Mark Dalton

After a week of teasing and fiendish clues it was time for my Birthday Surprise. As instructed by my sister I was up and ready for a 09:00 start and I will admit slightly nervous as we set off. It was a lovely day, but she wasn’t going to give in and tell me where we were going, despite my constant questioning. I tried to follow our route on the maps application on my iPhone, hoping to be able to identify our destination, but it couldn’t really keep up with us and I was none the wiser. I still didn’t have a clue when we arrived at Moors Valley County Park.

We grabbed a coffee and it was only then Katrina said that we were booked to start at 11:00. I was intrigued, but still no nearer identifying why we were here. On the way to the coffee shop I had seen the little hut with the big “Ape” statue, and asked if we were going to see relatives, but Katrina still wasn’t giving in and I hadn’t put the clues together. We had our coffee, biscuits, and chatted, me still probing for more information.

At 10:50 we started walking towards the hut, and I was starting to get really nervous. It was only when we arrived and I saw the signage and harnesses I realised what I was in for, and I swallowed hard.

“Go Ape“

After being asked to read an instruction card and sign a disclaimer (that always makes me wary) we had a 30 minute induction that took us through the basic safety aspects. We were then taken to the start of the course.

Well, this was my opportunity to get a little pay back and when the instructor asked for a volunteer I kindly volunteered Katrina. With about 10 of us sat watching Katrina had to go through attaching the harness to the safety lines, rigging the pulley system, and then traversing the obstacle. She was very nervous, but completed it without any problems and at the end got a big round of applause. We were then let lose on our own!

Katrina and I were at the front of the group and we worked our way around the course. Mum had asked Katrina to get lots of photos but when I reminded her of this she wasn’t very polite in advising me that she was to busy holding on. We slowly progressed getting a little more confident as we went.

It was after we completed the third obstacle, about an hour in, we saw a sign saying exit. We started back towards the hut where we had picked up our gear congratulating ourselves and saying what fun it had been. It was only on arriving one of the “Go Ape” team advised us we had walked past the last two obstacles. Opps! We made our way back up the path feeling a little silly, but grateful for the rest and found the forth and fifth obstacles, although by the time we reached the forth we had been over taken. The last two were harder than the first three and at this point we both wanted a drink and a cigarette. Our arms were starting to feel heavy, and pulling ourselves up was getting harder and harder. The final obstacle ended with a long wire bridge and then a long zip slide back to the hut, and the smiling assistant that had made us walk back earlier.

We both stepped out of the harnesses with a sigh of relief and big smiles and headed towards the picnic area for a well deserved packed lunch, which we both inhaled sat next to one of the Moors Valley County Park Lakes. It was a fantastic day and one I would recommend to anyone not afraid of heights.

More photo’s Here.

So this Friday I turn 35, and my sister is treating me! She wont however tell me to what, and instead keeps taunting me with daily clues. I have no idea what she has planned, but maybe you can help? Here are the clues thus far, in reverse order;

- There is method in my madness.

- Not so sure if having an opposing thumb is such a good thing?

- You are nearly there, your day is soon, you will be so excited your feet wont touch the ground.

- It’s your birthday, I was going to take you somewhere hot and sunny but I am not being funny. Some call it the Caribbean, we will just call it the CARABINER.

- Today I am on a high tomorrow maybe on a low but on the day which way will I go?

- As your birthday is in May I fear a new horizon for the day.

- Don’t worry about your day just leaf everything to me you will soon get the swing of it.

Last week ended pretty much as it had begun, cold, wet, and very busy, but at least there wasn’t any snow. Friday arrived and I was quite looking forward to getting home and opening a few cold beers and enjoying a long lay in Saturday morning, but you what they say about the best laid plans. So I got home Friday night and went through the normal routine of grabbing a shower and starting dinner. I opened a beer which boy did taste good and then sat down in front of the TV with another cold brew to watch a movie. Now this is where I should have known better as food, beer, and sitting down after a week at work meant only one thing. Yes, you have got it, I fell asleep before even finishing the second can. I woke up just gone midnight feeling a little chilly with a sore neck and resigned myself to the fact that I had at least had the intention of getting rather drunk. Luckily my power nap didn’t affect my ability to sleep in Saturday morning, and I eventually forced myself to get up, showered, and dressed a little before 10:30.

Now I had booked my Sky+ HD & Sky Multiroom installation for Saturday afternoon, but after I had done a few chores it was too late to go out as I risked not being back in time to meet the engineer. Luckily he turned up and was done in quick time although I was left to run the Multiroom cable myself across the attic and down into the bedroom as he wasn’t allowed up there for health and safety reasons. I decided to leave this for Sunday and opting instead to tidy up all the cable”s behind the TV downstairs. I spent about an hour doing this, for it to look pretty much the same when I had finished, so I think I am going to need to invest in some proper cable management as it really is an eyesore. I think that will have to wait until next weekend. Saturday afternoon I got on with a few more chores and chilled out with the cold beer I had promised myself Friday night. I decided to be lazy and threw a pizza in the oven before taking up position on the sofa for the evening.

Sunday I was up bright and early and although I could have easily gone back to sleep I decided I needed to get on so set about sorting out my personal email and correspondence. Luckily this didn’t take long and I was able to get on with some the remaining chores. I was half way through these when I remembered I hadn’t dropped my brother-in-law”s birthday present down to him. After catching up with him, my sister, and the kids I came back ready to finish the Sky Multiroom setup in my bedroom. My sister had a newer menu system on her Sky+ HD box and said you needed to have both connected for it to sort itself out. After getting everything setup there was still no difference so I called Sky who talked me through forcing a firmware update. I followed the instructions they gave me but it made no difference, but by this point I had opened a beer and couldn’t be bothered as I still had access to the content via the old menu system. I spent the rest of the evening scanning the TV channels and generally playing with the new features before heading to bed.

On the 28th May 2009 I got another year older. It comes to us all in the end, but this year there was something different, I couldn”t quite put my finger on it but then it hit me, I feel older. I don”t quite know why, maybe because last year I was partying in Thailand (A Long Story), maybe because I see my little sister with two children, maybe just because I am, but it did hit me. Now don”t worry I am not about to go all circumspect and start analysing my life, I”ll leave that for the book you can all “Pay For”, but it did make me think. It made me think what I should do to celebrate.

Well, I am not a big Birthday person, it”s just another day as far as I am concerned, but I decided to do something relaxing so I booked the Thursday & Friday off work which gave me a long weekend. Thursday I met up with “a friend” for lunch and then Thursday night met up with some of the lads for a good drinking session. This is where I was reminded that I am not 21 as after 4 or 5 drinks all I could think about was bed. The guy”s all had work the following day and had to drive so they all had to ensure they were safe, so we ended up grabbing some dinner and then heading for home. It was a good night and it was great to see them all, but we have committed to a “good drink” in the near future as we all realised that we were how do you say it “Maturing”, we will leave it at that.

Friday morning I went on a little shopping trip and treated myself to a few items, more about that later. Friday evening I met up with Dad and we went for a mini pub crawl around Basingstoke. We put the world to rights as normal and complained about the tax man, and the worked out what we would do “WHEN” we win the lottery.

Saturday and Sunday after I decided that I had spent enough time prevaricating about what I was going to do with the Garden I set to work tackling what has affectionally become known as the Jungle.

I decided that everything was to far gone to just trim and tidy up, plus the fences all need renewing and everybody that had looked was quoting silly prices, I guess because everything was such a mess. I started out trimming the bushes and hedges with the trusty flymo hedge trimmer but after an hour or so realised I wasn”t getting any where fast. Action was needed! That could only mean one thing! Power Tools!. So I headed for the local suicide store and picked myself up something that I knew would get the job done, A CHAIN SAW. Well, it didn”t let me down. It made quick work of everything it came into contact with and by the end of the weekend I felt that I had made good progress. I had to medium piles of cuttings and then realised that I needed to figure out how I was going to get rid of the stuff. At this point there really wasn”t any turning back and I needed to get my serious hat on, and decided on a skip. I started to try and break down the piles I had created, but I am just not used to this physical work and was to tired so called it a day.

I met up with Mum and Dad and after they had seen what I had done and I explained the plans the graciously volunteered to help out this Saturday. Both insisted on a early start, which generally isn”t in my nature, but I was grateful of the offer and accepted. Monday morning I ordered the skip and Thursday morning it was delivered.

Now I warned you I was getting old and this I think is a prime example of old age. I am now getting exited by buying power tools, chopping down hedges, and hiring skips.

Okay so we had a great dinner at Mum and Dad’s for Katrina’s birthday, but despite taking my camera I completely forgot to take any photo’s.

Last week was a busy week in the office as everything is now really getting back up to speed after the Christmas holidays. Friday we had an all day off site meeting to review the projects that are taking place in 2009 and firm out the delivery details.

Saturday Mum, Dad, and I ventured off to the Vue cinema in Basingstoke to see Slumdog Millionaire. The film is a story an Indian Tea Boy that win’s the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and more specifically the story of how he got to be on the show and go on to win.

It’s an extremely good film, and I would highly recommend it to anybody. For me the filming reminded me a lot of my time in India, and my trip to Mumbia.

Sunday was a day to catch up with paper work, an area that I have been neglecting recently. It was a productive day however and now I am up to date. I also got to work on my workflow a little bit, and for those that don’t understand what I am talking about when I talk about workflow I am talking about how I handle and process paperwork.

I used to like most other people action inbound paperwork and then simply file it in a traditional filing cabinet. Well, I moved on to scanning the paperwork and digitally storing it before shredding it. This meant that I could lose the unsightly filing cabinet. Well this weekend I took that a step further integrating it with how I handle my personal finances and how I capture the resulting actions, especially the repetitive ones. I also managed as an output to translate that into a system to track and identify tasks relating to my personal goals. I still have a bit of work to do on this, but once I have it all clear in my mind I’ll write it all up for those that are interested.