Groningen Museum

Arriving on the train from Amsterdam this morning I went straight to the Groningen Museum. This made sense as the museum is right in front of the station, lying on an island in the canal that runs in front of the station and circumambulates the old part of the city, effectively turning the whole of the old city into an island.

Groningen Train Station

It also made sense because I could leave my heavy bag in the cloakroom and so didn't have to walk round with it for a few hours. I'm only in Groningen for 3 days and so only have my daypack but it's still heavy to be lugging around with me all day. The hostel is on the far side of the town, only a 20 min walk from the station but still ... and I couldn't check in till after 3pm anyway.

It cost a hefty 13 euros to get into the museum and I briefly toyed with the idea of getting a museum year card at 49 euros but worked out I probably wouldn't get my money's worth. When I used to come to the Netherlands more often I always had a  museum card and it was so much nicer not having to worry about the cost when going to museums.

I had no idea what to expect from the very modern multi-coloured building (a complete contrast to the old ornate train station opposite) so hoped I wasn't to be disappointed. I wasn't.


The current special exhibition is on Nordic Art and blew my mind. The colours! The light! The impact! I had never heard of any of the artists but now have a few new favourites.There were artists representing all five countries which are considered Nordic - Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland. I spent well over an hour walking from room to room trying to take it all in.

Yin Xiuzhen 'Weapon' 2003-2007

 

Another exhibition which caught my attention was the a display of weapons hanging from the ceiling of one of the rooms, all at different heights. Each 'weapon' had a kitchen knife tip but the hilt was made from old clothes; stretched jumpers and the like. It was all rather colourful and effective. Here's the blurb:





Resembling darts that appear to be heading directly toward their target, these colourful objects look not only dangerous but also comical. On the one hand, the threat is reinforced by the knives that are attached to the spear-like objects, but the fact that these are primarily kitchen knives, in conjunction with the feature that they are made of second-hand clothes, emphasizes their domestic nature. The 'weapons' evoke the idea of TV masts, which have similar form and function all over the world. To Yin, they are the ultimate weapon. After all, they control the flow of information like gigantic filters.

How deep and meaningful is that?

I sat in the theatre for an hour watching a Michael Palin film about Danish artist Hammersvoi. I'd never come across this programme before let alone the artist so learnt quite a lot.

The rest of the museum I wasn't so interested in. The regular collection, which was actually quite good, couldn't excite me after the Nordic Art exhibition. I also found a basement room full of crockery. China displays never really interest me at the best of times and this one didn't either. What I did like about it was the way it had been displayed. The glass cabinets were all shrouded by a maze of net curtains. It really was like a maze and got quite disorientating walking around trying to see everything and never knowing what was going to be behind the next curtain. In one space the exhibits were actually in the floor with a layer of glass over them. I think it was meant to be representative of how some of these exhibits have been 'discovered' but as there was no information it was difficult to be sure. 

Finally I saw an exhibition of Russian women artists which at another time I probably would have really enjoyed but by this time I was all museum-ed out and had achey legs and an empty stomach. I retired to the restaurant for an expensive panini and a cup of coffee before wandering round town and finding my hostel.

Here are some of the amazing Nordic Art paintings I saw:

Snow Stops Recce

This weekend I should have been camping and recceing the walks we'll do in May and June with our Duke of Edinburgh students. After hearing reports of possible bad weather earlier in the week we decided to just go out on Sunday instead. But now with snow caused road closures we've called our Sunday only recce off as well.

Just over a week ago I did an afternoon course for expedition leaders which went over all the basics. Some of it was obvious, but I did get a few new things to think about and met some interesting people, so it was worth it. Obviously in just an afternoon I wasn't going to become an expert leader but it has strengthened my confidence in that my prior knowledge and experience should stand me in good stead.

So I was all enthused and ready to get out and start doing practical stuff. A colleague and I had pored over maps and worked out a route, my colleague (who's far more proactive and practical than me) has booked the campsites for the practice and the assessed expeditions. Because we have such a large group and because we have both silver and bronze students, we're going to have to divide them into two separate groups and go out different weekends with them. As the silver walk 3 days and the bronze walk two days we've worked out 3 day routes of which the bronze students will walk 2 days worth. The assessed route has to be different to the practice route so even with the bronze students walking part of the silver routes that's still 6 days walking in total that needs to be recced.

Now that we haven't got out this weekend and I'll be away for the next 3 weekends over the Easter holidays I really don't know how we're going to fit this in before we start taking students out in May. I can see me having no free time between the end of Easter right up until the summer, but at least I'll be doing something I enjoy and getting back out into the Peaks.

Learning to drive on the wrong side of the road

A couple of weeks ago I went a long way (literally and metaphorically) to achieving this goal.

I'd been asked by a friend if I'd like to spend half term visiting her new caravan in the South of France. The catch was that I'd share the driving and help move the contents of her old caravan in Normandy to the new one in Serignan Plage. I jumped at the chance. Not only did I get a very cheap holiday and got to see some new places, I also got to work on one of my challenges.

Margaret picked me up at about 1.30am after a busy last day at school on the Friday. Who needs sleep? We spent the night driving down to Portsmouth for the early morning ferry. I took my first turn at driving her car and was pleased to be able to get used to it whilst there wasn't much traffic about and whilst still driving on this side of the road.

We boarded the ferry and went straight to our cabin to get a few hours sleep. Once we landed 5 or 6 hours later in Caen we had to drive for another hour or two to get to our hotel near the campsite where the old caravan had been. We had time for a look around Granville before going for dinner and getting to bed.

Next morning, after the what must be the world's nicest croissants and baguette for breakfast we went to the lock-up where her stuff was stored. Once we'd succeeded in the challenge of getting the door unlocked (hitting the lock with a stone eventually worked) it took us a few hours to load up the car and roof-rack.

Then it was a VERY long drive down to the south coast. We took turns in driving and I was surprised by how quickly I got into it. It was a Sunday so was fairly quiet and we were mainly on the motorway, so all I really had to do was point the car in the right direction and drive, but even so. By the time we arrived I was feeling quite happy with myself.

During the week and on my last day when we drove to Spain so I could fly home from Girona airport I had a few more goes at driving and this time experienced traffic lights, roundabouts, traffic jams, and so on. As my last challenge I made sure it was my turn to drive as we drove over the Pyrenees and across the border into Spain.

I haven't quite decided whether to tick this challenge off as complete yet. I specifically want not just to have a go at driving on the wrong side of the road, but to be able to say I can do it confidently. Although I felt fine driving over the week I was in France, I'm not sure I would be as confident if I suddenly had to do it again in a year's time. I think I'd need some time to get used to it again. Also, I haven't driven alone yet, and it's very different not having a second pair of eyes to look out for potential hazards. So at the moment I'm thinking of leaving this one as an 'in progess' rather than considering it completed.

Toilets and showers in the Outer Hebrides

I thought the following might be useful for anyone planning a trip round the Outer Hebrides this summer in which they're intending to wild camp most of the time. If you are staying in official accommodation your showering and toileting needs will be sorted for you, but if not then make a note of the info below. And if anyone has any more to add, please leave a note in the comments. The prices are from the summer of 2012 and are correct to the best of my memory.

Barra - toilets at the village hall in Castlebay (not open until about 9am and closed early evening) and also at the ferry terminal in Castlebay (but only open when the waiting room is open around the time of ferries). Showers in the sports centre in Castlebay (£1.05)

Vatersay - toilets in the village hall. Walk round the outside of the building to the left.

Eriskay - toilets and showers at the ferry port (24 hours, showers are £1)

South Uist - toilets and showers near the tourist office in Lochboisdale (showers £1)

Benbecula - toilets and showers in the sports centre (showers are £1.05. The centre is closed on Tuesdays)

North Uist - toilets by the harbour and also in the museum in Lochmaddy. Showers at the Lochmaddy Hotel but I don't know the price.

Baleshare - no facilities

Berneray - toilets are at the ferry port (24hrs). Showers and toilets by the harbour about a mile from the ferry port (closed at 9pm, showers £1)

Harris - toilets at the ferry port in Leverburgh (24 hrs). Toilets and showers in the bus station in Tarbert, not sure of the opening hours. (Showers 50p)

Lewis - toilets and shower at the Kinloch Historical Centre in Laxay near Stornoway (24hrs, showers 50p), also at the sports centre in Stornoway (£1.05). There are also public toilets by the yacht harbour and car park but there is a charge and they are not open 24hrs. There are toilets in the ferry port where the ferries leave for Ullapool.

St Kilda - toilets at the back of the shop

Also the ferry from Oban to Barra has showers, but the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry doesn't.

Oman and the wonder that is facebook

I was supposed to go to Oman in the February half term to visit a friend who moved there last summer. When I looked at flights the prices were way too high - if I could have gone a day earlier and come back a day later they would have been just over half the price I was being quoted. So I went to France and Spain instead and starting learning to drive on the wrong side of the road.

On Saturday I was chatting to said friend over facebook and she mentioned that October has nice weather and asked why don't I consider going over in the October half term? A scan through various websites looking at flights and they all seemed too expensive. Damn school holidays. Why do they always have to be in the school holidays? In a last ditch attempt I looked at Emirates, fully expecting them to be the most expensive of all. Bargain! They had reasonably priced flights for the dates I was looking at. Of course I then assumed I'd got the dates wrong. A message on facebook asking for confirmation of our half term dates got me a couple of replies in under a minute! Satisfied I'd not confused the dates, and overjoyed at the efficiency of facebook, I went ahead and booked.

I have a 6 hour wait in Dubai airport on the way out, but I'm not too bothered about it. I've been told it's a great airport and one that it's easy to while away some time in. Although I've stayed practically next door to it before in the Dubai youth hostel, I've never actually been in the airport. It'll be quite late at night, so I won't bother working out plans to go out and do anything in Dubai, I'll just have a full-on airport experience. On my return the wait is less than an hour an a half.

Once I get to Oman I'll have a week to explore, relax and catch up with my old friends, Dawn and the sun.

Britain's Got Talent Audition

After a lot of procrastination I decided that spending up to 12 hours at the Britain's Got Talent audition would be a good use of my Sunday.

Alex had come over from Amsterdam just before Christmas when I was in middle of all my building chaos because he'd got an audition for the show. This was a first round audition which I think is fairly easy to get. Auditions were held at various locations around the UK and he'd picked Manchester so he could combine it with a visit to see me. The audition went well and soon afterwards he was called and told he'd got through to the second round. This was before Christmas. He'd not heard anything more so had kind of written it off, but then he was called again on Wednesday and told he needed to be in Manchester on Sunday. A quickly booked flight and a phone call to me and before he knew it, he was on his way over again. He arrived on Saturday and I met him in Manchester after my NUT meeting.



Early breakfast in my kitchen

Sunday morning we were up at 6am. I made sandwiches whilst he did his make-up. By 7.45 we were on the road to the Lowry in Salford Quays ready for the 8.30 appointment. He'd gone to the first audition alone, but as the second round is televised the auditionees (is that a word?) are asked to bring friends and family members with them to make up the audience and provide 'background crowd' for the interviews. I was quite interested in going and wanted to be there to give moral support, but hesitated when he was warned that we'd probably be there for 12 hours.


In the end I decided to go as I'll probably never get another chance to do something like this and I might pick up tips for making films myself or tips to help me as a drama teacher (this is what I spend a large chunk of my time teaching even though I know nothing about the subject and have no dramatic ability myself).

We sat for a few minutes with a few other contestants in the foyer before being called to the registration area upstairs. Registration involved sitting around for a while and then all lining up in front of the registration desk. One by one the contestants went forward to register and be filmed for the first time. The friends, family and other contestants made up the crowd scene backdrop. 

Once registered we were taken to another building across the way. Before we could get out of the doors however, Alex was whisked away to do the first of many interviews and I was escorted alone to the other building. People were just starting to filter in and the crew were buzzing around setting up lights and cameras. One of the crew members 'Lilly' spoke to us all and asked us to take coats and scarves off. As the show will be aired in May we needed to look a bit more summery. She also reminded us that cameras were running all the time and so we should look cheerful and alert and definitely not look as though we'd got up at 6am on a Sunday morning!

The holding room

Alex was brought over, but didn't have much time to tell me about his interview before he was called for another one. This was filmed in the main holding room (see how I know the lingo?) and so I stood alongside and watched. The interviewer was asking questions from a clipboard which obviously held all the information from the long questionnaire he'd had to complete before Christmas. He was coached into answering in full sentences, encompassing the question as he answered. For example, if asked what his favourite colour was, rather than answering 'blue', he would have to answer 'my favourite colour is blue'. Presumably this interview will be edited into a monologue.

Throughout the day Alex was repeatedly taken away by different people to do interviews or to be filmed walking about (including walking slowly round the holding room) or to have stills taken. Each time he was gone, I either sat reading or stared around me. The room had filled up and it was interesting to try to guess what the different acts entailed. Some of the costumes looked great: a dance troupe with black and gold costumes and make-up looked sophisticated and exciting; the dance troupe in the American flag dresses less so. On the whole, the people who were wearing costumes of one type or another looked good, whereas the people who just looked 'dressed up' seemed quite tacky: wrong shoes; wrong skirt lengths and styles for their legs: frizzy hair and make-up that looked as though it had been drawn on with crayons.

Finally, late on into the afternoon Alex was called over to the theatre to do his audition. I couldn't go with him, but was told to wait and I'd be taken over just before he went on stage. It was quite a long wait and I did wonder if I'd been forgotten. I was waiting with and talking to a woman who was there supporting her husband and we'd seen them on and off all day. Her husband had been taken over at the same time as Alex.

Eventually we were led across to the theatre and told to wait outside. A few minutes later we were ushered in and instructed to sit in aisle seats close to the stage. The audience was quite large, presumably with people who'd applied for audience tickets. Just as we got inside the judges (minus Simon Cowell who'd called in with a sickie) decided to take a break. We sat for quite while with not very much happening. The odd person would walk across the stage and move something, but that was it. Then someone came to us and said the running order had been changed and we'd have to go back to the holding room. Not to worry, we'd be brought over again when the auditionees we were supporting were due to go on.

The stage and the empty judges' chairs

So we sat, we chatted, we looked at our watches, we waited. Then I saw Alex walk in. He came straight over: 'Where were you? Why weren't you in the audience?'

Turns out he'd been on and I hadn't been there.

He said he'd barely got into the first line of his song when he was buzzed off. They'd said he was singing out of tune. Being a fair sort of bloke he said he had to believe them as he couldn't hear himself to know if it was true or not. Many of the other acts had been allowed to do a sound check, but he hadn't, so when he got on stage this was the first time he'd heard the volume at which his backing track was played.

When speaking to him after rejecting him the judges made a big deal about something quite minor he'd mentioned in his application. Throughout the day this had been referred to in interviews as well. He found it quite strange and more than a little annoying that this was what they'd fixated on rather than the many other much more relevant details he'd provided. They'd also asked him if there was anyone in the audience who supported him and thought he should have a second chance. Of course, no-one said anything and so he'd said 'Anne, where are you?' but of course I wasn't there.

We couldn't go home straight away as he still needed to do another interview and so we needed to wait around for that. As we discussed what had happened, it did seem like a bit of a set-up. Why hadn't he been allowed to do a sound check? Why had I been taken out of the audience just before his audition? Why had they fixated on this one particular detail from his questionnaire?

Talking about it afterwards, I got the impression that he was glad to have had the experience of taking part and of having got to the second round, but was disappointed to have fallen foul of what seems to have been some hidden agenda.

As for me, it was a boring day but interesting at the same time. It's not something I'd want to do again, but I am glad I decided to go along today and have the behind-the-scenes experience.

10 Jobs

I've been thinking about my job and how I'm in need of a change. The job I've got now is the longest job I've ever had and I'm definitely getting itchy feet. This started me thinking about my skills which led to me thinking about all the different jobs I've had.

So many kids at school say they know what they want to do when they leave and that's the only thing they're going to do for the rest of their lives and therefore they most certainly don't need to learn whatever it is I'm trying to teach them as it's not relevant to them and they'll never need it. It's so frustrating trying to convince them that they probably won't do the same thing all their lives and also quite sad that their aspirations are so low they think they'll be happy doing the same thing day in, day out for the rest of their working lives.

When I was 15 I knew I wanted to have a varied life and do different things, but not even in the wildest depths of my imagination could I have thought up even half the things I ended up doing.

Here are 10 relatively normal jobs I've had:

1. School teacher
2. English as a foreign language teacher
3. Manager
4. Waitress
5. Cook
6. Au pair
7. Barmaid
8. Call centre phone person
9. Receptionist
10. GCSE examiner

And here are 10 slightly more unusual jobs I've had:

1. Selling burgers and chips from a shed on a market
2. Milking cows
3. Making wheels in a wheel factory
4. Picking kumquats
5. Cleaning chicken sheds
6. Debt collector
7. Market research, going door-to-door with a large bag stuffed with special pad samples trying to interest women in talking about their bladder control problems
8. Sandwich technician
9. Having my face painted in order to be an extra in a Persil Automatic advert
10. Cookie baker