Materials Man

Maybe we will discover our own island now that the pound has less than parity with the Euro and we have less disposable income. I have been privileged or took my chances on working abroad during the early years of my marriage. This project to project country hopping business, did in my pension but it gave me a wider view. Travel does broaden the mind and working as an expat does make you singularly able, or sent home. I have seen more than a few very able in the UK not cope with expat life. What I paint is a situation where I have been paid to work in the sun, I even spent 14 months in St Lucia working for BAA, the holiday resort of choice of many who never emerge from the hotel grounds. The point I am dragging you towards is I don’t feel the need to holiday abroad or seek the sun. So, like me, holiday at  home.
Recently on the TV and radio there has been a drive on Scottish history, most welcome and educational, but the island I refer to is the UK. If you have an interest in where you live and history, forget about the sun and visit the UK, your ane place. I have posted before about Islay, birds and whisky, brilliant, the outer Hebrides are just so different you have to go there. Our regular place, for a family congregation, is Loch Aline which, to help you place it, has the shortest ferry crossing to Mull. Another great island to visit, which has got it’s tourism sorted and out there. If you are in Tobermory or plan to be, visit the Cafe Fish at the end of the promonade, I would advise booking for the evening and for lunch do the same or get there at 12.00. The chippy van on the actual pier is also very good, judge by the queue. Ah there are so many, can’t remember it’s name but in Salen (Mull) there is a yellow painted (2007) real Italian pasta restaurant right on the corner, need to book in high season, but worth it especially if the BBC are there with Kate Humble. Missed her by one night, just as well, asking for her autograph in indelible pen on my butt would have truncated my visit!

OK if you have a squad of young kids, Alton Towers will be attractive, but so is an all day or half day boat trip whale watching. Go fish for mackerel, catch them and get the barby going. Get to know your children better, expand their minds. Enough of Scotland, history in every nook and cranny, lets go to Cornwall. Place of VW camper vans and tree hugging people with Fair Isle jerseys, and why not, a decidedly different place. I do like the Eden project even though I don’t like lots of people, Cornwall has so much to offer, go to Lanhydrock house, history laid on a plate. I don’t mean they feed you Victorian scoff, that would be nice depending on your status, but to see how a house worked in those days, with I have to say damned near slave labour, was eye opening. They have a good restuarant too, and a cafe.

Trust me there are so many places to visit,  stick a pin in a map, for example, York, brilliant place, yorkshire dales, lake district, everywhere, hire a campervan and go.

I’m in head office from a sojourn in the borders, nice place, like it, mostly owned by the Duke of Buccleugh of course. Reputedly the Duke if he ever did walk, could walk on his land from Edinburgh to Dumfries. Reminds me to locate my “who owns what” in Scotland book, think it is in Lochaline. In the Hotel. Speaking of hotels, if you are ever in the area of the A7 near the English / Scottish border, you must stay or at least eat in the Marchbank Hotel. Family run and just so nice, and good value too, best bit is the grub but you’ll have to visit to appreciate what I mean. You will have assumed, those naturally commercial, that I stayed in the Marchbank, first day i opened my curtains to Nuthatches on the bird table. Room 3, fantastic, when it’s your first live sighting and you’re a birder!! difficult to convey same excitement over breakfast to blooming staid civil engineers.

I digress, tender documents, well you never expect everything to be correct, that isn’t human. But I was examining a drawing recently that had a road plan on the drawing top and the longitudinal profile below with level data. Obviously one drawing part doesn’t share the same data, as the plan showed fill with false cuts to screen the road and the profile showed cut, fine but which was correct? Anyway it is design and build, or more correctly proscribe and build. Showing this drawing around returned “that’s nothing” look at this etc. The standard of  detail is appalling and the bulletin issues never help as it is just overload, then as you find apparent mistakes and dichotomies and TQ them, it jams up the system. Much time is spent not in producing solutions but trying to understand what the client requires. All this in a normal tendering environment, what if the Scottish Government advances some projects, to stimulate demand, to boost the economy!! I dread to think of the standard of detail, one thing will be correct, the legals, the caveats the whatever the circumstances we (the client) cannot be held responsible for anything, you (the bidder) must work your butt off to make sure you understand what we want from the junk issued.

But I am forgetting the golden rule: he who has the gold rules.  (from the wizard of ID) is that still extant?