Office Politics

It's been a busy week this one. On Monday I met with the Met Police about the work I'm doing for them as a recruitment consultant. In the afternoon I got an email asking if I could possibly help out with some events at RADAR, so I said yes. I found myself on Tuesday at the RADAR offices agreeing to work up to 4 days a week at their offices for a month!

Then on Thursday it was the Inclusion London Seminar that I had been organising and also presenting at. That involved a 5 AM start and the stress of organising the morning registration, all the access requirements etc. We had the usual issues, a BSL interpreter was a bit late, the plasma screen wouldn't work and the speech to text typist was not happy at the amount of work she had to do. In the end the seminar went very well and Inclusion London have had really good feed back.

Then today I started work at RADARs offices. I haven't been in an office since the 12th May. So it was strange to come back to this kind of setting. It's made me realise offices all over the country are exactly the same though and already I feel like one of the ganag. In just one afternoon, the milk ran out but was promptly bought, the printer had an issue, someone printing a huge ammount of important stuff got interrupted and unhappy, cookies were brought into the office, I recieved a call from the Sun newspaper problem page and didn't know what to do with the call.

Yep that's right the Sun's agony aunt called wanting to speak to RADAR's media person - who I was able to track down with the help of a colleague.

It made me realise that once you've worked in one office you can just easily sink into just about any other office in the world.

Scotland & glad tidings!

It's a week ago now that we arrived in Pitlochry after our 3 day stay in Fife with Jason's parents. Now that we are back home a week ago seems like a year! I'd only ever passed through Pitlochry on the train and I didn't really know what to expect. I've been to Inverness and Cromarty but not Perthshire or the Grampians. I was surprised most by the extraordinary diversity of trees and the large area of woodland. There are so many different trees all growing together, oaks and beech nestle beneath extremely tall firs and redwoods. Some of the countries oldest and tallest trees can be found in Perthshire. I'd love to visit the Yew tree which could be up to 2000 years old!

The picture I took above is of some woodland close to the hotel where we were staying, the Atholl Palace Hotel. The hotel was an old hydrotherapy centre for the Victorians, and later a school. It seemed just the place where Hercule Poirot would appear, waddling into breakfast to tell Hastings their had been a murder! As the Highland Tennis Tournament was being held at the hotel last week (the 2nd oldest tennis tournament in Scotland in its 115th year) it felt even more like the setting for an Agatha Christy mystery. So it was a very pleasant place to stay but not for those who love the ultra modern!

We stayed in one of the turret suites which is supposedly haunted by a Green Lady as http://scottishghosts.webs.com/apparitionsaf.htm reports:lace Hotel, Pitlochry

The Atholl Palace is a large castlellated Hotel, built in 1875, it is reputed to be haunted by a 'Green Lady', and her spectre has allegedly been witnessed by staff and guests in one of the bedrooms and the the corridor ourside the room. It is believed that this bedroom is no longer used by guests due to amount of complaints Management received the following morning!!!!

Another account however said the ghost actually haunted our turret room which had been put back into use as a guest room! Either way I didn't notice any spooky going ons and Jason of course doesn't believe in such nonsense :-) Anyway the room was lovely. I took lots of pictures including ones of our room and you can see them all on my Flickr page.

We did quite a lot of walking in Pitlochry around the town, to the black spout waterfall, through Faskally forest and around Loch Faskally. We also visited the Salmon ladder and "Salmon Viewing Chamber" which made me feel a little uncomfortable, but it was the fishy kind of Salmon they wanted to view not the happy kind :-) Over 4000 salmon have used the ladder already this year to get around the hydro electric dam. All very impressive.

Good News

The picture below is of a small waterfall in the grounds of the Hotel, near to a "Ducklings Crossing" sign which isn't really anything very special apart from the fact that it was where Jase and I decided it would be a good idea to get married! It wasn't so much a proposal by either of us; we're not very conventional, more just walking along the drive and talking and the next thing I know we've agreed to get married. So sorry to disappoint anyone who wanted tales of hot air balloon rides and down on one knee proposals. But for me it was the most magical thing in the world and it happened in a truly beautiful and extremely peaceful place.

Pitlochry was always going to be somewhere that I'd want to go back to and explore more, but now it will be even more special to both of us.

I can definitely recommend Pitlochry as a place to go on holiday, there is a theatre, great walking both through woodland and mountain, lots of water for those who like fishing and boats and loads of wildlife. The food was great too - the hotel did a fine steak and an amazing starter called the "wee beastie" which was small balls of haggis deep fried in batter. They were lovely. Because I've done my back in again I was on strong pain killers so couldn't really drink but I did manage a wee scotch, I tried the local Edradour 10 yr single malt. It was a lovely scotch, quite flowery with a bit of vanilla, very smooth but had a real peppery kick to it. When I need a new bottle of whisky it'll be a 10 year Edradour that I'll go for I think.

Home

Since getting back home I've been really busy with work. I have a new contract with the Metropolitan Police, as a recruitment consultant for their Diversity team. It's the Equality Act seminar on Thursday that I have been organising for Inclusion London, plus I have a few other things in the pipe line that I am working on. By the end of this week I'll need another holiday!

I'll leave you with a picture I took of the Firth of Forth.

Arthurs seat & kite surfer

Arthurs seat & kite surfer
Originally uploaded by Happy Salmon

Click on this picture to have a look at my flickr photos from the 1st part of our holiday in Fife. These were taken just over a week ago.

Fife

We arrived in bonny Scotland yesterday to glorious sunshine. We had a lovely journey, the section from Newcastle to Edinburgh is one of my favourite train journeys ever. Both afternoons in Scotland so far have been very sunny so I've been out taking photos on both afternoon. Below is a picture of Pettycur taken from the harbour.

One beautiful thing about Pettycur beach are the rose bushes that surround it; mixing the rose perfume with the salty smell of the sea. Refreshing, refined and it should be bottled!

I also went shopping today buying a grey scarf with silver thread running through it and a grey headband / fascinater thing, it looks better than it sounds :-)

Nanook

Nanook

Nanook is my brother's new puppy. My nieces and nephew love him to bits. In fact my 6 year old niece Lucia took this photo of Nanook. He's a very calm, quiet but friendly dog so perfect for the children. Anyway I thought I'd introduce Nanook to the blogsphere!

Sent from my iPhone

Garden spider

Garden spider
Originally uploaded by Happy Salmon

We have an army of web spinning, fly eating garden spiders in our erm, garden. This is the only picture to come out which was ok to crop and zoom in on. I didn't want to get too close to any of them!

September!

I love September! For some reason I never feel good in August, I could understand it when a teacher because although on holiday I'd end up spending most of the time ill, I'd always come down with a cold or bad migraine. I've always worked through August since not teaching but this year starting up my new business meant that August was a barren month - everyone's on holiday. So I had to take time off and I just slumped into a big low.

Today is 1st September and I do feel a lot better already. I love September the shiny new school shoes, the misty mornings, the crisp evenings, the blackberries and the robin singing at my window this morning. The change in seasons. My dahlias are looking splendid after a heavy morning dew, pictured above. But I also have some new roses, pictured below. That's why I love September, summer is growing old but autumn promises a bounty of fruit, vegetables and cosiness! My favourite time of year is autumn. So I'm happy today!
When emerging from a period of feeling very low I always feel fragile and shaky, there is always the worry that this is a false start, that by tea time I'll be back in the doldrums and the turmoil. Fingers crossed though that this time I am well and truly out of the worst.