A little break.................

We went to visit Sally in London for a few days last week and had a great time. I am still having problems with my feet but I have now developed a style of walking that minimizes the pain. We stayed at a hotel very close to Covent Garden and visited all the closer places of interest including the new and improved British Museum. Some of the small local shops in the area are also very interesting, I bought a DVD I have been after for years for just £5.00 and we had an amazing meal at a Korean owned multi-cultural takeaway. Visiting Hamleys after all these years was an interesting experience, especially with Hazel. She managed to spend over £100.00 on presents for the grandchildren, nephews and nieces. A trip on the Docklands Light Railway took us to see the Cutty Sark and we also managed a trip to Hammersmith to see one of Sally's favorite shops.

English as she is written?

I love these.

I bought something on Ebay and it is being sent from Hong Kong. The supplier is concerned that I should be aware of possible delays due to Christmas being so close. So he sends me a reassuring email, as follows.

Thank you for you patience and kindness, the logistic company has informed us that your order is being on the road, and we shipped it to your ebay address, but it maybe a little delay because of the boom season. Anyway, pls freely touch us if you still fail to get your order in one or two weeks, we will follow up it further for you.

It reminds me so much of the bricklayers letter to his boss that Gerard Hoffnung made so famous.

A touching story.

Corey has been very clingy of late. Mainly with his mum but, to a certain extent, with whoever he is currently in the charge of. Worst of all, he has stopped staying in his bed all night and constantly tries to get in with his mum and dad. This has been running them ragged so, with a very early start this morning for Ian, last night Corey stayed with us. He had a couple of  'moments' but, in general, was a very well behaved two year old. I even got a couple of cuddles from him when, usually, he just ignores me. Needless to say, his mum was pleased by the result but secretly annoyed that he didn't play us up at all.

Oh dear.....................

I upset a few people with my dislike of Bitlocker yesterday. It seems that two hours is peanuts compared to some similar software, I was quoted nine hours for less capability. So maybe it isn't such a time consuming exercise after all. It still seemed like a long time to me when I was doing it though.

We seem to have a small surge in the problems after deployment this week. Two laptops with no sound from the monitor turned out to be either a missing audio lead or a plug not fully pushed in. We have also got a Kingston lock that fell into it's component parts when the bag was opened. Cool! I have been forging ahead with the wiring in the bedroom this week and have now reached the point where power has to be switched off in order to finish the job. I'll do that on Saturday and hope that that's an end to it.

I've now spent a week with the new laptop and, whilst it's not as good as a desktop for most of my work, I have, reluctantly decided that it works well enough for me. i still don't like laptops but this one at least has a dual core i5 processor and seems pretty fast so it works for me at work.

I'm going through the usual pre Christmas frenzy of deciding whether to buy what for whom again. Some people are so easy to make happy and others so difficult. My daughter is an open book to me, I can spend very little and know I have bought the very item that will please her the most. My son is the opposite, I could spend a small fortune on him and, unless I buy him something he asked for, I will always be wrong. The rest of the family are all somewhere in between those two diverse points.

Bitlocker, whither Bitlocker?

I was, today, obliged to install and run this piece of software. I'm sure it's fine for most users but on our constrained system and being a Guinea pig tester was not a barrel of laughs. It took over two hours to complete and, during that time, I was not able to do much work on my laptop. However, at the end of that time, I have an encrypted hard drive and a remotely stored key to access it should it ever become necessary. Unless you really need the high level of security required I suggest that you don't use Bitlocker as it just eats up time and is quite complicated to set up. 

I was aware that grapefruit was not on my list of foods that are good for me but it came as a bit of a shock to discover, this morning, that all citrus fruit is bad for people on heart drugs. This is going to change my life by quite a lot I'm afraid. From now on I will now have to exist without my favorite fruits. Doh!

Just one of those days?

Yesterday was diabolical. I can't put my finger on it but it was just one of those days you would rather not have had. Even my colleague, Ian, complained about my grumpy attitude. The only good time I had was at a meeting when I would normally be miserable, I hate meetings, this one was great fun though. I sat there listening to my new top boss running down all the areas that I run down only louder and in a more vituperative manner.

I kept nodding off all evening and, when I got into bed, fell asleep immediately. I suspect the weather is at the root of my discontent although, disconcertingly, the weather is worse today and yet I feel better today. 

I really don't like getting out of bed any more!

I am so comfortable when I wake that I have a real problem getting out of bed now.