My blog and I are back at least for now…
There was a lot of correspondence with tech support who after all else failed tried to restore the pages to how they were before they stopped working properly. Even that didn’t work so I was advised to do a manual upgrade of Wordpress. There was one small hitch with that, which was just me being silly and forgetting to change one of the settings in the config file.
Before all that could happen I had to do a separate, fresh installation of Wordpress to see if that would work. Whilst I was doing that I came across this new theme that I am using. I hope you like it 
I have done a little tinkering around with the sidebars but I still need to upload my own header. So please don’t ask me where that picture is because it isn’t one of mine.
In addition to fixing my blog I have been very busy planning for campaigns in the run up to the general election. We have proved that the government are going to ignore PCS until after the election. Despite making a lot of noise, saying that BA and Network rail should get back to the negotiating table with the unions the government have remained stonily silent on requests by PCS to talk to it’s own employees about the Civil Service Compensation scheme. The PCS union have made several requests for talks, to cabinet office minister Tessa Jowell and to Gordon Brown who have not yet replied.
So for now we will be concentrating on the Make Your Vote Count (MYVC) campaign which we have been building on for the past four years. We will be engaging with the prospective MPs to find out their views on Public Services and to get them to sign up to five pledges. All responses will be made publicly available. This will also involve a local public hustings which is being organised by the Shropshire Action Group and resulted in me attending another meeting last night, where I was told I ‘had to’ take notes!!! I have yet another meeting tonight which I could really do without.
On the plus side, I did have one evening off to visit my Mum for her birthday and my brother was in town which was nice. The spiky plant I mentioned the other day was much appreciated 
“Make your vote count” .
I was always taught that every vote counted. Well I hope every vote IS counted.
Let’s hope none get overlooked. What sadden’s me Cherie, is the huge number of people who don’t vote. Year after year this number is getting larger. People are just turned off by it all. Whatever our political views, it is important to back them up by voting. Every time I am asked to vote, I turn out. Nine times out of ten I have to spoil my paper by writing”None of the above” on it, but at least I have turned out and done my bit for “democracy”. (I’m afraid I do hate this eu dictatorship.)
Glad you and your blog are back and up and running. Unc B. xxx
People are very turned off by it all because they feel there is no difference in the parties and none of them look after the ordinary person.
The MYVC campaign is hopefully to encourage people who work in the public sector in general to get involved with the campaign and the MPs answers will encourage them to at least go out and vote. That is the theory and we can but do our best.
I agree with you, it is much better to go to vote and spoil paper. If enough people did that they would certainly get the message. As you say I much prefer democracy to the EU dictatorship.
Thank You
I am glad to be back xx
Nice to have you back. Did anyone else report the weird virus-like effect I got when I tried to log on, in which your site froze and then my speakers started playing steadily increasing drumbeat sounds (honest). It was rather ominous, so I got out of there before the drumbeats reached their crescendo. Al quiet and normal today though.
Thank You, It is nice to be back
I think that was just the aliens taking over your computer I think you had a lucky escape!!!
It sounds like you are hugely busy, I know the feeling!
This time is always very busy if you are a PCS rep and this year seems to have thrown extra challenges for us to include into the busy schedule. Then of course I have other life’s hassles thrown into the mixing pot this year too.
I have now uploaded a custom header, any guesses to where it is?
I will give you one clue – I saw this view from a place a visited recently.
Like Andrew, I heard a Drumbeat sound whenever I tried to reach you. I thought he had managed to lure you on Alien territories. Great to have you back, safe and sound. And your Flick’r didn’t disappear! Your beautiful header photo is in Kent. I sat on that bench with you a while back.
Maybe they were trying to lure as all and I just wasn’t listening to them
Yes that one is in Kent, do you know where the one that goes across the top of the blog is?
Good for you, Cherie, I like your new look and am so glad you are back up and running. Sometimes the glitches work out for the good!
Thanks Ginnie
I think this layout is easier to read. The threaded comments certainly work better in this one 
One has to hope you can keep the blog up but why it went down in the first place raises serious questions about them.
I think there had been a bit of tinkering with the server which is windows based and not as forgiving as Linux. Thankfully the database was fully intact it was just the Wordpress files that had thrown a wobbly.
Meant to say earlier that I love your new look – worth the wait, even if it must have been frustrating (to say the least) to have those techie problems in the first place. You show ‘em who’s boss, young lady!
Thanks
It was frustrating. Maybe I should have taken the day off and it would have been sorted out so much sooner.
The silence from the government is ominous….
Furthermore, in the nest election, I really don’t want to vote for anyone. I really am a very good civil servant right now and very a-political! anti, the whole bloomin’ lot of them!
I am glad to see your blog up and running again and the Wrekin as your header
The silence is very ominous and I think just about everybody is fed up with the lot of them at the moment. I think a lot of people will struggle on deciding who to vote for this time and I am guessing a lot of people won’t bother.
I knew you would recognise the header image
I did wonder where you had gone. Glad to see you are back.
Thank you
I couldn’t think of any way to let people know what had happened without spamming their blogs with a off topic comment.
Glad to see you’re back — missed your blog the last few days.
Thanks Steve, I am glad to be back