Life on the Road

Reality has hit now. I'm in full swing at work, and been given my own project to start on, which is good. I've forgotten what working is like, given my last 6 months in Australia were pretty much spent on my couch at home waiting for something to do, or getting coffee down Acland St (how much do I miss a good flat white  and Monday's sport section for the footy analysis) or even going to the gym.

The major consequence of doing my job in the UK is driving. And I mean lots of driving. Lots. Going up to the north of Wales is about 200 miles depending on the myriad of routes you can take inland, or over 240 miles if I go back into Lloegr (that's England for the non-Welsh speakers) and up the motorways. Don't ask me what that is in kilometers, all I know is that miles tick over very slowly.

A month ago I'd drive through a quaint little village and think "oh, that's quaint, I wonder if its full of quirky personalities like in the Vicar of Dibley?". Now they are just annoying. You have to slow down, or get stuck behind a truck (can't say lorry) as it tries to turn a corner. I'm sure the scenery is quite spectacular through the Welsh countryside, I don't notice it now, besides its always PDR.

I have seen some things though, usually during the week when it doesn't rain. There's an old walled town called Conwy near where I've had to go for work. There's a castle that's sort of cool (left) and the UK's smallest house (right) there. Glad they only charged a £1 to get in. It was small.


The motorways are good when there's no-one on them. People seem to drive at two distinct speeds - too slow or too fast. You have to keep the radio on for traffic reports, but once you're stuck in a traffic jam (or queue as they put it politely) you're stuck. I've been advised to keep food and water in the car as you can be stuck for several hours or more if you're unlucky.

My view for 2hrs on the M4

Last Monday was the August Bank Holiday, which is meant to be the best of summer. So I decided to take the whole day to drive up to North Wales up the coast and check out the beaches and towns before work on Tuesday. Torrential rain for the whole day, what else should I have expected? I got out of the car at Aberyswyth and my umbrella got turned inside out and broke. And I got completely soaked. I had to buy a new umbrella and a raincoat. And it took 8 hours to get there in thunderstorms and traffic. My best public holiday ever.


Rare day working from home today. Got Sky installed today. Already set up to record some of the weekend's AFL matches. Won't be able to watch them live because I'm going to London (yay) for the weekend to catch up with my mate Jason.
They only installed Sky TV though, broadband and phone are going to take another month. Why? Its just the way its done, I've given up questioning. Tonight I'm spending quality time getting to know 400 new channels.

British Summer

I'm back up in North Wales for work this week, staying in Llandudno again in the Empire Hotel where Fuji employees stay when we're up here. The Empire is one of those old fashioned hotels, lots of narrow hallways full of furniture, small rooms that are over decorated and terrible bathrooms. Most people staying here are on their summer holidays, and most of them are pensioners so you can't help dodging the walking frames and electric scooters. Everybody dresses for dinner in the dining room...except for me. After a day at work in a suit and tie I have to change into jeans and T shirt...and thongs (careful not to call them that here). Last night I was shown my table which was around a corner where all the dressed up people couldn't see me. At least the food is good.
They can't understand why I don't want a full fry up breakfast when I stay in hotels. Its odd that I just want cereal and toast. Breakfast is the best meal of the day here, and baked beans are a treat. Although last week at a hotel in Norfolk I had kippers for the first time. Too fishy and too salty for breakfast.

Summer in the UK has been all about the Olympics as you'd expect. Glad its over. The BBC coverage started off being fair and unbiased but as they started winning more gold it became unbearable. I even missed Eddie McGuire. Australians didn't get much coverage, except when GB beat us. The papers were worse than the TV. I did find this in the Times, though, a bit snarky I thought.

I did go to the Olympics - the bronze medal football game between S Korea (2) and Japan (0) at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Great stadium and fantastic atmosphere. We sat 10 rows behind the goals, not bad for the cheap tickets. The stadium is in the city centre so all the pubs are full before and after games. I'd driven back from Norwich (5 hours) that day and was starving by the time I got there. Food choices poor: I would have killed for a pie, all they sold was bacon sandwiches.

Barry Island glamour

I completely understand why millions of Brits fly to Spain and Greece for summer holidays. The weather here is crap, and its been an average summer. Its usually cloudy during the day, rain more often than not in Wales and because of daylight saving the warmest time of the day is about 7pm. And the beachside holiday towns I've seen are sort of tragic. I don't know if they've been neglected, or they have just given up. Case in point is Barry Island (of Gavin and Stacey fame) near Cardiff. They could really cash in on the G&S stuff but don't bother. Its just amusement arcades, fish and chips, soft serve icecream cones and bad pubs with beer in plastic glasses. The cafes all serve the same food, photos of eggs, chips and beans in their windows. If you were British, I'm sure you'd know what eggs, chips and beans look like, you've eaten enough of it in your lifetime.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Still, people still flock to the seaside, usually fully dressed. I haven't seen anyone swim yet. I hope it does warm up, there are some beaches in the west of Wales that look really beautiful - sand dunes, blue water and waves. But I think if I'm still here next summer, I'm going to Spain.

All OK now

My furniture arrived on Friday. All brand new, not to my taste but who's complaining...its all here. Its that glass and chrome look that's popular here, I think its a bit "60 Minute Makeover". I suppose you could call it "Designer Warehouse Chic".

I caught up with Ann & Raj at Charmaine & Ian's dream home in Hampshire last week. Ann offloaded a doona cover on me (I refuse to say "duvet" or "garridge" for garage, which is a petrol station, or "hoover" for vacuum) and some other handy stuff.




I'm watching the Olympics, so over team GB, but must admit their cycling team are good. The response from most locals I get when I open my mouth is "So, how many gold medals have the Australians won?" They know its only one and are loving beating us. So they should, all the lottery money going in to sport, buying the best coaches from all over the world, hometown advantage and all that.

I went into Cardiff city centre today, there's a little train that leaves from a station about 200m from home. It takes about 3 minutes from the Bay to then City. PDR all day and bucketing now. City is full of people going to GB v S Korea Olympic football tonight, there are a lot of pubs, bars and restaurants and Millennium Stadium is right in the city. I'm going there next Friday night for the bronze medal football game. I hope GB win tonight to get to semi final but lose semi because they will play for bronze then.

Shopping again tomorrow for household essentials. Luckily Cardiff is a city of superstores and retail parks so I can pick up everything cheap. I'm a Tesco fan now. Supermarkets are a lot better here than home, but as expected fruit & veg is not that fresh. The locals love superstores.

Big two weeks of travel and work coming up. I'm going to change work cars, the big diesel VW Passat they gave me is a beast to drive, and not very practical in cities or driving country roads, and I can hardly get it into my parking space.

OK, it's time for a rant.

I've been here 3 weeks now and should be settled in, but does anything go right in this country? Does anything work?
First, the banks: you can't get a bank account without an address, you can't get an address without a bank account. I managed to get an account for ex-pats, but have to pay for it and can't get a credit card for 6 months. The bank won't send out a debit card or the PIN until you have an address, so you can't have access to your money unless you go to the branch you opened the account at with your passport. I got the card, but the PIN has been delivered to my Australian address. Why? Because the bank's system recognises  the first address of the account, not any updates. WTF???
Next, I've been living in hotels and serviced apartments, lugging around lots of bags, getting them wet in the rain, not unpacking anything. Yesterday I rocked up at the agent's at 9am (agreed time) to pick up the keys to my flat...finally. The agent looked at me "we have a slight problem" the flat has no furniture. "What??" None. At all.
When you sign a lease for a furnished flat, you expect some furniture, a bed, a sofa, a table at least. But the previous tenant took everything with her. Even the bathroom mirror. "its not my fault, we didn't find out about this until Monday" is the agent's excuse. "if you knew then, why didn't you tell me and I would have stayed at the serviced flat". "Oh, we thought we'd have it sorted"
Story is the developer of the building managed it originally, the last and only tenant wanted an empty flat so they spread the owner's £2000 worth of furniture around lots of other flats, all this was ignored when the current agent took over the building. The owner is furious, he's lost out, the previous management have absolved all responsibility and I have an empty flat. I'm refusing to pay rent until this is fixed.
I had to buy a blow up mattress to sleep on and a folding chair.

Home sweet home

No furniture arrived today as promised. I have been calm about this, but sick of excuses, so I stormed into the agent's office down the street and went off. With an office full of customers. And I get called "aggressive"...again. (They think Ian Thorpe is being aggressive on the BBC Olympic coverage because he says "Look..." before he makes a statement).

Nice view, though

When I got home there was a sheepish phone call from the agent saying that stuff will be delivered tomorrow morning, they'll pay for it and work out who owes what later.
Great, another night on the air bed, but out of all this I get brand new furniture!
At least I have a TV. $400 for a 40 inch LCD at Tesco. Bargain.

Summer! It won't last.

Signed the lease for my flat today, I can move in next week thank the Higgs-Boson particle.
In a serviced apartment now in Cardiff Bay, a few years old, nice but in a sterile gated community. Glad I didn't end up in something like this.
One thing that annoys me about the UK is washing machines in kitchens. Why? What if you're cooking bacon and/or chips (as is the law here) and you have to get clean clothes out of the machine? Eeeww. Clean clothes on a dirty kitchen floor. Can't stand it. Washing my clothes in the kitchen as I type, its taken hours and they're still not dry. Give me a top loader in a laundry any day.

There are a lot of Torchwood freaks in Cardiff

Went for a wander around Cardiff Bay while the weather is so nice. British summer, it has been for the past 4 days, sunny in the high 20s. I know its not gonna last. The forecast is for rain Friday during the Olympic opening ceremony. Australians would be very disappointed if it didn't rain then.

So this is Mermaid Quay, Millennium Centre  and Roald Dahl Place and the bay, all at the end of my street.

Welsh Working Week

Llandudno

Started off the working week with a 4.5 hour drive to North Wales. Once again shouldn't have followed the GPS, it took me off the main roads, the route might have been scenic but it PDR in buckets the whole way. Got to the hospital we're working at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor (ysbyty is Welsh for hospital) and finally met the some more of the team. They're great, and work is basically the same as at home.

We were all staying in Llandudno, a typical Victorian era beachside town, about 30 min away. My new workmates like a drink, I'm fitting right in.

Llandudno has a promenade along a rocky beach, a pier, lots of B&Bs, hotels and pubs. Rained all week and so cold. The town was full of pensioners on their seaside holiday, all dressed up for dinner. Mum and Dad would love it. There is a big headland called the Great Orme which has a cable car up to the top where there are tea rooms and British-type attractions (sort of daggy). Oh, its pronounced Clandidno.

People in this part of Wales speak Welsh, and they sort of whisper. Its a bit disconcerting.

ATTACK!

Seagulls everywhere, and they are as big as cats. And vicious. There's no point eating fish and chips (cod...yuck and greasy) on the promenade.They attack...seriously.

For those who remember the Guiness Book of Records from the 70's, the town with the longest place name in the world (according to them) was only 10 min from Bangor. Llanfairpwll....yada yada...goch. In reality just another little town, best part about it was the gift shop toilet. With this weather, I've been weeing like a racehorse.













Saturday drove to Oxford. I'd never been there, I was expecting university colleges, students on bikes, punting, you know like Brideshead Revisited. In reality its full of tourists and I'm over tourist towns. To be fair there were a lot of high school kids there on tour as the UK school year has just ended for summer break. You could go into the colleges, but they charged admission. However you could walk around the actual university buildings which was cool, I thought.

Coloured Punts -  Oxford

Sunday I caught up with Kath Egan at her brother's house near Hungerford. Great to see her. Her brother's place is in a village, a bit "Escape to the Country" . We had lunch, went to a pub in Marlborough and watched Kath's brother and nephew play cricket. English summer weather at last! It could actually get to 30C this week! That's too hot for here I think, none of the hotels I've stayed in have aircon.

Work stuff (only of interest to FFA people)

First, the basics. Phone - Blackberry, totally locked down and you can't get Gmail on BB apps anymore. Laptop - DellE6410. No webcam or microphone! Partitioned hard drive, Fuji VPN with security tag access, Notes, Office 07, still XP. Private side no Office. No VM workstation licences free, only 2G RAM, NO 3G CARD. No internet. Have to use wi-fi in hotels. Dieter would freak. Wi-fi is usually flaky so can't even download VM Player not that this laptop would be able to run a session. I will have to remedy this next week at head office, especially the 3G.
Just finished first week on site at Ysbysty Gwynedd, a hospital in Bangor North Wales, similar to Sunshine. There are 3 regions of the BCU health trust which is all of North Wales. This one is West which did have Insignia PACS, migration is nearly done 2 months early. Usual complaints coming from legacy PACS users. Superusers are nowhere to be seen. Unread study folders are a nightmare with radiographers reporting. RIS is a home grown product RadIS, on a par with the one in the NT, probably a bit worse. I really need Garry for some HL7 mapping to sort out these folders.
The big problem is the dictation. It is a British product G2. So far it doesn't handle group reporting, and doesn't have a spell check, or doesn't keep text format so typists won't use it. We can't go live yet, we have 10 days. Trouble is FFUK have to train and support it as per the contract. Big meetings next week, G2 have to fix it or trouble for us. Anyone want to come and demo Synapse DM? I've been singing its praises all week.
DEVO issues - of course.
BCU Central was on Synapse 321 and was upgraded, at least there is a PACS Admin, but lots of legacy folders, RPs and overlays I'm not to change. BCU East is later.
One central database, but only 2 dicom webs. Engineers (or integration specialists) are great and are experienced, esp Anthony who's been on site and in the pub with me all week. There are 3 other apps. Denise (who has  been driving 7 hrs to get to Nth wales from home) started at CR and had moved to informatics, Lyndsay who had done Synapse apps a while ago and just come back and Rob, former PACS admin but with Synapse 2.1! Denise and Rob have a working knowledge of 4 but have never had the benefit of Dieter and Chris H. I'm going to have to teach them a few things - imagine that! They don't know ESWAT or SetEdit at all, they have not be trained and are not to touch it. I've been in of course, but haven't made the changes I need to as its being monitored by the head engineer. It seems that the engineers do a lot of the config. I don't have access to D drive - yet. They haven't been using the test server. FFUK. There is a guy who just does the workstations. Finding little bugs in 4 on W7 but not XP.
I emailed Mike Smith and said that they work differently in the UK, he said it AUS that's different to the rest of the world.
We've all been staying in Llandudno which is a typical British beachside resort about 30 min from the site. Lots of pubs and restaurants. They like a drink. I fit right in.
Its at least a 4 hr drive to get here from Cardiff, no direct roads unless you drive back into England and up on the motorways. Long drives are going to be a fact of life. I don't have to come back here, Lyndsay and Rob are only about 2 hrs away. I have to start work on the West Wales projects soon, at least I am based in Cardiff and the sites are closer.
Office next week. Still in hotels. Have only seen Kirsty once, she's a bit isolated in Cardiff, she starts 3D set up here next week.
More later.