on scene if you want, I won’t bother calling to report that.” I’m already out the door unlocking the car.

“Oh, ok, thanks.”

Control rings off and I briefly consider running there, but with all the kit….I start the car and drive down the road, turning the corner and pulling up at the pub control had sent me to. The door is closed, I see no way in. I have my kit with me, I’ve not had a chance to calm myself down in the car, my heart is pumping and there’s no way in! I head for the side door and it’s open – I run up the steps, tripping on the top one and almost flying headlong through the door. I blink as I stumble into the gloom, the curtains drawn and I see figures by the bar – the landlord is on the phone.

“Yes, he’s here now…”

I rush over – there’s a woman on the floor, late 50’s I’d say. I rip my kit open, defib out and lid open, get it up and running. Tuffcut shears make short work of the underwire in her bra – I hadn’t intended to cut it, but it’s off now along with her blouse. My mind is racing, and the defib shouts at me in an American voice. “Tear open pads. Remove pads and place on chest.” I’ve already done that and it’s curtly announcing “Analysing rhythm” as I’m getting my Guedel airway out, oxygen fitted with the BVM.

“Start CPR.”

I swear under my breath – it’s not shockable. I don’t even consider whether I should start CPR – I’m already underway now and I have no room in my protocol for recognition of life extinct. The airway is in – easier than the dummies I’ve practiced on. I put my hands on her warm skin and start compressions. As I’m counting my only thought is that the feeling of my hands on her skin reminds me of chicken.  It’s an odd thought and I place it to one side, giving two breaths after 30 compressions. I hear a rib crack and then a second one. I have a rare moment where my brain can catch up and in that moment I get a thought – I can’t hear a siren yet, where’s my backup?

“Do not move patient, analysing rhythm.” The defib interrupts me and I sit back for a moment catching my breath. “Continue CPR.”

My hopes for a succesful rescuscitation are dropping and they hit rock bottom when the landlord opens a curtain to get me more light – I can see what looks like a bruise on part of her body – but at last! I hear a siren approaching. I tell the landlord to go out and windmill for the paramedic, probably an RRV I think.

I look up as he walks in, it’s a friend of mine. He grimaces as he sees her and recognises signs I’ve yet to learn.

“You can stop CPR mate, she’s long gone.” he says quietly, kneeling down and pointing out the purple blotches I’d seen. “Post mortem staining, she’s been down a while.” I sit back on my knees, shaking a little from the adrenaline. He takes over, he’s seen this all before. I can’t stop staring at her, the memory of those two ribs cracking under my hands still vivid.

The police arrive and talk to me and the Paramedic. He asks if I’m OK. I just nod and fill in my paperwork. I pack up my kit – I need a new set of pads and contact an Ambulance officer to get a set and he arranges to meet me that day. I stand outside, packing my car for the moment, stood in the bright sunshine as villagers wander past wondering what’s happening – why all the police and ambulance. I head back inside and take one last look before talking to the Paramedic. No, no chance of reviving her. She’d been down a while. Probably a massive heart attack, probably dead before she hit the floor. How old? 42. Yeah, she looked older. Smoked. He makes sure I’m ok and I head off to get some new defib pads, still shocked by how surreal it all feels. When I finally get back to the house, there’s still a note on the whiteboard with the address and “card arrest” next to it. I wipe it off as I phone control to tell them I’m available for calls again.

Prepared as my introductory post for The EMS Handover Carnival.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

7pm and our incident controller approaches us as we’re taking kit off the Landrover.

“There’s been reports of a casualty across the road. I’m going to be staying here for better comms.”

We all nod and head off. I grab the radio I’ve got and call in to get a radio check and I’ve barely finished when we find our casualty. A 7 year old girl with breathing difficulties. We’re on it like a shot, oxygen and a nebuliser mask out, I’m on to control to get some backup, Mum is upset and panicing. No air ambulance available and the nebulised salbutamol is having little effect. There’s no county ambulance either and our vehicle has a puncture. There’s a quick conversation – I arrived at this incident in my own vehicle, we’ll transport mum and daughter in that. We’re moving, rapidly through the trees whe the radio comes to life – there’s an ambulance en route to us now…

We’re still packing up and debriefing from that job when the radio comes to life again. “We’ve had a call nearby for a young child that’s fallen, no parents, friends have raised the alarm but are not with her.” We look at each other and we’re off again, this time I’ve got the purple gloves on my hands as we head through clouds of gnats. We find her next to a few old logs which she’d been climbing on. She’s 9 years old and looks quite healthy. She’s complaining of a bump on her forehead and a painful ankle. I talk to her, practice my new skill – talking with kids. I’m not good at it and I’ve been practicing. She responds well, I’m on a winner. I check her over carefully and she reports a painful neck. She’s talking to me and I’m adding up her GCS in my head as she tells me she’s feeling sleepy. GCS of 15, she’s alert and responsive…wait what?

She’s feeling sleepy.

Despite the warm summer evening and the gnats crawling all over me, my attention is focused on her as I slip my hands onto her neck and hold her head still. I look at the stump she fell off – 2 feet? 3 feet? A colleague takes over her C-spine management as I get oxygen going – but she doesn’t like the mask on her fact. She’s content to hold it near her mouth and breathe the cold gas though. We package her up and move her down to the road to be met by a county ambulance. I’m all smiles and chatty and she’s responding well.

We haven’t even started the debrief when somone runs up to us. “Come quickly, it’s my friend – he fell off the stile, I think he’s hurt!” We head down, shaking our heads and find a gentleman lying on rocks next to a river. He’s fallen some 2m and is complaining of a lack of sensation in his legs.

Fuck.

I’m running this incident as my colleagues deal with first aid. I request backup from Ambulance control to be told that there’s no land ambulance available. They check on a helicopter for me as we request more people and more equipment. Our landrover pulls up, blue lights flashing and cars slow down on their way past, their occupants staring at a blue-shirted throng of rescuers arranging to move this man onto a stretcher from one of the most awkward positions I’ve ever seen. It’s not long before he’s on a stretcher and moving. We look at the fence – it’s in our way. Bolt croppers are called for and the fence is ready to become a casualty of this incident.

“Ok, hold it there folks.” A voice calls from behind me and the ‘casualty’ pulls his collar and spinal management kit off.

“That collar’s really uncomfortable.” He says, rubbing his neck. I turn around and find ‘mum’ and our two previous casualties grinning behind me. The exercise is over and we’re talking amongst ourselves about how it went. There’s lessons to be learned – there are always lessons to be learned. But we have three people who are alive and kicking (in the scenarios) because of the care we gave them.

As we head back to base I’m thinking that I’m glad I got to practice on children tonight. I’m rusty in dealing with children, but I seem to be getting the hang of it. I shudder as I think of the moment when my casualty told me she was feeling sleepy and know that I’m better prepared for the next one. Chances are, the next one won’t be practice.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

So I’ve had my Go 740 for a few weeks, how’s it going?

Pretty good. It’s re-routed me a few times because of traffic on the M4 – this morning for example, with an accident closing one eastbound lane at J29, it took me an alternate route. Given that my journey is nominally 40 minutes, it was reporting a 30 minute delay and when I passed the traffic on the M4 it was stood still. I got into work 7 minutes late.

It does have limitations though – the M4 Severn Bridge is a bottleneck and if that was closed there’s not much it can do to re-route me. It’s managed to get me to callouts sucessfully, to find locations via Google search results and take me there….all in all, I’m very happy with it. I do think it’s worth paying the £8 per month for the extra services, it turns it from just another navigation tool into somethign quite exceptional.

It has had a few problems though – random crashes from time to time, though it recovers within about 30 seconds and jumps straight back into the thick of it. The latest software won’t let me run the unit from TomTom Home – that’s really frustrating because there was no warning of that on the download and that’s how I add my route corrections. Still, no show-stoppers, a cracking navigation unit.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

I had to do something today that was very difficult for me. I deleted user-contributed content from a site I admin.

I feel very strongly for freedom of speech. I believe everyone has the right to an opinion* and that they also have the right to voice that opinion. Free speech is what a functional society must be based on, the open and frank discussion of ideas, of faults and of mistakes. If one person makes a mistake that harms someone, then everyone should learn from it. I commented on this on Mark Reeves‘ blog this week and I’ve made my position clear before numerous times.

Most importantly, this doesn’t absolve the individual from their responsibility to keep private information that should not be made public. For example, when I attend an incident and want to blog about it, I have to weigh up free speech against an individual’s right to privacy as well as my own professionalism in the approach that I take to whatever topic it is I’m writing about.

This week, a controversial topic has arisen on a website that I’m an admin on. There have been some comments made in public on what is essentially a private matter between two management groups. Although I don’t believe that such comments should be made public since the issue is an internal one and it’s not in the public interest to air it. What’s worse is that the comments that were made were immature, inflammatory and unprofessional. They managed to serve no purpose than to bring their own organisation into disrepute. After a brief conversation with the appropriate managers, a decision was taken to remove them – a decision I did not take lightly.

At the moment I’m furious. Removing those comments left a bad taste in my mouth. However, I cannot condone their behaviour and the comments were harmful to the entire organisation. What disgusts me most is that some of these are people that should know better. They are professionals and they have achieved nothing other than to inflame an already difficult situation and make themselves look like fools.

People should stop and think before putting fingers to keys. As someone once said to me “Don’t ever say anything on the internet that you wouldn’t say in an interview on TV.”

* When I say opinion, I mean just that. Opinions should not be presented as fact, and if you present rumour as fact you should be prepared to stand up and apologise as loudly as you shouted your fact in the first place when you’re proven wrong.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

This time last week, I thought I would be writing a very different post to this one, but TomTom have, after the initial problems, really come through. Not only does the device et a resounding recommendation from me, but their support does as well. So, what happened?

Last week I bought myself a toy that I’d been waiting for some time for – a TomTom Go 740 Live from Amazon.co.uk. I’ve been keeping an eye on the SatNav market for a while, and though the TomTom has a major limitation for me in that you can’t navigate to an OS Grid Reference, the quality of the software, the user interface and the navigation itself have always placed it ahead of its competitors in my book. I will say that I have had a TomTom before – this was TomTom Navigator version 2 on a PDA which I’ve had some 8 years. By now, it’s mostly useless, with major problems with maps and the PDA is obviously creaking at the hinges a bit.

So, when it arrived I was immediately impressed with its size – it’s a lot thinner than the 910 I played with a while ago, much lighter as well. I plugged it in and got the TomTom Home software installed – available for Mac as well as PC – and downloaded all my updates. I used the “Latest map guarantee” to get all the latest map updates, and with the x40 series, you now get 3 months free subscription, so I downloaded all of those updates as well. I was also very impressed with the windscreen mount – it’s rock solid, far better than the old one.

Off I went…and that’s where the problems started. The device simply refused to connect to the mobile network – it has a built-in SIM and ‘mobile data’ connection. Not good, the menu wouldn’t even give me the serial number of the hardware. I raised the issue on Friday with TomTom on their website, and they acknowledged that they were seeing a temporary problem with their servers and suggested a reset process for me to try out once they’d fixed their servers.

Now, being a bit of a geek, I spent a few hours researching this problem (Error 1001). A number of forum users have had the problem – some noted that the excuse given out by TomTom of “server problems” appears to be bogus. I had nothing to compare it against in this case, and those reports were typically US-based, so I gave TomTom the benefit of the doubt.

So roll on Monday morning and lo and behold – the process completes but I still can’t connect. I replied via their online problem system and by mid-morning, I was to impatient so I called them. A very friendly lady led me through a number of procedures, none of which worked and gave me one last one to try at home (I’d forgotten the cradle behind). That also failed, so that night I raised it with Amazon who shipped a new unit out to me.

This morning the replacement arrived. I plugged it in and immediately had some trouble – you can only register one new TomTom device per account every 6 months. This is to stop you from buying one for your friend as well and both having updates – fair enough. So a quick call to TomTom confirmed this and the lovely lady solved that problem within half an hour (Thanks Brandy!).

The new TomTom replaced the old one fine (TomTom gives you several options including backing out of the change – very handy) and off it went to grab updates. Once that completed I immediately checked signal – and yes, it was connecting. Great! But wait, it refused to download my “HD Traffic” updates. Apparently my subscription had expired…and a quick phone call to TomTom (thanks Jade this time!) revealed that with the account reset they’d performed that morning, the 3 month free subscription that had been added was gone. That was quickly resolved and I now have a fully working TomTom.

What about the device itself? Well, navigation is as good as I expected – I have yet to use it in rush hour on a busy route, so I’ve not really used the IQ routes nor the HD traffic functions in anger. But the navigation is good – it takes the routes I know are fastest around here; it updates quickly when I go my own way; the announcements are clear; pronounciation of street and place names is pretty damn impressive, especially for some of the places around here and it even recognises “Senghenydd” when I told it when I was testing the voice recognition.

So, TomTom the device – 9 out of 10. Sorry, but you lose a point for not going OS Grid Reference. TomTom the company – 9 out of 10 – you had some mistakes but you corrected them promptly and politely. Very impressed. Well done, folks.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

I am fairly seriously pissed off at the moment.

Every organisation has its own internal politics - it’s just how life is. Some play power games, some want money, some build empires, and some just want to get on with the job. Politics in voluntary organisations can be particularly bad - it’s not that surprising when you get a bunch of people together who all believe passionately enough in a cause to donate that amount of time and effort. It’s the main reason I stopped my work with the First Responders - between the voluntary side and the involvement with the ambulance service, there was just too much politics. Mountain Rescue in this area has traditionally had some interesting politics, but never let it get in the way of the job.

So when Mountain Rescue politics did kick up last week, it caught me by surprise and annoyed me. More than that, it blindsided Sean. As a result he’s now announced that he’s no longer interested in joining the team, which is a shame - I was really looking forward to working with him on jobs and seeing him do well on the team.

Thing is, it’s got me thinking and has got me pretty angry right now. Do I really want to be part of a wider organisation who can treat people like that? I love the job that we do, I love getting in there and doing the job, and I know that 99% of the people in the organisation are there to do the same as I am - get on with rescuing people. But I find myself questioning my membership over the event. I’m sat here at the moment while there’s a rescue going on a few valleys away thinking about my membership and my commitment and other things - my hayfever, my contribution. Hayfever’s stopped me halway out the door today because I realised that if I wandered up a hill with the pollen this thick, I’d be collapsing in a heap of mucus, sneezes and wheezes before I reached the casualty. No drugs can stop that amount of pollen from affecting me.

So my head’s in a mess with a million different thoughts going through it right now. I’m damn well sure however, that I’m not going to let politics or the team come between Sean and I.

Postscript: I toyed with the thought of posting this for a while. I’m aware that several people will read it and feel like I’m airing the organisations dirty laundry in public. However, I feel strongly that since I started this blog that I would comment on the things that I came across that mattered to me, whether positive or not.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

Part of being in Mountain Rescue is the commitment. The commitment to carry a pager with you and respond when you can, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, every single day of the year. Even Christmas day.

Wherever I go, the pager goes. It goes on vibrate sometimes, other times it even goes on silent. But it stays on, ready to receive its little message.

At night, it sits next to the front door, where it has reception. It’s piercing tone set to beep continuously until I get to it and hit a button - it’s the only way it will wake me up. It’s very loud, especially in the early hours of the morning.

Three nights ago, it went off and interrupted my sleep. Meh, it happens. I can’t respond during nights this week - I’ve got a big project to finish off at work and sadly, Mountain Rescue doesn’t pay the bills. So, when the pager woke me at 0631 on Tuesday morning, I wordlessly padded downstairs, turned it off, set it to silent - because I knew there’d be more messages - and went back to sleep. It was a search in Carmarthenshire - no way I was going to get there and do anything useful before work.

Wednesday morning, it was about 0145 when it went off. This time, it was followed rapidly by a “555″ message - stand down. Fine, back to sleep, grumbling lightly.

This morning it was 0146 when the initial alert came through. Frustrated and tired, I shut it up and went back to sleep. 0200 the message came through - missing person in Caerphilly, all of a 3 minute drive away. Ten minutes later - stand down.

Can I get a decent night’s sleep tonight please?

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

On Saturday, Sean is moving in.

Well, OK, he’s lived here over the various University holidays over the past three years, but as of this Saturday, he’s finished his degree. He’s packing up the last of his things and throwing them in the back of his still-new-to-him car and bringing them here.

Am I excited? Am I fuck. I’m bouncing.

There is, however, the small logistical matter of where the hell we’re going to put his crap. Because folks, I have a lot of crap. The office has recently been semi-emptied - that is, we’ve gone through all of the tat in there, put up some shelves, filled the shelves with tat we can’t bear to throw out, thrown out shitloads of tat and shoved the rest in the corner or into the spare room. The other day, you know, that day. The Day Mal Got Married*. Well, he was staying in the spare room given that his bride to be was staying in their place. So, I had to reorganise and it turns out it’s not quite so much of a Tardis as I’ve been treating it.

So, I have a feeling that some general reorganising is going to have to be done in the house when he comes home. But that’s just logistics.

Right now, I’m just looking forward to spending evenings snuggling on the sofa watching Gray’s Anatomy. Or Casualty. Or the Bill. Or something.

* Oh God but this deserves a post of its own, just as soon as I’ve nicked some pictures to illustrate because I, like the idiot best man I was, did not take a single picture all night. Seriously.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

It’s cold. I’m just recovering from the flu and still feeling a bit naff, but when the pager goes off I don’t hesitate and jump into my Discovery and plough through the snow. I stop at base and we’re told that the road to the RV is closed to all bar 4×4’s. Both team Landrovers are busy ferrying people, so I offer the use of my Discovery. Emptied of my usual load, four other mountain rescuers jump in with kit piled high in the boot and we’re off, up to the RV. The road is treacherous but we make it fine and we all pile out. Most of the team is here, and other teams have been called in to help as well. I realise I haven’t got my jacket with me and throw on a skiing jacket instead, stomping around in the snow and grabbing a chocolate bar - I still feel a bit rough.

Our quarry is in this valley somewhere. We start searching - it’s already dark and the snow is falling hard. The snowcover makes it worse as it covers the grass between the tussocks and the tops of the tussocks themselves evenly, meaning that with every step you’ve no idea if you’re going to be standing on a tussock or sinking knee deep in snow. For a moment, the snow slows and I get a view of a line of headtorches and search lamps stretching from ridge to ridge, sweeping down through the valley, a line of searchers led by dogs and handlers searching for the two of them.

Two and a half hours in and I’m tired, wet and steaming lightly in the cold. My skiing jacket isn’t coping with the hard tromping we’re doing and I’m overheating inside it. There’s a call over the radio, one of the dogs has a strike. Adrenaline pumps around my body and as one the line stops, instructed by control to hold position. It’s confirmed, the man and woman we’ve been looking for, alive, cold but very happy to see us. We sweep forward and crowd around, our lights turning that small patch of mountain to daylight. A find! Alive!

We turn and start walking them off, grinning, glad that we’ve found them alive.

A message over the radio: The man’s wife has reported him missing as well, but not to worry, the police told her that we’d found him safe and well.

He blanches.

Did they tell her who I was with, he asks.

A sudden realisation hits us and we try to hide our smiles at his misfortune. We shrug and walk them off.

It’s only later, back in base tucking into tepid pie and chips the police provided that we hear the reaction of his wife to finding out who he’d been with. I left base with visions of his clothes on the snow-covered lawn when he got home.

Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Sorry about the gap recently, I’ve been mad busy sorting Mal’s wedding and other things. This one obviously did not take place recently.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

This is a quick montage of images featured on the Kontraband.co.uk website.

I have to say that I think this is the most disgusting, embarrassing series of images I’ve seen of Cardiff. I love the city, there’s plenty to be proud of - but of a weekend night it seems to descend into hell.

Where is the local authority - those rubbish bins are far too small and too few. Where are the landlords and licensees that they’re selling alcohol to such inebriated customers without consideration for the law? Where is the Welsh Assembly in the lack of funding available for the police to deal with this kind of behaviour?

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

We found her sitting in amongst the trees. It was strange really, she was well prepared, but it was all just very strange.

We’d been called at about 1700 to search for a missing person near Swansea. I was at base quickly enough and once I was changed, I got the second vehicle ready to leave and off we went. Blue lighting it out of Dowlais along the A465 to Hirwaun is never fun - it’s a horrible piece of road and with plenty of spray and rain, we held back a bit. Once past Hirwaun, we were on a dual carriageway and then the M4. One last bit of driving through semi-urban areas and we were at the RV.

It was a pretty quick briefing. She’d been missing since the previous night. There was some concern for her safety. There wasn’t much to go on. Here’s your area, do your 300m search. Off you go.

The 300m search area is an interesting statistic. A lot of material has been collated in respect to missing person behaviour and the number of people found within 300m of the point where the missing person was last seen or was last known to be is very high. As a result, we frequently conduct a hasty search of the area immediately surrounding that point.

We’d only been searching for an hour or so - 300m doesn’t sound like much, but a circle of radius 300m is quite large - especially when it’s heavily wooded or scrubland. We’d met up with the second party and were just working out how best to attack the next area when one of the lads who was still walking back to us stopped. It took us a second to realise he was trying to attract our attention, but he’d seen something - and indeed, there she was. In a sleeping back with candles and a magazine, she lay in the forest, cold, wet and by now quite hypothermic.

We wasted no time tending to her and were soon handing her over to the Ambulance service for transport to hospital. The mad rush stopped and we started gathering our equipment - and our thoughts.

I stopped to think. How could she do that? I understand how people can get low enough to feel that there’s nothing left for them - I’ve had some pretty low points in my life and without the presence of good friends I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been in the same boat. But what I couldn’t understand was that she was sat there, under the trees, waiting. Within shouting distance of some houses, she lay there and let the elements take her - and that I couldn’t understand. I can fathom the need to end it all, but to passively lie there and wait…why the torture of waiting?

We’ve searched for a number of “despondent” people over the past few years. Some we’ve found safe and well and helped. Some we’ve been unable to provide anything but comfort for the family with the knowledge that they didn’t suffer. Some we’ve just not found. Each one is unique. You’re never sure if it’s a cry for help or a determined attempt to end it all. I’ve seen all age groups from teenagers to octagenarians, I’ve seen all manner of methods. I’ve accepted each one on it’s characteristics. This search struck a nerve in me, something happened there that I couldn’t understand.

I’m not sure I’ll ever understand how she could wait there, sitting in amongst the trees.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve made it home. Just.

I drove up to Aberystwyth tonight to take Sean back for his lecture tomorrow. I checked the MetOffice reports, but after a bit of a snow shower around 1700 this afternoon, the only thing reported was “icy roads” - not normally a problem anywhere other than my street, so off we went. No problems and driving back was fine…until I hit Storey Arms. Well, I didn’t hit it - I’d slowed down a bit by that point. I knew that this was the worst part of my journey and the fingers of white creeping into my lane from the snow told me that it was a little chilly outside. I’m glad I did slow down, because after a little wobble at Storey Arms when I found the black ice, I slowed down a bit more. I was wrong about one thing though.

All the way down from the Storey Arms to the Beacons Reservoir the road was icy. I was crawling along at around 10mph when I started the descent down towards the Nant Ddu Lodge - and I’m glad I was because halfway down the hill, I saw blue lights. Letting the engine slow me down, I saw a police car pulled into one side with a car opposite him, halfway up a lamppost. The car in question had obviously visited both hedges before trying to climb the lamppost, but failed, leaving itself at approx 30 degrees. To be fair to the driver, at under 10mph, I was finding it challenging to keep the car going where I wanted it.

Carrying on down the road, I checked traction at the first Merthyr Roundabout and found that it had returned - looks like the salt’s done its job, I though. I was wrong.

I had a brief wobble over one of the bridges which I’d slowed down for, and so I kept my speed slow as I headed through the Merthyr area and down the next stretch of the A470 to Abercynon. I didn’t so much wobble as become aware that I had very little traction on the next piece, so I let the car drift down to a sedate 20mph and saw another RTC on the opposite carriageway, with another police car in attendance. Keeping the speed low, myself and another car made it down to Abercynon. Now, with the bad weather recently, the mountain road from Nelson has been closed, so I headed down the A470 towards Caerphilly. Keeping a good few hundred meters behind the car in front, we crossed the ice-covered viaduct at Abercynon and carried on towards Pontypridd - I was expecting the Trallwng corner to be bad - it’s an elevated section, banked and a very sharp corner. I was only doing 20mph so had plenty of time to see the police car with his lights on in the opposite carriageway waiting for the RTC and waving at me - presumably because I wasn’t driving like a loon.

The other car and I carried on down the A470 at a gentle pace of about 35mph, slowing down for the odd bridge - unlike the idiot in the white van that shot past us like we were stood still, wobbled precariously as he found the ice on the bridge up ahead and, having stabilised himself, carried on at a speed that was ridiculously dangerous for everyone on the road.

Whoever said you don’t need crampons in South Wales? Never mind the mountain, I almost whipped them out to get back to the house tonight. The car is at the bottom of the hill - I could see the ice shining like glass on the road as I approached and parked the car neatly out of the way. The walk up was interesting - going up a slope with little or no traction whilst hanging on to the fence must have been amusing to the cat who was sat watching me.

So, home safe. To bed for now, to see what joy tomorrow’s weather brings. I’ll be thinking of the lads and lasses that make up the three main emergency services who are out in the cold tonight as I cuddle up in my warm bed.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

For those of you who read my blog via LJ, it would appear that a recent upgrade of Wordpress broke the cross-posting of my entries to LJ. This has now been fixed, but feel free to catch up on www.thinknuts.net. Alternatively, use the RSS feed on there instead of the LJ friends page. :)

I have problems with keyboards. I’m fussy. If I don’t get fussy, my wrists complain. So at work, I prodded and was duly presented with my choice of natural keyboards and I ordered a Microsoft one. Although I don’t particularly like providing such a huge company with money (I like supporting the little guy) this is a cracking good keyboard. The contact is firm and positive, not too loud, the layout is nice and you can elevate the -front- of the keyboard giving my wrists a far more natural alignment.

So when it arrived and I plugged it in, I was very happy…until I hit Alt-F2 which is the combination in KDE to bring up the “Run…” dialog box. Nothing happened. Hrm. Ctrl-Alt-F4 to try to change to a virtual terminal. Nothing. More frustrated attempts. Nothing. My F-keys didn’t work. And once I started fiddling, neither did the other keys, the “media” ones at the top etc. Damn. What’s going on here?

I’ll not go into too much detail (this Gentoo page on this specific device does that admirably) but it seems as though this keyboard is slightly odd on top of which the FreeBSD USB Keyboard driver has behaviour that clashes with it. So for those of you who find this via google and want to get your keyboard to work, someone has raised a bug report and attached a patch - it at least gets you back to the point where the F keys work - it will require compiling your kernel, though that’s not that challenging on FreeBSD.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

Mountain rescue is very enjoyable, but we’re occasionally reminded of how dangerous the job is. We had one incident last year and it seems as though the north Wales teams had a tough time of it last night with 8 team members injured in a successful attempt to rescue two injured climbers from the slopes of Snowdon.

I’ll be raising my glass to them and hoping they all recover fully.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

Back in August, I wrote about the project that’s underway to redo the team website. Mainly because I’ve been very busy with other things in life, very little progress has been made up until about a week ago. Last week I left Wales on Christmas Eve to head down to Sean’s in Hertfordshire and found myself with quite a bit of time on my hands. As a result, the project has come forward in leaps and bounds. Before Christmas I bought myself a copy of Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6, which I’ve now read and have inwardly digested. I’ve installed Drupal 6, configured it, installed a dozen or so modules, added content, created a navigation structure…I’m now at the point where I’m looking at adding a workflow module to cater for publishing content and even looking at adding a custom content type.

So what are my views so far? Well, it’s a highly competent CMS for starters - at one point I despaired and started looking at Joomla, but the way it models content disgusted me even more so that Drupal. Now, in this respect, I’ve probably been very lucky. In my last job, I worked for Box UK whose main product is Amaxus, a CMS. Amaxus has been designed from the ground up by some very smart cookies - in fact, mostly by one very smart cookie indeed - Dan Zambonini. The conceptual design for Amaxus is, quite honestly, a work of genius. The model that it uses is simple, easy to grasp and provides incredible flexibility. Of course, it does mean that rolling out a site is quite a lot of work, but with a commercial CMS, that’s where your money comes in - the implementation is the gravy; the professional services part of the contract is normally for this kind of product worth far more than the product itself. So from that perspective, I’ve been spoiled. I’m used to an excellent model to work with…and that’s where I got stuck.

Quite simply, the amaxus model is this: take a navigation tree. Each node is a page made of blocks. Blocks can do anything from picking a single piece of static content, to providing a list of content that’s picked uniquely for each visitor depending on their browsing history through the site. Content is created independently. One piece of content can exist anywhere in the navigation structure more than once. Once you get your head around that lot, you start to see just how powerful this is. Drupal is…well…slightly different. It took me a little time to get my head around it, so here’s a quick run down for anyone currently trying to get theirs around it.

In Drupal, content is the key. The navigation system is only there to provide a convenient way for a user to get to some content. Therefore, the content has to exist before the navigation structure. Now, Drupal makes it easy for you by adding a panel in the content creation page that lets you add a menu item to that content piece, but it’s a paradigm shift for me. The other thing to realise is that blocks are configured on a site-wide basis. So instead of configuring blocks in each node, you configure the blocks once - however, each block has a whole bunch of options you can specify that tells the block when to appear. I’ve used this on our website to provide different kinds of users with different menus - members, non-members, content editors and admins. I have to admit I’ve been frustrated a few times by trying to create a menu before the content, although I think I’m starting to get the hang of it now.

Anyway, I’m impressed. I’ve built a fairly complex site in less than a week and I’ve learned a lot about Drupal in the meantime. Development will probably slow down a little over the next month or so as I learn about the next two things I want to implement - a workflow engine and the associated flows, and a custom content type and associated views for callouts.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

On Saturday I went shopping and had a wonderful day in Cardiff. Yes, I went shopping on the busiest day of the year and enjoyed it. How do I manage to do this every year? T’Interweb, of course.

Every year I plan my shopping ahead of time and buy as much online as possible and do it at a reasonably early point. In this way, on Saturday I had to get three gifts, possibly four and another two were yet to be delivered (they arrived this morning). So, given that I already knew what I needed, I planned to spend all day in Cardiff. Eh, what?

I can’t be doing with all this rushing around. It’s far too stressful. By doing most of my shopping online, I know I’ve only got a few small items to get. So I get a group of friends and we wander around town all day. We go for a big fried breakfast at Calcio’s. We stand in queues chatting and catching up, not minding the time. We wander around the stalls of the Cardiff Christmas Market tasting mulled wine, whisky mead, sloe gin, cheese, nuts and crepes. We ooh and aah at the quality of the hand-crafted items. We spend ages pottering around that second hand bookstore not minding the time at all. And if the crowds get a bit much, we head into a coffee shop where we split up - one party goes to nab a table and one to the queue, so that by the time the drinks are ready we’ve somewhere to sit. We organise it so that friends can pop in and join us for a bit and then toddle off or whatever. Basically it makes for a fantastically relaxing time. I thoroughly enjoyed Saturday wandering around Cardiff with a host of friends. The evening was also festive as I popped over to Dan’s for a coffee and then headed back home where Mal came over for munchies and a DVD (Team America: World Police [2004]).

Sunday started abruptly with the pager going off around 0800 though, but before I’d hit base, we’d been stood down from this search. I toddled off home and invited Jon for lunch but the pagers delayed that again as I headed back to base while we were on standby to rescue a dog. That didn’t take too long and I headed back to chat with Jon, eat food and watch Taxi with Queen Latifah. Finally a quick trip over to Rich’s turned into a 5-hour session of playing with computers, D&D and A/V kit. Finally, I spent the early hours of this morning reading a fantastic book (Sniper One: The Blistering True Story of a British Battle Group Under Siege ).

I had a cracking weekend, lots of Christmas spirit and friendship and it was great to catch up with people. This method of shopping is highly recommended.

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

Every year the Mountain Rescue team get together and have our Christmas party. It’s a bit of a tradition that we stand down for the night and celebrate the year in good spirits - and one of our traditions is the dishing out of appropriate awards to celebrate the funnier side of Mountain Rescue life.

I’ve won a few awards in my time. Some good, some not so good, some funny, some serious. I won a penknife in the team a few years ago for my attendance at incidents. I won the “Kermit the Frog” award at my last job for a Friday afternoon mishap that was categorised as severe “muppetry”.

Tonight I won two awards. The first was the “What the sh** was that?!” award for going above and beyond the call of duty in rescuing a casualty as we crossed the range in an international archery championship and stopped the competition in order to rescue a young lady.

In addition to that, I won a second award - this one was the “Phwooar!” award for a “most convincing display of flirting with a member of the Royal Family”. In my defense, I will say I wasn’t flirting, though it might have been a different case if it had been his younger brother….

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.

Nice simple callout for me today. We had an area call in the Neath valley for a young lady with a dislocated patella. In the pouring rain, I helped carry off the young girl, everything else was pretty much taken care of. Not much more to say than that really, nice job for us - lower leg injuries are bread and butter for us being about 60% of our calls if I remember correctly. Still, not bad, 3 hours from the pager going off to getting back

Originally published at Hypoxic witterings. Please leave any comments there.