That post below about the flickr meet was supposed to appear here yesterday, but I accidentally saved it instead of publishing it, so this post won’t make much sense.
Either way, yesterday, I did indeed attend a social event, which was rare for me. It was nice to meet some members of the group and put names to faces, etc.
My photos are here and everyone else’s will be here … possibly!
You may be shocked and interested to know that today, I shall be doing something strangely sociable for my standards. Now, most of you know that I am absolutely addicted to flickr in every way, shape and form. I currently have over 11Gb of photos on there. That’s not important, however.
What IS important, is that there is a flickr “meet” from some of the members of The People’s Republic of Teesside. And, seeing as I have a decent camera now, I’m going to attend.
I don’t actually know any of these people personally, and given my track record of meeting new people, it should be an interesting day. Photos, etc will follow on my return.
It’s going to be a nice day weather wise by the looks of things which is always a bonus!
Well, I’m here, back home, still typing this blog under Linux. Strangely, I’m still using Ubuntu, and actually finding it useable. I’m sure there’ll be something that’ll stop me using it. Currently I can’t remember how to mount external directories, using smbclient, so that’s something that’s a bit of a nightmare, as I can’t mount my MP3 drive which is hosted in another machine. Thankfully, I’ve cobbled enough music together in order to be listenable.
This also means that I’ve got MP3 ability in Amarok toned down to a tee, along with MySQL configuration. I’m sure I could do both of these now with my eyes closed. OK, slight lie there, but when I see the instructions, at least I understand them, and know what I’m doing with them.
OK, onto the old jobs section. Over the last few days, I’ve been rather reminiscent about my old place of employment back in Summer 2000, mere months before I started this blog.
Andy The Iridium Fan took himself, his bike, and his new shiny camera up to the old Cerebos plant, on the outskirts of Hartlepool. Well, technically, it’s on the outskirts of Greatham, a village separated from Hartlepool by the A689 and the Sappers Corner junction. Anyway, it holds a lot of memories for me.
The year is 2000. Summer 2000, in fact. I had left college, and was still struggling to find a job. I signed up for some training bollocks, of which I don’t remember the name of. Either way, part of this stuff meant that I worked part time in certain places. One of these places was a company named Centura Foods. This place manufactured food products for places such as Sharwoods, Robertsons, Capri-Sun and many others. Actually, I can’t remember if they dealt with all of those brands in this particular factory, as I rarely stepped foot on the “shop floor” as it were.
On my first day, I remember trying to find it, and getting completely lost. I knew it was “in” Greatham, but not in the actual village, but on the outskirts.
The 36 bus carried me from Winterbootom Avenue, all the way to the centre of the village. After leaving the bus, I was totally on my own. Um. Where next?
I can’t remember if I asked for directions, but I found myself in the middle of a thin country lane, with no footpath. expecting to be killed by some passing lorry. It’s very possible I could have been.
I approached the security office, explained who I was, and whether they were expecting me. I “reported for duty” as it were, and they didn’t have a clue who I was. I had no idea whether they were expecting me….
Er, let’s snap out of this memory, and go back to the present day. The first view that greets you is the long road leading down to the factory. It’s a long way down this road. Eventually, you approach a level crossing.
This is the only train line out of Hartlepool to the south, and therefore connects you to London. Just to the left of where this picture was taken, was the old Greatham Station, which was abandoned long ago.
The next stop is the afore mentioned security hut. For a place that has been closed down for nigh on 6 years, the site appears in very good nick…
I think part of this reason is that there’s a right-of-way leading down to a farm. It seems very odd that it’s survived in this condition.
I’ll probably continue this particular blog shortly. At the minute, I’m fooked, off to bed, and it seems a waste to abandon this!
Ah, once again, it is time to shave off my beard. I’ve enjoyed its company since I started growing it on approximately July 22nd, but after a month, it’s just getting a bit too long and scruffy. So, it’s going to take its final long journey down the sink. Shame.
And, as I simply can’t get over how gorgeous I am, here’s a photo of me with the beard.
Oh, ok then, I’m not that good looking.
Since I typed that sentence, I’ve gone and shaved it off now, but I can’t be bothered taking an “after” shot. I normally grow the goatee beard as a bit of a cost saving excersise. When my razor starts to go blunt, that part of my face is the most painful to shave, however, the rest of my face can still be shaved by it quite comfortably. Therefore, to get a few extra weeks out of the blade, I simply just grow the goatee, and I don’t have to shave it!
Is that clever, miserly, or just pure laziness?
I happen to be off work for the next few days, so I have no idea with what to amuse myself with. I’m still trying my best not to buy that camera. I’ll have to see how my finances pan out.
Heh, just woke up from an amusing dream. I dreamt that a gypsy woman was trying to sell me domain names. Glen was there too, and when her selling tactic didn’t work on him, she tried to get me to buy some. I kept replying with “No, not listening”, things link that telling her that I wasn’t interested. She tried to hold my hand, I told her to leave me alone, and that it was assault. I even went to one of the government websites to look up the laws of assault.
Eventually, she said that she was the worst person I’d met. In the end, I challenged her to a game of I Spy, while Glen stared out of the window and began counting a jar full of loose change.
Just before I woke up, I dreamt I’d left the house just in time to see her turquoise Volvo be towed away.
That’s it, I’m officially weird.
In other news, the demolition of Steetley Magenesite is resuming. The large oil container that has remained on the site is about to be pulled down. This means that there’s very little left remaining on the site still standing. Thanks to a series of amazing coincidences, I was able to take a trip around there.
It started off yesterday, as a Flickr user posted to my Steetley group stating that work had recommenced on the site.
The following day was a lovely summers day. The sun eventually managed to break through the clouds, and I was itching to go for a walk. I haven’t done any of my stupidly long walks for a while, as I’d lost the headset for my phone, but seeing as it turned up in the washer a few days ago, I decided to go on one.
A stiff breeze was blowing, which made visibility excellent, therefore I decided to head down to the Headland and collect a few more photos.
While I was taking this photo, a car pulled alongside me. By sheer coincidence, it was Phil! You may remember him being mentioned on the trip to Rievaulx Abbey last year.
He was down the headland too, dropping someone off. We both went our separate ways, and I carried on walking. Just as I headed onto Durham Street to take a stunningly interesting photo of my doctors’ surgery, Phil pulled alongside me again…
“I’ve got my camera with me, fancy going up to Steetley?”
Wild horses wouldn’t have stopped me. Despite the amount I talk about the place, I’ve never actually been up there and had a really good look round. Most of the photos I have of the place are actually from Chris, and not me. Also, seeing as they were pulling more of it down, it was probably one of my last opportunities to get up there.
The first thing clearly visible were the large chunks missing from the oil drum…
We then explored the site in detail, taking photos of the desolation and decay left behind. I found it highly amusing to see some of the stuff left behind in there, including parts of an old Dell 316SX
The specs of this machine make interesting reading. It dates from 1991ish.
I took pleasre in photographing all of the old, smashed up concrete streetlight columns that would have once illuminated the roadway through the complex.
It was at that point we headed back to the car. Phil dropped me off at home, and I began the process of uploading all of the photos I’ve yet to see his photos, but they’ll probably be better than mine!
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