Its a Beautiful day.............

Hullo there ma wee blog,

Its such a different day from yesterday when there were the first of the real gales coming in off the sea. The first real taste of the coming Winter so far. Trees in the garden were wrestled backwards and forwards and most of the remaining apples torn from their grasp leaving only a few stubborn signs of plenty behind. An overdue reminder that me and my wee hessian sack should have been active before now.

As the lovely G had a rare Saturday off work we decided we would go to Edinburgh to begin the search for a new car for her. Her current car, the first she has ever owned just herself, is now almost vintage and although much loved is at the stage where the advice of our trusted mechanic was a salutary and refreshingly honest " If you bring her to me again I'm afraid its going to cost a lot of money to do what really needs to be done to keep her safe for another year "

And so we set off down the drive under the thrashing branches of the old pear tree and through a village wisely devoid of pedestrians and small children on bikes. As we leave the village the road crests a small hill and the sea is laid out before us. Its one of those seminal views for me and I look forward with anticipation to it every time I am in the car.

To me the sea always seems to reflect life in all its changing, complex ways and yesterday that life must have been in turmoil. The sea was a patchwork of vicious dark and emerald greens, heaving with thousands of white horses as far as the eye could see, a container ship in the distance the only sign of life. The road joins the sea near us for a mile or so side by side and we often can watch some hardy souls surfing.

{ Believe me, to surf in Scotland you have to be hardy! }

Today though there was not a soul and waves, perfect for surfing, crashed onto the beach completely unattended, slapping, angry and inconsolable, onto the sand in a petulant strop for needlessly having gone to all that trouble. Buffeted by the wind the car occasionally shook and shimmied on the road as we headed into town. Leaves, brown and gold flecks in the wind streaked horizontally across our view.

We both agreed that after we had done what we set out to do, to check out if the governments scrappage scheme of £2000 towards a new car is better value than considering a fairly new second hand one, { Its not is our considered opinion now by the way } we would return home for what we have come to call a 'duvet day', firmly ensconced in the house together with a few good films and some munchies, a bottle of wine perhaps and a cuddle, sometimes literally, but not today, under a duvet brought to the lounge.

And that was how we passed the day yesterday......

This morning I left my lovely G warm and cosy under the duvet and crept downstairs about 7.15am for a coffee and a catch up with the blogs I follow and to have a wee bit of me time continuing the prep for the job interview this week. The weather is a complete transformation to yesterday. Calm, sunny, clear and bright sky. One of those days which fills you with optimism rather than the kind of awe and wonder that it inspired yesterday. A quick trip for breakfast croissants was like a journey through a completely different part of the world, full of life and people going about their day to day business, the sound of a village on a Sunday morning. The sea is glass, and the water seems to be tickling the beach so gently compared to the onslaught of the storm just a few short hours ago. The sun is warm on my face and the weather is a lady today, polite and considerate, revealing nothing of the stormy temptress within that benign exterior.

Its a day to be out and about. Just a moment or two to enjoy, before autumn continues is short hike to winter..............

see you later.

Listening to.........this.

Mind Your Language Please.........

hullo ma wee blog,

This is a bit weird, but interesting!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Maybe I now understand why they teach kids the way they do these days a bit better.

Listening to David Bowie 'China Girl'

see you later.........

Redundant?....Me?

Hullo ma wee blog,

March 10th. Working from home.

The phone rang and I picked it up after a couple of rings, checked the name on the screen, saw it was our head of dept and pressed answer. "Hi boss, how are you?". Unusual but not completely unheard of. We exchanged pleasantries for a moment as I automatically continued work on the item on my laptop and then he said "Alistair, I need you to come for a meeting with me" Thinking it was about a work allocation or project I said "ok, where and when" He immediately came back with " Tomorrow 11.00am in Birmingham".

I felt an instant hit of something like adrenaline, a definite twinge of minor anxiety. This was something a bit different then. I remember hesitating a moment and saying that I already had an appointment in Edinburgh as I was meeting my team leader for my end of year review. I got another jolt when I heard "Its cancelled I'm afraid. This will have to take priority" come back at me. "Take a couple of hours to make any changes to your plans for tomorrow and any travel arrangements and we'll talk later to make sure its all arranged."

Somewhere in my guts a little bastard switched on a washing machine and left the room.

The next day in a room with my head of dept and a company personnel manager I was told after 32 years of service that I was being made redundant in a short perfunctory interview of about 15 minutes, held without advising me of any right to representation. More than half of the dept I worked in got the same message.

Two days later I was told that although selected for redundancy the company wanted to retain my skills and would be looking for a position. I was told that the selection criteria was performance and I expressed surprise as I had always been a green rated performer. I was told there were a lot of those in my dept. Not surprising considering the job we did I suppose, as a project manager for an international company. My head of dept explained that he was given responsibility for deciding who stayed and had ranked us in performance. I asked him how this had been done as we worked across the country and he managed the team remotely through a group of team leaders who had also all been made redundant and he said very clearly " My decision, no one else involved, although I took into consideration previous conversations with the team leaders."

Two weeks after that the company posted record profits and announced 26000 new jobs planned for the year ahead.

Between then and redundancy I was advised of two jobs, one of which was advised as not available the day after, and was sent for one interview where on arrival I was told that the job didn't exist.

I had asked for a copy of the selection criteria and my completed form. It took almost two weeks for my head of dept to supply this and I found that my selection was based on evidence of 130 words after 32 years service. I disagreed vehemently with 90% of what had been written and called my ex team leader to review what my head of dept had written. He said he was non plussed and that none of the negative comments listed had ever been discussed with him in any way and that as I was due my annual review on the day of initial advice of redundancy would not have been any part of my review.

Strangely the staff selected to remain were spread across the UK in a perfect geographical split.

That's the basis of me starting fight the company on the grounds of unfair selection.

Since then I have found that the process used has been in my opinion, and it is only MY opinion, unfair and unreasonable, and through lack of a clear scoring process and a lack of review by senior management, left one person to make highly subjective decisions which has affected me and my future adversely.

there are many other issues involved and included but that's the bones of the story.

yesterday i went to a stage two appeal of the company appeals process, the first appeal having decided that although some aspects may not have been handled correctly, and that as a result of my feedback several points have been fed back to be considered in a review of the process, the underlying decision to dismiss was fair and reasonable.

I don't expect the 2nd stage appeal to do anything other than regurgitate the first decision and have already engaged a lawyer to represent me at an employment tribunal in early December.

We will see what the outcome is in time. But in the meantime I am job hunting.


see you later.

listening to Debussy.....'The Girl With the Flaxen Hair'

The Rematch......

Hullo there ma wee blog,


Well, thats me off now for my 2nd stage appeal against an unfair redundancy selection. Lets see what happens now.....

Place your bets, place your bets.....

Some chance!

See you later.

Natalie! Your place or mime?

Hullo there ma wee blog,

Just this cos I have laughed at it for years........





see you later

some holiday snaps......

Hullo there ma wee blog,


Thought I would take a wee meenit away from my prep for stuff.....

My Stage two appeal against unfair redundancy dismissal is on Wednesday in Edinburgh. {I dont have a problem with being selected for redundancy if the selection criteria is fair and applied to all, but it wasn't..... and while I honestly dont grudge any of my colleagues a job cos they are great one and all, I am a man of principle and a fighter, if nothing else. Dont care how big they are, if they're wrong they're wrong. }

I have also a date for the ACAS tribunal hearing for my unfair dismissal case for 3rd and 4th Dec.

And I am in the throws of prep for my interview for the Parole Board appointment on 8th Oct.

Heres a few shots from our short break - Tenerife in the Canaries.

music above is from Ed Alleyne - Johnsons 'Purple Violin Concerto' which I found a few years back and return to again and again as I find it so brilliant and relaxing .

Hope you enjoy it too.


Tower of fish, L'Oro Parque




Cliffs, Los Gigantes.



Feral kitten on the make



Volcanic column, Mt Teide National Park



Flower, Mt Teide National Park

See you later.

Listening to.........probably same as you!

Overcome by emulsion........

Hullo there ma wee blog,

Just back from a few days away and catching up with stuff including a few nice comments. Thanks very much.

I'll post some photos of our trip shortly.

Meantime here's a wee something by way of an apology especially for Scudder whos been having some problems posting comments.




see you later........