In the lead...

Were at the start of Easter Events  here at the Dorm not being far off tucking into ones Easter Eggs as I file a report  after I'd been out for a walk nearby.

Sunday saw the Cheshire Cat sportive that started at Queens Park, Crewe  pass through the edge of our village enroute for Scholar Green and then on to the Staffordshire Moorlands over Congleton Edge toward Leek in a route that takes 174.3 kilometres in total.
From there they go around the edge of Northwich, Tarporley, Nantwich before cycling back to Crewe.
The highest point they will be climbing up to is Mow Cop which is 515 ft above sea level and clearly visible from the upper room windows which will be a bit taxing having been up there few times in the past and is home to a famous Folly, Mow Cop Castle.
The day had started off quiet foggy but by the time the first riders were passing through the fog lifted allowing the sun to shine through as I cheered them all on.

Neigh they said edition

Phew, it isn't half hot which is why I'm in reality working on this tonight as cools a little rather than first thing tomorrow.

I got a film back and this picture taken locally is one I thought you'd quite enjoy of a couple of horses stabled within walking distance of home one morning early last Month.
I've always loved horses with living in the country and I'm sure you can see why.
Taken with Minolta Rokkor PE 300mm F5.6 telephoto lens, on Minolta X500 (aka 570 in North America), supported on fence. 
Film: Fuji Superia 200 colour print.

Easter greetings

Happy Easter folks!
Just eating a Easter cupcake with a chocolate top and two small chocolate eggs here from Cheshire's leading independent bakery no less.

The Christmas build up

Slowly getting set toward Christmas here delivering the final community magazine of the year here featuring that winter perennial, the red breasted Robin after Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Gawd, you should of seen the carnage as  people though each other not merely to get to those heavily discounted ticket items but even from each other as they were in their hands or trolleys with the police having to be called out  as order clearly had broken down.
Scores of people injured, some with legs kicked from underneath them to gain possession of said items others from items being pulled so furiously that they landed atop of them while security person in some instances only two for the whole store were powerless to stop it.
Where did our humanity go that day?
I decided to give it a miss not least with my health and disabilities It would be highly likely I'd be in the the casualties being less than stable on my feet ordinarily.
We did get on the Saturday, a small outdoor Christmas tree and some low voltage lights to decorate it with as normally we only have a half artificial tree over a metre high as the cat would climb up a traditional ground level one if not attack the burbles and tinsel!
Usually I prefer to get stuff in dribs and drabs across the week to avoid the weekend rush and that includes presents although for somethings at least the Internet is my default choice as if it is something may need to ordered with a return visit to collect I might as well cut out that step and be done.

Canalside stroll

Rather chilly but bright start to the day that sent my mind hurdling back toward Summer where I loved walking along the local Inland Waterway, taking in the scene and chatting away to people visitors and locals alike.
Although the area has become built up over the years, there remains a peaceful feel I find therapeutic especially along the areas adjoining farmland .

High street update

Brrr it's cold outside and I haven't been able to venture terribly far what with all this snow, ice and what not but who cares as I see plenty enjoying the winter that is probably more than our Prime Minister is at the minute.
Whats happened in the last week or so is the retailer HMV  who had gone into administration seems to be be in the process of being bought out by Hilton's who bought the Canadian stores a few years back and there's a willingness on the part of suppliers such as the music companies to lower wholesale prices and the terms of supplying goods to give the ol' dog some bite as they see an advantage in having their products on the high street (and not just a few titles in Asda and Tesco's).
That's good but I still feel 200+ stores is just not sensible in the current market all coming with their individual rent which is a large part of the problem in being a physical high street retailer in the UK. Indeed in passing I'll mention as of the end of this month the Disney store locally in a 350,000 population catchment of the North-west Midlands is closing because the mall rents are too high for them, which I think gives you an indication of the scale of the rent issue - and it needs action.
I feel they need to make better use of having an internet store - currently closed - allowing customers to order directly from a central large catalogue and allow them to nominate a store for picking up bulky or otherwise hard to deliver items in the metropolitan districts.
It also would help the stores by meaning they wouldn't have to keep very large stocks and if each store also had wifi, you could whip out your tablet, order a title and collect when convenient just by yourself. That may help staffing costs too.
Bigger stores may benefit by having a coffee store and maybe used vinyl store concession being allowed operate from the store to make the most of being the music store of a area which would help smaller store get more exposure without the expensive of a prime location. You see concessions in many 'womens' stores so why not try it???
The Prime Minister bit: spare you the details but he's wanting to reform the EU first and put that in a upcoming Tory government bill on a referendum as the yes option.
I really don't feel whatever the merits (and there are many) of reforming the EU, it's a proverbial can of worms most European leaders want to open particularly if we're talking about renegotiation of terms. It seems to me he's trying to folk on side who'd defect to the anti EU membership political party, UKIP rather more than seriously believing it would work out.

The great flooding of Northwich

We've had heavy rainfall this week causing considerable difficulties although where I am we've not flooded being just removed from the paths of the Rivers Dane and Weaver here in Cheshire.
Unfortunately in one of towns the organization I work for has offices, we suffered extensive problems with flooding, road closures and so on.
Northwich town centre.

As you can see not much moving there!
Hopefully it'll be over in a few days time although that'll be when the insurance claims and visits by loss adjusters will be set up.

Tv or not tv as we know it?

Isn't modern life surprising,eh?
Take Tv for instance in the UK we had four followed by Five free to air tv channels available by an antenna in the 1990's.
If you wanted more channels you'd either get cable which Cranford Central sure isn't an option or you'd subscribe to Sky TV a subscription based satellite service that provides packages which I had for several years changing from analogue to digital over that time.
The service wasn't bad, but it was expensive and you have to take all the subscription regular channels to get either sports or film channels. I wasn't in much to take full use of it.
I tried ONdigital which reception issues aside (believe you me I had to have the biggest most sensitive antenna fixed in the whole neighbourhood to get this part subscription digital tv via the antenna service with reasonable reception out here) wasn't bad as it gave most of the stuff I wanted at a reasonable price only to have it go in administration.
When the digital tv over the antenna service was reconfigured in 2002 to a very wide choice of free to watch channels from the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and five, I stuck with that, just keeping the old sky box for a select few satellite only free channels I  watch downstairs.
Imagine my surprise then to find it was possible to subscribe to the sports channel British Eurosport which I missed entirely online in HD widescreen for a mere £2.99 per month and having now gotten decent fibre broadband I had a fast clean connection to make it work.
Plus connection permitting I can use it on a tablet PC via Wifi anywhere!
With that I updated the M$Silverlight to the latest version on the laptop having deleted the old one and immediately set up an account paying via PayPal cos I don't like handing my card details out if I can help it.
It really works so with a combination of two British Europsport channels (with extra one offs) streamed HD anime from CR and my free to air tv channels I'm getting just the kind of tv I like at a price I feel is reasonable.

Downpours!

I don't know what happened to "Flaming June" but July sure isn't shaping up into anything better having gotten drenched from visiting my Doctors yesterday. Fortunately most of this district hasn't been subject to flooding although some twenty miles south of here some people have been flooded out of their houses when the rivers overflowed and the back roads here need to be treated with a bit of caution as the fields do flood frequently.
As it was sunny when I got up first thing, I decided to get my long walks in early as the forecast for the afternoon wasn't good at all and nothing but nothing is gonna stop me from exercising! And as my blood pressure is a tidgy bit high it's as well to continue with it as I've lost so far over 1 stone and 2 pounds.

Passing through

While continuing  with this walking thing and enjoying the sunny weather over here, I saw this so took a photo.

The narrow boat on the right was just coming in as I stood holding the shutter ready for 'the moment. With my old analogue SLR it was always screwed down tight to a tripod and pre-framed focussed by hand.
I've left the exposure as is as I can't see any need to tweak this.

Post Christmas edition

Well I'm feeling about talking around Christmas today.

Food is one thing I look forward to and I usually meet with family members on Christmas day for lunch as for one thing it saves cooking and for another it's a good deal more relaxing being waited upon so you're able to talk more. The Christmas pudding with Brandy sauce was nice.

Also I went to the works Christmas lunch before we broke up which this year was held near Oulton Park race track surround by the Forest which I look forward to as its a chance to speak to people I don't see too often otherwise being in the other office most days. The staff were really helpful escorting a visually impaired staff member in and finding them a spot well illuminated to eat by talking of which the food was well cooked. I don't like lukewarm carrots.

We had a quiz and my tables team won by half a point!

This christmas I had some money, a voucher for the Electronics store Maplins - whose customer service around these parts is something of a joke with staff that can't do math and so on, the latest Naruto dvd set, a new watch, a Beatle mug and lots of candy.

I've yet to go physical shopping because in my neighbourhood the public transportation is locked down until this morning when it resumes as a 'Saturday' service although I raided Amazon for some goodies like replacement cds yesterday.

My mailman has quite a backlog of stuff to get through!!!

Help!

There are somethings that may be hard to do because of understandable restrictions about what you can say publicly but some aspects about my work do give me an insight into what other people are going through.
From my vantage point I see people experiencing problems with debt which sadly is very common place in the UK presently.
Many people think it's just people living the dream beyond their means but in my experience and that of my colleagues, it's not.
Generally speaking most we encounter are people who do think about meeting the repayments before taking on such long term commitments but often what is the problem is a sudden unforeseeable change in circumstances such as losing your job, a reduction in take home pay for those who are paid hourly or discovering you're pregnant.
For some consumer based debt problems can come from errors and delays on the parts of others such as problems with benefit or tax credit payments that may take several months to resolve or a notification that say their tax was miscalculated and they want more money off of them.
Consumer debt problems can be very serious when they concern what are called Utilities such as gas, electricity and water or not paying your rent, rates to your Council or tv license and I cannot emphasize enough the importance in seeking help the minute you see you may not be able to meet the payments.
I had a client recently what had lost their job because their employer had gone into administration and whose partner to which they were due to marry also was likely to made redundant within the month. Fancy a situation where both of you are out of work? Serious stuff, eh?
Well one of things we do is give people advice about what money they should get from their employer when they leave and if they are allowed any time off to look for new work. We also look at their situation and the person concerned we suggested they made a claim for benefits for being out of work as they needed money to live off even though we'd all hope they were able to get new work soon and should their partner also be out of work then the calculation for what both could get would alter. As well by that point if they needed any help with debts then we'd offer that although at the moment that looked okay.
So you see it's a bit different than people may say at the bus stop or in the popular press.

Springs forward!

Well at long last we've taken a leap into Spring that magical time of year where after all the cold and snow mother earth renews herself in full colour.
The week has been quite warm with temperatures up to 18 degrees C with loads of sunshine and mobile ice cream vans making their appearance.Heck people have been seen sans coats and even wearing shorts!!!Not that unto a few days ago I saw any of as I was suffering from a four and bit day long severe migraine that saw me in bed with the curtains drawn as the light was really bothering me. I've had this since I was a kid so I know the drill of by heart.Anyway I was out for two days yesterday to visit our market town to visit the news store to collect my anime magazine although I ended up buying some books too and today visiting the Post Office locally to return a defective record so I get a full refund having tracked down a replacement copy.
The towns market yesterday was actually very busy with a coachload of tourists and some foreign exchange students trying to get the answers to a questionnaire filled out in the blazing sun coupled with folk musicians playing and the market store holders calling out their wares.
Today was a bit busy here - in few weeks time the narrow boat season starts so we get our tourists - and noticing the daffodils were out planted by local volunteers, took this picture of them by a patch of common ground.

The Fall edition (Tm)

Well it's that time of the year dont'cha think? Everything's going vivid before the onset of the snow.

Having recovered from a bad cold I've been out and about walking, and so took a few pictures with my digital pocket camera.

This is of a tree that's situated at the junction of our road. I had to wait a few days to get the right combination of colour change on the tree plus fairly subtle lighting to bring it out. I'm sure you'll agree it was worth the wait.