We had a couple of weeks off before Christmas, a sad necessity since our works decided they’d not comply with the law to allow us to carry over the time we wanted to (and were entitled to) take off into 2021, graciously offering us small additions to what was statutory prior to 2020 anyway. We couldn’t be bothered arguing the point through emails any longer because early attempts had clearly shown that the HR people not only didn’t know the law but also weren’t inclined to learn about it, and so to preserve our sanity (shut up) we ensured that we didn’t do that but booked the remaining time off as late as possible in order to force an overlap with other people who’d booked the Christmas period off as well so that there was less cover for emergencies. You’ve got to do what you can to fight back and educate every time you can because you get nothing in the corporate world for loyalty to an employer or trying to be the bigger person or trying to heal wounds or trying to be helpful to the business when it inconveniences you. Don’t work outside your required hours. Don’t do favours for companies where hiring/firing decisions are undertaken outside the immediate circle of people you deal with. Don’t look at work emails on your time off. Don’t be contactable at all once the working day is over. Thank you for listening to Surviving Work With Mark.
And what did we do with those two weeks? Well, nothing. Haven’t you been reading the news? There was a virus, people. Everyone’s been talking about it. We didn’t go anywhere. We didn’t see anybody. We want the world to get back to normal as quickly as possible and that’s an increasingly difficult thing to do when you’re governed by the corrupt and incompetent and live in a country full of the selfish and moronic.
Doing nothing gave me plenty of time to start filling in gaps in the website travel accounts, though, and I published quite a lot of them. Now, there are some people who say you should stick to a schedule when publishing content and you should promote that content in a consistent way and at a regular time but not only do I never do that, in a lot of cases I didn’t even post a link anywhere on social media at the time either. The reason why is explained in the About page (which I’ve had to recently update thanks to a slew of requests over the last couple of months for links for some reason).
Anyway, no links outside the site this time around because there’s not a lot to link to that isn’t just a “Review of 2020” list filled with despair. However, here’s all the new accounts of travelling we’ve undertaken over the years and which were recently posted on this site that you might have missed:
Newmillerdam Nature Reserve, Wakefield, Yorkshire – Do you fancy a walk around a lake? Well, we did on our first visit to Wakefield oh-so-many years ago, and here are the photos to prove it. We weren’t expecting to see terrapins in Yorkshire but that’s one of the sorts of things you can discover when you travel.
Rookery Hall Hotel, Cheshire – This was the somewhat fancy hotel we stopped over in on our way back from Newcastle one year in order to not have to make the journey in one go and since we had an extra day’s holiday to use up anyway.
Southsea Ghetto Street Art – Our home city of Portsmouth has some very good street artists based in and around it and we’ve got a few spots around the city where that art is publicly shown off and frequently changed, with this location in Southsea being one of them.
Fort Purbrook View Over Portsmouth – Another short, local post from us featuring some photographs taken from one of the Victorian forts constructed on the hill overlooking our city.
Marwell Zoo – An account of one of our visits to the zoo nearest to us. A grey day, and the time that the red panda there taunted me.
Weymouth Sealife Centre, SandWorld, Museum – Our last day in Weymouth in the summer was filled with weather through which we ducked and weaved to get indoors and see sealife at the town’s aquarium, nose around a sand sculpture exhibition, and check out the small but fascinating local museum.
Birds Of Prey And People At Pylewell Park Food Festival – This food festival was a rather short-lived annual event that we attended one year since my brother had been involved in some work for it. A chance to eat, drink, and take photos of the attendees.
UK Snow In January – As Christmas approached and it became clear that there was likely to be snow somewhere in the country I had a dig back through the photo archives to see if I could find pictures when it had really snowed locally to us as it’s something of a rarity. The photos here are from our garden, a nearby cemetery, and the spot in the middle of nowhere in the countryside at which I was working at the time.
Portsmouth Dockyard Victorian Christmas Festival – Our home city has hosted a Victorian-style festival close to Christmas for many years in the historic dockyard area. It’s a great setting for it and if the weather’s good – as it was on this occasion – it’s a wonderful chance to step back in time for some good old-fashioned festive spirit.
Beaulieu National Motor Museum In September – Concluding the travel accounts of our week away to West Country last year and if you like classic or vintage cars or motorcycles, or if you like impressive topiary then this attraction we attend on a fairly regular basis might suit you.
June Flowers, Plants, And Insects With A Macro Lens – When I used to work in Chichester I would often head to a nearby public garden and take macro photos of some of the best bits of nature on display. Admittedly, this isn’t a travel account at all, but my site and my rules always applies.
Temple Of Heaven, Beijing – This was a previously-published post that underwent a complete rewrite, reprocessing of the photos that had been there, and the addition of a few others that hadn’t made it the first time. As part of the continuing revisit of older articles on this site this marks the final post from Beijing and the last of the pre-cruise touring we did ahead of our first ever cruise back in 2008.
First 24 Hours At The Blue Lagoon Resort, Kos – The first account of our trip to the Greek island of Kos in November just before the UK lockdown started with us getting there (with some adventures at the airport) and just how horribly drunk we got on the first evening, leading to the absolute waste of a first full day following on from that.
Shoreline Walk To Kos Town – Once we’d actually recovered we then took a walk into the largest town on the island with this account being primarily photographs of that, leaving what we saw and did there to be written up later.
