Mark Keating

In two previous blog posts, one about Jane and the other on the preview of her new project I spoke a little about Jane Binnion of Jane's Social Media and the work that she does. Last night I had the pleasure of seeing the full video (for which a three minute taster can be found online for free) of Jane's new venture which has been prepared by the local company of Quay Creative.

The event occurred in conjunction with the Lancaster TweetUp which is an event co-hosted between Jane's Social Media and Lancaster ESTA. There was bit of a gala evening with a packed room, sparkling drinks (alcohol and non-alcohol) and a magnificent Ice Cream stand from Indigo Swirl.

Jane and Rachel (Quay Creative) decided to make a film that could be used to supplement a companies social media policy. For them film was ideal as it is 'an easier medium (for the audience) to process'.

Jane and Rachel had some big ideas for what they wanted to achieve with the film, it had to be:

• modern
• fresh
• informative
• entertaining
• a popular and digestible work

But it also had to convey the issues they see in the growing social media world. Companies are now facing an uphill task not just to implement policy but to educate their workforce on what that policy means.

There are many issues that when you create a social media policy. One of the largest is that it will quickly grow into a long list of rules with amendments and exclusions to cover eventualities. Jane has good experience of this as in a previous job she was a manager who often needed to write such policy documents and has seen the pitfalls of creating such pieces.

Companies create top-down social media policies that become rule-heavy tomes.[1] People are also unsure of the distinctions between their public life and their work life, where do they stand in regards to how the comments are treated. It is easy to sign a document without realising to what you are agreeing.

There is a real issue that people do not understand just how visible their social comments can be, even if they maintain a private account. They can quickly find themselves being quoted and re-shared with a wider audience than what they intended. If you use social media and instantly delete there is often still a record of what you said that can be retrieved or shared with others.

In the UK alone Social media is a growing phenomena with:

• 40% of companies use social media
• 50% of companies encourage staff to use social media [2]

The film also has interesting opinions on copyright and use of logos and professional links/sites which are useful to contemplate and not what people would normally consider.

As before the film struck me as a competent piece. With the ability to brand it to company usage the value is apparent, it can be used as a rounded introduction to the issues around social media usage that would complement staff guidelines and training.

If you are a sole trader, an employer, or a human resources employee I think you would be wise to either purchase a copy or have Rachel and Jane brand a version for your companies needs. I think it is especially useful for those people employing new staff or educating existing stafff on changing company policy to match the rise in social media usage.

It is useful for anyone who regularly uses social media to promote their company to view this video as there is something that will either surprise or inform you, it will certainly give you an introduction into what you should consider when utilising social media sites.

[1] I think that there is also the issue that many companies don't realise that what they are writing as a series of reactionary rules may not be enforceable if an issue arises.

[2] No citation seen (I likely missed it watching the video while taking notes).

I was at the Lancaster Tweet-Up on Wednesday evening (27th March), organised by Jane Binion of Jane's Social Media and Michael Hallam of Lancaster ESTA, where I saw the talented Sarah, of Backroom SAM, give a short presentation on her company.

BackRoom SAM

Sarah is a sole trader and Backroom SAM provides affordable [Support - Administration - Marketing] to local traders in the Lancashire area, though she will cover business as far south as Preston and north to Kendal.

So why did she focus on providing an individual service as an independent trader to a small regional area. Well she has five strong reasons that she was able to share with us, Sam is:

• Local
• Flexible
• Affordable
• Multi-talented
• Personal

What this means is that Sarah likes the local area and the local people. Sarah is also a member of ESTA which is an association of ethical local traders dedicated to providing good service, transparency of relations and ethical business practices.

Sarah is flexible in the services she offers and in the range of packages she makes available, giving everything from a short course in focused marketing to a full multi-media targeted marketing plan. She will also provide administration for office tasks to the small trader.

She is also multi-talented and it was clear that she invests a lot of time in keeping herself conversant with modern social marketing tools and electronic campaigns. She will also advise on aims and objectives and identify a marketing focus to suit your goals.

If you are local to the Lancaster area I recommend you talk to Sarah, she will help you identify your marketing needs and bring an approach to solving them.

In a previous blog post I spoke a little about Jane Binnion of Jane's Social Media and the work that she does. This week I had the pleasure of seeing the three minute taster of Jane's new venture which has been prepared by the local company of Quay Creative.

Jane is taking a leap forward into addressing a growing modern phenomena which is the blurring of the boundaries between social life and work life. There have been a number of high profile examples of people being embarrassed, bringing companies into disrepute, or sacked for expressing personal opinions on social networks that fall foul of the persona their employer may wish to reflect.

This is a growing issue and a legal minefield with no clear advice seemingly on offer.

This is where Jane has stepped in. Jane has a great manner and a way of taking a complex policy issue and distilling it into a series of easy lessons and clear instructions. The video she has produced will walk you and your staff through this very modern problem.

Jane has gone one stage further though. By working closely with Quay Creative she can offer customised videos, branded and tailored to your company. She can also provide a bespoke video that expresses any internal issue in a precise and plain spoken manner that gives an easy to digest policy and message.

Take a look at the video and then take a long moment to consider giving Jane a call and seeing if she can work with you. Jane is an ethical trader and member of her local ethical traders association, she is dedicated to the local region and the people who live and work there.

I would like to take a few moments of your time to thank all of the sponsors of the Perl Quality Assurance Hackathon so far. If you would like to sponsor the event then please visit the donations page.

Sponsoring an event as important as the Perl Quality Assurance Hackathon is an important mark of the respect and regard in which they hold the Perl community. The hackathon is not a hugely visible event outside of the community, and to many potential sponsors the fact that it is more concerned with improving the language and the tools as opposed to promoting the language itself is actually detrimental. There is no immediate return to the investment, the audience is the people who are concerned with quality assurance and language veracity.

But that would undersell this important event.

Many of the members of the Perl community look to this event to improve the language, they are aware that the people who attend this event are often at the cutting edge of not only quality tools but the development of the language itself. The sponsors are seen as important contributors, not just to the corporate ecosystem but the the qualitative aspects of the language and community.

It is, therefore, with great regard that I introduce you to our sponsors.

cPanel

It is easy to say that cPanel make the task of web hosting management a simple affair. It is almost trivial to add that via WHM they present a third-party application interface to further extend the functionality and promote cooperation and features.

This, of course, would be a massive oversimplification.

cPanel are a core company in a very large industry. The cPanel product has been long established as an industry leader and to many people it is the industry standard, which is a difficult task is a pool so large and so full.

cPanel live and breathe Perl, the system is developed on top of the perl language and they as a company have come to be known widely in the community as a sponsor, supporter, promoter and organiser not just of perl people, but of community events and language development.

It is a colossal honour to welcome them as sponsors of this year's quality assurance hackathon and it is a fervent hope that this association will continue for a number of years to come.

DijkMat

If you say DjikMat to the perl community the image that springs into mind is of two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. It is hard to think of this company, who have been a core of the European perl scene for more than a decade, without seeing the smiling faces of Liz and Wendy.

Once again it is with extreme gratitude that I get to thank these two magnificent people for their unflinching support of the community, their unwavering dedication to the language and their authoritative presence that truly makes any modern perl event a special occasion.

It will be an honour for the organisers to welcome them to this year's hackathon once again.

Dyn

Dyn started a mission to redefine how we manage DNS more than a decade ago, and in that time they have become the industry standard for excellence at this task. The fact that Dyn use Perl to accomplish a great many tasks is no real surprise, and to those of us in the Perl community the fact that Dyn is once again gracing the list of sponsors at a perl event is no surprise either.

Matthew Horsfall has been a prominent member of the perl community and has represented Dyn at a number of events. Once again he will be traveling to the Hackathon to further the cause of quality assurance and represent a great company.

Eligo

It isn't very often that you can think about a recruitment company and instantly have a list of positive contributions they have given to a community. This isn't to sound disparaging about the industry, but their involvement is usually just to make money and move onwards. Eligo are a little different.

Eligo pride themselves on getting the best candidates and the best situation not just for companies but for the individuals they place in those companies. Rick Deller, the Perl specialist at Eligo, takes that very seriously.

Rick has made himself a member of the local perl community and active in the perl world. Rick and Eligo were not just sponsors at the London Perl Workshop, Rick attended the event and was a member of the panel on the perl job market.

Since then Rick has gone one stage further and has teamed up with Dave Cross to take Perl into the universities and to attempt to educate the next generation of coders as to the shape of the job market and value of training and community.

Eligo don't just want a strong job market, they want a strong language and support a strong community. Rick volunteers to be a member of our community and to me that makes him invaluable. it also speaks volumes for the company he represents and who seek to support our community.

$foo Magazin

$foo Magazin is a quality producer of perl articles and discussions and its publisher Renée Bäcker is an ardent supporter of his local German Perl Community and the wider perl world.

$foo Magazin is a regular name on the sponsors list for perl events and once again I have the real pleasure of thanking them for their contribution to the Perl QA Hackathon. They were the first company to jump in with an offer of sponsorship the moment after my call for sponsors landed in the inboxes.

If you bump into Renée make sure to thank him for his unflinching support of our community and let him know that it is greatly appreciated.

Les Mongueurs de Perl

Magnifique, Fantastique, Superb

There is no wonder, to my mind, why there is a list of superlatives that describe excellence in French, that's because I have the honour of knowing many of the French Perl Mongers.

This geographically diverse, yet structurally competent, group have been responsible for a whole swathe of events in Perl's history. Their members can rack up renown as organisers of events such as:

• YAPC::Europe
• French Perl Workshop
• Hackathons
• Quack and Hacks
• Perl Quality Assurance Hackathon
• YEF

They also created ACT (A Conference Toolkit) and provide many of the banking services for perl events in Europe.

But they contribute not just their time, energies and abilities, but their money. Once again they are contributors to the Perl Quality Assurance Hackathon and their generous donation will result in refunded travel costs for some of the attendees. One day we can all track them down and buy them that much deserved beverage of their choice and shake them warmly by the hand for their continuing support and dedication to our community.

Enlightened Perl Organisation

The Enlightened Perl Organisation is on a mission to further the understanding of the Perl 5 language and to promote the language, and its usage, in the corporate ecosystem. The Enlightened Perl Organisation seeks to unify the community and company worlds in their devotion to Perl.

The EPO is a members organisation that seeks sponsorship, membership fees, and donations to further a number of projects including:

• The Send-A-Newbie Initiative
• CPAN testers
• YAPC::Brasil
• YAPC::Europe
• London Perl Workshop
• Perl QA Hackathon
• MetaCPAN

The EPO is aligned to a number of other Perl groups such as the Perl Foundation and YAPC Europe Foundation. If you use Perl, like Perl, rely on Perl then you need to be a member of the Enlightened Perl Organisation

As many of you know, or by now you certainly should know, the Perl QA Hackathon will be held in Lancaster, United Kingdom, from 12th-14th April 2013.

On Sunday, 3rd March, we will be closing the date where you can apply to join us at the event and taking the current list of attendees as our master list to attempt to sponsor/fund. If you wish to join us please make sure you head to the wiki and fill in the relevant attendees, expenses, catering and travel pages.

This event is a great contribution to the lifeblood of the Perl language and the Perl community and as many events it relies on the generosity of sponsorship and donations to make it a success. Any contribution, large or small, makes a huge difference and we would like to encourage you to help us raise the necessary funds to host the event and to continue to hold it in the future.

if you are unable to donate to the event you can still help by spreading the word and encouraging others to donate or sponsor. We would like to thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

I have made my dislike of e-Books and e-Readers well known for a number of years.[1] It is based on a number of factors, for instance I agree with the character Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that they have 'no smell'. There is the tactile nature of a book, the fact that it suffers from the passage of time, the change as it ages. Then there is the notion of libraries, of displays of books, the ownership of a physical item that can be transferred to another and all of this before we get to the ethical nature of the organisations who are currently predominant in the e-reading space.

The final point is the strongest for me. As an advocate of Open Source and the free exchange of ideas and information, the authoritarian control of some companies on the e-reading experience which has already shown abuses discouraged me most of all. The use of restricted formats, DRM, the licences to view as opposed to own, the inability to transfer ownership that some organisations wish led me to be a little more vehement in my opposition.

However, there are a number of great advantages to having books in an electronic form, and the inner technophile that I have inside me also loves the idea of a library that fits into my pocket. Most certainly the idea of carrying heavy textbooks in an electronic form, to annotate, link, share and note are quite compelling.

Then there is the many ethical arguments in favour of electronic material, the environmental implications, the notion of open communities sharing in electronic transfer beyond physical location that add to the weight of need to indulge in this medium. Though some companies have already used the technology to restrict users and their rights in quite well publicised fashion. The number of books only available as DRM locked ePub files (which is in itself quite offensive) is high, though some publisher like Tor have moved against that in recent years.

The final turning point was that I also wanted to share my own writing in an electronic form, that is when I knew that I had changed and would need to buy an e-Reader.

Though I would of course have some rather specific conditions for the type of device I wanted to buy.

I did not want a device that was linked to a specific vendor or store, there could be a store but the actual machine could not be tied to it. This was accompanied by the need to have a device that accepted a number of formats for its books not held to just one type with pdf. It also must include the open ePub format that is rejected by some devices.

I want to have the ability to load books onto my device from the store of material I already had and it would also be nice to use a device that had a community element but wasn't held to a single walled garden.

This meant, naturally, that the most popular, or omnipresent, devices were tossed out of consideration at high speed. My actual end decision was between just two machines, both of which had a number of technological similarities but one of them had a closer link to an online store. Strangely I chose that one, not because of the store, but in spite of it. The final deal-clincher was the availability of the hardware and support for it in my own country. So for that reason I went for the Kobo.

The device allows the free upload of items not linked to its own store on to the system and it allows you to share those between the different readers you may own. It also has applications that work on both iPad/iPhone and Android devices that share books, works, settings, notes and community elements, which is a nice bonus.

Now the difficult choice of which Kobo to get, well in the end it was easy. The mini was nice but just a tad too small on the screen, the Arc is a waste for me I don't want a handicapped Android install as I primarily use JellyBean on a Toshiba tablet or my iPad, so the Glo with its pearl screen seemed ideal.

With the addition of a £10, 16gb, micro-SD card, I can fit upto 15,000 books. The Kobo allows the adding of personal books/files and products from other stores by simply dropping them onto the device in a file manager and it adds them to the library.

Upto now I am quite satisfied.

[1] Yep, another post in which I get to be a steaming hypocrite as I change my mind on something.

It is my pleasure to announce that the send-a-newbie initiative for 2013 has now started. This year we hope to send people new to the Perl Community Events to the YAPC::EU in Kiev from August the 12th-14th.

As always the initiative is open to people from any background, location, age or circumstance, the only caveats are:

• † They must not have attended a large Perl event such as a YAPC previously;
• † They are unable to attend because of financial reasons and need support to do so.

If you would like to apply for a grant towards attending you will need to follow the rules for doing so on the Send-A-Newbie website.

Last year the initiative ran out of funds, but the Oslo Perl Mongers became the first group to help revive the initiative with a generous donation of €1,000 (one thousand Euros). However, we do need more funds, if you would like to donate to the initiave you may do so online via the EPO site or by contacting Mark Keating.

We would love to see support from commercial partners for the initiative and would like to work with companies to best promote their sponsorship and involvement. For more details and to discuss how you can become a commercial partner please contact Mark Keating.

It is my pleasure to announce that the Perl Quality Assurance website is now live and accessible. The QA Hackathon will take place over three days between 12-14th April 2012 in the North West of England. The closest airport is Manchester, though there are also airports that are nearby at Blackpool, Liverpool, Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

If you are planning to attend this years event then you will need to visit the wiki and fill in details on the attendees, page along with the Expenses, Catering and Travel pages.

This year we are asking potential attendees to make a positive plan of what they hope to work on or achieve while at the event so that we can not only build a better Perl but promote the event appropriately and gain sufficient sponsorship to make it the best possible hackathon.

If you would like to sponsor the event, or know of someone who would sponsor then please contact Mark or Ian at your earliest convenience. We will also be allowing people to make smaller donations or complete sponsorship through the EPO website using our internal donation system. We welcome any contribution towards making this event happen.

As the last carol collection CD is pulled from the shelves and the sales start to fade from memory, as chocolates and lovers gifts begin to fill the seasonal sections of supermarket shelves I have the pleasure of writing a review of the year for Shadowcat Systems.

2012 with its failed apocalypse and continuing rise of social networks was an interesting year for Shadowcat. We expanded our staff, attended many events, involved ourselves even further in the community and also suffered some unusual mishaps and one great loss.

I could do this as a chronological account, but you could also just use the news archives on this site to the same effect, I therefore would love to just write within themed sections on events that had similar characteristics, let us begin with presentations.

Presentations

We attended a large number of events in 2012 both as guest speakers, attendees and regular speakers. In regards to the workshops Matt presented talks at Perl Oasis, Libre Planet, Open Source Days, French Perl Workshop, Italian Perl Workshop, and the London Perl Workshop.

Both Matt and I were also guest speakers at Cluj.pm Meetings in 2012. Matt was one of two guest speakers for the first ever Cluj.pm Spring meeting in 2012 and I was the guest speaker at the Summer meeting in August where I presented two new presentations and a lightning talk.

Matt was a guest speaker at the French, Italian and Cluj events where his travel and accommodation was sponsored by the organising team. I also was sponsored for Cluj and spoke at the Perl Oasis.

Of the larger events Matt was a speaker at the Floss UK spring Convention in Edinburgh during March. Both Matt and I flew to Madison, Wisconsin for the very well organised YAPC::NA where we also gave talks. In August we attended the Perl Reunification Summit before moving on to the YAPC::EU in Frankfurt where once again we gave presentations.

During September and October our newest staff member at the time, Ian Norton, prepared and presented workshops for the London Perl Workshop.

Sponsored

We sponsored a number of projects and events in 2012. But this year also saw us give some support and sponsorship to projects outside of the immediate Perl community that we normally support.

As always we sponsored Perl conferences such as the Perl Oasis, QA hackathon, YAPC::NA and the London Perl Workshop. By sending staff to attend, making time to help organise and speaking at various other events we lent our assistance.

We sponsored a number of community projects. Once again we supported the Send-A-Newbie initiative, and as part of our continuing support of new people in the Perl world we sponsored attendance for two people (travel for one, accommodation for the other) at the London Perl Workshop.

This year we also started a campaign to get regular payments to CPAN testers and to start that effort we set up a regular payment ourselves to the cause.

Through a friend in the Small Traders Association Emma Maudsley of the Sock Monkey Emporium, we learned of the Twins Appeal, which is a local Lancaster Charity. A local Brownie group were seeking items for an auction/raffle to help raise money for this charity. Shadowcat Systems donated a Kindle, charger, case and book vouchers to be the first prize in the raffle.

This year we also supported the Undershaw Preservation Trust to help save Undershaw House by sponsoring the translation of The Empty House book on Kickstarter. In 2013 Shadowcat will have helped sponsor two language versions for this work, in German and Spanish.

Sponsored Development

As always we continued to work with some of our clients in sponsoring development for CPAN modules to further the overall quality of the Perl language and libraries. This year saw us work with Suretec Systems to add Oauth2 to Catalyst as part of an agreed need for the project.

We also provisioned some additional server services for the community and powered up a new server to manage those which took a great deal of effort from our System Admin team to maintain a smooth migration and evolution of services.

We also had the great pleasure of working on an Academic Project with Leuven University which concerned the translation of Medieval texts.

Hosted

Shadowcat Systems has a long, and proud, history of hosting real world events alongside, and complementary, to our virtual existence. In 2012 we were glad to host the physical locations for the North West England virtual Hackdays (all three of them) along with the physical hackday in November.

In 2013 we are hoping to host even more events and will be the location for the first LuneLab (my term for the Lancaster Lab, Lancaster HackSpace/MakerSpace).

Organised

The organisation of an event is a time consuming task, often made more complex the larger the event. the ability to run one is part inspiration, part experience and a lot of determination to see the event succeed. The facilitation of this is helped when you have the backing of your company, Shadowcat Systems is a proud member of the Perl community and part of its commitment to the community is in enabling staff to have some time towards the organisation, attendance and cost of events.

In 2012 we helped to organise, or organised in full, the London Perl Workshop, the QA Hackathon, the Send-A-Newbie Initiative. In 2013 we hope to be a part of these events again and have the pleasure of supporting Ian and Mark (with no doubt more of the staff at the time) when they host the Perl Quality Assurance Hackathon.

Development

A number of projects and libraries are under continuous development at Shadowcat. We are also members of many project communities and support new modules and initiatives with our clients. In 2012 we also had some specific focus on the development of Tak, Web::Simple and Moo.

At the same time we have been undertaking a gradual refresh and re-launch of the SC website with new code base, design and implementation.

Memberships

Shadowcat's staff continued to spread their influence and participation in 2012 to a number of new areas (all gratefully received we hope). Our Managing Director, Mark Keating, joined the Community Advocacy Group, the YAPC Europe Foundation and became an active member of the Lancaster Ethical Small Traders Association.

Ian Norton and Jess Robinson joined the Perl Foundation marketing committee. Ian also became a board member for the FLOSS/UK organisation. Jess continued her research with a grant from the Perl Foundation and the commission for a book on DBIx::Class.

Staff

We had the pleasure of welcoming some new staff members in 2012 both internally, as outside, part-time, consultants and as new members at our Shadowcat offices. So we would like to present Jess Robinson, Rob Kinyon Tyler Riddle Ash Berlin and Ian Norton as members of the Shadowcat team.

Visitors

The arrival of visitors to the Shadowcat offices is always a welcome event in our lives. Sometimes they are remote staff who want or need to come to the main Shadowcat office and other times they are firends who have made the effort to come to the frozen north of England, brave the wind and the rain to sit and enjoy our warm beer, local cuisine and to generally chew the fat with like-minded chums.

In 2012 it was our pleasure to host Kieren Diemet, co-author of the Catalyst book; Jess Robinson and James Mastros, who are community luminaries and innovative technologists; Torsten 'Getty' Raudssus, well known member of the Perl community, free software advocate and member of the DuckDuckGo development team.

Throughout 2012 we had a regular visitor to the office, Claire Jackson came to see us frequently to undertake a variety of community projects most notably doing administration work for the Enlightened Perl Organisation.

Random

There were a few other events that are worthy of note that happened during 2012.

The Olympic Torch passed directly outside our offices and we were able to hide from the rather stormy weather and watch the event from the comfort of the office windows, a few staff' family members came inside to join us for the event.

We created some interesting sponsorship items in 2012, there was a new Beer Mat for our own Beery Matt, a series of limited edition t-shirts including the very popular fund-raising Raptor shirts that raised two thousand dollars at YAPC::NA.

As part of our re-design and a need to make a new series of images to help promote and enhance the Shadowcat image we began the commission of some images from Jack at Knight Time Creations in 2012. The first of these were Steampunk versions of Mark Keating, Matt S. Trout and the Shadowcat Cat(Bots) and Logo Cat.

Just before summer we were stunned when Matt S. Trout broke his hip in a minor fall. This freak incident promoted the usual mix of sympathy and gallows-humour from friends and family in the wider community. Matt has recovered well from the incident though has not yet regained his full capacity, we are hoping that he will see a one hundred percent recovery in 2013.

A Great Sadness

The year was overshadowed for the staff at Shadowcat by the loss of a great friend in 2012. We will all miss the warmth, friendship and support of Sandra Trout, the influence she had on the creation, nature and direction of Shadowcat is impossible to gauge.

We will all miss you Sandra.

End Point

So that, for the most part, was 2012 for Shadowcat Systems. We move into 2013 with a high expectation of how we can perform and a history of great expectation to match.

So I have decided to use Markdown for writing some of my posts for Shadowcat and other blogs in. I have a few reasons for doing so:

• Some of the Syntax is similar to Wiki which I do a lot of;
• It is readable by people who don't know html well;
• The links are far more sensible to define;
• The Company website supports writing in it;
• Two of my primary note taking apps support it;
• My business partner and tech-guru likes it;
• It is Perl;

One of my primary reasons is to make better use of hyperlinks in my notation. I have increasingly come into the habit of placing links to regular iterms at the end of a document then I only have to write the html once.

For example, in the past when mentioning Shadowcat, which is my company website, I have generally left it unlinked when the word is used in a paragraph about Shadowcat and then made the link in a unordered list near the footer.

Now when I mention Shadowcat I can make sure the word is linked inline with every usage but only need have one reference to it in the markdown text.

So this post, and indeed many more to come will start life as markdown posts and slowly I will convert to using it in full.

We shall see what happens...

A panoramic view from the Disney Castle.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

16 May 2013

We have a tradition that when we go to Disney we take a photo with the castle in the background.

So here is one of Leigh on her own and the kids, mummy and daddy together.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

A small panorama of the rooms in France.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

It was a sunny Wednesday in April so Markie took the bold decision to skip work and head to Chester Zoo with family in tow.

Well they were in the back if the car but you get the idea.

Chester Zoo had really evolved since the elder Keatings last went there in the 80s. They have taken great pains to improve the displays, the animal environments and their ecological impact.

The result is a well thought out space in which the animals have the best time possible, subject to specific circumstance. Certainly the size of the cages and design attempt to mimic more natural environments.

The kids loved it. Though I think they loved the monorail and the slide just as much so parents probably had a better time.

Anyway on to the images.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

15 May 2013

Sometimes you just have to kick yourself hard as there is no desk to slam your face into.

A series of minor incidents create a larger issue. Each one a tiny accident whose sum affect is a larger issue.

We were only two hours early for our flight.
There were huge queues.
The electronic machines do not check under twos.
The person on the desk was harrassed so had to rush.
Some idiot had used his mothers maiden name on a ticket as he doesn’t think about the person she divorced three decades ago.

So we got through check in, through security and all the way to the gate before anyone noticed the ticket didn’t match the passport.

So now we are on a plane to Paris and Markie’s mum is in Manchester trying to get a later flight.

I believe the phrase rhymes with clucking bell.

My face – big desk – SLAM.

Two hours later…

We are in France and mum is waiting in Manchester for her lunchtime flight.

One Hour More…

Markie is writing this while driving back to the airport in France to meet his mum.

Total delay: 4 hours
Cost: 300 pounds and one face

You have to smile.  It could be worse, as it is it adds to the adventure.

In times of stress some people panic. Some fight. Some flee. While others just renegotiate the terms so arrangements are made and plans adjusted accordingly.

Picture:

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Surely in the running for a best Grandma award has to be Linda. Here is a recent image with her and both her grandchildren. Reading two books fir two different children simultaneously.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Surely in the running for a best Grandma award has to be Linda. Here is a recent image with her and both her grandchildren. Reading two books fir two different children simultaneously.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Our boys playing on the same ride at the park in Chester Zoo and loving each others company.

On the bus and fast asleep.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Having fun on the tea cup rife with my daddy.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Here I am on s boat ride at Disney with Aunty Kathryn and Mummy.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

My first flight on a plane and I am asleep on daddy for the entire journey.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Daddy made us a duckduckgo flag as he likes the ideals and underlying language of the service. Once Ben had played with it I had a turn. As usual I get the hand me downs.

Ben was right as this was very tasty.

Low sugar but still cloyingly sweet.

Playing at my cousins house in the sun with a scooter.

On the bus and fast asleep.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Having fun on the tea cup rife with my daddy.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Here I am on s boat ride at Disney with Aunty Kathryn and Mummy.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

My first flight on a plane and I am asleep on daddy for the entire journey.

This specific post was created using WordPress for Android on a mobile phone. This explains but not excuses any incorrect or unusual typography, brevity or formatting.

Daddy made us a duckduckgo flag as he likes the ideals and underlying language of the service. Once Ben had played with it I had a turn. As usual I get the hand me downs.

Ben was right as this was very tasty.

Low sugar but still cloyingly sweet.

Playing at my cousins house in the sun with a scooter.