Over the winter when a posse of ladybirds decided to camp in our house, one ladybird fell in my ear after it decided to fall off the ceiling while I was trying to sleep. Scared the **** out of me. It was crawling in my ear and turning around to try find the way out and kept crawling down the ear canal. Actually being able to hear its wings scraping against my ear was horrible. I thought I was gonna be the first person to go deaf from a ladybird-related incident. And it didn’t help that Mrs M was laughing so hard she couldn’t calm down enough to get the blighter out. Ho ho ho.

I changed at 32, went back to uni for two years to do a post-grad dip. + fast-track conversion. Things to consider:

– You may well go into your new industry fairly on a low salary in a junior position dealing with people much younger than you who know their stuff

– Just because someone you know has a great job that’s inspiring you to change, bear in mind they might’ve been doing it 5+ years so the conditions will look good

– if you’re focused on your course you should get high marks ‘cos you’re probably paying for the course out of your own pocket and need to make it count.

– when going for a job, no-one takes too much interest in your course marks (unless you’re a complete biff)

– identify your transferable skills from your current and previous jobs, then add some spin to it and highlight it on your CV. This is very, very important to remember because the last X no. years you’ve been working will have given you some experience to benefit from, moving forward.

– it’s never too late. My post-grad ‘mature student’ group was almost equal to the under-grads and the oldest person was in her 60’s (and looking to get a job at the end of it!)

– Recession-proof your career move to ensure you don’t graduate into a sector flooded with overskilled workers (that’s a mistake I made – moving into a construction-related industry then realising that I needed to quickly diversify to ensure I was employable)

– Take advantage of the 3hr study days on sunny afternoons to go out riding :-)

We ended up going to the http://www.thewyndhamhotel.co.uk/ near Clearwell. A bit snazzy but the food was nice and some local ale on tap.

andysandes, there’s a shop round the back of the old renault building (yellow pipes, in west swindon) and they’re all DHers that used to work for total bike (on commercial road) but moved to set up their own place. Not sure what it’s called but ask around.

Yeah that’s quite a way out as we’re heading over from Herts way. But I’ll keep that one in mind anyway.

Dunno, but if you were on ebay looking for a bargain you’d be none-the-wiser of it’s background or assume the seller doesn’t know anything about bikes.

Although I’m a bit concerned this blogsite could be used by the thieves to harvest information about the bikes as well as some useful pictures – better than they could take themselves.

ok, cheers.

Glad you liked the pics. I went for a burn round Ashridge yesterday – very hard work as you say, but I found a cheeky little gully descent down to the back of Aldbury. Normally wouldn’t do it, but the snow was high enough that the logs became fun drop-offs!

The cafe at Wendover was open! It was great because all the gates were shut so there were no cars, which means we had the freedom of the roads – loads of off-piste riding and speeding over roads without a car(e) in the world :-)

M.

Quite a bit here in snowy Ashridge[/url](Chilterns), has been falling steadily since last night. Nice, light fluffy powder 8)

I like nsmb.

Eating: home made chorizo and new potato salad
Drinking: Cobra Lime (a bit too limey)
Watching: Time Team.

Living the dream.

how do I change my impossible to remember default password?