But, you already knew that, and as Glen suggested on Farcebook, I should write a bog about it. I’ll base it around my own memory, and quite an extensive one at that.

I remember Daddykins coming in from work with a huge box under his arm. It was meant to be for my upcoming 5th birthday, but seeing as I’d already seen it, I was given it early. Imagine my excitement. I was fascinated by Ceefax (RIP) at such an early age, and to be able to have my very own computer at that age was a dream come true. It was probably this, that made my parents get me the computer. I’d received it with a load of “educational” games such as ‘Learn to Read III’, “Alphabet Games”, “Magnets”, “Make a Chip” and a number of other games. I could probably name them all, but I’d be here all day, and I’m going to the pub in a few hours, that’s not going to happen.

The first game that was bought for it, came on the same night we’d received it. It was a simple, turn based strategy game called “Viking Raiders“. Daddykins had picked it up from the local newsagents. Imagine that, buying a game the same time you buy a paper…

I’[m amazed at such an early age, how much I taught myself about programming, entirely subconsciously. There’d be many times I’d press the Break key and alter games to make them easier. One of these was the afore-mentioned “Alphabet Games”. If you altered one of the lines which conained the graphics of the mouse character and placed it with a load of nonsensical gibberish, you could score a whole load of points more than what you were supposed to. This game also became the first time I had ever experienced tape-tangle. Cassette tapes were never the sturdiest of media, and obviously I know that now, but the noises it made when it went funny, and the sight of loose tape everywhere scarred me for a good few months. I remember having to get Daddykins to load my tapes because I was scared I’d break it again. I’m happy to report that the game still worked, and I’d like to know if it still works, except I have no idea where my tapes are.

Next up on the “games bought” list was a compilation… “They Sold a Million“, with Sabre Wulf, Beach HEad, Daley Thompson’s Decathlon and Jet Set Willy. Each of them classic games in their own right. Only two of the games worked properly. Beach Head suffered from bad mastering which meant the Speccy rarely picked up the signal on the tape, and Sabre Wulf suffered some tape damage, though this was several years into owning it. One of my last Speccy memories involve actually fixing the tape and getting it to play only once.

Of course, it wasn’t long after owning the machine that Daddykins started getting interested in it too. He would often spend a night or so using it to type in program listings from magazines. He also knew friends with Spectrums, and lots of games, therefore our collection of C15s was started.

The permanent home was in the kitchen. It started off on a little white B+W TV, (you know the type if you were a child of the 80s), eventually, the TV was upgraded to a portable colour Saisho variant. This was where Ispent many happy days during my childhood…

Of course, my time with the spectrum was not all fun and games. At some point, during 1987 / 1988, I’d discovered the brilliant colour effects you could get if you pulled the joystick port out of the back while the system was on. I wanted to show this to one of my friends at the time, William. He came over, and I said “Watch this!”.. On went the system, out went the joystick port, flash went the funky colours. He seemed stunningly unimpressed, yet I enjoyed the light show. I’d do what I did many times, and unplug the Speccy to reset it. I did this, and…. garbage. Instead of getting the familair RAM test (black bars, red lines), all I got was yellow garbage on the screen… another power cycle, another set of garbage. I could have cried. In fact I probably did. I was good at crying back then, as Chad often points out on here.

What was I going to do without my beloved computer? Thankfully, Chad’s parents step in and offer my parents their old Commodore 16 while my Speccy was away for repair. Around the same time, Chad also received a Spectrum 128K. It was the superior version of the 48K I had, but with an extra toast rack on the side. I’ve always wanted to own one of those particular machines, but as they were as rare as rocking horse shite (his was the only one I ever saw “in the flesh” for want of a better phrase) I suppose I never will. This meant that the rest of my childhood were spent playing Soccer Boss with his brother, Scott, and receiving dodgy C90s filled with the latest games which I’d never be able to afford, and being mocked by Chad because the cassette tapes I used stunk of cheese. No, they really did.

So, it’s 2012, 30 years ago today, people would have been queuing up to get their hands on Mr. Sinclair’s rubbery offerings. 30 years on, I’m proud to still be a Speccy owner, and although I don’t use my Spectrum anymore, I still have it, and will never part with it. Unfortunately, too many Spectrums will have met the same fate as this one…

Here’s to you, Clive Sinclair, and of course Daddykins, who also shares his birthday with the mahine. Happy birthday Dad!

Annoyingly I was in the middle of preparing for my first proper photoshoot with it. I’d arranged with Gary F, Jamie S and Andy D, to take some photos of the vintage car rally that is brought to Hartlepool every year or so. For many years, I’d wanted to go for many years but unfortunately, other commitments (usually work) stopped me from attending. This year, I obviously didn’t have that to worry about, which meant I had the ideal opportunity to go and point the camera at brightly colured, shiny vehicles.

The morning started out a logistical nightmare to begin with. Jamie S’s car is off the road. Gary was coming to pick me up, but Jamie S also wanted to go. Fair enough. I send a text to arrange the slight change of travel plans.

Text: “Can you pick Jamie S up on the way?”
Reply: “You were meant to send that to Gary, not me”.

Yup. Turns out I’d sent a text to Jamie S, asking to pick himself up. Today was going to be a long day.

So, I go about preparing stuff, dusting down the big camera. Everything was OK. Ship shape, as it were.Gary arrives at the bottom of the long, gravel driveway that leads up to Mercuryvapour Towers. I grab the big camera, and on my way out of the door I think “oooh, I’ll take the little camera too”. I dash upstairs and realise I already had it, it was in my pocket. Gah, wasted trip. On my way out of the SLABJL office, Gary rings me, and in the juggle between answering phone and swinging unweildy camera bag about, the camera leaves the bag, and hits the carpeted, yet still hard, landing floor. “Whoops”, I thought, but the camera has survived harder falls than this. I bundle the whole lot back into the bag, and head off to the car rally. I switch on the camera. It doesn’t “sound” right. And it didn’t automatically focus either. Instead, it would judder around for a bit, the focus would attempt to fix itself, failing miserably. Sigh, the lens was dead. I lugged the camera around with me for the whole 2 hours we were there, knowing I was carrying what I’d class as a “dead relative”. We got back to the car, and I’d take a closer look at my deceased camera.

It wasn’t pretty. I’d tried to zoom in a few times, the lens jammed, I looked through the viewfinder, and was confronted with a broken image, as if part of the glass had shattered. Well, that was that. It was all over… maybe.

I get home, to inspect the damage. The first step was to remove the lens… and something fell out… THIS.

Now, I’m not expecting any help from this blog directly, but I’m a member of a few photography sites which I’ll add this to, in the hope of knowing what its purpose is. All I know is that it fell out. The lens is just the standard stock / kit lens that comes with the EOS 450D. Here’s what the ITPC data has to say about it.

Lens Type Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

Anyway, something was clearly broken. While the lens was out, I gave the focus / zoom a go. It didn’t jam up. I looked through it, and it appeared to look normal. No broken glass. I took a photo of Daddykins. It worked. Wow. Obviously, my lens was missing a part, yet still “functional”. Or so I thought.

Obviously, I had to try this out a bit more. I’m sure if I’d lost some of my internal connections, I’d act slightly retarted (What, more than usual? – Ed). Shut up. I went out into the back garden, and the results weren’t pretty. The normally “smooth-for-a-kit-lens” auto focus would judder and jolt, rather like a floppy drive hitting a bad sector, the sounds were similar. Your eyes, using the viewfinder might only pick up the centre of the image. It’s not until you view it through the computer that you get the extent of the damage….

.

As my ex-work colleague Spence would say, in his own unique style… “Fuck, shit, piss”. Yup, something was shot. I contacted Andy D and asked if I could try his lens on my camera. I’m pleased to say it passed with flying colours. Or, at least the few shots I’d taken with it appeared to be OK. It means, that the loose part must have came from the lens (unless you know different?) and I’ll have no problems shopping for a new bit of glass.

Most of you know the reason I started the blog in the first place. I enjoyed talking about absolutely nothing. Breaking down every little part of my day, from waking up to going to sleep would be documented in minute detail. I found it amazing, both the amount of absolute rubbish I spilled, and the amount of people who actually read it (or at least looked at the photos). Over the past year, I’ve actually been doing stuff. Actual stuff. Going places. Living a life. Blogging took a back seat. Despite the fact I was actually doing stuff that was blogworthy, there was just no time to actually sit at the computer and document it all.

I’ll also be truthful and say that “microblogging” was an influence on my original decision. I could fit into Twitter’s 140 characters what it would normally take 1,000 words and two hours of typing / editing to do. It was realtime too. I could also do it anywhere. In fact, I’d say my phone is what “killed off” the blog in the first place. Imagine being able to tell all your friends, you’re on top of Roseberry Topping, and actually get realtime feedback on this delivered to your phone… I got more satisfaction out of “Xxxx Xxxxxxx likes this”, than a snidey comment from Chad saying how shit my writing is. Some of the times I did document a walk or day out, I’d use foursquare / twitter / facebook or whatever I used, to help me type it up. There was also the flickr photos. It was all too much. I was working 3 days on / 3 days off. It became harder and harder for me to find the time and motivation to sit here and actually type shit that I thought people didn’t read.

Onto the closure. Why DID I stop it in the first place? The first reason was, of course, redundancy. I’m surprised if any of you reading this don’t know my current employment status. Let me just say, it’s not good at all. 45 points (as in P45) to the first person who can explain this complete and utter bollocks to me without referring to using finger puppets and the phrase, “When a Mummy and Daddy love each other very much, they get shafted”.

This was a catalyst, without a doubt. I’m soon to be at the back of the dole queue. If I’m applying for new jobs, I’d hardly want 1,000+ posts available on the interwebs showing my horrid, horrid past.

I knew this was happening in January. I knew I had to start cutting back, and the website was the first thing in the firing line to be culled. Two things led to my decision. The domain was due to expire in March, and my complete and utter lack of afore-mentioned motivation to do anything with the website. Fair enough, the domain was only a tenner for two years, but that’s a night on the piss for me… and by that I mean, a night in front of the computer, with 8 cans of Carling next to me…

Either way, the decision was made for me on the morning of 23rd February. It was just after lunchtime. 12:01PM, Andy The Iridium Fan wanted his images deleting from the gallery.

That was it. The final straw. Andy’s gallery was, by far, the largest part of the site, outstripping the hits on the blog by something like 100-1. Probably because of the amount of dynamic pages it generated. Either way, it was one of the main reasons the site still existed. I didn’t want to kill it, knowing there’s several years of his photos on there, but if he wants them deleted, who am I to argue? Mercuryvapour was now officially a shell. I had no intentions of blogging again, and the gallery was to be no more. There was no point renewing the domain name, and so up went the “Stick a fork in me” posting. I wanted to leave enough time for that posting to be there to allow my “faithful viewers” enough time to read its demise, even if they only check in every couple of weeks or so.

I wrote the post. I pressed “Submit”

I asked a few of my close family and friends what they thought of the closure. I was shocked to find that the majority of feedback was positive, and the word “gutted” sprang up more than a few times. Daddykins gave the strangest reaction. I didn’t know he still read, or cared about the site, but apparently he did, and seemed genuinely devastated at its demise.

The time for domain renewal came. Something AWFUL happened. None of you will care about the reasons, so I’ll italicise the next section, so you can skip it, as it involves webhostingy bollocks… Some time, several years ago when I switched from personal to professional hosting, I’d only just renewed by personal hosting, which I think cost something like £40 a year. I still had 11 months left of personal hosting left, so 34sp, offered to convert the remaining hosting balance to “34spoints”. I agreed, and planned to keep them aside for this very moment.

That meant that I had the domain name for 2 more years for nothing. It meant that if the worst came to the worst, I could host the blog myself. It’d cost me nothing and I’d still be mercuryvapour.co.uk. Suddenly, culling the blog seemed a bad idea.

Right, normal service has been resumed. For those of you still reading, I tried to keep away from it as long as possible. To be fair, it was always going to return from the second I reacquired the domain name. It seems I like typing. Unfortunately, for those of you subscribed to the same mailing lists, newsgroups, and personal emails in general, you’ll notice a sharp increase in the excrement that has spewed from my fingertips over the last few months.

Don’t expect normal service straight away, it’s not going to happen. I’m planning a redesign (by that, I mean downloading a template from somewhere and putting my own images on it) as I’ve had the same template for many years and I want to move on from the past, so expect some downtime. Let me just say that the next few months are either going to be fun, or incredibly depressing. Let’s all guess which one Chad is hoping for.

The Sky Sports F1 theme is a slightly re-recorded version of “Just Drive” by Alistair Griffin. The original version was available for free on his website after it was used on the closing montage of BBC’s coverage of the 2010 season. the Sky version apparently has a new backing track, and a line re-recorded.. the line “Take it to the edge where I would die a thousand times” replaces dying with living. I’ve not heard it fully, as the first race was 5AM, and I had only half woke up when they played it.

For reference, everybody knows that BBC used “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac, from their timeless album “Rumours”. ITV, in their short, and disastrous hold of the terrestrial license used “Lift me up” by Moby (alongside Rocket, by Def Leppard for the sponsor advert breaks). I can go back to lurking now.

The end of an era, and end of an 11-year chapter of my life, which I’ll look back with fondness. Recent turns of events means that I no longer have the means, money or motivation to carry on this site. It’s died the way I never wanted it to. Very few blog posts, probably less hits.

There’s been ups and downs, moments I’ve been proud of, moments I’ve confined to the bit-bucket of time, and long deleted moments where I’ve felt like the biggest arsehole of all time, moments that have shaped my life forever. Relationships have fallen apart because of my warblings on here.

I could go on, I could reel off a credit list as long as your finger. Instead, I’ll say that everything I’ve done on this site was mine. Some of it wasn’t, but those who aren’t mentioned were happy to give their contents to the site, and I shall be forever grateful. If you’ve commented on this site over the years, thank you for taking the time.

I’m not dead, or dying, however (though at the time of typing I think I’m getting a chest infection), and I’ll still be around the normal haunts. Facebook, flickr, email, twitter, you know where to find me. Mercuryvapour will be involved somewhere, but the website, as of now, is a dot. This post, that is all. It’ll sicken me to delete 11 years worth of work, but sod it, it’s over. If I don’t move on now, I never will. It’s probably for the best that the past isn’t on the internet anyway.

Listen to me, tch, wibbling like your average copy of Your Sinclair…

Admittedly, the day started off perfectly. We’d packed early and headed off into the reception 30 minutes before the driver was ready to pick us up. he was a really nice guy, and he has a good chat about what had happened on our trip. He didn’t seem surprised about the conversation we’d experienced on Day 6. In fact, he seemed a bit surprised that we didn’t go for it, and also gave us some tips for locations of that nature should we ever return.

We arrived at the airport, thanked the driver for his excellent service, and this is where things started to go just that little bit pear-shaped. After typing our details into the self-checkin computer, we got our boarding passes and luggage things printed. Jonathan was entirely exempt from the baggage procedure, as his case fitted in hand luggage. Remember, our bags would need to go to Heathrow. We’d pick them up, then make our way to Gatwick for the flight back to Newcastle.

Anyway, Chris went to one desk, I went to another. We both had the same “credentials”. Our bags disappeared up the conveyor, and we headed up through the check-in gates. At this point, all I wanted, and cared about was free wi-fi, which the airport seemed to offer. It wasn’t until we were sat in the departure gate, did I manage to get connected. Some of you may remember my “Hello From Vienna” post, where I said “Or rather, the airport, as I sit in the departure lounge awaiting part one of what will be an awful journey back.” You’ll have to forgive the typos. It’s a touchscreen. I think it all came down the fact I knew we were against the clock. I also thought that Chris was going to bail the Gatwick – Newcastle flight, opting to stay with Jonathan for a bit.

Nothing could prepare me for the horror that would lie ahead. Moments after posting that blog post, I needed the toilet. I headed off to the cubicle, and without me noticing, it turned out to be one of those freaky German “shelf” toilets. You poo onto what is literally a shelf, presumably so you can erm… “examine your stool”. Trust me, there were no surprises, except the one I got when I stood up, looked down and thought I’d used the toilet incorrectly.

The gate opened, and we headed off onto the plane. Chris really hated the experience. At this point, I had nothing to hate.

The flight was brilliant. I oddly fell asleep, waking just as we were coming back to the British Isles. The path down below the clouds was literally like the set of Eastenders. I almost lost a testicle when we flew over the Millennium Dome / O2 Arena. The other testicle nearly burst when we flew near Wimbledon’s grounds. Unfortunately, this would be the last happy experience I’d have on the entire trip. Usual shit ensued, as we passed through passport control. We headed off to baggage. Chris’s turned up. I stood there, waiting. The board said “Still offloading”. By the time there was one bag left, I was freaking out. It wasn’t mine, obviously. The board still said offloading, but after this bag went around the fourth time, I expected a holy fuckup.

I headed off to the baggage desk. I handed my receipt to the guy behind the counter…

Him: “oh yeah, there’s been a mistake. Your bag has landed, but it’s going to Gatwick via van… it won’t make it to your connecting Newcastle flight”. Slightly pissed off, I completed the paperwork, It took ages. It also became apparent that because the plane was delayed and so was the baggage, the three hours we had to travel 50 miles from Heathrow to Gatwick had considerably shrunk.

Jonathan lives in Surbiton, so the plan was to get a taxi to there. He’d drive us the rest of the way to Gatwick.

We jumped into a black cab, £20 each to Surbiton. After my bag shenanigans, I was happy to pay. All I wanted to do was get home. Something became very clear. The bag and plane delay meant that we’d be cutting things incredibly fine. Jonathan did his best to get us there in time, though traffic going through Surbiton didn’t help at all. I don’t think I’ve ever heard C or J get so angry. It was plain sailing from there to Gatwick, until we got close to the airport, there was another half-mile of traffic to the entrance. Chris, probably rightly, thought “fuck this”, and jumped out, heading towards the terminus. I’d got what little baggage I’d accumulated and ran after Chris. Be aware, my feet were still on fire at this point, and I’m watching the clock. I think we had about 17 minutes. We arrive in the South Terminal, with no sign of the British Airways travel desk. Chris asks someone, who points us to the North Terminal. A train takes us over there, and we arrive at the North Terminal… Whoo, British Airways desk. there we go. About 4 minutes to spare. We go to check in.

Him: “We don’t do flights to Newcastle from here”…

Instantly, I check the paperwork. Something stares back at me. A little block of toner that reads “Flybe”.

“Well, you’ll have to go to the Flybe check-in desk, won’t you”, was the reply from this instantly dislikable bastard. That was it, game over as far as I was concerned. Defeated, by the rudest bit of customer service I’ve ever had. Technically I wasn’t actually a BA customer, but you know what I mean. The paperwork I was holding was the victim of a fit of rage. My work colleagues will know this as a “pissy fit”. I was in rage mode at this point, but Chris remembers the afore-mentioned twat shouting at me to pick it up. I didn’t, and as far as I know they’re still on the floor there. I was defeated at this point. How long would it take us to get back to the South Terminal? Dunno. It felt like the longest journey I’ve ever had. Jonathan was there, wondering where WE were. Turns out he was the only one who read the itinerary correctly and knew where we should check in at. We went to the Flybe check-in desk. One of those stupid auto-check in machines wouldn’t allow us to do it, so I went to the desk. I ask if we’re too late to check in. the cheery woman behind the desk gleefully answered that we were still on time… “Oh, thank God for that”, I reply. the last two hours of shit were instantly flushed away.

“So, zis is for the… 8pm flight, yaa?”

There. Right there. That moment. That second. That question. That exact statement. The answer was no. We wanted the 16:20 flight.

“Ahh, sorree, ze check-in is closed”.

The holiday was over. We were stranded. I said something to the woman behind the desk. I can’t remember my exact words, but it was on the lines of “If BA hadn’t lost my baggage, we’d have been on time”. I knew there was nothing she could have done. Technically I do this type of job myself, so her completely apathetic “Oh dear” was noted, yet duly ignored, as the directed towards the customer service desk

Technically, we were stuck, and I’ve never felt so broken in a long while. It’s the first time I’ve ever missed a flight. I didn’t even bother contacting the customer service desk. the mood I was in probably would have seen us (or, at least me) being escorted out of the airport. I have watched countless hours of shows like “Airport”, and they show people kicking off. I always thought they were over-reacting. I felt ashamed and positively gutted that I was now one of those.

My world had ended. I was in London, no flight home, no baggage, nothing. I rang Daddykins, pretty much in tears about the whole situation, mainly through rage rather than actual emotion. Nothing he could say would reassure me that I’d see Hartlepool again without denting my wallet with money I didn’t have. Something I’ve only just realised, is that all of the photos, facebook updates, tweet, phone calls and Endomondo reports provide a pretty accurate timeline of what happened, and if some stupid bitch in Vienna hadn’t sent my bags to the wrong airport, we’d have made it.

There was nothing for it, we would have to get the train back. Chris knew there was a Grand Central back to Hartlepool at about 19:00, from Kings Cross. This was probably the lowest moment. I was in the back of Jonathan’s car. He’d disappeared somewhere to pay the parking charges, Chris was wandering about somewhere. I was in the odd position of feeling the early stages of dehydration, while at the same time busting for a pee. Add that to how depressed how I was, the feeling wasn’t great. Add that to the fact that I rehydrated myself at a petrol station and paid more for the water than what the petrol cost, checked my funds at a cash point and realising, after drawing out the cost of the train fare, I literally had £16 to last me 19 days.

At this point, it was about 16:30. I know this because of my facebook posts. Despite feeling like shit, I thought my troubles might have given someone a smile, so I kept updating facebook. Chad *loved* it. Cunt.

The next part of the ordeal was to get back from Gatwick to Surbiton train station. Remember, we still had a time limit. The M25 had an accident which slowed down things considerably. I’d already resigned myself to sleeping in a bush that evening. I just left him in charge. Two tickets were purchased from Surbiton to Vauxhall, and from there to Kings Cross. Basically, a Zone 1-6 £8 day thing. I’d give you all the details, but I’ve literally just given the ticket away to a guy called Geoff who likes such things. Glad you found my blog by the way.

The train picked us up at Surbiton and trook us past some sites such as the Battersa Power station. OK, by sights, I mean one. It was raining, and I really didn’t care

Chris was like a man possessed though the underground tunnels. I literally had to tell him to slow down, thanks to my feet. He told me afterwards, that we were actually extremely late getting the train. We arrive at Kings Cross / St. Pancreas (or whatever it’s called), to see a familiar looking train sat, waiting at the platform. We were at least guaranteed to get home, though we didn’t actually have a ticket. We’d get one when the conductor came around.

I went for a much needed piss at this point. I don’t care about the rule of not flushing the bog at the station. It’s 2011. These things should have tanks, or something. I sat back at my seat, and Chris delivered the ‘bad’. There was a broken down train somewhere near Peterborough, and we’d be stuck in the station for about an hour. I could have cried. Some of you would have noticed the photo of me on facebook, of someone “entirely fucked off with the British transport system”. Well, that was took right at that moment.

Eventually, the train set off. At the first opportunity, I headed off to the bar. I didn’t realise they had an entire carriage dedicated to being a bar. Obviously, everything was out of cans / bottles. I didn’t care, I was happy to return to my seat, my cold Stella ready to be consumed.

We’d got a table seat. Now, on the Grand Central, they have “game boards” printed onto the table. Apparently, you can “rent” game sets for your journey. Some tables have Cluedo, some have Monopoly, but they all have chess/draughts boards printed on them. this journey was going to be filled with abject tedium. Thankfully, I had a bag of Euro coins on me. Plenty of 1cent and 2cent coins. Enough to have a game of draughts!

Things were going swimmingly, until another train went past. The sudden shockwave caused the coins to be scattered all over the board, and the game had to be abandoned. Thanks to a genius bit of real-life bugfixing by yours truly (we simply moved the pieces towards the edge of the squares so when a train went past, there was less change of movement to other squares), we were able to complete a few games. Each game turned out to be a lengthy battle of cunning and stealth, taking much longer than a game of draughts really should. Eventually, the Stella I was drinking in the previous picture made it hard to distinguish between the 1 cent and 2 cent coins, so the games were abandoned.

My mind turned to the fact that we hadn’t actually paid anything for this journey. My heart would stop at every whoosh of the sliding doors. Amusingly, one of those whooshes turned out to be one of the management types at Employment Palace. We didn’t exchange words, more of an acknowledgement of “Is that… nah, it can’t be…”

Stations went past, and we were getting closer to home. Still there was no conductor. We arrived in Hartlepool at 10:48, and my mood instantly lightened. We didn’t actually pay a bean for the journey home. All it cost me was 5 hours of my life, which is, to be fair far less than the time I’ve taken typing these blogs on the holiday, uploading the photos and deleting Chad’s comments.

I’d made arrangements for Daddykins to pick me up once we’d returned back to the town. There was just one thing I had to do. As soon as I left the train station, I was straight down to my favourite Indian… “Chicken vindaloo, pilau rice, naan bread and chips please”.

I’d originally intended to finish the posting there, but if you’ve managed to read this far, another few paragraphs clearly can’t hurt. I thought I’d update you with my baggage story. Pretty much, my entire wardrobe was in that case, compressed to a “zip file” (you have to zip the case to close it, see what I did there? Maybe that’s now zip files got their name? Meh). I don’t think I mentioned what I got given. A stock letter with a claim number scrawled on the top in biro.

I was home, and my baggage still hadn’t turned up at my doorstep. I thought I’d give the website a go. Facebook describes in perfect, stunning HD quality what happened, and my reaction.

Once again, I was spitting blood. I wasn’t shitting blood, but I’m sure that afore-mentioned vindaloo pushed me close to the edge. I gave it a couple of hours, and tried the website again. No joy. I just had to ring their 0844 number via the house phone. Naturally, I was forced into one of those pressy-button scenarios, with images of my bag being fed into an industrial crusher flashing before my eyes.

After pressing some buttons, I was transferred to an Indian call centre. You’ll be disappointed to hear that my experience with them was commendable. The guy promised me that my bag would be here by 5. True to his word, there was a knock on the door at 4:45PM, my bag arrived safe and sound.

Two days later, I arrived back at Employment Palace, only to find this was the backdrop to one of the computers I use…

With the help of Google Maps, I’d chosen the location. I remember Ste, from Employment Palace, telling me there was a nice walk in Guisborough, which isn’t too far away. Despite being out the night before, I awoke, fresh as a slightly decaying daisy, reeking of alcohol and vindaloo, complete with an occasional burp which tasted of Jagerbomb. Joy.

Anyway, prior to Gary picking me up, I headed of to Lidl, to pick up some water for the trip. Let me just say that I got as far as the petrol station… in fact I’ll let my Facebook status tell the story…

Andrew D isn’t far wrong – I took a stash of bog roll in the camera bag, just in case!

Gary picked me up, and along with his dog Boris, we headed along the A19, A174, A172, A171, and just a smidgeon of the A173, we arrived. Once thing that was instantly noticeable compared to our other walks, is that spring had definitely sprung. The trees were starting to grow leaves, and the whole area had a much greener hue to it compared to the rest of the walks. The first photos were taken, when Gary discovered a small tunnel. Unfortunately, we didn’t get chance to emulate Jamie S’s epic troll photo as the tunnel was full of flies.

Immediately after this photo was taken, disaster happened. As I was putting the camera back in its bag, it left my grasp a little too soon, and went hurtling to the uneven, gravel-stone ground. Fucking hell. The crunch it made was enough to make me bring a little bit of sick up. “Oh well, the lens could do with an upgrade” was my instant thought. Imagine my surprise when I picked up the camera to find absolutely no damage to the lens glass, or the camera mechanics. Upon closer inspection, there’s a small chunk removed from the lens body, and a small scratch near the shutter button. That’s all. My luck for the month has now been used up.

The walk continued. It was all uphill, but it wasn’t as uphill as the challenge we were about to set ourselves. We reached a junction in the forest paths. While I took photos of daffodils again (oh, come on! they’re only out for a few weeks every year!), Gary looked through the trees, and noticed how close Roseberry Topping was. It was literally half a mile away.

Roseberry Topping is a place I will always hold dear. I’m going to ramble on here, and for that, I don’t apologize. It’s one of my favourite places on this planet. It was always visible when we went to places for days out such as Whitby. It’s the prominent focal point for the whole of Teesside. I seem to remember Cleveland County Council using it in their logo for a years, even though it’s technically in North Yorkshire. Anyway, as a child, being 11 years old, I always remember having a dream about it. being visible from Hartlepool. A few days later, on a walk home from school, I stopped dead in my tracks on the coast road. There it was. Roseberry Topping was indeed visible from Hartlepool. I couldn’t quite believe it.

In January 1992, Daddykins took me and him to climb it. This was 20 years ago, there was no path at the time. There’s a photo somewhere of me, climbing up the side of it, grabbing onto frost-covered ferns for dear life, as we attempted what seemed like the impossible.

Again, there are photos of me and Daddykins at the top of the hill – we made it up there without further incident or injury. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a clear day, so Hartlepool wasn’t visible. On the way home, to give you an idea of how long it was ago, I heard “Twilight Zone” by 2 Unlimited for the first time, and went home to play Bubble Bobble on my Commodore 64.

The next time I climbed it, was with Wayne, and his dad. By this time, it was the summer of 1995, and the pathway to the top had been laid. It was still a bitch to climb. Unfortunately, there’s no photographical document of this walk, but after we’d came back down, we went to see Judge Dredd at the Showcase… my one and only trip to this particular cinema.

Back to the present day, and I left you with me and Gary, stood in the middle of a forest, wondering which way to go. I’d already had a few miles in my legs by then, and I was reluctant to do the Roseberry Topping bit. Gary convinced me it was a good idea. I don’t know how he managed that.

At the bottom, I took a video. It’s pretty clear just how uncertain I was!

Oddly, I arrived at the top, and my exact thoughts were “Woah… was that it?” I think, the only difference between my previous trips up Roseberry Topping and this one, was the fact I’d notuched up 55 miles of walking in the previous month, and I had a bottle of water. I’d hazard a guess that they both helped.

I almost lost the contents of a testicle when I noticed I could see Hartlepool, and could easily make out Steetley Chimney with the naked eye. The image below is a cropped image, but the original can be found here

It would have been more prominent if the buildings attached to it weren’t demolished several years ago.

We reached the top, and made contact with an elderly couple who had also made it to the top. Apparently, they make the trip to Roseberry Topping every hear for his birthday. He was 83, and she was 80. Bloody hell. If I look a day older than them when I’m their age, then these walks have done their job. They walk all over the local area, and even gave me a couple of ideas for future walks. As they were about to leave, they asked me to take a photo for them on their camera. They were even apologetic over it. I hope I convinced them that I really, really didn’t mind at all!

OK, so there needs to be some evidence that we made it up there, hence the title of this posting. Glen posted the “pics or it didn’t happen” comment, on my previous posting, as he knows for a fact, I don’t go anywhere these days without some type of digital picture recording device

So, there’s me cared for… as for Gary and Boris… You’d think they were waiting from a lift from a nearby plane…

Something visible from the top of Roseberry Topping is a structure. I have no idea what it is, or what its purpose is…

It was enough of a mystery for me to want to go down and investigate it. Thankfully, Roseberry Topping has several paths leading from its top to its base, and one of them leads you along this path. In fact, it’s the main path to continue if you don’t fancy attempting the big hill. Along the way, we found, of all things, a discarded lightbulb. Gary suggested that it would be a good idea to move it from the beaten path, to somewhere a little more safer. Although a perfectly acceptable idea, it meant that I ended up carrying it for about half a mile before dispensing it in the afore-mentioned little buildong…

Neither the walk over there, nor the photos clear up the mystery of this strange little building in the middle of nowhere. It’s either a folly, or some type of hunter’s refuge from years ago, if things suddenly turned shite.

The three of us (including the dog) didn’t fancy going back the way we came, as we’d have to complete the bottom third of Roseberry topping again, therefore we took a chance, and headed through what we think was private land. There were no signposts, and the gates were opened by hand, so if the landowner happens to view the endomondo link at the end of this post, and notices we trespassed, I’m sure the lord’s prayer has something about forgiving trespassing ‘n’ shit. I didn’t eat any of your crops, though if you get a ladybird infestation, this could be the reason why…

It’s rare enough in 2011, to see ladybirds. It’s even rarer to actually see them “doing it”. Therefore, this video should be considered ultra rare I would have considered doing a voiceover / soundtrack featuring 70′s porno music, but as we were probably on private land, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

We rejoined a path. Thankfully, it was the correct one. It led us back through the forest, and after a detour following an obstacle course which we both avoided, we arrived back at the car park.

It seems a perfect opportunity to post the Endomondo link, therefore…

Does the link work?

If it doesn’t, I’m not going to apologise, it’s not my fault. I can’t change the privacy on my walks at the moment, because whatever scripting they’re using to show the buttons, has died, so I can’t change my default view. Whoops. Gary’s calculation also left something be be desired. I’m not sure why, but it showed us in several fields. My link is much more accurate, yet I have no idea why. There’s an obvious alien invasion about to take place.

The last paragraph in this post saw me ripped off, and it was entirely my own fault. On the way home from the walk, we pulled into a Tesco service station. I was already feeling the pain from the walk, and after noticing it sold beer, picked some up. After all, it would have saved me walking down to the offy in agony. I’d headed to the till with the following:-

4x Stella, 568ml @ 4.39
4x Stella, 440ml @ 4.99

There was other stuff I’d purchased, but that was the fucker. How did I not notice I’d picked up two different sets of volume, and prices? The receipt will forever be a testament of what a cock I really am…