Last thoughts

March 23rd, 2007

We had a last swim in the hotel pool this morning before checking out. I have to confess to leaving the hotel with a slight bad taste in my mouth having been charged for the morning paper that we were offered. On the way back to Fishbourne we stopped off at Bembridge Down to stretch our legs. It turned out to be a fairly morbid trip. There was a car crash just before the turn for the down and, once there, we came across a small group dispensing ashes in to the wind.

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Grey day at Osborne House

March 22nd, 2007

306As forecast, the weather took a distinct turn for the worse today and, where yesterday we had been able to watch the cross-channel ferries from our bedroom window, this morning we could barely see the end of the garden through the grey drizzle. Consequently we decided to pick an indoor attraction: Osborne House. By now it had become clear to us that the Isle of Wight doesn’t really open for business until Easter and Osborne House was no exception. During the winter months you have to be booked in for a tour of the house and, although they scheduled a new tour for us, we still had an hour and a quarter to kill beforehand. This was more than enough to explore the grounds as the walled garden and Swiss cottage were also closed. (We were starting to wonder exactly what we were paying for at this point.)
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Sunny break

March 21st, 2007

294I had some holiday to use up and it’s a while since we’ve had a break so we’ve taken a few days off for a trip to the exotic Isle of Wight! This morning we drove to the Portsmouth to get the ferry over to Fishbourne. It took us less than half an hour to get there and consequently we were just able to sneak on to the back of the ferry before the one we were booked on. The ferry terminal is adjacent to the new Spinnaker Tower which would have afforded great views on such a clear day.
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Software support discontinuance

March 20th, 2007

End of service (as I prefer to call it) has just been announced for WebSphere Application Server Version 5.1 as September 2008. If you’re currently using this version it’s time to start drawing up a plan for moving, preferably to Version 6.1.

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Harewood Hail

March 18th, 2007

It was the regional qualifying round of the CompassSport Cup today with SOC competing at Harewood Forest near Andover. The weather was utterly bizarre: as I got changed there was an absolutely freezing wind blowing, while competing it was quite warm under the blue skies, yet as I made ready to leave, it started hailing!
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Welcome back blogroll

March 16th, 2007

Apologies to those whose sites have recently been absent from the links in my sidebar. The modifications in WordPress 2.1 to use the same categories for posts and links managed to break my pages. Having just moved up to WordPress 2.1.2 this is now fixed so the blogroll returns.

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Running in Romsey

March 14th, 2007

John Horton put on this evening’s street event in Romsey on a new map courtesy of Graham Harrison. For once I hadn’t been orienteering at lunchtime although, as the sun had been shining, I hadn’t been able to resist the group run up to Farley Mount. It didn’t take long for me to decide that I wasn’t going to be able to get all 32 controls but I still didn’t pick a particular good route all the same. Only managed 24 and I was still 26 seconds late back.

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Britannia redeem themselves

March 13th, 2007

288I was back up in Warwickshire again this week with a colleague and we gave Britannia Hotels a chance to redeem themselves by staying at the Bosworth Hall Hotel in Market Bosworth, close to the site of the Battle of Bosworth. As I suspected, there is actually no accommodation in the hall itself with the rooms in various buildings of assorted ages tacked on to the back. As I also suspected from the bargainous £55 per night, the hotel is primarily a conference venue (we were joined by the Wildlife Trusts).
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