A swarm of Bees in June

Not a lot to report for the past two days. I probably spent too much of the weekend thinking "I really should fire off a couple of e-mails" rapidly followed by "Actually, I can't be bothered". The past few weeks have been very intense and I have been forced to work late and over the weekends to keep on top of things and meet crazy deadlines. I have therefore been very firm with myself this weekend and stayed away from my in-box. Our price is now with the client and I am guessing that almost everyone on the team is taking a well earned break. I have done so too.

So what have I achieved? The dogs have been walked properly and I have also found the time to clip their faces and paws. The weather is scorching today and they have really felt the heat. I think that I need to summon up the courage and attempt to give them a lamb clip as that will remove much of the hair from their bodies leaving only their legs and heads with any length of coat. I'm guessing that Marauder will be my "guinea pig" as she is much more compliant than Tyson.

I have also managed to complete a few domestic duties that have been overlooked. A blind has been fitted in the bedroom, the "Porn Mower" has been unleashed on the lawn and twenty minutes with coaxial connectors mean that TP now has satellite television piped in to his bedroom.

The title for today's entry was prompted by an interruption to lunch on Sunday. We were eating in the garden when I heard  a loud buzzing and saw several bees in flight above the lawn. We looked up and then saw the bulk of the swarm as it passed overhead looking for somewhere suitable to settle. The title comes from an old rhyme that describes the fact that a swarm needs time to establish itself as a new colony and the later in the year it occurs the less chance there is of it creating a viable new colony.

A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay

A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon

A swarm of bees in July isn't worth a fly

The swarm reminded me of one of my first jobs after leaving college, I worked for the Ministry of Agriculture's National Beekeeping Unit for a little less than a year. It was fascinating to see the annual cycle of these insects from building up the colonies in the Spring, moving them out to the crops to aid pollination, queen rearing and, of course, honey harvesting in the Autumn. What is more amazing is that much of the knowledge of the management of these insects dates back many hundreds of years when their honey was a prized harvest in lands where there was little as naturally sweet as honey. 

It was one of the most poorly paid jobs I ever had but the opportunity to see, and memories of, the annual apiarists cycle more than made up for the lack of monies. I am often tempted to set up a hive or two but realistically this will have to wait until both house and garden are tidied up and I have time to potter.

This evening will see us take a tip over to Malvern to see Lee Evans. He is doing some warm up shows, in advance of his next Stadium tour and it should be a great night.

They want to do what?

This morning started with an "urgent" message from Christopher Robin. Tigger and and I pondered long and hard over it and then had a good few minutes of repeating the words "what the fuck is he on about" until we felt mildly better.

Basically our current project has been assembled using internal and external resources. The external resources are Vendors with whom we have an established relationship. They are able to deliver services at reasonable rates and can be relied upon to meet Service Levels. After the aforementioned head scratching we think that our prospective client has asked a US Executive to remove one of our preferred vendors as a Supplier in three countries and replace them  with one of their own third party vendors.

Now this is where it gets tricky as all we have is a sentence cut and pasted from an Instant Message that was typed by a very tired American Executive at godawful o'clock in the morning. We haven't a clue who the client's preferred vendor is or what range of services they want us to use them for. Neither do we know whether this is a "by the way" type of question or a DO IT NOW instruction.

All we could do was go back to Christopher Robin and politely point out that we could do absolutely nothing until fundamental questions were answered like who is the vendor?, what is their address?, what is the requirement from them? I outlined a sereis of activites that would be necessary to engage with them and indicated that this was not a 5 minute job in the most positive way I could. We are, after all, delivering an updated price to the client today!

After a brief session of idiom mashing the following phrase is felt to describe this situation; A Blind Man on a Galloping Horse chasing down a blind alley after a gaggle of wild geese.

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Away from work my eye is much improved. I can now tolerate reasonable levels of light and have been able to take T&M out for a walk provided I wear a hat and sunglasses. This probably makes me look a little eccentric as the weather requires neither at the moment being quite overcast.

I also had a rare chat with my younger brother. He was celebrating after being told that he has got his BA in Illustration from Cardiff University. He is obviously very pleased, as are we for him, and I may persuade him to apply his talents to update the avatar I use in The Journal.

A poke in the eye with a bent stick ...

... or at least, that is what it feels like!

Let me explain, the observant will have noticed that I have not written a Journal entry for the past three days. "Ah" I hear you say "he has been up to his neck in it, getting his price release to the client" and you would be correct, or at least half right.

On Monday morning I was playing with Marauder and at one point, when we were head to head, I felt a sharp scratch across the surface of my eye. It was one of her whiskers and it had scratched my cornea. The past three days have involved a trip to Casualty for a diagnosis followed by me sitting in a darkened room with my eyes shut. To say it was painful is a bit of an understatement.

This morning is the first time this week that I have been able to look at a laptop screen without my eye streaming with tears and feeling like I have taken a right hook from a champion boxer. It is still sore but at least I can sit in a room with the curtains open.

On the work front there has been no rest and we have been running around like mad things tying up loose ends. A huge thank you goes out to Golfy who has been a godsend, holding things together, while I have been literally flying blind.

Someone else who deserves a special mention is Noddy. Noddy is the man who produces the minutes of our EMEA wide Delivery Review. He ensures these are accurate and issues them promptly so that we can comply with or satisfy any conditions in order that we can issue our price to the client. Our Delivery Review was on the 10th June and he finally issued the minutes ten days later on 20th June. When I read them they were absolute crap. There was no complete set of conditions and, instead of collating missing approvals, he simply issued the minutes with the comment " please forward you approval to the Bad Man".


I am not joking when I say that he did little better than note down the attendees on the call and then issue the minutes with the comment "please write down what you said". We have therefore spent the last few days nudging senior, and in some cases very senior, people in order to get our price out. Thanks Noddy - you are a complete COCK....

... Oh, and we issued our price late yesterday. I have a feeling that there may be at least one more iteration to go. As Fred Astaire put it "There may be trouble ahead ..."

Word of the Day

For some reason I woke on Sunday lacking my normal vigour, it may have been the Rhubarb Vodka.

So. I did what any sane person would do; made coffee and settled down to knock up a couple of PowerPoint slides for Christopher Robin. This isn't as bad as it sounds as both slides were simply tables that needed updating. At one point I thought I was going to have to make further contact with Luxembourg but then realised that the slide was "Death by PowerPoint" already and that I could have put absolutely anything in the empty cells, no-one would read it. So I found some relevant numbers in a spreadsheet I had to hand, applied a similar growth algorithm that had been applied in other cells in the table and there we had it. The table was completed and I had avoided dealing with what I am discovering to be the most uncooperative Nation in Europe.

Back in the real world we took a trip over to see Bad Man Senior and then went on to collect Tyson & Marauder from chokey.  On the way back I saw plenty of road kill and as we trundled along started to knock up portmanteau words to describe them...

... the first I came up with was unphleasant which is an adjective describing the general smell of putrefaction that accompanies anything that has lay in the gutter for more than a week.

That was rapidly followed by blodger which is a noun and is the bloated corpse of a badger after a some unexpected and unwanted Ford Focus.

The came a Splox. This is also a noun and is obviously a splatted fox.

Finally and my personal favourite is a word that is used to describe those bloody streaks of grey fur that regularly populate the rural roads at this time of year. From here on in they will be know as Flabbits!.

A normal Saturday for once

Saturday was initially quite quiet. A thirty minute call about pricing intruded on domestic activities but other than that it was a pretty normal Saturday. The house got tidied, my hair got cut and unfortunately the eggs in the incubator didn't hatch. I'll leave them a few days longer but I have a feeling that we won't be having any chicks.

Today saw T&M taken over to the Kennels for an overnight stay. This was a case of killing two birds with one stone. We will have a house full this evening as James Bond and Moneypenny and Children's TV Rag Doll favourites Rosie and Jim will be coming over with their progeny for supper and drinks. 30% also wants T&M to spend a night in kennels before we go away for our Summer holiday so she has a degree of reassurance that the dogs are reasonably happy away from home. So the dogs will be away from the socialising experiencing prison life for the first time in their short lives.

As I jot this down I see a table loaded with food and a vast array of drink set out. I am guessing that tomorrow may need to be a quiet day too.

Why I don't work in the telecoms industry anymore

Today Golfy and I were working at home. We have had one hell of a week and have managed to squeeze 10% out of our costs and completely revise our method of delivery in one country to achieve a portion of this. The rest was down to harrying and harassing our colleagues on a daily basis until they complied. This evening saw the final cost case passed to pricing and a final few e-mails issued to try to satisfy approval conditions.

Working at home involves frequent calls and Golfy and I have noticed that if I make a call to him it takes significantly longer to connect than if he makes a call to me...

... I pointed out that this was entirely natural advising that ****cester is much larger than the branch in the Hundred Acre Wood. Therefore it was entirely natural that a call from the Wood would take longer to reach ****cester than vice versa. Golfy replied that this was bollocks.

My reposte was as follows; it takes eight minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth. If you shine a torch at the sun you can hardly expect the light to reach the sun in the same amount of time. After all, the torch is significantly weaker than the sun and it has to flow against the huge amount of light coming from the sun. For some reason Golfy didnt quite agree with this logic....

.... I tried another tack. It is a bit like trying to paddle a canoe up a waterfall. So, from the perspective of an Amazon Indian who is wearing nothing but red ochre, a piece of vine round his waist and a gourd over the end of his penis he will entirely understand why it take longer for a call to reach ****cester than it does for a call from ****cester to reach me. the reason it takes longer is because canoes aren't any good at going up waterfalls*.

Therefore my argument was much better as it was truly international in nature and could be understood by even the most non technological of cultures. To disagree would definitely be, at the very least, insulting to the noble inhabitants of the Amazon Basin. 

There is probably a moral to this story. Then again I have a deep suspicion that if there is it is probably best left unexamined because  I am developing a strong feeling that it is not what you say, it is more the way that you say it.

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* well canoes are, but only if they have  a 40 HP Evinrude strapped to the transom. These are very rare in the deepest Amazon

Quote of the Day

OK, so apart from the Lager, the chocolate, the fine Medieval Architecture and Le Mannequin Pis what have the Belgians ever done for us?

Day 18

"What", I hear you say, "are you rattling on about?"

Today is day 18. Eighteen days ago I set a dozen eggs in an very basic incubator and every day they have been manually turned to give the embryos the best chance of development. Today the turning stops and, if all is well, in three days time we will hear cheeping and see the first signs of hatching. The old adage Don't count your chickems 'til they've hatched really applies here. I have carefully tended the clutch but there are so many things that can go wrong and Saturday could be anywhere on the scale of complete failure to success.

If the little buggers hatch we then have to wait and watch them develop until we can work out which are hens and which are cockerels. This will take about six or seven weeks. Welsummers are a laying strain that means that the cockerels are not going to give much of a carcass. So even if I have a successful hatch I could still end up with a high proportion of cockerels that have minimal value as meat birds.

On the work front, I was back in the war room with Tigger and Christopher Robin. Once again we sliced and diced the numbers and interrogated the bunnies and weasels in our attempts to get things back in shape. We appear to have had a successful day but there is still much to do. At the same time it has become apparent that this is a very different beast from that we started hunting and, if are lucky enough to have a head to hang on the wall, this one is not going to be one that will take pride of place over the fireplace.

12 hours in a war room.

Tuesday was another day down in the Village.

Tigger and I are creatures of The Hundred Acre Wood and do not adapt well to the confines of an Office but that is where we have been put. "Tigger and Pooh, you will stay there and shout at the Weasels and Bunnies until you have managed to reduce your costs to a level they were a month ago". So in the office we have been, call after call, constantly updating a spreadsheet as we locate and remove unnecessary cost.

It is a hard job but we are buoyed by each success and dive deeper in to our costs striking out eye watering sums, ensuring that agreement is obtained for each chunk of money we remove. It is amazing how dividing by a million and rounding can allow us to throw around these immense and scary numbers and hammer and mould them in to a shape we like better.

It is fascinating to see how a large International Deal is assembled and progressed and today the Accountants, Tax Experts and Financial Wizards have turned up. Their work is great for the Corporation and great for the client too but it is becoming apparent that tax in Europe is not a palatable thing and if it can be avoided it will.

It now seems that the nelifunt Tigger and I were hunting may actually be a woozle. "Fuck me Tigger, we've had the telescope the wrong way round. It's no bigger than a rat". "I see that Pooh,but please don't swear about the size of the fu......"

Grinding away at it ...

War room waffle with a hint of progress summarises today at work.

Tigger and I took a trip down to the Village to meet up with Christopher Robin and work out just how bad our numbers had become. We now have a figure and possible plan to deal with about a quarter of it. At the moment things do not bode well for the future of the deal. Previously I would have had something in my back pocket that I could use to assist but that was taken away from me in a previous iteration of costing and pricing.

I am currently taking a stoical viewpoint and am progressing what I can. Where changes can be made I will attempt to make them, where they cannot I will attempt to explain why.  Perhaps the idiot that thought we could do this in a little over three weeks is starting to realise that they really need to brush up their project planning and estimation skills.

Away from work I managed a walk around the Three Miler with T&M before supper and back to the lap top to attempt to put things in a better shape. To be honest there is little I can do and need more information and a stroke of good fortune in the shape of a Techie that can deliver amazing server infrastructure at incredibly low cost....

... and this is never going to happen

Here we go ...

... the weekend arrived and, after a manic couple of weeks, I had a morning that was not going to be disturbed by the project. Realistically I knew that there was still a lot to do and a weekend off was never going to happen but I was not going to spend all weekend working my tits off. I was going to wind down and spend some time with 30%, TP and the dogs.

We started the day with a walk around the Three Miler. The day was beautiful and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I planned to take TP over to a local air show later and it looked like a perfect day for the event. Once home TP and I started to get our shit together to go out and then the phone rang...

... it was my Sales Exec. He was concerned about the approval status and the costs and needed to set up a call to discuss. I knew this was coming and accepted an invitation for five o'clock. This gave me a good chunk of the day to spend with TP and 30%. The air show was fine until the rain came in and we then decided that an air field was not a great place to be in a storm. We returned home giving me the opportunity to accompany 30% on a search for curtain and upholstery fabric. We took a trip in to Worcester and we rewarded with a find that will be absolutely perfect for an antique Nursing Chair that 30% has arranged to have restored and re upholstered.

The five o'clock call was pretty much as expected; 90 minutes of trying to sort out uncooperative Europeans and a list of actions that I needed to progress. I spend a further hour issuing the urgent mails leaving the less urgent ones until Sunday.

The evening was a combination of supper, TV and beer; low brow but about all I can manage at the moment.

Sunday was pretty similar; an early morning walk in the pouring rain and then a couple of hours sat in front of the laptop explaining why costs increase when a "guess" is validated and found to be inaccurate.

The afternoon saw us take a trip out and a road block made us take a diversion down a lane I had never driven before. The result was an absolute delight; empty lanes and a stunning three story brick and timber farm house in the middle of nowhere. It was an amazing sight; it had obviously escaped significant restoration and was there in the same role as it had been for the past four centuries as a home for the farmer rather than becoming an insensitively restored country home for a Commuting Senior Manager.

A conference call marked the transition from afternoon to evening and dinner followed. I type this entry looking "forward" to a week of screwing people in to agreements that they would really rather not make.

Through the Gate

It is now Friday evening and I am on the outside of a couple of glasses of Rioja.

Tigger and me have had one hell of a week hence the reason for straying from the hunny and pouring fine wine down my throat. Our final and most significant review of the week took place this afternoon. It was attended by representatives from all over EMEA and from all parts of the delivery organisation. I had set up my easel at the foot of one of the oaks and for the next 90 minutes showed them pictures of Tigger and me on the nelfunt hunt and told them tall tales of our exploits.

At some points in the story some of the more cynical members of the team, who would probably run a mile at them mere thought of a nelifunt let alone the sight and smell of one, asked difficult questions which taxed a bear that is more used to "what would you like for tea Pooh?" or "stick fighting or sitting on a branch, what do you think?". Fortunately the week had involved several briefings with Judge Dread and a Wise Owl and I was mostly well prepared.

The long and the short is that we got through the call and got a "conditional approval". This is the best we could have hoped for and means that we need to run around like mad things shouting to get the conditions met so we can deliver a firm price to the client at the back end of next week.

This week has been totally mentally and physically exhausting and by midday yesterday I had reached the point of information overload. Colleagues were saying stuff on calls and not a syllable was making any sense. I was trying to deal with instant messages and e-mails and attend conference calls at the same time. It is actually the equivalent of sitting in an office working away and having a conversation going on behind you. You hear your name mentioned and have to say "I'm sorry but can you repeat the question my attention was diverted elsewhere".

An hour before the call I actually just stopped work, stepped away from it and watched the TV news. In hindsight I am sure this was a sensible thing to do. I avoided any last minute distractions, false emergencies or  "flapping" by the uninformed and went in to the call giving my overview uncorrupted by any last minute additions.

So now I have an evening to spend with 30% and TP doing nothing. I have had a brief walk with T&M and discovered that the Outside is still there.

I realise that there is still much to do but it also dawned on me that I am moving in to an area where I do have previous experience, very limited experience but at least some. The first solo task I was given in this new role was to support contractual negotiations and final signings and that is where we are about to go. I have therefore trod lightly along a path similar to this.

'ard day

Not a lot that can be said about a day where people are starting to flap about the lack of time and they way they flap is to hold more calls to ensure that there is even less time to do stuff in.

Spare a thought for Tigger who has an awful job of attempting to aggregate a dozen separate cost models in to a single entity with a piece of tooling that is not up to the job. It is incredibly frustrating as the tool takes forever to do anything. This leaves you a lot of time to ponder on how little time you have left and how you can see it being frittered away with no apparent progress.

Today was spent at the Underground Volcano and was call after call after call, interspersed with e-mails, and a good amount of swearing as commitments were broken.

Quote of the day was probably "you need to follow the French process" ...

... "ah, allow yourself to be invaded, collaborate with the Germans, eat invertebrates and go on strike at the slightest provocation".

Away from work I slept and had a rather stern letter from the Cat's Brief. He has read yesterday's Journal entry and his clients find it potentially libellous and demand an immediate retraction and apology. So, sorry Potato and Eddy. There is nothing wrong with your presentation skills and your still-life of  mouse and entrails was a delight.

It's not what you know...

Tuesday saw Tigger and me take a long trip to Nottingham.

They have still not managed to take the dead fox out of the Village well so we needed to take a run up North for our first review of the week. It was a long day but things went very well and there is a chance that the rest of the week will be slightly and I repeat slightly less complicated than we had previously thought.

Yesterday I mentioned that one of the Free Men of the Village was most unhelpful, in fact fucking obstructive, when we asked about arranging and combining reviews. Today we were in a meeting with his Manager and she was most attentive to our tale of woe and within a few minutes two reviews became one and was delayed by 24 hours to give us more time...

... Note to self: Speak to the Organ Grinder not the Monkey.

Later in the day we had a call with an Exec who had a blue fit when asked to review our project previously. The aim of the call was to calm him down and reassure him that we had a reasonable idea what we were doing and that the risks were mitigated. After more than a month of nagging the relevant Specialist Bunny had arranged a call and had the worst slide deck on the planet ready to present. He opened the call and started ...

... it was going to be a car crash. He had the presentations skills of my cat*, missed out key changes and was delivering at totally the wrong level for the audience members. I quickly stepped in to get some seriously key points across and with able support from Judge Dread we soon had the Exec coming around ...

... Note to self: Let the Organ Grinder speak, not the Monkey. Then take the Monkey out side, put it in a sack, give it a good kicking and throw it in the river weighted down with bricks.

Tigger and me returned to the Hundred Acre Wood basking in the glow of a successful day and, for once, I left the laptop closed this evening.

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* Probably including stopping half way through to lick his own arse

Thanks for your help ...

The review cycle is a critical stage in the life cycle of my project and Tigger and I have less than a week to get through a whole series of them. This will be challenging to say the least.

Last week, thinking ahead, we followed the documented process and contacted one of the Free Men of the Village to arrange one of the reviews. Today we noted that we had still heard nothing and thought we had better chase him up...

"That's not my job" was the courteous reply we received. "You need to sort it all out with the Lady who drives the Tractor". OK we thought. Lets think about this and remember I am a bear of little brain. It is not the Free Man's job but he received our request and knew that Tigger and I were in the full throws of a nelifunt hunt. But he couldn't be arsed to assist. Tigger dutifully contacted the Lady with the Tractor, as he likes farm machinery, and she said "Oh, the Free Man of the Village sorts this out" ...

Tiger and I then spent a few minutes inventing some new words. I should hasten to point out that the Lady with the Tractor was very nice and agreed to put everything right for us.

We had further contact with the Free Man later in the day as we need to show some pictures and some words during the review. We already have them drawn and written and Owl has checked the spelling but apparently they are on the wrong sort of paper. We advised that we were very busy and did we need to draw them all again. He did what could now be expected of him and just said "No, re-draw them". He made no attempt to check or argue the case of two nelifunt hunters he just stuck to the party line except where it involves him doing anything and then he changes the process to suit himself.

As I said a couple of days ago "If you are not helping you are an arse hole"....

.... and as Tigger has said "Don't swear dear, it really isn't polite and it makes you sound like a complete wa......"

Work 'n Play

Sunday was similar to Saturday except that it was 24 hours later.

I worked on and off throughout the day and at one point in the morning actually had a formal three way conference call with one of our HR colleagues. It rapidly became apparent that we were all speaking different languages - LITERALLY - and a further call will be needed tomorrow in an attempt to clarify the mud.

Away from the laptop the dogs were walked and the PORN mower was given it's second outing. Its deck was lowered a notch and away we went. TP has suddenly shown a keen interest in lawn mowing since the evil bastard Sovereign has been deposed and took over the task, allowing me to drink coffee and mow the lawn simultaneously.

Back on the subject of work, there was a ray of light in the afternoon. Wise Owl has been away for a week and both Tigger and I really could do with some of his guidance. In a desperate attempt at contact I sent him a text asking if he was back in work tomorrow and whether I could grab some of his time. I got a positive response and will finally get an expert view on how deep in the mire we really are.

I suppose I had better get an early night as this week is going to be far harder that last.

A Novelty

On reflection Saturday was very ordinary and that was a good thing.

After a leisuirely breakfast it was a quick trip to the feed supplier to pick up some Layers Pellets and then in to Stratford for a few chores. Once back home it was time for lunch and a walk with T&M under skies that threatened a downpour. Fortunately the rain held off, apart from a few drops as I walked up the hill.

In the afternoon I returned to the laptop and spent a few hours trying to keep the project on track. As referenced in today's title, The Novelty was that I did not have a telephone stuck to the side of my head or someone trying to catch my attention using Instant Messenger software as I tried to work. I did spend some time catching up with Golfy but that is always fun and a light heated chat which keeps us on track is always welcome.

The late afternoon saw TP return from a trip to see his Grandma and the evening saw us dine with one of TP's mates and his family. 

Next week is likely to be even more intense that the one just passed and I am approaching it with the view of "do what you can in the time that you have" ...

... Oh, and "anybody who doesn't help is a complete arse hole"

As if I didn't have more than enough to do

The working day has been chaotic. The Legionnaire in the Village Well refuses to come out and no-one can visit the Village until the Authorities say so. They say it is an "elf and safety" issues but I have heard nothing of Elves and I think it is just a cover up of a legitimate political protest. If I have the time I will see if I can google why there is a Legionnaire in the well, what he is protesting about and why we can't listen to his valid political objections.

He is causing me problems and I have had to re-arrange a vital meeting to a completely different location as well as juggle and field the numerous questions and demands that are coming my way.

So there you have it; calls and e-mails and as we near the "drop dead" date more and more work streams suddenly need my urgent and vital attention on matters that really need more time and detail to address. We really are trying to "cram a quart in to a pint pot". At the moment it feels more like a good sized lake.

"Ah" I hear you say "but you have Tigger at your side, pointed stick at the ready to take on the nelifunt". That is correct. I am not alone, but I was today as Tigger had planned to meet up with some pals in a field where they would all play with their sticks and their balls. This is not a game for me. Apparently Tigger is not one of the best at this game and tends to spend a lot of time with his face down in the long grass. The more he talks about this game the less appealing it seems.

I finally paused for breath around half past five and stepped out to take T&M for their walk. It was a beautiful June day and the walk allowed me to clear my head. Back home I had time for a quick chat with 30% before she disappeared out on a "Girls Night". I then spent another hour or so clearing my "must do's" before nuking a portion of Pork 'n Beans and throwing it down my neck along with a large bottle of Leffe Blonde. Funnily enough I don't remember much after that and woke a couple of hours later just before 30% walked back through the door.

Another 12 hour day

If I look at my calendar it is no joke when I say that, as an absolute minimum. half of every working day is taken up by scheduled meetings. If I then add in the spontaneous calls that are needed to keep the nelifunt hunt on track then I am spending well over seven or eight hours a day on the phone.

One can imagine, therefore, how absolutely delighted I am to hear Christopher Robin and other senior Villagers decide to arrange further calls to monitor progress. They are well aware that there is much to do and little time and their response is to steal and interrupt what little I have left.

I have a document that absolutely must have the first draft finished by tomorrow morning. I also had to pop down to the Village for a couple of meetings and to say farewell to my old Boss. So there you have it meetings and calls and documentation is the order of the day. I climbed down off my favourite branch and drove in to the village where I found that it was shut due to problems with the local well. Apparently they had found a dead fox in it, or a Legionnaire, or something. A polite gentleman turned me away and so with much huffing and puffing I climbed back in the Defender and drove back home.

I had just wasted over an hour driving to an office that was shut and would now not be able to say goodbye and more importantly thank a departing colleague for whom I had developed a great respect.

Before I climbed back on my favourite branch I put a big sign at the bottom of the tree. It said

The sign seems to have worked and I have just about finished the draft. I will now wreak havoc in The Hundred Acre Wood by telling the bunnies and weasels that they now need to read it and revise their relevant sections. I have my doubts whether some of them can actually read after some of their input over the past few days.

Quote of the Day ...

... "I'm fed up of dealing with fucking idiots".

"As the completion date nears it is getting very hard to find the time to do what needs to be done and some of our colleagues are not as strong as they could be"

You can take your pick of which one I prefer but both of these, or very similar, have left my lips over the last few days.

Let's just say it is sometimes very surprising how hard it is to get the right people down in The Hundred Acre Wood especially considering the size of the nelifunt we are hunting...

... "Look Tigger, I can see it from a mile away. It's fucking ginormous"...

... "So can I Pooh but please don't swear. It's not polite and makes you look like a cu......."

Pass the Oxygen

Today has been long and hard ... Ooh, Matron!

In response,  "if only Mr Williams".

Most of the day has been spent on conference calls with the gaps filled with urgent emails. Have we made progress? I'm not so sure. Have we survived? Yes, definitely. The day is not over yet and I have a further call at nine o'clock this evening with a US colleague. I am not able to guarantee that I will be tea-total but sobriety will reign and I will limit myself to only a small glass of something with dinner. 

Away from work I took T&M for a wander around the Three Miler, or so I thought...

... Just outside the Village we came across two ladies walking their dogs in the same direction. After  general greetings and niceties we are now in the socially awkward position where they are trying to continue their chat and I am beside two people I don't know when I would much rather be on my own. One of them made a comment along the lines of "you can push on if you like, unless you want to listen to a chat about design" which suggested that they were going through similar thought processes. So I upped my pace and made a little headway on them. The thing is that they have they easy part of the bargain here. All they have to do is slow their pace for a while and we will soon have a comfortable distance between us. The problem was that they hadn't worked this out and seemed to now be using me as a pace maker. So there I was striding out like some exercise mad power walker to maintain a comfortable gap.

There was over a mile at this pace before I reached the top of the hill and made my escape via a footpath across the fields and could return to my normal pace. I was not surprised to find that I was home a full quarter of an hour earlier than I expected to be.

The evening was quiet but for the call with the US. I spent an hour on a very useful call but it is a shame that it didn't take place a full two weeks ago. I am wondering if, somewhere, my escalations have finally had a slight effect?

Bank Holiday Monday.

What a miserable day.

Here we are at the end of May and the weather was atrocious. It has poured down for most of the day but fortunately, or was it unfortunately, we had enough to keep us occupied inside.

I woke early and spent the first hour or so firing off a few work e-mails whilst 30% lay in. Many of my European colleagues are in work today so it paid to keep an eye on the in-box and I managed to get hold of a key Swiss resource and induct him in to the brotherhood. Periodically throughout the day I have been dragged back to the lap top to fire off other emails or deal with questions to keep the beast of a project moving. I should also add that my loathing of my Luxembourg colleagues increases further with each truly irrelevant e-mail that they send.

Away from work we finished scrubbing the bedroom floor, or at least the bits that show, and now need to decide on a suitable finish for the floor and a top class doctor for our knackered hands. Basically it was a hands and knees job involving hot soapy water and metal scouring pads. The floor has come up a treat but we both have very sore fingers and have lost several layers of skin.

We finally finished the floor in the early afternoon and collapsed on the settee. It took a concerted effort to drag ourselves away from some vintage James Bond* to take T&M for a walk.

It is now early evening and the dogs are dried and I am on the outside of a fine piece of brisket that 30% slow cooked during the course of the afternoon. I now have a few hours of peace before the volleys start again tomorrow.

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* On Her Majesty's Secret Service - George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Joanna Lumley & Catherine Schell to name but a few of the Stars

Alcoholics or Scrubbers

That pretty much describes us today.

The morning started with a couple of escalation e-mails to try to alert those in command that all is not well with the time-scales that have been set for our project. Once those were out of the way we breakfasted and then took a trip in to the Supermarket.

30% had found a 2009 Saint Emilion which has been reduced from £14 per bottle down to "2 for a tenner" on an earlier visit and having sampled it we decided to put a few bottles away in the cellar.  There were a few other decent wines with similar savings and when we arrived at the checkout our trolley had 26 bottles of wine and not a lot else. As it says in the title we must have looked like a couple of Grade A alcoholics a with 5 boxes containing wine, 2 packets of kettle chips, a French stick and some pate. That's one hell of an evening.

Back home, the "groceries" were put away, lunch was had and the dogs were walked. I did the walking whilst 30% dropped TP over at "Horrible Henry's" for a sleepover. We were alone at last and headed for the bedroom ...

... with buckets of hot soapy water and scouring pads. no, it's not some strange fetish, we had finally found the time to scrub away the years of grime, paint splashes and polish from the bedroom floorboards. We both spent a good few hours on our hands and knees and can report some progress. By 6.30 we were both tired and creaking and decided to call it a day and call on a very local Saint for succour. No surprises that my chosen patron was, of course, St Emilion.

Away from drink and hard labour my day is now punctuated by the need to turn the eggs. I am referring to the dozen Welsummer eggs that Village Idiot liberated from a pile of cake ingredients and passed my way. I have a very basic incubator. It is little more than a polystyrene box with heat provided by a light bulb and air circulation provided by a computer fan. Add a little circuitry and a temperature probe and basically you have robot chicken mark 1.

It is so basic that the eggs need to be turned three times a day to mimic the action of the broody hen as she rearranges them beneath her during the day. The turning ensures that the embryo develops correctly and remains in the centre of the egg. If not turned it can settle against the shell and developmental defects can occur.

The final picture is a shot of the inside. A pencil cross on one side of each egg shows me which have been turned and which need to be turned. Incubating a batch of eggs is great fun and watching them hatch is a truly amazing experience but I have another 20 days of waiting to go and there are no guarantees.  As the old adage goes "Don't count your chickens before they've hatched".

Out with the old ...

... in with the new.

And so it came to pass that the lawn mower has expired. We have given it a fitting send off and yesterday evening saw us dressed in animal skins, dancing around a fire celebrating the demise of the evil bastard. As we whipped ourselves in to a frenzy of excitement we ripped the damned thing apart with our bare hands and trod its bones in to the dust as we celebrated its death. Once the blood lust was over I retired to the lap top to make a decision about its replacement.

30% and I had set our budget and we knew that we needed a mower with an 18" cut in view of the size of the garden. After a bit of research we had decided on a McCulloch and had found one at Homebase with a 15% discount provided we made the purchase today. I reserved one on line last night and this morning 30% and I climbed in to the Defender and popped in to collect it.

At this point I am almost ashamed to admit that I actually bought it in Evesham. This may seem a bit rich after my recent rant about what an arsehole of a place it has become but it was the only place that had the selected model in stock and this proves my point as it is the only place in the locality which cannot seem to maintain any effective retail operations. We are, after all, talking about the town where the high spots of the High Street are a Coral Bookmakers, a Newsagent you have never heard of and a range of shitty Insurance Brokers. Trust me take a look and you will see absolutely nothing to draw you in to part with your hard earned cash. In other words I went to Evesham as it can't actually sell anything and therefore had the selected mower.

30% and I did a quick trawl of the retail park and decided that neither B&Q nor Countrywide had anything to divert us from the McCulloch and so we wandered in to Homebase. A quick check of the high level signage and we were soon in the Garden Department checking out our selected model. And then it happened ...

... there was a break in the clouds, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed and our attention was drawn to the adjacent model. There it stood like a fine thoroughbred stallion; snorting and pawing the ground. It was green, it had all the features I desired, it was self propelled ...

... it was THE PORN MOWER.

My, aint she perdy

She is fantastic. She cuts, she mulches and has a 60l grass box. She has speed control and centrally adjusted deck height. Does she cut wet grass? She will cut grass under 15' of water she is that good. I noticed that she has a control that has a tortoise symbol at one end and a hare symbol at the other and that was the clincher. Anything powerful enough to mulch a rabbit let alone chop up a tortoise had to be the mower for me and so the deal was done and within minutes she was being loaded in to the truck.

We were soon home and without a moments hesitation or even the slightest feelings of remorse I chucked the piece of shit Sovereign out in to the cold where I hope it gets stolen or blown up or worse.

Die you bastard! You are nothing to me!

The Porn Mower was soon assembled and later given its initial outing on a damp and very long lawn. She is an absolute delight and cut 8" damp grass with no problem and didn't spill a single gobbet of clippings.

Away from the garden the pork loin I had been curing was removed from the fridge and was washed and soaked in water for an hour before being dried and massaged with black treacle. It was then returned to the fridge where it will sit for another week. The occasional massage with further treacle and we will have a nice piece of black, back bacon.

I have also put the Welsummer eggs that VI acquired in to the incubator this evening. It will now be a long 3 weeks of waiting before we hopefully hear the cheeping of chicks.

You want what, by when...

... You're having a laugh.

Today has been long and not particularly productive. It has been punctuated by a number of conference calls of the "lets get started" / "gee up" variety.  As we are still waiting for fundamental information from our US Masters - for all Golfers that have arrived by mistake, clear off now and go polish your Woods - these are necessary kick off calls but they have little value other than to say "we are about to start, watch this space".

So I have waffled on calls, and in between  I have done what I can and chatted to Golfy. By about 5 o'clock I considered my week finished except for a late call with Christopher Robin's Colonial Cousin. I therefore got up from the laptop and took T&M out for a decent walk. I arrived back at one minute to seven and dialled in to the call expecting something very similar to the earlier ones ...

... How wrong was I. Basically the call went like this; "We're gonna have this baby signed by the end of June". Several people, including myself, went "But we don't have key critical information that we need to develop pricing". To which we were told "We're gonna have this baby signed by the end of June"...

... Oh Fuck, I am screwed. In fact, at the risk of sounding slightly mid Atlantic "I am SO screwed". This is like trying to build a house without any bricks, or signed off plans, or knowing whether we are going with the Veranda and the triple car garage ... and you know what Builders are like for not turning up when they say they will!

One final observation on this turn of events. The final call was scheduled after close of business on a bank holiday weekend. There is very little that can be achieved over the next three days. I can write emails but with no expectation of a reply before Tuesday.

He Scores!

Today has been a busy but frustrating day down in The Hundred Acre Wood. The flow of information from our US colleagues has been non-existent and there is only so much fun that can be had by reminding them of missed commitments on conference calls that they really would rather not host.

Away from the calls I have sent x e-mails to y recipients and received y-s read receipts. I therefore now know that "s" is "s for slacker" and they are the people to keep a close eye on over the next few weeks.

Away from the grind Golfy and I have been playing a variant of Bullshit Bingo over the past few days. This involved Golfy trying to insert the phrase "Wot Badman said" in to as many calls whilst I have the slightly more challenging "Golfy told me to say it".  Obviously the Blog aliases are replaced with our proper names on the calls but that does present an interesting additional challenge and perhaps the opportunity for bonus points.

For the past couple of days Golfy has had a 20 : 0 lead on me as the phrase "wot Badman said" is pretty easy to throw in when asked if he has anything to add. Basically he can use it in many of his utterings as a contextual reference to his invaluable contributions. an example would be "picking up on wot Badman said earlier .... " . I can't actually believe that I am giving him game tactics here. Hopefully he won't read this Journal entry.

I feel that my "Golfy told me to say that" is far harder to fit in to our natural discourse so am claiming 75 points for this mornings effort. I managed a reference to "gaining traction" and when this got a bemused laugh I threw in "Golfy told me to say that". Normally I would have only claimed 25 points but I did hear Golfy start to splutter and I later found out that he had to hit the mute button to conceal his laughter. I am therefore claiming a full 75 points in view of the fact that I drove him in to cover with my perfect delivery.

As we move in to week 2 it is 20 : 75 with all to play for.

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Other News: Village Idiot has just turned up with a dozen fertile Welsummer eggs. VI's long suffering wife is a fine cake maker and a Local Breeder has just provided a few raw ingredients. Shame to put them in a cake as the last time this happened I managed a couple of place cards at the Stratford Poultry show with the offspring. Basically VI's Spouse will use bog standard eggs and the pure breed poultry eggs will go in to the incubator.

I salute those lost in combat ...

Yesterday, actually the day before yesterday, I wrote that a person's identity is all down to perspective.

Potato, for example, is seen by the Dogs as an angel who's appearance announces the presence of cheese. The cheese, on the other hand, sees Potato as DEATH. Now, I hear you all saying "this chap must be short of material as he only wrote this in his last Journal entry", well let me reassure you that it does have some further relevance to today's scribblings.

As you may be aware, the past few weeks have seen me concentrating on getting the bedroom in a fit state for the Decorators and, as a result, the garden has been somewhat neglected ...

... yesterday I hauled the miserable git of a lawn mower from it's lair and tugged mercilessly on it's starter cord as the lawn was definitely up around my arse and needed hacking back. This is where perspective becomes relevant.

I see the lawn mower as an evil bastard who does a barely adequate job and in it's considerable "down time" does its best to persuade other domestic appliances to perform badly. It has caused me personal injury and has also caused damage to The Pile and I recount the incident of the broken double glazing unit and the resultant bill of £250 as evidence of it's malevolent and malicious practices. I have countless other charges of spilling oil and grass clippings and wrist injuries on file also.

Amnesty International, on the other hand, do not. They see it as a political prisoner who has been incarcerated without trial, had adequate nutrition and medical care withheld and has been forced to perform slave labour. Apparently I am an evil  Despot who's appearance in an international court is long overdue.

Well lets just say that yesterday evening saw a little more fodder for AI's propaganda machine. I got the miserable piece of crap up and running and was pushing it to the lawn when its blade stuck a paving slab. The resulting noise was not one for the mechanically sensitive and when I re-started the beast it didn't sound good. Anything that clunks like that AND has a blade spinning round at several hundred rpm is probably not pushed around the lawn without armoured greaves.

I have therefore decided that this is the final straw and the lawn mower will now be pensioned off to Elysian Fields* and I will finally have a new yellow shiny one like my Dad.

On the work front things are starting to crawl forward and Golfy and I took a trip down to The Village and had a productive brain storming session with Christopher Robin, Judge Dread and a couple of other interested parties. We now have a list of things to do and it is time to start to crack the whip. We have a very busy time ahead of us and already certain Bunnies are being examined to see whether they are up to the job.

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* I'm taking it to the tip where it will be recycled which will involve it being tipped in to a furnace and melted down in to ingots - the hell it deserves. AI can go swivel if they think I'm going to spend one penny on "medical care" for the useless bugger.

Picture Post. No. 7

Today I performed the electronic equivalent of shuffling papers as I sat in an information vacuum. This basically translates to "did very little as we haven't a clue what we are doing". The US Team have not yet provided guidance so I sit and wait, doing what I can.

This is not interesting so it is time for another Picture Post. I did have an internal debate about whether Potato was Death of Cheese or a Harbinger of Cheese and I decided that it was all down to a matter of perspective.

If you are the cheese then Potato is definitely the DEATH OF CHEESE as he appears in his furry black cloak with his huge cheese knife slung over his shoulder. One sweep of the blade and the cheese departs, hopefully to a far better place but most probably Potato's tummy. If, however, you are Tyson & Marauder then Potato could well be the Harbinger of Cheese ...

... a furry angel that appears on high* and lo, morsels of mature cheddar shall rain down from on high and good dogs that supplicate shall receive generous portions.

Right, where was I? Oh Yes, I didn't have anything interesting to say so I was going to present a picture post. This one is a shot of The Grand Canyon taken in August 2006.

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Post Script: If you are new to The Journal I suppose I should point out that Potato is one of the cats and Tyson & Marauder are the dogs.

* He's not supposed to be on the worktops in the kitchen

The "Sty" and the Pig

Sunday was pure domesticity.

TP was away having "slept over" at friend's house so 30% and I went in to tidying mode. This is always interesting as, being the patient and restrained type of person I am, you can imagine what happens when I unearth something that falls in to my broad and generally all encompassing definition of crap.

Tidying missions are usually accompanied by a loud narrative of classics including "What the Fuck is this?", "Why the hell am I  the only person who can throw anything away?" and my personal favourite "How bloody hard can it be to put something back where it came from?"

There are also the frequent and very satisfying trips out to the wheely bin. They were especially good today as it had been emptied on Friday which meant that the first few discarded items could be hurled in with great force.

I was actually reasonably restrained today and kept the dark humours at bay and by lunchtime the house looked a lot less chaotic.

The afternoon saw us visited by the Oranges & Lemons Tribe. I say "visited" it was more a "sophisticated robbery"...

... let me explain. Mr O&L has a colleague who rears a few pigs and Mr O&L intimated that he might like a half carcass and then went back to doing what he does best, or at least what he gets paid for. This is, incidentally a quite similar job to the one I do down in the Hundred Acre Wood but that's not important here...

... Where was I? Yes, the half pig. Mr O&L was advised at the back end of the week that the half pig would be ready for collection this evening literally hours before Mr O&L flies out to Germany. The net result of this is that  Dr O&L will be left to run the household and deal with about 35 kg of fresh meat with absolutely no time to prepare. Dr O&L was keen to try a bit of curing and sausage making and popped over for a bit of a chat and to sample a few bits and pieces I have done over the past few months. We had a great time and she departed with my mincer, sausage skins and the box I used for salting an air dried ham. I'm hoping my experiences were useful to her and I did offer to pop over and help out if needed.

The evening saw a gentle ramble around the Three Miler with T, M and 30% and then home for Supper and a quiet evening in.

Quiet Day really

Saturday morning saw me chuck a drill and a toolbox in to the back of the Defender and pop over to Bad Man Senior's house to complete a "little DIY job".

Dad had asked me to come over as he had bought a window awning that needed installing. At the tender age of 78, with one bionic knee and one that he refuses to have replaced, nipping up and down step ladders is really not for him. I arrived and viewed the awning. It was huge. Well it was a lot bigger than I expected being around 8' in length and, as I later discovered, it extends a full 7' out from the wall.

The job went pretty well and it was all done and dusted after a couple of hours plus time for coffee, lunch, fooling around with the dog and general chat. Dad and Step Mum Sue seemed pleased with the results and have booked me in to hang a new door on the conservatory when they get back from their holiday. I advised that the fee for door hanging is a full blown Sunday lunch as Bad Man Senior does a wonderful roast.

Back home it was time for a quick coffee and then it was out in search of curtain fabric. 30% had a sample she liked and, since it also had my approval, we took a trip in to Worcester to see if we could find a stockist. We failed so, 30% will make a purchase next week from the original supplier.

Back home AGAIN and I started a dry cure of a pork loin joint that 30% had picked up in Tesco. This will make a fine piece of back bacon and I may give it a Black Treacle rub to produce another batch of Black Bacon. More on that later in the week.

It was then time for a traipse round the Three Miler with T&M and a few odd jobs before an early Supper as 30% is off out to see her Mum sing in a local Choral Society concert. Apparently I was invited but the invitation got lost after I asked if I was allowed to join in.

Sat on the grid with no fuel

Today Tigger and I have clambered down from the branch after having a very long hard think. Tigger said his head was hurting but couldn't be sure whether it was a change in his brand of coffee, all of the thinking or jumping around in a room with inadequate head clearance...

... anyway, the theme for today seemed to be to hold conference calls and say "very well done, but there is lots of hard work yet to do". When Tiger and I asked questions like "How are we going to do things?" and "when are things needed to be done?" we got a stock answer very much along the lines of "we don't know yet but are sure we will soon".

Now you may think that this is disheartening but we had a hunny sandwich and then held a conference call with the Bunnies and Weasels and said exactly the same things as we had been told. Funnily enough the Bunnies and Weasels asked questions like  "How are we going to do things?" and "when are things needed to be done?" but we have learnt from our Elders and told them "we don't know yet but are sure we will soon".

After mobilising the troops it is frustrating not to have anything further to tell them and so it is very difficult to develop our project any further. This is unnerving as contract signature dates are already being bandied around and it is a simple matter of the longer we mess around waiting for the details, the less time we have to do anything with them.

On the home front the curtain rail and brackets got put up on the Landing and 30% and I took a trip in to Evesham to confirm the handles for the replacement windows.

I did manage a minor rant as Evesham appears to be the only town in the UK that has managed to build a Bypass that is no quicker than driving through the town centre. I kid you not, the centre is a crawl through set after set of traffic lights through a traffic system designed by a cretinous monkey and the bypass is a single lane highway with roundabout after roundabout. This should allow free flowing traffic but you have to realise that you need to take in to account the intelligence of your average Evesham driver. They do, after all have a collective IQ that barely gets in to the hundreds. There is only one word to describe it and that word is "shit".

The Evesham website will tell you there are lots of great things to see in the town. If you want my advice, I'd suggest you read the website, look at the pictures then piss off to Worcester, Cheltenham, Stratford or Pershore rather than visit the god forsaken shit hole that is Evesham. Just in case any  inhabitants of Evesham read this and take umbrage perhaps I should point out that it is my home town and it used to be a lovely place but now it seems to be naff verging on on tatty.

The one ray of light in the gloom of my trip to town was they guy at Magnet. He knew exactly who we were and what we were there for and within minutes we had seen the various options and made our selections. He gave great customer service and we were both impressed ...

... I'm guessing he wasn't a local.

Quote of the day ...

..... "That's all as result of champagne and foie gras. Not an ounce of that is due to Monster Munch and KFC"

Possibly not the most politically correct utterance to have passed my lips today.

Woo Hoo ! ...

... or more likely; "Oh Fuck"!

Golfy and I have had another quiet day. I have sat on my favourite branch in the Hundred Acre Wood and I believe that Golfy has been sat in his Lair polishing his Warhead. All day we have waited for our 6 o'clock conference call.

Time drags if you are not careful so I put mine to best use by having an extended lunch with Bad Man Senior who turned up with tomato plants for 30%, his faithful hound; Tilly and a pack of home made tomato soup for our lunch. We had a great natter and made plans to sort out a few jobs over at his domicile as he is now a little past the age where climbing up ladders to drill holes is one of his better ideas.

On the same theme, I too drilled holes after Pater had left and another pair of curtain rail brackets have now been affixed. This time in the "Purple Bedroom" ...

... Before you ask I will explain. When we bought The Pile one of the smaller bedrooms was painted in the most horrendous deep purple. It was truly dreadful and is forever engraved on our collective consciousness. So even though the room has been literally rebuilt and is now painted in a pleasant ivory colour it will forever be known as "the purple bedroom". During the extension build back in 2007/2008 the purple bedroom had it's roof and a couple of its walls removed and consequently was on display to anyone who passed. The Builders used it as a handy landmark and would inform Delivery Drivers who were unfamiliar with the village to simply "look out for the purple wall"!

A dog walk also happened at some point this afternoon and I made a start on supper before I dialled in to the six o'clock call. Christopher Robin lead the call and, after a little huffing and puffing, advised that our client has finally made a decision and we have been selected as their Supplier of Choice. This is great news and Golfy and I are pausing for a brief pat on the back but the real work starts here as we now need to get them to agree to a price and sign up to a contract before we crack open the champagne*.

Supper is now inside me, as are a couple of glasses of Rioja, so I will now sign off and enjoy my last evening of leisure for a good few weeks.

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* actually I have a rather fine Heather Hunny, '98 vintage that would be a delight on a scone if we get the damned deal signed.

It's arrived

Another day away from The Hundred Acre Wood ...

... this time I needed to pop down to the village for a mid year performance assessment. Unfortunately my current manager is retiring and he was completing the reviews for all of his reportees before we are handed over to his replacement. I say "unfortunately" as Mr B seems to be one of the better managers at Dante's Nine Circles of Hell and I will miss his dry sense of humour and pragmatic approach to the job.

Golfy was in the village too for the same reasons so we met up and had yet another last minute request from the HR people in advance of their lunchtime call. We did what all responsible employees did and went for a half hour coffee break with the Boer before we sat down and knocked up the emergency slide for the HR presentation. After running our efforts past the relevant Execs we patted ourselves on the back for a job well done and then killed time until our scheduled appointments with Mr B.

Both of us came away with good feedback so it seems we are suited to our current Nelifunt Hunting roles. Apparently the Boss seems to think that we make a good team and suggests that we should continue to pair up in future escapades. Golfy did point out that we were a couple of Village Idiots from The Shires but it seems that they may have seen through that and want to take advantage of our rural cunning.

The HR call with the client came and went and basically seemed to be a bit of a damp squib. I felt that our input was necessary but was annoyed that the Leads were piss poor at actually communicating what they wanted and everything was very last minute. I find it incredibly hard to believe that no-one in  Dante's had a sample slide set that they could have passed across to Golfy and I so that we could have used a bit of intellectual capital rather than having to "reinvent the wheel"  with only hours available to do so.

Back in the real world, I can report that the Bad Man's Journal is now available in hard back. The anniversary of The Journal was the 20th April 2011 and I have used an internet "make your own book" company to develop a hard copy of the first year's posts. It was a bit of a faff to get it formatted but the single volume arrived today and I am really pleased with the results. I contemplated printing a picture of the volume in this post but was concerned that incorporating all of The Journal within a single entry would cause the creation of some form of "literary"* gravitational singularity and the entire universe would end up being sucked in to my laptop screen ....

.... sod it, lets risk it.

Probably should have dusted first

* in the loosest possible sense of the word literary

Another unusual day

Tuesday saw me leave my favourite branch in The Hundred Acre Wood and visit pastures new.

The Vespa was due for a service and it's MOT and I had booked her in to an non-franchised but Specialist Workshop over in Cheltenham to get the work done. As this is very near Golfy's centre of operations we had planned to meet up to drink coffee and shoot the breeze until the bike was ready for collection. Unfortunately our HR colleagues and one of our Bosses had different ideas and so it was with trepidation that I entered the secret underground lair from which Golfy runs his diverse and nefarious operations.

I cannot say too much about the location other than it is in Gloucestershire and is a 50,000 square feet underground bunker constructed in one of County's many extinct volcanoes*. Actually I can't say much about the location as one of Golfy's stunning, athletic but lethal Henchwomen covered my eyes for the last 10 miles of the journey to the HQ. This lair is cunningly disguised as a roundabout and, this is a very nice touch, has perfect robot rabbits that maintain perimeter patrols and feed information back to the centralised Security console. I did manage to have a look at one of these on the workbench and they pack a surprising amount of armaments for such small and mobile devices.

Once inside, and after I had been given the tour of the laboratories, weapon silos and data centre, we sat down to develop a "last minute" spreadsheet for our Boss and a Presentation for the lazy sods in HR. Once we had finished Golfy gave me a brief guided tour of the Gloucester Docks developments and a stop was made for a panini and coffee.

It was then time to pick up the Vespa and head back to my favourite branch. All had gone well with the Service and MOT and the Workshop Owner commented on her good condition and the fact that she was now starting to appreciate in value. The Vespa is an absolute biking icon and mine is very low mileage example in an unusual colour. She is now reaching the point, at 11 years of age, where I need to think carefully about what I do with her. She is in far too good condition to just let her slowly deteriorate and end up scrapped so it looks like I will now need to spend a few quid on her to ensure that her loveliness is preserved.

Back home it was a quick and early dinner and then back out on the other bike for a run out with Chippy Ian, Mick and another chap who's name I didn't catch. God knows where we went but the roads were fantastic; smooth and flowing and we had a fast run over to Bibury where we settled in to a posh but very welcoming hotel sat alongside the river that runs along the main street of the village. After coffee it was a run back towards the Vale taking in Cirencester and Tewkesbury along the way. I got back at half past ten only to find that my HR colleagues require us to develop a further fucking slide for their sodding presentation. Talk about half arsed and last minute!

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* Surprising in view of the fact that all of Gloucestershire is oolitic limestone. There is not an igneous or metamorphic rock in site.

Is this what I am here to do?

Monday was a bit of a weird day...

... Things are still quiet as we wait for a client decision but negotiations continue and the HR people are trying to pull me in to some of their discussions. This is somewhat unnerving as I am definitely not an HR person and should only be involved to provide specialist input on the Project Scope. However they seem to want to position me as the lead for their work stream which is definitely not what I should be doing. The HR people seem to be very nice but totally unable to do anything for themselves and Golfy and I seem to keep getting shafted and asked to knock up and then tweak spreadsheets and Presentations for them. What is more they are incredibly vague about what it is that they want in these spreadsheets and slide decks. I am getting a strong sense that they don't really know what they want. This is concerning as they are supposed to be the bloody experts.

It is a bit like popping down to the Butchers and asking him to knock up an array of cakes and pastries for a party - basically giving vague instructions to the wrong guy!

Away from work I managed to find some time to put up the brackets for TP's curtain poles and also took T&M for an early evening walk.

We were out again this evening. This time it was to see Dom Joly over at the Artrix in Bromsgrove. It was a great evening. Basically Dom narrated the highs and lows of his career history and showed clips along the way. It doesn't sound too exciting when you put it like that but it was very funny and the BIG PHONE made a brief cameo appearance.

Team Meeting

Sunday saw yet another trip to the Rugby Club for yet another team meeting. Last week it was presentation day, this week it is the team barbecue. For the love of God, it is the middle of May and the 2011/12 season will be starting in September! This means that I am devoting nine months worth of Sunday mornings to  TP and his antics in every 12...

... as we left we hear the cheery shout "See You on the 5th". "Ah!" I hear you  say "The 5th of September, start of the new season", Well no, they mean the 5th of June - start of Summer Bloody Training. They are turning the bloody game in to a 12 month sentence of screwed up weekends. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy taking TP to rugby but just get a little miffed that the Squad seem to think that I want to spend my Summer out on the sidelines too.

Back to the Team Barbecue, it was reasonably entertaining and I did something that I hadn't done for 33 years. I played a game of rounders. Apparently I did not make a complete fool of myself and TP's unsolicited critique was that I was "one of the better Dads"...

... Look out for my next game which, based on the interval between matches, will be a few months after my 80th Birthday.

The afternoon was taken up by a good walk with T&M and then it was out of the doors again for a trip over to Warwick Arts Centre to see Richard Herring's Christ on a Bike tour.

It was very, very funny and beautifully performed. It included Richard reciting the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham through to Joseph from the gospel of Matthew both forwards and backwards and then he went through the acronyms he used to remember it all.  The list is interrupted by a stream of gags and was a brilliant concept, as was his disection of the ten commandments and how badly they had been constructed. The running joke for that section of the set was that they looked like God hadn't prepared for the handover of the stone tablets to Moses and thrown the Commandments together at the last minute.

The tour is about Richard's atheism and disdain of Christianity and was very intelligent and beautifully witty.

Putting it all back together

I woke early today, so I grabbed a coffee and nipped out to the garage to finish off the mirror frame project that has occupied my spare hours this week.

Andy & Steve have finished painting the bedroom and Chippy Ian was coming back in today to fit the espagniolettes to the wardrobe doors. Basically almost everything is done and it is time to put the room back together. I therefore wanted to have the mirror finished and hung on the wall from day one. It didn't take long to apply a coat of polish to the frame, insert the mirror glass, fix on the backing, screw on the "D Rings" and tie on the length of cord. By the time Ian had started I was ready to fix it to the wall.

I'm pretty chuffed with the results and Ian's comment was that it looked "original" and fitted in well with the room. A couple of days back I said I'd post some before and after pictures so here is the "before" ...

 

 This is what I started with; a few lengths of elm floor boards. These are Victorian. The ones I used for the frame are around 100 years older and even more beaten up than these. After a bit of effort these were wrapped around a piece of bevelled mirror glass recycled from a rather dated 80s mirror. The next few pictures show the frame detail and the completed mirror hung on the wall.

These two pictures show the frame detail. As can be seen it is a simple frame with a bead routed around the inside edge. I really like the appearance of the worm holes and tunnels and they help to give the mirror an illusion of age which fits in well with the room setting. In the first detail picture a plugged nail hole can be seen on the bottom frame rail close to the mitre joint.

Here is the finished mirror. It is about 36 inches high by about 27 inches wide. The frame rails are approximately 4 inches wide.

 The final couple of pictures show the mirror on the bedroom wall. It sits between the two cupboards that I have lovingly stripped and waxed as part of the mammoth preparation ordeal over the Easter / May Bank Holiday break.

The rest of the day involved a trip over to Blackminster to check out some Kennels as T&M will need to be incarcerated while we are in America in August. The Kennel owners are Poodle breeders so are familiar with the breed and have a nice little set up. We were amazed at how big their Standard Poodles are. T&M stand at 22" and 23" at the shoulder but their dogs towered over them and were nearer 28". They were HUGE!. Mind you they like big dogs as they also have Great Danes and we spent a fun half an hour playing with their latest litter of 16 Dane pups.

Once we extricated ourselves from the mayhem of the Kennels it was time to get back home and continue putting the room back together. The bed was moved from the landing back in to the room and a few other necessary items were put back too. We still need to clean the floor boards and wax them but that can wait for another day. Fresh curtains are needed too but 30% has done an admirable job with a spare pair and we have had quotes for new ones ...

... I see a trip to the fabric shop coming very soon.

Another quiet day

Having spent a spare hour developing a spreadsheet yesterday evening, Golfy and I had very little to do this morning and then there was even less when the first call of the day got cancelled too.

We did have a call later in the morning where the aforementioned spreadsheet was reviewed and generally commended with a couple of minor amendments suggested. That took all of 15 minutes and Golfy and I had the improvements sorted within twenty minutes of the call ending. Basically, at that point, I had the rest of the day to myself.

The frame project filled a couple of hours and I now have the rebate cut, it has been sanded and a coat of Danish Oil is now soaking in to the surface. I have cleaned up the mirror glass and will give the frame a coat of wax polish and assemble it tomorrow. I’m really pleased with the result which is a simple frame constructed from some ancient wormy timber. It has loads of character and I will post a couple of “before and after” pictures once I have it finished and hanging on the wall.

On my walk with T&M I learnt a couple of things. The first was always take a camera. As I passed a tree on the way home I heard a cheeping sound and looked up to see a hole in the main trunk. Within a couple of minutes I had a splendid view of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker entering the nest. The second thing I learnt is to always take a coat as the heavens opened and it absolutely poured down and I returned home looking like a drowned rat.

Oops, I Dropped My Guard

Most of today has been very quiet so I have been sat on my favourite branch watching the world go by.

Away from the Hundred Acre Wood, Andy & Steve finished decorating our bedroom and it is a truism that preparation is the key to decoration and also that Bloody Decorators get all the sodding glory. I have spent long filthy days in that room skimming plaster, stripping wood, sanding and so on and then these two gits turn up and carelessly slosh a bit of paint around and here I am extolling their questionable virtues.

It looks great and I am planning to move the furniture back in over the weekend. The floorboards still need a clean up and polish but I am sure I can fit that in at some point ….

….. or maybe I will just do the ones that show once the bed is back in place.

I also found a few minutes to assemble the mirror frame I have been making. I used a biscuit jointer to strengthen the mitres as the mirror is quite large and heavy. The frame now sits on the work bench in a strap clamp. Tomorrow will see me release it from its bonds and flip it over so I can mark and cut the rebate for the mirror glass. To be honest I should finish it since all it then needs is a quick sand, a coat of Danish Oil and 24 hours later it will be ready for glass fitting and hanging on the wall.

Back at The Hundred Acre Wood the sun was creeping towards the horizon and I was watching from my favourite Oak as the sky turned to pink. It was time for Christopher Robin’s twice weekly story. Don’t get excited, they have been very poor recently. The sort of story where you know the ending and it is absolute rubbish and there is very little mention of Hunny Sandwiches ….

…. Basically very poor literature!

I sat down to half listen and suddenly Christopher Robin jabbed me in my ample tummy with a sharp stick – Little Fucker! – I now have to drag a load of data from my files and present information that either we don’t have or doesn’t exist for a call tomorrow with a couple of key members of the European Champion Nelifunt hunting squad.

I muttered bollocks and opened up a spreadsheet.

A Day Out.

Today I climbed off the branch I usually sit on in the Hundred Acre Wood and wandered down to the Village to see what is going on.

Tigger was going too, as one of the Bunnies was going to be in the area and we had all agreed to meet up and see how well he was getting on with the planning for the Grand Banquet should Christopher Robin get past "first base". To be honest it was not the most fruitful of days. We bumped in to quite a few Nelifunt Hunters and had lots of nice chats, morning coffee, elevenses, lunch and afternoon tea but we came away only marginally wiser than we were when we arrived.

Once home it was a quick squiz at what Andy & Steve had done in the bedroom - they arrived a day early - a coffee and out of the door for a wander around the Three Miler with T&M.

Back home from my walk I had an hour to kill before dinner so I continued with the mirror frame that I started yesterday. When I say "mirror frame" I actually mean the four lengths of elm floor boards that I hope to ultimately transform in to a mirror frame. The nail holes had all been plugged and trimmed so now it was time to clean the boards up. They are covered with more than a Century's worth of polish and grime so the belt sander was brought out. It is an aggressive little bugger but there is little else short of a planer that will remove the top layer from this timber. The problem with using a planer is there is a high risk of knackering the blades due to nails in the wood. No matter how hard you look there is always a tack somewhere that escaped one's scrutiny.

Half an hour later I was filthy and the boards were "not". I wandered in for dinner thinking "that was it" only to find that 30% and TP had an EastEnders Double Bill planned for their evening's TV entertainment. I found myself back in the garage where I cracked on. An hour or so later I had planed all of the boards to the right width, routed the bead detail on the board edges and had cut the mitres. It now looks like a frame when laid out on the bench and tomorrow will see me glue it up.

Making Hay ...

Tuesday was another quiet day and I found time for a little woodwork …

… let me explain; as we are  about to have the bedroom decorated it is time to think about décor and it was most definitely a case of “that mirror has to go”. It is a rather 80’s number with a white frame and doesn’t really go with the look of the room now that the wardrobes have been built and the cupboards and doors have been sanded, oiled and polished.

The mirror itself was a rather fine bevelled piece of glass so all it needed was a new frame to regain it’s place in the room, time for a bit of recycling I think. I have a large amount of very old elm floor boards that were lifted from the landing during the extension build and with a bit of care these will make a most excellent mirror frame. I knocked one up about 18 months ago for the downstairs loo and was really pleased with the result so it is time for another.

As you can image a 250 year old floor board is somewhat beaten up and the first stage is to identify a few lengths that are robust enough for the job. Then it is a case of dealing with the nail holes where they have been previously fixed to the joists. That is what I managed to do this morning. The method was to drill each nail hole with a 10mm drill and then use corresponding sized plugs that had been bored from a scrap of elm board. These are simply glued in to the holes and will be trimmed once dry,  more on this later in the week.

The evening saw another ride out with Chippy Ian and Mick. This time it was out through Evesham towards Cheltenham, out through Shurdington and up Birdlip Hill on to the escarpment. From there it was a fast run along the A417 to the outskirts of Cirencester and a stop for a coffee before taking the A429 towards Stow on the Wold. Before we reached Bourton on the Water we cut off the main road and took the lanes toward Snowshill where we dropped down off the hill and joined the A44 at Broadway for a run back in to the Vale.

I remember when I first started driving that we used to try to freewheel from the top of Snowshill all the way in to Broadway. We never quite made it but it was amazing just how far we could get using the limited power of a VW Beetle and the steep gradient to best effect.

It was a good run but it was unnerving to see a Fallow Deer leap out in to the road in front of Ian in the fading light. The last thing I wanted to do was to hit one of those as they are most definitely not traffic savvy and my bike TP and me are most definitely not designed for skidding down the road.