No Washing Up

This evening we all applied spit and polish and drove out for dinner.

We approach Mothering Sunday and 30%'s birthday in the next few days so I had made a reservation for the Belle House in Pershore. None of us had eaten there before but an acquaintance who had been of great assistance in the project to get the Vespa back on the road last year said it was worth a visit.

He was spot on the mark. The restaurant is a converted Georgian House on the High Street, which is confusingly called Bridge Street*, and has an associated Deli next door - they confusingly call that a Traiture. Our table was on the first floor in an oak panelled, high ceilinged room. The service was great and the food was fantastic. Apparently they run demonstration sessions which might be an interesting diversion.

I won't bore with the details of who had what but the assiette of deserts was splendid as was the Guinea Fowl with the side order of local asparagus.

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* Pershore is a quite attractive little Georgian Town that has seemed to miss out on any great development. It therefore has an air of a reasonably well kept back water. It has always been the butt of local humour and even now older Pershore residents will bridle if they hear someone from Evesham mention the practice of "putting the pig on the wall to see the band go by". This implied insult is based on their simple and naive nature and desire to show their livestock something exciting.

Food Hygiene ....

Today 30% learnt that if cooked chicken is left in the fridge uncovered it evaporates* at an amazing rate....

...... Apparently even cling film (Saran wrap for  any US readers) won't stop cooked poultry from simply dissipating in to the atmosphere. It needs to be covered with aluminium foil or other non-transparent material for it to remain in the fridge without significant reduction in it's volume or net weight.

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* There are a number of foods that will evaporate. Most scientists will tell you that only  liquids evaporate and will do this very slowly in cool environments. What do they know? Have they seen the strange way that a Pork Pie appears to segment and diminish if left unattended?

Decisions Decisions ...

Today is the day that our prospective client makes the decision about which Supplier they would like to try to form a contract with.

So basically it is a case of "shit or bust". Either way someone is in for a rough ride. If we fall at this final hurdle I wouldn't want to be one of the Lead Sales Execs. If we clear it and take the lead Golfy and I am in for a god-awful 6 weeks starting on Monday.

In anticipation of success I have been making as many preparations as possible but today my efforts had a certain air of potential futility and I felt that, although success is likely, I should just sit and wait until Monday. I didn't, but I felt that way.

Picture Post. No. 6

Two days of meetings attempting to improve the knowledge and interlock between an American and European Team....

..... Obviously time for a picture post then

 

 This youngster was found minding his own business in a field in NW Scotland during our 2009 holiday. I'm not sure it is possible to take a bad picture of Highland Cattle......


...... "So, What are you breeding them for? Milk production, carcass conformation, productivity?"

"No, I just like 'em pretty".....

...... Now there is a scary thought!

So, how was it?

I picked up the Defender before work and am pretty pleased with the difference. To be honest the roads between the workshop and home are hardly ideal to test it out but it is far more responsive to the throttle.

It is a diesel four wheel drive truck with gearing and differentials to suit so is never going to be a rip snorting beast that drifts through the corners and leaves smoking trails of rubber as it pulls away from the lights. That sort of performance would require some form of NOS injected big block V8 which is hardly practical but would be highly entertaining.

First gear is a crawler so is very little affected but I found that as I change up the box there is far more power there. The engine spins up much faster, the throttle response is much improved and top gear acceleration is now a reality rather than a dream.

Hopefully I will get away from the desk to use it at some point this week......

.... work has been less than exciting. It is a hard slog. To continue with the motoring analogy, to date it has been like pushing a car uphill. It now seems to be like pushing a car uphill on its roof.

Weather Report

And the roiling clouds split asunder and a shaft of light lit up the scorched earth and there roaring mightily stood the Defender .....

...... "Bad Man, it's Mark from MP Trading. Your Defender's been Power upgraded. Its like a missile. You can come and get it. Phone me."

Sometimes, just sometimes, I get a message worth listening too.

Marauder's Bumper Book of Crimes. No. 7 in an occasional series

Marauder narrowly escaped a charge of Actual Bodily Harm after today's walk ......

..... our route took us past a free range egg farm and we dutifully put both T&M on leads as we walked the section of foot path that passes the barns and poultry enclosures. Once clear T&M were liberated and they charged off only to find a hen that had decided that working for a living was not for her and had plans to see  more of Warwickshire.....

.....  I don't think her plans to experience more of the world included being pinned down between Marauder's paws and plucked.*

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* To any particularly concerned about Hen Welfare I can report that the hen escaped with only feather loss. I am also guessing that working for a living is probably a lot more appealing after this morning's experience.

It was a normal start to Sunday with an alarm call as TP has a rugby match. Fortunately 30% and I have recovered from the worst of the "bug" and we piled in to the Defender and arrived at the club at 9.45 for pre-match training.

30% and I took T&M for a nice long walk whilst TP and his team mates prepared ....

.... obviously they needed more time, much more time, as they got their arses severely kicked this morning by a squad featuring a number of Warwickshire County players.

This afternoon saw us trundle up the road to attend VI's first birthday party. Now regular readers will know that VI is definitely not one year old. He is actually 60, but has never had a birthday party until today. It was a really nice afternoon "do", all very relaxed and informal with a cold buffet and a surprisingly good home brewed cider supplied by one of the Guests. Mad Bat and Dickie were there too and it was lovely to catch up with their news. We also managed to put an order in for half a pig and selected a few cuts of beef from a forthcoming slaughter. It was sort of a rural version of home shopping.

30% and I had decided on a nice new pair of size 12 wellingtons for VI and these were gratefully received as his current pair are well and truly knackered. Apparently the new pair will be be undergoing sea trials in May when VI and his long suffering spouse take a trip to Borth.

We arrived home well before 7 as we are both still not fully recovered from the bug and I propose to do nothing more energetic than press buttons on a remote control this evening.

The Dreaded Lurgy

Yesterday afternoon I started to feel unwell, nauseous to be honest.

I seem to have come down with the "bug" that is going round at present. This one is quite nasty. I'm usually pretty resilient to such things but I ended up in bed and haven't eaten anything for the best part of 24 hours. *

TP was unwell on Sunday and it seems that it is now 30% and my turn to share in it ....

..... yes 30% arrived home from work with a similar symptoms.

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* as for the rest of the symptoms, you really DON'T want to know

If I could turn back time .....

I have just dialled in to a Conference Call where it transpired that "Statutory Consultation Periods" and "Expressions of Interest" were the main subjects of discussion.

As I waited for the call to commence, there was a knock on the door. T&M went mental and I opened the door with the phone held to the side of my head......

..... it was a Romany Lady selling Lucky Heather.

Perhaps I should have made a purchase?

Bad Night's Sleep

I woke on Friday morning having had the worst night's sleep. Let me explain....

...... Spring is here and the mouse population is booming. Potato and Eddy have free rein so come and go as they please. Last night Eddy hopped up stairs and decided to play with his latest "friend" in the bedroom that has just been plastered.

Yep, that's the one, the empty bedroom with bare floor boards that is nice and echoey. T&M being inquisitive dogs decided to go and investigate and soon we had a cat, a mouse and two dogs clattering round the bedroom. It is now three o'clock in the morning and I am wide awake.


Eddy then decides to take his prey downstairs and things quieten - briefly. I try to settle but am disturbed by a peculiar scraping sound. I wander down stairs. The mouse has obviously climbed inside one of my boots and Eddy is trying to encourage him out.

Using my opposable thumbs and monkey brain, I open the back door and shake the little bugger out. I then retire to bed with Eddy giving me a "look".

I then toss and turn for another couple of hours before falling properly asleep just before the alarm.

Judge Dread ....

Today we have been spending time trying to get our Quality People more comfortable with our Project.

We have been holding a number of calls to further familiarise them with the scope and issues as they seem not to be able to pick up a 'phone or draft an e-mail independantly. Apparently I am their serf.

Today we held a call with Human Resources and during this call Judge Dread shouted out a question about billing and revenue streams during a particular phase of the project....

..... I was somewhat taken aback and asked him to explain the relevance of the question to an HR discussion. He then said "so we are only talking about HR"......

..... "Er, yes" was my reply since that was the specialism of the Key Speaker.

Is it me?

I wonder if he take this approach in other parts of his life. If so, I can see him walking up to the Doctor's Receptionist and asking for a couple of fillets of Sea Bass.

Today ....

... is the day that I celebrate my Birthday. It is not the day that I was born. That date sits a couple of days before Christmas and is not a great day to have a Birthday. As a consequence, a few years back I decided to have an official birthday but could never find a day that seemed suitable.

After all, if you have 364 other days to choose from which one do you go for? Obviously you can weed out the crappy ones such as those in the same month as your day of birth and obviously you don't want to clash with any of your  friends or families anniversaries or other religious festivities but that is still going to give you a good 250 dates to choose from.

I settled on the 23rd March. The fact that I was born on the 23rd of a different month is pure coincidence. The reason I chose this date is because back in 2008 I had what some people refer to as  a "life changing experience". I would rather refer to it as a killer after dinner story.

Those who know me really well know a lot more detail than I am prepared to record here but back on 23rd March 2008 after a busy day tiling the kitchen floor I had a major headache. The sort that comes on very rapidly and results in incoherence and vomiting. I later found out that I had suffered a sub-arachnoid brain haemorrhage. To cut a long story short these are a killer. 40% of people who have them don't make it to the hospital and, of those who do, 40% leave the hospital severely disabled.  I survived pretty much unscathed which means that I am one of the lucky 36%. It took the best part of 6 months to get back to work and a full year before I was back to "normal" but here I am with a great after dinner story* and the perfect day to select as my official birthday**.

So there you have it. Am I a changed person as a result of nearly shuffling of this mortal coil? No, not really. I do know I am lucky and I do know that every day should be treasured. I also have very little tolerance for people who think that a work deliverable is the most important thing in the world.

As for today I have been bogged down in arranging a series of meetings to get my project's quality rating improved. To be honest I had totally forgotten that it was my "official b'day" until a card arrived from 30%'s mum and dad.

That leads me to my final point. At the age of 47 I have pretty much got past the excitement of a birthday and perhaps having most of them overshadowed by Christmas is the reason why. I am sure that 30% and I will do something nice in the not too distant future and I am sure that at some point I will think of something that I would like as a gift. But there is no rush as I joke that I am now immortal as none of the gods wanted to take me 3 years ago in 2008.

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* I have another one about a "Lads trip to Amsterdam" and a live sex show but I need to be very drunk to tell that one.

** Probably not a good idea to tell me you have a bad headache. Mine lasted 5 weeks and they used to move me on to morphine at night when I had reached prescription limits of codeine and paracetamol. Incidentally the drugs only took the edge off the pain I had to wait for my body to clear the haemorrhaged blood before the pain dissipated. 

Nothing was stirring not even a mouse ....

 ..... I know they weren't stirring. The little vermin sods were sat on the sofa having worked out how to control Sky+. Let me explain ......

..... I now recount the only possible set of circumstances that could have lead to the tale TP recounted when he returned from school today.

Eddy, it is always Eddy, had obviously brought in a rodent victim for some "entertainment". The aforementioned victim was obviously of sterner stuff than Eddy expected and made a run for it and managed to hide out in some corner of The Pile.

The little sod has been deep under cover learning our ways and becoming familiar with every routine and habit. It then discovered Sky + and watched the recording of The Great Escape. I can see the little sod now, kicking back on the sofa, munching on a Dorito that TP had previously dropped down the crack between the cushions. I can see him now; studying the plot and then the Eureka moment as he sees the way out of the prison......

..... he scuttles upstairs and secretes himself in TP's school bag. He knows all too well that he is never going to go hungry in there with the crumbs that accumulate. He lies in wait listening for the slam of doors, the bus stop bullshitting and finally the settling of kids on the bus. This is it, a blast of light as TP opens his bag and Mousey scuttles out and up TPs arm. TP takes Mousey to the Driver who escorts him outside and with a cheery "Danke" he has made his escape.....

I am the Law ....

I have noticed of late, that The Journal is becoming less interesting than usual. I am entrenched in a piece of work that both fascinating and tedious, exhausting and invigorating. It is also very on/off. At the moment it is very "on" so I tend to leave the laptop at the end of the day with little energy for much else.

Today was spent trying to get a particularly intractable member of the team on side. It looks like we are going to have to spoon feed and pamper him to stop his irrational outbursts. On a call today he complained that he couldn't hear because a dog was growling ....

....... I always knew Tyson was a good judge of character.

War Room

On the work front we enter the final phase of the project......

Within the next couple of days we will provide the client with our latest set of numbers and, all being well, we will progress to the final stage.

This means that all the assumptions we have made need to be verified and all of our risks need to be mitigated and this is an area where I, and I think Golfy too, are stood with necks bent back staring up a very steep learning curve. Whilst we have both been involved in this general type of work for many years this is a very different ball game and there are a whole array of new elements that we need to become familiar with and address.

We have not yet been given the thumbs up to progress but there is so much work to do in such a ridiculously small amount of time that we need to throw ourselves in to the next phase before we know we have "made the cut".

Fortunately one of the whip carrying Daemons has decided that we need assistance and so Golfy and I have been sat in a bunker with a very experienced colleague reviewing our status and planning the next phase of our campaign. It was a long and tiring day and there is still much to do but the end of day summarisation seemed to say that we weren't in too bad a shape.

I managed to take a moment out during the day to capture this snap of us during our deliberations.

Lets go and grab a carrot and then assess these risks ...

Where does the time go?

Sunday started way too early as TP had an away game over near Leamington.

We dutifully hauled our backsides out of bed and trundled to a very pleasant club to be advised that they had "pitch issues" and that TP's game would need to be delayed until after the Under 13's match as there was only one playable pitch.

I did a swift mental calculation and proved that however good and cheap their bacon rolls and coffee would be there was no way that it would make up for the 90 minutes of sleep that I had just sacrificed at the altar of Rugby Union.

Fortunately TP's team won 22:17 so my offerings had been accepted and the team were rewarded.

The late start to the match put us behind for the rest of the day and to be honest we achieved little more. T&M had their usual walk and I managed to sort out and submit my expenses. All I need to do now is a final clear of the bedroom in advance of Andy & Steve's arrival, plastering trowels in hand.

Site Clearance

Today has been a "bit of a mad one" too.

30% rose at a quarter to nine and managed to dress, ablute and throw a coffee down her neck before disappearing down the road to the hairdressers for a nine o'clock appointment. I had a slightly more leisurely start to the day but was soon out of the door to take T&M for their walk.

Back home, 30% and I lunched before emptying and dismantling the vile flat-pack wardrobe in the bedroom in preparation for the Plasterers arrival on Monday. The wardrobe was a bit of a monster and we decided that passing the sections out of the window was far simpler than carrying them down the stairs and out of the back door. 20 minutes later we were hitching the trailer to the Defender and loading up the vast pile of chipboard.

A quick trip to the local tip and we were then able to relax and survey the result of our efforts.

30% decided that a quick trip to Stratford was in order whilst I opted to put my bum on the sofa and watch the England:Ireland Rugby International. Ireland were fantastic. England were most definitely not.

Oh, I forgot to mention ....

Eddy* came in through the cat flap last night and dropped a dead, but still warm, mouse on the hearth rug.

Tyson walked over, gave it a sniff and then promptly ate it. The look on 30%'s face was a picture as she covered her ears to avoid listening to the enthusiastic crunching.

By the way, Eddy didn't look too impressed either. If I was Tyson I would think long and hard before messing with Eddy.

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* For any newcomers, Eddy is a three legged cat - hence Eddy Percent (say it out loud)

Standing on a Ridge

I have had a bit of a week.

I'll try not to make this too boring so intend to be brief. back in September last year I started a new role at Dante's Nine Circles of Hell. I have been pushing rocks uphill for the past five years and wanted a change so here I am in another circle with some very Senior Demons, more temptations and much bigger rocks!

It seems less like Hell and that, in itself, is worrying. Am I starting to enjoy my job again? Am I finally wearing pips at Starfleet? .....


..... We will see.

For the past few months I have been progressing a project through a number of iterations with a client. Initially I was quite heavily supported by a Senior Colleague but for this current phase I have been mostly flying solo apart from recently when I have been ably assisted by Frolleague Golfy.

To change analogies or mix metaphors it has been, and I hate to use the phrase because I think that most people sound like complete knobs when they say it, "a bit of a Journey".

Here are five words:-

job    can    do    this    I

Looking back from the ridge upon which I current stand they form the phrase "I can do this Job". If I swivel 180 and look forward they reassemble to make the question "Can I do this job?".

So far, so good but I know, because absolutely every Fucker takes pleasure in telling me, that the next and final phase is going to be so much worse that what has been before.