Lytham St Annes

I am now in Lytham St Annes, having travelled up last night to do the first of three software testing courses for developers. It has been interesting, to say the least.

I got here on Virgin Trains and then a two car diesel from Preston, which would bring me to Blackpool South if I stayed on it. I may do so next week when I get here. This week I’ve been getting used to the place, finding restaurants, and generally relaxing. The course itself is now a doddle…just get into the room and turn on the autopilot. The delegates are a weird mix of developers, analysts, one mole (a software tester who has already gotten the certificate but who is there to present the tester’s point of view) and a couple of testers who are there because they missed the last course. As this is a truncated curriculum, I said that they’d better not try the exam without either further study or a full course.

Most of the delegates have been working at the customer’s site for more than 10 years, some as many as 35. And they say that “jobs for life” is no longer an option! One of the developers is one of those “Negative Nellies” who always says either that “We already tried that and it didn’t work” or “We’ve never tried that so it won’t work”. The class discussions have been sometimes quite heated. There is a general notion that quality is the job of the testers, rather than everyone’s job. I expect that as a result of these courses there will be some changes made to stress that quality is everyone’s job and the testers aren’t the ones who add it at the end.

The hotel (Blue Sands Hotel) is quite good, relatively modern inside WITH broadband access (which I didn’t know about last night). The breakfast was ample and they have a very cute dog whose picture I will try to post when I get back to London. I may cancel my other hotel reservations here and stay here again the next two weeks. It suits me.

The restaurant I ate at last night was an Italian restaurant downtown (if this tiny town can be said to have a downtown). The food was passable, as was the wine and the price. But nothing special. It was quite crowded.

Tonight, OTOH, I ate at a fabulous restaurant called Bistro Gerry (I give the name so that anyone who reads this and is in the area will go). I started out with a glass of house red. I tasted it, and thought “There’s something funny about this…” It was corked, and I got a glass of uncorked wine, no questions asked, which was much better. The owner/waitress was first-rate. Very chatty, and yet not obtrusive. The people up here are very nice, which is a change from metropolitan people, who often aren’t very nice (lots of exceptions to that rule). I ordered a steak, medium, and got a steak, medium. I also ordered a soup, Broccoli and Stilton, which was delectable. The steak was tender and flavourful (sorry to the vegetarians who read this journal…). Dessert was raspberry Pavlova, with caffe americano and something called “tablet” which seems to be Scottish fudge. I couldn’t eat more than one as it was so sweet. However, everything was cooked to perfection, the service was great, and even the background music made my toes tap (lots of 1960’s and 1970’s pop and rock songs, which brought me back to when I was young and needed no Viagra). I was still humming when I left. They got a 20% tip too, because the experience was so great.

Now I’m waiting to watch the second episode of “A Line of Beauty” on BBC2. I read the novel when in the hospital, but I have been commanded by HSMBO to watch tonight, so I’ll be dutiful and do so. Tomorrow back to the customer site for the second day of training and then back to the Elephant and my honey. I miss him.

One Response to “Lytham St Annes”

  1. trawnapanda says:

    of COURSE Lytham St Anne’s has a downtown (or more correctly “town centre”, it being in Lancashire). I’ve driven through the aforesaid town centre, on my way home from Blackpool a couple of days before Christmas 2004 (where my sister, bro-in-law and I formed about 20% of the total tourist population. Wandering along the front on a rather blusterous day, Morag observed, “blimey! this place is more bracing than Skegness!”)

    then we drove back to Preston — I’ve also done the Euston/Preston run several times, but since Morag lives a 5 min drive from Preston Station, that was as far as my train journey went.

    I’m surprised you survived Tablet, diabetic that you are. Its closest equivalent, I’d say, is Maple Sugar candy, without the maple flavour (more unto a bland butterscotch flavour). I loved it as a child, but the memory sweetness makes my teeth itch now.

    sorry you’ll not be being paid to go up there again — I was going to suggest you NOT buy any Blackpool (or LythamStAnne’s) rock, but you’ll not even have the opportunity now.