Free food

I forgot to mention that Kathy H-R called in yesterday morning to drop off a pigs head that was going spare after a recent kill. I had put the head in the cellar fridge without a glance and only late this afternoon found time to examine it ...

... The plan was to remove and cure the cheeks and roast the ears as a treat for T&M. As I started to review the two large bags I learnt two things; firstly the head was enormous and secondly it was still frozen and there was no way I would be making guanciale this evening. I also found that there was far more in the bag than the head and trotters. There were also a few ribs and a couple of other chunks of meat that also ended up in a roasting pan for the dogs. As for the head, that went back down to the cellar to thaw overnight and I set to grinding the spices for a batch of cure.

 It has been a slow day at work and Andy & Steve have been delayed by a day so they weren't around to distract me. The morning saw a trip in to school to have a chat with one of TP's teachers ... it was nothing major and can best be described as nipping something in the bud. Basically he had a good end of year report but a couple of comments indicated that he could do better with a little more focus and a little less chat.

As for work, that has been, shall we say, bemusing. I have recently been asked to provide some consultancy assistance to a pair of Sales Executives. In order to ensure cross-departmental funding they have to provide an activity code against which I book my time ... This they did and then, at the beginning of last week, they closed down the code and continued to ask questions and fill my time with the pondering of extremely vague, hypothetical, outsourcing scenarios. I have made a number of requests to reinstate the code to no avail and, as a consequence, seem to be having motivational issues.

The other reason for my bemusement is the activity they want me to perform. It appears that a fairly Senior Daemon in another Division of Dante's has made a commitment to the client that she will provide them with an indicative price for providing some services that are currently delivered from Germany ... so far so good ... the only slight problem is that She does not have the specifications for the infrastructure and, due to "political" reasons we are not able to approach the client for the necessary details.

Now a number of imps and gremlins have had a stab at guessing what the kit might look like but for all we know we are pricing a Bentley and the client has a Ford or vice versa.

Is it me?