New Year, New Job, New blog...

... British Trucker Abroad

Another new feature on Flickr, image embedding.

The latest feature on Flickr gives users (or anyone else) the ability to embed pictures directly into websites. It adds the title and their own Flickr logo to the image, BUT it seems to make it easier for people to steal the images and use them elsewhere, although if they are a business there is a chance that they will get caught out by a copyright violation claim.





Is this a good or a bad thing?

It seems they are going the same direction as Panoramio did when Google got their hands on them, and as someone who used Panoramio and was quite pleased to see my images on Google Earth reach over 4,000,000 views, I soon changed my tune when I was finding them all over the web on travel sites etc.
My option then was to delete my account at Panoramio, so, will the same happen with Flickr?

Brighouse Victorian Christmas Market

Lost soul.

I'm feeling a bit like a lost soul right now after returning from a nice holiday at the Fiestas in Benidorm which was really up tempo, to come back to grey Britain.

Saw great live music from Orquesta Birmania...

These guys above were on a professional stage in one of the main streets and were a real treat.

There were lots of things happening in the old town including live music at some of the Penyas. We came across this singer and guitarist on a back street and they were fantastic, a great voice and a massive catalogue of music covering Spanish Pop to Led Zeppelin! Great entertainers with boundless energy.

The end of the Fiestas are marked with a giant firework display on Pontiente beach.

The day after the Spanish events is the Brits Fancy Dress Street Party in Benidorm New Town which, this year, was attended by an estimated 25,000 holidaymakers many of whom donned costumes and joined in the fun from just before lunchtime continuing right into the night at the many bars.

So, why a lost soul?

Well, as the opportunities for well paid work here are pretty dismal and the trucking industry continues in a downward spiral to the lowest possible wages the option of going back to Canada is very tempting , but after seeing our granddaughter most weekends it would be very hard for Cath to make a move again, even for a short term of 2 years, so... who knows what will happen in the future?

Interlude.

I ran a little slideshow of my pictures on the big screen whilst I was working the bar in France, I'l just do the same here for a while...

Click here to buy prints from my on-line gallery

Back to reality.

The summer passed very quickly in France and we are now back in dull, grey, miserable Bradford.
I may post some pictures which I took throughout summer in the Loire Valley at a later date when I have finished editing them.
 In the meantime, this is what brought us back from Canada, our beautiful Granddaughter.

Et ceux qui ne font rien ne se trompent jamais.

I may continue this blog but in a re-named form (when I think of a good name for it) when we return to work the summer season in the Loire Valley at Le Moulin Fort in May.

In the meantime I have been busy working out of Leeds for a machinery movement firm driving two different trucks, and old DAF ...

and now a newer Mercedes 16 litre V8.

This March has seen us have a nice dump of snow up North, so it'll be nice to be heading south.

New Grand Daughter

This is the reason we came home...

 Somewhere way back in this blog I mentioned that my Gran and Grandad emigrated to Canada in 1911, then returned to England. They went back in 1913 (shown here) and were listed as 'Returned Canadians', I wonder if they had citizenship?

They returned to the UK once again for the first world war and never went back to Canada although my Grans brothers stayed there and made good lives for themselves.