Hello again world, it's been a while again

Crikey ! Almost a month again since my last post.

I think that's the longest I've gone between posts since I had the break between 2006 and 2008. There's been a few things going on ... Let's see. But first ! Thumbnail pic. Thumbnail pic is very important.

Yep. It's a chocolate dwagonsaur and it was glorious. When I saw it in the service station on Saturday, I knew I'd seen my latest Easter Avatar. And like the marshmallow advent calendar, I got to munch him too.

This post looks like it's kinda going to go a bit backwards in time but Saturday saw me in the Gloucester services again. The one with an amazing farm shop ... Sherbets and bonbons may have jumped in to the shopping basket as well as the chocolate dwagonsaur. Oh and I suspect their canteen gave me some hidden extras that saw me going back and forward to the loo on Saturday evening. All ok now. But I'm waiting until next weekend before I attack the Pineapple chunks again.

Or it could have been that ^.

Oh - Gloucester services, on the way back from getting the car serviced and people attempting to sell me another new car. I've only had this one for a year ! To be honest, I was getting a bit irritated by it, which is a first for that place. One thing that sets Lexus apart is how they treat their customers and I thought trying to get me into another new car after just a year was a bit much.

The car they were looking to get me in to was their fairly new Lexus UX which, thinking about it, nope. It feels like they've let the designers run with ideas that shouldn't necessarily have been let out of the design school. The CT was a genuinely luxury small car that combined great practicality too. It's only real flaw is that the Prius powertrain isn't powerful enough. The IS suits me just fine, it's a comfy cruiser, fairly minimalist but that also means it's uncluttered. The UX is more compressed and a few bits of its design don't really make sense. It has more toys ... but it's also more cluttered and I think less intuitive on the inside. It also has a really high boot floor. I don't use the boot that much but I do like not having to lift things too high to get them in to the boot. Oh and I'll also change boots/shoes (work stuff) with my feet on the boot sill and I think that sill was high enough to endanger trousers.

So - Stan* is all serviced for another year, tyres are all pumped up and the pointiness is back in the steering. All good. I think the tyres were steadily going down, which led to bad fuel economy on the last few tanks. And some sponginess in the steering too, which I didn't notice until it was gone. (Small gradual changes tend not to be noticed !)

*Car names ! Not all of my cars have had names, just the well liked ones. There have been two Buggies ... The Astra and the Puma (I'll get back to the Puma) were both well loved Buggies. The CT I had was the Tardis cos it was just the right blue :

Shiny. The first IS I had was the Grey Ghost, because it was really quiet and grey. This also happened to be the nickname of USS Enterprise in World War 2. So when the next grey IS arrived, it became Alpha. Because NCC 1701A was almost identical to NCC 1701. And then following that meme, NCC 1701B was an Excelsior class Enterprise and Stan Lee (RIP) loved using the word Excelsior. NCC 1701C was an Ambassador class Enterprise, only seen for one of the best ST:TNG episodes (Yesterday's Enterprise). What ambassador could it be ?

Puma ... here's a proper Puma :

I had that car for I think 7 years. The car itself was a big upgrade from the Fiesta, built on the same chassis but given a lot of improvements. It was a lovely little sports coupe and on one occasion, pulled a "MOMMY MOMMY IT'S A SPACESHIP" from a very young passing by boy, which pulled an ear to ear grin from me hearing it. The new Puma is a small SUV. That's heresy. At least pull out a new name !

I've been recovering from jet lag too. A significant amount of the time since the last post was spent in Canada ... Yep. Different country ! (Not counting Wales and Scotland there ...) Different continent ! 3 different time zones ... Or was it 4 time zones. Might have been. I didn't switch to Toronto time on the way back although I did do Ottawa time. Or was Ottawa on the final location time.

I have to be a little careful about that final location because I've already had a "I know exactly where that is !" comment from a picture that went on a discord. A local identified pretty much the exact spot I was standing in. It didn't have anything work related on it (the pic was a moody shot towards a bridge, illuminated by the morning sun) but the Canada trip is definitely a case of potential 1+1 = 3 and you have to be really careful about that on the internet.

So what I mean there is : You know the country. If I said the city, you know the dates as well. And if you saw things in the news about unusual events going on ... then you guess what I was working on. That's not information I want aggregating up to be on the interwebs. Because once it's on the interwebs, it doesn't come off, despite what GDPR and Right to Delete would like to safeguard.

But yeah ! Canada ! Enjoyed my time there, although I did have what could be described as dislocation shock for a bit. The people are great and the reputation that Canadians have for Total Politeness is very much deserved. They're a lovely bunch. All of them ! And very patient with the Brit in town looking to not make too many mistakes and social errors.

When I arrived though, it snowed. They seem amazing about attacking the snow and clearing the roads sufficiently for driving around on them with no impact ... but the snow had just come down when I arrived and the 100km/h multi lane highways were maybe 50km/h single lane of ice. And there may have been a 4 wheel understeer skid coming out of the airport too which woke me up a bit ! Maybe "woken up" is the wrong word there, more like "made me sit up and pay attention". I don't drive on extreme ice much but it just needs an adjustment of mindset and a lot of chilling out to avoid getting in trouble on the ice. 4x4 helps too.

Curiosities about Canada :
Road signs are easier to understand, although I pretty much blanked most of the main ones due to relying on satnav.
They love their flavoured coffee. I see this as a good thing, although it has pretty much confirmed an issue I have with Ginger. It must upset a problem with my insides.
I really miss buttery popcorn. It is lush. (And 1917 is a fantastic film I got to see there in time away from work).
Pedestrians are king. People stop for you in the designated crossing areas. GB could not be more different there. I was in danger of being run over again tonight by someone who wasn't looking where she was driving in a car park.
They really love their flavoured coffee.
Biscuits come in boxes, not packets.
They have Mini Eggs too ...
4 hours of time zone difference can mess you up when you get back !
All the sidewalks and roads were clear of snow by the end of the day after it snowed. Huge amounts of snow around that mind ...

Huge pile of snow !

I've probably said this already but the people were lovely.

I'd happily recommend Canada as a place to go when it's the actual season. Maybe half the places in the more touristy area were closed, because we went there at a specific time of year to get the conditions we needed.

I was rationing my energy somewhat and attempting to avoid too much time zone shock though, so I didn't get out too much around the actual work stuff. But it was a good couple of weeks out there :-).

Last thought - I'm being slightly wary of coronavirus, although I'm not taking any precautions over and above the baseline of minding my sneezes and washing the hands. I saw a very small number of people in the airports wearing masks, plus one of the cabin crew wore a mask on the way back. I'm not sure if she was wearing the mask for protection from bugs or to stave off potential discrimination. She was a pretty Asian lady, which made me think there was potential for Bad People to think Asian = Carrier. That's bad. We should be better than that as a people. Anyway, she was lovely and got the smiles from me.

Be good to people. The Canadians are lovely. Don't trust Samsung ... but that's a different story.

(Ok, ok, I had my Galaxy S7 out there with a temporary SIM card, had to turn data off on it because it was munching my credit and ... it was still using tiny amounts of data, at a much reduced rate but still enough to trigger the minimum 7 cents charge, with the data OFF.)

I have bonbons. Cya !

PPS Books read while out there : Murderbot Chronicles 1 by Martha Wells - short, great. Much enjoyed. Tiamat's Wrath, book 8 of the Expanse by James S.A. Corey - another excellent book in the series that moved the story on in dramatic fashion. Wondering how they'll end it in the next book. A Big Ship At The End Of The Universe by Alex White - space scifi mixed in with a healthy dose of Magic. The premise was new, different, odd and ... actually worked extremely well in this book. I've wishlisted the next two in the series and will read them at some point. And I've made a start on Old Man's War by John Scalzi (mutter car mutter salesmen mutter interrupting reading mutter mutter mutter)