Great Western Coffee Shop

Not strictly a FGW issue but it is in the FGW area

Worcester Shrub Hill

Run by London Midland now.

Have brought in this rather silly parking situation - the station no longer sells weekly or monthly tickets.  You have two choices:

1. Buy a physical ticket from London Midland but allow enough time for it to arrive in the post - okay for some people but not those who really dont know where they will be from one week to the next (e.g. was supposed to be in Zurich next week but am back at main office so I do indeed need to buy a weekly ticket tomorrow morning)

2. Register the licence plate and then have a virtual ticket - great, except if like I do, you can often take up to three cars in a week (we have three - my truck, his co car and his toy).  Depending on our needs, I can be in any one of them.  Sadly, the virtual ticket is not transferable but costs the same as the physical one.

3. Get shafted after paying nearly a grand a month and have to buy daily tickets.

They have also become the parking Gestapo.  I have always bought a parking ticket equal to the length of my season.  When central ran it, if the ticket had fallen off the dash or wasnt visible, they never bothered following up the ticket if you didnt pay it.  On the two occasiosn they did, a quick call with a sensible person usually resolved the issue - yes, I bought the ticket, here is my proof of purchase at the same time as my season, job done, sorted.

London Midland?  Taking me to court because the ticket was not 100% visible - it was on the dash, mostly visible but because the sunlight was faded, they couldnt make out the date and half the ticket was covered by another wad of papers.  Fine, they can.  I'll probably get them (this is legal advice) on the grounds that there is a proven prcedence for how the car park was operated and enforced, and they have changed that with no warning that it was being changed.

Frankly, with the cost of a season ticket from thee parts, I think parking should be thrown in.

Cant you park at either Foregate st or Pershore??

Foregate has no parking at all

Pershore? 

I live 25 miles west of Worcester (ludlow) - so Pershore would be abotu forty miles from me (and take forever aas getting through worcester and out the other side is a nightmare!)

How about any of the other smaller stations as these normally have a few spaces and are free or dont you have that luxury in worcestershire

Nope - not to catch the 0545 or 0632 from WOS

Hereford - train takes 45 minutes to get from hereford to WOS and for me 30 minutes to get to hereford - so that is 1 hour 15 mins before the train I would have to leave - WOS takes me 30 minutes at that time of the morning

Colwall/Ledbury - same as above with different proportion of driving/train

Malverns - have to go through WOS to get there!

I know it seems like silly griping over something petty and it probably is - it just is almost the last straw in a very big haystack - the parking ticket is not a bog cost compared to the ticket but after everything else  - fare rises, unreliability, crap units - its almost making me think of going Virgin

going virgin......and be sick everyday on a vomit comet!!!!!!!! better still buy a  season ticket for local council multi storey if there is one

Pendolino from new street

London midland (bah) from kiddie to moor street then virgin to euston - problem is, it takes longer and euston does not have a bike rack!

NEarest one is 200 yards away - I probably will do that if only for the principal

Alternatively, have you thought about getting a job a bit closer to home that doesn't involve 5-6 hours a day travelling? It might pay less, but unless you're a complete masochist you might be more content and less likely to get stressed at a parking ticket.  I swapped a one hour drive 5 years ago for a 10 minute train journey, and I still think how great it is that I'm not wasting half my life travelling to and from work.      

I chose to move here ...

I am a self employed IT contractor - which means I do short term contracts and can be anywhere in the country

Since I started contracting in 2004 I have worked in:

London (50% of the time)
Oxford
Manchester
Nottingham
Sheffield
Stafford
Solihull (oh how nice that was)
Uxbridge
Leeds

Being here means I am able to either commute or get home twice in the week

I have a partner, four cats, two goats, three ducks, 15 Koi and 10 chickens - I cant uproot them everytime I change contracts(current one is the longest one I've had)

Current contract is up at end of March - they may renew or they may not.  If they dont, then my next contract may be in london - or manchester.....

(I could get a permanent job except....... I take home 80K a year - Permie job in what I do that would not still have me travelling (and then the employer could dicatate the terms not me) would get me 40K gross in this area

Could you take a 60% take home cut?

And I also have employees and subcontractors spread about the country..........who I have to meet with

Being midlands based is actually the best place

Well if I were given the opportunity to increase my net salary 50% but work in London , thus increasing my commute by 4 hours a day then I would say no thank you, my work life balance is fine, and it would not be under the offer you've put to me. Indeed, I have on several ocassions said no thank you to head hunters who phone and dangle such a tempting proposition at me. First question I ask actually.  "London? Thanks, but I'm quite happy living where I am, despite the very attractive proposition you've just made."

Having seen the list of places you've worked at, it strikes me that a move to central Birmingham would be ideal for you in terms of fast access to all these places. Not sure the menagerie would cope with life in the city though! 


   

True

But then even if I moved to central brum I would still have to commute up to 4 hours a day to get to soome of the places

And Where I am I have the advantages of 2 acres of land, a menagerie, my closest neighbour being 200 yards away - close enough for comunity - far enough away I cant here them - and I wake up to silence or sheep..........

For the commuting advantage I would get for living in birmingham, I would not trade the menagerie or the countryside.

So sadly, I will be around for a while longer complaining about the next final straw

Also - being offered an increase is totally different than taking a cut........

Generally people's life styles evolve to reflect their income

Turning down an increase is not the same as taking a cut

e.g. based on a reasonably strong market in my skill set, my partner has gone part time and is re-training - we have gone from him paying the mortgage to and me paying for the lifestyle - to him paying for the life style and me paying the mortgage (the life style has taken a hit).

Long term it is a benefit but at the moment, me taking a 50% cut is not good since he took a 50% cut last year (maybe in a couple of years with down sizing both can)

All I m saying is turning down more money is easier than agreeing to taking home less

Well I accept that point, but I suspect at sometime in the past you switched to contracting for the financial rewards that it offered, albeit at the cost of having to work anywhere, and the lifestyle costs that would entail. And I believe that if I had no choice but to work in London or take a pay cut of the magnitude you describe, I would probably take the cut.

I'm impressed with your partner's position though. Part time, "retraining" (is that golf club or pub), whilst you slog your guts out. He's got it sussed hasn't he?   

Nah- went from working for a consultancy on a martini contract (any time, any place, any where) to doing the same thing but for me - so I dictate the time, place not them.  Doing what I do you have a choice - mundane support on crap wages or interesting work with the travel the down side.  Also - was fired from last permie job for calling  my boss a knob (she was, I dont regret it) so had to contracting as had no reference.

AS for partner - he contrats part time (part time as he only works locally) whilst modernising his skill set - he's picking up more work now but from home (which I couldnt do - I spend all day on the net or watching TV).  When you are 45, work in IT, an made redundant - there isnt much choice other than shelf stacking or some other McJob

Totally, totally off topic, but how do you find the chickens Mookiemoo?  My wife has been talking about getting a few hens  (fresh eggs and all that) but I just wondered generally how much attention they need?

Not too much

You need to make sure they are properly enclosed - so the foxes cant get at them - but once you have a good enclosure, all they need is a shed with straw so they can go in of a night and lay.  Straw will need changing regularly but not too frequently.  Chicken feed is not that expensive - we feed ours twixe a day - the rest of the time they peck for insects.

In summer when we are outdoors more, they become very friendly as they get more attention

I've kept a small number of hens for around 17 years now (not the same ones, obviously - they typically tend to live for around 3 or 4 years, depending on breed) and would definitely agree that they're worth the small amount of effort involved in cleaning them out weekly and feeding and watering once or twice a day. It's advisable to have friendly neighbours willing to look after them when you're away as well. Our hens have the freedom of the orchard in the summer months, and are in an enclosed pen at one end of the orchard the rest if the year, with a hen house and a smaller pen inside that which we can restrict them to so that they can at least exercise a little bit in comparative safety if we know we're going to be late locking them up or away for short periods.

They can sometimes be quite mischevious, and can get under your feet a bit when gardening; and good luck to you if you want to try to round them up and put them away before their usual bedtime at dusk! But they definitely make for very rewarding pets, and add a wonderful extra dimension to any garden with their movement and activity.

Thanks for the advice - we've been thinking about it for awhile and quite like the idea of them strutting around and obviously the fresh eggs!  Think it will be quite nice for the children to be involved and appreciate the whole food cycle as well (in danger of sounding a bit "good life" there!)  A lady I used to work with kept bantams and reckoned they were great - do you recommend any particular breeds of hen or bantam?

I've found that on these occasions - I can skip the gym visit!

Usually only happens in summer when we want to go out for dinner and want them in bed before we leave

As a novice ...... I once spent 3 hours trying to catch the beggers from 4pm onwards (had dinner booked for 7pm an hours drive away in June!)

I learnt - book the table later - the chucks will win in the end

I confess I've only had limited success with this, but a trick my old Dad once taught me was to wave a paintbrush loaded with whitewash in front of each hen. If you can catch their attention, and then slowly draw a white line on the ground in front of them, they will remain there immobilised, staring at the line in an hypnotic state, for several minutes at a time. This definitely does work. The bit I have trouble with is the theory that you can gradually work your way around the whole flock hypnotising them all and then simply pick them up and put them all away. I usually find that by the time I get to the third one the first bird has "woken up". Stupid things.

Sorry... this is way off topic, I know! At least painting white lines on the ground has some sort of relevance to car parks, I suppose.