John K Mitchell's blogger

I've just finished a new site for a client - a searchable directory of UK schools and other educational establishments such as : creches; nurseries; playgroups; colleges etc.

This was an interested project as part of the brief was to a allow searches at specified distances from post codes. There was a lot of research needed to work out how to calculate the distance from any given point in the UK.

I would never have guessed it but it all related to something I learnt in school nearly 40 years ago !! Good old Pythagoras came to the rescue. Well that and some heavy duty maths and SQL statements.

The next step in the project is to build some more useful pages with content relating to schools and education in general. This looks as if the end result will be a really useful resource for people looking for schools in any given area.

The client has already been showing the site to other people and has been complimented on the look of the site and the ease of use :-)

Just got back from holiday - a two week cruise in the Mediterranean visiting several places including Florence, Pisa, Rome and Naples amongst others on the P&O cruise ship The Auroa

Cruises are great ways to get a flavour for a place so you know if you want to go back (and we definately want to go back to Rome).

We drove down to Southampton, the cases were unloaded from the car, we checked in and went on board. Within 30 minutes of us getting on board the cases were outside the cabin door.

Although it took a couple of days to get into the Mediterranean, once we were there the liner travelled overnight and we spent the days in the various ports.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have Ceoliac disease (a Gluten allergy) and the staff made sure that all my meals were gluten free - from providing GF toast in the morning, cakes in the afternoon and even special GF dishes in the evening.

This was our 9th cruise - would we go again? Too right we will - all we have to do is save the money up for the next one !!