Windsor

Yes, Windsor. Holiday home of Queen Liz and her army of henchman. Well, one of the holiday homes, anyway. But also rather pleasant for a day out. Well, that’s what we decided yesterday.

One of the joys of being around Berkshire is that it really can be very, very posh. And very, very touristy. In Windsor, you can experience both at once. (And yes, I managed a day there without one single shot of the fucking castle – aren’t you impressed?) About the only thing you don’t really experience are posh tourists. They’re all off doing something else. God knows what, I’ve never been fortunate enough to find out.

Anyway, having gone past Ascot racecourse (which was having the “De Beers Diamond Day“) and an utter shedload of stretch limos, we got to Windsor, and it’s fucking crap beautifully designed one-way system, in addition to some deeply dubious signage regarding car-parking. Obviously most people visit Windsor in chuffing big air-conditioned coaches, and – on the evidence of yesterday – most coach tours now seem to also insist on a uniform for all passengers. Green tracksuits seemed to be one order of the day. Nasty in SO many ways.

Still, wandering down the riverside was a pleasant way to spend some of the day, and the way that the Windsor rail station has done itself up (I was last there some ten years ago) is truly impressive. It gives a really good “European” style area for food, drink, and shopping, and personally, I think it’s a bloody good concept. While we were there, it was certainly very lively and with a good turnover of people.

Of course, there’s tourist buses galore, and some of the biggest camera lenses this side of sporting events and paparazzi. One wonders how some of them fly over with anything in the suitcase except camera and lenses – anything else would surely push it over the weight limit.

But yes, for a summer’s day, it was all very pleasant. Much enjoyed.

Tech

Along the way this weekend, there’s also been an amount of geekiness going on too. Sorting out dubious email connections, installing anti-virus protection and updating it all, figuring out card-readers, and looking at digital cameras (not for me, for once!), in the end coming out with a very nice little Minolta Dimage G400 – certainly a breed I’ll consider looking at in the future, having seen some of the results already.

But I have to say, going back to 56k dial-up is painful. I’ve been on ADSL for the best part of 2½ years now, and you really do get used to it awfully easily. Still, all part of the fun and games, eh?

Still away

All’s well – I warned you the content would be intermittent, to say the least. But yes, things are good, and among other things I’ve caught up on more sleep in the last four days than I have in the last four months.

Of course, that’s not all that’s been happening, and in general there’s a fair amount of stuff that will be getting re-assessed and worked on in the next few months. Changes galore, and the boy is going to be OK for the forseeable future, I think.

Update

Yes, things are going fine, thanks. All’s well so far, and the relaxation is definitely a good thing.

Rants about train journeys etc. can be expected at a later date.

T’raaa

Fuck this, I’m off to Berkshire.

Expect intermittent updates for a while.

Tra(u)matic

After four years of “oh yes, it’ll happen, no really, it will”, the Manchester “big bang” tramline expansion has fallen through. What a shocker.

While the money’s always been promised, no-one seems to have ever thought to get a guarantee, or to actually say “Well where is it then?” And now the government has – unsurprisingly – changed its mind, and won’t help to fund the expansion.

So far as I’m concerned, yes, this is a bad development for the plan – but to say that it’s been betrayed is shite, it’s been piss-poor on the management front since day one.

Counting

Hmm, it’s a day with very little motivation left, to be honest. Come tonight I’ll be away down to Berkshire ’til Tuesday, so don’t expect too much in the way of updates. I’m sure there’ll be some along the way – but don’t hold your breaths.

In the meantime, of course, I’m really not in the mood to do much. There’s various bits I should be doing, but starting off something properly today just means it’ll then wait ’til this time next week. Kind of pointless.

So – no motivation for work, and lots for later. That’ll be a well-balanced day then.