Well, hello all! I’ll warn you in advance - this is going to be a long one, and perhaps even a ranty one in places!
Where to start? At the start of the day, I guess! Yesterday, as previously mentioned, I attended the Barnardo’s volunteer conference at the Warwick Racecourse. So on Sunday night I set my alarm for 0630 so I’d have time to get a 7am bus. However, when I got up at 0600, suddenly realising I’d mistakenly pressed ‘0′ instead of ‘3′, I wasn’t too pleased! Anyway, got up and checked the bus times and so I realised I was better off getting up at 6 than half past! Sauntered out to the bus at 6:40, inevitably wandering down the street and seeing a bus go flying past. Anyway, caught the next one and I was on my way!
Got to Barnardo’s in plenty of time and proceeded to wait for the minibus and some of my colleagues to turn up. Met a girl called Lucy who’d been working there about a year longer than me but despite my almost 2 years there, I’d never met her before! Was quite a nice girl to get to know, although a shame she’s going to Leeds in a week and I’m going to Swansea in 2 weeks… 
As for the minibus journey there, I think “hellish” is just a *little* bit of an understatement. The M1 was packed solid from where we joined it at J24 all the way down to J21, where all traffic was being forced off the carriageway for what I believe is roadworks. Anyway, thankfully this is the junction we wanted to get off at for Warwick so we weren’t too much at a loss.
On the way down it was atrocious! The gantry VM signs were all showing a speed limit of 40MPH but to be honest, it was a miracle the odd times we could actually reach that speed! Managed to get up to speed once we reached the M69 and down towards Warwick.
When we finally got there I had a fantastic day. There were three seminars of which each person could attend two. In the morning I chose the “Opportunities for Young People”, which is essentially what this conference was based around. In the afternoon, I went to “Old and New”, which was a talk from two local people about their experience of being looked after by the charity. One was an elderly woman (who likes to be known as a “Barnardo’s Old Girl”) who went through one of Dr. Barnardo’s orphanages many moons ago (just after World War II). Was very informative and some of the things she said were very moving. I found out she volunteers at the Alfreton shop (sort of North Nottinghamshire but on the Derbyshire side!) so I plan to take a bus ride up there at some point and say hello.
Had a good day there, including a free lunch! Can’t complain about that though - had some beautiful vegetable lasagne and a very nice white & milk chocolate cake thingy at the end! After the meal though, we got chatting to some people outside the Nottingham shop group including an old couple from Edinburgh, the reason of whose presence at the venue I never quite managed to figure out. Anyway, the man was a bit odd - he started talking about how they’d released a new Robin Hood film when we mentioned that we were from Nottingham. He then proceeded to ask who I’d play in the film, the “good guy” or the “bad guy”. Then, he did something amazingly typical of strange old men and say something to Lucy along the lines of “You’re sat next to a wise man. He evidently knows a good thing when he sees it. He’s been talking to you in an animated fashion for the last hour and I know his mind wasn’t on Barnardo’s”! At that point I just didn’t really want to be there and also thought that if I ever turn out like that, just put me down humanely 
Of course, did very little to hamper the rest of the day and the journey back home, which while still getting stuck in queues in the Nottingham rush hour, wasn’t too unpleasant. Well, that was in the minibus back to Nottingham. The bus journey from there was a bit worse! Got on the Commuter Xprss as normal and everything was alright up as far as the QMC. There the traffic became pretty much stuck. Everyone was queueing up on the roundabout to get onto Derby Road up towards the A52 and it looked horrendous! That was when I noticed the flashing blue lights and the awful scene. It took 10 mins to finally get far enough up the road to pass the accident. From what I could see a black car had ploughed into the back of a Nottingham-bound Rainbow 4 at what must have been some speed. The R4 looked like it was pulling in to stop at University North when it hit and the car’s bonnet was literally non-existent; it was almost level with the windscreen. Next thing I noticed was the stretcher and this guy who wasn’t moving, covered with blood being put into the back of an ambulance. Not the kind of thing I wanted to see on a Monday evening (nor at any time, to be honest!). The CX driver, having been the first out of the QMC (another R4 behind) had to let all the buses trying to get in towards Nottingham that the road was completely closed. He kept stopping to let a gap develop between us and the cars in front and let all the buses turn round (well, all the buses from that company, anyway) and going along the road we had a convoy of turquoise, green and red buses!
Anyway, after finally getting home later on, I was annoyed to see that the builders had been in and had been playing with the electricity. Of course, nobody told me they’d be messing with that (I assumed they were just going to replace the kitchen units in a straightforward manner) so the server didn’t get a very clean shutdown. Of course, I came home and turned it straight back on and all was good. For a while, anyway…! Earlier in the day they’d moved the fridges and freezers to a different place in the kitchen and as a result seemed to have damaged the freezer. Every so often the RCCB thingy would randomly decide that the freezer was drawing too much current and would, for safety, turn EVERYTHING in the house off (bar lights and smoke alarms, of course). However, this meant that the server kept getting turned off sans a safe shutdown and it even caused my sister to lose 4 hours of work in the form of her English essay. At this point I went down to investigate. Having completely isolated the circuit called “Sockets (Kitchen)”, the electricians had wired up a temporary socket and plugged the fridges and freezers into it. When I looked carefully, they’d wired the appliances up to the cooker circuit which by its very nature allows much more current to be drawn than a traditional 3-pronged British outlet. So at that point I decided “nooo, this isn’t a very good idea” so got a long extension and plugged the appliances in there. The second I plugged our smaller freezer in, the RCCB switch flicked. The fridge and our other fridge/freezer in one unit were all fine so I was forced to leave the small freezer turned well and truly off. Of course, given that decision (at least it left the electricity and server on and kept some food cold), I woke up to a big puddle of water on the kitchen floor this morning. Not the best thing but I didn’t have much of an option!
Anyway, the builders are back this mourning and at least they told me when the elec was going to be turned off. I believe something’s now been sorted so I intend to switch the server back on and let you read this long and meandering post!
However, this does mean that the kitchen needs to be emptied and the house completely tidied. Not fun, I assure you!