With only 4 of us doing room service at work, if one person can’t do things it often means that one of the others has to pick things up, so since one of the night room service guys has had some personal things happening in his life over the last month & the rest of us have been dealing with it. the point of this blog? Well I have to do a number of night shifts over the next week, which means 7pm-7am. I am not a fan, but if I don’t do it, then someone else has to, so what are you going to do?
What this all meant for me yesterday afternoon was that I had to make the decision to stay up as late as possible last night & prepare my body for the late night I have coming this evening. It was aided by two things. No.1 I had to get up at 4am to say bye to Georgie & Julie who had to get to the airport for 7am flights, and No.2 There was a party happening for Stevie, a guy I have worked with for the last couple of months.
Georgie & Julie got to bed nice & early, so I headed out to keep myself awake. This is the first time that I have been out with a large group of people from work & it was nice to see everyone having fun. There may be lots of stresses with my line of work, but the bond that comes through shared experience (and the consumption of a fair bit of beer) is a strong one, and the stresses of everyday are usually left at the bar door.
As usual, I think the photos might tell a better story, so I will let them do the talking.

Basicallly the only view we had of Stevie all night…

Girls about the town.

The relationship I share with all chefs is one of mutual respect and admiration!

I will keep the writing down to a minimum, cause I have a fair few pics to post. Lets just say that I had an awesome week, though large chunks of it didn’t go to plan. It started when I picked Georgie up from the airport. she had met a French-Canadian girl on her flight & this girl (Julie) was in Edinburgh for 5 days & didn’t know what she was going to do. Well it turns out the answer is “ditch her pre-planned accomodation & come touring with Tim & Georgie”
I got to do a fun mix of things I have seen before (Wallace Memorial, Doune Castle, Glen Coe, Edradour), which was fun because lots of places look different in the Autumn & there are lots of new things to find too, plus I got to visit a bunch of places that I haven’t been before, like Carbisdale castle and Culloden. I didn’t manage to climb Ben Nevis (both of the girls were quite fluey), but I did make it up Cairn Gorm, itself an impressive peak.
Anyway, on with the pics!

Eagerly anticipating the arrival

A lovely day to start on

The Cairns were 4000 years old!

Cool as a Castle, even better as a Hostel!

If the outside was impressive, the inside was doubly so! It literally took us 20 minutes to find our room in the maze of amazingmaze of a place!

Frosty, cloudlined triumph!

Julie, George & I enjoying a quiet pub meal to finish a fantastic four days.

Hey there people.
I will make this quick, cause I am sitting in a hostel in the Cairngorm Mountains, and I am paying �1 per 20 mins & only have 18 left. Anyway, I have been having an awesome day off. Georgie arrived OK from London & she met a French/Canadian girl on the flight called Julie, who was in Edinburgh for 5 days & didn’t know what she was going to do. Well the long & the short of it was that she ended up coming with the two of us.
We drove up to Ben Nevis (talled Mountain in Scotland, if not the UK) via the William Wallace Memorial and the Doune Castle. We didn’t end up climbing BN though, cause the two girls have a bit of a flu. Day two saw us head up to the Carbisdale Castle which was awesome, cause it is actually a Hostel. YOu have no idea how HUGE this place is. You will get pics sooner or later. On the way we got to visit Culloden, home of the last great battle on British soil. Very interesting.
TOday we came down to the Cairngorms & we climbed up most of the Cairngorm Mountain together, then Georgie & I finished it off. It was at cloud level, so windy that we had to stand on an angle to keep from being blown over & so cold that there were bits of snow all over the shop.
Tomorrow is a drive back home via the Edradour Distillery, then it is back to work tomorrow.
Anyway, I will write more about it later & will be posting pics for weeks to come for sure. In the mean time, here is your question for the day…
What is your principal motivation for what you do? No explanations or anything, I just want the answer.
TCG.>.

My weekend is over again! I have to do 6 straight days so that I can get the following 4 off for my trip around Scotland with Georgie Hale. Anyway, I thought I would leave you with a few pics from the weekend. I don’t know why, but I like them all. I might have to bug Chris into helping me make a “feature photo” page. Hopefully I will be back mid-week, but if not, I will see you all in 10 days.

Phil & I have pretty much always gotten on. Even when we fought as kids, we still enjoyed each others company more often than not. Now that he is married & with a kid, he has continued to evolve & grow into an awsome guy. Well, since I know he reads this site, I don’t want to talk him up too much. All I will do is post the pic he sent to me in response to my “wish you were here” postcard.

Another week done. Wednesday was a 14 hour day, but now it is just history. Next week will be a killer, cause I am doing six days straight, but at the end of it I get 4 days of travelling with my mate Georgie Hale! Good times!!!
In other news, I want to know peoples opinions. Should I consider buying a fisheye lens?
Man, how short is this post!

Well my weekend is over again. Back to work tomorrow, which means that there will most likely not be any posts for the next four days. That said, the guy who owns the cafe says that he is going to reboot the wifi just before he leaves each day, so that if I am lucky it will still be running at night when I come down & I can sit on the front step & type! Oh yeah, this is an awesome cafe. Pictures of it will have to come next week!
In other news, I promised I would cook ANZAC biscuits for the waiters at the Radisson, thinking that I would just have to buy all the ingredients. It also appears I have to but a baking tray, mixing bowl, measuring cups, big spoon, and a table spoon! The cost of domesticity! There will be more than one set of cookies coming out of this! Boy I love exclamation marks!

First off, thanks to all of you who said some nice stuff in the comments about the last blog. Don’t worry too much. On the balance of things I am still having an awesome time over here. I think everyone goes through tough days & stuff & that just puts the joy of the rest of it into contrast!
On to my Story.
To tell this story properly, one that I should have told at least a week ago, you have to come back with me a huge 8 years! back in those days it was only “posers” who used mobile phones in public, being asked for ID at a club was a major embarrassment rather than a compliment, and Tim still had to ask his parents for permission before he could take the car out for the night.
I remember those times really well. Jeans, approximately 15 sizes too large (but at that time, at least they covered my underwear) adorning my legs, “AKIRA” T-shirt declaring that I was casual, but somehow cool because I knew the name of a Japanese cartoon, and a smile on my face, because I was almost 21 years old, and in three years out of school, so I was obviously much more cool than those dorky 1st years…
At this time I would also have been smiling because I had a lovely girl on my arm. For the sake of this exercise we will call her Allison. Actually, her real name is actually Allison, but I have always loved the term “for the sake of this exercise” and refuse to give up any opportunity I have to use it during any kind of verbal, or written correspondence.
Sorry… where was I? Oh yeah, so Allison & I dated for about three months, and then as was the fashion in those days, we broke up. Of course, I think I was pretty immature about how I went about this whole process, the result of which was that within three months of that time, I had little or no idea where Allison was, and what she was doing.
Cut to 8 years later.
In the intervening time Tim has convinced himself that he is obviously more cool than those 3rd year “kids” hanging out in pubs, he has gained some scars, done some travel, enjoyed some study & eventually found himself typing in an awesome cafe near the centre of Edinburgh. Allison has moved back to the state of New York, where she had done a “gap year” after school, received a ring that most probably had one or several diamonds on it, and followed that up shortly after by receiving and giving a gold band, then settled down to a life of matrimonial bliss in the US of A.
So one day, Allison, who works recruiting & selling people to other people (for jobs, that is, not slavery) is at work, doing some research for a jeweler looking for someone who might be good at working with gold. In her search for “Gold Smiths” whose website should happen to pop up? None other than your old mate Timmy G! Plucking up the courage, she decides to find out if this is actually the guy she knew almost a decade ago. A couple of emails later, we have both recovered a new OS friend and answered one of those late night “I wonder whatever happened to…..” questions.
I still stand amazed at the ability to keep my mates at home up to date on my movements here, so it is no wonder that I am almost floored at the coolness of being able to “run into” an old friend despite being on different continents. The coincidence certainly brought a smile to my face.

I am not entirely sure when I became such a chirpy character. I really am just an upbeat kind of dude. When I am around people I just like to smile and as often as possible I try to make any interactions I have with people as pleasant as possible.
Some people have voiced the question of whether or not I just put it on for them? Am I really ALWAYS happy? The answer is no. When all the people are gone and it is just me and my thoughts (OK, and probably a beer) I sometimes feel sad. It isn�t that I am trying to hide it from anybody all the time, but it just appears that I am more inclined toward depression when I am by my lonesome
Why am I bringing this up? It certainly appears to be a contrast to my usual posts. Well I guess I have had a rough couple of days. I wont get into it, but it is a little tough. Three cheers to the medium where I can share the feelings that I might have in my quiet hours, that might otherwise escape me when the day hits full swing.
In other news…
Welcome to my parents who are now online. Go visit Tahlee.com. I can’t be bothered making a link