Rain (again), posties on strike & CJS Weekly.

We might not have pictures of several feet of standing water (thank goodness) but my, didn't it rain? – and the Met Office are predicting a load more so don't put the waders away just yet.

The leaning apple trees now have new stakes on the other side and are going to be slowly pulled upright again and then held there until they have grown new anchoring roots, I think some major pruning will be needed this winter instead of the usual trim and tidy. The good news is that the CJS office staff (and assorted livestock) seem to have survived the weather without too many problems – so far and fingers crossed for the weekend! And so CJS Weekly is now printing, this week's edition is 13 sides with 99 new paid posts of which 32 were sent direct to CJS. However, it is quite likely that postal copies will be delivered late. Today is the first postal strike over a decade with no collections or deliveries and although our mail is not collected until later in the weekend it is probable that dealing with the backlog will delay deliveries to you.

It rained and rained and rained, and no power??

It rained and rained and rained

The average fall was well maintained

And when the tracks were simply bogs

It started raining cats and dogs

After a drought of half an hour

We had the most refreshing shower

And then the most curious thing of all

A gentle rain began to fall

Next day was also fairly dry

Save for a deluge from the sky

Which wetted the party to the skin

And after that the rain set in. Anonymous but believed to originate from New Zealand (it's pretty wet over there too).

However, I think CJS has escaped pretty lightly. A few leaky windows, a very soggy garden with two leaning apple trees. These were planted about four years ago and are growing well, however, a garage further down the road has been demolished which changed the path of the wind and after the battering of the last few days and standing in exceptionally soggy ground has pushed the trees sideways. We've hauled them upright-ish again and retied the tree ties but new stakes are going to be needed to counteract the new wind direction until the trees can put down their own anchoring roots. Fingers crossed they won't grumble too much.

Power out – what power out?

We came into the office today expecting to have to reset everything only to find the power wasn't cut at all! Still it was an interesting day, some of us had a day off and some of us held the fort by camping out in an office further up the valley. Still everything is now back to normal.

It rained and then it rained some more.

Well it is the first day of Wimbledon and centre court doesn't have a roof so what do you expect? But we're several hundred miles north of London - apparently this doesn't matter to the weather gods we're getting rain and lots of it by the bucket-load every minute. The ground is saturated, the plants are battered and bowed, the sheep are soggy and be-draggled, roads closed, rivers bursting their banks, puddles turning into ponds and ponds expanding to become lakes before over flowing. The village pond which for years has been a dry sheltered area is now full and threatening to flood the main street. Fortunately the two rivers which bound Goathland on two sides, Eller Beck to the east and West Beck to the west are both in ravines and around a hundred feet below the main village including the CJS Office so the only risk of flooding comes from the sodden fields. Unfortunately The Moorlands was built on one of the village duck ponds (drained before building obviously!), the building is several feet above ground level but the garden is a foot below the surrounding proprieties and the road and is therefore reliably wet or right now soaked and requires wellies to get around, I think it will be waders by going home time.
Heaven for Labradors who insist on going out at least every half hour to check if the water level is deep enough for swimming - not yet - and then bringing as much water as their coats will hold back indoors to shake with great abandon all over everything; so far none of our bits of electrical stuff has gone fizz bang but I'm sure it's only a matter of time……

Well what a week.

The weather's never the same two days running and so much water and according to the forecast we've a soggy weekend in prospect – oh well. Another CJS Weekly hits the presses, 13 pages this week with 93 new vacancies of which 40 went sent direct to CJS. Already available online, paper copies will be with you on Monday – assuming the collection is made. Thinking of the post - CJS is making contingency plans for the Royal Mail strike action, you can keep up to date with what's going on either here on the blog or we've a dedicated page at:
Next week is going to be an odd one, on Tuesday we will be without power in the office so we've made arrangements to work from another office further up the valley but we won't be able to use our main data on the server (can't really move that!) so it’s just the basics for Tuesday and we'll catch up on Wednesday. I don’t think the lack of post on Friday will cause too many problems, CJS Weekly will be dispatched as usual and at the moment we believe it will be collected and delivered as usual.

The three Rs

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Today we took our cardboard to the local tip (sorry, municipal waste site!) for recycling and the used toner cartridges for dumping – we still can't find a way to recycle or reuse these. Counting up the packing boxes we've not been since before Christmas so that's not bad; we're lucky to have a suitable storage area. Anyway as we were empting the car a nice American lady approached us and asked if she could have a couple of the large big boxes as the family were "going home". So, four of the already reused boxes are now on their way to the States with a cargo of valuable family items. How's that for multiple use? These boxes started off life with a consignment of belt buckles from Taiwan (if we believe the printing on the outside) were reused to send us our paper, from London, and are now continuing on their journey.

No Post Collection.

To all CJS Weekly postal subscribers, we're sorry but Royal Mail let us down. Your copies of CJS were ready for collection as usual but the Postie failed to turn up. Upon enquiring of the local Sorting Office this morning, we're informed that he failed to turn up at all and no post was collected from the Whitby area on Sunday. The heap of grey sacks have now left us and your copy should be with you tomorrow. If you can't wait please contact us by email (preferably) or phone to request this week's temporary access details for the online copies.

Another (soggy) week draws to a close.

CJS Weekly is printing, 14 pages this week with 116 new paid vacancies, 65 of which were sent direct to CJS.

No news on the threatened Royal Mail strikes, therefore, all being well your postal copy should be with you on Monday.

Water, water, everywhere.

What has happened to the weather??

Last weekend was hot and sultry, Monday was steamy like living in a jungle and Tuesday it started to rain. It seems like it's not stopped since although I'm sure it must have done, if only for a few minutes. The garden resembles a shallow pond, I'm sure it will be a lake by teatime but the gunnera and bulrushes are very happy as are the Labradors who insist on bringing as much water as possible back into the office. The roads are passable with care but not officially closed.

CJS Monthly - June 2007.

It's a short one this month, just five pages with an additional four of events which mean that the printing was quick. It's online for you to peruse at leisure. We had a bit of a problem with the email e-minders but we think that's sorted and they've all been sent this morning.

New for this month - the Events Diary is online in a separate downloadable pdf.

Friday Sunshine!

After a grey and miserable week with fog, mist, drizzle and generally autumnal conditions the sun has finally decided to show its face and now everywhere is steaming dry. Fingers crossed for a sunny weekend.

Amy's wedding celebration went well, the sun shone, the bride looked beautiful, the groom smiled all day and didn't shy away from the cameras and the page dog performed fantastically [yes, that does say dog, not boy]. All in all a great day was had by all and the hangover wasn't too bad. Back to earth this week… CJS Weekly is once again is falling off the printers in a seemingly never ending stream. A bit shorter this week with only eleven sides but 91 new jobs, 39 sent direct to CJS from the employers. A couple of new adverts for longer courses added to the online Training section today.

Royal Mail: Postal Strikes looming.

Yesterday (7/6/07) 66% of the Communication Worker Union members voted to reject a pay offer from Royal Mail and in favour of a series of walkouts unless new talks can lead to a breakthrough.

If strikes do occur CJS will continue to dispatch CJS Weekly as usual although it may be collected late from us or delivered late to you. To avoid delays we would suggest that you transfer to web access, it's faster (available on Friday), cheaper (no p&p), easier (it's searchable for specific terms) and as you can view on screen or print chosen pages it's greener too!

As soon as we receive any information we'll pass it on to you. This will be through our website, on both News Releases and our blog (that's here!), and also in CJS Weekly. If you have an email address please send details to CJS then we can keep in touch with you even if the post doesn't.

Another Friday.

Another week draws to a close with another CJS Weekly rolling off the printers. This week it's 13 sides, 81new paid vacancies of which 38 were direct to CJS. Not much news this week, we've been busy because we're a member of staff short – Amy got married on Wednesday and is having a huge celebration tomorrow. So I guess not much will happen this weekend either – it'll probably be next week by the time we've all recovered! So be gentle with us on Monday….
(sorry Friday's posting somehow got lost - so a bit late but here it is)