This week could have been so much worse

I am delighted to report that my return to work has been quite gentle. There was not a mass of Customer Requests waiting to be addressed and my work had been managed by colleagues whilst I was away. As a result I have returned to work and been allowed to make my way through an overflowing in-box safe in the knowledge that my active projects have been cared for in my absence.

In the weeks before we headed off to Sri Lanka I was careful to manage my workload so that the number of active projects was scaled back and I am delighted to say that that my colleagues did a great job of keeping the plates spinning so I have had a gentle week rather than the more usual chaos that negates the postive effects of a holiday within 5 minutes of returning to work.

As a result I have now addressed all of my mail and can report that my projects are all back on track...

... one of them is still a complete horror but it is a horror that is on track rather than an unmanaged horror.

Away from work I managed another walk around the Three Miler and removed more paint from the woodwork in the Hall. The paint stripping is going to be quite an ordeal as I am aiming for a waxed and polished finish which means that there will need to be chemical stripping and repeated sanding to remove every last trace of paint from woodwork that has been repeatedly painted over the past 250 years. The large cupboard that houses the electricity meter has been stained rather than painted and is unlikely to strip well. As a result that cupboard may well end up being painted with just the doors being stripped, courtesy of an extended period in a tank of caustic soda solution.