Cottage Capers #bidford 1

This walk starts at the Big Meadow. It’s a community recreation ground with a car park, play area and fields next to the river. A bit dangerous, but there we are. We head west on a tree-lined footpath across the river. The path slowly turns south, passing through a kissing gate opposite a dock. Once the river turns west again, we turn east and head along a track before it becomes a road. Here, we turn right and follow the road through a village of small cottages to reach a junction. Turning left, the land starts to open up alongside some houses and the road begins to climb in a northeasterly direction. At the crossroads, we continue straight over and head east into the next village. After passing a wood on the left, the road bends to the left and passes some converted barns before reaching a pub. It’s a surprisingly cosy place, but there’s nothing special about what they serve.

Knocked out by knockers #nuclearmermaid23

Jenny had managed to corner the biped. This one did act a bit vicious toward her, but since his comrades deserted him she could sense that his courage was beginning to fade. If she pivoted herself around the room, she could let him escape without touching him. With a few twerks of her buttocks squashing the central lights, she pivoted herself so that her tail was facing away from the door, knocking over a few metal cylinders in the process. The biped had a free run. But instead of fleeing, it made straight for her tail with its stick. Jenny’s pain turned to anger. With a whack of her tail, she hit a cylinder off the floor straight into the biped’s head, who fell to the floor instantly. Jenny rolled off the table and landed straight on top of him. The whole room shook and a sharp crack echoed around it.

Chewin' Crow #feckenfalls 5

From here, I enter the forest. There’s a track running straight down to the brook. It’s as if I’ve joined the main throughfare. As I follow the banks of the river, it gets quite picturesque. There’s a small bank that you can climb onto for a stunning view of this waterfall. It’s also a perfect place to take a paddle as the river is quite shallow and  clean. Back on the path, I pass a cottage complete with its own mill. I wonder if it’s someone’s holiday home. There’s even a lock on display. The path becomes a track and passes a cricket club and some playing fields. Then I hit tarmacadam and pass more homes before arriving in the village square. Then it’s just a short walk through a street crowded with parked cars to get to the pub. The doors of these houses are always pavement-side so I always enjoy glancing through the windows for a quick glimpse of village life.

Blood Out of A Stone #dreamdiary 197

I’ve had to calla special meeting for our beer club. It’s to discuss some legal formalities which has to be observed by members who are higher up the table and I’ve had very little time to give any notice for it. Surprisingly, it’s very well attended and I see a lot of faces that I haven’t seen before. We get through the business very quickly which is in the upstairs board room of a fancy hotel. We all sit in a wooden panelled room and I start to wonder if people are only here because it’s a new venue for us and they’ve never had the opportunity to visit before. Some of the senior members have begun to question the work and commitment that I do in my role, but since this isn’t an election meeting they don’t have the authority to remove me from office. What they did do was to comment that the processes would all be changing next week and I would find out what was happening on Monday. But no-one would grant me any hints, and they also denied me the opportunity to address new attendees and to discuss regular events.

I want to ride my bicycle

It’s a taste of freedom. You can get to places faster and quicker. You can go and explore the world. You might be confined to where you can go, but once you feel the wind in your hair you’ll want to go faster. And they can’t watch you forever. The more you ride, the more confident you’ll get and your parents will also get confident and know that they won’t have to worry over you so much. It’s not just about getting exercise and burning off excess energy. It’s about getting to places that you’ve never been to before. If you’re not followed, you’ve been trusted with a tool that you can command. You can use both path and pavement and move at speed; though you have to ride responsibly and you can’t rely on everyone to watch out for you. It’s a useful skill to have. You never know when you might need a back-up ride.

Fecken Falls #fecken 4

 After some quick refreshment, I follow the road south for a few yards until I reach a style on my right. I head over into a field and up a steep hill. The path is fenced off from the field via a stile and can be overgrown in places. At the top is the entrance to someone’s driveway, and there’s usually an animal to bark at me. When the footpath reaches a road, I turn left and walk along a ridge. I continue south, and when the road bears left I follow a bridleway alongside a cottage. The path can sometimes get quite churned here owing to the horses, though I’ve never actually seen one use it. The path descends through a wood alongside a field, though there are plenty of alternative paths along the way should the route become too muddy. I continue south straight across an open field where the path ascends again.

Top Bin

What a strange name for this game. Surely it would be something like Fan Battle or Top Fan. Will it be knowledge about specific teams or about rules of the game? Will there be a mode where I can subscribe for more questions? Probably. Hopefully it’ll open with a cheesy theme tune and a decent host. Because there’s no way that I’m going to know any of these questions. I’m wondering if there’s going to be an automatic bin out there somewhere that’s going to raise its lid with this command. She’s actually giving me the silent treatment. She recognises that there’s a command as she’s not apologising for misunderstanding but she’s not doing anything either. Maybe the makers got tired of writing new questions. Maybe it didn’t get enough hits as was hoped. It would be nice if it actually told you rather than you sit around waiting for a response or keep yelling out the command.

Just Crusin' #fecken 3

This is just one of many ways to get to a local village which is my annual pilgrimage to the annual pub’s beer festival. It’s usually about five miles and I take lunch and refreshment there for the afternoon before heading back. If I’m alone, I head back on foot but most times I’m able to share a taxi with someone. The first venture is to get to the edge of town. This can be between a thirty-to-forty-minute walk or a quick hop on the bus depending on the route that I’ve chosen and who’s coming with me. For this route, I’ve cut through a local park which is on the Monarch’s Way for a spell. I then cross the road and follow the footpath across a series of styles through fields into the countryside. The path slowly runs downhill alongside a steeped road and brook to reach a countryside pub. But this is just the rest stop.

Feel Good, Fight Evil

 -The Doctor.

It’s not every day that you might get a chance to fight evil. You’re more likely to clean up after it. But going up against evil takes confidence. You want to do something about it because it shocks you. You’ve got to convince them that their act is wrong, and manage the conflict carefully. It’s going to be tough if there’s a physical confrontation that draws an audience with people that aren’t on your side. If you triumph, it gives you a good feeling. You’ve got control over something. But things could also get a lot worse if you lose, and many people aren’t prepared to take the risk. Some things are also on a grander scale than you can handle. You’re more like to win if there’s people nearby to help. You might even have time to formulate a plan to increase your chances of success. But bear in mind that some people could see you as in the wrong.

Zoom Zoom

 So here’s another fun way to communicate with people. You can see them, and you can take them with you, but only if you have the right equipment. There’s some great features that you can play around with like adding faces and backgrounds. Just remember to change them back afterwards if you’ve got a professional meeting. It’s not much different from any of the other platforms out there. It’s just a preference of what you’d prefer to use. It might depend on who owns the software and whether you’ve given them any money. There’s two annoying things that I have to do every time I use it which isn’t that often. I must verify my account via e-mail every time I use it(even though it states that it’s a one-time moment). When I’m finally signed in, I usually have to perform an update otherwise I’m going to miss out on something fun. It’s just quicker to use something else sometimes.

The Sales Call

It’s a difficult situation. No one wants to spend more money for things that they don’t need; yet it’s an independent company that offers quality for its supporters and you don’t want to be seen rejecting them. The guy seems friendly enough and has a local accent that you can understand but puts you under pressure for a quick decision. You’ll end up feeling guilty if you say no. It could be done by email, but it’s just too easy to ignore or press the delete button. You can have it on file for reference later, but it’s not going to help out the salesperson. But you might be able to wrangle a bit of a deal from their efforts. You’ll take the new product if you can have a small permanent reduction on the regular one. They won’t compromise though. They’ll just send you a follow-up email to make you think about it.

The Last Leg #habberleytrail 21

The final obstacle on the trail was an interesting one that was well engineered. Four swings were arranged at different heights. In the centre was a ball suspended on a rope. The idea was to get your swing up to a height where you could kick the ball while on your swing. The amazing thing was that each swing came in at a different angle so that no-one collided with each other. Little ones needed help to climb up on some of them. Then it was a climb back up the hill to the café, though there were plenty of opportunities to roll back down it if you wanted to. There was little choice left in the café on the hot front, and it took a while to receive the order. But the whole experience was something different and we all had a lot of fun. We look forward to additional activities along the trail.

Hot Tub Time Machine

This movie was just so stereotypically depressing. It’s a frat movie that was lucky enough to be given a big budget, probably because the whole filming would be one giant party. The opening seemed promising since it featured tubs throughout time and people enjoying them in various capacities. But the drink and suicide attempt soon put a downer on things. Throw in plenty of swearing and sucking up and you get the idea. The only part that I did like was the bellhop’s arm gag, and when it finally happened it was if the writers had got bored of the whole thing or they’d ran out of time. I also couldn’t understand how you’d get a spilled energy drink to last the whole evening. Its conclusion didn’t really inspire me or offer any insight into my own life. I feel like the producers owe me some time for watching this. And they’ve gone ahead and made a sequel!

Sack Sliding #habberleytrail 20

This slide, while looking slightly crude, makes the best of the landscape and is well designed. The wooden barrier is topped with a rubber lining should little hands find the slide too fast and wish to hold on, while the sack makes it a fast and smooth ride. A rail helps you up to the steps and gives you a bit of leverage to pull yourself off. And a felled tree trunk can quickly be sanded down into a bench to let adults take a rest. The girls were confident with the speed that they went down and the landing runway allowed them plenty of time recover without sliding off the end onto the floor. There were plenty of sacks around and you didn’t have to wait long to have a go. I certainly should have gone for a video instead, but these were the days when space was sacred.

Eye on a Pie

At first glance, it looks like a pie. It’s neat enough, with all those different fillings. But it’s actually a loaf. How do they get the bread to rise around the mountain of fillings? The only other thing that I can think of is that they carefully scoop the loaf out to make it hollow and use the fillings for something else. Now that I’ve read the description again, it’s exactly what they’ve done. Surely it would be better in pastry? And it looks like it’s being served in a boardroom rather than a kitchen, with chap office furniture that may even be a classroom. Maybe it’s the boss’s lunch. Why haven’t I followed these people before? They’re just down the road from me! It’s either the prices that put me off or I’ve been loafing around too much. I hope that they still sell it. It sounds like it takes a lot of effort to create.

Me and my Shadow #habberleytrail 19

While all of this was going on, something was stuck in the ground. It was dark and black, and moved as we did. Yet at the same time, it was see-through like a ghost. It looked like it was loading for another shot. There’s a flask hanging off my back but it might as well be a grenade. The whole thing could be a duffel bag that I’m about to unpack. Maybe someone’s coming down on a zipline and they’re about to crash into me. It could even be a punch bag. And then there’s the object in my hand. I know it’s my finger but it looks like an old-fashioned antenna. It’s almost as if it’s trying to communicate with what I assume is a finger at the top of the screen, though it could equally be the ear of something or someone else’s phone. All this is protruding from my foot.

Startled by Starling

I got recommended this bank by a friend when I was travelling abroad to India and needed to solve a currency problem. As India doesn’t allow its rupees to be exported, we needed to use a card that wouldn’t charge for overseas fees and ATMs. The application process seemed hi-tech, secure, and a little fun since I had to upload ID documents as well as a current photograph. I also requested a card that arrived quite quickly. While we were away, using the card was easy and I got an instant notification of what we spent and also the cost in sterling. This came in handy since the phone transaction lines were quite unstable which declined a lot of cards and caused confusion as to whether the transaction cleared. The monthly interest rate was an unexpected bonus. However, this was unfortunately remove two months ago, the only notification being a message in the app which took a while to find once I realised it hadn’t been paid. I would have preferred an e-mail which would have reminded me to act. Sending a message to the customer service department was easy in the app, and I got a reply the same day. Now I have a savings account, though I did lose a month’s interest in the process.

Bouncing Around #habberleytrail 18

The next obstacle on our course was a simple maze constructed from chicken wire and metal fencing. The aisles were a little narrow which made it difficult to navigate if we came to a dead end and someone was behind you. Also attached to this was a wooden box for a small football pitch complete with goals at each end. You could have a good kickaround here, but you’d need a few people in your group to have a match. There were plenty of footballs though. After that, we came to another ball game in the form of basketball. Rather than a court, a cage was constructed to create a giant connect 4 game. Here too, there were lots of basketballs. People enjoyed trying to make the shot more than playing a strategic game, though some groups were trying to compete against each other. You did have to keep an eye out for little ones to ensure that they didn’t get hit by stray balls.

 

Gringo Grief #dreamdiary 196

I’m being chased through a desert in a white tuxedo. I approach a pyramid building which has four sides. Inside, there’s sections of stairs that interlope between each floor. I run up to the fifth floor where a lot of people are hanging about the corridors. There’s a man who’s grinning outside the bar who takes his cigar out of his mouth and blows smoke in my face. He starts snarling at me. He’s wearing a green hat and a tattered green and orange poncho. I take the cigar out of his hand and shove it through his throat as if it had a knife inside. I carry on into the bar quickly as if nothing has happened before anyone cottons onto my vengeful action. I walk past the bar and through a dark hole in the brick wall where a stairway leads down into a connecting building. Here, I have an apartment to hide away in.

Trump's Tarrifs

It’s hard to say what Trump’s tariffs will affect on our isle almost three thousand miles away. Many of us are just sick of hearing about them. All we do know is that some prices will increase, though on what no-one seems to know. It may be on their goods, or it may be anything involved with a manufacturing process involving the US. It might seem a great opportunity to increase the country’s wealth and power at the cost of everyone else, but it might also backfire if people can choose not to purchase these goods. It might even inspire manufacturing elsewhere which is better for everyone both locally and environmentally. And then there’s the people that we currently buy from. They will struggle as they’re forced to seek out alternative markets to replace their income. Is this the right way to go about it? It’s subtle while affecting what people care about most of all; their cashflow.

Preparing for Take-Off #habberleytrail 17

This is a giant version of a see-saw, or what I would call a proper teeter-toter. You’ve got to tip the scale to make it work, either by running back and forth or by jumping up and down. There is a bit of confusion over what to do or how to make it work at first. It feels a bit like boarding a plane as there’s a gateway to board. There’s also a bit of a thud as each side lands and you really have to hold on or topple over yourself. It can be a bit boring if you’re just standing there and holding on. You have to be careful if there’s little ones about and go at a slower speed. Luckily, the bottom is fenced off so that curious minds can’t be crushed though there’s nothing to stop you from jumping over the platform if you really wanted to.

Spinning Around #nuclearmermaid 22

The boom put some of the bipeds off. They also couldn’t seem to penetrate her scales. With a swipe of tail, she knocked the nearest one out cold. With a second well-aimed blow, her fin penetrated the biped, and red liquid started to ooze out of his shirt. The others started to retreat.

‘Come on men, have no fear. This creature is the scientific discovery of a lifetime’ said the lead biped as he stood parallel to the table, but a few of them headed out through the door, clearly recognising her superior strength. He suddenly realised that he was the only man left in the room, and Jenny was blocking his exit. If he went for the tail, he would surely be stabbed. But if he went for the head, it might not be as protected and he had a chance to get to the exit and escape her grasp.

Off the Rails #habberleytrail 16

This is a simply constructed game that’s a lot of fun, though someone could fall off or trip in between the holes. But it’s up to you if you want to take part. The aim of the game is to find a route to the end. There’s arrows marked on some of them to give you a choice of direction while others don’t permit you to pass to the next junction. It’s a balance game with a puzzle to solve, though the rails are wide enough for you to keep balance while only allowing one person on them at a time, though you can always step round them, into a hole, or onto an adjacent beam and back again to let them pass. And little ones are free to be let loose or led along by adults. I think the idea of the gap is so that grown-ups can come and intervene quickly if there are any problems.

Can I refuse to do an Exit Interview with my boss?

It depends on your employment contract, so you’ll have to check it carefully. There may be a penalty if you don’t, especially if you’re relying on a reference. If you do go ahead with one, you must ensure that it’s on the company time and that it’s recorded so that you can be paid appropriately. It should also be during the notice period. If you’re forced to come back afterwards, made sure that it’s at their expense and not your own. And be careful of emails inviting you to complete surveys as well. These should also be on their time as they get paid to read or process them so why shouldn’t you get paid to complete them? Make sure an upfront payment is agreed and that it’s immoral of them to ask otherwise, unless of course you’re feeling quite chummy and you really want to help the company out.

Methods of Escape #habberleytrail 15

So are we going to get across before these younger ones catch up with us? Do they realise where the hidden step is? Will they get a telling-off by their carers? Or will someone even more mischievous stand on the opposite end of the bridge to block their exit? There’s no way to go unless you’re that desperate to step over the chains or run through and attempt to knock over someone. Or you could try to pull them into the spout and use them as a shield. The other thing to do is to take a leap into the trees beyond and hang onto the branch or use it to lower yourself to the ground. There’s a great risk of a snapping branch though, they don’t look big enough to hold an adult. But at the end of the day, it’s only a bit of water and there’ll be other opportunities to get revenge.

 

Can't Touch This

I look forward to your touch. Those long presses of the arrow keys during video games are the best. They put me in absolute climax since I’m being held down. In comparison with typing, I’m being teased as fingers lightly pat each letter. If mistakes have been made, pressing the backspace key is beautiful, though the use of the mouse takes away most of the pleasure nowadays. I don’t mind a little bit of dirt. It does build up a bit over the years, as I’m always there for your input. It’s strange that the least used keys always attracts the most dirt. Perhaps it’s the build-up of dust which isn’t collected by your hands. You might want to clean me to remain attracted to me, but I’d recommend that you disconnect me before you do this and let me dry out afterwards so that I don’t assist in any unnecessary input.

Secret Step #habberleytrail 14

A short walk down a wooded trail leads to the next obstacle. It’s just an innocent rope bridge. It’s built parallel to the hill and it’s not too high or steep to encourage grown-ups to climb up and have a go as well. However, all is not as it seems. There’s a bit of a giveaway if you spot the pipes climbing up the side. A certain step halfway up the ladder contains a trigger to activate a hosepipe which releases a short, hard burst of gassy water right across the centre of the bridge. You may think that it goes off randomly at first, especially if you’re the first person to arrive. You’ve got to dash through in the hope that you won’t be caught out. But if you’re hesitant and cause a queue to build up on the steps, you could get very wet indeed, especially if someone’s little darling already knows where the trigger is and has the evilness to get you as wet as possible.

When should I put up my Christmas tree?

I’m guessing that this isn’t going to be a game but whatever someone feels like writing. It might be surprised as to why it isn’t up yet. Or it might actually look at a calendar and decide that I’m made for asking. The answer is a very long-winded opinion. December is the earliest, though it does advise that some people put it up as early as possible. You can also ask for help in decorating the tree, though I suspect this involves a link being sent to make purchases. But it actually doesn’t. Instead I need to choose a theme. I thought the theme would have been Christmas. On top of this, there’s also a warning to make sure that people take them down in the first week of January. I wonder if people genuinely rely on these answers for their queries. They must obey. Next question: when should I change my underwear?

Me Tarzan, me Jane #habberleytrail 13

This is one of my favourite pictures of all time. It’s cuteness and determination all bundled up into one. She’s not just giving it a go, she’s determined to show her sister up by being better and not being scared at all. Even some of the trees are bending over and waving in support as she whizzes past. For all we know, she might have even jumped out of them and this is the big finale. It might even be part of a telegraph pole and the seat could be forgiven for its fixings. Fortunately, it’s just  plastic wrap which makes it easier to hold on to. She might have even grown a bigger arm in the process. The crossed legs shows that she’s going to cling on for a while, and she’s not going to come off easily. At least not until someone stops the rope from swinging so that she can climb off safely.