12 of 12, March

It's March, which means we are nearly a quarter of the way through the year. My god where has the year gone. And the only answer I can think of is "In front of us, or behind us, depending on which way you are looking". Which I think is quite a good way of looking at things, but I can't remember where I originally heard that line.

Obviously one of those little bits of information that has decided not to stay in my head and make room for something more useful. For example the story of a Russian air hostess who got blown out of an aircraft at 33,300 ft and survived. Why I remember that one I don't know, it's just been with me since primary school.

Maybe that's why we blog, so we don't have to remember.

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1. 06:35
Always the first dilemma of the morning, which tie to go for. I'm a big fan of the colout blue, so that colour features prominantly in most of my ties. In the end I selected the left hand one.

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2. 07:00
This photo didn't come out as well as I intended. It looks just like some random outdoor shot. In fact at the time I took the photo the tree was leaning over quite heavily due to the gale that was blowing around my house. Unfortunately the picture was from the wrong angle. Well we live and learn.

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3. 07:25
Again a work photo before anybody else gets in the office. This is my current test rig for testing software at my desk. The hardware doesn't look that technological advanced, because it isn't. It's part of an older system that I'm modifying for a customer. I go to site next week to install it, here hoping it all goes smoothly.

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4. 16:15
Time for some shopping. This week I'm helping to run a practice expedition for the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh group at Cadets. So I need to pick up some camping supplies and some food for the group for the weekend. This is Blacks, its one of the biggest camping retailers in the country, also one of our cadet instructors works there so he slips me a discount.

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5. 16:45
Now for the food shopping. Asda, part of the Wal-mart family. I'm looking for stuff that's easy to cook and will keep in a rucksack. Preferably boil in the bag stuff. I know it's rubbish but for just one night the stuff will do. And you can always eat more of it if you are hungry. The best thing about expeditions is that as well the boil in the bag stuff you also get to eat a lot of sweet stuff. Hiking takes a lot of calories, about 2 - 3 x as many as a normal days intake. They recommend lots of high energy foods to help sustain this. Especiallyas you can't stop every hour to cook bowls of pasta.

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6. 17:45
I think I may have gone a bit mad with the shopping. There are 16 boxes of boil in the bag meals there. The boxes looked too small to contain a good meal so I bought at least enough for 2 boxes each. Also the boxes were 8 for £4!!!!! So going overboard didn't cost me that much. Also notice the packets of biscuits and chocolate, they're also for the expedition.

I can't wait.

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7. 18:00
Something else I bought for the weekend, this time for me. It's a head torch, useful for keeing your hands free, in the dark, for example while trying to cook. I was looking for some cool light effects with this shot, but the lense flare I could see on the screen didn't translate to the actual picture. I'm learning all sorts of things this month.

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8. 19:25
Tonights entertainment. The book I've been reading on/off for the last month. With the amount of studying I've been doing for my expedition leaders course Finding time for me has been difficult. After my assessment that should hopefully change. Oh and guess what, my assessment is on the 12th April. You know what that means!!

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9. 19:55
I don't know why, but I always seem to be doing a stirfry whenever I'm taking pictures for 12 of 12. I can cook other things, honest.

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10. 20:45
Do you remeber the picture of the food for my expedition? Yep, it's the same bar of Toblerone. I just couldn't resist. Especially as I'm about to curl up on the couch in front of a DVD. It's actually a "fruit and nut" Toblerone, which is actually a bit of a con. It's actually just a Toblerone with Raisons, still very nice.

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11. 21:30
DVD watching. Generally when watching a DVD full of episodes I'll skip through the ending credits. Having seen them once you generally don't repeatedly watch them over again at the end of each episode. However this series (Trinity Blood) has such a nice ending song, that I generally don't skip it. It's sung by a Japanese artist (I don't know who) in english. I think the song is called broken wings.

Oh and the lights were on, the photo just came out very dark. That's three photo's inone sitting that weren't quite right. If things come in 3's that should be the last of them.

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12. 22:00
I still had a little bit of studying to do before I went to bed. I was looking at an Ordenance Survey map (a company that provides all types of maps in the UK) of the area we are camping/hiking in this weekend. The map is a 1:50,000 (2cm = 1km) scale map of a type suitable for hiking (it shows terrain as well as paths).

I'm actually looking at it on my PC as I have a number of these maps on my PC making it easier to plot routes. During the weekend we have to teach the cadets to plot a route, however using the old fashioned method of paper map and compass.
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That's it fdor this month. For adventurous photo's you'll have to wait for next month. If you've been reading this and wondering why I've done all this then visit Chad's blog and all will become clear.

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