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About this blog

The ramblings of NW's Northernmost member!

Entries in this blog

Vote for us!

Hi folks. Off on a bit of a tangent here. This here is my other hobby, singing. Me and my friend Caz did this for the final of a contest on the karaoke website SingSnap. The winner will be decided by public vote so I'm looking for a favour - your vote! You can vote for us by visiting [url="https://www.facebook.com/singsnap"]https://www.facebook.com/singsnap[/url] just scroll down to our entry and click the "like" button and you're done! Thankyou for your support [img]http://f1.nwstatic.co.uk/for

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Merry Christmas !

Well it's that time of year again so I'd like to wish everyone on NW a very Merry Christmas. Unfortunately, yours truly will be working (on day watch at Shetland Coastguard) but hopefully we will be quiet, especially as the weather looks like it well be relatively quiet up here after the storms of the past few days! Might even see some of the white stuff on Boxing Day! Anyhoo, hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Cheers Bob

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

A Wild Night Ahead!

Looks like we could be in for some pretty appalling conditions up here later tonight and into the early hours. SE-E winds are forecast to reach Storm Force with gusts between 70-80mph. As if that weren't bad enough theres a possibility that it could turn to snow again for a time between about 2100 and firt thing tomorrow sop we could well see some really atrocious blizzard conditions for a time. On top of all that is the highest astronomical tides of the year tonight so we could have a win

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Winter has arrived

Well it looks like winter proper has arrived up here in Shetland. Much colder than it has been of late and also a bit more settled. Over the next few days I'm expecting to see night frosts and some light wintry showers. Sunday is looking like there might be a bit more in the way of wintry showers around and generally, the beginning of December is looking cold, with just the odd milder interlude. That said, it's pretty much what you would expect for the time of year, particularly up here, alth

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

First snow of the winter!

Albeit a couple of blustery showers so far, although overnight looks quite promising especially into the early hours. I'm quite pleased with myself because I flagged this up on the gulberwick weather website and FB page a week ago and issued a Yellow Alert on Monday (the Met office have followed suit today). It's always nice to get one up on the experts, especially will all the gear at their disposal! As I write (7.20pm) the temp is 2.2C and the Dew is -1.2C which is not bad for October"! I g

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

First cold snap?

Looks like we could be in for our first cold snap of the winter. From Wednesday evening things are set to turn much colder up here with wintry showers turning to snow on Thursday. That combined with strong winds could make things quite interesting, particularly on Friday when it looks like the showers could be more persistent and heavier. Not that its unusual to get snow in Shetland in October. We've had lying snow last week in October for 3 of the past 4 years now. The good news is that althoug

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Never Thought It Would Be So Popular!

Today the Facebook page for my weather website has hit the 900 "likes" mark! [url="https://www.facebook.com/pages/gulberwickweathercouk/313323595729"]https://www.facebook.com/pages/gulberwickweathercouk/313323595729[/url] Never did I think this would prove to be so popular! Initially I set the FB page to help drive traffic to the website: [url="http://gulberwickweather.co.uk/index.html"]http://gulberwickweather.co.uk/index.html[/url] But seems like I stumbled upon a real local need f

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Been A While!

It certainly has been a while since I wrote in here. The last year has been a very busy one for me and it's meant I haven't spent anywhere near as much time on here as I used to. Work-wise I have now become as highly qualified as it is possible for an Operational Coastguard to be, having gone down to the Coastguard School in May and passed my Search And Rescue Mission Co-Ordinator certification (SMC). This is a very intense 10 day course and given that we are responsible for the safety of life

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Relief At Last

With todays announcement in the Commons by Shipping Minister Mike Penning, I and my colleagues can breathe a huge sigh of relief that finally it has been confirmed that we have saved our station from threatened closure. Almost a year has passed since the initial announcement was made in December last year and I don't mind telling you that we have all been through hell. From my own perspective, if the closure went ahead, I stood to lose everything I had worked so hard for over the past twenty-odd

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Tall Ships - First Pictures

Hi folks I have uploaded some pics of the Tall Ships arriving in Lerwick harbour today. I will be going down to the harbour tomorrow to take some more. [url="http://forum.netweather.tv/gallery/album/941-tall-ships-2011/"]Tall Ships pics[/url]

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Tall Ships Race - Watch The Website

As you may or may not know my weather website has a live streaming webcam at: [url="http://86.140.14.120:8081/"]Gulberwick Weather Webcam[/url] It has been angled so that it has a good view of the approach to the south entrance to Lerwick Harbour. The Tall Ships Races are visiting here this week and the ships should start arriving any time now. Also on Sunday there will be a "Parade of Sail" and the ships will muster right where my cam is looking so should be a good sight!

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

We Did It!

Well, as you will probably be aware by now, the campaign to save Shetland Coastguard from closure was a success! A victory for a small local community who made the Govt & the MCA change its mind. They made the fatal mistake of thinking we were just a bunch of woolly islanders who would roll over and play dead! Shetlanders are made of stronger stuff than that! Whilst we are delighted, we are also very aware that many of our colleagues have not had such good news today and our thoughts are

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

About To Learn Our Fate

This week we will hear what the Govt plans to do with HM Coastguard. We're given to understand the announcement will come on Wednesday in a statement to the House from Transport Secretary Philip Hammond. The Sunday papers have been full of speculation but they all seem to have this figure of 11 stations surviving, all 24 hrs operation. The one question mark I would put over that is that generally, as far as the MCA/Govt is concerned, they usually leave London ( a small station on the Thames)

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

A Damning Indictment - Transport Select Committee Report

Well, I have to say I am stunned. Whilst we expected the TSC to be critical of the proposals for HM Coastguard I don't think any of us expected such a complete demolition job! The report can be found here: [url="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmtran/948/94802.htm"]My link[/url] This is a complete vindication of the stance I and my colleagues have taken against these proposals and a complete trashing of the proposals in their entirity. I don't think I have ever r

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Awaiting Our Fate.....

Well, some time before the Parliamentary recess on 19th July, we will find out if our campaign to save the Coastguard Station in Shetland has been successful. The first step towards that is the release of the report by the House of Commons Transport Select Committee at 00.01 on Thursday 23rd June. Having given formal evidence before the Committee I will receive my embargoed copy at 09.30 on Weds 22nd. I'm hoping this report will be highly critical of the proposals as I believe this may well impa

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Quite An Experience!

Today, myself and a colleague had the honour of representing our colleagues at an oral evidence session of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee held in Stornoway. Never did I expect to have to do such a thing but then never did I expect an organisation, supposedly responsible for safety of life at sea to contemplate doing what they are suggesting in slashing the Coastguard service. There comes a time when you have to take a stand and say "this is wrong" and for me and my colleag

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

All Change!

Well, so now we can give evidence to the Transport Select Committee as long as we do so as PCS Union Reps and not as Coastguards! A pathetic exercise in semantics which only makes the Govt/MCA look even more foolish than they already do. It doesn't alter one bit what I'm likely to say to the Committee or indeed what has already been said by myself or my colleagues to the TSC in writing and which is already in the public domain on the Parliament website!

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Gagged!

So much for freedom of speech. We have been told by our own management that as civil servants we cannot give evidence before the Select Committee and should therefore decline our invitations to attend! Absolute disgrace. As you can imagine this is causing quite a hoo-ha with the chair of the Select Committee threatening charges of "Contempt of Parliament." Western Isles MP Angus MacNeill has accused the Govt of acting like something out of the Soviet Union! In my position as a Union rep wi

GulberwickWeather

GulberwickWeather

Stornoway Here I Come!

So thats it confirmed, I and a colleague will be travelling to Stornoway next week to give evidence before the Transport Select Committee about the current plans for HM Coastguard. Its quite a responsibility but one that I'm actually quite looking forward to. It's not often you get the chance to represent your colleagues at such a vital moment and I shall do my level best to do what I can to dissuade the Govt/MCA from embarking upon what I and my colleagues regard as a flawed and dangerous co

It's About Time......

I wrote something in here, it's been a while! I've been kind of busy over the past few months. As some of you may know, the Government in its cost cutting frenzy has decided that we can do without half our Coastguard stations around the coast and Shetland Coastguard was one of those slated for closure. Since those proposals were made public on 16th December I have been heavily involved in the campaign to keep a fully-functioning Coastguard station here in the isles, watching over some 36,5
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