So Much For A Rest Day

I finished work at 7ish yesterday morning and after getting up on Monday at 5:30, I knew i had a long day ahead of me.

My friend from Northampton asked me if I could help here erect her tent, so I was over at her house about 10am, the car was loaded up and we were away by 10:30.

6 miles down the road and we were at Billing Aerodrome setting up her tent.
As it was brand new and she had never set the thing up, after reading and rereading, then rereading them twice more we finally started.

90 minutes later the tent was up and I sat down to my first cup of coffee.

I spent the afternoon with my friend whenanother couple of her friends who were also there offered me a cider, not to upset anyone I had one, then two , then so on and so on.

So it's now 11pm and my friend says well you might as well stay the night, so on my first night off, i end up sleeping in a tent.

It was absolutely freezing, I even think my nose was glowing in the dark. I shared my friends tent and NO there was no hanky panky, I finally feel asleep around 11:45.

1 HOUR LATER:

I'm wide awake again, as my right leg has gone into cramp mode. 5 times I had cramp last night.
I finally fell into a dead sleep at 6am.

So much for a nice rest day.

Another Long Week Over.

7 nights down, and apart from moving out of the old office and into the new office, nothing much occurred.

I had my usual compliment of contractors banging on my doors all night, however from Thursday night through to Sunday night, I only had my cleaner for company.

The longest day of the week though had to be Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, as I drove down to Sheernes to collect my friend and bring her and her kids back to Northampton. I finally fell into bed at 4pm on that day and was back up again at 6:45, now that was one hell of a long time to be awake.

I also recieved some good news about CSA Useless Bugger, you may remember that entry, it seems that the staff on the station are not the only ones who have had enough of him messing us about, I found out this week that he has been placed into the redeployment pool, which means that he has 13 weeks to now find another position in the company, or it's BYE BYE.

Yeah, Been There Done That

All this fuss about the FCC train, yet not a word about the incident on the 23:15 Midland Mainline train at Criclewood.

Great Start To A Nightshift

As I arrived on the platform at Kings Cross, a train was sitting in the platform, so I fought my way through the exiting crowd to board the train, only to wait for 5 minutes on a stationary train.

Because of an earlier police action at Hammersmith, the Hammersmith & City, Circle and Met lines are all suffering with severe delays.

I arrived at my own station, with my late turn colleague telling me how bad the night was.

At around 23:40 the line fell completely over with the LFB in attendance at Edgware Road Station, oh bugger!.

The Hammersmith & City and Circle Line was basically suspended westbound with all trains held in platforms, and eastbound trains being few and far between.

During the night shift I have to say goodbye to 9 trains, tonight i just about saw 4, the service was that bad.

My last eastbound Circle Line train was over 25 minutes late, and I give up on the rest, however the station was closed at the normal time.

Then the contractors arrived, and thankfully there were only a couple of dozen.

It's all peaceful now as they have all finshed, so just me and the cleaner are here.

Roll on 5 am.

What Not To Do When Drunk,

Is basically piss me off when I'm working.

Take last night, I was about an hour into my shift when I walked out of my shiny new office, only to witness a drunken punter move one of my C.C.T.V. cameras.

This might not seem so bad you might think, however the camera in question is an OPO camera and this just happens to be the camera that the Train Drivers use to check that everything is ok for them to depart the station.

So I walked upto Mr Fool and told him how intelligent he was and that how is he planning to get home tonight as he wont be getting a train home from my station.

Now I have to decide, when the next train comes in what is to happen, do I non stop the platform, do I try to adjust the camera to a semi decent angle, or do I get a member of staff and place them on the platform for the rest of the night.

Luckily I was able to reach the camera myself and adjust it by hand, and with the aid of a Train Driver get a decent view again.

Then this morning my relief turns up at 7 am, which is a decent time as I don't officially finish until 7:30, however my new colleague hasn't worked at my station for about 18 months as he is rostered at another station, the thing that upset me was that I was feeling tired this morning and the new SS needed to be familiarized at my station, which means that I spent until just after 8 am showing him around.

I then thought, why couldn't you have done this yesterday when you were at work.

Sheesh.

A Big Thank You

I would just like to take a few lines to saya big thank you to KateYay for all her help with my new template.

You might have noticed the change, but as i know next to nothing about templates Kate offered to help.

So thank you Kate.

Glad I'm Home

Well the move took place last night, and after all the messing about and all the hassle, I was finally allowed to use new complex at 04:30 this morning.

The new equipment is pretty swish, and 95% of it actually works.

The only thing that doesn't work correctly is the new SMS system, which is still waiting to be syncronized with the dot matrix on the platforms, this will finally work when the old ones are replaced.

So now I'm feeling dog tired and looking forward to sleep.

WOW, I'm Stunned

I checked out my site meter this morning and click on one of the hit links

What do you think

Moving

No not me but my office.

My station has been going through a refurb, and we (my fellow supervisors) have been using a shoe box as an office since January 2006, with the premise that we would have moved into our new ultra large office with in 6 weeks.

I went into work last night with the expectation of finally moving office. This has been a regular occurance for the last few months, on being told we will be moving on a certain date and then arriving at work only to find we are still in the same shoe box.

Yesterday was the closest we got so far with the hope of moving office now tonight.

The reason for last nights hiccup, IT came to install a brand new PC with XP and everthing on, unlike the pile of crap NT is, however on arrival IT set up the pc and were all ready for starting when they realised that there was only one availible plug socket and you can't fit four plugs into one.

So the move was scrapped and I was still in my shoe box at 7 am this morning.

Oh well here's hoping.

Realization

I woke up this morning, and after reading my emails and a few blogs, I then relaxed in the bath and thought about my own blog and realized that I seem to have gone off plot a bit.

My blog was supposed to be mainly work related and my personal life seems to have been drawn more and more into my blog. I looked back over my previous entries and the last time I made an entry that was work related was on July 27th, so almost a month ago.

So I think as I have a week of nights, and the possible hand over of a new office tomorrow night, although I have been hearing that since April, should I carry on my blog or just delete the whole thing.

TAXI

Since Wednesday all I feel like I have been doing is driving.

Wednesday night it was Home, Skegness, Northampton then Home again.
Thursday was Home, Northampton and then Home again.
Friday, Home Northampton then Home.
Saturday, Home to Northampton only.
Sunday, Northampton, Sheerness and then Home.
Tomorrrow, Home to the station and then finally home again. So not far tomorrow on 3 miles in total, phew

Why I Hate Early Turns.

When I am on earlies, I wake up ever morning at 4:30 to get ready for work. Today should be my rest day as I have just finished working 7 (ok 6 as I had annual leave for Sunday) shifts of earlies.

The thing is that my body clock gets into a routine, and as I should have the day off buy I will be working overtime today, after a bone wearying day yesterday and being in bed by 8pm which is very early for me, my eyes open up at 04:15, I try to settle down again but no joy, I toss and turn and finally give up.

So it's now 5:30 and I still can't sleep, oh well time for a coffee and a read. That might help me sleep.

I'm looking forward to next week as I'm on nights again, and I can hurl abuse at my colleague next door for the whole week.

I Feel Good

NOT.

The Long Way Home

I was sent a text from my No2 daughter tonight asking me to collect her from Skegness (see previous entries).

The little rat bag has fallen out with my ex-girlfriends daughter over a boy (dad paces living room floor as N02 daughter is only 11).

I rang her to find out what was going on, and my daughter is in tears and wants me to collect her, I spoke with my ex-girlfriend who was trying to find out what happened and told to call back.

So after leaving it until 8:30 to call back, my N02 daughter still wants me to collect her, so after getting directions to Skegness from a route-finder, I leave my house at 21:00 and start the long drive to Skegness, after a brief coffee stop and a chat I then have to make my way back from Skegness to Northampton, to drop my daughter off at a good friends for a couple of night, after leaving Northampton and travelling just over 200 miles, I finally just reached home at 01:30.

I wil get a bear minimum of sleep as I'm up again at 04:30 for work.

The things us dads do for our kids.

Feeling Ropey

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and got myself ready for work, I turned on the TV to check on teletext, about news and stuff.

I was sitting thinking why can't I get my eyes to focus properly on the words. I left home and made my way to work when i arrived at the mainline station to travel to London, some of the other passengers asked me whats wrong as I look like death warmed up (which is nice).

I arrived at work and sat in the office contemplating what was going on, am I ill or is this the start of a migraine. My eyes were still blurred and after sitting with my eyes closed for a while, I woke to realise I had dozed off for about 2 hours, when i came round I felt slightly better but still couldn't get my eyes to focus properly.

About 12ish I felt a lot better, and left to come home about 2:30.

I have just had some dinner and now I feel like shit again, with my head feeling like it's floating back and forwards and my eyes are having trouble focusing.

I hope I'm ok tomorrow as I'm supposed to be going out with a colleague for a couple of beers.

The Buggers At BT.

Well thanks to BT my old email addresses has been suspended and my old sub account has been suspended too.

I've lost all my old contacts on my messenger and its bloody annoying.

I have used my old account for a good couple of years and I was informed today, that when I moved 3 months ago my old email account couldn't be used as I upgraded from plain old BT Broadband to BT Broadband Wireless.

If i was told that 3 months ago I could have asked for my account to be merged. But now I can't.

So darn, blast and botheration.

Feeling Like Death.

I finished work yesterday and went to a friends for a BBQ, and after consuming a bit to much alcohol, ok a shit load of alcohol, I've been feeling like death all day.

Why do we think it is such a good idea to drink copious amounts, and think we will be fine in the morning.

I finally hit the sack about 3:30 and woke at 8:30 after way to little sleep.

So I am going to hit the pit in about 10 minutes and get an early night.

God I'm Tired

All week I have been waking up at Silly O'Clock.

Sunday, I had my alarm set for 7 am as I had an early start. Time of waking 4am, I went to a BBQ in the afternoon and after a good few, ok a lot more then a good few beers and I finally hit the sack at 12:30 am.

Monday, I don't need to be up until 9am and guess what, I woke at 4am again, after spending 2 hours awake I gave up trying to go back to sleep, so I drove home and got ready for work.
I was heading for the 9:35 train when I fell asleep on the sofa at 09:15 and missed that train and the one after.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I was on early starts, so it was wakey wakey at 4:30, but I have a habit of going to sleep after midnight. So minimum sleep there then.

The thing is I was still waking before my alarm clock went off.

Then this morning came around and after being awake from 4am Thursday morning and getting to bed at 2am, I thought ahh rest day, radio alarm is off, mobile phone is off, house phones are all off, sleep late.

8:30 am: my bloody alarm on the mobile phone starts sounding, this really pissed me off as i set the thing for Monday morning and it hasn't sounded all week, so guess what I'm now up and about as I couldn't get back to sleep.

So back to 4am starts from tomorrow.

When Is A Couple Not A Couple.

I'm on the 23:15 (an 8 carraige train made up of two 4 car units) out of St Pancras, and I'm hurtling along at 80+mph on my way home, when we reach Mill Hill Broadway the emergency brakes jam on and the train slews to a grinding halt.

As I'm sitting wondering what is going on, I notice that one of the Train Managers (TM) walks briskly through the carraiage and summons another member of staff, as the TM wanders up towards the front of the rear 4 carraiges of the train.

I noticed his colleague had gone a bit pail and motioned for another colleague to join him, then he wanders up towards where the TM went.

Oh Shit, I thought, the train has just had a someone go underneath, how wrong can one person be.

Over the tannoy the TM announces an apology for the sudden stop becuase of a technical difficulty.

I made my way to the member of staff still in my carriage and get a bit of a shock.

THE TRAIN HAS BECOME UNCOUPLED.

It takes them 20 odd minutes to recouple the train and we finally set off once more, only for it to reoccur between Bedford and Wellingborough.

Thank god that's where I left the train.

Absolutely Knackered

I'm just over half way through a 16 hour day.

I decided to work overtime today and started this morning at 06:50, the day started off well, and during the morning peak iI was being pro-active and being visible and helpful in the ticket hall area.

At 09:00 my happy world collapsed, Baker Street closed for a gas leak, and mayhem has ensued with all trains non stopping at Baker Street.

I made my way to the my office to make a recorded message to play on the platforms informing customers about the situation.

I then did something I haven't done since 1993 when I worked at Camden Town.

PLATFORM DUTIES.

I spent from 09:10 until 14:00 (for going a meal relief as well) on platform 1 giving information to my customers, and to tell you the truth I enjoyed it. It was nice to be back face to face with the travelling public.

The one bright moment was that I was given a complement for my P.A's.

So now I am doing my own shift at my colleagues station next door, and I am a bit fed up because there is a reserve Station Supervisor here tonight and he will not arrive until bang on 23:00.

So I hope that my Early Turn colleague will realise who i mean is at his station and come in bang on 07:30.

Skegness, Here She Comes.

After much deliberation, I have decide that why should I spoil my daughters holiday so I'm letting her go on holiday.

Then I received a text from my daughter:

U a star thank soz for being a pain luv u sorry.

Quandary

I'm stuck in a quandary at the moment, should I jack my job in and look elsewhere, or should I persevere.

At the moment I just seem down in the dumps again, and I've been looking at other vacancies elsewhere nearer home. I have been thinking about applying for either British Gas (BG) as a service engineer, or to Sky as a satellite equipment installer.

They both have there pros and cons.

Pro's

1) I get more weekends off, so I get to see my children more then once every six weeks.
2) I don't need to travel 3 hours everyday to and from work.
3) I don't have to get up at a ridiculous to start work at 7am.
4) my earliest start would be 8am.
5) With BG, I would only have to work 1 weekend in 6 or 7 and with Sky 2 in 4.
6) I would only have to do one night on call every 6 or 7 weeks and that would be on call.
7) With BG during the summer months you only work a 4 day week.
8) The latest I would finish work (except when on call) is at 7pm.
9) I would only be 40 minutes from home at the most.
10) No more passengers.
11) I will be able to get a decent social life.

Con's

1) At first with both jobs I would have to take a £20,000 pay cut, but with over time I can reduce this to a pay cut of only £10,000
2) I have good friends who work on the Underground.
3) I might be going from the frying pan into the fire.
4) I do have a good laugh and a joke, but then again that is just my personality as well.
5) I get a bloody good pension from the Underground.

So as you can see I have given it much thought, but I'm still not sure.

As the song says:

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO.

Emotional Blackmail

I was woken up this morning by a lovely text from my daughter.

both of u dad and **** skrewed my week up well done me and *** were looking forwards to that hol and now *** aint got any one to play with any way im booked up for the week i aint gonna talk to u till i feel like it

How about reading that first thing when you wake up.

F**king Livid

I've been enjoying a week of annual leave with my kids this week, hence no entries.

However after visiting London and the Science Museum yesterday, I was traveling back to my mums house, when my eldest's mobile rang.
My ex-wife wants to know why she hasn't rang or text her boyfriend to say thank you for putting £10 credit on her phone. Also I would like to take time to mention at this point, that neither of my girls ever text me thank you when I put money on there phones.

My eldest had in fact earlier in the day tried to text her mum to get the number to say thank you as she hasn't got his number on her phone, but for some unknown reason her texts weren't getting through.

So now I'm involved in an argument between my eldest and her mum, with my eldest being in the right.

Of course my ex now thinks I'm taking sides and that I'm influencing my eldest against her mum.

My eldest was due to go to Blackpool on Saturday with a friend, and as my ex has spat the dummy out, this has been stopped.

I did tell my eldest off for putting the phone down 2 or 3 times on her mum, which only made the matter worse. So next thing I get my ex-wife telling me she is coming to collect my eldest, I said No as it was my week to have the kids and that I would bring all three home on Saturday.

This didn't work and as my eldest isn't mine biologically, so my ex-wife then threatens me with the police.

So I had no choice but to let her come and collect her, also during the argument my ex tells me she will be collecting my other 2 kids as well and that my youngest daughter can't go away to Skegness for a week with my ex-girlfriend and her kids, so I now have 2 girls upset my son upset and my ex-girlfriend and her youngest girl upset too. (As if life isn't complicated enough)

I had a phone call this morning from my youngest girl telling me that mum has now changed her mind and that she can go to Skegness after all.

I told her no she can't as her mum had already told me yesterday she can't go and I've already told my ex-girlfriend, and that I think that it is unfair of mum to say that. (I hate when kids get involved with parental arguments).

When my ex-wife turns up at my mums house to collect the kids, she says that iI i want I can keep the other 2 until Saturday as planned, I said no aI i wont split the kids up like that. It's either all three or none.

So unfortunately I now have the rest of my annual leave alone as all 3 of my kids have gone with the mum.

When I logged on to messenger today my daughter has now changed her nickname to:

I REALLY WANNA GO ON HOL WID ****** (ex-girlfriend's daughters name) BUT ITS ONLY IF MY DAD AND ******'* MUM LET ME.

How about that for emotional blackmail. ARGH!!!!!!