Geek porn?

I can't be the only person to have spent the past ten days or so in a state of excitement because of the amazing happenings in the world of space travel. First we saw a European vehicle landing on a comet after a ten year journey and then, whilst still breathing heavily from that, the first vehicle designed for manned interplanetary travel complete an almost perfect first test and only miss the target by 18 inches. Better luck next time guys.

Pause............

It's been far too long but I'm back and this might even prove to be the beginning of a bigger and better blog than so far. That's because I've been studying under the best blogger ever, Samuel Pepyes. I've been reading the diary for about two months now and I'm still only at only 80% read........And I'm a fast reader. Whatever, I'm now inspired to continue this blog. It helped that my daughter has just bought a new laptop and I bagged her old one. Of course, it wasn't working so I was obliged to clean a lot of connections and kill off a virus and 182 malware files but it now works a lot better than it has been for some time.
So, what have I been up to since May? Well, being a retired gentleman now, I spent a whole month of that time on holiday. Sadly, the payment for this has been that I have had to do a lot of work about the house culminating in re-building the downstairs shower almost from scratch. It's been worth it though as we now have a new bathroom and a new shower.
Anyway, I'll leave it for today and gather my thoughts in readiness for tomorrow.

Getting it right!

I always thought that, given the chance, I could be a good housekeeper. Well, I seem to have been correct as the house has never been so well kept. I am slow but very thorough and seem to be gaining praise from all the ladies........... Young Fluff is not quite so sure as I had to take her to the vet on Tuesday, bladder infection. She will never understand that those injections are what is now making her feel better and why I am poorer to the tune of £59.00. Hey ho.

It's good to be back

It's nearly four months since I last posted here and there have been complaints, you know who you are.

However, the weather, poor health and a lot of work to be done caused the hiatus and I should now be able to pick up from where I left off.

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.