Tag: England

Election day!

Manuel Marques May 11, 2015 No Comments Uncategorized , , , ,

Polling
No photo of the day, hence I had to make do with something from Flickr… šŸ™‚

Last week it was Election Day! All over the UK people voted for the General and Local Elections, with the polling stations opening at 7 AM and closing late at night (10 PM). Definitely a few differences from back home, where the elections are always on a Sunday and there are a few weird historic laws regarding them (such as prohibiting people from hunting…). And, perhaps more interestingly, the local elections are open for participation not just to UK citizens but to anybody who is legally in the country, such as EU citizens.

The mechanics of the local elections are also quite strange, I have to say… you don’t vote for a specific candidate who might head the council for a few years; instead, you elect a few people of your sub-region (in my case it included a few of the villages nearby) who will between themselves (and the other elected councillors from other areas) decide who is heading the council. Due to that, things like the image below are simply not there, and I have to say that my local councillors did not actually campaign that much – I did get quite a few leaflets regarding the general election, though! (I’ll leave the general election for a future post…)

Sines
This is the kind of local elections you’d expect to find in Portugal. Gigantic billboards everywhere, and people campaigning for both councils and parishes. Here you wouldn’t know that a pre-election campaign was underway unless you consulted the relevant websites!

Perhaps not surprisingly, Canterbury maintained the Tory-dominated council from previous years. Actually, practically the whole of Kent is Tory-dominated, council- (and MP-) wise; apart from Thanet which now has a UKIP local council and Maidstone (Labour) , everything else got the Tories. And as for me, I can’t say I could make an informed choice regarding the local elections given that I had scarcely any information regarding the candidates or their manifestos. Very strange indeed!

May 6th, 2015

Manuel Marques May 6, 2015 No Comments A photo a day , , ,

May 6th, 2015

Ice on the windscreen at 6 AM – this took place just last week! It tricked me because there was only ice in the middle section of the windscreen, I’ve swiped my finger on the side and it looked just wet, not icy, I then had a nasty surprise when I used the wipers! šŸ˜›

Thankfully now there’s a balmy 13 degrees C outside! Not bad, if it wasn’t for the very strong winds that came with the temperature increase…

And why was I driving away at 6 AM? I guess you already know the answer… šŸ™‚

The not-so-chilly morning (this doesn’t feel like late November!!)

Manuel Marques November 24, 2013 No Comments Uncategorized , , ,

Via Flickr:
Apart from the wind & current which made my life a bit more complicated on the way back, it was a very good outing this morning! And I had plenty of time to disembark, sort out my oars, get some slings out, take boat off the water, wash & wipe it thoroughly and still help another club re-rig their boat before I set sight on the rest of the club (yeah, I was the first one to go out šŸ™‚ )

Brace yourselves, it is coming!

Manuel Marques October 9, 2013 No Comments Uncategorized , , ,

Screenshot - 091013 - 22:52:54

Here we go!… time to get out the warm stuff out of the wardrobe. And maybe get some weights inside my pannier bags, otherwise I think I might fly away! šŸ˜›

Anyway, I can’t really complain – last weekend I had an amazing outing on Sunday morning! No wind, and the temperature was such that I actually had to take out layers! We even had a BBQ in the evening here in the house (and this time we had proper coal! šŸ˜‰ ).

jj
Yep, that’s me leaving the M25 at 1:30 AM… not by my choice though! And from that point on until I was able to return to the motorway an hour passed… :/

Speaking of Sunday, it is a wonder how I managed to do so much during that day having arrived quite late the night before (~ 3:30 AM), due to the combination of a dinner in Slough which ended up quite late (but went quite well! šŸ™‚ ) and a closure of the M25 just before my exit (talk about luck…) which forced me to face a massive traffic jam on a A-class road running parallel to it at 2 AM (absolutely surreal!).

Anyway, to my astonishment I managed to wake up on my own at 7:30 AM, not feeling sleepy or anything! (not a chance of that happening during the week… šŸ˜› )

Page 1 of 4