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Another item with a mention of past political heroes on someone.
As I am now allowed to work, and the availability of work is not on my doorstep I have been on my travels.
Last week saw me in Grantham overnight, the town of Councellor Roberts and his well know daughter. Also, I noted on a plaque at a school, it was also where Isaac Newton was educated.
At the weekend I had a couple of days in Bridgwater,Spomerset. Manning the phones for the Out Of Hours service. A nice spot but with an underbelly of roughness, as evidenced by the youths and older supping from tinnies and brown paper bags in the middle of the afternoon in the local bandstand. Sad.
Norman Tebbit would be proud of me. And I still pass the Cricket team test……for now.

The message in blogspace has been that things have been quiet.
As far as the blogging is concerned thay have, but life has not been quiet. Time has been spent fighting through the red tape; criminal checks that take 5 weeks in the UK that take less than 24 hours in NZ being the predominant hurdle, as well as showing all concerned the same pieces of paper that some other agency has verified. The GMC being happy that GP vocational training has been demonstrated is not good enough for the next empire in line, and the locum agencies are as bad, being staffed concrete thought obsessed dorks. Makes me sound like a Tory candidate standing on the same platform as Boris Johnson.
Anyway, the official ” I am a GP”piece of paper has been obtained, so the next stage of finding some proper work beyond medical record updating(“isn’t that what medical students do in the summer holidays’“, as an eminent O&G doc commented this week) is currently active.
The whole CRB thing is an eye opener. It appears to be the ultimate plan to keep the country safe from the bad people, by so many proving thay are not one of the bad people. And when an adverse event occurs, as in recent press report regarding builder working in school, the next step will be to widen the net. How long before everyone will have a current CRB certificate pinned to our jackets along with our national identity badge. How many weeks will they take to process by that stage?

Anyway, must dash……. off to lunch with Boris.

If you can remember the Cybermen episode(I still have only seen the first half), the people all had huge ear pieces in both ears. Well out and about in London they are all mimicking the TV-or is it the other way around?
It is obviously the new thing to have your ( I assume) Bluetooth ear device, so that yopu do not have to actually lift the mobile phone all the way from your pocket to your ear-would not wish to suffer a strain.
If it’s not a phone in your ear then everyone else is plugged into their iPod or eqivilent. The world going around in oblivion.
And to think in the not so distant past, people would refuse to wear hearing aids becuase they were too conspicuous.

Time to write again. My foot has been off the pedal.
I have been backm in UK for a while, and today I did the big journey form commuter Surrey/Berkshire to Battersea in the car, via M3, and south circular via Barnes and Wandsworth. Anyway welcome back to my old world! Two hours later I arrrived, feeling like I had already done a days work. Today, being the school holidays should not have been too bad-I did the same journey in an hour last week. However, little did I know about the train strike on South West Trains.
I can quickly remember why I decided to move to the West Midlands.

Now four days since my arrival in UK. Sleeping better and cycle coming around.
UK seems familiar and unfamiliar at the samer time. All the places are instantly recognisable, but do not seem so real or “usual”. Obviously hard to put into words. Maybe as I have been away for last 2 years and effectively 3 years, it is not normal anymore.
London is a busy, bustling and dirty place. I soud like a bumpkin, but it does not appeal. This is not new I suppose but dates 7 years.
Anyway trying to enjoy self while awaiting movement of the bureaucracies to let me work.

So much happened since I laast wrote a note. Trip to South Island was success, and it seemed we were “so lucky with the weather”.
We had fun with walks and managed tio squeeze in two days of skiing. The fisrt at Hamner, which is a non comcercial venue so with lesser size and facilities. Having to use a rope pull and nutcracker cintraption to get up the hill has abit too much for all concerned. However, noraml service was resumed at Mount Hutt, with large fields, chair lifts, lessons for the children and one for Dad, and everyone made progress and “got back on the the bike”. The weather was glorious, how one imagines it should always be.
Since then I have travelled to the other side of the world. I am up at 4am as I cannot sleep, despite lack of hours under the belt.
Here’s to a return to sleep patterns.

Two more days of work, then it is holiday time. Some in the world may be currently enjoying their summer fun and beach time, but we arte offf to the South Island for a family relax, fresh air, leg exercise and a bit of skiing.
Tomorrow is another chance to catch the beauty of the MArlborough Sounds on the ferry, then off to Hanmer Springs, and probably next up Mount Hutt skiing.
Roll on the holiday as the countdown to trip up north continues.

Short trip to the Basin on Saturday to witness Conrad Smith back in action for OBU, as he returns to playing after braking his leg during the super 14 in February I think it was. Sure looked bigger on the pitch than most centres, me included. However he did remind me of me with his running, skilled passing and controlled firm tackling. I expect I will se him next in the flesh possibly at twickers, or when he is running aroud in France in 2007.
I continued my own rehab programme for the knee with a gym session, including pumping a bit of iron, and a swim down at Oriental Bay. However, after the walk on Mount Vic, the couple of pints at the Brewery is not what most recuperating athletes have written into their programme.
However, the legs are aching so I hope some good work has been done.

From our guest correspondent:

Touch line conversations at rugby always provide useful for us sporting mothers. A chat with a Mum of another boy who plays with Joe, works in the Department of Labour which includes the Immigration department proved interesting. It would appear we are not unusual in leaving. The latest report shows that as many people leave NZ as arrive, going back to their country of origin, with the most common lengths of stay being 3, 5 and 10 years. Apparently the report states the top three reasons we Poms leave are because it’s too cold and there isn’t any heating in the houses (although that is changing and “European type heating with radiators” is now being advertised on the TV), Kiwi driving is appalling and finally its very expensive to live here – all of which sounded very true and reasonable to me (having recently paid the equivalent of 2 quid for a telegraph cucumber!!). Her other interesting comment was that in general Kiwis have the perception that people don’t leave so as a consequence are not willing to address the issues raised by departing immigrants . Interesting stuff and food for thought……

Dr Who is running here, obviously aftr elsewhere.
Special interest note-episode with Sarah Jane was shown last night. Worn well. K9 looking good also.