Wet week in the Cheviot hills

I worked on a gold Duke of Edinburgh expedition for Solihull college. On our way to Wooler, on the Scottish borders, we stopped at the angel of the north:





The leaders stayed in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by real free range chikens:





And then it started raining, and we started to earn our money checking all the participants were alright. On the 2nd day, Grigor and I walked 26km, most of it not on footpath. By the end of the day, our river crossing skills had been properly tested. Here's a google earth picture of our track:



The rain stopped on the last day, so I took the camera on the hills. Here are a few pictures taken on Scald Hill:







The whole area was flowded 2 months earlier. Some bridges like this one were damaged in the flowd 2 months before. The rain we had wasn't as bad, just enough to make wadding through the rivers a real challenge!

Outdoor Instructor no more!

Last Friday was my last day working as an outdoor education instructor at Beaumanor Hall. The instructors gave me this card:



And the ground staff this one:



Let's include this drawing courtesy of Sophie:



I don't have any pictures of the speach: Clive took me to the high rope store, where all the people with whom i worked were waiting. We went to the top of the zip wire tower, and i was presented with the cards and three "friends" (climbing equipment).

We were then invited by the YHA leaders to join their end of the summer camp bbq:



I will miss the pleasure of working in a beautiful place, delivering exiting high ropes and climbing sessions to young people and adults. I won't miss the awful management practice. I'm glad that my last moments in Beaumanor were on the high ropes, in the store and in the cabin furthest away from the beige building and the shenanigans it contains.

Dancing Sophie

I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the high rope course. What a star!

Tight beam walk

Having spent many a high rope sessions wondering what it would feel like to walk on the top beam,



I finally had a chance to try. Clive had asked me to glue some stamps on the trolleys at the very top, and to try the new harnesses:



Instead of climbing to each of the two trolleys, i decided to gather them in the same place and then to glue them. This worked very well as the caps were glued to the tubes, and i had to slash open the tube. I would not have liked to have to downclimb with open glue tubes in my hands!

It felt very wobbly up there at first:



But i soon felt more confident:



These trolleys are seldom used and were a bit rusty. In fact, the one i was attached to needed pulling along:




Allan and Mark were up there with me. A big thanks to Mark for taking these pictures!



Now glueing the stamps



Then retrieving and threading the tracers:





It started raining as i started to thread the second tracer:



Writing this post made me wonder if "normal" participants feel as stretched on the high rope course as i felt at the very top. I felt exhilarated after walking the beam!

Walking in the Lakes

A week ago i was leading a Duke of Edinburgh gold expedition in the Lake district. We were blessed with great weather for the whole week. The participants were great, the organiser friendly. They drove all the way from Brighton. I had to toughen up their chosen route, and the rose up to the challenge beautifully.

Here are some views i took during the week. At the start of the expedition:



Day 2: waiting near the top:



Day 3: waiting for them to arrive, with a book and a box of quality streets:



Day 3: on the way down



The cottage where we (the organisers) stayed:



To see the rest of the pictures click here

New blog

For the 2 years anniversary of this blog, i am creating a new one!

This blog will still exist, with all the pictures of things i like to do in my spare time,

While this one will be a collections of short thoughts of mine - ie boring text ?? - gathered in my struggle to make a living as a self employed business consultant, specialised in Corporate Social Responsibility.

It's called Don't be afraid... Spread your wings as i'm still terrified of creating my own company....

Wish me luck!

Victorian Christmas

Not much climbing instructing to do at this time of the year. So the centre has devised other activities making the most of the old mansion. Here you can see kids all dressed up for a "Victorian Christmas Day" singing carols on the main stairs:

Murder Mystery

Great with a group of 8 years old!

Good day to work ...

Very nice weather last week



It was a pleasure to lay the kit out for the kids:

Archery

One team needed a bit more help during the archery session today:



Here's a little game: guess the order in which the teams finished the session...

Campfire

Today, i got paid to run a treasure hunt, a murder mystery and to light a campfire on which i cooked a soup for 40 kids:




I was quite pleased, it was the first time i had a real fire in England, one you start with wood and paper, one with real flames. Over here, barbecues run on charcoal that has to be doused in petrol to ignite - when they don't run on gaz...

The Hag

Second afternoon of climbing instructing today - my new part time "keep the wolf out of the door" job. I was with a group of year 4s, 24 of them, outside on a small rock outcrop in a wood. The other instructor today, Clive, is a little bit more seasoned and doesn't take any crap from silly people.

Her -friendly- dog was preceding her. The look on her face suggested that she woke up on the wrong foot today, so she took it on us:

The Hag: Why do they (the kids) have to be so noisy?
Clive: They're children, they're enjoying themselves...
The Hag: Well, i'm coming here for peace and quiet!
Clive: Go somewhere else then!

Well done Clive!

Here's a picture of the group approaching the rock face:

1 year of business expenses and invoices

I've just finished my tax return! Submitted and paid for online.

I'm a free man again!

Next year i'll start in July...

B. A.

Pour me faire pardonner de n'etre pas venu a la soiree du reveillon chez des collegues de boulot espagnoles, je les ai emmenes la pour leur faire decouvrir l'escalade. Ensuite je les ai emmenes ici pour qu'elles puissent pratiquer leur anglais hors du boulot. Mais comme il a fallut passer chez elles pour une douche, changer de tenue et un plat de pates au chorizo, quand on est arrive il n'y avait plus personne! A peine le temps de s'assoir et deux autres collegues, polonais, nous rejoignent! Donc on a parle en anglais, mission presque accomplie...

Au fait, la voiture est reparee !!!

Facture

Je dois envoyer ma premiere facture pour service a une petite entreprise en France.

Un petit coup de google pour trouver le taux de TVA qui va bien. Impossible! A la place d'un taux, je veux dire un pourcentage comme ca: 7.6% je trouve des articles super sympa du style:

1. La facture doit indiquer la dénomination sociale de l'entreprise qui facture et son adresse (L. 441-3 du Code de commerce). De même le numéro unique d'identification (Siren) et la mention RCS, suivie du nom de la ville où se trouve le greffe auprès duquel l'entreprise est immatriculée (sous peine d'une amende de 750 euros). Le numéro Siret et le code d'activité ne sont pas obligatoires. Si vous êtes en société, vous devez mentionner votre forme juridique et le montant du capital (sous peine d'une amende de 3 750 euros).

Mais qui peut etre assez fou pour vouloir creer une activite dans un pays pareil? Allez mon petit, 20% de chomage chez les jeunes, cree ta boite et si tu te plantes dans la facturation prends ca dans la gueule!!

Ca donne pas envie de rentrer tout ca. Beurk.

Si vous voulez lire l'article de l'entreprise.com cliquez ici

Job Interview

L'interview hiers s'est tres bien passee

The job interview yesterday went really well

Je devrais donc d'ici peu travailler comme consultant independant pour une boite de consultants en environnement. Mon boulot consisterait a continuer de faire ce que je fais en ce moment, avec plus de moyens, en etant paye, et sur de plus gros projets, avec des plus gros clients... Mais ne vendons pas la peau de l'ours avant d'avvoir recu le contrat...

If it all goes well between my boss (who found me the job) and their boss (with whom i got on well and who gets on very well with my boss...) then i would be well paid to continue the work that i'm already doing for the startup, with more resources, access to a bigger client base, etc... Still let's not count our chicken...

So much to do, so little time

In the past 2 weeks, i have:

• Worked 72 hours in the sports shop,
  
• Been to Paris and back for a 2 days consulting mission,
  
• Translated the relevant pre-meeting papers in English,
  

And still managed to:

• Run 4 times, up the hill i can see from my window (1h-1h1/2),
  
• Go to the climbing wall each week,
  
• And salsa lessons 3 times (!),
  
• Finish tiling and painting the kitchen wall after the plasterer made it look flat,
  
• Have lunch with my Mum who was visiting a friend in Paris, and also grab a cup of tea with her before she left.
  

The not so good news is that the consulting mission didn't go exactly to plan, there will be a delay which means that i won't be going back to Paris as planned next month. It's a shame, i would have been there at the same time as Guigou, we would both have stayed at Pascale's. She was already planning to take us to a recording session of Radio France as well as to her mean stretching class.
Can't have it all!

As a bonus, click here to check out what i had to do the day before flying of to Paris.

Le courrier en retard

Ce qui me rassure, c'est que je n'en suis pas encore la:

Crate Challenge

In French this time

J'ai fait allusion dans la note precedente a mon job d'instructeur d'escalade. Les 3 dernieres semaines, j'ai travaille pour un centre a 10 minutes en velo de chez moi. J'ai surtout encadre l'activite high ropes, une structure permanente haute d'une bonne quinzaine de metre qui sert a installer un systeme de cordes et descendeurs pour assurer des activites en hauteur.

Une de ces activites consiste a construire une tour faite de caisse de bouteiles de lait. Bien sur, les ouviers/grimpeurs doivent construire cette tour tout en se tenant en equilibre dessus:

Pour que ca ne soit pas trop long, j'ai reduit le nombre de colones de caisses a trois, ca rend la tour beaucoup moins stable que la classique a quatre colones...

American kids are better !

I was talking to one of the counselor from the camp where i do climbing instructing. Kelly's from Australia, she doesn't like what passes as Summer here and she finds that the kids here are not as good as what she expected. Well, she's a fitness instructor the rest of the year so it's no surprise if she's disappointed by the lack of energy and motivation that English kids have these days. She said that next year, she'll go to the US because, in her words, "American kids are better". They choose to go to camp.

I managed to sneak a picture to show you what i do at the moment. I had to frame it so that we don't see children face/feature. The guys you can recognise on this are 2 counsellors, 23 years old Graham and 24(?) years old Noamh. Pronounce Nieve, it's proper Irish, the kind that would not bow to the Queen...

Counsellors also come from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, the Netherlands... Not many English, and if like Graham they want to work abroad, soon camp YHA will be able to teach kids foreign languages as well as other outdoor activities.

Now some more news to fill you in on the last couple of weeks. The mystery machine is still not running properly. I took it to the garage that converted it to LPG, it's one hour driving away but if they can't tune the engine then no-one can. Meanwhile, i've bought a 10 year old Skoda Felicia for a song. The challenge is to sell it when i get the Mystery Machine back without loosing any money. Now that i don't waste time sorting out the car, I have picked up the diy where i left it 6 weeks ago.

Meanwhile, my trusty mountain bike has learnt a trick or two from the car and started to rebel. I have changed the back wheel, the chain looks a bit tired and the fork must be replaced before the biking season starts. Because i bike when i cannot climb, that means the rainy season here.

I had to do a bit of work on the bike because colleagues from the sports shop had organised a ride from the store in Sheffield to the one in Stockport 10 days ago. Off course, things didn't quite go to plan as we were supposed to use the Mystery Machine to get there. As the previous garage was unable to tune it, we defaulted to a colleague's 205. Last minute panic to arrange a roof rack meant that we missed the start, here's a picture of us on an empty car park, 20 minutes too late.

And one from the ride:

To finish off with the stream of July Problems, the old computer that i planned to use to run a database for work couldn't be coerced out of hibernation. Perfect excuse to get a quieter, smaller, faster one from ebay. We're talking £100 for a P3 with 160Gb HD and 512Mb RAM. It's running on Ubuntu, with MySQL and other software from the Linux community. Yes, i can be a geek sometimes...

As you see, i didn't have much time these past few weeks. First thing to go, as usual, was sport. So when Mathieu from the ski mountaineering expedition 3 months ago pulled out from our project in the Swiss Alps in 2 weeks time, i wasn't too disapointed. No mountaineering then... Oh well I need a holiday!