Day at the beach

It’s summer and its nice and hot. What is there better to do than to go to the beach? Thats exactly what we did. We packed our stuff and headed down to Camber Sands.

Unfortunately at the time of going to the beach Operation Stack was on which closed the majority of the M20 and caused chaos with the traffic in the local areas. We decided to go through Maidstone and down the A229 and then onto the A21 to Hastings heading to Camber from the West. It took a little longer to get there, but it was much more desirable taking that route than being stuck in hour upon hours of traffic!

We arrived just after 2pm at which time the parking becomes half price, so thats a bonus! We parked up and unpacked the car. I lathered up the kids with sunscreen and headed up the huge sand dunes over to the beach. We spent the next couple of hours playing about in the ocean.

We had loads of fun!

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The Eden Project

Last year when I had the kids with me we visited the Eden Project in Cornwall. At the time I didn’t realise but I bought annual passes. I don’t think it cost that much more than a regular ticket to be perfectly honest, so thats why I probably didn’t notice.

Anyway, we decided to visit again this year. We had a good time down there and as hey had the dinosaur expedition on again, we definitely had to go and visit. Below are a few photos we took while there.

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Legoland

It’s that time of year again when I get to have a couple of weeks with the kids, and I intend to make the most of it. I have decided to buy them annual passes for merlin attractions which will get us into all the best theme parks around the UK.

We started our trip with Legoland, and we had the weather on our side which was a major bonus! As anyone with any form of sense should know if you visit a theme park then you better have the extra money to pay for fast track (in the case of Legoland its known as a Qbot).

I have included the videos and photos I took while we were there. Check them out below.


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Three Peaks – What happened?

As you know I was going to attempt the National UK three peak challenge with several of my colleagues from work. July 4th was the date picked for the challenge, but we decided to head up to Scotland on the 2nd to have some social time drinking and having a look around the local area.

We left from work at 6.30am, which was just after I finished my 12 hour shift. I was quite surprised by the lack of traffic on the journey. We hit the morning rush, but even that wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.

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We hit the border of Scotland at 4.20pm after a couple of stops to change drivers / breakfast and fag breaks, and arrived at our chalet shortly after 7pm.

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Our first port of call after checking into the chalet was to find out where the local shop was, and to grab some drinks for the nights entertainment.

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After dinner the drinking games began. I ended up drinking close to three quarters of a litre of vodka, half a bottle of Mikey Finns, and a glass of Disaronno and God only knows what the others drank!

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Needless to say it got very messy. None of us got any sleep until around 6.30pm the next day.
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Fathers Day

It’s already been a while since I last saw my two, so Fathers Day was just the opportunity to make sure I had the time off of work and go spend time with the kids.

I set off relatively early from home and made my way down to Winchester to pick the kids up for the day and take them out for some quality father, son, and daughter time.

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Help Molly to walk

A charity was picked for our three peaks challenge next month and as you can probably guess from the title of this post it’s to help a little girl known as Molly.

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Molly has cerebral palsy, which causes the muscles in her legs to become tight and very painful. At the moment Molly is using a walker or a wheelchair to get around, but she has one single wish – to be able to walk without pain.

There is an operation available for Molly in the USA that will fulfill Molly’s wish, but she needs your help. The operation, travel and after care is quite expensive and costs around £60,000. You can help Molly’s dream become a reality. You can support her by donating to her just giving page.

https://www.justgiving.com/Mollys-wish-to-walk/

Thank you for taking the time to read this and decide to donate to help Molly’s wish become a reality. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

CSCS Certificate

It’s now the 7th of May and at 11am this morning I had my CSCS test, and as I had hoped I passed my test. This is great news for me as it opens up so many doors for me within the company.

Now that I have my CSCS certificate I will be arranging with my supervisor’s permission and assistance days out with the crews and inspectors, at least that’s the goal any way.

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Within the next 18 – 24 months I would like to start moving my career towards becoming an inspector on the roads, so learning how the MRT’s and the inspectors do their jobs will be very handy when a position does become available, but as we are nearing the end of the contract with Highways England I don’t know how this will turn out. Either way, the experience I have currently should allow me to get a job somewhere else if all goes to pot for the rebid next month.

Happy Birthday Chloé

Sunday will be my daughter’s birthday, and she will be turning 7. I have asked a friend if they could make her a cake based around a monkey and girly theme. The result was amazing. I do love her work.

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Three Peak Challenge

On July 4th I will have the opportunity to take part in the three peak challenge with some friends from work. It has been in the planning stage for a while, so I didn’t really want to post about it until it’s all confirmed.

This is a huge opportunity for me to tick a couple of things off of my bucket list. I get to travel to Scotland, and I get to climb a mountain – three in fact!

The total round trip will be approximately 1360 miles, and we are doing it in my car!

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We will use our place of work as the base for everyone meeting up, and from there we will continue forward on our journey up to Scotland. We have found an amazing location to stay and prepare ourselves for the first climb in Scotland.

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I am really excited and pumped to be doing this challenge. It will be a real test of stamina and perseverance not only for me but the others in the group as well. The best thing is we are doing this to help raise some money for charity (one has yet to be picked), so if you would like to help then a page will be set up so you can donate if you wish to.

Throughout the entire journey I will be documenting it, but have yet to choose the method so others can view everything we are doing. At the end when we finally reach home I will collate everything and put it up on here for all to see.

Have you ever done the three peaks challenge? How did you find it? Is it something you would like to do again? Did you manage to complete all three peaks in under the 24 hours? If you didn’t what held you up?

Construction Skills Certification Scheme

Finally things at work are moving forward a bit. Last week I went to a meeting to help evaluate one of the depots that the Maintenance Response Team work out of, and afterwards I was invited down to the depot to meet the guys and see how things are done from their perspective.

While having the invite is good, as I get to meet the guys I wouldn’t really be allowed to do anything with them unless I had a certificate to say I was aware of Health & Safety regulations. Thankfully three of us have been put forward to get our CSCS (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) cards, which allows us on site while they are working and to pitch in to experience what they do and how they work.

I have my test on the 7th May, and have been given the go ahead to go down to the depot on the 14th May. I have to say that I am quite excited to get out with the guys on the roads.

In the mean time I will be revising for my test, so I can definitely get to go out with the guys on the roads!

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I love my job, but I also like variety. I wonder if I can have the best of both worlds?