The week in brief

This week I seem to have been somewhat remiss in jotting down my activities in The Journal so here, for anyone remotely interested, is a quick summary of the week.

Tuesday:
On the work front Tuesday was unexceptional. During the day an old friend called to say that he might be in the area in the evening and suggested we meet up. I haven't seen "Paparazzi Pete" for the best part of 12 years and we recently re-established contact via Linkedin. Unfortunately the Gods did not smile on us and the Channel 5 photo shoot was delayed until late in the evening which meant that his work prevented an evening of beer and raucous reminiscence.

Wednesday:
I trundled in to the nearest Circle of Hell for a catch up with Tigger and a handover meeting with the chap who will take over the commercial management of the deal we have just signed. I was finished by lunchtime and then drove down to Heathrow to catch a flight out to Luxembourg. I spent the evening with the Project Executive and managed to stay sober this time.


Thursday:
Thursday was an all day session with the Luxembourg Team and it went very well considering that neither of the teams trust each other. An interesting point was that the Luxembourg Directeur looked very much like an "old school" European Vampyre and I made a mental note to wear garlic on my next visit. In fact the meeting went so well that the Project Exec is considering a similar session in Switzerland and would like me to tag along to that one too.

Overall I am somewhat dismayed that I didn't get to see anything particularly Luxembourgish while I was over there. The hotel was at the edge of the modern concrete and glass Banking Sector and the Company Office was in a Business Park. For all I know BA might have just flown around for an hour and then landed me near Basingstoke. If the locals hadn't insisted on speaking French all the time I could have been anywhere.

One thing that did prove I was in Luxembourg was the taxi fare back to the airport. It was €80. Eighty fucking Euros! The whole country is no bigger than the table I am sat at! It cannot be physically possible to rack up a taxi fare that high without going through passport control. This goes some way to explain the half million dollars of travel costs the thieving gits put in to their cost case a few months back.

An evening flight had me back at Heathrow by half past seven and I was back at The Pile by ten.

Friday:
Friday was spent chatting to Tigger and catching up on stuff that had accumulated over the past couple of days. Tigger and I got a mention in the weekly dispatch issued by one of the most senior Daemons in the UK following the signing of the UK Contract on Monday. I'd like to say that this came as a complete surprise and we were bathing in this unexpected glory but the truth is that I drafted the note and submitted it for publication working on the principal that if you want good publicity write it yourself.

Away from work I had a fortuitous meeting with the local Plumber when I was walking T&M. He is a lovely chap but a complete nightmare to get hold of. I need his services as I have a radiator that needs to be disconnected so that I can replace the skirting board behind it. To my complete and utter amazement he advised that he would pop round on Saturday afternoon and remove the rad. I wandered away pondering on my current gullibility rating.

Saturday:
It was an early start as we needed to pop in to Worcester to get TP a new school blazer. We needed to be home by midday as the plumber had given us a rather vague appointment time. True to form the appointment slot came and went with no tradesman appearing at the door. At a little after three in the afternoon I was about to walk the dogs when he finally turned up. Twenty minutes later the job was completed and he was away.

As he disappeared down the road a mixture of thoughts passed through my head. These condensed as the following; a) I now have to do some DIY, b) 2 hours late is actually early considering the normal punctuality of the plumber and c) what are the chances of him returning to reconnect the rad before the end of Winter?

I then popped out to walk T&M and returned to find that Village Idiot had called and had left nine fertile eggs for me to put in the incubator. Apparently his wife has another cake to make for a local poultry breeder and the aforementioned breeder had provided the eggs ...

... these will be gently warmed for 21 days and "shop eggs" will go in the cake.

Sunday:
No surprises here, I spent a good part of the morning and early afternoon fitting skirting boards on the landing. The radiator brackets were repositioned so the rad won't foul the skirting board and I now wonder how long it will take to get Reliable Roger through the door to connect it all back up again.

The incubator was brought up to temperature and the eggs were set. I now have 21 days of egg turning and all being well will have chicks at the beginning of October. I stress "all being well" as the last attempt was a complete failure.

So that brings me up to date and I suppose I had better start my day job now ...

... well perhaps coffee and toast first.