I came across this First Great Western Advent Calendar, which is getting addictive. Various prizes to be won including travel, gift vouchers etc, and all the prize draws are remaining open until early January, so if you miss any, you can come back. Nice idea!

This cartoon by Steve Bell comes from today's Guardian, found via Anglia Bus Forum...

So, it started with Friday. Caroline stayed to work from home, and I was out to Milton via Cambridge, for an afternoon on the (Prisoners Families) Helpline. This was made more difficult by several rather large gaps in service on the citi2 bus! Before leaving central Cambridge, did manage a snap of one of the new Whippet Volvo/Plaxton buses, intended for the Guided Busway. (There is a metal support on the left, although the sun was glaring straight on, so missing it would have meant full-on sun!)

I came home, and a few things had arrived (several boxes within boxes from Staples, and more), but the items C had ordered from Morgan (including a netbook intended for my Christmas) had still not arrived. What is it with our run of bad luck with some online and phone shopping? So, we eventually agreed to go out on Saturday afternoon, and we’d have a look around Central London. I did warn Caroline in advance that there were two protests scheduled for central London, a rather large crane closing New Oxford Street, as well as the Very Important Pedestrians day in London’s west end, where all buses are diverted away from Oxford Street and Regent Street.

As the day of the assessment at (London Lesbian & Gay) Switchboard started an hour later than the last four weeks (1200 not 1100) I decided to leave home earlier, and do a little bit of travelling along the other end of the 205 route – not a long-standing one, but one of the new routes introduced (to replace the top half of the SL1/SL2 accessible circular) when congestion charging started. When I go for a bus from Kings Cross or back again, there is the choice of the 30, 73, 205, 214 and 476, but for some reason 205’s always show up – except when they were subjected to industrial action. Anyway, after breakfast, from Kings Cross to Paddington for a few photographs before purchasing the new First Great Western timetable book, which is highly recommended – more on timetable books etc. later) then to Marylebone then to Euston then to Angel for lunch, before starting work. We had a “dress rehearsal” before going for the assessment, and we all passed! So we live to fight another day, and will return the following week at the same time, for our formal induction.

So, from this, back into Kings Cross, and I was meeting C off the train. We walked through the new northern tube Ticket Hall at Kings Cross St Pancras, before continuing by tube to the west end the long way! (We went via the Northern Line to Bank and then the Central Line – I was intending to change at Euston then go via the Northern Line, Charing Cross branch, but went to the wrong platforms!) then onto Tottenham Court Road. Having looked at a few shops, we stopped at Micro Anvika where C purchased my Christmas gift (a small netbook laptop pc, alongside a new Mac power supply for her MacBookPro and a few other bits and pieces!). So, after that, the closest eating place was Burger King, before heading for the tube. However, crowd control was being used at TCR station (remember several buses were diverted away, and passengers were being pointed to the tube instead, as well as the rest!). By a quick look at the monitors and the crowd in the ticket hall, I estimated a 1-2 hour wait before we could get something, so we bailed out to First Out for a coffee instead.

I was getting tired, so after finding a cashpoint, we took a taxi back to Kings Cross, as we had to call it a day around 1915. We were going for the 1945 Kings Lynn train (non-stop to Royston) but the train coming in was delayed, so we went for the 1952 Cambridge semi-fast train instead, for sake of getting something. We got home soon after, only four minutes late into Royston, despite the rain.

It’s nice to feel wanted, in so many ways. You can see all the pictures from Friday & Saturday here.

It’s been a busy few days. Monday was our 32 month anniversary and we were back out that evening with the yogic breathing trainer, Tuesday was quiet, Wednesday I was back out again at the counsellor, last one for a fortnight. I’m working at PFH tomorrow, and training assessment at LLGS on Saturday.

If you’ve been wondering what happened before that car crash, here’s a 98PXY exclusive video of the surveillance cameras…

Taken from Rail News, this story updates the industrial action threads of the last few weeks. On a side note, following a post to the Tubegroup and GN-Gen railway groups, First Capital Connect are having their next online customer web forum at 1300 on Monday 14th December. So, if you've got the hump with management over the situation, you know what to do! This might be one of the more vocal for a while...



First Capital Connect has revealed that it has improved its pay offer to drivers, as the ban on rest day working and overtime nears the end of its third week. But now there's trouble on the horizon at Southern, where the RMT has called a strike ballot in a dispute over Christmas pay.

FCC has been running only half its normal service on the Thameslink route since 12 November, after drivers had withdrawn most voluntary working in protest at a pay offer which would have given them no rise in April 2009 and RPI+1 per cent or 3 percent, whichever iwas the greater, in April 2010.

Now FCC has improved its offer in talks with ASLEF, although it is declining to give any details. While the ASLEF response is awaited, the company is holding further talks this week with the RMT, Unite and TSSA. The company is also apologising to its passengers for the continuing emergency service.

Meanwhile trouble is brewing at Southern, where the RMT is to hold a strike ballot over the issue of pay for 28 December. Southern is proposing to treat it as a normal day, but the RMT is arguing that pay should be enhanced because it is a lieu day for Boxing Day. This falls on Saturday this year, making Monday a public holiday.

Southern said it did not believe that the union had any grounds for taking action, and that the company was complying fully with terms and conditions which had been agreed ‘in good faith’. It accused the RMT of asking for three bank holidays instead of two.

The result of the ballot will be known on 21 December, and if drivers are in favour industrial action could take place on 28 December itself.


Late News - this story on Railnews shows that not only are Southern members of the RMT balloting for a strike on the 28th, but ASLEF are too!

Yesterday was another day out to London (last Saturday training with LLGS, before next week’s assessment), and dinner at Prezzo in Stevenage Old Town on the way home. I’ve been enjoying the travels, as well as the training, which has encompassed a wide variety of stuff.

Today is a quiet but busy one! It’s been a very busy week, and I will admit I’ve not had as much time as I’d have liked to play around with the breathing exercises. Maybe today I can catch up.

The move of the Anglia Bus Forum took a little longer than expected, and it has all boiled down to two reasons –
1. The attachments would not work in a different directory from what they were in before (file structures on both servers were different), so I copied them across to be in a folder within a folder, like the old server, which resolved most of that. But...
2. The former host had restricted FTP to 2,000 files displayed in one go – which is why, when the files were originally downloaded that way, that they were incomplete. Managed to get the rest last night via File Manager, and the missing ones are being uploaded right now, hoping this resolves the matter!

This week is a little quieter, and here’s hoping! I’ve purchased yet more blue books (street atlases) via Philips (40% off sale!) to complete the gaps in my collection, and update the collection too. In addition to this, another first is some promotional materials (business cards etc.) for the Anglia Bus Forum and Dundee Area Bus Forum, mostly covered by some generous donations recently.

Do you remember some time ago, I found this PC vs Mac ad in South Park style? Well....

Here's a nice one to start the weekend...found, thanks to thermalsatsuma ...

Today was a day out in Ipswich, as staff & volunteers from all projects ran by Ormiston were invited, to a day of discussion, networking etc. held in the Sir Bobby Robson suite of Portman Road, home of Ipswich Town FC. It was useful to meet management and trustees, who made it clear that they were aware of the success of the helpline, and, they were also appreciative of the volunteering base. Well, that was already known, but it’s always nice to hear it again!

A very useful day out – but after a busy week so far, I am now looking forward to a day at home tomorrow, before going out again on Saturday.

A good couple of days – we were out with some new friends in Harston last night, and I was out to see the counsellor (who is also the Yogic Breathing instructor from Monday evenings) this afternoon. She’s got hopes that it is going to benefit me, so I’m going to give it a bash.

Also, when C dropped me off, I came across another new bus for Charter Travel on the 127, a former Southern Vectis Dart/UVG – see the pictures here.

Been a busy two days, today has largely been spent finishing off the work on the Anglia Bus Forum from yesterday's server move.

Last night, we were out for a bit at the first night of a Yogic Breathing course, that was being led by the counsellor that we've both seen recently.

This is going to be a busy week...

This is the snippet from the full TfL press release...

One ticket for London as Oysterisation of rail and river confirmed

23 November 2009

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, Transport Secretary, Andrew Adonis, and the Train Operating Companies serving the Capital, today confirmed that the hundreds of thousands of passengers who travel on National Rail services within Greater London will be able to use Oyster pay as you go from 2 January 2010.
The extension of the ticketing system will cover all commuter rail routes within Greater London, and will particularly benefit commuters living across south and northeast London, where Oyster pay as you go is not currently accepted on the vast majority of rail services.
The Mayor has also confirmed that Oyster pay as you go will be accepted on all Thames Clipper river services from today, making river travel more convenient for thousands more Londoners and helping to boost usage of London's underused thoroughfare.

New map for all stations

The rail agreement will see Oyster pay as you go accepted on all Greater London services operated by Chiltern, National Express East Anglia, London Midland, First Great Western, First Capital Connect, Southern, Southeastern and South West Trains.
Oyster pay as you go will also be accepted on c2c services in Greater London as well as at Grays, Chafford Hundred, Purfleet and Ockendon stations in Essex.
A new map that reveals the incredible reach of Oyster around the Capital from January has also been produced.

The map will become a feature of stations all over London in the build up to full Oysterisation.

(cut)

The Train Operating Companies will set Oyster pay as you go fares on the National Rail network.
These will be zonally based, but will be different from fares on TfL services.
TfL fares will apply on the Tube, Docklands Light Railway (DLR), London Overground and National Rail services that currently accept Oyster pay as you go.
An additional combined TfL/National Rail fare will be introduced for journeys that incorporate both TfL and National Rail services.
The Mayor also announced today that passengers can pay for their travel on Thames Clippers river services with Oyster pay as you go, in the process receiving a 10 per cent discount.
Passengers with a Travelcard loaded onto their Oyster card are eligible for the existing discount of a third off their ticket price, which can then be paid for using pay as you go credit which can be loaded onto the same Oyster card.

As members have been advised, Anglia Bus Forum is moving to a new server - following a very kind offer from a host ran by one of our members, to reduce my costs, as well as being able to resolve a long-running niggle with the database.

So, as advised at the end of last week, today, the Forum will be down for a bit.

The current status is that the work is moving along as planned. The Forum has been closed (to enable an end point for the "old" installation, otherwise we would lose stuff!) temporaily, and the request to change the nameservers (those that tell your browser where to go) has been submitted. (With our current host I am unable to do this myself).

Keep refreshing this blog post, as I will update it over the day, with further news and updates.

UPDATE 1214: Nameservers updated.

UPDATE 1556: Not a lot else to say, most files now copied across. Should not be too long now.

UPDATE 1814: The Forum is now open once more, although some of the images etc. may still be missing. This should be resolved by around 1900.

It has been five days since my last blog post – seems like forever, and so far removed from the start of the week!

It’s been a busy time. Been to work & back twice – once with PFH on Thursday, and once with LLGS on Saturday. Both later involved eating out in Stevenage – Thursday at Toby (where they were playing the original Land Of Confusion in the background!), whereas Saturday was also at Pizza Express in the Old Town. Thursday was out in the car, Saturday was getting off the train early on the way home.

This coming week also looks busy, with something for each day (except Friday & Sunday), and that is probably the way it’s going to get, between now and then. There is some fairly unusual stuff – by my standards!

p.s. Refund payment into my bank, from boots via Paypal finally arrived on Thursday past – 10 days after Boots refunded it. Debit card refunds don’t normally take so long!

Think of a real or fictional character, answer the questions, and it will be able to tell you who you were thinking of (in most cases anyway). Clever - it guessed my name correctly three times!

http://en.akinator.com/

I placed an order with Next some time ago, which was delayed, although it was in the midst of the catalogue going out, so I was a little forgiving. I tried again, ordering two coats on Monday, amongst other things, and they were delivered on Tuesday! See – it can work for me sometimes! C’s taken a liking to the one that was going to be going back otherwise, but the rest is all fine. Also yesterday, delivery and (re)assembly of a wardrobe (see previous posts), in "completely knocked down' form.

Otherwise, keeping very busy with lots of stuff at this end, and preparing to be out several times in the next few days.

Another fun game!

Thanks to Paul H for finding it!

...my Lizzy The Lezzy book has just turned up - munch recommended ;-)