Totterdown wildlife

So I looked out our front window the other day to find this big fella hanging out on our neighbour's front doorstep.
He sat there for about 5 minutes and made a few calls on his mobile before scurrying off down the road.

I hope you all like our new Mortal Kombat soundboard to the right here, enjoy.

Peter, you suck.

Tesco is our local grocery store, just a quick walk up the hill from our flat. This is a story about Peter, the Tesco Nazi:

From: James Preston (st*********ke@hotmail.com)
Sent: 19 November 2008 21:43:54
To: customer.service@tesco.co.uk

This evening my Fiancee, Heather, and I walked up to our local Tesco Express (TOTTERDOWN EXPRESS, 33 OXFORD STREET, BRISTOL, AVON, BS3 4RJ), to buy a few grocery items. While we were there we decided to take advantage of a "3 bottles for 10 pound" wine deal that was on offer. The deal was clearly marked throughout the wine section and we chose three different bottles of wine that were included in the deal. When we were at the checkout one of the bottles did not scan through the till as being part of the deal and the cashier told us that it was not part of the deal, even though the POP signage on the shelf clearly indicated that it was part of the deal. We told the cashier about the sign and suggested that if it was incorrect then it should be removed from the shelf. At this point Heather decided to get a different bottle of wine from the shelf, while she was back at the shelf choosing another bottle she also grabbed the offending incorrect sign and brought it back to the checkout, where me and the cashier were waiting for her. When we showed the checkout operator the signage she decided to call the manager over seeing as the signage did indeed advertise the non-scanning bottle of wine as part of the deal. When the manager, Peter, came to see what the problem was, the checkout operator showed him the ticket to which he agitatedly snapped "Where did this come from?!", Heather told him that it was from the shelf in the wine section and proceeded to lead him to the shelf to show him. At this point Peter became rather indignant and told Heather that she was not to take tags from the shelf and that it was not her place to touch them at all because if someone from Tesco head office had come in and seen a tag missing from the shelf then he could be fined up to 5000 pound (the internal workings of Tesco are none of our business, and we don't care to hear of them). All the while he was telling her this, he was very rudely standing over her and waving the ticket in her face. Heather apologised and explained that the only reason she had taken the ticket was to help resolve the situation. Peter proceeded to put the original three bottles of wine through the till for us. A customer that was at the till next to us saw the entire incident (she was not the only person who saw it as the store was very busy at the time), and as she was picking up her bags to leave, she remarked: "Well, obviously Tesco has forgotten about customer service", to which Peter very snidely replied: "Well, apparantly it has." Needless to say I am disgusted at this shocking lack of anything resembling customer service. At no point were we rude or confrontational, and yet this is all we received in turn. Sure, in the end we did get the three bottles of wine at the promotional price, but the road to getting there was far less than pleasant. I myself work directly with the public in a retail shop and know that if I ever treated a customer in this manner that I would be severely reprimanded by management.

We live very close to the Totterdown Express and shop there daily. But will not be doing so from now on until we believe that the situation has been dealt with adequately. This I will leave in your capable hands as I am sure that Tesco has specific procedure to deal with such a situation.

Yours sincerely

James Preston

Swimming

Last Friday, I did supply work in a Year 4 class. This is about Grade 3 back home. I took the class for swimming lessons. I had taken my class for swimming lessons last year, so it gave me a reference point for what I expected to happen. I was therefore really surprised with what did happen.

Surprise # 1:

All of the swimming instructors were fully clothed. Because they didn't get into the pool. While teaching 8 & 9 year olds. Many of the children could barely swim (the school is in an underprivileged neighbourhood, and many of the children had never taken lessons before). Yet the teachers stayed on the edge of the pool, and just shouted : “Take your feet off the bottom! Move your arms!”

Surprise # 2:

All of the weak swimmers put on armband floaties before getting into the pool. Most instructors that I know HATE armbands, as they offer a false sense of security, make kids dependent and get in the way.

Surprise # 3:

The weakest kids were being taught to doggie paddle. Kids do it. I know that they do it. But I have never seen it taught. The instructor was telling them “Make sure you keep your head high. Don't take your arms out of the water! I don't want to see anyone making circles with their arms!”

I know that in general, people have a tendency to think that what they know and have grown up with is the way that things should be done. And there is probably a lot of merit to this way of teaching. But I still think that when teaching swimming, you should get in the pool.

Hallowe'en

James had never carved a pumpkin. Not really the done thing in New Zealand. So we decided to rectify that situation. I had bought mini pumpkins to decorate the place, but they were not ideal for carving. With Davy and Steph here, this was great time to get our carve on. Behold, the pumpkin creations:

Davy joined our Katimavik Group on Hallowe'en, so we decided to celebrate the holiday by getting dressed up and drunk. We trolled second hand shops for costume pieces and ended up with some decent costumes. I decided to be a spider, with inspiration taken from Mr. Dressup. He had the coolest spider costume in his Tickle Trunk.


Davy was an accident victim.


Steph decided to go for the fairy princess look.


And James was a zombie. But a zombie that could run.



My favorite part of the evening was walking to the bar. We were taking a picture when a group of people started to walk by. They appologized for getting into the frame. We convinced them to be part of our picture.

Later, crossing through the park, Davy decided to mount a statue of a horse.

While he was on the horse, he got attacked by zombies. Luckily, they couldn't climb the statue to get him!

Visitors!

Over the past several weeks we have had a few visitors. Firstly my cousin Mel and her boyfriend Phil came to stay for a Saturday night. On Sunday we decided to take one of the many boat tours to be had around Bristol harbour. It was a great way to learn a bit more about the maritime history of Bristol and also about some of the many fantastic buildings in and around the downtown area. We just so happened to be there at the same time as The Matthew, which is (a replica of) the boat that John Cabot travelled to and discovered North America on.

Here are a few pics of us all enjoying the tour:





Mel thinks her hair looks messy in this photo, but when you are on a boat your hair is supposed to be messy, like a pirate. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, it was great to see my cuzzy, it will be the last time for quite some time.

Our second lot of guests were Davy and Steph from Canada, Halifax to be precise. Davy and Steph spent the last week or so here. For Halloween we carved pumpkins and dressed up for a night out.


Unfortunately I was working for most of their time here so I missed out on a day trip to Bath and a day trip to Cardiff.

It has been great to have some familiar faces around and I hope to see some more before our time is up here.

Remember remember the 5th of November

Last night was Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. There was a celebration going on down at the local park. I dragged James along with me to see what was going on. The local community had a HUGE bonfire going on, as well as loads of regular people firing off fireworks. Neither of us had our cameras, so we are sadly pictureless. It was a really interesting night for me, as I love fireworks, and because I have never seen anything of the like. It is illegal to set off fireworks within city limits in SK, so the sort of celebration we saw last night would never occur. We ended up walking up to the top of the hill in the park, and just sitting, enjoying all the random fireworks being set off throughout the area. By the end of the evening, the air in the park was thick with smoke from the bonfire and the smell of gunpowder.

I wish you all could have been here.