What do we have in common with the English cricket team?
answer: Nothing
Unlike the crew that have just been eliminated from the cricket ODI World Cup, we have managed to bring up a century - 100 tunnels - not all different, but 100 passages through tunnels on the system.
Our travels for the day took us through the Harecastle Tunnel for the 12th time.
We set out later than usual with rain still falling, but with a plan - Diane thought that an afternoon at the movies might be nice.
Also we had had a piece of good news for a change - I will explain all at the end of this blog entry.
So down from Poole Aqueduct to Hardings Wood Junction and turned right towards the tunnel; we didn't even have a chance to moor up properly when the tunnel keeper emerged and waved us in.
A brief safety explanation, the horn had been tested along with the light and I was already wearing the life jacket; he also passed over a bag for us to deliver to the other end - we are official carriers for CaRT.
Cheaper and better by the dozen, this passage passed without incident - as had most of the previous 11 trips.
At the other end we duly handed over the bag and emerged into a much more pleasant day - a bit brighter and a lot drier - it had stopped raining as forecasted on the weather app.
We cruised down to moor outside the Toby Carvery - now a favourite mooring spot since CaRT have moved on the continuous stayers - well done to CaRT for allowing genuine cruisers a chance to moor in these prime spots.
We were having dinner with Janet and Howard later on, but first Diane wanted to go to the movies.
Having read the three-part trilogy a couple of years ago, she now wanted to see how it looked up on the screen, so off we both went to see Fifty Shades of Grey.
It would be fair to say that the books are unlikely to win any literary awards and in keeping with that, this film is unlikely to win any film awards.
But the problem that I now have is the redecorating of the bedroom - a distinctive red hue has been suggested by "she who must be obeyed" and there will need to be another cupboard allocated for the extras.
Oh the things we have to do to keep them satisfied.
Before all of that there was dinner to be had and most importantly to see Janet and Howard again.
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| our Happy Friday selfie whilst we had a drink before Janet and Howard won the battle with traffic |
There was numerous remarks and silly giggling when we spoke of the film we had just seen, but we tried to steer away from that and concentrate on what we were all doing this year.
We had planned on doing The Wash with Howard (me thinks Janet would be waving him goodbye at
Just what has happened....
Last Tuesday I received an email from a colleague who looks after allocation of customers to inform me that all of mine were to be reassigned to other chemists by decree from the boss. Knowing him (the boss) as I do, it reeked of how he would go about wanting to be rid of my services.
Without jumping to any conclusions just yet, I did send enquiries out to find out exactly what was going on, but because of the time difference there were no answers yet.
Discussing this with Diane, we thought that this coupled with the uncertainty of the application to extend my stay in the
That being a higher possibility than previously, we made the decision to that we would most want to see the
So we have started our journey south.
All of this was going on in a shroud of uncertainty and felt that apart from the information that I had put in the blog, there was nothing of much certainty and signs of just not being sure, so we didn't want to unnecessarily say much.
On Friday, I received another email from the same colleague advising that the vast majority of the customers that had been reassigned on Tuesday would be reallocated back to me.
It seems that my boss wasn't fully aware of just how much I actually do in his company - he seems to think that I am over here on holiday at his expense and swanning around doing bugger all - but none of anything is certain for a long period of time.
Anyway it has left a bad taste in my mouth and when things get to the stage that they are, it is natural to start thinking of what can be done to change it all.
In addition to all of this, I have been advised that my current visa - an ancestry visa - which, whilst it states that I can work in the
So if anyone can offer me some employment whilst I continue to live on the boat I would be most grateful.
In the meantime I will now start seeking to put some poor Polish or Romanian immigrant, in this country legally, out of a job. You got to love beauracracy.
7 miles, 1 tunnel
YTD: 113 Miles, 38 Locks, 2 Tunnels, 2
Totals: 3007 Miles, 2159 Locks, 100 Tunnels, 36
Aha, all is revealed - very intrigued I've been ...
ReplyDeleteI am also interested that you are meant to be job seeking on an ancestry visa! I do wish I had known that back in 2004 when David and I were doing our OE. I was working as any good wife would do, to support David, while he was being a house husband - not that meant he did the shopping and cooking, mind you ... If I had known he was meant to be working/looking for work, I would have cracked the whip and no mistake! There would have been far fewer of the walking group rambles with obligatory pub lunches and afternoon nana naps while I was out earning the crust!
On a serious note, that requirement sounds strange to me - as long as you are not a drain on the UK public purse, I was under the impression that visa had no work requirements.
By the way, I do enjoy your blog and I am impressed that you have been through Harecastle 12 times!!!
And it's now fewer than 60 sleeps till we leave for the UK again to take up our 5/12 of a year of being continuous cruisers. (The terms of the NZ government's superannuation means that David can only be out of NZ for less than 183 days a year, so we do 5 months' cruising to leave just under a month for any other overseas travel.)
Cheers, Marilyn (nb Waka Huia, nbwakahuia.blogspot.co.uk)