Last Night in London

Well, this is my last night in London. It has been great fun although I am getting tired pretty quickly from all of the walking.

Today I went to Buckingham Palace and saw the changing of the guard. And I think I got the bumper edition, with the full brass band and then the mounted guards also dropped past. I got some good photos but I would have got better ones if I had known where to stand.

On the way back I saw some squirrels that were very tame being fed nuts by some people. I even got to feed some myself. (Check out the photos at the end of this post - I can blow these up for you if you like Sarah - the photos, not the squirrels).

The weather was freezing today. The last few days has been reasonably mild (max around 10C) but today only got to 4C. I was finally forced to buy some gloves and a beanie to allow myself to keep checking stuff out.

Tonight I rode the London Eye - the big, over-priced ferris wheel thing ran by Brittish Airways. At least this Brittish Airways service got off the ground first try. It was pretty spectacular to see London from the air, but the glass made photos difficult. So I guess you will just have to go there yourself.

After the London eye I went to the Piccadilly Circus and some more of the busier parts of London. Wow, there were quite a few people out tonight. If I was more mobile I might have been able to check out some more places but I had to come back to the hotel after covering the first couple of miles because my leg felt like it would drop off and if it did I would probably have to declare it coming back into Australia.

Anyway I had better get some sleep as I need to get up and go to see the London Bridge, Tower Bridge and the rest of the stuff out that direction tomorrow. Then I need to catch the tube to Heathrow to come home. It is kind of sad to think the adventure is ending, but it will be great to see you all again.

The last few days have confirmed to me that these trips are awesome but unless you are with a group and get to see the same people everyday, you can only spend so much time on your own.

See you all on Tuesday,

Andy

Reading and London (night 1)

OK, lets get you up to date.

The last few nights I have been struggling to get decent Internet access and as such haven't been able to blog. But now I am in London everything is working ok.

Yesterday Keith and I spent the day with United Utilities. This was a good day of discussions in which I got a lot more direction into what this program I was meant to be writing should do.

After this meeting Keith drove me back to Reading and we parted ways. Keith headed off to Oxford to get ready for his holiday to Morocco. The next morning I then went to a meeting with Thames on my own. Again the meeting went well but this was a little different because Thames are only potential new clients not existing clients.

OK apart from a train trip and a cab, that has you up to date...

Well, this is my first night in London. I have had a chance to walk around from about 3pm and it is amazing to see the major landmarks in real life.

When Keith and I were looking through to find hotels, he said that this hotel was as cheap as any and I thought it would be in a bad location. Quite the opposite really, if the sun ever came out it, would literally be in the shadow of the London eye. That means it is within walking distance of Buckingham Palace, London Tower, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and more.

I have had a chance to walk around and check out some of the city after dark (yup 4pm). I didn't get as far as Buckingham Palace but I did see Trafalgar Square, London Eye and Big Ben. The photos prove it. Hopefully there will be plenty more photos to come. Anyway I am thinking about heading out later tonight to see what night life is nearby.

I will try to blog one more time tomorrow night but if not I will see you all back in Adelaide (I arrive on Tuesday at 8am) Also just to keep the theme there are some more photos following this blog.

Andy

London Eye by night


National Gallery (at Trafalgar Square)


London Eye by day


Big Ben at Night


Typical London type photo

Richmond and Leeds

Hi All,

Firstly I must fix my typo from previously. Sarah pointed out to me that I had actually said 2 different phone numbers in my email. The first one was the correct one. Unfortunately this was not the one which Elsie circulated (sorry Elsie, you had a 50-50 chance). So what I should have said was ...

"My phone number is: 07785 711 082.

That is 0011 44 7785 711 082 for the Australians."

and not 0011 44 7785 811 082.

Sorry for the confusion. OK now that I have cleared that up. The last few days have been busier with 2 meetings with different clients most days.

After leaving Oxford on Sunday afternoon we headed up to Leeds where we checked into a nice little motel attached to a pub near Bradford (just outside Leeds).

Actually most of the motels we are using are the same chain and all are attached to old pubs. All of the rooms are nearly identical and you can tell that the furniture, bathroom fixtures etc are all ordered in bulk. It makes the accomodation quite cheap but it is still quite a good standard. I wish we had these in Australia.

Anyway after checking in Keith took me into the heart of Leeds. This place has quite a night life and most of the clubs and pubs are in beautiful old buildings that used to be banks, insurance and other official entities but have now been done up to make them a little more modern without losing that old feel. Very cool - well at least from the outside. I will have to come back to check the inside on a non-business trip.

We stayed the next night near Leeds also and then had one more meeting with Yorkshire Water. This meeting went pretty well too.

Keith and I then headed out to the Richmond area to get a better idea of what the lie of the land is. This area is in the hills in the North of Britain and is also the subject of one of the studies we are currently undertaking.

We drove around for about 4 hours looking at the main components of the system including the underground tanks and pumping stations. I have taken photos of these so there might be a slide show for the Richmond team one lunch time when I get back (and anyone else interested of course).

I also found time to take some other photos of the countryside. Some of them look like they should be jigsaw puzzles. See following this blog.

Anyway that has you just about up to date now, I will be going to one more meeting with Severn Trent today before heading to Warrington for a meeting with United Utilities.

Then I have one more meeting on Friday morning before have a day to myself to check out London - this should be great.

I hope everyone out there is well and I will give you another update soon.

Andy














Richmond Castle

Richmond town from the hilltop.

First Email

Hi All,

Well here is an update that was meant to be brief but then I made a mistake and decided to list the problems BA had on our flight. It is currently 10:30am on Sunday and I have been in Oxford for one whole day now. The temperature when I arrived was -1C and thankfully it has warmed up to around 4C for most of the time.

But getting here was no easy task, thanks mainly to Brittish Airways. Getting to Melbourne was no worries but then when I got on the plane to leave for Singapore we waited and waited and waited. Eventually the pilot explained that they had a strange complaint from the braking system and couldn't take off until it was resolved.

If you want to save some time skip the next section because it is all about what went wrong with the plane and jus tknow that Brittish Airways are crap... if you want a laugh read on ...

After an hour of sitting on the plane they thought they knew what part it was...
after 1.5 horus I finally recognised who I was sitting next to. Simon was talking to me about how they had supported the Foo Fighters when it dawned on me that these guys were the Kaiser Chiefs (that might not mean much to anyone but Alana). But they were good fun and at least kept me company while the pandemonium continued.

after 2 hours of sitting on the plane they had replaced the part ...

after 3 hours of sitting on the plane they thought they needed to reset the plane and so shutdown everything and powered up again ...

after 3 hours and 5 minutes sitting on the plane they knew that they must have guessed the wrong thing and would need to try again ...

after 3.25 hours they figured lets move it a little and jam the brakes on to see if it helps the system reset ...

after 3 hours and 20 mins nope it just annoys the people on the plane and spills some drinks (which by this time were flowing freely)

after 3.5 hours of sitting on the plane they figured they would try taxiing aroudn the runway to see if it helped ...

after 3.75 hours no taxiing doesn't help

after 4 hours they decided it was 9pm and they had better feed us something other than free soft drinks and alcohol

after 5 hours the crew were not able to come with us because of union agreements and we were finally allowed off the plane.

It was now 10:30ish so we were taken to hotels (after lining up for over an hour). I was taken to the Carlton Crest - over 30 mins away in a taxi with a nice German couple who thought I couldn't understand them. It was nice for the 10 hours I was there.

The next morning I rang Qantas and told them I needed to work so they picked me up in a taxi and let me into the Qantas club lounge. Not before I said goodbye to the German couple (in German) and saw the horror on their faces. Ha.

More free drinks and food cheers Qantas - not quite Oxford though is it. 5pm back on the plane ... new list:

After ten minutes we established it was the same plane....

after 15 mins we knew something else was wrong ...

after 30 mins they explained that the fuel had expanded and flowed into the overflow tanks in the wings. If they were to put enough fuel into the main tanks they would need to drain the overflow tanks first so that the computer could read the correct weight.

after 1 hour they had managed to spill the fuel all over the run way ...

after 1.5 hours we had fire engines spraying the fuel with water to "keep the environmentalists happy" ...

after 2 hours (still in melbourne) the pilot made the following speach:

"Once again we apologise for the delay in our services, if you had been looking out of the window you would have witnessed the comedy of errors which is taking place ... I myself was down there only minutes ago with a broom sweeping up the petrol and I think we have actually managed to contain the spill. With that out of our way and the braking system fixed I can gladly say we will be able to leave sometime in THE FORSEE-ABLE FUTURE".

when we finally pulled away from the terminal everyone cheered. That is a grand total of 7 hours on a plane and a total of 500m traveled in a circle.

Singapore was a brief stopover and so the Kaiser guys I met on the plane and I decided to check out what food we could buy. Ricky, Simon, a couple of others and I raced to McDonalds where Ricky bought me a Cheese burger meal and a coke with the last remaining US dollars he had. We then had to almost run (that's all I can do) back to the gate for take off again.

After I arrived in Heathrow Keith took me back to his place where we did a little bit of work. Then it was play time...

I rang Kim who was in the city and asked if I could come and catch up with her. Keith made arrangements to drop me somewhere to meet her and then in half an hour I was in the middle of Oxford taking pictures and checking out the local scenery.

Last night I was exhausted and so slept a massive 13 hours and now feel wonderful. Jet lag has been no problem.

Anyway I will be looking around some more today and hopefully the next email is more about England and less about planes.

See you all soon,

Andy

PS If I haven't included people in this email that you think might be interested can you please do 2 things to help me. 1 forward it to them and 2 send me their email addresses because I have left my email address book on my computer at work (which incidently can someone turn back on for me and please don't turn off). Cheers

Oxford tours

Hi again,

I know this is the second blog for the day - please don't get used to it as I really doubt I will be able to keep this up. I have however downloaded a few photos I took yesterday around Oxford (well actually Kim took the one with me in it of course).

Have a look if you like. There will certainly be more photos and posts to come. The full pictures look much better but take too long to download so for now this will have to do.

Hope you are all well,

Andy

A nice little setting I walked past.


Radcliffe camera - with me.


They don't just make roofs over here.


Kim about to go rowing.