Cycling update. Sort of.

Oops: I’ve not written anything here for over three weeks.

Photo: Chris Blakeley on Flickr.

Which means you’ll all be wondering how my cycling training is going. Well, to be frank: November is no month for cycling. It’s cold, it’s dark, and it’s wet. Cold and dark I can cope with – but wet is simply no fun. And so I’ve not been on a proper training ride since the last one I wrote about.

I’ve still been cycling to work, of course, which is good discipline but hardly counts as training at less that two miles each way.

But there is news on my cycle ride. Firstly, fundraising has been going great so far. To date I’ve raised over £700 in sponsorship. I need to reach at least £1000, but the ride’s not till June so I’m more than confident that I’ll get there and hopeful that I’ll raise a lot more. In fact, if you’re reading this you really should donate right now.  Thanks.

And secondly, I’ve just taken up the offer of the loan of a bicycle. I was assuming I’d be riding London to Paris on my trusty Raleigh Apex. I bought it in 1992, and at the time remember thinking how amazingly lightweight it was. I guess it must have just been lighter than my previous bicycle, because by today’s standards it seems pretty heavy. It’s also designed as an off-road bike so has 26″ wheels, wide tyres, off road gearing, and so on. I’d planned to change the tyres for something slimmer and slicker, and take as much off as I could to cut down the weight, and it would have done me fine. But when a friend offered me the loan of a road bike, how could I resist?

So today I tried it out, and it seems to suit me fine. It’s a Jamis Citizen, a few years old. I’d not heard of the Jamis brand before this afternoon, but it seems to be pretty good to my novice eyes, and in any case it’s a more appropriate bicycle for a long road ride than my Raleigh. Bigger, slimmer wheels; higher gears; much lighter weight. I think it’ll go a lot faster.

It’s sitting in my garage now. As soon as I’ve made few adjustments, and fitted my cycle computer, I’m off for a ride.

As long as the rain stays off, that is.

Photo: eir@si on Flickr

Getting a different view on things

This morning we had a big meeting with the reps of the PCS union, effectively launching the campaign in response to the Land Registry Board’s proposals. I’ll not go into too much detail here, but it certainly gave us a lot to think about. In summary, don’t believe everything you may have heard. For example, where we may have been told that there’ll be no compulsion to move to other civil service jobs, and that the board will do everything they can to ensure that any redundancies are under the current, more generous, terms, this in fact is not shown to be the case when you look in detail at what’s been published.

PCS members gather at Stevenage Office

The union’s campaign is based on opposing pretty much everything in the proposals. They’re saying that the propsals are based on a fundamental misinterpretation of how the value of Land Registry is calculated. Land Registration are not a business; it is a public service. By proposing an entirely different vision for Land Registry based on a return to civil service values, they’re pushing for no office closures and no need to lose staff. Yes, they agree we have too much office space but would look at other ways of addressing that like moving to smaller offices or using some of our excess space to house other parts of the business. (File storage was mentioned, for example.)

So, two opposing poles. Management at one end, union at the other. I guess what happens will be somewhere in between.

I’ve also done a bit more reading about the possibility of training to become a driving instructor. Always worth doing a bit of online research! There are comments on blogs and forums that will make me think very carefully about embarking on such a path. Some of these give serious pause for thought:

Driving instructors’ association:
http://www.driving.org/becomeadrivinginstructor.html

UK Instructor training:
http://www.uk-instructortraining.co.uk/index.htm

Blog:
http://www.ukadi.co.uk/2008/06/becoming-driving-instructor-dont-do-it.html

Squidoo:
http://www.squidoo.com/driving_instructors

(I note a lot of the comments on some of these pages are focused on the RED driving instructor training school. The AA don’t get many mentions, but some of the same applies.)

So, in both areas, opposing views with the truth somewhere in the middle. Much like life, I guess.

One possibility for a new future.

Well, it looks like this didn’t become an exclusively cycling blog for a while. Something cropped up. What was it? Oh, yes: losing my job.

Yes, yes, I know. I haven’t actually lost my job yet. But chatting to folk around the office it’s clear that no-one has the remotest confidence that the consultation period will make the slightest difference to the proposals. Or, “proposals”, as people say, with quote marks indicated by raised pairs of fingers.

Now, the union (PCS, if you’re wondering) tell us that it’s worth campaigning, and that nothing is set in stone yet. But do you know what? In the two weeks since the announcement was made I’ve got so used to the idea of finding something else and starting afresh, that the last thing I want to hear when the consultation period is over is that Stevenage Office will in fact stay open. I’d personally rather the union spent their time campaigning to ensure we get a decent redundancy than trying to stop the office closing. We’ve a big union meeting tomorrow. Let’s see what it is they’re planning.

For the time being I’m working on the assumption that I need to find a new job some time in the next two years. And if we decide to relocate, we’d want to do so before January 2011 as that’s when our son starts nursery. I’ve only had a cursory glance at the local job pages so far, but one or two things are beginning to go around in my head as possibilities. 

The only one I’ve actually looked at in any detail is the thought of training to become a driving instructor. (And I know I’m not the only one to have considered that as an option.) As far as I can see, it’s the sort of job you can choose your hours to fit in around family life, and it’s the sort of job you can take anywhere. I’ve had a look at the AA driving school and according to the quiz on their website, “it looks like I’d make a good AA driving instructor”. (And I promise I tried to answer the questions honestly!) On the down side it would mean running my own business (even the AA instructors are in fact running a franchise) which seems to me pretty daunting but plenty of people manage it, so why not me? 

If anyone has any other suggestions, please do let me know!