Crossroads North Wales Trustees

I had the pleasure of being part of the panel that interviewed three applicants to our Board of Trustees this morning. It quickly became obvious that all three were perfectly suited to the role and we readily agreed to recommend all of them to our fellow Trustees, assured that they will all add skills and vibrancy to the Board.

I value my position at Crossroads incredibly highly. We are approaching only our second birthday as the North Wales scheme, made up from six previous county schemes. I feel honoured to play a part in delivering a much needed service to the Carers of North Wales and as a new scheme, today added to my belief that we are building for the future. I feel incredibly proud that we can attract the calibre of applicant we saw today and I look forward to working with them in the future.


nick

Farrah Fawcett, the face of the 70s

A dumped ex-girlfriend smeared my Farrah Fawcett poster with toothpaste. I didn’t have the famous swimsuit version, I had this blue sweater one. After seeing her performance in Murder in Texas, I realised she was actually a brilliant actress as well as a pretty face and I’d recommend viewing the movie.

Sadly poor Farrah has died at exactly the same age, 62, as her sister who succumbed to lung cancer.


nick

Costs prohibit our youngsters activities

Why do we allow things to be so completely wrong for our young people? I was at a meeting of an organisation for young people last night and we were looking at some future activities. A new local 10 pin bowling alley was mentioned and it was revealed that one teenager had been and it was ‘good value’ at £16 for two games!

One of the hotels Julie and I stayed in Las Vegas had a 55 lane bowling alley in the basement. They charged youngsters 99 cents for two games. Guess what? The place was packed out with young people, giving them an affordable alternative to haunting a street corner.

Even outside this present economic nightmare, £16 is way out of the reach for many youngsters. To top it off, a colleague then declared that to enter a football side into a local league wasn't achievable for under £1,000 these days.

Total bloody madness!


nick

....it's the poor wot gets the blame

I'm thinking that the adage "One rule for us etc" couldn't be more true today than when I read government whip Mark Tami's reaction to the possibility of having over claimed on Council Tax. I'm trying to fit "I am going to look into whether I have over-claimed and if I have then clearly I will pay back any over-claim" into the scheme of things with a former constituent of mine who was summoned into an office, cautioned and then interviewed for failing to notify the appropriate authority of his newly acquired employment status, some two days after his right to JSA ceased!

I certainly don't remember him being allowed to casually consider the option of paying back any over-claim and I can vividly recall him being reduced to tears in our discussion by the ridiculous threats he'd received of a jail term as punishment for his neglect.

In the mother of all democracies, I guess there's still a giant chasm between an MP and a labourer in a brick works!


nick

The world's favourite airline?

When we flew with British Airways last week I saw how damned hard the cabin crew worked on our overnight flight. So I read this story with a certain amount of interest and I view it from the hard working ‘frontline’ employees prospective. Sure it’s big of Willie Walsh to forego a month’s salary, it is after all £61,000. However, he gets in one month what many of those he’s appealing take over 2 years to earn!!

A tad cheeky Willie, a tad cheeky.


nick

There's hot and then there's Death Valley hot!

It’s funny, but if you live in Wales you take rain for granted. It’s what makes our land green and fertile and often washes out our summers.



A couple of weeks ago, Julie and I visited Death Valley nestling on the California & Nevada border. Famous for having the 2nd highest recorded temperature of 134F in 1913, the Valley is one of the hottest places on Earth.



As we entered the park and saw this roadsign, not one I've ever seen before, I had to switch the windscreen wipers on! OK it was only for about 2 minutes and it wasn’t a heavy rainfall, but it WAS raining and in a place that receives less than 2 inches per year, that was something special to witness. It actually stayed cloudy for about an hour after the rain and we took advantage of the slightly cooler climate to drive up to Mosaic Canyon and explore part of it on foot.



Breeding rattlesnakes tend to make my wife less than enthusiastic about nature and we returned to the car! As we did, the cloud broke and we could immediately feel an intense rise in the temperature to around the 100F mark. It got even hotter during the afternoon and remained sweltering way after 9pm when we left the park, delighting this particular local resident.



I can only wonder in amazement at the grit and tenacity of those who worked the 20 Mule Team in the 1880s, carrying Borax out of the Valley on its journey around the globe or the 49ers who at Burned Wagons Point, did exactly that and then dried the meat of some oxen and, with surviving animals, struggled westward on foot seeking their fortune.

The memory of our visit will remain with me for life, a stark example of the power of nature mixed with a tremendous sense of solitude, but not always victorious over the human spirit.


nick

San Francisco Giants

We visited AT&T park for the visit of the New York Mets on our trip. A beautiful stadium nestling on the water's edge. As with our visit to Dodger stadium last year, sadly the home side lost, the Mets taking it 6-8. The pleasant evening sunshine made it a lasting memory though.


nick

Still zonked, but home

Our month in the US has come to an end and now it's that period of time trying to get a grip of the 8 hour time change.
The wedding we attended last Saturday was delightful and Julie and I feel so honoured to have been invited.


nick