Once again it was time for our (now) annual Open Day. A day where the Centre opens to the general public so they can come and see what we do.

Each of us was given a specific activity to run all day, without a break, from 10am to 5pm. Some people had to stand up all day belaying masses of people up trees and telegraph poles, the cook had to supply an endless quantity of burgers and food. One poor person rode the three mile mountain bike circuit four times in one of the hottest days of the year. Another person sat for seven hours on the big field doing archery.

I got to sit outside a “camp” with a fire. Supposedly I was to demonstrate campcraft, but having no real idea I ended up being a source of marshmallows for people to eat and a place for kids to run riot and set things alight. I can’t moan too much, it’s quite fun burning things, but after four hours it gets a little dull. It would have all run a little better if we had to switch around every hour instead.

Feeling a little burnt out and in need of a change? Oh yes. September can’t come too soon. It’s not that I dislike working here, I can do my job and everyone here are good to work with, it’s just that it’s not that varied or exciting. I feel “stuck”. I know that moving to another centre would fix most of the problems (I’d go to one that didn’t have so much lawn or driveway) but ultimately it’s the nature of the job. I guess I’ve just outgrown the desire to do seasonal work that requires me to live on site. You know it’s time to change when the prospect of having your own washing machine is exciting.

Still, I’ve done this for four years and it’s been useful and I’ve had a lot of fun along the way. Now it’s time to do something else that, while harder, has more rewards for my efforts. Also it’s not like the mountains are going to dissolve any time soon.

This was the week when our largest single group came to visit. Hemel Hempstead School send 120 of their year 9’s to us for a week of activities. Fifteen groups of eight children plus six teachers. The place becomes rather full and noisy.

Like last year though, it went well. I had two full day mountain walks and this time I actually went on a proper mountain walk with the first group - over Cat Bells towards Dale Head Tarn and back down the valley. Nobody moaned about the walk. The other activities went equally well. I had three mountain bike sessions and the only eventful things that happened was that someone got the beginnings of heatstroke so we came back, then on another ride neither me nor my group could be bothered cycling in the baking midday sun so we went to the bottom of our ghyll and paddled in the water for half an hour.

I could do that all the time if it wasn’t for the evening activities that don’t finish until nine PM, or for the way there’s not a minute’s peace and quiet. By the end of the week my tolerance for shouting children was completely non existant.

Oh, and one evening when I wasn’t on duty I got woken up by the person who was on duty because our chef had fallen down the stairs and cut himself on a picture frame. He was in a right mess, lying in a drunken heap with blood all over his face. Took me a while to work out where it was all coming from, eventually I found a few cuts under his chin and tried my best to stick them closed. A tricky task made even harder by having to stop while he spewed into a bucket.

The next morning was funny, he said he’d woken up covered in dry blood with a sore chin and couldn’t work out why. It wasn’t until I filled him in that he managed to work it out His chin was better looking and I replaced the dressing with something that would actually hold the wounds together. He’ll have a few scars but nothing too severe. An interesting way to celebrate his 26th Birthday.

Today was exceptionally hot - the kind of day where even the slightest physical effort results in overheating and the desire to go and sleep under a shady tree. Also the kind of day where scrambling around in a river sounds inviting.

The ghyll this time was “Ruddy Gill”, at the far end of Borrowdale past Seathwaite towards Great End. Parking at the farm in Seathwaite is always a gamble as you drive down the single track road looking for any space, seeing how long your nerve will hold - can I park right at the end or will I have to do some complex turning manoeuvre to come back and then put up with a half mile walk along the road?

I managed to park right by the farm. It might have been a hot sunny Sunday in the Lake District, but it was also half five so everyone was going home. The tourists leave at five and the locals come out to play

As it was so hot I wore just a pair of shorts and a thin baselayer. Even wearing this I was getting too hot walking up the track towards Stockley Bridge. So hot that we all decided to get in at this point rather than put up with walking along the path. So without breaking pace all four of us scrambled down the grassy slopes towards the water, waded in and then proceeded to test the depth, deciding a large boulder on the left could be jumped off. It was worth it just for the look of utter bafflement on the nearby tourists faces.

And the fun didn’t stop there. Unlike other ghylls, this one had lots of pools in it. I bet many walkers have eyed the pool right under the bridge before, but few must have dared to jump off the top into it. I’m six foot four, the pool was deeper than that and from experience I know I can jump at least four metres into water that comes up to my waist.

This carried on, with some rock-hopping until finally Ruddy Gill cascaded down the steep ravine we were now in. A short scramble lead us onto some flat slabs and off up the hillside. Here’s what the guidebook says about the next part:

Quote: Scrambles in the Lake District

Traverse the guardian pool on its left wall to reach a more difficult pool. It is possible but awkward, to traverse the steep left wall, but most people will prefer to climb out of the gill and re-enter just above at the top of the cascade

Why would anyone want to climb around a perfectly good pool? Here’s what my guidebook would say:

Quote: Wet Scrambles in the Lake District

Tighten the drawstring on your shorts, close all pockets on your rucksack and attempt to climb around the left of the pool to the middle on difficult sloping holds and slimy rock. Once at the middle, fall backwards into the water and swim across it before climbing up the waterfall in front of you. If you fall off, be sure to jump backwards to avoid the shallow water where the waterfall ends

You see, my style of ghyll scrambling is different to the “traditional” version. It seems I’m supposed to scramble up these things with the aim of being dry at the top. I have no idea why, ghyll scrambling is something to do when it’s too hot to do regular climbing.

Anyway, after jumping in several more pools, almost falling over and traipsing through some small parts too shallow to mention, the intrepid (and hopefully rather wet) scrambler will reach something I call “The Slot”. It’s a narrow channel cut into the river approximately five foot wide with a bridge running over the top. At the back end is a large waterfall with a small cave. Below this is a deep deep pool that is blocked with a submerged boulder. On the left is a small ledge and by swimming across the pool and climbing behind the waterfall it is possible to get onto this ledge. Unfortunately once on this ledge it is exceedingly difficult to get out of the slot. It’s possible to jump off the ledge back into the pool though, just don’t land on the boulder.

We continued upwards with no end in sight getting tired and after having a chat with some random people it was time to turn around and go back. On the way back there was the option of jumping into some of the pools again. I had one in mind… The Slot.

From the top it looks quite high and if done wrongly has the chance of either bouncing off the opposite wall like a pinball, or landing on the previously described submerged boulder. I’d been in there before so was fairly sure where the deep part was. All I had to do was step off and in I’d go. Peer pressure from the others almost made me jump in, but at the last microsecond I stopped. How frustrating! It’s like watching the children I take down our ghyll when they almost jump. At this point a hand usually sends them on their way and all is well.

Someone dared me to jump off the lower ledge into the water. I could do that, I’d been on there before. One two three splash. Easy. Now for the higher one. There was still an air of doubt from everyone else but I had my angle and a place to aim now so whatever was gluing my feet down before had worn off. In I went into the deep water once more. It was quite entertaining sitting on the boulder below watching the others knowing what was going through their heads They knew it was perfectly OK to do as I’d just done it, but at the same time they weren’t entirely convinced.

After that we walked back down the path, the horrid paved path that jars knee joints and twists ankles, to the car.

This was one of those outings that I’d do again. I like big pools and jumps, and the shallow rock hopping provided a bit of a change and a warmup when the water started to cool me down too much. Now I need to find a ghyll with some large slides in.

I went to the big market/car boot sale in Penrith today. The massive one just before the roundabout. Every weekend when coming home from walking in the Lakes I’d pass it in my dad’s car so, out of curiosity, I went to have a look.

My god, there’s so much crap for sale. Real, genuine crap. Anything from multipack toilet roll, cheap biscuits to lighters, DVDs and food. The real part is inside though where normal people set up stalls and attempt to sell all the crap they don’t want. The usual - plates, broken guitars, books and bits of shiny glass and metal.

I managed (quite easily) to restrain myself from buying any of these goodies and instead bought a bag of biscuits for a whopping £1 - which is good considering they tasted awful and got thrown in the bin - and a splitter for my car’s lighter socket.

It was our annual staff barbequeue. Yes, it rained. Yes, the men stood outside around the barbequeue poking it with things and watching the food burn. Everyone else sat inside away from the midges.

Later on we played some very silly games.

A huge storm has just finished blowing over us. All day the weather has been exceptionally hot, sunny, hazy and strangely windy. The kind of weather that makes people tired, sticky and want to go to sleep - or, if you’re English, to strip off and expose white flesh to the elements. I came outside this evening to a black sky and the most spectacular light show going on up in the clouds. The electrical imbalance in the sky was being discharged as giant swathes of sheet lightning and, when it got too near the tops of the mountains, real lightning. Naturally, armed with my camera I have lots of images of just after a particularly good show - i.e blackness. Photographing random events requires some kind of skill I don’t have it would seem.

The air was so hot that when the storm passed over us, emptying quite a lot of rain onto my head I felt like I was stood in a warm shower. I stayed out for a good five minutes getting wet watching the sky completely failing to capture any of it on my camera, but by the time I went in I was dry again it was that warm. It was quite a novel experience being rained on with warm rain, much more agreeable than the usual icy cold stuff that tries to strip skin off. Big fat raindrops that splash when they land and soak to the skin.

The air is now cleaner, fresher and feels somehow thinner. It’s not like it was this morning where you had to force your way through the hot stickyness. It’ll save me having to water the newly sprouted grass I sowed earlier last week.

Of course, while watching a particularly intense bit of the X-Files my room was plunged into total blackness. The timing of the powercut couldn’t have been more precise.

This is part of co-founder of Google, Larry Page’s talk at CES.

www.linuxjournal.com/article/8855

I’ve spent the past week in Cardiff helping to get the new Cotswold store ready. It’s not actually in Cardiff, it’s off Junction 34 of the M4 in a retail park that contains a massive Tesco (all your beans are belong to us ). I somehow managed to get on this little trip down to South Wales by standing in our store at the right time and location - that being just before closing time, in the Women’s fashion section. Nobody else wanted to go and there was a free space, so I was asked and having nothing better to do except sleep and go to work, I decided doing that in Wales for a week would be more fun.

The journey down was a tad boring. There was me and Mike (who’s job it seems is to go around the stores making them look pretty) trundling down the motorway to Manchester in his little red car. Manchester because we were collecting KT, a member of staff from the Manchester store who was also helping with the shop fitting. Our Manchester store is about two minutes from Manchester Met Uni, and it wasn’t until I began working in Cotswold that I noticed it! Strange how you can walk down a street for four years and not really notice the shops.

It took us six hours, £4.90 in bridge tolls and one wrong turning on a roundabout to get to the Travelodge we were staying in. As usual bookings had gone completely wrong - each visiting staff member from the various stores around the country had a bed, eleven breakfasts each every day but no other meals and no food that night. Something must have been worked out since later that evening small blue “corporate” cards were produced that were linked to someone’s credit card. The best part being in the box on the back where our spending limit was written was “No Limit”. I made it my mission to see just how much food I could eat in a week. The answer being quite a lot! The 10oz steak was quite nice, as was the mixed grill. The seafood mornay was a bit weird though, but £5 worth of profiteroles went down very nicely I’m on beans and simple food for a while now, the desire to eat lots of stodge and filling food has left me for the moment - as has the desire to drink lots of alcohol.

In total there were 10 or so of us, from different stores throughout the country. Me and Mike from Keswick being the most Northerly, and people from Southampton being the most Southerly. It was interesting hearing about the different kinds of things each shop has to deal with - Mancunian smack-heads, the burberry wearing gentlemen of Saaf Landan, mate and the curious people who buy crampons in areas of the country where there’s nothing steeper than a disabled-access ramp. The real art of conversation though was to find something to talk about other than work.

The shop-fit itself was nothing too special, being pretty much the same as a massive, massive delivery. Instead of having to unpack and put away two palettes of stock there were about 50 palettes (each palette holding 16 large cardboard boxes). The shop was empty, it needed enough stock to put out on the shop floor, plus enough spare stock to fill the stock rooms. It’s really nice doing this in a building that has been purposefully built for the task of being a shop - there’s three store rooms of ample size, an area to unpack deliveries, and space behind the tills to move around. The most satisfying part was seeing an empty building full of builders and dust (so much dust! on the first day it was like a cloud floating about the shop) gradually turn into a shop. Boxes would be piled up on any available bit of floor, then slowly unpacked, tagged, hung and put out on rails and stands. Bit of a contrast to the Manchester store where the locals help remove excess stock (chasing people down the street seems to be the Manchester store staff’s way of keeping fit), or Keswick where other stores asking for our stock keeps ours at a manageable level.

Sunday was our day off, so naturally we all went out Saturday night to the joyless hole known as Bridge End. My god there were some rough pubs in there. The Weatherspoon’s was good and cheap, and the one that’s been converted from a church wasn’t that bad (apart from the nasty loud music emanating from the “dance floor” - a bit of floor in the corner that’d been cleared of tables), but the last place was just awful. A dark, crowded room with a central bar and then as many people as possible rammed into it. The bouncers on the door were doing a “one in, one out” system which was helping to keep the place packed to the walls. Really, you couldn’t do much apart from stand and shout at each other. Five minutes to queue to get in, two minutes to find everyone and escape. The alley across the road with broken glass and spew that I commandeered as an emergency toilet was more pleasant.

There’s another shopfit happening in a few months, but I’m not sure if I’ll still be working in the shop to be able to go along.

Oh, my staff account is working and I’ve found a new way to miss-spell my last name! Silly buggers have written it wrong, which is a bit confusing given it’s correct on my payslips. Time to go shopping

This weekend I spent a rather pleasant time in London meeting various people from the Llamasoft forum. It’s been ages since I did this and it was nice to catch up with people again. In fact, the last time I met everyone in London was October 2002 when we went to the Game On exhibition. Back then we sat around in the Wellington (opposite Waterloo Station) drinking and playing on various bits of tech we’d brought along. GBAs, Palm PDAs and Pentium 2 laptops were the “in” thing at the time. This time it was almost the same, just upgraded a bit more. We had Nintendo DSs instead of GBAs, Tapwave Zodiacs and funky Nokia PDAs instead of Palms, and a Pentium 4 laptop with enough grunt to play Doom 3 without breaking into a sweat.

We still sat in the same pub and talked babble at each other, just like before The topic of last time’s babble was Jeff’s top secret project that would later become Unity. The topic of this time’s babble was Jeff’s top secret project that turned out to be the XBox 360’s audio visualisation program Neon, and the rather nice version he’s been making on the PC.

You can plug a webcam into it and have the camera’s image turned into part of the light show. Point the camera at the screen and you get feedback with feedback drawn on it which looks quite odd While playing with this, random members of the pub would walk past and go “what the hell is that thing?!” and once given the controller would sit mesmerised for a while before walking off slightly confused looking

My journey began, as it aways does, at Manchester Piccadilly. The train was on time, and nobody was sat in my seat. Two and a half hours later I was in London. This is pretty amazing considering it used to take four hours. They’ve finally created a tilting train that really does tilt, and it’s quite an odd experience feeling it lean over going around bends.

Once in London I hid all my tech in my pockets, took a firm hold of my bag and entered the Underground. London Bridge was my destination as I’d found a hostel within walking distance of the Welly. Just before I got off the tube a homeless bloke stood up and started giving this long explanation of how we had money, he didn’t, and how he’d very much like us to give him some before he gets angry. Deciding I didn’t want to, I got off at my stop. Other people though began putting their hands in their pockets and bringing out change! What is wrong with you people? The days of highway robbery are over, you can just say “no, piss off”.

Anyway, I found the hostel and entered the slightly bizarre booking-in procedure that involved walking further up the road to another building, checking in there, then walking back down the road to the hostel itself. For some reason the reception is separate to the rooms. In my room were some other people who’d spread their stuff (and a bottle of Baileys or something equally nasty) all over the floor. I kicked it out the way and made myself some room, claimed my bed and put things on charge.

After unpacking and letting things charge up I went off to the Welly to find people. Not really being able to remember the way, other than it was to the left if I looked at the river, I decided to take the path that goes along the river. This has to be about the only scenic bit of London really, with all the Christmas lights and other lights from the buildings it looks quite pretty.

I was the first to arrive, which is funny considering I had the furthest to come, so I sat around waiting for people to arrive. By about half six there was a small group which eventually turned into eleven. A table was invaded and the previously mentioned geekery and talking ensued, only to be broken around nine by us piling out the place to go and get a curry.

The curry house under the bridge said we’d have to wait an hour and a half which seemed a bit absurd. In a general confusion the eleven of us picked a random tube station that “should contain a curry house near it” and we went off to ride the tube (which this time didn’t have any crazies on it demanding money…). We had a good sense of direction it seems since once out the station, a short walk up the road produced a big glowing neon sign saying “Indian Food”.

After the curry we went back to the Welly and piled into Jeff’s room. Eleven easily fits in these small hotel rooms, sixteen being the record from last time. No loud swearing this time though, but plenty of XBox action. I had a go with Neon (I don’t want a 360, I’ll wait for the PC version… by then I’ll have enough money to buy a PC good enough to run it), played a bit of Geometry Wars and watched other people play some of the other release games. By 4am it was time to go to bed.

Hooray for drunk people… I quietly crawled into my bed and tried to get to sleep. I was almost at a stage where the smell of the room and the sound of people snoring wasn’t cutting through my brain when click! some cretin turns the light on. It was six AM! I’d been asleep for two hours and didn’t appreciate being woken up! I went off for a pee and noticed my jacket had gone for a walk. It wasn’t on the floor it wasn’t under the bed… where had it gone?! Deciding someone had either nicked it or it was just lying somewhere I’d not noticed, I went back to sleep until at 8 the cretins woke up again, waking me in the process.

That’s when I noticed the person across on the other bed from me was wearing my jacket… cheeky sod! Her (it was a mixed dorm) companion seemed reluctant to remove it from her, but he muttered something about something and went out the room. He returned sometime later, packed stuff (I watched him with some interest making sure none of my stuff was getting packed) and woke her up. I eventually got my clothing back which wasn’t an all together unpleasant experience give she didn’t have much on underneath it and was too hung over to notice I was there.

I woke up again at 12, feeling rather ropey and went to find a toilet that wasn’t blocked, and a shower that was working. After that we all met up again at the Welly and went off into town to walk around an look at the shops.

Regent Street was heaving. Every shop was packed… except the Gizmondo store which was completely empty. The Apple Store was an interesting place. I turned my Zodiac on and asked it to find all bluetooth devices in the area. After a minute’s scanning, 50-odd results and more yet to be named I gave up and turned it off. Seems everything in the Apple Store has bluetooth. Saw a very nice dual-display setup with widescreen 20-odd inch displays. After that we went towards Totenham Court Road to look in all the electronics shops.

It was at about this time I made a detour into Virgin and came out with a Nintendo DS… It’s great being able to play games over Wifi with other DS owners, or over the Internet. Games start off all friendly and then degrade into childish shoving and pushing races. It’s fantastic

That night we gave the curry house some pre-warning and managed to get in. I had the best curry I’ve ever had. Some food is alright to eat, other food is fairly nice. Every once in a while you eat something that is just outstanding. I can’t remember what it was, but it had quite a bit of lime in it and some other spices that when combined with a Peshwari naan resulted in something exceedingly tasty. After that more game-playing commenced in Jeff’s room before I had to leave and wander back to my room.

This time there were three other randoms in it who didn’t steal my clothing, spill things on the floor or cause a lot of noise. The fact they could barely see or stand might have had something to do with it

Walking through London at 9am on a Sunday is an odd experience. The place is deserted and a bit like the beginning of 28 Days Later - only without the zombies (they’re still in bed). There’s a BT OpenZone access point in Euston Station, but my DS didn’t want to talk to it. The train ride back took longer and stopped at most of the stations on the way so I fell asleep.

Earlier that morning I’d noticed some oil depot somewhere had exploded. Figuring the Iraqis were trying to kill each other again I gave it no further thought until the train manager announced we were just about to go past it on the train. Looking out my window I saw a massive massive cloud of smoke reaching high into the sky. It really was quite impressive. It happened in Hemel Hempstead and people in Slough were woken up by the sound.

Just been to watch the fireworks display at our local pub. Took my camera along and had a play. After taking several pictures of blackness with little dots I learnt to anticipate the big displays and press the shutter button early. With the longer displays it’s just a case of pressing the button when the sky lights up - eventually something good looking gets captured.

Then you see the images created by someone’s very expensive digital camera that was sat on a tripod… quite. Maybe I should get a larger tripod.