Delivery Agents

This week at the monastery the highlight of the week is watching the real life interactive soap opera of the training of our four shiny new “super-wagon drivers”, or more correctly termed “Delivery Agents”.
Harry Potter, Keith Chicken, The Legendary (in his time) Stumpy and another not yet revealed talkative guy called “The Greyhound” have been enjoying the early part of their week undergoing training with Dr Moon.
Later in the week and Dr Moon, (who some reckon lives on the moon) disappeared, and was replaced by intensive fitness instruction by a Karate kid called “Brad”, who was even this morning having them all jogging round the yard.
This morning no one could find the key for the training room and this resulted in me getting rewarded with another enjoyable trip out in vehicle that was in urgent need of some TLC to get some more keys cut off the set the cleaner had kindly brought in.
Anyway I followed the written directions to the letter but found myself back in vaguely familiar territory, I had simply gone round in a big circle thanks to Captains directions and was now approaching the Ice Road from the other direction however it took me a while to work that out.
Its been a tiring week, I have been at the hospital every night except Monday night which was AA, but, my dad has recovered well however he still has what I would welcome little episodes where he goes away on journeys in his mind somewhere.
My 71 year old dad is suffering the advanced effects of Parkinson’s Disease but just a few weeks ago suffered a bad fall, quite a few nights this week I have laid awake with tears in my eyes thinking about him and our past.
But equally his stories of these early morning journeys he has with the other men in his ward and the nurses and they go to this ski hut and all around people are skiing, he says the “hallucinations” for want of a better word are so “lifelike”.
But they are quite funny especially when I could not resist asking one of the nurses if it was true they go early morning skiing over at a nearby town called Mirfield, even my dad was laughing which was good to see.
I reckon he should be back at our home the Orphanage in the early part of next week plus a regular visit by a nurse which will be of enormous help for my mum.
Betty has been most kind and accommodating at work, gladly letting me work the early shift (730-330) giving me an extra 2 hours per night and I have on the last few other Mondays being undergoing “Bettys Intensive Wage Training”.
Monday this week my mum finally released £30 for the procurement of Steptoe’s dodgy telly and on Monday night we were all treated at AA by a great share on Yoda’s 11th birthday which he took us all on a moving journey about his exile on the forest moon degobah.
Monday night was the only night this week that I didn’t visit my dad, but I did get a bad stomach ache for some reason, thankfully our forktruck driver here Steptoe, is comforting me by telling me that it could be kidney stones and its early Tuesday morning.
“George”, The Captains dog is keeping me company here in reception, Tuesday was also the day when our Captain took me and The Delivery Agents for a tour round the Monastery site.
Stumpy being rather short had a hard time getting over all the obstacles but he was most interested about the grease used on the kiln car wheels which he said was “Molybdenum” grease and received a pat on the head from our tour guide.
Near the kilns Keith Chicken was interested in how long it would take to cook a chicken in the 1080 degrees growing red heat while Harry Potter gave me a “Heroes” T Shirt
After being told once again about my dads early morning skiing expeditions and the fact that he thought it was November 30th to which Luke exclaimed “Oh No we gonna have to go through Christmas all over again” it was soon Thursday.
Thursday Betty was letting me go out in the yard to count the raw materials stock; Betty dresses me in my best cardigan, my new Balaclava, my duffel-coat, and my favourite mittens on strings.
It was one month ago since I last counted the Stock with Shandy Pants, but he was now on Holiday so I was on my own once betty let me go out into the big factory which turns out around 800,000 bricks per week and runs 24 hours per day.
Friday was the fiasco with the loss of the keys to the training room for the delivery agents but I once again finished early at 3:30pm which despite the disadvantage of having to get up one hour early I get chance to take my dogs around the field in the daylight and don’t have as much problems with the delays of facing the rush-hour.
Not having much free time just lately I have not been doing much reading but I did watch the BBC’s “Natures Great Events” about the life of these lions which took me to a place in natures view of the world.
I would love to live in a mud hut in the Serengeti national park and live like crocodile Dundee while enjoying the awesome spectacles that nature gives you, maybe my good cyber friend Shadow can enlighten me since she lives nearby in South Africa.
Anyway back to The Ice Road truckers chart for this week and back to reality, here is the top 15 counting downwards…
Mv Jan Feb Driver SumOftotal
▲ 152 15 Lord Archer 38,872
▼ 6 14 Rodney 39,748
▲ 35 13 BX54OVU 40,388
▼ 9 12 Donkey Daz 41,584
▼ 7 11 Dizzy 41,584
Due to me finishing early I did not collect the stats for Friday but it has been a pretty stagnant chart this week, Rodney has fallen to No14 while Donkey Daz and Dizzy have dropped out of the top ten
> 10 10 Jackie Chan 56,048
>> NE 9 John DX04DNY 58,760
▲ 14 8 Maximum Moaner 61,460
▼ 1 7 Harry Potter 67,248
Maximum Moaner has been in frequently and climbs 6 places during February so far to No8, but here is a surprise, despite his wagon being out of action during the first week of February and undergoing training to become a Delivery Agent this week Harry Potter still makes No7
▲ 18 6 The Crowman 70,512
▼ 2 5 Burty Basset 72,312
> 4 4 Van Damn 72,772
I will post the finishing stats for February later but they should not change much just missing one days action, The Crowman jumps 12 places to No6 despite him cheating just a little, while karate wizard Van Damn holds his own at No4 Burty Basset slips down three places to No5
▲ 122 3 Jamie & His Magic Torch 83,168
▲ 5 2 Orville 93,564
▲ 3 1 Keith Chicken 109,836
A huge climb this month for “Jamie And His Magic Torch” who is allegedly a Kirton Driver while Orville keeps hold of No2 he is still held off pole position by Keith Chicken who amazingly was also undergoing intensive training with Dr Moon and Brad and did not add to his score during this weeks action.

Exploring Vintage Railway Lines

I have got into this Friday night tradition of writing about my past week, very therapeutic just lately with all that has been happening in my life and the lives of those around me.
Saturday night I had a terrifying experience at my friend Dwains house culminating from a huge local disturbance in the force.
Of course the biggest thing has been my dad, who is now in hospital, although he is doing well physically, well me, my mum, Luke and my brother Sylar are not trained medically and at home under our nursing skills he seemed to be getting progressively worse.
Since he moved in to the downstairs room, he was just sleeping and not eating and was obviously suffering a lot of pain anyway in the end my mum finally called the doctor to come out again and he was admitted into our local hospital.
I don’t really know what to feel like, I try to laugh and joke with my dad but its been draining couple of weeks watching him lying there, sometimes you would think he was going to get better only then to deteriorate once again.
On top of all that it has been half term and Luke’s been at home all week while I have been getting up for work, but since he has got his own bedroom, this doesn’t cause nowhere near as much problems he has simultaneously got his own independence, I was looking at some vids the other day and I am amazed how much he’s grown up in the last year or so.
So I am sat here at my computer having watched about these salmon going through all this long battle upstream to the place they were first born, and having climbed waterfalls and made it past bears without being eaten, they just lay there eggs and then die.
But has the program summarised their bodies bring nutrients from the sea to the forests and when the eggs hatch the cycle starts all over again
Still its left me feeling just a little empty so I prayed then I thought of the funny bits of last week, on Monday, The Chimney Sweep our lonely fork truck driver now having being abandoned by 40 minutes thoughtfully brought me a TV to er buy which didn’t work like.
Well actually I stand corrected, it didn’t work without the remote which The Chimney Sweep couldn’t find, I think I will henceforth know him now by the pseudonym Steptoe.
Monday night at the AA, once again me and Uncle Buck opened up but found there were no lights working in the kitchen, eventually we stumbled across a notice which we initially couldn’t read because it was dark but after Uncle Bucks lighter revealed that some temporary lights were hidden in the corner.
The share was really mind-blowing and everyone’s spirits were lifted, Yoda of course came in a silly hat and I once again came away spiritually recharged and like that old “Lifted” song by the Lighthouse Family, Uncle Buck’s change in the last 6 months has been phenomenal.
On the way back from the AA having not eaten all day I collected my tea from our excellent local Chinese and was just about to eat it when Luke handed me the phone with The Ice Maiden, his mum on the other end.
This is my first AA apology of the week, I was maybe a teeny weeny bit rude. And that’s it my grumpiness has manifested itself in me all week, I mean I was hungry and thinking about my tea like a hungry pack animal and she was just enquiring about my dad.
Tuesday I had the day as a holiday with the job of taking “Christine the Third”, our car in for its first year annual service but sadly I had hoped so much to have taken my dad but he was just fast asleep in bed almost all of the day.
Back at work on Wednesday was hard, I knew my dad was very unwell but there wasn’t much I could of done if I had been at home, he was admitted to hospital on Wednesday and every night since including tonight I have been there with my mum and either Luke or my brother, since he’s been admitted he seems to have improved quite considerably and can now stand unaided.
He is really confused about what he is seeing and it is quite hard to understand what he is saying but he knows who we are and what day it is and tonight had us laughing.
Anyway Wednesday at work, Betty complained that the day I had taken as a holiday was one of the busiest days for a while and that has contributed to this week breaking easily through the 800,000 record of 2009 so far.
Amazingly most of this feat has been achieved by just one fork truck driver on his own, so despite all this economic uncertainty our bricks are still pouring out the gates, but remember also I am used to “The Lost World” traffic flows so my opinion could be biased.
Thursday and the highlight of really a rather black day was getting out in the “pool car” to go collect a letter from Dewsbury Post Office, the office was quite busy and since the post office charge a pound for each item of mail that has no stamp and on top of that the value of the postage.
Well it got me thinking as I drove back stopping off with a quick trip into Greggs to get a Tuna Crunch, I just love them, anyway I reckon the Post Office could make a great trade sending out unstamped mail, most companies think it might be important, well Betty did, I was glad for the drive out.
We also learned on Thursday that come Monday and four new fleet wagons will occupy a place where I park “Christine the Third”, so I will have to park her near the field car park that once dominated my waking nightmares.
I was parking my car where I had parked “Christine the First” way back in 2002-4 when the car had been my stash of secret cans of kestrel super before I ventured off into the fields that lie beyond.
Back in my alcoholic haze, a time when has Shandy Pants the other day joked I wasn’t here in fact he said “lights are on but nobody’s in” but that’s the flashbacks you get being a recovering alcoholic
I parked “Christine The Third” there for the very fist time this morning which was Fish and Chips Friday, Billy Bunny was once again on his rounds and I was definitely this morning going to have that out of date ASDA sarnie in the office fridge for dinner, but, I succumbed in the end to fish and chips.
I have been particularly interested that the Ice Road which is the infamous mile long road up to the monastery actually crosses an old railway line and have made it a mission one summer day to go for a walk down there and take some pictures.
I have been really enjoying browsing this website I have found which shows a lot of the disused railway lines around West Yorkshire where I live http://www.lostrailwayswestyorkshire.co.uk/
I love local history, its fascinating in our modern times looking back at how people one hundred years ago lived round here and it was all centred on the great Victorian railways which criss-crossed a lot of our landscape with fantastic viaducts.
So well I guess that just leaves the fact that this week we took out of the yard over 850,000 bricks a record for the Monastery during the current year and a record that should be repeatedly broken as the spring and summer approaches
Mv Jan Feb Driver SumOftotal
>> NE 20 David M33COD 24408
▲ 54 19 George P30COD 24408
>> NE 18 MP07HBP 27572
▼ 10 17 Jackie Chan 28024
▲ 32 16 HAN007 30380
▼ 9 15 Donkey Daz 31188
Jackie Chan and Donkey Daz slide from last months Top Ten positions out of the Top 15 while early Februarys No1 Craigs Drivers have not returned from Falkirk.
>> NE 14 Henry RX05ETK 31188
▲ 57 13 Scott T500TTF 35256
>> NE 12 John DX04DNY 37968
▲ 153 11 Lord Archer 38872
▲ 39 10 BX54OVU 40388
A huge leap for Lord Archer there who seems to enjoy early morning calls to our works jumps a huge leap to number 11, but beware because he has been placed under heavy surveillance
▼ 7 9 Dizzy 41584
▲ 14 8 Maximum Moaner 41584
▲ 15 7 The Crowman 49720
The Crowman jumps to this weeks Number 7 sending Dizzy spinning down to number 9 and jolting Maximum Moaners jump from last months number 14, but The Crowman has been accused of cheating by The Jedi Council.
What he has been doing is loading wagons for other members of his team thereby elevating his position, the council has adjourned the case pending further investigation.
▼ 2 6 Burty Basset 61916
▼ 4 5 Van Damn 62376
▼ 1 4 Harry Potter 67248
Slipping four places in our mid month movers is Burty while holiding on strongly to the top 5 is Van Damn, while Harry falls to No4 with a number of excuses about his vehicles reliability.
▲ 73 3 Jamie (and his magic torch) DX04DNU 72772
▲ 5 2 Orville 83168
▲ 3 1 Keith Chicken 109836
A surprise jump into the Top 3 from virtually nowhere is Jamie and his magic torch but the two birds trade positions from last week right at the top at what has been the hardest month so far, of the year.
The February winner will collect a prize which was promised last month by our well respected manager Bob, at the moment it looks like Keith Chicken maybe the man of the moment with good two full loads in front of Orville.
Orville just wish he could fly…
So its late now Friday night, Luke is staying at my friend Dwains house with his son Mr Popple and I feel much better for having written all this.
I don’t know how much sense this all makes but despite just living from one unpredictable event or catastrophe to the next with my life, I feel my higher power in those seemingly insignificant but meaningful synchronous happenings.

My AA Costume

This picture is me at AA on Monday taken with my mate, Uncle Buck’s camera phone, as you can see our AA group has a special costume to identify their home group membership, this being a simple Jedi like gown and a green scarfe we call our doop.
We like to think we are dressed like the Jedi’s from the Star Wars film, no I’m only joking, we found the gown in the church and I just could not resist trying it on and like I say my good friend Uncle Bock couldn’t resist showing off his new internet phone.
I look like a complete idiot, but then again you gotta laugh at yourself haven’t you, at the moment and for the next few weeks Ill be opening up and Uncle Buck is doing the teas so we are there long before anyone else, this week Yoda showed off by reversing his van up the ice covered drive to the church and I threw a snowball at him.
The drive home was a bit scary in some parts, Holmfirth where its situated (the home of the TV series “The Last Of The Summer Wine”) is notorious for its blocked roads when we just eight miles West of us get maybe 5 inches.
At home my dad was and still is in a lot of pain, a doctor who came see him mid week reckons he has probably fractured his cheekbone, I have had to carry him once more up the stairs and back down so he could go to the toilet.
We have now got a chemical camping toilet in the room, but on the last time I carried him he felt quite light, he hasn’t been eating and I joked carrying him back down that he was much lighter still.
We have been giving him Complan to try and feed him and thankfully for the last few days he has been sat up in his chair and quite talkative and is now determined to try and walk again with the aid of his frame.
I also got him some St Johns Wort which will hopefully help a bit with his low spirits and I have read in quite a few places on the internet that the herb is beneficial for the lack of dopamine in the brain which is the cause of the disease in essence.
Tonight he seems much improved, he was supposed to be picked up in an ambulance today and taken to the hospital for an X-ray but the ambulance said he couldn’t carry him so left him behind, if I had known about this I could easily of booked the day as a holiday.
As I write this, its Friday night and I am listening to a copy I have found of Madonna’s new album a “Greatest Hits” package with all the songs from 2003 to 2008, starting with “Die Another Day” and culminating with her latest Hard Candy hits “4 Minutes” and the No38 Smash “Miles Away”
The Album is called GH3 and I will definitely buy it legitimately whenever it comes out on CD, it has two new songs “Get Stupid” and “Leave Me Alone” the latter I reckon will be her next single I assume.
I am really enjoying the journey of the last 6 years of my life, “Love Profusion” was right at the height of my drinking and a horrible lonely Christmas when I was descending steeply into an alcoholic abyss.
“Hung Up” and the other tracks from the “Confessions” Album were anthems of the good times at “The Lost World”, every song takes my mind to a place in the past, I like enjoy Madonna music so much that I even have a blogger blog about her discography at http://michael-madonna.blogspot.com/
Anyway where was I oh yes, Tuesday I went to Luke’s school to see some presentation about his options, anyway we watched this show done by some kids from the drama school, it was quite good.
Then we were all herded out of the hall and into the library to have a chat and sign a piece of paper about the subjects we had chosen, only I guess being back “at school” had a strange effect on some us parents, me included.
I was queuing to see Luke’s form teacher with Luke and behind us was this west Indian chap, it was my turn to sit and chat next with his form teacher when this Urdu lady pushed in and sat down, which I then said she was a “pusher” and the guy behind me agreed with me far more vocally.
The Urdu lady then reluctantly got up and went to join the queue leaving me next, it then turned out the required form we needed to fill in was in short supply so his form teacher looking a bit bemused at what had just taken place wrote Luke’s choices on a scrap of paper she had found but then realised she could hardly expect me and Luke to sign this scrap of paper.
Me and Luke agreed to go and find an official copy of the form, I could not believe the disorganisation, I also bumped into The Ice Maidens old neighbour Trisha, in the end we did get sorted but in retrospect it was a bit of a laugh, Luke says he could not believe that parents were behaving like children themselves.
I told him that at least I didn’t go dressed as Boba Fett out of Star Wars or with my AA gear on.
Wednesday was a bad day weather-wise, this time it was subzero temperatures, Ice and the lack of grit for the Ice Road which caused another mishap on the early morning run which once again I missed but Betty was in the middle of so I can use her witness statement…
… then FL17 Fork truck which was trying to grit the road with table salt from Sainsbury’s due to the shortage of Grit… he ended up in Mr Angry’s chicken run then Barnsley Bill appeared with more bags of salt and managed to free me with a bit of help from The Chimney Sweep.
Its silly though, they put all the grit on the road then the Road sweeper goes down and sweeps it all back up, I mean I rather have a bit of mud rather than Ice, they don’t have the common sense they are born with they don’t.
I mean Miss Bickerdyke nearly skidded with water from the silly road sweeper when it was discharging its water the night before, no I don’t think it was the fork truck that caused it, I reckon the driver got out of the truck to see if the fork truck driver was okay and couldn’t get started again…”
Its not fair I thought I always miss all these exciting early morning mishaps, the drivers chart has meanwhile taken more change with the second week of a bitterly cold February.
I didn’t manage to get todays figures but I reckon we must have done another ¾ million George who was last weeks top player now drops back to number 8 with the same number of bricks he had last week
>> NE 10 Dave AY55ASU 21,696
▲ 57 9 Scott T500TTF 23,504
▲ 49 8 George P30COD 24,408
Harry has suffered many set backs due to the weather and then his truck breaking down, he also managed to leave it over night at Bettys old haunt and it became trapped by snow, so he falls steeply from last months pole position and just crawls to number 6, a joint position he holds with The Crowman.
This week The Monastery had a visit by one of the Royal Ewoks from the higher echelons of the company and he had a chat with The Crowman about motorbikes, the Crowman said afterwards he didn’t realise he was the main man.
Both Harry and The Crowman have managed 3 full loads
▼ 1 6 Harry Potter 31,188
▲ 17 7 The Crowman 31,188
Burty drops from last months end position of No2 to the mid month position of number 5 but there is still time for him to add to his four loads, in fact if I had added todays figures I reckon he would have been even higher because I remembering him coming in today and pinching a sarnie out of the leftovers from the managers buffet.
I would of eaten more of the leftovers but Billy Bunny had brought me fish and chips like he usually does on Friday, Betty I reckon knew that there would be loads of grub going later because she refrained from Fish and Chips and then spent the afternoon going past me with legs of chicken, onion bargees, cheese and buiscuits which got me started.
Maximum Moaner jumps into the Top 5 for the first time for ages and he joins Van Damn with four full loads each, Van Damn was earlier in the week for a brief time at Number 1 but Keith Chicken and Orville were not having that
▼ 2 5 Burty Basset 40,672
▲ 14 4 Maximum Moaner 41,584
> 4 3 Van Damn 41,584
So both the “birds” occupy the top two positions but Orville just sneaks past him because one of Chickens five loads wasn’t quite a full flock, when interviewed today about his mid month dominance he said “I just wish I could fly”
▲ 3 2 Keith Chicken 47,460
▲ 5 1 Orville 51,980
I have now got my entire bedroom to myself with Luke having moved into my parent’s old bedroom after they moved downstairs due to my dad being unable to walk and tonight Luke has gone to a place called “Society”.
It’s a meeting place for people in there early teens, a sort of nightclub without the alcohol and he has gone to meet his lady friend who I call Sally Cineman to annoy him, he promises to phone me to pick him up somewhere around 10-11pm.
At the moment Luke’s cousin and the son of Dwain Dibbly, Mr Popple is in there playing PS3 on the net with his microphone and headphones on; he has been with Luke most of the week since he has had his own room.
I have not been doing as much reading now because I can finally watch I-player without competing with Luke’s PS3 war games and the other night I was fascinated with this documentary about dreams.
Despite all the research poured into the study of our nocturnal activities scientists still don’t know much about where they come from or what there purpose are but it recognised Lucid dreaming as a very powerful skill to learn.
Lucid dreaming is when in your dream you are aware that you are in a dream and this happens quite regularly to me, in fact the best bits of my life still happen when I am asleep.
I mean really in a way when we are awake we are in a dream in that what we see and hear with our senses is a construct of our mind, its only the fact that we can agree on the objects we see when seen by others that we can share our “awake dream”.
maybe the dream we call reality is in fact the dream of a mind even more powerful than ours in that our minds are just a tiny part?

An Oasis Of Calm

What a weird week that has been, the country has gone to pieces because maybe 5 inch of snow fell, my dad had a bad fall on Saturday and has resulted in him being bed ridden.
I am right in the middle of a lot of re-arranging furniture which should make things a lot better all round at The Orphanage where I live.
I must admit, it is far superior to any work out at the gym!
Its just a three bedroom semi detached house we all share and this week it has been non-stop teamwork, just tonight we have moved our parents bed and my dad who I had to once again carry downstairs and because you can only carry him in a sitting position he is a heavy awkward lift.
Earlier on in the week my dad had suffered really vivid hallucinations of JCB’s in his bedroom and at one point was laughing hysterically at these visions, it all started with a bad fall last Saturday and since my dad is in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease he falls now quite frequent and I thought nothing about it.
But by Monday it was apparent to me that the blow to the head had been worse than I had at first thought, and by Tuesday I was so concerned I phoned NHS Direct, a phone number you call when you want advice here in the UK.
They advised lots of rest but urged me to get him checked by a doctor, The GP Practice asked me if I could bring him to them rather than the doctor coming to me and this coincided with the aftermath of about 3 inch of snow but by now I was getting a bit more used to driving in it.
That was the first time I had to carry my dad down the stairs.
The night before I had set off for the AA, but as I follow from the post I did on Monday, I didn’t make it and what’s more realised how useless I was at driving in snow, I only made it maybe ½ mile and then met my first hill.
I skidded up the hill and noticed a lot of cars were sliding down, some of them stood wedged against the kerb, I then panicked and spun the car round then found myself sliding back down the hill with the brakes full on, only I seemed to be speeding up.
Somehow I managed to turn back on to a road called “Keldregate” where I had first come from and drove gingerly back home and vowed that I would not be going to work tomorrow if the weather remained as it were.
Luckily I did manage to get to work Tuesday and was surprised to have been quite busy all week, though it has tapered off a bit towards today, all together we took out of the gate 686,000 bricks which just shows that our Ice Road Truckers were not afraid even if the other sites gave up and went home.
In fact in the media it seems everything was coming to a complete standstill, Luke was stranded unable to either get to school and also over at his mums, The Ice Maiden, but he was he told me he loved the snowball fights with his brothers and sister.
He phoned me up Tuesday night and after getting back from the doctors , and I gingerly drove over to Utopia which involves a long climb up a really steep hill so after Mondays little episode I was really cautious.
But I have since found out that Luke has got the hot’s for some girl, suddenly his PS3 has been forgotten, he is always on MSN typing away or sending text messages on his phone and in general acting strangely, then he confessed.
Thursday at work another wave of snow hit Yorkshire, luckily me and Shandy Pants had struck a deal with Mr Froggit and now had a good stock of grit and we also had a new Gritter delivered, Betty had chosen to have the rest of the week off and well she had held the fought for me when I was enjoying myself on Monday.
The Teletubbie’s and Father Bell at The Lost World, the two closed sites went home, by the end of the day I was told by someone at Ewoks HQ we were the last brick works left open, but by now I couldn’t see what the problem was most of the roads were clear of this white stuff which had landed from the heavens making us scared of driving our heated tin cans.
Thursday night I was met by my hysterical mum, she said that my dad was in a bad way and had the previous night tried to sneak out into the cold so he didn’t have to die in front of her.
The hallucinations of the night before had clearly been replaced now with intense black depression, an effect of missing his medicine and taking strong painkillers plus the bang on the head, a pattern I was all to familiar with my past as a solvent abuser, I even shared this with my dad as he lay there helpless and weak.
My dad in the deep past was someone I thought of has superhuman and someone who as I have got older have come to realise is a very generous and kind man, I don’t think I quite fulfilled his career aspirations, but since he got Parkinson’s I have watched him become weaker and weaker.
Tonight I have moved his bed downstairs into the dining room and tomorrow Luke is moving into my mum and dad’s old bedroom.
Both the dogs, Miss Boley and Mr Bodie are in the new bedroom and my dad seems really suited to his new surroundings, I told him tonight I reckoned he would love another summer down near the river and I think between us all, my brother Sylar as well we have got a will to live awakened in him again.
I think this rediscovery catalysed by the snow has changed everyone in the UK, if just a foot at the most of snow can bring the country to its knees it shows just how fragile I guess we are, its only in times of crisis that we grow spiritually, and this maybe is the reason for our existence in this earth bound dimension.
At The Monastery, everyone this week pulled together as a great team and despite the dreaded Ice Road, the bravery of those legendary Ice Road Truckers has got to be given a round of applause, this is at the start of a new month so that means a brand new start...
Mv Jan Feb Driver SumOftotal
▲ 52 1 George P30COD 24408
▲ 58 2 Scott T500TTF 23504
▲ 9 3 Donkey Daz 20792
Two of Craig’s Scotland Drivers dominate the top spot and there wagons can take 29 ton sometimes so its hardly surprising that they would be there, it only took our No1 driver, George 2 loads to achieve this feat of 24,408 bricks!
Donkey Daz was waiting for me when I got in on Thursday morning but despite the weather I was still 15 minutes early to the start of play at 730 meanwhile Betty had taken a days leave to playing on her sledge at "The Round Hill"
▲ 39 4 BX08CXN 20792
▲ 104 5 Darren FJ57SUH 20792
▼ 5 6 Orville 20792
> 7 7 Dizzy 20792
▲ 117 8 G Hall 20792
Indeed despite Excels chosen positions for them they too all joint with Donkey Daz with two loads this week, Orville a subject of Lord Archer and Dizzy who is one of the Crowmen
>> NE 9 Richard BX54OVZ 20340
▼ 2 10 Burty Basset 19880
Burty Basset was not going to be left out by the very cold weather and icy conditions
▲ 23 11 Jim S20COD 12204
>> NE 12 Davy M33COD 12204
>> NE 13 Miller M99COD 12204
▲ 45 14 Ian M55COD 12204
>> NE 15 Gary M88COD 12204
And of course the men from Scotland weather like this is frequent all braved the elements to Falkirk to achieve one load each, many others Keith Chicken, Lord Archer himself, Van Damn and even Maximum Moaner collected a load this week making them all joint next 15 with lots of other less familiar faces.
On Thursday it was just me and Ms Bickerdyke listening to the radio, as the snow came down outside, I was busy altering my database system to take our material issues into account with its costing calculations which seems to have calculated something which is right according to the values stored in the LOC system.
Its nearly midnight now on Friday night and tons more moving to be done tomorrow, I feel well strangely calm, I just don’t know why I feel so calm, anyway I better get some sleep or at least a good read of my book, its called "Riemann’s Zeros" and was written by Karl Sabbagh.
Apparently solving this equation of all these reciprocals of powers of complex numbers to be equal to zero, it turns out that they all lie on the real line in the complex matrix with the value 1/2 and the holy grail of mathematics is to prove that there are no other places in the complex matrix that a zero can form.
Apparently proving the Riemann Hypothesis will earn you 1 million pounds and it would unlock the secrets of prime numbers, computers can check the values and have proven for some first 1000,000,000 or so numbers but they can never be certain no matter how many numbers they check that the next number might not lie on the real line in complex space corresponding the value of one half.

Worst Snow For 18 Years

We have had some snow here in the UK, round where I live its been 2 to 3 inches but in other places there has been up to a foot, I had the day off today to take my mum to St James Hospital in Leeds because she has Pulmonary Hypertension which is causing her to get out of breath when climbing hills.
So this morning just after the rush hour we set off through blizzard condition only to arrive and after finding the ward she had the wrong doctor and the wrong hospital.
The doctors name was correct but it still was the wrong doctor, the correct one was around 35 miles away in Sheffield.
I have just come back from the fields behind my house after taking the dogs up to my friend Dwains house the scenic way and I got a few photos which I have posted on here.
Luke is over at his mums, The Ice Maiden and enjoying his day off school (of course it was closed) along with many other kids who were loving it out in the fields.
I have got the key for the AA tonight at Holmfirth and looking out of the window snow is pouring from the sky, I am wondering what I am going to do if I cant get there, I live about 8 miles away.
Still it will be an adventure and I will have my mate Uncle Buck with me, I got to remember to take a shovel and a sleeping bag, then after that I got to some how get to work and its forecasting up to a “foot” to fall over night.
All good fun here in the UK