Bodhi Bum

So the week is over and another weekend has come around. Busy week at work, but the weekly report back to the client went well. My little progress spreadsheet had a lot more green lines on it than red, which basically means that I struck off a whole lot of controls this week, much more than the client was expecting. So I make the boss look good since he can do his weekly status report to his boss and show some stats that make him look like a great manager. So with the week done and the weekend here, I got up early Saturday morning and caught the early train to Chester. Chester is the capital of Cheshire, and a really old city with a lot of history. I passed through a few weeks back but didn't have batteries in my camera and didn't stop for long. This time I charged me camera and left the whole day open. The ride down was interesting, mostly since it turns out that there was a Chester V Stockton football match going on that day and the train was pretty much full of 16 year old football Hooligans. They were drinking the whole way and since there was only a few seats on the train I ended up having to sit right in the middle of them. As soon as they heard my accent I ended the focus of a little unwanted attention. I had to play the Canadian card, then next thing I know I'm doing football chants. I learned one new one that they plan on doing at the next World Cup in Germany. "Two World Wars and One World Cup, Doo Dah, Doo Dah". Not sure how that will go down with the Germans, but guess we'll see.
So the City of Chester is one of the little English cities which has a whole ton of history and a whole lot of blood in it's past. Chester is called the Gateway to Wales, since it's right on the Welsh border, and is the city where way back in the 16th century the English launched the all out assault on Wales to bring it into the big British empire. The city is originally an old Roman city, and the Romans built a big wall around it to protect it from the barbarian Welsh across the River Dee. It was an outpost back then, and it stayed that way far a long time for about 1600 years. And then the English had the bright idea that they wanted Wales too. So they used Chester to launch an assault into Welsh territory.
There's a whole lot history around Wales, and it's the only city in the UK that has a complete Roman Wall around it which still stands. Actually, the original Roman Wall was a lot smaller, but the Saxons in Medieval times extended it to wrap around the city right down to the River Dee.
The city itself was rebuilt up in Victorian times in the style of the Medieval architecture, with the white and black timber buildings. It's pretty noticeable around the town as it looks like an old Medieval city. But it ain't Medieval no more, since it's now a big old tourist city. This town where once the war against the Monarchy had the city bombarded with cannonballs, and thousands of people died. Now it's a big old tourist city with packs of Chinese tourists wander around snapping pictures.
So the big thing to do in Chester is to check out the Roman/Medieval Wall and take a walk around it. Which means walking around the entire city. So I figured that since I there, I may as well get a little exercise and walk the wall. turns out I wasn't alone. Seems to be a big weekend thing with the tourists and the locals.
It was a great day out and a whole lot of walking, but I got to see the city and get a bit of history in. Plus there's nothing better than finishing a good afternoon walk off with catching the England V Italy match. I only got the first half, then just made the end of the game back in Knutsford just off the train.
So it was a good Saturday afternoon. And now it's Sunday evening and the weekends pretty much over. Back to work again tomorrow, but ain't that just the way. The weekend comes, and next thing you know it's time to go back to work again. Oh well. That's life."

So it's the weekend and Saturday and a beautiful, grey, cloudy day. But what's new in the great British winter. Work is done and the weekend is here.
Woke up early this morning with the plan to hop the train from little Knutsford and go out exploring the great wider area of semi-Northern England. Haven't done much exploring cause I've been too busy at work. So I planned today to play a Scouser and explore the local Manchester culture, but found out pretty quick that Scouser is a less than polite term for Liverpudians (aka from Liverpool). I guess that would make me a Mancurian (not to be mistaken with Manchurians, aka Japanese China circa 1941).
The local UK slang is tough to grasp, but from what I can see most Brits don't get half of it themselves either.

Good day out today and had a good tour of Manchester. It was only 40 minutes from Knutsford on the train, and an easy ride. I got off the train at Piccadilly station, walked out the front door and had no idea how far anything was. It's a big city and I could have been five miles off High Street for all I knew. So I hopped on the free bus (it said Free Tourist Bus on it) and took the ride downtown. Turns out Manchester city centre is not all that big and I hopped off after three blocks. I tried to find the river which runs through the town and the so called wharf, and liternally walked right over it and kept going without hardly noticing, cause it's more like a little stream than a river.

By the river is Manchester Cathedral which like most old English Cathedrals is pretty impressive. Although, this one didn't quite measure up to Salisbury Cathedral anywhere close, at least this time I figured out how to take indoor pictures with my camera (* use the MUSEUM setting).


It's not a huge city, but the city centre is pretty much one big department store. Apart from the Medieval Manchester area which is what you usually think of with old English towns with their history. Manchester may have history, but the Mancurians seem to have decided they prefer the 21st century and skyscrapers and department stores are better. I honestly think there is more shopping in Manchester than any city I've ever been in. The Arndale shopping centre takes up about ten city blocks and is about a quarter of the whole downtown. I was talking to a local and she said that after the big IRA bomb in 96 they pretty much started over downtown and rebuilt it all brand new.

The one thing that stuck out was the styles there. Seems half of the kids were total goth or punks. And the girls were mini skirted tarts, or Slappers as they like to call them here. I've never seen so many girls in 2 degree weather wearing a micro mini skirt, belly shirts and a half pound of makeup. The girls were out on a Saturday afternoon looking like they were done up for a nightclub. I saw a lot of that up north in Newcastle, and was warned about the Geordie girls, but it's worse here.

In all, it's just another city, albeit an easy one to walk around with a fair bit of history and a whole lot of shopping. Had a good day and caught the Rugby Six Nations, England V Wales back in Knutsford. England won.

Not much else to report.

Ok, it's Wednesday. Hump day. Middle of the week. Only two more days to go till the weekend.

Pretty standard week this week. The new job has turned into a pretty decent little contract. This is the first time that I've actually worked as part of a large corporate Internal Audit team and it's amazing to see how it works. Audit by trade involves a ton of travel, and the consulting side of it is pretty much all travel. But I never really thought that the permanent staff doing this would be the same.

The internal audit department is essentially a row of desks with monitors and laptop cradles. So no one owns a desk. You just sit down wherever there is an empty desk and plug your laptop in. Everyone splits their time between three or four offices, from the south coast to London to the midlands to the north. Kinda cool because it's easy to do in the UK, since the country is so small that you can move around and still not be more than a few hours from home. So every day I go into work I don't know half the people there, and once I get to know someone, they're more than likely gone the next day. So today I go in and out of the usual 20 people, there's 3. I thought for a second I screwed up and came in an hour early. But nope, just the crazy life of an auditor. Auditors are crazy. Really.

I was out last Sunday morning and pretty much took only one pic of these Canada geese that seemed to be kicking themselves that they flew all the way from Canada only to find out that the water is frozen here in the UK the same. Although this was the first pond freeze of the year that I've seen here. But it's bloody cold now and today it dropped below zero for the first time during the daytime. Too cold for me.

Anyways, life is good and nothing much new to report. Just working hard, making money and working on the well rounded physique.