Theme Thursday - Late

Initially when I saw the topic I though it would be fun to post my entry late. I never actually intended to, though, and now it's only midnight. Ahhhh!

I've been out, of course. Completely lost track of time, and I have to run a training course at 9am. The course itself doesn't worry me, but there's been heavy rain for days and the roads are beginning to flood.

No matter what I do, there will be train delays to deal with. Traffic is chaos already and it's still today. What seemed a funny idea in terms of my blog, won't seem so funny tomorrow.

Late...

This is goodnight

It was the usual morning routine of reading emails and checking Facebook. It was 8:30am and I still had half an hour left before work had to commence. It was...

A shock.

About a year ago, the GSHVC decided it was time for change. They didn't have enough money to run two resident camps, and for the first time since the opening in 1939, Little Notch didn't open during the summer of 2009.

No final decision was made at the time, and for months and months, the Friends of Little Notch tried to argue a case that young girls do need a place to explore, grow and have fun.

During the summers of 1998, 1999 and 2000 I led numerous backpacking trips through the Adirondacks and other mountain ranges in North America. The teenage girls learned how to pack to go backpacking in the mountains. They learned how to prepare food, how to cook, how to cache the food for the night to prevent bears getting to it. The learned to work together to set camp for the night before the sun would set and everything would be dark. Bedtime at 9pm was never a problem. The girls were tired from walking 10 miles in the mountains, but it was a good tired. The type of tired you don't experience from playing computer games.

It's a strange feeling.

Tall Timers won't be calling anymore. My favorite unit "house", well hidden in the trees. Scary at nights when the coyotes were howling close by, but it was soon forgotten when Sally the deer peeked in through the open tent flap.

Timagami won't be the starting point again as take I with my pack sack to the road. Eeyore had left the lantern on on my birthday in the year 2000 when I was "kidnapped" to go for a few drinks with the gang. Gosh, I got in so much trouble the next day!

Tinuwen won't welcome you again. It always promised a brighter tomorrow, a better today.

Sleepy Hollow was the freaky place. The place with cabins rather than platform tents. I always hated the bats, but there was no better place for a good ghost story about our Lady of the Lake. We won't be able to say that all that we find here is campers so dear. They'll be long gone...

Love, life, laughter, sorrow. Who knows what comes tomorrow... Pine Point had the perfect unit house and lots of space. It was destroyed by a fire in the mid 60s, but rebuilt quickly again. It was close to main camp, was served by a road, had ramps to some of the tents... Little Notch catered for everyone.

I shall not rise now and go to Innisfree. I evacuated an entire unit of 25 to the unit house here one summer due to a major thunder storm, but when a tree fell down just outside, it suddenly seemed safer in the Imagination Station close by, so off we went again. It might have been a sleepless night for me, but the girls were safe and sound.

Sherwood in the twilight... It was the best place for me-time. I loved to put my arms around those two trees and just lean out towards the water. Just think. The trees were hidden from view, so there was no risk of interruption. You either knew the trees or you didn't. You could see the sky right above, so it was perfect for star gazing. The trees were also good support when the tears had free flow. We all get upset from time to time!

I expect the bench Eeyore, Randall, Aos and I decorated one year will disappear, but unless they start chopping down the trees on top of Mount Challenger, some history will remain.

As for Challenger... they'll never find the trail.

Complete darkness...

I got home from work a bit earlier than normal yesterday. We'll get back to why later when the rant begins - consider yourself warned!

Anyway, it was dark when I got home, so I immediately switched on the lights in my living room. There was a "poof!" and all was dark. Hmmm, not good. I got a chair and checked the fuse box. Didn't look quite right - one of the fuses had switched off. Would I switch it back on and hope for the best? Nah, better call a friend and ask first. So, got Jeff on the phone and was told a cuppa would sort it all. Off I went, and being off antibiotics and all again and asked to have my cup filled with wine in stead of tea.

Sufficiently tipsy we went over and switched the fuse back on, and there was light. Light minus one lamp. The sinner. The one that turned all the others dark for a while. I'll deal with it later. It's not a job for the tipsy!

And so we get to my rant...

I like to talk. I talk a lot. I also like to write, but only if you let me ramble on for as long as I want. So when I realised I'd been assigned to tweeting for two days at our annual user conference, I was ever so slightly annoyed. I have no Twitter account, and I'm in no hurry to get one. I don't write "text", and I rarely ever keep a message brief unless it's a piece of user documentation. While any twit can tweet, it's just not for everyone, and it's definitely not for me. Anyone would have known.

A focus group to discuss items of relevance would have been useful. A wee product demo, maybe. For goodness sake, it's what I do for a living, so it would have been a more obvious task!

Tweet, tweet!

Needless to say, I was happy to bring my twittering to an end. Ready for an evening with no restrictions on how many characters I was allowed to utter in one go. And then it all turned dark!

Half a bottle of wine into the evening there was light even in the darkness. I'd managed to get all the words out of my system and I was at ease once again. Gosh, what damage it can do to have a ton of words just bottle up inside!

Theme Thursday - Telephone

I know it's a wee bit late, but I'm getting my post in, so it's all good.

I've thought about what to write about telephones. Initially I wanted to show you what my first mobile phone looked like, but when I started searching, I realised I didn't really quite remember. It was a Panasonic and it was blue. For the time, it was kinda small. The year would have been approximately 2000, methinks. See, not a lot of facts...

So, let's forget about my first phone. How about my current one? Nah, that would just be a rant about how much I don't like it. It's cute and all, but it hardly ever responds, and it has no Danish dictionary. It's a Sony Ericsson, so being a bit Scandinavian and all, you would have thought it knew my language, but alas, it doesn't.

Of course, I do have another phone as well. Also a Sony Ericsson, but not quite as cheap a phone, and it's understands a bit of Danish too. Not much wrong with that phone really, it's just not terribly exciting either.

I think I'm just going to give up. I've had phones in-between, but I'd have to be able to remember what phones they were to tell you why they were oh so great, wouldn't I? Think we'll just leave it - you'll be sure to hear about it when I eventually find the perfect phone for me :)

Coffee

Boy oh boy, am I excited to be escaping into work tomorrow! I decided to prepare my soul for the shock but putting the coffee maker on at lunch time today. Haven't had any of the black stuff since last Monday, so I was in for a treat.

Yikes!

I didn't enjoy that one bit, and now two hours on I can feel the caffeine rush. While I'm definitely feeling better, I'm not ready for coffee yet.

Cabin fever setting in

It's limited what I can write, as there's been very little happening... While I'm certainly on the mend, it'll be Wednesday before I'm back in work.

In the mean time, you might be impressed to know that I've made it yet another week without coffee! No, there was no bet involved this time, I just don't fancy coffee when sick, but still. A week is a long time!

I'm also half way through the film coated Augmentin. I can scared even looking at them. Gosh, they are much too big to be pills.

Oh, and I won two tickets to an art fair this upcoming weekend. I'll tell you more about that some other time. The tickets arrived in the post today :)

Sick sucks!

It's Friday evening and the rest of the gang at work are out having the craic. The Harbour Master is having a two-for-the-price-of-one night on all beer, but then who'd really want that much beer, right?

While I felt I was on the mend yesterday, I developed an ear ache overnight. At 11am today the doctor declared I have a bad ear infection. Ouch!

The antibiotics are of the strong variety and require me eating. Not really high on my priority list right now, but I've given in...

• Red wine has been replaced with rooibos and herbal tea.
• Telly has been replaced with reading. The noise of the telly is too much for my ear.
• My usual gallivanting has been replaced with lots of night in on the couch. If lucky, I'll be let out again on Wednesday. Oh how Wednesday seems far away right now!