Cowieswells Update

Work has almost finished on the steading (barns) at Cowieswells and it looks stunning. There are some timelapse movies of the roof going on here. They took the scaffolding down today and we got a first glimpse of the place in its restored glory.

The steading looks huge and its great to see it with a roof, doors and windows. Lots of space which I have already started filling with crap! We have plans for workshops, storage, climbing wall, animals etc. This is so much fun, as I drove down there today it was really cold and sunny and as I came over the hill into Stonehaven I felt so alive and happy. It really feels like it is all coming together.

I have been researching the place a bit. It seems that the last people to live in the bothy moved out in the 1950's and I found an aerial photo from 1973 which shows a working farm in much better shape than when we bought it. If you look closely at the picture you can see the former owner on the left side of the house, looking up at the plane. I find this both intriguing and also rather sad because I know what is going to happen to this fit and healthy looking young man, standing proud on his farm with his well tended vegetable plot and his animals.

The plans for the house are now complete and we go to tender this week.

Update

I have been pretty slack at posting over the last couple of months - not being at work is surprisingly time consuming. I checked Statcounter today and saw that we are approaching 50,000 hits so I figured I should probably stick something more that crap jokes and timelapse movies on here. So here is a bit of an update.

I am in Aberdeen making the most of my generous Norwegian paternity leave. I knew that paying all that tax would eventually be beneficial to me eventually. We are currently living in Katharine's flat which is fairly large and well placed in the city. However its not very big we you try to cram in a woman who has finally git all her stuff in one place after years of travelling the world, a bloke who is used to a large evil lair on his own, a baby that has more clothes than the rest of the house hold and a cat that is used to roaming freely outside. Things are a bit cramped. We manage by 1) reminding ourselves that lots of people spend their whole lives with lots less space; 2) visiting Cowieswells at least once a week and dreaming about living there at least once an hour; and 3) laughing a lot. This is working for Katharine and I, Sophie doesn't know any different but poor old Lola has very bad cabin fever. How do you explain to a cat that in 6 months time she will have fields and barns galore to roam and that the small screaming person that keeps grabbing her tale will, in two years be her best friend. Its tough.

Work at Cowieswells has started with the steading (barns). Its been cleaned out, the stone work restored and the roof replaced. Its been fantastic to see it coming on. I have been down there quite a bit and spent quite a bit of time chatting to the the two stonemasons. They are really top guys and its so refreshing to have builders that actually want to work and aren't ripping you off chronically. I posted a video of the trusses going on to the roof. Work on the main house should start before the end of the year.

Apart from that work goes on. I manage a couple of hours a day when Sophie is in nursery which is enough to keep on top of most stuff. I bought an old Range Rover (P38) down in Oldham for trashing around the farm. We have visited friends and had family visit us and I have had a couple of trips back to Norway for work and to sell my house. The year has flown by and as we keep saying we can't wait until we are living in Cowieswells...

BT - Customer Service

Dear BT,
I moved into my flat in March 2010 and I signed up for a Broadband and phone package with you then. The router arrived and I was online straight away. For the first 15 months everything worked well and I was a happy costumer.

Then in July 2011 I received an email informing me that, as per my request, you were discontinuing the service. This was not my request, I did not want to be discounted, I was quite happy with the service. I loved BT, it is a part of my heritage, part of my countries history. I had grown with Maureen Lipmann and her Ologies. I had no desire to get my service from any of these upstart companies with lurid graphics and stupid names. I wanted my service direct from the mother company and I didn’t care if it was a bit more expensive because it was BT and that’s British.

I assumed that your desire to break off our relationship and blame it on me was simply confusion, caused by the couple in the flat upstairs who were moving out. So on the 23rd July I called you to say that I was not leaving you and please don’t disconnect me.

The man I spoke to initially insisted that it was me that was breaking up until I pointed out that I had been in Norway on maternity leave for the last three months. He eventually conceded that maybe you had made a mistake and cancelled the service to the wrong flat. But tragically the wheels were in motion on the run-away train of disconnection. Despite the fact that you could stop the service remotely it was technically too challenging to start it again. There was no option, I needed a new router. Despite the fact that the old one is still shinny and sits there blinking away. I can still see it in my wireless network list, but is sadly impotent. Unjustly sterilized by a cruel technician in Bangalore. Despite this inconvenience and obvious waste I agreed to proceed, not yet ready to throw away all we had together.

Then the next day I was called by someone else in BT to inform me that the order I had set up the day before had been cancelled. He claimed that I had cancelled the order which was again untrue. Why are you so keen to blame this break-up on me? If you don’t like me just say.

After a bit of heated discussion he said it would be sorted by the end of the month.

The new router arrived as expected on the 31st August along with a letter and bill for £155. Now this is starting to get random and annoying. The bill is for cancelling service - just to remind you, I NEVER CANCELLED ANYTHING – THAT WAS YOU!

Predictably the service did not come back on of the 1st September. What a fool I was to even think that anything you promised could possibly happen. So again I called BT and after the inevitable half hour of listening to illogical fuckin menus and stupid music I was answered by another mindless drone who again was unable to find my case history on his computer and after 10 minutes of not really listening to what I had to say passed me to another department who are equally disinterested and even more fuckin useless. The final person I spoke to promised it would be back on in 5 days and she would cancel the £155 bill.

I being the eternal optimist agreed to wait. By the 10th September I still have no phone or internet but I had another bill for £155 and, yes wait for it – another fuckin wireless router, that’s three and there is apparently another in the post. You are totally taking the piss. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

So later on 10th September I called again – why oh why did I bother? And after playing the inevitable game of telephone pass the parcel I was put through to a supervisor called Rohan. Oh good I thought, someone with authority who had risen through the dizzy ranks of customer service. He would be able to help, now I had a chance of getting it sorted. But alas Rohan was even more useless at dealing with costumers than his hapless staff but he did offer to send me another router. He also promised to call back the next day, but again predictably never did.

The next to final straw came on the 11th September when I got a phone message (on my mobile because I still don’t have a land line) from another of your departments who want all their routers back. Perhaps they are running out because the fuckwits in the first department keeping giving them away to anyone who rings up.

Now I genuinely don’t care if your staff are sitting in London, Newcastle or Delhi. I just want somebody who knows what they are talking about and can remotely switch a fuckin internet service back on. How difficult can it be?

So on the 12th September I finally ran out of masochistic tendencies and decided to give up on BT and get my internet from someone else. Sorry! Bugger, the history and the brand loyalty, enough is enough, all of a sudden those upstart comapnies, with their jazzy logos seemed very appealing.

But it was never going to be that easy was it? Oh no!

So I found another company who could supply the internet but they needed BT to provide the line… With that news I got the sinking feeling that you must get when you realize that you are in Rome not Britain and you have just looked the wrong way and stepped in to some very fast moving traffic…

But never one to give up, I had an inspired idea… I called the sales department which was staffed with nice people, who actually know what they are talking about and are keen to help, probably because they don’t yet have your business and want to put on a good show. It also probably helps that they are based in the UK and understand the concept of a house that has been subdivided into two flats.

A very nice man called Daniel spent a long time listening to my wows and figured out the problem. He was very calm and understanding although he also tried very hard to sell me more broadband and another router. He said that we needed a new line and it would cost £130 unless we got broadband from you. It must be a testement to his sales ability that I was even tempted, but the prospect of getting another batch of routers and having to deal with the cretins in tech support in India and the memories of all the pain of the last two months meant that I could not bring myself to do it. No, we just wanted the line and we shouldn’t have to pay for it. He agreed and told me somebody from complaints would call me back within 48 hours. He was so nice I actually believed him. Yes I really was that stupid.

So 48 hours later and no call. Why oh why am I surprised? So I call back and listen to all the tedious menus before giving up and going to sales again. There some brainless Gordie fishwife tells me that I’ll have to hold while she reads my notes, goes off has a cup of tea and then comes back 15 minutes later and says they’ll call me back with five days. What happened to 48 hours? What is so fuckin difficult to understand? You turned the line off JUST TURN THE FUCKIN THING BACK ON. Don’t send any more wireless routers, don’t send any bills for connection or disconnection, don’t make me wait weeks or months, don’t redirect me to a bunch of fuck wits in India, JUST TURN THE FUCKIN LINE ON AND THEN FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE! Yes it really is that simple to make me happy.

At this point if I had a nuclear or biological WMD I would consider bringing it to your office and detonating it with prejudice. In fact I might just send it to Maureen Lipmann because ultimate I think its all her fault.

Message to our unborn daughter

At some point in the next two or three weeks we will finally meet and you will begin your life in this World. Your impeding arrival has already changed our lives and I am in no illusion that that impact will decrease after you take your first breaths. We are embarking on a whole new adventure together and it’s going to be a roller coaster ride. As John T said “having kids will ruin your life… In the best possible may”. I am sure he’s right.

I have no doubt you will be beautiful and perhaps more importantly I am sure that you will be tough and smart. The next 20 years will be as big a challenge for us all so in the calm before the storm I have jotted down a few bits of advice that may be useful:

• Be empathetic, kindness and empathy are the critical attributes that define the essence of what it is to be human.
• Always try and protect the weak. Being strong and smart is a gift that should be used wisely, the bully is the lowest of the low.
• Work hard/play hard – there is only one life and most probably nothing after it, so don’t waste your time doing nothing, seize every moment and use it to its full. Carpe Diem.  
• Cultivate an enquiring mind – try at all times to be open minded and enquiring, question everything and striving to understand the world around you, avoid dogma.
• Avoid ignorance – despite the belief of a large sub-culture in Britain, there is nothing attractive or endearing about willful ignorance. Being thick is not cool.
• Avoid arrogance it’s ugly. Be proud of your success but endeavor not to boast or assume superiority. Remember that success is often fleeting.
• Avoid complacency – never stop striving to be better, never feel like you have arrived at the top because when you do, the only way is down.
• Embrace diversity – because somebody is different does not make them better or worse than you, in fact it probably means that they have something to teach you.
• Have fun and enjoy your friends – at the end of the day happiness is what we all strive for.

Very few people are smart enough to plan the trajectory that their lives will follow and even fewer have the capacity to execute such plans. Far better is to define a philosophy and see where it takes you. There are many things that you can do, not because A will lead to B and then to C, but because they feel right, or because it feels like a nice thing to do. Most will not get you anywhere but the most unexpected can lead to doors that you never imagined being opened.

 

And remember whether you turn into a pink princess or a tomboy, a rocket scientist or a beautician – we will always love you.

Bit of news - an update

Things in Bergen plod along as normal. Winter is coming although there has been some fine Autumn days. I will never get bored of waking up and seeing the view from my bedroom window across the fjord, even when the weather is crappy, but especially when the whole thing is bathed in a warm orange glow of the morning sun and steam devils are dancing across the water.

Not too much fun stuff going on at the mo, just lots of work, although I have been out climbing a couple of times which is always a treat. Hard to beat climbing sea-cliffs in the evening.

Was in Aberdeen for the weekend. We finally got the keys to Cowieswells and entered the house for the first time. It was nowhere near as bleak or derelict as we had imagined, although still pretty much uninhabitable. We also meet, Brian the farmer who has bought the surrounding land. He was a really nice guy and told us a lot of background to the place, including the fact that the previous owner had died in the house - nice! And that all the money had gone to charity - which is also nice but it a less sarcastic way. It was good to meet him and know that we could at least communicate with our neighbours.

Visited the place a couple of times over the weekend, the second time with Aid and Elian. It's very encouraging to see how many friends are really inspired by the place. It helps us believe that we havn't made a huge mistake. After visiting the farm we had lunch with them in Stonehaven which is also growing on me as a palce. I had originally thought it was just a dormitory town to Aberdeen but it isn't. Lots of history, a picturesque harbour, good pubs and an excellent fish n chip shop. Look forward to exploring it more.

Monday we had the second scan for the baby. Katharine is doing great and making the whole pregnancy thing look like a breeze. Hard to imagine that at 21 weeks we are now past half way already. The first scan at 12 weeks down in Edinburgh had been amazing and I was really looking forward to this one.

Unfortunatly it was in Aberdeen and they have a policy of not revealing the sex of the baby to the parents. In fact they go out of their way to avoid showing you. The story goes that some dickhead sued them after he painted his nursary pink and then had a boy, although I am not sure if that is true. If it is then he should be shot for being the type of self entitled scum that ruin it for everyone and Aberdeen health trust should be ashamed of themselves for taking the easy route.

The women running the scanner was a dour east coast grandmother who, while not unpleasant was not interested in engaging with us at all. She just ignored any questions or comments and whizzed around the baby, making the necassary measurements and getting us out as quickly as possible. It was all very deflating.

The afternoon improved greatly with a visit to architect who will work with us on the house. I had not met him before and he was great. Really seemed to know what he was talking about, lots of ideas and just a really inspriring guy. An hour and a half with him cheered us up no end.

Now in Skipole and on my way to Calgary for 4 days - Rock n roll!

Autumn has arrived

Amazing weather last week, really felt like summer, unfortuantly I was stuck in doors working.

Was then in Aberdeen for the weekend and got to see the Farm for the second time. All very exciting and just a bit scary as well. There is certainly lots to do there.

Looking moody

The house close up

My brother and Ellie were up in Scotland so they came to visit. We went to Dunotter Castle which was very impressive, had chips in the worlds best fish and chip shop in Stoenhaven and food and a beer in my new local. All very exciting.

Free tractor with every derelict farm!

Local Castle

Now back in Bergen and the weather is horrible. First leaves are coming off the trees and it really feels like autumn has arrived.