Be My Number Two

Well, an interesting few days for me at least.

Monday brought my cycling into work again. Got to the office to find that following Friday's power issues, we now had electricity, but the boilers for the 2 sides of the building were not working. To say the premises were freezing was an understatement. Its no fun trying to work having to wear, hats, gloves, coats, scarves etc. There were not enough electric heaters to heat the premises. We have laptops to work on, and could easily work at home. Were we allowed to go home? Of course we weren't.

Health & Safety Guidelines suggest that premises should not be below 16C. My office was not even at 11C. Despite this, management appeared not to respond to email queries about heating the premises. What our unions reps did clearly didn't work as nothing changed. I eventually left early and headed home via Homebase to buy a thermometer to monitor the office temperature.

As I left early, I was told the heating had been fixed. Sadly not in our office. This is only the 2nd winter running that I have been expected to work in an office without and heating. Its not a very good show for a government department is it? Dignity at work? - forget it!

Tuesday morning, the office was much warmer than before at nearly 11C when I arrived. After some more complaints we were given 2 convector heaters for our office. By lunchtime, the temperature had reached a positively tropical 16C. So after a day and a half, we had an office that was now at the minimum temperature according to H&S guidance.

Tuesday evening brought some respite from cycling as I was spending the night in Crawley. Given my current lack of fitness, I didn't cycle there as its around 30-40 miles. Hopefully when I have a bit more fitness I will be able to cycle to/ from Crawley. A very enjoyable evening was had. An evening that is all too short.

An evening of football that was thankfully not on TV. Fortunately I was too distracted to fret over Newcastle's disasterous performance at Derby. All I can hope for is that Swansea get the backlash on Saturday.

Wednesday again was a train journey to work- obviously as I had travelled by train the previous night. The good news at work was that we had heat with the 2 convector heaters working and also that I got a new lightweight laptop. The bad news at work was that I had no work to do and that the internet kept crashing so I couldn't even surf the net.

I had an interesting chat this evening at work and realised how close failure is to success. The biggest failings in my life were with hindsight often very nearly triumphant successes. It was quite a salutory lesson as well as an incentive to strive the extra step to make sure of success. Faint heart never won the lady or so the saying goes. The only way to get success is to play the game and to try to go the extra yard. To fail to do this is to potentially snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

With that last thought in mind, I am hoping to increase the mileage I do each day from 25 to perhaps 30 miles per day. You may infer from that I am feeling my knee getting better by the day.

America here I come - hopefully

A Hard Day's Night

Well, I've had a whole week back at work now, and even managed to ride in/out on 4 days. I even cycled to my physiotherapy appointment on Thursday morning. I'm not sure many people turn up at the hospital on their bike for a physiotherapy appointment.

Apart from work, its been a very busy week. I went to football at the Orient and amazingly they won 5-0. Biggest win I've seen in about 8 years of going there. What was more unusual was that all the first 3 goals were own goals.

Wednesday night brought more football- this time down to Wet Sham to see Newcastle u18s win 3-0 in an FA Youth Cup 5th round tie. Got to say it was good to see a few old friends and a good game of football.

Thursday didn't bring football! I know you will find that hard to believe. A day without football. Instead, I spent the evening with a certain young lady....And before you ask, she has apparently not had an affair with John Terry.....

Friday morning, I was on train to work, got one stop before train was terminated owing to a points failure! Then got to work late only to find there was a power failure. By the afternoon, the problem still had not been fixed. No lighting, no power for laptops, no lights in toilets, lifts not working, no heating... So you'll have expected we were sent home from work? Not at all - so much for health and safety considerations. (Perhaps I am being unfair, but they used to send us home from school when the boiler wasn't working!)On a personal note, having to walk up and down the stairs to my office did my knee no good. Not very impressed by an organisation that expect you to work in winter with no heating/ lighting etc. Fortunately for me, I spent the morning in a meeting elsewhere so had light/ heat. I should say for fairness that the problem is external to our premises and appears to be a fault the power company have repeatedly failed to fix properly.

Saturday brought my stint at Lee Valley Youth Cycling Club as both in charge of bike hire and also Child Welfare Officer. (www.lvycc.co.uk) I was actually able to cycle to the club for the first time in months, so that was good. It was even better that Tom was down for the weekend, so we rode to club together.

After cycling club it was down to watch the Orient again. This time playing at home to Brighton. An eventful and intriguing 1-1 draw with lots to talk about was followed by a pleasant evening with plenty of drink and good company.

Well, another week of work looms. Hopefully another week with lots of cycling, but not cycling Tuesday night and am off to Wales on Friday night.

I'm still trying to raise sponsorship money, so if you are reading this, make a dontaion via the link on this page please