The real end of an era

I did do all I planned in the previous post. Unfortunately, the number of my colleagues left for me to say goodbye to was almost zero. So,at just after two I walked out of Babbage for the final time and was met by Hazel and we drove home. Believe it or not, I am still having a certain amount of difficulty adjusting to the change.

And another thing...........................

Believe it or not, the countdown is now officially wrong. I based it on the usual leaving time here at the university on Christmas eve. However, this year we are anticipating having to work right up to five this evening due to a new management regime. As we are on the support desk, it's not unreasonable, just annoying. From my point of view, it's only because it spoils my countdown that I'm annoyed but some of my colleagues have a longish way home tonight and would benefit from the extra time to play with considering the amazing weather conditions over the past couple of days. I decided to break with my usual routine today and I am wearing jogging bottoms and my new Santa T shirt in an attempt to be festive. As my idea of festive is to be at home with the nuts and chocs and ginger beer and turkey and presents and television and family and mince pies. However, at least we have a happy office with plenty of humour  to keep us going. Later today I shall re-image my laptop and have a short wander around saying goodbye to a few other colleagues and then meander home at five. In the meantime, we await the phone calls................

Very last Friday

The office is finally beginning to calm down at last. We still have more calls and emails than expected but we are, at least, managing to stay on top of them. I have begun the round of saying 'goodbye' to my colleagues. Quite a few will not be at work next week so I have already shaken hands with them. The message for my email has been set up to run from Tuesday at five pm and I will be re-imaging my laptop on Tuesday morning in order to pass it over to Dave for investigation. The investigation is because it has never run at the same speed as any other laptop and some of that model are actually quite fast despite the woefully under-powered system. Today has seen more food enter our office than the rest of the year added together I think. We have had pork pies, crisps, chocs, jelly babies and biscuits all day. I haven't bothered with lunch 'cos I'm too full already.

Final Wednesday

So I'm down to four days and counting now. Life at the office is still rushing along with a lot of work to be done. The major difference is that the 'normal' bread and butter calls that we all love have tailed off to almost nothing and the seriously daft calls are taking precedence. All the weird requests and complaints come out of the woodwork at this time of year and they take much longer to log and solve. The team are coping well however. We are all gorging ourselves on mince pies and fancy biscuits and sneering at the idiots who keep us busy.

Nearly down to single figures

As I write, we are at eleven and a half days and counting. Indeed, I have threatened to begin counting hours once I get to less than ten days. I was really pi....annoyed over the weekend. I had a sore throat on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and on Saturday, the whole cold hit me with a thump and I felt rotten all day. Sunday was better but I didn't feel worthwhile until this morning, just in time to return to work.

Time is ticking away.............

Whilst the countdown above is correct, I have moved my internal clock to "working days" and they are going down nicely. I have reached 18 days and the anticipation is building substantially now. I always look forward to Christmas because the family are all together but this year will be very special as, when I leave work on Christmas eve, I will have finished forever.................woohoo!

And then there were five...........................................

Weeks to go, of course. I had a very brief taste of retirement on Friday last as I had a cold, or flu depending on whom you believe. By lunchtime, I was feeling ok again and managed to do several jobs that I had wanted to do all week but didn't feel well enough to do at the time. Anyway, I am now down to just  35days (and a bit) before I walk away from organised labour forever. A few bits and pieces arrived during the week and the railway track and racing car track are now complete so plenty of work there then. My week was made less boring than usual by Sally as she was also off work with a similar problem.

The other side of the coin was that Lulu finally went into hospital for her much awaited operation and actually got it this time! She is now recovering well and looking at an early homecoming, possibly today. Just knowing that the job has been done successfully has brightened her up immensely and it has even rubbed off on Corey so that he is less fretful that his mum is away for a few days. 

Slow and steady wins the race?

I've always been a bit dubious about that one, I'm fairly slow and steady and I can't remember the last time I won a race. However, I currently find myself in a vaguely similar position at work. I have spent the past four years specializing in problems with Microsoft SharePoint. I now find myself working on almost all of the SharePoint problems coming into the support desk at the university. As can be seen above, I have less than fifty days left in my job. oops! I have tried to impress upon my colleagues and masters that I will be gone soon. "Yes", they say, "We must do something about that". Not so far guys. Part of their problem is that I actually like SharePoint, it suits my methodical 'Slow and Steady' way of working. Does this mean that, finally, I will win the race?

More water under the bridge...............

The decision has pretty much made itself, I will ask to go at Christmas. My shoulder has improved due to copious amounts of Ibuprofen gel being rubbed in twice a day. Trouble is, to compensate, my arthritis is now becoming somewhat intense when I type..................... like now. My back has improved slightly, I think it was more bruising than anything else. I have been putting in derisory bids on Ebay over the weekend and won every one. So I am now the proud owner of a baseball cap and a clockwork train set for almost peanuts.

Getting older sucks!

I am so close to retirement now and all I wanted to do was leave gracefully. Chance would be a fine thing. My body is fighting me and trying to make me stop sooner now. My back is a dull roar most of the time and my shoulder is constantly hurting at present. With the onset of the colder and damper weather, my joints are beginning to complain and, as I cannot use anti-inflammatories, I have to simply suffer. Early starts are murder now and once 10.00 pm arrives I just need to fall into bed. That's as well as napping all evening and nodding off in my lunch break yesterday.

Hazel is suggesting I ask to leave at Christmas and not go on until the end of February. This idea appeals to me. She also thinks I should drop my hours to four days a week from now until I leave. This idea also appeals. Hazel would like to see me do both but I am more inclined to one or the other. We need the money for one thing as we are in the throes of trying to move out our current tenants and take in new ones who will actually pay their rent.

Still improving but still sad.

My own health is currently better than it has been for quite a while and seems to be holding. I still have some big problems first thing in the morning and last thing at night with my socks!!!!! but other than that I am a fully functional person again. Today is our son and daughter-in-law's wedding anniversary so most of the family are having a celebratory meal. janis, our camper van is back on the road and also functioning well now and we are hoping to manage a UK holiday in her next year when I have retired (see above). I am also stocking up as best I can with components for my retirement hobby. Both of these areas are recorded on their own blogs as listed below left.

Some you win.................

Whilst in the throes of improving my own health, one of my closest friends, Fred, has died very suddenly.
 He and I worked together at Freedom Fields Hospital when Sally was born and we remained friends when I left. I went to Plymouth Sound and he moved to Derriford when Freedom Fields closed but he still visited me every Wednesday when our shifts allowed. Just before we went on our summer holiday earlier this summer, Fred collapsed and was taken to ICU at Derriford. When we returned from our break, another friend told us where he was and Hazel and I went up to see him. He was in an induced coma and seriously ill. That's when we discovered that he had developed Myasthenia Gravis, a very debilitating genetic disorder that affects the muscles of the neck among other things. Freds father has it but nowhere near as bad. Anyway, over the following weeks, Fred slowly recovered but, having had a tracheotomy, was unable to speak and had some breathing problems. Nonetheless, last Tuesday he left hospital and moved into a good nursing home to recuperate. Hazel and I visited him on Thursday evening and he was pretty upbeat and joking with us. On Saturday evening we had a bit of a shock when we were told that he had collapsed again and had died almost instantly. It seems that, whilst in hospital, he was also diagnosed with a faulty heart muscle which would have required open heart surgery. As he needed to at least partly recover from his recent illness, he was told it would be a while before he would have the surgery. Sadly, he never got it and his heart problem appears to be what killed him. We are now waiting for the post mortem to be completed in order for a funeral to be planned. Makes you think!

Beginning to catch up a bit now...........

The hydrotherapy is beginning to bite, I am feeling the burn, even underwater, and muscles are relaxing and smoothing out. I am also having success with my walking correctly regime, that is also painful sometimes but I am about ready now to go back to my normal walking shoes again.

I'm confessin'.............................

Forgive me blogosphere, it's been a month since my last blog.

The truth is, I wasn't too well for quite a while and, with all the other problems around me, I just didn't have the energy to get stuck into this blog. However, most of my other concerns are now sorted to at least a manageable point and, after some treatment, I am now out of that painful place I was a month ago.

The family are all on the mend again and Fred has now left ICU and is taking notice again. Russ is better than he was and we are back to making plans for our break in September.

My treatment has been interesting, after a consultation at the Pain clinic, I have had traditional pain killers, a TENS unit, acupuncture and hydrotherapy. All seem to have worked well for me and I am amazed how much has been achieved without resorting to opiates. In addition, my job has finally settled a bit now with less of a backlog of email all the time. We still have to work hard at them to keep them down but at least we are now able to keep them down. 

I ATEN'T DED

As Granny Weatherwax is prone to declare.

I went on a holiday and then, when I returned, my back finally gave up. The first week I also had a lot of pain in my hip although that has mostly now gone. Two visits to the pain clinic have also improved me somewhat and I am aiming for a partial permanent return to work soon. Life over the past couple of weeks has been both painful and boring but is now beginning to even out again.

I have been so tied up recently,

I even missed the rollover to less than 300 days to my retirement. A sad indictment of my life at present. The family is managing to cope with the health problems that most of us have but it's been touch and go a few times. We have managed to keep a lot of the problems away from the children but, inevitably, there has been some disruption for both boys because of the chaos we adults have had to wade through. The worst problems have been the fault of mistakes by and lack of interest from the health service. The local hospital seems to have been on a permanent 'Black Alert' for at least a month and even when a bed was made available, there was very little care provided for a very sick young lady. More than one operation went wrong and nursing staff have failed to offer even the most basic care at times. The best quote being, "We didn't have time to deal with her". Our problems are still not over as Lulu still needs care at home and, despite two assurances that it had been done, no visiting nurse had been booked. The next concern is when Wendy has her operation next week. The up side has been my visit to the pain clinic. Very helpful staff and a doctor who had actually read my notes. I received some very helpful advice and the promise of some therapy in the near future. The advice was to buy and use a TENS unit and it has already, in a very short space of time, made a substantial difference to the amount of pain I am in. By that, I mean it has diminished.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho etc.

Regular readers will know by now that a severe lack of posts usually indicates that I am very busy at work.

Well, last week, this was true with knobs on! I haven't had any time to myself either at work or at home.The new job was always going to take a lot of time but last week was the first week of a new term and that really ramps up the support calls. For three days, we couldn't get them below 100 emails waiting. As soon as we cleared one,another or two arrived. By Thursday, we began to make an impression and by Friday we had got it down to a dull roar of just over 30. Of course, whilst all this was going on, we were also answering phone calls and logging them as well.

At home, Lulu went in for her operation on Thursday morning and we have been looking after Corey pretty much full time since then. Glad to be of help but last night I was so tired I wanted a lie in today. I didn't get one as I had to take Ian up tothe hospital at ten to see Lulu.

The end of an era

Today is my last day in the Smeaton node as far as I know. On Monday I move back to Babbage and go on first line support. I took Alan, my replacement, around the building to introduce him to people only to find that most people aren't in their offices today for one reason or another. Still, he does at least know where most areas are now. My health continues to improve very slowly although I am having some 'withdrawal' symptoms without any changes to my medication. It has been so obvious to me that I have double checked my tablets and eye drops and everything is correct.

The TagBots are coming along very well now, I am learning more and more C programming with each session. The other blog is definitely worth a visit if you have any interest in robotics. 

It's probably tempting fate, but......................

I seem to be getting better at the moment. My heels are much less painful and my back has stopped hurting 24/7. The problem with my feet was probably always going to improve and I am wondering now whether that was what kicked off the pain in my back. It's not totally ok yet but each week sees a small improvement so we shall see. By the time I get to the pain clinic, I probably won't need it anymore, with any luck.

Today is a fairly happy day. My general health, a good friend has had some very good news and had a load taken off and I have also now finished the design of my next robot chassis. The three aren't equal, you understand, but added together they make for a very good day.

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning,

and now I wish I hadn't.

Some days, you just can't even come in second. I went through the outstanding logs first thing and grabbed two that seemed ripe for my specialised knowledge of SharePoint. Did some research and came up with the answers only to find the two users are not at their desks and I will now have to wait until they respond to the emails I have sent. Next I was reliably informed that, when I move over to Babbage next weekend, I will have to take the whole kit with me as we don't have enough to warrant leaving it and just picking up a different set over there. Why did they insist we had slow laptops when we still have to cart all that gubbins around with us anyway? This isn't just the left and right hands, it's individual fingers not knowing what's going on as well. I keep looking at the days left at the top of the page and wishing my life away - which is wrong and I shouldn't be doing it at my age either. All I wanted was a nice easy ride into retirement doing the job I love and someone, somewhere is fouling it up on a grand scale. sigh!

A pox upon your chickens sirrah!

Poor little Corey didn't even play with any poxy chickens and he's ended up looking like Spotty Muldoon.

The scratchfulness is terrific and makes him a right miserable Les at times. Four for the price of one, work 'em out yourselves.

Well, it came and went. The long Easter weekend, I mean. We had a, generally, quiet time with only Monday having any family time. I spent some time working on the Bluetooth boards that arrived on Saturday and got them working well. All I have to do now is persuade the software I'm writing to do the same. Three boys and a dog yesterday, all but the dog wanted to play games on the wii u. Should have let the dog play, he would probably have been better than me.......................

The other pleasant thing this weekend was the start of two weeks of 'Sky Arts Rieu'. A 24/7 extravaganza of the famed violinist and orchestra leader and his team. Fascinating stuff and amazing music.

And, did you see the new Jonathan Creek last evening? Very dark indeed.

Forgive me diary, it's been 8 days since my last blog

Life is not passing me by, I'm just not noticing it. The techy blog is up to date, sort of, but this one is being cruelly neglected at the moment. To bring us up to date, Corey cracked his head on a chair and just escaped stitches. We are putting the other house in the hands of a management company as we no longer feel up to the job. My back has got worse and then better and then worse and now, currently, better. I have a pain clinic appointment for the tenth of May............ And, finally Esther, I still have no idea if I am going on holiday in May because of back problems. My work at the uni is fine at present but there are changes coming yet again and I was told today that they could happen next week. sigh! Just to have everything cut and dried would be a treat at the moment.

It droppeth from a great height

I know that at least one reader of this blog will understand exactly what I mean by that title. 

To set the scene, the tone of my next seven day period is usually set on a Saturday. Get Saturday right and the rest of the week just seems to follow on in my household. Well, last Saturday was a doozy! A parcel of some importance did not get delivered which will seriously damage my work at home this week. Hazel has not felt very well since Saturday morning and is having to wait in for me today as the parcel is, apparently, to be delivered today now. Lulu was not too well yesterday and is, anyway, due to be in hospital at the end of this week for her final operation. Corey appears to be teething yet again which probably means yet another cold and chest infection and I am still waiting for some sort of hospital appointment about my back pain. Add to that the minor issues of another company sending me an email that got all it's information wrong and, for a while, convinced me that it was a phishing expedition and you get some idea of my week so far. I won't even go near the problems some colleagues and friends are having at the moment because it's not my place to but they certainly are! Boyoboyoboy!!!!!

Just to bring this up to date, my parcel arrived at 15.00 this afternoon and the driver apologised! He also said it wasn't his fault as he was not driving on Saturday.......................... What a company!

Dear diary....................number 1

The sharp eyed will have noticed the countdown to my retirement at the top of the blog. It's not a gag, that really is how much more time I have until I am 65 years old. With that in mind, is it any wonder that my mind often strays toward a, hopefully, even later time when I shall retire from life. I am still, at the moment, regarding the whole concept in a slightly frivolous way as I do not intend to shuffle off etc. with any haste. However, I find, on the whole, that my thoughts often turn to the final curtain in a somewhat inquisitive manner. For example, I am re-reading 'Dodger' by Terry Pratchett at bedtime at the moment and last evening I read a piece about what you leave behind when you die. As I had also watched the Vanessa Williams episode of 'Who do you think you are?' during the evening with some similar thoughts expressed, it set me to thinking about what I would be leaving behind come the day.

Now don't think I'm getting all maudlin here. I often have conversations of this sort with friends and family and I find that my contemporaries have no problem with thoughts like this whilst the younger element have great difficulties even accepting the concept of death. So it seems that the contemplation thereof is very much a senior thing. For me the change over point was when I was fifty in 1999. I had just lost my mother-in-law and  I was struck down with a dicky ticker within six months. Life went into slow forward mode and has never come back up to speed since. Various body parts have begun to fail since then and, in general, the point has been made that I am on a downward spiral.

So back to the original thoughts, what do I do about the inevitable need for some sort of guidance for those I leave behind me? When the principle character has reached his or her three score and ten, funerals are rarely  concerned with pure grief. There is often the unspoken thought of, "At least I outlived him!" In addition, quite often they are seen as a 'Happy release' by close relatives and totally ignored by the very young. The only grief tends to come from older children and very close family who feel they have lost a part of their life. This, of course is true and we probably wouldn't want it any other way as grief provides us with a form of relief in it's own way.

So is there anything that we can do to make those that we leave more comfortable with our leaving?

I like to think so. For example, what about the funeral? have you specified how you want to go, whether in writing or by telling all and sundry over and over again until they can tell you what you want? A complete set of instructions is always a useful thing when you have to organise something fairly quickly - and it will be quickly! My own preference is to make it perfectly clear that, as I won't be there other than the obvious, I have no problem with how I am disposed of as long as it suits those left behind. I am also toying with the concept of producing a video to be played at my funeral, or thereabouts, to say goodbye and explain why, as I don't have a problem, I would appreciate it if anyone watching relaxed and enjoyed the wake.

As to what I leave behind, there might be some money and there will be a lot of my property which will be deployed in my will. As for the real stuff, I hope to continue to be in peoples thoughts as someone who did his best to be a good friend, parent and husband despite cocking it up on a regular basis over most of his life. I know from my own experience that we don't remember the really good stuff about people until some time after their departure. When we do, however, we probably paint them with a rosy glow. We're like that, us humans.

Life is NOT just a bowl of cherries! Discuss..................

It only takes very small things to upset the apple cart of life. Hazel and I have had our Kindles for two years now and we have made a lot of use of them. Unfortunately, whilst mine is still going strong, Hazels developed a problem a couple of months ago. We sent it off to a firm in the UK who fixed it quickly and - relatively - cheaply. All was fine until the screen died on her on Sunday evening. A phone call to the repair company got the answer that this could have been caused by static and whilst they could fix it they would also be prepared to buy it back from us as well. So, biting the bullet, I have ordered a cheap new Kindle and we will return the old expensive one for credit.

A wedding with a difference.......................

but only if you live in Plymouth!

The wedding was perfectly normal, register office and outside in the garden. The weather was pretty good so that was a bonus. Then, off to the venue for the reception...........................

The National Marine Aquarium

Imagine having the run of this place from five until eleven with music and food thrown in. Magic!

 Thanks to Teresa and Wayne for this idea, a sure fire winner as far as I'm concerned.

I heard that, pardon?

Classic quote from Uncle Mort in 'I didn't know you cared'.

I have finally got my hearing back in my right ear. At some point, I really must get a good mucking out organised. Kian was over the moon with his birthday present, Robo Sapien, and his party seemed to go well. The weather was amazingly cold over the weekend, on Friday I had some jobs I wanted to do in the attic and gave up after 45 minutes when I lost feeling in my hands. As the attic is usually the warmest place in the house, it came as a bit of a shock. In theory, this is my final week in the node, I should be moving to the support desk next week as far as I am aware.

TWTWTW

And all that's missing is Millicent Martin singing the titles.

For the youngsters and/or people not living in the UK during the 60's, it stands for That Was The Week That Was. A very topical satire show fronted by David Frost. I have had a wonderful week...........................not!

I had a fast track course on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday culminating in a full on moderated exam. As you can imagine, we all took it very seriously. None of us think we have passed so it will be interesting to see how many did.

Last night was a Corey night and he was not silent all night this time. Hazel was up three times during the dark hours to give him a bottle and, at one point, put Thomas the Tank Engine on the TV for him.

I had some luck with my eBay bidding yesterday when I bought two pan and tilt IP web cams for £30.00 from a UK supplier. It should be fun testing them out. 

Short story

Yesterday.
Two grandsons overnight.
Neither tired.
Early start today.
Nuff said?

Keeping busy?

Only by working hard at it!

I have been out there looking for jobs in order to stop myself from nodding off. The logs coming in are few and far between and very little deployment jobs are left as well. This week I have managed to do a considerable amount of remedial work on Ian's part of the wiki after he made a very small but important error with his page naming. I have completely re-written his pages whilst keeping everything in the same place at all times. Difficult, but fun when you know how. His section now looks the same but goes to the same pages with more meaningful file names., after all, Room 304 could be anywhere on campus and others may find his plans turning up in their sections. MediaWiki is very simple as long as you follow the rules. 

Hard work, if you can get it.

My first day back in Babbage Building as an analyst. Practically no logs and cleared three of my current ones, I'm seriously running out of work. I spent an hour this afternoon creating a couple of help sheets and putting them into the wiki but the other job I am doing is running into trouble due to software clashes. Maybe tomorrow. The colleagues on the course, my turn next week, are not happy bunnies and have been quite grumpy when back here. Let's hope they cheer up soon.

The family are all at McDonald's at present and then coming home with us. With a bit of luck, Ian will give me a hand to move the carpet down to the studio ready to lay when the floor is clear.

Nutty bunny

He is still bouncing off the walls in a joyous fashion even now. That's more than I am as my back still hurts and, for some reason, my hip is playing up at the moment. The weather, as always, is probably at the root of it. Our new boiler stopped yesterday and wouldn't start again for me but, fortunately, Phil was in the area and dropped in on his way home to have a look at it. A simple problem that is working at present but needs a replacement cut out switch to be totally fixed. I have finished building the bodywork part of Trundle2 now and I hope to be working on the electronics and software very soon. The family are all in the wars, one way or another, at present. Against the odds, Hazel is about the fittest of us this week. That doesn't say too much for the rest of us does it? She is really enjoying her membership of the new Life Centre and is taking full advantage of everything on offer there. The on line course is proving hard, it appears to require a pre knowledge of differential equations and some calculus to be able to do the quizzes. However, I do understand the lectures when they use ordinary words and that part all makes perfect sense. Quite a few course members are complaining about the complicated quiz each week but I'm just learning as much as I can and getting on with life, at my age why not? I am certainly enjoying the parts I do understand and can relate most of it to my own needs so why worry? Soon, there will be the Python programming course and I bet I only understand, at most, half of that. That will still mean that I will know a lot more when I finish it than I did when I started it. I'm 64, sue me.

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring.........

Just about sums up my life at present.

The weather isn't too bad where I live and work but elsewhere, it's horrible! Add to that the month, January, and all I want to do is sleep. I'm used to falling asleep during a sitcom of an evening but yesterday I nodded off whilst watching a video lecture of seven minutes duration! How tired can you get? The video is part of a course I am currently taking through Coursera. This particular one is about control and robots so I am quite keen on it. In addition, it is run by Georgia Tech who have an excellent reputation in this area. I hope to learn a lot. Later I have another course on writing Python to look forward to.

The bunny is now fully recovered from his claw clipping ordeal and is bouncing around all over the place whenever I go in to see him. He is also much more interested in his treats when offered. Sally is in Plymouth today for a job interview and he was also capering for her.

I'll just shelve that job then.......................

I finally did it, it only took me three months but I have managed to find the time and the energy to put in that special shelf for all the electronics in the kitchen. It was somewhat more complicated than it sounds as I have fitted the shelf into the top of the, non functional, fireplace and also blocked the open chimney in order to stop the muck from falling into a computer, a DVD player and a SKY+ box. I have also managed to tidy up the wiring at the back and even the few cables going to the TV. Gosh, I'm proud!

Then, for an encore, I trimmed the bunnies claws. He hated me at the time but he is back to bouncing again now so I feel vindicated for the indignities I subjected him to. It took him 24 hours to come and feed from my hand again but it was worth it just to see him so active.

Round and round and round she goes..........

Where she stops.......................

An 'interesting' weekend. Samuel stayed with us for two nights. Friday was normal and very pleasant, Saturday was not normal or pleasant. Our lad has had bouts of this sort of behaviour before but never with us. He arrived and I noticed he was, for him, a bit flaky. By bedtime on Saturday he had a belly ache. He was in so much pain, he had to bounce up and down on his bed and scream hysterically! When spoken to, he became very calm and spoke to us quite normally. As soon as he was left alone, he began the hysterics again. Hazel eventually, after much discussion with his dad and Lulu, let him sleep in our bed where he fell asleep immediately. He also talked about feeling lonely and missing his other nan. Between us, we have tried to sort out his life a bit and he should be spending some time with his other grandparents very soon. He remains, however, a very fragile little boy.

Tonight, joy of joys, we are playing host to Corey. He will rule us with a rod of iron and do whatever he wants until he drops from exhaustion just after we do. Ain't life grand?

And so it goes...................

It's beginning to look like yet another week of quickly sorted logs. I'm not racing through them deliberately but I have had a large number of lab jobs that are simple but time consuming and an equal amount of SharePoint logs that simply needed a phone call to explain how it should have been done. So I'm spending most of my time in and out of the labs and the rest of it sitting on my best feature, or so my wife calls it, on the phone. What other jobs have come my way have, so far at least, very simple to diagnose and fix. Either I'm getting better at this lark or the users are getting worse. With snow forecast for tomorrow, I was sent an email flyer from an on line company I have dealt with in the past with a special price on snow and ice grippers to put on over your shoes. "Buy them now, in time for the snow". So I did, sent the order off within five minutes of receiving the email. They sent them today......................second class. I might just get them by next week. sigh!

Oh the humanity!!!!

On Friday / Saturday our bed began to sink in the middle. Early Saturday morning there was a loud 'CRACK!' and the centre collapsed completely. I spent most of the day building a stronger and better central support and now we are horizontal again. On Sunday, most of the family came to us for a roast dinner and all but one stuffed themselves rotten. Corey is not fond of most food and is so picky it hurts. He decided that he wanted the Yorkshire puddings and nothing else. Samuel made up for him and the adults also ate their fill. Ian was at work so he had a meal plated up and Lulu took it home for him to eat later. I watched the first episode of 'Blandings' in the evening and, at first, thought it was going to be let down by the direction and music. The cast are very good, particularly Timothy Spall as Lord Emsworth who seems to have hit exactly the right characterisation but I was less enthused by the general feel of the piece. However, by the end of the 30 minutes, I had got the plot and felt at home with all the characters and the pace of the production. The music still niggles but that may get better or I may grow to like it.

A small addition

to the blog.

Keen eyed readers will have seen the subtle extra above. The figure is accurate but, of necessity  doesn't include weekend, days off for sickness or bank holidays so it should be viewed with a certain amount of caution. Also, due to ongoing medical problems, there is no absolute guarantee that I will even get that far anyway. I may just take early retirement and go quietly. Whatever, the current number of days should be treated as the absolute maximum I will remain at my desk.

Another year over and deeper in something!

Not debt so far but certainly something I suspect.

Christmas went well yet again, I think we are really beginning to get the hang of it now.

Four hours of charades over a two day period can make people very smug when they are good at it, I feel smug. All you have to do is suspend your embarrassment and be a child for a while. This is something my family are really good at, aren't you Paul? The food was even better this year than in previous years and nothing is ever wasted in our house, we all love bubble and squeak too much for that. In fact, some delicacies disappeared before  I had a chance to try them.....................Boooooooh! The smaller family members enjoyed the presents and the fun and the big boys and girls made the most of not having to work all the time. Some of us even got to lie in on more than one day..............................Oooooooooh!