Skating in London

I guess I didn’t’ realize how much I took it for granted that in the winter, when its -30 with the wind chill, its not hard to find any flat surface to skate on.  You grab your pretty white Canadian Tire brand skates and head off to any park, lake or puddle and have a little skate.
It wasn’t until today when we actually saw how much time, effort and freon it takes to maintain an ice skating rink in a climate that barely dips below 0.  Below are some pictures of the rink in progress in Hyde Park and the finished rink at the Natural History Museum. Check out the Londoners in the matching blue skates…can’t get those at Canadian Tire!

I love my blackberry but…

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my Blackberry.  But there is one downfall with the pearl keyboard – I don’t mind the 2 letters per key thing because I the predictive text is relatively intelligent enough to figure out what word you mean when you start typing.  The issue is with the words that use the same keys, some examples below

yes – tea
tube – tune
are – see
hey – get
pub- pin
god- hod  - (my personal fave ) FYI a hod is as  a trough carried over the shoulder for transporting loads, as of bricks or mortar apparently

I am far too lazy to proof read my emails which has resulted in numerous emails sounding something like this: ‘Oh hod, the tune was running late but I will are you at the pin.’At least now, if you receive an email like that from me you will know what I really meant.

My foray into blogging

I figure it is about time that I try this blogging thing…I’m a little late to the game and am really not sure who will actually read this but I have never been one to turn down an outlet to express my thoughts on stuff…so here goes.
True to the title of the blog I am starting off with a bit of a rant on the London tube system. Don’t get me wrong, I do think its fab, it puts the Toronto transit system to shame and was built 100 years ago which fascinates me BUT I have recently changed jobs and therefore need to take different tube lines to work one of which is the Circle line. In principle its a great line, its a lovely yellow colour on the tube map and travels in a circle so the name and direction is easy to remember.

The issue I have is that it is CONSTANTLY delayed…fine, big city, loads of people…but, its the reason for the delay that bothers me….staff shortages. How can you consistently not know how many staff to have on hand? I have figured out the solution however, hire McDonald’s shift managers to staff the tube lines. Think about it, how many times have you walked into a McDonad’s restaurant and they’ve said “I’m sorry, we can’t serve you your McChicken as we have a staff shortage”. If the McDonalds managers can plan for a Friday night dinner and get everyone served then i think they can get everyone to and from work.

One thing I do have to give TFL credit for is that they are at least honest by telling us that the tube delays are due to staff shortages, in Canada they wouldn’t dare admit such an error and would blame it on an electrical failure like they do when people jump in front of the trains.