Planning and doing

Making plans for lots of walking and camping.

South West Coast Path

Yay! Two more getups and it’s half-term. For what will be the third spring half-term in a row, I’m heading down to the South West Coast Path to get another chunk of it under my belt.

I’ve found a campsite near Hartland which I can use as a base. I walked as far as Westward Ho! last time, so this year I’ll be starting from there. I’m aiming to get to Bude as a minimum. I’d like to walk further, but I know from experience it’s not that easy when I have to rely on an infrequent bus service to get me from one end of the walk back to the other end where I’ll have parked my van. If the last bus leaves at 5pm, it doesn’t matter how light the nights are, I still have to make sure I’m finished walking before that bus leaves.

I’m planning to drive down to Devon on Friday night, leaving at around midnight to avoid the traffic. This worked really well in February when I had to drive down to Portsmouth to catch the ferry to France. I’ll try to get a bit of sleep on Friday evening and I’ll have my bed set up in the back of the van, so if I get tired I can easily pull off the road for an hour or two.

Lundy Island

I’ll be heading for Ilfracombe on Saturday as I’m going to try again to get to Lundy. It was cancelled due to storms this time last year, but I’ve checked the weather forecast and it does look as though it’ll be a bit better this time round. I tried to book last Saturday morning, but when I phoned the office they couldn’t take my booking then and asked me to phone back later, but so far I haven’t been able to. They did say that it’s unlikely they’ll be fully booked, so I’ll just take my chance and turn up.

Orkney and Shetland

I’ve decided to return to Shetland in the summer and also visit Orkney. I was last in Orkney about ten years ago and only really saw the Mainland. I’ve seen plenty of Shetland during my recent couple of summers there, so this time I’ll just revisit a few favourite places and then spend more time in Orkney visiting islands I haven’t been to before. I’ve been researching ferries and ordering maps. I’ve got a full set of OS maps for Shetland, but didn’t have any for Orkney. My Orkney maps have now arrived, all except one, which had gone out of stock. I’ve re-ordered it, so should get it soon.

Shopping

Apart from maps, I’ve bought a rather reasonably priced 3 in 1 jacket. This is a lightweight waterproof with a fleece that attaches to the inside to make it a winter jacket. The fleece can also be worn by itself. I haven’t used a jacket like this before, so I’ve just bought a cheap one to see if I get on with it. I’ll probably get a lot of use out of it over the half-term, summer and my Duke of Edinburgh weekends. Other women buy bikinis for their hols; I buy waterproofs and fleeces. I’m sure I have the better holidays though!

I’ve also bought a collapsible canvas bucket. It folds completely flat so will be great for storing in the van. I left it full of water overnight to make sure it didn’t leak and it was absolutely fine. My other recent purchase has been a small, fold-up, short-legged table to use in the van. I’m looking forward to playing with testing my new toys bits of kit next week.

Stove Ignition

I contacted Primus in Sweden about my melted stove ignition and they got back to me really quickly and said they’d send me a new part. So far, so good. Just hope I know how to attach the new part when it arrives!

What else?

I’ve had several theatre trips over the last few weeks; some with school and some with a friend. Also a couple of dinners, a guided walk around the Little Ireland and Little Italy areas of Manchester, a 3-day Duke of Edinburgh weekend, and a day in Chester with students. Add to that a few union meetings and rallies and a parents’ evening at school and it’s all been a bit hectic. I’m really hoping to actually get some relaxing done as well as walking next week.

Update on Learndirect

More frustrations with Learndirect.

I emailed Learndirect about my being unable to access the online Sage course I’d bought from them and it took them a few days, but they did get back to me. I got a message on my phone telling me that the course won’t work with any browser other than Internet Explorer and it won’t work with Internet Explorer 10. So now I have fiddle with my computer and uninstall my current IE and try to download an older version. I can’t say I’m particularly happy about this. It’ll be good if it works of course, and I’m glad they got back to me, but Learndirect is hardly some tiny company. Surely they should be able to update things at their end so their courses work on up-to-date software!

It’s all a tad annoying …

Not very happy with my two Groupon deals.

I’ve only ever bought two deals from Groupon: a flying lesson and a Learndirect course on Sage.

The flying lesson deal I bought almost a year ago and had to give four weekend dates when I would be available. They would then contact me approximately 15 days beforehand to let me know it was happening. All year I’ve made sure I’ve kept those weekends free. The dates I had given came and went and, apart from a ‘Merry Christmas, we’ve not forgotten you’ email, I heard nothing.

Next weekend is the fourth and final weekend date I had given. Time to get excited, it has to be this one! A few days ago I still hadn’t heard anything, so emailed the company. The reply I received was that they are no longer doing that deal and they will arrange a refund. How long have they known this? I could have done other things with those weekends. And would they have let me know if I hadn’t contacted them first? As I said in the title, it’s all a tad annoying …

The Sage course I bought last September. I’d like to learn something about accounting software as, as well as gaining a new skill, it could be useful when I finally get around to starting my business. I downloaded one of Learndirect’s free courses first to make sure it worked on my computer and that I liked the presentation style of their courses. Everything was fine and so I bought the Sage course. I knew I wouldn’t have time to do anything with it there and then, but it’s valid for a year, so that wasn’t a problem.

I decided to start the course this weekend, but what happens? It no longer works on my computer. I get a message telling me I need some sort of update, but when I click the update button it tells me the update can’t be done. There are a few instructions on things I can try, but when I follow them through, all the correct boxes are ticked and enabled anyway. The link they provide to a help page is broken. I’m really quite upset about this, as I finally get time to do something about the course and it is no longer working. A colleague has had a similar problem. She was part way through one of their courses a few weeks ago and she lost access for the same sort of reasons. Apparently Learndirect have made some sort of changes and this has effected users. I really don’t understand how they can do this??? I’ve contacted them asking them to either sort it out quickly or send me a refund. I’d still like to do the course so I hope they sort the problem out. I wait with bated breath …

Silver weekend #1

Is it possible to have a great weekend even though a zillion things go wrong? Apparently the answer is yes, as I found out this weekend.

Is it possible to have a great weekend even though a zillion things go wrong? Apparently the answer is yes, as I found out this weekend.

Way back about a year ago, when school first mooted the idea of an enrichment programme every Friday afternoon to give our students, many of whom are from a disadvantaged background, a bit of, well, enrichment in their lives I jumped at the idea of getting involved with a Duke of Edinburgh Award group. We had over 80 students interested, as well as several members of staff. It was a logistical nightmare, but bit by bit, we got everyone registered, sorted out activities, arranged funding, got parental permission slips signed and gathered relevant medical information. I tried to organise a series of archery lessons for one group of students, but we ended up going climbing instead. They did this over 6 months and all got their level 1 and 2 NICAS awards.

School then decided that the whole idea of enrichment was way too expensive (I suppose I can see their point) and pulled it. Of course, Duke of Edinburgh is not just a one term only activity and some of these kids had made a serious commitment to see it through. They were getting a lot out of it and were devastated at the thought of not being able to continue. The lightweights dropped out and we were left with a (hard) core of 40+ students who really wanted to carry on.

Enrichment was pulled at the February half term which is halfway through the school year. During the first half of the year we’d concentrated on activities which would count towards the skill, physical and volunteering sections of the award. We’d planned from February onwards to run a series of first aid courses, and then focus on expedition skills e.g. navigation, camping skills, route planning, and so on. We also planned to get some Friday afternoon walks in to give them some actual walking experience. A couple of Saturday or Sunday walks out in the Peaks wouldn’t have gone a amiss either. As we no longer had Friday afternoons for enrichment, staff and students were all assigned other lessons. This meant anything to do with the Duke of Edinburgh had to take place after school during the week. This is usually how it would be run anyway, but as we hadn’t planned it this way, it threw everything into disarray and we didn’t get half of what we wanted to do done.

We split our students up into 2 rather uneven groups. The silver students are the older ones who had completed their bronze awards over the last year or two and had wanted to continue. There are only 8 of them. The other 30 odd of them are bronze award candidates who signed up when they had to choose an enrichment activity last year. We also have a few younger students (you have to be 14 or about to turn 14 to do the Duke of Edinburgh) who wanted to get involved. We thought it would be great for them to have a taster so they’d know what to expect when they’re a bit older and come to do the real thing, and so created a special school award that runs along the same lines but is a little easier.

This weekend was the first of our expedition weekends. We decided to take the silver group out first as we have to fit the practice and assessed weekends around their GCSEs. Also as it was our first expedition, having a smaller group of experienced students made a lot of sense.

So what are all the things that went wrong? Apart from us not being nearly prepared enough in the first place?

1) It snowed when we were supposed to recce the route and we weren’t able to rearrange it, so we were heading out on un-recced routes. Not ideal, but we didn’t anticipate any major problems.

2) We found out that we needed a BELA person at all times (BELA stands for basic expedition leader’s award) and not many staff have this particular qualification. I’m starting the course for it in September and my colleague, who has done most of the work for this expedition, won’t be doing her course until next month. So we had to go all out with our powers of persuasion, to powerfully persuade enough relevant people to ‘volunteer’ so we’d be covered all weekend. Job done. We had the people.

3) Two days before the expedition one of our BELA people dropped out. We flung a panic-stricken net far and wide to try to recruit anybody, ANYBODY, who could replace the missing person. Friends of friends of friends, passing acquaintances, anyone we thought might just happen to have a BELA qualification. No luck. Being bank holiday weekend, most outdoorsy, BELAy type people already had plans to be outdoors.

4) Two days before the expedition, but a bit later, another one of our BELA people was in hospital having surgery. We really didn’t want to cancel the expedition as, it being the GCSE season, we wouldn’t be able to rearrange it and our students would completely miss out. Cue massive hair-pulling, hand-wringing, head banging against wall session.

5) One day before the expedition our one remaining BELA person changed her time with us to cover both Friday and Saturday, and the hospitalised member said he’d be out and fit enough to cover Sunday. Big PHEWs all round.

6) On the day of the expedition, both my colleague and I were given covers to do during our free lessons. We were hoping to get away straight after period 3 at the start of lunch. As we’d lost our frees all the last minute getting together of gear and paperwork, getting ourselves changed, loading the minibus and Landrover, etc, just didn’t happen. So we ended up an hour late leaving.

7) Just before we left, my colleague thought she’d better double-check we really were insured to drive the Landrover which had been lent to us by the local authority Duke of Edinburgh people. Er, no. We’re not. As our school is an Academy, we are no longer covered by anything to do with the local authority. We couldn’t put all the luggage in the minibus with the students as there are safety requirements we have to abide by like not blocking the aisle or burying the students under mounds of backpacks. Isn’t it lucky I bought a van last year? So we transferred all the bags from the Landrover into my van.

8) I then had to go and get fuel which made me later at the rendezvous point than the minibus and so they’d all had to sit around waiting for me.

9) It was getting so late by this time that we decided to start the day’s walk 2 hours in and so drove to a layby where we could park my van and myself, my BELA colleague and the students started walking. The other two staff members took the minibus to the campsite.

10) Once we arrived at the campsite I had to get a lift back to my van to collect it. We were going to pick up a takeaway on the way back (for the staff; the students have to be self-sufficient and carry and cook all their own food). It took us quite a long time to get back to the van and we were finally on the way to Bakewell to get our takeaway when we got a tired and despondent phone call from our students. Their tents were up, they were unpacked, they were tired and hungry and ready to cook. But the meths for their camp stoves was on my van (as a safety precaution the fuel is the one thing we carry for them and just give them the amount they need when they are cooking). So we had to turn around and head back to the campsite so they could have a very late, but well-earned dinner.

11) The next day, started off rainy, but by the time we set off walking it had brightened up. I didn’t start the walk as we decided to take my van to the next campsite and leave it there and get us checked in at the same time. This would mean the students could go straight to our allocated sites and pitch their tents when they arrived rather than hanging about waiting for us to get them checked in. As we arrived there was a big notice at the front of the campsite saying no arrivals before 1pm. Then another notice saying ‘do not enter this campsite before the 1pm check-in’. So we entered and went to check in. We left the minibus part-way up the track and I drove down to the reception area to park up and deal with checking in and paying. The young guy behind reception was quite happy to get us checked in and for me to leave my van, despite the 1pm rule.

12) So far, so good. He opened his bookings book, checked his computer and … no sign of our booking. Thank goodness we’d come early. He was able to create a new booking for us and showed us where we could pitch our tents later on when we all officially arrived.

13) My colleague drove me out on the minibus to meet up with the walkers so I could walk with them for the rest of the day. For the final part of the walk we decided to let them walk on their own as this is what they will have to do the entire time on their assessed expedition. We drove round to a point where we knew they would have to cross the road and waited to see them. We waited and then waited a bit longer. It really shouldn’t take them this long. We finally spotted them walking along the road. They’d missed the turnoff for the footpath and so walked the long way round by the road. Minus a few points for missing the footpath, but full points for figuring out exactly where they were and working out an alternative route to get them where they needed to be.

14) That evening I came to put my stove on for only the second time ever. It’s a super-trendy stove bought for me as a present last year by my brother. As it was the end of the camping season when I got it, apart from checking it was working okay, this trip is the first time it’s been used. When I boiled water in the morning it was fine. It has an ignition switch that just needs pressing when the gas is on and it ignites automatically. No need for matches or a lighter. Great idea. I came to put it on in the evening and the ignition wouldn’t work. It just wouldn’t press in at all. Closer inspection showed the plastic switch had melted. So it was back to using a lighter. I’m not at all impressed as it was quite an expensive stove. I can feel a strongly worded email coming on. The area near the switch does get quite hot which is probably the problem. My brother has used one of these stoves for a long time and never had a problem with the ignition so this is probably just a faulty one. Hopefully Primus will do the decent thing and replace it for me.

15) Our students came to put their stoves on to cook their evening meal and asked for the meths. The meths had gone home with the teacher who’d been picked up by her husband an hour of two earlier. We broke the rules (it’s only a practice after all) and once the replacement teacher arrived, took them all into Bakewell so they could go to the chip shop.

16) By Sunday, our third day, the students were suffering. The lack of training was having an effect. We cut the route and part way through let them leave their backpacks in the minibus so they could finish it. This is something we won’t be able to do on the assessed expedition, so is a bit of a worry.

17) We climbed up to Monsal Head and met the minibus. The last part of the walk was along the Monsal Trail into Bakewell. We decided I’d get taken back to the campsite in the minibus to pick up my van and we’d meet the students at one of the disused train stations along the route to check they were still ok to finish the walk. They were fine and seemed a lot more cheerful now they were near the end. I came to reverse my van out of its parking space so I could drive to Bakewell, but nothing happened. After an awful lot of trying I finally got it to reverse. I then had a bit of a hair-raising drive into Bakewell in which, for some of the time, I was driving in neutral down a hill because I couldn’t get it to go into any gear. I followed the minibus into the car park in Bakewell and my gears went completely on me.

18) I had all the students’ backpacks and other miscellaneous camping gear in my van and so we really needed to get it back to school. Especially as it’s a bank holiday and so it will be Tuesday before I see them again and if my van is in the garage being fixed it could be even later than that before I can get their stuff to them. I called Greenflag and they said someone should be with me within the hour. We needed to get the students back so we unloaded the van and they took everything they thought they’d need into the minibus with them. It was probably too much to be strictly legal but not as piled high as it could have been.

19) The Greenflag man arrived at the car park well within the hour but then took about another half hour to get to me. It’s a massive car park and was chocca with stationery vehicles (and I don’t mean the parked ones) trying to get out. Bakewell is busy at the best of times, so on a bank holiday and with a funfair just up the road it was a nightmare.

20) The Greenflag man was very nice and soon figured out the problem. He wasn’t able to do a proper repair as it needs a part, but he said he would try to do a ‘bodge job’ (his words) so I could get home safely. If he had to tow me it would have cost around 100 quid. Cable ties came to the rescue and he spent over an hour securely tying numerous of them onto my dodgy gear linkage to hold it in place so I could drive again. As I drove home the gears actually felt better than they had done before, so thank you very, very much Warren for your bodge job. He’s also told me the part should only cost about £15 and take about an hour’s labour to fix. As I had visions of £100 towing fee plus a new gear box, you can imagine how relieved I was to hear this.

21) Once home, a lot later than expected, I had to empty the van into my house. I can’t leave anything in it overnight as one of the problems of living in a dodgy area is car thieves will break into a car if there’s a much as an old carrier bag left in it. My living room now contains, amongst other things, enough tents to start my own branch of Go Outdoors, several packets of teabags, some random socks and two guitars.

So was it a successful weekend? I think so, as despite all the obstacles and problems we overcame them and still managed to enjoy ourselves and fit in plenty of laughter. I’m looking forward to the next three expedition weekends and to doing my BELA. Once I’ve done that, I’ll feel a lot more confident to start working towards my actual walking group leader’s qualification.

Groningen Museum

An exhibition on Nordic Art was a great way to start my visit to Groningen.

Arriving on the train from Amsterdam this morning I went straight to the Groningen Museum. This made sense as the museum is right in front of the station, lying on an island in the canal that runs in front of the station and circumambulates the old part of the city, effectively turning the whole of the old city into an island.

Groningen Train Station

It also made sense because I could leave my heavy bag in the cloakroom and so didn’t have to walk round with it for a few hours. I’m only in Groningen for 3 days and so only have my daypack but it’s still heavy to be lugging around with me all day. The hostel is on the far side of the town, only a 20 min walk from the station but still … and I couldn’t check in till after 3pm anyway.

It cost a hefty 13 euros to get into the museum and I briefly toyed with the idea of getting a museum year card at 49 euros but worked out I probably wouldn’t get my money’s worth. When I used to come to the Netherlands more often I always had a museum card and it was so much nicer not having to worry about the cost when going to museums.

I had no idea what to expect from the very modern multi-coloured building (a complete contrast to the old ornate train station opposite) so hoped I wasn’t to be disappointed. I wasn’t.

The current special exhibition is on Nordic Art and blew my mind. The colours! The light! The impact! I had never heard of any of the artists but now have a few new favourites.There were artists representing all five countries which are considered Nordic – Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland. I spent well over an hour walking from room to room trying to take it all in.

Yin Xiuzhen ‘Weapon’ 2003-2007

Another exhibition which caught my attention was the a display of weapons hanging from the ceiling of one of the rooms, all at different heights. Each ‘weapon’ had a kitchen knife tip but the hilt was made from old clothes; stretched jumpers and the like. It was all rather colourful and effective. Here’s the blurb:

Resembling darts that appear to be heading directly toward their target, these colourful objects look not only dangerous but also comical. On the one hand, the threat is reinforced by the knives that are attached to the spear-like objects, but the fact that these are primarily kitchen knives, in conjunction with the feature that they are made of second-hand clothes, emphasizes their domestic nature. The ‘weapons’ evoke the idea of TV masts, which have similar form and function all over the world. To Yin, they are the ultimate weapon. After all, they control the flow of information like gigantic filters.

How deep and meaningful is that?

I sat in the theatre for an hour watching a Michael Palin film about Danish artist Hammersvoi. I’d never come across this programme before let alone the artist so learnt quite a lot.

The rest of the museum I wasn’t so interested in. The regular collection, which was actually quite good, couldn’t excite me after the Nordic Art exhibition. I also found a basement room full of crockery. China displays never really interest me at the best of times and this one didn’t either. What I did like about it was the way it had been displayed. The glass cabinets were all shrouded by a maze of net curtains. It really was like a maze and got quite disorientating walking around trying to see everything and never knowing what was going to be behind the next curtain. In one space the exhibits were actually in the floor with a layer of glass over them. I think it was meant to be representative of how some of these exhibits have been ‘discovered’ but as there was no information it was difficult to be sure.

Finally I saw an exhibition of Russian women artists which at another time I probably would have really enjoyed but by this time I was all museum-ed out and had achey legs and an empty stomach. I retired to the restaurant for an expensive panini and a cup of coffee before wandering round town and finding my hostel.

Here are some of the amazing Nordic Art paintings I saw:

Snow Stops Recce

I like snow, just not when it stops me doing important things.

This weekend I should have been camping and recceing the walks we’ll do in May and June with our Duke of Edinburgh students. After hearing reports of possible bad weather earlier in the week we decided to just go out on Sunday instead. But now with snow causing road closures we’ve called our Sunday only recce off as well.

Just over a week ago I did an afternoon course for expedition leaders which went over all the basics. Some of it was obvious, but I did get a few new things to think about and met some interesting people, so it was worth it. Obviously in just an afternoon I wasn’t going to become an expert leader but it has strengthened my confidence in that my prior knowledge and experience should stand me in good stead.

So I was all enthused and ready to get out and start doing practical stuff. A colleague and I had pored over maps and worked out a route, my colleague (who’s far more proactive and practical than me) has booked the campsites for the practice and the assessed expeditions. Because we have such a large group and because we have both silver and bronze students, we’re going to have to divide them into two separate groups and go out different weekends with them. As the silver walk 3 days and the bronze walk two days we’ve worked out 3 day routes of which the bronze students will walk 2 days worth. The assessed route has to be different to the practice route so even with the bronze students walking part of the silver routes that’s still 6 days walking in total that needs to be recced.

Now that we haven’t got out this weekend and I’ll be away for the next 3 weekends over the Easter holidays I really don’t know how we’re going to fit this in before we start taking students out in May. I can see me having no free time between the end of Easter right up until the summer, but at least I’ll be doing something I enjoy and getting back out into the Peaks.

Learning to drive on the wrong side of the road

A week spent driving on the wrong side of road has led me a long way towards completing this challenge.

A couple of weeks ago I went a long way (literally and metaphorically) to achieving this goal.

I’d been asked by a friend if I’d like to spend half term visiting her new caravan in the South of France. The catch was that I’d share the driving and help move the contents of her old caravan in Normandy to the new one in Serignan Plage. I jumped at the chance. Not only did I get a very cheap holiday and got to see some new places, I also got to work on one of my challenges.

Margaret picked me up at about 1.30am after a busy last day at school on the Friday. Who needs sleep? We spent the night driving down to Portsmouth for the early morning ferry. I took my first turn at driving her car and was pleased to be able to get used to it whilst there wasn’t much traffic about and whilst still driving on this side of the road.

We boarded the ferry and went straight to our cabin to get a few hours sleep. Once we landed 5 or 6 hours later in Caen we had to drive for another hour or two to get to our hotel near the campsite where the old caravan had been. We had time for a look around Granville before going for dinner and getting to bed.

Next morning, after the what must be the world’s nicest croissants and baguette for breakfast we went to the lock-up where her stuff was stored. Once we’d succeeded in the challenge of getting the door unlocked (hitting the lock with a stone eventually worked) it took us a few hours to load up the car and roof-rack.

Then it was a VERY long drive down to the south coast. We took turns in driving and I was surprised by how quickly I got into it. It was a Sunday so was fairly quiet and we were mainly on the motorway, so all I really had to do was point the car in the right direction and drive, but even so. By the time we arrived I was feeling quite happy with myself.

During the week and on my last day when we drove to Spain so I could fly home from Girona airport I had a few more goes at driving and this time experienced traffic lights, roundabouts, traffic jams, and so on. As my last challenge I made sure it was my turn to drive as we drove over the Pyrenees and across the border into Spain.

I haven’t quite decided whether to tick this challenge off as complete yet. I specifically want not just to have a go at driving on the wrong side of the road, but to be able to say I can do it confidently. Although I felt fine driving over the week I was in France, I’m not sure I would be as confident if I suddenly had to do it again in a year’s time. I think I’d need some time to get used to it again. Also, I haven’t driven alone yet, and it’s very different not having a second pair of eyes to look out for potential hazards. So at the moment I’m thinking of leaving this one as an ‘in progess’ rather than considering it completed.

Toilets and showers in the Outer Hebrides

A list of toilets and shower facilities in the Outer Hebrides.

I thought the following might be useful for anyone planning a trip round the Outer Hebrides this summer in which they’re intending to wild camp most of the time. If you are staying in official accommodation your showering and toileting needs will be sorted for you, but if not then make a note of the info below. And if anyone has any more to add, please leave a note in the comments. The prices are from the summer of 2012 and are correct to the best of my memory.

Barra – toilets at the village hall in Castlebay (not open until about 9am and closed early evening) and also at the ferry terminal in Castlebay (but only open when the waiting room is open around the time of ferries). Showers in the sports centre in Castlebay (£1.05)

Vatersay – toilets in the village hall. Walk round the outside of the building to the left.

Eriskay – toilets and showers at the ferry port (24 hours, showers are £1)

South Uist – toilets and showers near the tourist office in Lochboisdale (showers £1)

Benbecula – toilets and showers in the sports centre (showers are £1.05. The centre is closed on Tuesdays)

North Uist – toilets by the harbour and also in the museum in Lochmaddy. Showers at the Lochmaddy Hotel but I don’t know the price.

Baleshare – no facilities

Berneray – toilets are at the ferry port (24hrs). Showers and toilets by the harbour about a mile from the ferry port (closed at 9pm, showers £1)

Harris – toilets at the ferry port in Leverburgh (24 hrs). Toilets and showers in the bus station in Tarbert, not sure of the opening hours. (Showers 50p)

Lewis – toilets and shower at the Kinloch Historical Centre in Laxay near Stornoway (24hrs, showers 50p), also at the sports centre in Stornoway (£1.05). There are also public toilets by the yacht harbour and car park but there is a charge and they are not open 24hrs. There are toilets in the ferry port where the ferries leave for Ullapool.

St Kilda – toilets at the back of the shop

Also the ferry from Oban to Barra has showers, but the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry doesn’t.

Oman and the wonder that is facebook

Facebook demonstrated its usefulness when I quickly planned a trip to Oman.

I was supposed to go to Oman in the February half term to visit a friend who moved there last summer. When I looked at flights the prices were way too high – if I could have gone a day earlier and come back a day later they would have been just over half the price I was being quoted. So I went to France and Spain instead and starting learning to drive on the wrong side of the road.

On Saturday I was chatting to said friend over facebook and she mentioned that October has nice weather and asked why don’t I consider going over in the October half term? A scan through various websites looking at flights and they all seemed too expensive. Damn school holidays. Why do they always have to be in the school holidays? In a last ditch attempt I looked at Emirates, fully expecting them to be the most expensive of all. Bargain! They had reasonably priced flights for the dates I was looking at. Of course I then assumed I’d got the dates wrong. A message on facebook asking for confirmation of our half term dates got me a couple of replies in under a minute! Satisfied I’d not confused the dates, and overjoyed at the efficiency of facebook, I went ahead and booked.

I have a 6 hour wait in Dubai airport on the way out, but I’m not too bothered about it. I’ve been told it’s a great airport and one that it’s easy to while away some time in. Although I’ve stayed practically next door to it before in the Dubai youth hostel, I’ve never actually been in the airport. It’ll be quite late at night, so I won’t bother working out plans to go out and do anything in Dubai, I’ll just have a full-on airport experience. On my return the wait is less than an hour an a half.

Once I get to Oman I’ll have a week to explore, relax and catch up with my old friends, Dawn and the sun.

Britain’s Got Talent Audition

A boring but interesting day. At least I got to pick up some film-making tips.

After a lot of procrastination I decided that spending up to 12 hours at the Britain’s Got Talent audition would be a good use of my Sunday.

Alex had come over from Amsterdam just before Christmas when I was in the middle of all my building chaos because he’d got an audition for the show. This was a first round audition which I think is fairly easy to get. Auditions were held at various locations around the UK and he’d picked Manchester so he could combine it with a visit to see me. The audition went well and soon afterwards he was called and told he’d got through to the second round. This was before Christmas. He’d not heard anything more so had kind of written it off, but then he was called again on Wednesday and told he needed to be in Manchester on Sunday. A quickly booked flight and a phone call to me and before he knew it, he was on his way over again. He arrived on Saturday and I met him in Manchester after my NUT meeting.

Early breakfast in my kitchen

Sunday morning we were up at 6am. I made sandwiches whilst he did his make-up. By 7.45 we were on the road to the Lowry in Salford Quays ready for the 8.30 appointment. He’d gone to the first audition alone, but as the second round is televised the auditionees (is that a word?) are asked to bring friends and family members with them to make up the audience and provide ‘background crowd’ for the interviews. I was quite interested in going and wanted to be there to give moral support, but hesitated when he was warned that we’d probably be there for 12 hours.

In the end I decided to go as I’ll probably never get another chance to do something like this and I might pick up tips for making films myself or tips to help me as a drama teacher (this is what I spend a large chunk of my time teaching even though I know nothing about the subject and have no dramatic ability myself).

We sat for a few minutes with a few other contestants in the foyer before being called to the registration area upstairs. Registration involved sitting around for a while and then all lining up in front of the registration desk. One by one the contestants went forward to register and be filmed for the first time. The friends, family and other contestants made up the crowd scene backdrop. 

Once registered we were taken to another building across the way. Before we could get out of the doors however, Alex was whisked away to do the first of many interviews and I was escorted alone to the other building. People were just starting to filter in and the crew were buzzing around setting up lights and cameras. One of the crew members ‘Lilly’ spoke to us all and asked us to take coats and scarves off. As the show will be aired in May we needed to look a bit more summery. She also reminded us that cameras were running all the time and so we should look cheerful and alert and definitely not look as though we’d got up at 6am on a Sunday morning!

The holding room

Alex was brought over, but didn’t have much time to tell me about his interview before he was called for another one. This was filmed in the main holding room (see how I know the lingo?) and so I stood alongside and watched. The interviewer was asking questions from a clipboard which obviously held all the information from the long questionnaire he’d had to complete before Christmas. He was coached into answering in full sentences, encompassing the question as he answered. For example, if asked what his favourite colour was, rather than answering ‘blue’, he would have to answer ‘my favourite colour is blue’. Presumably this interview will be edited into a monologue.

Throughout the day Alex was repeatedly taken away by different people to do interviews or to be filmed walking about (including walking slowly round the holding room) or to have stills taken. Each time he was gone, I either sat reading or stared around me. The room had filled up and it was interesting to try to guess what the different acts entailed. Some of the costumes looked great: a dance troupe with black and gold costumes and make-up looked sophisticated and exciting; the dance troupe in the American flag dresses less so. On the whole, the people who were wearing costumes of one type or another looked good, whereas the people who just looked ‘dressed up’ seemed quite tacky: wrong shoes; wrong skirt lengths and styles for their legs: frizzy hair and make-up that looked as though it had been drawn on with crayons.

Finally, late on into the afternoon Alex was called over to the theatre to do his audition. I couldn’t go with him, but was told to wait and I’d be taken over just before he went on stage. It was quite a long wait and I did wonder if I’d been forgotten. I was waiting with and talking to a woman who was there supporting her husband and we’d seen them on and off all day. Her husband had been taken over at the same time as Alex.

Eventually we were led across to the theatre and told to wait outside. A few minutes later we were ushered in and instructed to sit in aisle seats close to the stage. The audience was quite large, presumably with people who’d applied for audience tickets. Just as we got inside the judges (minus Simon Cowell who’d called in with a sickie) decided to take a break. We sat for quite while with not very much happening. The odd person would walk across the stage and move something, but that was it. Then someone came to us and said the running order had been changed and we’d have to go back to the holding room. Not to worry, we’d be brought over again when the auditionees we were supporting were due to go on.

The stage and the empty judges’ chairs

So we sat, we chatted, we looked at our watches, we waited. Then I saw Alex walk in. He came straight over: ‘Where were you? Why weren’t you in the audience?’

Turns out he’d been on and I hadn’t been there.

He said he’d barely got into the first line of his song when he was buzzed off. They’d said he was singing out of tune. Being a fair sort of bloke he said he had to believe them as he couldn’t hear himself to know if it was true or not. Many of the other acts had been allowed to do a sound check, but he hadn’t, so when he got on stage this was the first time he’d heard the volume at which his backing track was played.

When speaking to him after rejecting him the judges made a big deal about something quite minor he’d mentioned in his application. Throughout the day this had been referred to in interviews as well. He found it quite strange and more than a little annoying that this was what they’d fixated on rather than the many other much more relevant details he’d provided. They’d also asked him if there was anyone in the audience who supported him and thought he should have a second chance. Of course, no-one said anything and so he’d said ‘Anne, where are you?’ but of course I wasn’t there.

We couldn’t go home straight away as he still needed to do another interview and so we needed to wait around for that. As we discussed what had happened, it did seem like a bit of a set-up. Why hadn’t he been allowed to do a sound check? Why had I been taken out of the audience just before his audition? Why had they fixated on this one particular detail from his questionnaire?

Talking about it afterwards, I got the impression that he was glad to have had the experience of taking part and of having got to the second round, but was disappointed to have fallen foul of what seems to have been some hidden agenda.

As for me, it was a boring day but interesting at the same time. It’s not something I’d want to do again, but I am glad I decided to go along today and have the behind-the-scenes experience.