Cats and more cats

One thing I don't think I mentioned about our holiday was that we had found ourselves a terrific holiday flat - the owner, who lived in the flat above, was a volunteer for the local Cats Protection and, as is compulsory for a volunteer of a cat welfare charity, the place was teeming with cats. She was also fostering a tiny kitten which we took some pictures of - one of which is doing quite nicely on ratemykitten.com.

Roll up, roll up...

And so ends my virginal attempt at being an eBay seller. I listed 7 things - the boring old toiletries all went; my beautiful handmade bracelets attracted not a sniff of interest. Humf.

Pulling teeth

Late June: it would be helpful to know whether I am starting Uni in September or February so I can plan. It probably will be February because that is what I asked for but I need to hear it from them. I phone the admissions people and am told the deadline for students to get their preferences in was in a couple of weeks so I should hear soon after then.

Last Monday: back from hols - no letter, though I do have my bursary form which I can't fill in until I know when I will start. I call the faculty of health admissions phone number and am greeted by a long recorded message. I leave a message asking them to call back.

Last Wednesday: no phone call yet, I try the number again and hear the start of the recorded message. As I'd rather try and speak to a human, I put the phone down. I realise the end of July is approaching fast and if I end up on the September start I'll need to hand my notice in PDQ.

Last Thursday afternoon: no phone call yet, I decide to leave another message. Listen to the entire message - oh no! The end of it has changed - it says not to leave a message as it they won't answer and if the query is urgent, call the general admissions number. I phone general admissions and the message says that this person only works mornings. I leave a message.

This morning: no phone call yet, I phone general admissions - oh no! The message has changed, the admissions person has gone on holiday for 2 weeks. For really urgent queries phone this other number. I phone the other number - oh no! This person is not back in the office until Wednesday. I leave a message.

This morning (after beating my head against the desk a few times): I consult the internet, find a person listed as the 'contact' for the Medical Imaging degree. There is a recorded message, no indication that this person is on holiday or anything, I leave a message with a slightly desperate tone to it.

1 hour later: the 'contact' calls me back - I am starting in February as I hoped! Hurrah!

What's new

Kittens!

Messin' about

Today was the town's river festival so we wandered into town to take a look. I wish I'd taken our camera with us to take piccies of all the great boats - I did have my dinky little keyring camera with me but the pictures it takes aren't all that great. So here's a nice boaty picture nicked off the offical website instead:



I took the next two:


Bet none of Stu & Sarah's minis can do this!


Bean's relatives?

We also came across these piratey types and I think we'll be off to see the World Walking The Plank Championships next weekend.

We also got around to placing two caches further along the same river - we had scouted out the location before our holiday but hadn't had time to place them. We'd initially planned to put caches there, erm, about a year ago.

Too darn hot

Wahey - I finally got around to trying out this selling on eBay lark and listed a few odds 'n' sods I had hanging around, plus a couple of bracelets I made. I was worried no one would be interested and I'd lose my money but someone has bid one item and this more or less covers my costs.

Its been too bloody hot to be at work today. Spending a couple of weeks 9° further north has brought home just how much I dislike hot days in the south of England. I'm in little doubt we'll be moving further north as long as our careers allow - hopefully in three years time when I'm a qualified radiographer

We Went To the Shetlands and Survived

Well, we got home last night, all hot and bothered after 7 hours in the car, most of them in blazing sunshine. The evening was all hot and muggy too so we spent most of the evening complaining about the heat and wishing we were back in the Shetlands where it was a lot cooler. I suppose the only good thing about being home again was being able to have the cats with us again. They were both mega-happy to have been released from the cattery and have been following us about, wanting cuddles, ever since.

We both decided that, if it wasn't for the islands' extreme isolation from the rest of the UK, we'd love to go live there. Then again, the Shelands probably wouldn't be the way they are if it wasn't for the isolation. The standard of living is pretty good thanks to oil money (the Shetlands has a seriously big oil terminal), the scenery is lovely, community spirit is excellent, very little crime, houses are dead cheap, traffic is light... I could go on.

The holiday was great - we did all 6 caches, 6 trigpoints, took over 300 photos (which I'll pare down for a online photo album). Our last cache was on the island of Fetlar (slightly smaller than Guernsey with a population of about 80) - we were the first finders after over a year.

Well, I suppose now I'll have to go boring back-to-real-life stuff like attend to the mountain of washing...

Huffin' and puffin

Hello from 60° North! Got here after a mammoth, two-day drive almost the whole length of Britain, capped off by a 14 hour ferry crossing. Sounds awful but it wasn't too bad really. The weather here has been surprisingly good - sunny a lot of the time and barely any rain at all. The wind is pretty chilly though. We are enjoying ourselves - so far we have done 4 of the 6 geocaches on the islands, walked an awful lot, visited 6 islands other than the one we are staying on, seen some seals and some puffins and seen a very odd bus shelter.

Photos to follow when we get home!

Packing up

Today I have proved to myself I can get things done with the right motivation - in this case, a deadline. I have spent all day busying about getting ready for our holiday. I did the following:

• lots of ironing
• cleaned the cat's litter tray
• checked the car over (oil, screenwash, that kind of thing)
• last check that I had all the info required to do the 6 caches on the Shetlands and maybe one or two on the way back
• some dusting (Mum and Dad are coming over a couple times whilst we are away to water the plants so I made sure the place wasn't too untidy)
• set the video (100-odd channels and we decided the only programme we really wanted to video was 24)
• didn't water the garden - rain did that - yay!
• packed, of course

Tomorrow we'll be off, bright and early, so I may not blog until our return. I may blog - depends on whether we find an internet cafe or I manage to use Adam's mobile phone to blog from. See you in a couple of weeks!