Complaining on behalf of those on two wheels

In the past month, two cyclists were killed on the Bow Roundabout in East London in accidents involving heavy vehicles.  Sadly, the danger large vehicles pose to cyclists is not novel.  What was shocking was that the accidents happened on part of the cycle superhighway network, stretches of roach with dedicated cycle lanes that were supposed to make commuting by bike safer.  14 cyclists have died on the roads in the capital this year.  I guess it goes to show that it is impossible to make our roads safer for cyclists without educating our drivers- painting blue lanes on the roads isn't enough without a change in mentality.  Better road designs would also help.

And on the subject of commuting by bike, when will the works in the Greenwich foot tunnel end?  The works were supposed to have been completed in March 2011.  It is a nightmare for pedestrians and cyclists carrying bikes to share the narrow spiral staircases and not encouraging people to take their bikes to work.Why aren't provisions being made to facilitate users while the works are delayed?  

Travels of a pregnant city gal

Its been a while since I last made an entry here.  The reason- I'm pregnant and have been busier than usual.  Time seems to pass really quickly as there are now extra chores to be done- getting the baby room ready, making sure the flat is baby-safe, doctor's appointments, etc.  All of this means the need to be able to get to different places efficiently is greater than ever.  Although I am usually an advocate for the use of public transport in the city, the last few months have seen me shift more in favour of the car.

I still commute to work on the tube as it is the most convenient way to get into central London on a weekday.  However, I am yet to be offered a seat.  It may be that I am not showing particularly but I have seen a number of obviously pregnant women on the trains and they were not offered seats either. Although I don't feel in need of a seat at the moment, there may come a time, as the pregnancy progresses, when this may become necessary and the question is whether to ask people to give up their seats?  Some pregnancy books mention that pregnant women should consider wearing 'Baby on board' pin badges to subtly encourage people to give up their seats.  I find the idea rather off-putting; I may want a seat but not necessarily call attention to myself using a pin badge everywhere I go.  I also find these signs on cars irritating: so other drivers should be more careful driving near a car with a sign like that, as opposed to being generally careful while driving?   A bump should be enough of a sign to encourage people to offer their seat, especially those in dedicated priority seats; would people notice a pin badge if they don't notice the bump?  As a rule, before my pregnancy, I tried to avoid sitting on prioity seats unless there are no other seats available.  When I did use a priority seat I made a point of always looking up at each stop to check if anyone may need it so that they wouldn't have to ask.  Most people are so busy with their music and reading material they don't bother to look at the people around them.  They should but they don't; this is symptomatic of the increasing tendency for people to close themselves off to other people, insulating themselves with headphones, books, tablet PCs, etc.

Dealing with delays, broken down trains, out of service stations, etc also become more problematic.  Being in my own car means not having to deal with these stresses and makes travel more comfortable.

Big bus, big tree

Its good to know that some things never change.  From when I was a child, I have always enjoyed being on the top deck of double-decker buses, listening to the tree branches brush across the tops of the buses.  This ranks above rain drops on windows.  Today on the bus, I was enjoying the branches doing their thing as we approached a bus stop that was shadowed by a large tree.  The tree attacked the bus with a whoosh and the children at the bus stop whooped with excitement.  This was followed by the gaggling of children trying to speak over each other, and then kids running to the upper deck saying 'I want to sit in the front, I want to sit in the front!'  The simple pleasures in life! 

So much to read, so little time on the train

There has been a lot on the news lately and, unbelievable as it may seem, just as I was about to lose all hope, politics is interesting again.  For a long time its been same ol' same ol'; one could hardly tell the difference from one party to the next.  All of a sudden we have differences in opinions and people are vocal about issues again.  I have mixed feelings about the coalition government but its presence has reignited society's fervour to argue, to discuss, to present alternative views.  For that alone I am certain I am glad they exist.  I am not so sure about everything else.  I don't know if I agree or disagree with them, most of the time things change so quickly there isn't enough time to adequately consider things to come to some sort of conclusion.  However, I am not even sure that is bad.  Taking heed of people saying you've made a mistake and changing tack is not necessarily a bad thing.  Do it too much though and it becomes worrying that it may just be because you don't think anything through at all.  Its good that people are kept interested, on their toes because they're not sure what's going to happen next, but perhaps a tad exhausting in the long run.  Sometimes we would just like to be able to trust someone to do the job without having to worry about it.  We have our own living to earn.

On more than one occasion last week I was so engrossed with reading the news that I forgot to get off at my tube stop for the interchange and ended up having to take a roundabout route to my destination.  To start with there were the reforms to the NHS, and then the aftermath of the programme 'Poor Kids' when welfare reforms were hotly debated.  And then this week it seems it will be the discussion on assisted suicide instigated by Terry Pratchett's documentary.  I wish my commute was longer so I could actually read everything and think things through.

Accident

A friend of mine was knocked off his bike while he was cycling home one night.  Fortunately he was fine and got away with just a broken collar bone.  He had always insisted that cycling was perfectly safe and that one should not be worried about using a bike in London.  He stands by that opinion despite having suffered an accident himself and stopping to help out at another cycling accident in the past.

The policeman that attended the scene said there was nothing much my friend could have done to prevent the accident; it was the driver's fault.  My friend said he felt lucky he was a bit of a slow-poke on his bike- just a fraction faster and he would have been hit side on by the car.  As it was, his front wheel was badly damaged and he was just slightly damaged.  He also said that the sound of another oncoming car made him get up from the ground, on to which he was thrown, very quickly in case he got run over by another vehicle.  It caused his family, particularly his four year old son, much worry.  The female passenger in the vehicle that hit him was a little bit worse for wear as well: they narrowly missed hitting a tree before the car finally stopped.

Cyclists beware; there are careless drivers out there.

Running after the metal lizard

I have previously talked about running styles of commuters that I have observed on the bus.  Last week I woke up to the fact that commuters running for the tube had very different running styles because the terrain they had to cover was quite different.

The kind of runner one sees the most are those running down the escalators towards a train that's stopped with passengers boarding.  Usually the speed increases when the beeping that indicates that the doors are closing sound.  Invariably it is impossible to get on the train even if one ran, or if one did it would most probably involve getting stuck in the door.  People would still run.  I suppose one has to take a chance and if the alternative is to be late for work then it may well be worth a try.  However often times it seems it is the beeping that alerts people to the fact that they need to run.  By this point there really is very little reason to try but people still do.

Running down the escalators alone is not perhaps the most elegant thing to have to do in heels; and there might be a faster runner behind who might be getting annoyed at being held up in the fast lane.  Trying to dodge the stationary passengers on the right of the escalators, who more often than not are carrying a fair bit of stuff, and who then proceed to get off the escalator at a more leisurely pace then the runners, can be quite tricky.  That can cause some delay.  Trying to find an appropriate train door to use may not be straightforward as the closest door is probably quite crowded with other faster runners, and usually necessitates some frantic head turning, hair whipping.

It is quite comical to watch.  Why can't people leave the house a few minutes earlier and not subject themselves to this?

Death of a cyclist

Cyclist Wouter Weylandt died racing downhill in the Giro d'Italia on 9th May 2011.  The kind of cycling he does is nothing like what I do when I am out on my bike, and the pressures that led to his accident are nothing like those I will ever face on two wheels.  I can't pretend to understand what it is like.  I don't follow competitive cycling but from the little that I have seen it doesn't surprise me that an accident can be fatal: these guys pick up a lot of speed and there isn't very much between them and whatever they hit if things go wrong.  There is also quite a large group of them together in pelotons, with individuals trying to overtake in close proximity to their rivals- the potential for a touch-and-fall is big.  And yet they seem fearless when they are racing.  Hats off to them.  Or rather helmets off to them.

Blue Monday

Another Monday, another morning of delays because of a dysfunctional tube system.  Does one ever get used to this?

Munch lunch

Lunch can be a bit of a challenge at times.  There are various canteens at work that I visit; they essentially serve the same food but have various different opening times so I visit different ones depending on when I decide to have lunch.  The cooked food is good but the sandwiches are not.  So the canteens are great if you want roast beef, vegetables and Yorkshire pudding with gravy, but not really for a tuna baguette.  I prefer a proper meal with my partner in the evening as that is our time to chill out and catch up on each other's day so, much as I like Yorkshire puddings, cooked meals at work are only occasionally justified. 

The nearest coffee/sandwich shops, other than the various canteens, are about 10 minutes walk away, making it impractical to go to these at most lunch times.  Having said that I do enjoy the little wander when I do have time.

I've tried to make my own lunch at home and bring them to work but there are obstacles to this.  If I make them the night before it has to be something that is unlikely to go soggy or limp in the fridge overnight.; there is not a lot that fits that description and it eventually gets a bit boring.  Cooking extra food the night before so that I could have seconds to take to work didn't work either; I just ended up eating a bigger dinner, with not enough left for lunch for the next day.  And a larger waistline.

The best option by far, and this is possible because there is a microwave at work, is to purchase soup and fresh bread or salads at a supemarket near work.  Even better still is to stock up on snacks, like fruit and biscuits, at the same time.  Planning ahead means not having to eat rubbish food out of desperation.  On the weeks when I did this for most of the week I notice that my diet and my bank account are healthier for the effort.  I just wish I could get myself out of the house early enough to do this regularly.

Bike Maintenance

Although I've almost always had a bike I've never maintained one myself.  My dad, when I was younger, and, latterly, bike shops were tasked with this.  I always have some basic tools and know the sequence to deal with punctures but I have never actually had to do it myself.  I think that is due to a combination of my being a fairweather cyclist, i.e. not cycling huge distances in all conditions, and having regular bike maintenance. 

My dad is great at regularly checking through our bikes to make sure they are running well.  He still makes a point of checking my bike whenever he is visiting.  Since leaving home I have gotten into the habit of taking my bike to a bike shop at regular intervals for maintenance.  It does cost but if I am to use it on the road then it needs to be in shape for that purpose.  I thought it would be too difficult to do it myself.  I read books on the subject but with manual tasks- getting the right tension, the right torque, the correct alignment, knowing what things should sound like, etc- there is an advantage to being shown.  With life being so busy it was easier to let someone else deal with it than learn myself.

Recently, I  attended a free bike maintenance workshop at Evans Cycle.  The workshop occurs one evening every two months.  It caught my eye as it was run at a convenient time- 8 to 10 p.m. in the shop near me- one evening during the week.   It takes 2 hours and you practice on your own bike.  There are two instructors to a maximum of 6 learners (there were only 3 of us at the course) and you are taken through basic bike maintenance.  I enjoyed it a lot and learned a lot.  The instructors were friendly, knowledgeable and didn't push anyone to purchase anything on the night.  

I also benefited from the experience of my fellow learners.  One of them had had an accident recently and because he didn't check his bike properly after the event he had a second accident soon after when a misaligned part caught his wheel spokes while he was changing gears.  The instructors went through his problem and a list of things to check if we were to have an accident on our bikes.  

I enjoyed being on the workshop and am now confident to tackle a few things myself.  Its worth checking it out if you need some help looking after your bike.

Jubilee spirit

On three separate days in the last two weeks I had trouble getting about because of breakdowns on the Jubilee line.  Irritating though that may be one cannot help but smile and be infected by the good humour of the train drivers and station attendants despite the circumstances. 

One of the station attendants at Canary Wharf is a most cheerful person to meet in the mornings.  His announcements are half sing-song and always sound welcoming.  On a dreary morning, faced with a long day at work, one perks up on hearing the voice of a person who sounded like he was enjoying his job and was trying to bring some fun into people's day.  I can't help but smile when I hear him and don't think I will ever be tired of hearing him.

The driver of the delayed train today was funny too.  He tried to give us as many updates as possible to help us plan our journeys but was getting frustrated with the controller who wasn't answering his queries or picking up his calls.  I was glad that he shared this with us by making little comments and keeping it light.  For once I got the impression that we were in this together; we were stuck on the same train.  So although it took over twice the amount of time to get home, I wasn't as irritated as I could have been.

Thank you to the staff on the Jubilee line. 

Va va voom

It was a sunny day out driving in Essex to visit loved ones.  Traffic was smooth and the grass was green wherever we went.  Lots of people were out driving to deliver Easter eggs to family and friends, I suppose.  On one of the small roads we saw a group of 10 to 15 Vespas in various cheerful pastel colours.  Reminded me of my Dad and his club of 50cc's all those years ago.  Such fun!

Summer cycle madness

London is having a beautifully sunny Easter weekend.  Today temperatures reached 26 C, and although the sky was not quite cloudless it was beautifully blue and bright.  The roads were relatively quiet and seemed to have been claimed by cyclists on the 'Boris' bikes.  It is good to see so many people taking to them and using them to explore the city.

Four sides to a square

I initiated my Summer fitness plan today- to battle the three months of relative inactivity till the indoor volleyball season restarts- by cycling to work as much as possible.  I had tested the route at the weekend and knew I could handle the distance and could do it within an hour.  So I set off this morning confident that I knew what I was doing.  Once again, by Victoria Embankment, I felt myself squeezed towards the pavement by a coach.  This time it was so ridiculously close that I felt like hitting the coach with my hands to illustrate my disapproval.  Considering these guys are supposed to be professional drivers there does seem to be an awful lot of spatial misjudgements over this stretch of road.  Do not overtake if you do not have enough space; if in doubt, don't do it.  Simple.

However, I soon had cause to be annoyed at a fellow cyclist.  My route through the south-west side of St. James' Park was closed this morning. A policewoman was putting up barriers to stop people from entering just as I arrived at the entry point .  I stopped by her to ask how far down the park the closure extended  to figure out whether it was worth getting off to walk the closed bit, or go through Trafalgar Square instead.  She was obligingly telling me the best route round the closure when a cyclist, probably puzzled by the closure and intent on asking her for information as well, failed to brake and ran into the back of my bike.  I had been stopped quite a while and was dressed in bright pink clothing; she was in a fluorescent jacket.  We were both hard to miss and we were far off the road with moving traffic; he can't have been paying that much attention to stuff around him.

On the way home I kept seeing cyclists jump red lights, even those on the dedicated cycle highways which are for bikes.  The lights are designed to help cyclists navigate busy crossings safely and are there for good reason.  A lady went ahead while I and another cyclist were stopped at one of these lights and then found she had to stop at the junction anyway because the cars had right of way.  She was then in no position to see the traffic lights; we were and moved off fairly quickly when they turned green, overtaking her and leaving her behind still wondering if it was safe to move on.  I couldn't help smirking as I passed her.

Pedestrians were not blameless either.  The number of people who played chicken at light controlled crossings was astounding.  First prize goes to the couple who tangoed back and forth on one of the exits of the Trafalgar Square roundabout while the red man was on, unable to decide whether they should retreat back to the pavement even when two bikes and a row of cars were braking hard to avoid them.

I made mistakes too.  I sometimes found it hard to signal and was more dependent on my riding position to signal intent because I did sometimes find it hard to keep control of my bike: there are quite a lot of obstacles on the road and its not always easy to manage to time the signal and yet move the bike away from things on the road.  In particular there seems to be tonnes of potholes and broken glass on the streets of London.  One can forward plan a route but not really plan around these niggles.  The roads need to be fixed if cycling is to be a viable mode of transport around London.

Read this on the Beeb's website.  Ring any bells?

Close encounters of the third kind

The weather's been glorious in London over the past few days and yesterday I took my bike out for a spin.  I needed to get to work for a few minutes and I thought it would be nicer to cycle than to be stuck in a queue of traffic in the car; public transport was inconvenient this weekend because of closures for track improvement work.  It was about an hour on the bike to work and an hour back, with a couple of hours of meandering about parks and having tea plus the brief moments at work; all in all a pleasant way to spend a sunny Saturday.

Cycling in the city was mostly uneventful but the coaches along the Victoria Embankment, heading west, did present some problems.  Even as  a driver I have often disliked the fact that they are parked up yet taking up half a lane.  Its a busy road and having half a lane taken up by parked vehicles doesn't help.  It means that any car that is on the left hand lane will eventually have to venture right to get around them, with the other cars in the other lanes trying to readjust their positions so that everybody will fit on one and a half lanes.  At some point it will become difficult to figure out how many lanes people intend to form, especially when cars jam up further up at the right turn leading to Trafalgar Square and people start trying to get around them by venturing left.  Now imagine if you were a cyclist amongst all this.  

The other thing is that the coach drivers get far too close to cyclists on this stretch of road.  I was behind another cyclist when a coach passed me from behind.  I felt at the time that it was too close to me and when I saw him pass the bike in front it was obvious that the cyclist would have been able to touch the coach with his arm out bent 90 degrees at his elbow.  That is far too close, the coach should have kept back if there was not enough space to overtake but it was particularly irritating that there was an empty lane on the right of the coach.  This total disrespect for cyclists while in the control of a large vehicle- bullying behaviour- is unacceptable.    

Cyclists in the city have started wearing helmet cameras to fillm aggressive behaviour from other road users.  I think I might get one too.

Water world

Now and then a piece of news, out of the many that I read on the way to work, catches my eye and I find myself so drawn to the story that I am reading round the subject way after that piece of news has turned cold.  Last week one such bit of news kept me up a few nights.  It was an announcement that a captive killer whale called Tilikum, who had killed his trainer during a performance at Sea World in Florida about a year ago, was performing again.  You can read the piece here.  I had read the news about the death of the trainer when the incident occurred and the fact that Tilikum was to be spared despite calls for it to be euthanised.  I also remember the petitions for it to be released back to the wild following the incident.  I did not know that he had been left out of the performance rosta since then, and found it alarming to read reports of how Tilikum had been left, allegedly, in solitary confinement for most of this time.  There were also discrepancies in the reports surrounding the circumstances of the death of Tilikum's trainer, Dawn Brancheau.

From what I could gather Tilikum dragged her into the water and she drowned.  There were reports that she had suffered severe injuries inflicted by him.  It was also mentioned that he had previously been associated with two other deaths, one of which was of a trainer that had fallen into the water and then attacked by Tilikum and two other orcas.  Trainers were not allowed to get into the water with Tilikum  for safety reasons as a result of the deaths before Ms. Brancheau's.  Some reports described Tilikum's behaviour as 'play' that had gone horribly wrong.  He had had a good performance session with Ms Brancheau just before he attacked her and the two had been sharing a friendly moment, nose to nose when he dragged her into the water by grabbing her hair.  I think any effort to psychoanalyse Tilikum's behaviour is of no use; the fact is that he caused the death of Ms. Brancheau and procedures for interactions around him need to be controlled so as to prevent this from happening again.  Tilikum is performing again; this was said to be good for him as the activity and interaction with humans and other orcas would benefit him, which seems a fair consideration.  Orcas are intelligent, sociable animals; Tilikum is being held captive and from an animal welfare viewpoint his keepers should provide him with opportunities to lead as comfortable and fulfilling a life as possible.  The question is whether this is really possible in captivity? The other question is could he ever be released to live free, or partially free, again?

I am not an orca expert and can only reflect on what I have read.  Orcas in the wild live in matriarchal family units called pods.  There is a strong bond between members within the pod and also a hierarchical structure.  Pods are said to have their own culture and their own dialect and it was reported that orcas from different pods and geographical locations would have problems communicating with each other and integrating into one social group.  Thus, it was proposed that orcas captured from different parts of the world being forced into each other's company may cause stress and lead to displays of violence towards each other.  There have been reports of captive orcas raking each other in the pool, with one such incident leading to the death of an orca when she charged into the pool wall, rather than her intended victim, and mortally injured herself.  It is not clear to me whether such incidents occur in the wild.  It was reported that the conflicts may have arisen due to hierarchy quarrels and it is not beyond imagination that such quarrels would occur in the wild as well.  However, it is reasonable to expect that quarrels may be more frequent when a pod is being created artificially where there are no cultural or familial links between the animals.

The capture of orcas has been made more difficult and aquariums are making efforts to establish a breeding programme to circumvent this.  Essentially this would mean establishing a population of orcas in captivity that have never been in the wild.  This domestication programme, allegedly,  also circumvents some of the ethical issues surrounding the capture of orcas.  However, breeding orcas in captivity has not been that successful and the average life expectancy of orcas, either captured or born in captivity, is much lower than in the wild.  This leads to concerns as to the living conditions that are provided  Additionally it is impossible to provide the space that orcas are used to in the wild.  In the case of Tilikum, one of the other reasons why trainers are disallowed in the water is his sheer size.  Campaigners for his release state that the pools he is kept in are far too small for him.  Orcas are broadly divided into transients, residents and offshores with each having different feeding habits and territorial range.  These types are often placed into pods with no regard for their differences.  They do not interbreed  in the wild but hybrid orcas  are bred in captivity.  There has also been issues with mothers not knowing how best to care for their young because of the lack of examples of what maternal care entails.   

The argument for keeping orcas in aquariums is that the few that are presented to delight and entertain humans make us feel interested in their well-being and so we make more effort to safe-guard the ones in the wild; holding a small number of orcas in captivity is for the greater good.  Personally I find the argument a bit light on weight.  I care deeply about the well-being of animals in general, most of which I will probably only see on TV, and am quite happy with that.  I do understand that zoos and aquariums  do a lot in terms of conservation and I laud the people who work in them with that purpose in mind.  However, we need to do things appropriately rather than just make do.  The real problem is our mismanagement of our use of the world and if we don't care about it enough to change our ways, and need coaxing to perform our duties through the incarceration  of animals that fare badly in captivity, maybe we deserve to be extinct along with everything else we render extinct.

Shoe-bag ladies

One of the common sights in the city are ladies in trainers or flip flops carrying bags for their 'proper' shoes and other items of clothing they would like to wear at work but not during the commute.  These magic bags are like Tardis' in that they seem to have a lot more space inside than you would have thought from the outside.  They are also rather large items; hard to miss, like a Tardis.  Most ladies would have one of these bags and a smaller handbag, and one often finds them juggling the bags while they walk, on the escalators in tube stations, or on the tube.  It seems hard to find things in them as the ladies always seem to have to dig in the bags a long time to find the items they want.

It begs the question why is clothing for the work place so impractical that one needs to carry a wardrobe with one to work in order to be presentable?  For example, why do women wear shoes that are impossible to walk in at work?  Is it more important to look a certain way than to be able to walk properly?  Maybe I am a bit stuck in the mud but I am of the opinion that clothing that are too uncomfortable for a person to function in are not fit-for-purpose and have therefore failed the design test.  If a pair of shoes is meant to be purely decorative, rather than to be worn for walking, then it should be left on display at home (or in the shop).

A short walk in the morning.

Getting out of bed in the morning is harder than waking up.  In the winter months when its nice and warm in bed, its much easier to succumb to the comfort and warmth offered by the duvet than to emerge and face the struggle into a robe that has been left out in the cold.  Having a shower is nice; coming out of the shower is not.  In contrast to all this, walking out of the house into the cold, crisp morning is rather pleasant.  Being woken up by natural light and having your head cleared by chilled air is a good way to start the day.  So much so that it is worth walking a little distance to a bus stop a bit further away from my usual one, just to be able to enjoy this for a while longer.  There are a number of schools down my street and its cheering to hear the sounds of children chatting and laughing on their way to lessons.  An extra 5 minutes of pleasure before its time to focus on the day ahead.  This is my favourite time of the year.

The smell of fear part 2

And it happened again! I cannot believe it! It wasn't the same skier but it was the same misjudgement which led to the same kind of trauma.

Our holiday operator organised a trip to another ski resort not far from where the first incident occurred, half way through the week-long holiday. I wanted to have a look at this other resort as this may be a potential future destination so I went along for the day trip. When we got to our drop off point for the day we were told by the guide that to get to the main ski area we would need to take the gondola up to our first ski point and then we would have to ski down a couple of blue runs and take a couple of chair lifts, but we were not to worry as she would be with us to ensure we knew where we're going and to arrange a meet up point for later. At this announcement, one of the skiers sitting behind me got hysterical and said she was 'going to kill that girl' (that girl being the guide) and that had she known this she wouldn't have come on this trip at all. She couldn't possibly ski down on blue runs. Having said this she didn't decide to wait in the coach or the coffee shop by the gondola departure point but decided to come along with the group, while she vocalised her displeasure about the situation to the guide. I was surprised by how rude and unreasonable she was but I guess fear can do strange things to a person. She was there by her own choice so why was she taking it out on the guide?

As we proceeded on our way she screamed at every turn and whenever anyone passed her, i.e. she screamed quite a lot. Our guide tried to make things easy by keeping the group together- availability of familiar faces and human shields from other skiers- and taking the descent in stages. At every stop this woman complained about how it was very hard on her and that she was feeling quite unwell from having to do this. She also kept saying to her husband that she wanted to head back and make their own way back to our base resort. We got to the central ski area and went our separate ways after we arranged a meeting point and time to head home later that afternoon. I was relieved to not have to deal with her again until later, and be able to enjoy the spectacular skiing and views on offer. It was, however, more of the same on the way back; she didn't head back on her own as she had threatened.

I'm not entirely sure what she was expecting but its a bit over-ambitious to go away for a day to a ski area that one isn't familiar with when one can't be confident of managing an easy ski run. The guide was there to take care of the travel arrangements, not to teach the skiers how to ski so why is this the guide's fault? The resort we were based at had a couple of blue runs and the rest were all reds and blacks. The one we visited had more blue runs and was probably more suitable for beginners. However, if the lack of familiarity is a worry, what the skier needed was probably lessons and more practice somewhere she could repeat the actions without having to worry about the routes. If she had thought things through and considered what was best for her she probably would not have come on the visit. But she didn't think it through. Mountains can be unfriendly places if one is ill-prepared; it could have been an expensive mistake to make. 

The smell of fear

Fear can make the most rational person irrational. Today we spent the best part of the afternoon trying to calm a very scared skier and to help her get herself to the bottom of a ski run. The skier in question is a novice who was making good progress in her efforts to learn to ski when she had an accident, while on a skiing lesson, that stopped her from participation for two years, initially due to the physical trauma and later from loss of confidence in her own abilities.

The novice skier decided to restart skiing lessons this winter and after a morning on the slopes with an instructor decided to join a group of friends for lunch at a restaurant situated near a blue run. She has the technical ability to ski blue runs and the group had offered to keep her company on the way down after the meal. On the way up the novice skier was separated from her chair lift partner because she had been unable to follow through the gates when they opened for them to move to the seating area. She was upset at having to travel on a chairlift alone and by the time she got to the top of the lift section she was terrified to the point of tears. All through the meal she was worried about the descent as she realised that this was a ski section she had not been on before, and she was unhappy about being on unfamiliar ground.

We set off as a group of 6 after lunch with her in the middle of the group so that she was somewhat shielded from other skiers- she was worried they would crash into her. She was so worked up by this point that she was unable to do anything at all and had to be guided down one turn at a time, stopping at the top of every brow and when fear- of other skiers, the steepness of the incline, etc- struck her. To her credit she got to the bottom and decided that she needed more lessons to help her regain her confidence, and she duly arranged for these for the rest of the trip.

Safety first and foremost. It is great to be able to get about the mountains on skis but these are inhospitable places and when in doubt it is prudent not to engage in battle with them. One must be realistic about one's abilities to travel in these terrains and take responsibility for one's own safety. This means planning ahead- getting to know where one is going- and honestly assessing whether one is up to the challenge. A person should be the best judge of his/her own abilities as, in the case of an adult, he/she is the only person ultimately responsible for his/her own safety. It may seem boring when this means non-participation in certain activities but safety should be the main consideration.

Hitting the white stuff again

Its that time of year when one decides the alpine snowy peaks are too irresistibly beautiful to decline a visit. So off we go again on to a plane and then a coach to play in the snow. It wouldn't be a holiday if there weren't some kind of trouble on the way. And this time, the first in a long while, it was trouble with the luggage.

The four flights involved took off and landed on time. However, Turin airport seemed ill prepared for the arrival of the bags on board these flights. Immigration services were hugely efficient so there wasn't even much of a queue through passport control but for some reason the bags were delivered to the wrong baggage areas and it took airport personnel, and everybody else, about 1.5 hours to figure this out. Thus, passengers from Bristol and Manchester, who were the first and second of the four groups of passengers to arrive, stood waiting by an empty luggage conveyor belt 3, as indicated by the information screens, for about 1.5 hours wondering why it was taking airport staff so long to deliver their bags from their planes. Maybe it was because it was a Sunday and the airport was short of staff? Meanwhile, passengers from London at belt 4 were amazed that bags started appearing quite soon after they arrived but wondered why the belt seemed to be almost full, with bags which weren't being collected by anyone standing around that area. The bags from London did eventually arrive and as some people picked theirs up they noticed that the flight numbers on some of the baggage tags didn't seem to match those listed on the information screen.

Meanwhile, a few people from the Bristol plane noticed that belt 4 was quite full and, wondering if something may be amiss, went round to belt 4 to check the baggage tags and found that their bags had indeed been delivered to the adjacent luggage belt. They went back to tell their friends and this led to a near stampede of people from belt 3 to belt 4. Unfortunately, the bags from Manchester were not on belt 4 so the passengers from the Manchester plane then proceeded to check from belt to belt to try to find their bags, only to discover that they were no where to be found. So they went back to wait by belt 3. By this point the information screens showed that the bags from Bristol were on both belts 3 and 4, even though belt 3 remained resolutely empty.

The passengers from a plane that had arrived from Newcastle and were waiting on belt 5, caught wind of what was happening and started to wander around looking for their bags. A message came up on their conveyor belt information screen that told them that their bags were being delivered to belt 3 instead so they all went to belt 3 and waited for less than a quarter of an hour when a message then came up to say, sorry but their bags were actually on belt 5. They returned to belt 5 which was still empty when I left about 10 minutes after this. The group from Manchester were also still waiting by belt 3 when I left.

Surprisingly everyone seemed to handle the situation with good humour and laughed at, rather than moaned about, the ridiculous situation. Maybe the prospects of fun in the snow meant that glitches could be overlooked. The magic of holidays.

No pot noodle but plenty of pot holes

The snow melted and revealed plenty of pot holes on the roads.  On the way home to London on the M40 after a new year weekend gathering, I found myself having to dodge potholes on the motorway- sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully.  This could be quite damaging for the car as some of these were quite deep.  Large stretches of the motorway are poorly lit which makes it all the more difficult to spot and avoid these when driving through at night.

I was not travelling at particularly high speeds because of the potholes and insufficient lighting, and was more on my guard than usual. I was much alarmed when I suddenly spotted two figures in bright yellow fluorescent jackets standing in the middle of the left hand lane, with spades/shovels apparently doing some maintenance work on the road, their maintenance vehicle parked besides them with lights on.  I was travelling on the left hand lane and quickly tried to slow down and change lanes without causing an accident.  I managed to avoid them and my passenger told me he thought he saw them signalling something to me while we were driving towards them, as if to tell us to go into the next lane.  I didn't see the hand signals but I didn't want to pile into them either so did it anyway.  I also didn't see any warning signs to inform drivers that there were men on the road and there were no barriers to protect them from the cars.  I still cannot believe that actually happened but it did.

Whoever you are, you two men in the left hand lane, please don't do it again!