UKC

Ten years ago - what were you doing?

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 Tall Clare 15 Feb 2013
Hello all,

The 'ten years ago - anti-war protests' thread has got me musing...

Where were you and what were you doing ten years ago? In February 2003 I was a week away from my first outdoor lead (Left Twin Crack at Burbage North, if I remember rightly), I was about to start a new job in a new town (with no idea that I'd still with the same company eight years later, gnashing my teeth), I was terribly skinny, I thought I was braced and ready for whatever life would throw at me.

You?
 Milesy 15 Feb 2013
Student, Overweight, Unfit, Drinking too much, Severe Panic Disorder, and spending all of my free time DJing in nightclubs or being in night clubs.
 Milesy 15 Feb 2013
In reply to The Lemming:

I think Claire's point was people who were not involved in that
OP Tall Clare 15 Feb 2013
In reply to The Lemming:

That's about the anti-war protests, though, and I didn't want to derail it with 'general musings about life'-type clutter...
nickyrannoch 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Milesy:
> Student, Overweight, Unfit, Drinking too much, Severe Panic Disorder, and spending all of my free time in night clubs.

This and the anti war thing for me.

 Yanis Nayu 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: Getting to grips with being a dad, hating work.

Not much has changed... )))
 Dom Brown 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: I was halfway through year 8 at school, and realising that the "wonderful" new school I was at actually wasn't very good at all.
 The Lemming 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
> (In reply to The Lemming)
>
> That's about the anti-war protests, though, and I didn't want to derail it with 'general musings about life'-type clutter...

Cool

I think 10 years ago I was doing some care work. Another one of life's over-payed jobs. However I joined the ambulance service a few months later at £8,000, and that was pro-rata as I started part-time.

Happy days.
 the sheep 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

Getting ready for the birth of my first daughter, blissfully unaware at how much it was going to completely flip my life around
 Nevis-the-cat 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I was enduring a job from hell and learning that when women bosses go bad, they go very, very bad. and coping by running, and running and when not running, climbing, climbing and climbing some more. In fact, my post was being re-directed to the Castle I spent so much time there.
 KellyKettle 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: I was a teenager and i'd recently discovered that I was a lot more fun after a few drinks, I'd also be a few months away from growing very very quickly into a 6'4" beanpole, and taking up a challenge to cycle 100miles a day at least 4 days week in my summer holidays... which would transform me from pugdy and geeky, into a slim, muscled adonnis, who was still much to shy to talk to girls (this became cripplingly difficult when I suddenly found that they were attracted to the new me).
In reply to Milesy: " Severe Panic Disorder, and spending all of my free time DJing in nightclubs or being in night clubs."

me thinks the two were related, and you omitted some other details concerning stay up forever powder
ice.solo 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

Half my time living with a girlfriend in hohhot, inner mongolia. The other half on projects running throughout central asia.
Dynamic times, full of action, travel, intrigue, great food and big things going on. I was actually a bit cut off from the whole iraq thing, being involved in other issues, including watching china open up from the inside.

In reply to Tall Clare:
Doing my AS levels at a hellish grammar school, but it was the only one around that did the courses I wanted.
 Lord_ash2000 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: I'd have been into my 2nd term of my 1st year of uni. Not doing a lot else, mainly climbing and getting drunk on fridays.
 mattrm 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

At uni. That's about it. Not climbing. Still LARPing quite a bit. Single (see previous activity for the reason behind that). Probably not yet worrying about life beyond uni.
 Reach>Talent 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
End of my second year of university, so I was mostly drinking and messing about with a diabolo.
Clauso 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

Summut or other. I forget.
 Joe G 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

Trainspotting in Leith Central Station...

Well, working in Scotmid (now a Tesco) on the site of the old station immortalised by Irvine Welsh. On Friday 14th I drove over to Glasgow, spent a nice evening with friends, went on the march on Saturday, drove up to Newtonmore, met more friends, had a good pissup, can't remember what we did on the Sunday... then six more months at the checkouts!
 Nevis-the-cat 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Clauso:

I'll assist you with your memory

Does the wrod "remand" help any?
 Reach>Talent 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Nevis-the-cat:
Does the wrod "remand" help any?

Re-manned? Are you suggesting he was having a gender reassignment reversed?

Clauso 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

You can keep your wrod in your trousers, regardless of what you nickname it.
 hokkyokusei 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

Ten years ago, me and some of my colleagues were contemplating quitting our jobs with the idea of starting our own business, which we did in May 2003. Almost ten years on and we employ about 50 people in the UK and two in Los Angeles.

Back in those days I was a stereotypical software developer, pale, overweight and spending all of my life at the keyboard. A few years later a friend dragged me up Pen-y-ghent (it almost killed me). We went out more regularly and I managed to do the Three Peaks of Yorkshire just before I turned 40. One thing led to another - walking led to winter walking, wild camping, climbing and mountaineering, training for which led me to get a bike and take up running.

In short, I'm a lot fitter now than I was ten years ago. Getting fitter may well have saved my life. My younger brother, similarly overweight and unfit, sadly died of a heart attack last year.

 gethin_allen 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
I was nursing a broken wrist wondering if I would be able to resit the 3rd year degree exam I missed.
In reply to Tall Clare: Ten years ago this month I went walking with a friend from Fleetwood with whom I shared a room at Lancaster university back in the early eighties. Sadly, he's now dead (though that was a few years later). Later in the month my mother died.

Late February is a reflective time.

T.
 Only a hill 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
In February 2003 I was sixteen years old and had just moved to Suffolk from Cambridgeshire. The move was a bit of a shock and completely uprooted the social life I had painstaking constructed over the past few years. Consequently when I started at my new school (doing my AS levels) I put more effort into keeping in touch with my old friends than making new ones.

I had just written a really bad science fiction novel. About 3 months later I decided to bin it and start on something new (which was definitely for the best).

On the plus side, I had recently discovered a passion for hiking, and walked hundreds of miles in the forests and around the Suffolk coast in 2002-2004. In 2003 I went on a holiday to the Lake District with my Dad and my brother James; this rekindled my love for mountains.

So it didn't turn out to be too bad a year, all said!
 Nevis-the-cat 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Clauso:
> (In reply to Nevis-the-cat)
>
> You can keep your wrod in your trousers, regardless of what you nickname it.

I have a divine right to do what I want with it.
 london_huddy 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

10 years ago I was starting to get worried about what happened after university. 2003 was my final year and I had great mates, was climbing lots and generally having the time of my life.

Now, I'm working more and climbing less now but a lot of the friends are the same and I'm still having as much fun. Must be doing something right.
 teflonpete 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I was 35 and still working rotating shifts as a maintenance engineer and working as a kitchen fitter inbetween shifts to make ends meet. Had a 4 year old daughter, a 1 year old son, wife who wanted to stay at home with the son and an £80k mortgage to pay. Didn't really do anything other than work and sleep. I'd pretty much given up biking by then (the engine powered variety) and hadn't started climbing yet. Used to smoke puff just to try and get to sleep when the body clock was all over the place from working nights and an extra 8 hours during the day in the second job. At the time I didn't really think about it but looking back it was awful, no work - life balance at all.
That was probably when the rot that eventually led to my current divorce started setting in.
Very different now though, much more time for fun. :0)
 graeme jackson 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Nevis-the-cat:
> (In reply to Darren Jackson)
> [...]
>
> I have a divine right to do what I want with it.

if you use your left hand after you've sat on it for a while it's even more divine...



or so I've been told

Cthulhu 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I was still stuck in a loveless, miserable marriage.
Stuck in a stupidly well-paid job that paid for the far larger than we needed house (and commensurately large mortgage), bought to try and paper over the cracks in my marriage.
Devoted all my love to my daughter, and all my time to work.

Hadn't had my personal epiphany yet.
In reply to Tall Clare:

I was in deep dark Basra, part of the hunt for the evil dictator and terrorist Sadam Hussian. Dodging IEDs and stones - like a f*cking ninja.
 Mooncat 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I was running a transport company, earning copious amounts of money, working all the hours god sends, which was sending me toward an early grave and destroying my marriage. I used to climb occasionally in them days though.
 Sl@te Head 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: 10 years ago I ran the school's first Husky Sledding Expedition to Northern Sweden.......just returned from the 10th Husky Exped yesterday!
 lynda 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: Ten years ago I was 1.5 years into my first post-doc and was realising I wasn't cut out to be a jobbing scientist. I was single, but was about to meet my other half
In reply to Tall Clare:

Getting the news that my employer had just sold his factory, and that whilst he told me I had a job for as long as I wanted it, one of my commission related income streams was about to disappear. He also said that should I want to leave he'd give me very good references and whatever time I needed for interviews etc. It was a sobering prospect in my mid 50's

6 months later I ended up doing the job I'd always wanted to do with a great 'family' engineering business. I'm still there even though I've passed official retirement age.

My former boss is still one of my best friends and we help each other out 'commercially' whenever we can.
 Blue Straggler 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
I remember it in some decent detail, for someone who doesn't keep a diary/journal.
I actually went to London to see some friends, and DIDN'T go on the march. Think I got to London late in the afternoon. Met various mates who'd been on the march and quizzed them as to why, and they all admitted that it just seemed like a nice day out. They didn't seem particularly "committed" to any political view, at least nothing more sophisticated than "er, um, war is bad, mmmkay?"

Then the day after that I gave a mate from a band a lift back to Brighton, bought some guitar effects pedals that her band were selling off, and got my guitar signed the guitarist

I had been supposed to do all this two weeks beforehand (1 Feb 2003) but my car died on the M1. Got towed home by the AA and heard on the radio that Space Shuttle Columbia had blown up on re-entry. I recall being surprised that Five still saw fit to broadcast episode 1 of CSI: Miami that night, given that it featured the team investigating debris from an aircraft explosion in the Everglades.

In general, I was still going through the motions of trying to write up a Ph.D whilst in my first grown-up full time job outside of academia. I never finished that Ph.D.
 ebygomm 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I think i'd just done a moonlight flit from my job in lancashire to go back to Missouri on an 18 month visa.
 RockAngel 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: Working a in a job i disliked. Having to put up with no end of hassle and abuse from my ex who I'd left 3 years before. Single but not caring. Was starting to go climbing again. Had applied for my HNC course. Still hadnt passed my driving test.

now, not working due to lots of circumstances but actively looking for work. I got turned down for a crappy Pets at Home job! Ex is no longer part of the picture at all to the relief of myself and my son. Single again. Getting fit enough to start climbing again. Back walking the hills and hoping my back won't screw up again.
 Chris the Tall 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
Sat at my desk posting crap on UKC...
 Andy Hardy 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: In Feb 2003
I was
a) 3 months away from being made redundant - that *was* a surprise.
b) potty training my daughter.
c) still waiting for her to sleep through the night.


KevinD 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

lounging around waiting to start a new job.
 Timmd 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:Still living at home, and working my way through dealing with panic attacks and anxiaty, and figuring out how to get to grips with the world. The first two have changed and i'm working on the third. ()
 Sam_in_Leeds 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
1ST year at uni so I suspect I hadn't started climbing and was most likely to be found stoning/sulking somewhere and generally being "emo".


Happy days!
 Dauphin 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

Bumping into Jarvis Cocker & Don Letts at the Iraq anti war demo.

D
 Yanis Nayu 15 Feb 2013
In reply to ice.solo: I reckon you actually just sit in a bed-sit in Luton doing LSD.
 the power 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: working allday every day slave to the $.
Removed User 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I was doing a lot of DIY on a sea kayak in the garage, trying not to let my 1 year old full time job take over my life, splashing around in a deep pool of messy relationships and having one of my periodic come-backs to climbing which went reasonably well for a while.
 Maggie 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

About to walk out of a perfectly good job that I hated after the most stressful 18 months of my life - never looked back. A significant amount of priority-realignment followed, which has resulted in a much more balanced view of life, the universe and everything...
 nastyned 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: I was on the march (which reminds me how much I hate Tony Blair).

I was still working as a microbiologist, and I must have moved house fairly recently. I was single at the time, and must have climbed a lot more then, often with my late father. I was thinking the changes had mostly been for the better but I'm starting to get a bit maudlin now...
Tim Chappell 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

Ten years ago (pretty well exactly) I was on an anti-war march in central Vancouver during my visiting professorship over there, seriously considering burning my UK passport.

Well, not that seriously. Still, I was bloody angry about the war. So were the Canadians, pretty much unanimously. It seems Canadians are much nicer people than Americans.
 girlymonkey 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
10 years ago I was 'studying' on Isle de la Reunion, a French DOM in the Indian ocean. It was a hard life there. I went to 4 hours a week of lectures, and spent the rest of my time in some pretty stunning mountians or hanging out at the beach. It was also the first time I drove a LH drive car. I was there for 4 months, it was tough
 LaMentalist 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

After the most horrendous December & January burying friends & my little bro then attending the farcical Coroners inquest I decided to quit my job & get out of the country in early February 2003 before I did something that I may of regretted .

I went to crash with friends in the French Alps for a few weeks , I did some training , a lot of snowboarding & getting blind drunk on local Pastis , Génépi & Absinthe then bimbled around the South of France for a few more weeks generally got lost then slowly & as economically as possibly tracked back up to the U.K .

I'm looking at doing similar again very soon but hope to get a lot further & take a lot longer this time ... 80)
 HB1 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: 12.20 Feb 15 2003 - a surprisingly sunny saturday at Birchens amongst the various Emmas et al
 Brass Nipples 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I'd just completed my first week of cycling to work. It'd taken 3 hours to get home from work in car at end Jan, due to first snow (that stuck) in south east for 12 years. So I vowed to start cycling to work. Never looked back. 100, 000 miles on bike since and counting....
ice.solo 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Submit to Gravity:

how dare you!

its neasden and its ketamine.
 Sam Mayfield 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

10 years go this month we found the building which is now The Orange House and i was thinking ."do I really want to do this?"

Sam orange

OP Tall Clare 15 Feb 2013
In reply to Sam Mayfield:

I reckon it was a good decision!
 LaMentalist 15 Feb 2013
In reply to ice.solo:
> (In reply to Submit to Gravity)
>
> how dare you!
>
> its neasden and its ketamine.

I did a stint in Willesden my drug of choice was ganga at the time !

I save ketamine for the special ( broken bones ) moments , only painkiller that ever worked for me , morphine rocks but it doesn't kill any pain for me at all .
 Kimono 16 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:
funny you should ask as it has made me calculate and i realise that, almost to the day, i had just moved into a Buddhist meditation centre in North Wales where i was to spend the next 6 years of my life....a fantastic time!
And i am about to come back to the UK in may and will be back there for 3 months to help out which is a lovely thing to look forward to
 Graeme Barr 16 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: Having done a long stint of night shifts on a London construction project, about to blow all the earnings on a snowboarding trip to canada and alaska. Happy days!
 Sam Mayfield 16 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

I think so! Some times regrets, but cant believe it has gone so fast! Scary to think what ten years from now will bring :0)

Sam
 The Norris 16 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare:

At this time of day, I was probably hungover, having been to a rock night at the Bristol Bierkeller the night before! I was in the 3rd year of my Biochemistry degree, doing little work and too much play. I was probably about a stone heavier than I am now and did no exercise whatsoever.

A hell of a lot has changed since then, cor blimey!
little andy 16 Feb 2013
Getting ready to go to Rjukan before it got spoilt!!
 Steve Perry 16 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: I was walking the South West Coast Path from Land's End to Minehead on the start of a long mountain trip to John O'Groats. It was one of the best years of my life.
 owlart 16 Feb 2013
In reply to Tall Clare: Ten years ago I would have still been doing the same job that I am now, although it was a lot more fun back then. I hadn't yet been introduced to the hills, although I was walking 40miles a week over the South Downs.

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...