Geocaches secured, and a good day out

I seem to have a knack of dropping out of circulation just before something interesting happens, and the rule was in play once again, as I discovered, with an overflowing mailbox (full of notifications about geocache visits) and and brief update on Billy Twigger.

As always, I leave the detail of the words to the source (posted on September 16, 2007)…

More news from Ewan’s Dad: The move to a care home hasn’t happened yet; it’s a matter of a place becoming available and the arranging of training for their staff regarding Ewan’s special needs. The move should take place this month, we hope.
I’ve spoken to Ewan and Lorna about visits from fellow cachers and they’d both be very pleased to see people.
Probably the best approach is for you or your friends to liaise directly with Lorna or with Fraser (Ewan’s son). The best times are probably late afternoons i.e. from about 3.15/3.30pm – he’s often in the computer room until then. By the way, he has now bought his own lap-top – a declaration of intent if ever there was one!”

On September 22, a special geocaching event was held on the island, where the Scottish Geocaching Community adopted Billy’s caches,and took on their maintenance. A few more were also added to mark the day, with many being visited by those who visited on the day, and activity continuing thereafter.

Set to music, there is also a compilation of pictures taken of the day.

I remember visiting the first few caches not long after they appeared, and running out of ‘objects’ as I’d only meant to drop in on one or two in passing, while on a regular trip, and ended up spending the day trying to find them all (and failing). Now, 29 have been placed, most are still active, and provide an excellent opportunity to see places you might otherwise not visit.

There’s a summary and map (usually up to date) of Bute’s geocaches available on the Geocaching page in ButeWiki.

BT progress continues

Dragged myself away from some other ‘duties’ and had a nose around some haunts I don’t frequent as often as I should, and was pleased to see that there had been another very positive update posted on Billy Twigger’s recovery. Other than reflecting on the observation that almost a year has passed, as always, I leave the detail of the words to the source (posted on August 10, 2007)…

At the SGDO, several people asked about Ewan, but I didn’t have any more news at that time.

However, I received an email from Ewan’s Dad just yesterday, and this is what he says:

“Ewan continues to do well with no appreciable set-backs from when I last wrote. He is still in the Spinal Injuries Unit at the Southern General but the staff there are working towards getting him ready to go into a Care Home for a few months. That should happen some time this month but there’s no fixed date yet.

He has had three ‘outings’. The first was to the RSPB centre at Lochwinnoch, the second to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and the third, yesterday, to PC World at Finneston – all well organised and accompanied by a nurse and an occupational therapist.

Ewan has been doing great things with a computer. He has a very good tutor who has got him on to voice recognition software and this has opened up whole new possibilities. He has even been surfing the net and a session in the computer room is a tremendous fillip for him.”

So, good news! Visits from some of the cachers who know him may be appreciated in the not too distant future.

PS It’s almost a year since BT’s accident. It’s been a long slow road for him since then with a lot of setbacks, but things are looking much brighter for him now. His resilience, fortitude and positive outlook have been amazing

Falling apart?

It was a bit of an eye-opener, but not much a surprise, when there was cause for concern last when subsidence appeared in the vicinity of the new works around the pier. While there’s little detailed historical records, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to work out the potential for events around any work thereabouts, bearing in mind the place is built on reclaimed land- reclaimed in the days when there were no Building Regs.

No reflection on the contractors, they can’t be psychic, and even test drilling can only tell so much, and even that only works for natural formations, not man-made junk, where any old rubbish might have been thrown in the hole.

Looking a bit more serious this week, the pier buildings are closed, and CalMac have installed themselves in a Portacabin following the discovery of a crack in the pier building. While it’s not deemed terminal (oops, a terminal building with something ‘not terminal’), the surveyor is still to deem the movement stable, so there could be more to come, and maybe more stabilisation work needed.

Dear oh dear, landslides at the Palace, derelict and roofless buildings in Guildford Square, now the pier building is cracking up, oh, and the pier works are breaking into the sea wall, barely a couple of years old. Doesn’t take long for tidy to to become tatty.

Wonder if anyone’s put anything in the budget to keep the paint on the new roundabouts and traffic lights freshened up once the wear sets in properly?

Progress for Billy Twigger

It’s ironic how things get thrown into perspective, and while I’ve been feeling guilty about not being able to have a look in here and post anything, I’ve felt even more guilty about thinking that my own problems that are keeping me away are anything in comparison to BT’s.

However, this is the first chance I’ve had to take a look and see if there were any updates, and it’s odd how you can worry about the unknown, and potential bad news, but I had to look, and was pleased to see that progress was still being reported as positive. Here is the info, passed on as seen:-

May 11, 2007: Unfortunately, Ewan’s recovery hasn’t been a smooth one in recent months. He had to have an operation in March and several times it was touch and go whether he would pull through. However, he is now back to focusing on recovery and getting used to using a wheelchair. Despite these setbacks, Ewan manages to keep in good spirits.

I’m sure that everyone here will join me in sending our sincere wishes for continued progress.

For new cachers who may not know Ewan (aka Billy Twigger), he fell off a cliff on the Isle of Bute at the end of the summer last year, while placing a cache. He suffered major injuries, and was in intensive care for a prolonged period, moving onto the Spinal Injuries unit in Glasgow towards the end of last year. BT as we like to call him is a cacher-setter extraodinaire and made many friends in the geocaching community.

June 1, 2007: More news from Ewan’s Dad:

He now has a wheelchair that is fitted to his body shape and is therefore much more comfortable. He is spending up to 5 hours a day in it, but it’s pretty exhausting work. Ewan’s thinking remains positive and he recently enjoyed watching all of the televised football in the day-room.

He can also access a computer with some aids. Ewan’s sister ran the Womens 10k in Glasgow and raised £650 for Spinal Injuries Scotland.

He has had family members to visit and a few work colleagues. He would be pleased to see any geocacher who would care to visit. If you would like to do so, please get in touch with me and I can pass on a contact number to telephone his wife to arrange the best time.

Small change for Mount Stuart

Johnny Bute, the Marquess of Bute, has announced plans to restructure his fortune and concentrate on Mount Stuart, the family home.

Former Formula One, and other disciplines, racing driver Johnny Dumfries has confirmed that he will sell Dumfries House, and its contents.

Surrounded by 2,000 acres, the house itself is expected to realise some £7 million, and was designed and built by renowned Scottish architects John, Robert and James Adam between 1754 and 1759 for William, the 5th Earl of Dumfries.

The collection of furniture being sold from the house includes many outstanding pieces by the famous designer Chippendale (who was a friend of the Adam brothers). A George II bookcase alone is expected to sell for between £2 million and £4 million. In total, it is estimated that the contents will realise around £13 million. That would make it the largest furniture sale in British history.

Thank goodness for some real news!

For a moment I thought I was going to have to break the rules and fill some space by having a go at the ping-pong blame, cause, effect, and pot calling kettle black world of the ferries, with CalMac, BFUG, the holiday and coach operators, and the new harbour builders all pointing fingers at one another for some reason or other.

God forbid any of them ever sit down around a table one day and actually try and work together.

No, of course not, that would be too likely to produce some sort of benefit for the passengers, rather than egos.

A Thank You

It’s nice to be nice…

I think that’s true, even though when I was at school the teachers continually preached at us no to use the word nice. They seemed to have some sort of aversion to it simply because it was so small and convenient, and handy to use if one wanted compliment someone or something without getting too involved. They almost likened its use to a lack of intelligence. Tough, I’ve used it ever since, and will continue to do so when it suits me.

If you’ve followed the earlier reflections on Billy Twigger’s unfortunate accident, then you’ll know that the work he did in adding geocaches to his favourite island was in potential danger of being lost, with no-one looking after them (I would if I could but I can’t), so I was particularly pleased when updates began flowing into my Inbox recently, and they included updates and maintenance notes for the island’s caches.

If no one else does it, I’d like to say Thank You to big rab for taking the time to do this.

Quiet?

Ok, so island life is supposed to be quiet, but I do sometimes regret having a self-imposed embargo on general ferry chit-chat, but then I’d just end but being guilty of being as big a moan as BFUG, or is that about BFUG? Still, better (and safer) to keep ferry related comments to the more exceptional items, after all 230 weather related disruptions in only 10 months (and they won’t have been evenly spread out) would be just a few too many posts to make, even just for fun.

I can only think of serious things to reflect on as we go through the twice yearly clock shifting madness – how come we have to wait until March is almost over, and the evenings are getting longer and lighter, before somebody says “Right folks, put your clocks forward, and you can have an extra hour of light in the evening”? Excuse me, but shouldn’t we have put the clocks forward for that ‘extra’ hour of daylight a few months ago, and had an ‘extra’ hour of daylight since then? We’re nuts, especially when Global Warming Merchants of Doom are telling us all to save energy. Come the dark nights, we actually put the clocks back an hour, so we’re all burning off electricity for an extra hour a night to light up the self-imposed darkness.

I also noticed there had been no feeds referring to Billy Twigger, so thought I’d better go check manually, but didn’t really want to. Well, the last post had been some Christmas wishes, and a note to the effect that there had a been a wee bout of pneumonia, which was over, and that he was suffering some pain, but otherwise (if that’s not too simplistic a word to use) things continue as expected. So, it can only be hoped that things are still on track.

That only leaves the fire-raising and housebreakings and vandalism, but, I don’t really want go there. Bute’s supposed to be a nice wee place after all.

We don’t do sensible…

Spare a thought for the unfortunate folk across the water, near the ‘other’ ferry, they don’t get just ordinary silly from the council, they get special silly.

Having been told that their road wasn’t suitable for the council’s rubbish lorries (the nasty, naughty, loose road surface might damage them):-

“We were aware some time ago that there was a threat to the rubbish services, and in view of that we actually carried out quite a lot of reinstatement to the road surface ourselves. However, no-one came to see what we’d done, or to check whether we’d rendered the surface fit for the uplift to continue. They simply sent out a letter saying that they were going to discontinue the service.“

Last Thursday was the first day of the amended service – if that’s the right word.

The rubbish lorry got to the end of the road, where the bin had been sited in an area used as a car park for the forestry trail.

“However, they then discovered that because of parked cars, they couldn’t turn the lorry. So they drove up our road – the very road that council officials had condemned as unfit for purpose – turned at the top and drove all the way back down.”

They asked them if it wouldn’t be sensible for the rubbish to be uplifted on the way.

The answer they got was; “We don’t do sensible“…..

“I couldn’t agree more. We’ve now got the ridiculous situation whereby they drive past our house to turn their vehicle, but can’t actually stop to pick up our rubbish on the way. And to rub salt in the wound, their lorry is wearing out the road surface that we’ve tried to put right.”

“Who’s idea was this – Alice in Wonderland?”

Story from the Dunoon Observer, 9th March.

Can I help you with your wheelbarrow?

Flicking through this week’s Buteman, I was reminded of the old joke about the foreman that knew Fred was pinching stuff off the building site they were working on, but couldn’t work out what. Every night, Fred would leave the site, whistling happily, and pushing his wheelbarrow. Eventually the foreman decided to challenge Fred, “Look, I know you’re pinching stuff, but I don’t know what. Just between the two of us, will you tell me what, ‘cos I’m starting to lose sleep not knowing“. Deciding to take him at his word, Fred winked at the foreman and nodded, glanced down and said one word, “Wheelbarrows“, and carried on his way.

An oldie, and it comes in many variations, but when I saw the following comment from the manager on the new Goy housing project: “if this site was in Manchester there would have been moans and we would have had to have constant security and still have suffered from thieving“, I couldn’t help thinking of it and smiling. An island with two ferry ports and no bridge isn’t the easiest place to dispose of recently acquired building supplies that just Fell off the Back of a Lorry.

It also conjured up a picture of shell-suited and hooded, Burberry-clad, Buckfast swigging Glasgow Neds queuing up for the ferry, with stolen borrowed pick-ups loaded with bricks, timber, scaffold, plumbing, cement mixers, shovels, and anything else not tied down on the hillside. You can just imagine the conversation as a look of genuine surprise crossed they’re faces when they’re stopped before boarding the ferry:

Good evening sir. Had a busy day on site today then?

Aye, no bad big man.

You seem to have a lot of surplus material.

Eh… naw? We’re… um… just here fur wan day. Trainin’ oan the joab like… ye know… helpin’us get joabs wi’ experience.

Really? Who’s in charge?

Ah… the gaffer goat pissed, hud to get an early boat ‘n go hame. tae ‘is kip. Left us tae clear up.

Really? Who were you working with on site?

How the F*** wid ah know, that’s the gaffer’s joab!

Really? Watch your language please. Do you know the registration number of this vehicle?

Huvnae a clue pal… heh-heh… the gaffer just left it fur us tae get hame in.

Really? Have you been drinking?

Whit’s it tae ye?

Nothing Sir, but I believe the smell of your breath suggests it may be of interest to this Breathalyser…

At which stage the happy band of designer-label-clad geniuses decide to cut their losses, assault the officer, abandon their haul, and leg it into the town and make good their escape.

Normally a plan that works reasonably well in a big city, but, our band of happy travellers have forgotten one small detail – they’re on an island, and it’s not even tourist season.

If you think the scenario’s a bit far fetched, you may be right, on the other hand, I know someone who’s cousin was mugged by a bunch of Neds in Glasgow last night. Three young teens just walking between their homes were assaulted by a group of eight older teens (fortunately not seriously injured, only shaken), who relieved them of their mobile phones, cash and anything else movable. They were in custody within the hour as they then proceeded to board a bus and wreak havoc on board. Bus security in the city is now very sophisticated, with automated radio links, meaning they were quickly attended to by the police, but even eight of them couldn’t work out that going nuts on a bus was a quick route to the cells, and they were already on the Radar.

Island life, isn’t it great?

Deadly fun, only fun for the criminal

In an intriguing coincidence given the last comment posted here, the BBC ran a documentary last night(Panorama), looking at the alleged cost of violent patients to the NHS, coming up with a total figure of around £100 million, Scotland’s share is estimated at a mere £3 million!

Although I didn’t see the programme, I did catch an excerpt, which happened to touch on the last comment, which touched on the absence of a dialysis machine on the island, and the lack of finding to provide such a service.

The solution seemed to be provided in the programme…

One of the shameful facts that became evident was that while the patients may not care for the safety, health or well-being of the NHS staff that find they have to treat them, the staff are bound to look after the patients regardless, and are left with the choice of continuing to administer treatment, or withdraw treatment due to the danger they are in. In the case of dialysis, this amounts to a death sentence for the patients concerned, which is something that no health service personnel would consider, despite the insanity of the situation.

In the case of an individual featured in the report, a convicted rapist, he was said to have threatened and followed staff, and assaulted them while attending dialysis. This continued regardless of court action being taken to impose restriction on the individual, who also denied all these claims when challenged on camera by the presenter, and refusing to co-operate.

The solution to the problem, given the hospital refuses the option to withdraw treatment as dialysis is an essential, life-saving treatment needed every few days, is to provide a room where this patient can be treated in isolation.

The cost for providing this ‘private’ service for the the troublemaker?

£42,000.

As with the last comment, I’m not casting any negative criticism on the authority. They have a job to do, and a Duty of Care to their staff, and their patients, even the bad ones unfortunately. Equally unfortunately, the money to deal with them comes from the same pot as the money to treat the rest of us.

Truly a case of “The noisy hinge getting the oil”.

And, if anyone wants a dialysis machine on the island, organise those that need its services into a gang, and abuse the hospital and ferry staff, and there’ll be a machine and treatment room installed in no time, so that there’s no longer any need for the ‘abusive’ patients to travel off island.

That suggestion would be funny if wasn’t for the likelihood that it would probably work!