Weekend Round Up

Have you ever had one of those days where you thought that a joint decision had been made to perform a certain activity but actually found out that this had been revised?

Well that accurately sums up Saturday...and yes, apparently  I was bloody informed of it at some vague point in the preceding ten days. Instead of making a serious attempt at finishing the stripping of the wallpaper and woodwork on the Stairs and Landing I found myself stood in freezing cattery for over an hour, talking absolute bollocks with some Nutter of a local who obviously hadn't had what she deemed a decent chat since Christmas. 30% had decided that we had to go out and inspect the aforementioned establishment to make sure that it was suitable to accommodate Noggin & Tog when we go away in February. It was fine as maximum security cat prisons go and they will have a miserable week there but will return pretty much as they arrived apart from hopefully being slightly more pleased to see us than usual. I had worked out that it was fine in about 5 minutes and 30% had arrived at the same decision in similar time frame so why the fuck did I have to stand there freezing my tits off listening to utter drivel for another 60 minutes.

This was followed by a trip over to Bad Man senior's house to collect Step Mum Sue's exercise bike*. There is no such thing as just "popping in" to my Dad's house for 5 minutes and this sortie took another hour and a half. By the time we got home it was most definitely a "late lunch" and we were well in to the afternoon before the dishwasher was stacked ...

... now I know that there was plenty of time to "make a start" on the decoration prep work but I didn't feel inclined to get started only to be forced to pack up a short while later and clear up a load of crap and dust. This is one of those jobs where you really want a full day at it, so I kicked my heels for the remainder of the afternoon sat in front of the 'Mac continuing with the DVD Library Project.

In Summary, Saturday did not live up to my expectations.

Sunday was filled by Rugby in the morning and Dog Clipping in the afternoon. These two activities may have been punctuated by a snooze on the sofa.

Down at the Rugby Club TP had a really good game against some strong opposition and, whilst his team did not win, they put on a very good show and came away with a creditable score. The afternoon saw me feeling absolutely knackered, hence the snooze, and to be honest the dog clipping was done simply to avoid accusations of slothfulness.

All in all this was not one of my most productive 48 hour period but I guess I can't expect every weekend to go according to plan.

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* This contraption is most definitely not for my benefit as the Tree Miler does a reasonable job at slowing** the rate of bad man waist expansion
** note "slowing" rather than "reducing"

So here we are at Friday ...

It has been a few days since I last put virtual pen to virtual paper. The reason for this lack of diaristic output is that I have been expected to work for a living ...

... Bloody Cheek! To be honest it has been a while since I was last busy and by "a while" I mean the beginning of November last year. I lost most of November on "medical absence" due to my hand operation and the only piece of work I was given on my return probably took no more than a total of three or maybe four days effort to complete. So basically, apart from pulling my team together and doing a bit of background reading for the latest project, I have been coasting for a couple of months and it is only in the past week that I have been"back in the saddle".

How has it been? Well most of the cliche's that I would tend to use seem to be related to manual labour. "putting my shoulder to the wheel" and "laying foundations" are a couple. "Drawing lines in the sand" also seems to have been a frequent activity too...

Am I enjoying it? To be honest; "Yes" it is good to be back doing what I am supposed to be doing and seeing that I can actually add value. I have to admit that there are moments where I would like to have the ability to take certain individuals by the throat and squeeze until their lifeless form falls from my grasp to the dirt, but after a few deep breaths and a little lateral thinking I tend to go with a phone call or a carefully worded e-mail and seem to be getting the results that I want.

What have I learnt this week? A couple of things really; firstly, that people who claim to be experts may not know nearly as much as one would expect, and secondly, that when a resource seems to drop off the radar think the worst and escalate.

It is now wine time. The fire is lit and supper is only 30 or 40 minutes away, My in-box contains nothing critical and the weekend is here. The work laptop has been shut down and I'm looking forward to the weekend with a slightly smug feeling of having had quite a good week.

I'd better watch it. We all know that pride comes before a fall ...

... and this latest project has got a LONG way to go yet.

And We're Off .... sort off

Today The Band and I were summoned to a virtual meeting where we were informed that
Dante's Nine Circles of Hell had definitely been selected as a possible Supplier of Musical Entertainment to a new Client. A few competitors and we would shortly* be receiving a set of requirements, against which we can design our Show...

... That was the Good News. The Bad News was that we would be given very little time to design and cost our extravaganza. We have therefore been asked to develop something "vanilla", while we wait, that we can then "build off" once the Client gets it's arse in to gear and decides what they really want. This is a bit like having the band get together in a chilly rehearsal room to put together a set and rehearse the numbers with a strong possibility of the client wanting a completely different set of tunes. For all I know we could be rehearsing classic rock and the Client actually wants US Middle of the Road.**

I therefore spent a good few hours trawling through some archived material trying to clarify the types of tunes our prospective client might like. Even at this early stage it is apparent that certain members of the Band don't like some of the selected tracks. It is also apparent that certain members of the Band are having difficulty reading sheet music and I am already being forced to tell them what the notes are when the lazy fuckers are quite capable of doing it themselves.

Some things never change!

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* Before Christmas it was "it'll be with us by the end of December, 1st week of January at the latest". It is now "Could be the end of this week but more likely the end of the month". Is is just me that is seeing a pattern here?
** Hall & Oates here we come

A Quiet Start to the Week

The title of this entry sums it up.

A call has been scheduled for tomorrow lunchtime to get us all started on the latest project. The simple fact that the Client hasn't given us a brief doesn't seem to be an issue. Part of me can see that it is better to get some work done and tweak it once we have better information but another part can see that this could be an expensive and risky approach.

Away from work, Winter finally seems to have arrived, after a very mild December, and we have had a few frosts this week. These are nothing like the -20 degree Celsius frosts of last year but the ground is hard and white and the weather seems to  excite the dogs. I watched them charge around the lawn like lunatics; leaping, bounding and play fighting.

Imagine what they're like if they miss a walk

The slow day meant that the fire was lit early in the evening and the heat seems to have the exact opposite effect on the animals. Tyson, Marauder, Noggin and Tog are now sprawled over the sofas and rugs soaking in every bit of the warmth. The only non-participant is Eddy. For whatever reason he seems to insist on nipping in and out via the cat flap all evening...

... The only problem with this is that the cat flap is currently locked as N&T are not yet allowed out in the garden. This means that my evenings are interrupted by frequent trips to act as Doorman for Eddy*.

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* "Thanks badman. I'm not sure when I'll be back but be a good chap and wait up for me. It's not as though you have anything important to do and I don't want to be waiting around by the door as it's quite chilly outside"

Coach Incident near M42/M6 Junction

Sunday, like most Sundays during the Rugby season, started about an hour earlier than I would have liked. Actually it is not the start time it is more the fact that I cannot lounge around drinking coffee and get started at a time of my choice but have to abide by a schedule set by the team Coach.

Today we were due to be at a pitch to the North West of Birmingham at ten o'clock sharp. This meant de-icing and climbing in to a chilly car by nine at the latest. Take note of the term "de-icing" as this is important later on.  I also need to point out that I had had checked my iPhone e-mail just before we left to obtain the destination post code for the Sat Nav ...

... Imagine therefore our delight to drive thirty or more miles and sit in a Rugby Club car park for 25 minutes and see no familiar faces. After making enquiries it transpired that the match had been cancelled due to a frozen pitch and it was obvious that whatever means of communicating the cancellation was deployed neither text message, phone call or e-mail was thought necessary.

Taking a glass half full* view, at least we arrived home a couple of hours earlier than if the match had taken place.

This meant that the dogs got walked before lunch and the afternoon was mine to continue the DVD Library project and finally connect up the Apple TV. I can report that this little contraption is a typical Apple device; a piece of cake to install and set up, works beautifully and is a delight to use. It was therefore quite ironic that the day of it's debut was the one day that the TV schedules contained programming that we quite fancied viewing ...

... there is always Monday ...

... and Tuesday, and Wednesday ...

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* unusual for me, I know

Busy Day

Saturday started with a culinary mission. 30% and I spent a few hours converting a couple of pork joints, via a mincer and food processor,  into a large batch of faggots and 6 lbs of Gloucester Sausages.

Whilst this was going on I could periodically hear my laptop beeping as Noggin decided to use the keyboard as a suitable place to sun himself. Sausage meat encrusted hands and a token nod in the direction of food prep hygiene meant that this was ignored and the beeping seemed to subside quite quickly as he either settled or moved on. The cooking came to a close and after tidying the kitchen we sat down to lunch and this is when I learnt two things....

1) always close your laptop lid when leaving it unattended, and
2) just how intricate the tiny, interconnected plastic and metal components are that sit beneath the [Del] and [Return] keys on a laptop keyboard...

... I then spent an infuriating 20 minutes with tweezers, supplementary illumination and a sketch of my findings beneath the [PgDn] key before I got the damned thing back together*.

30% thoughtfully pointed out that it might be a good idea to put the machine away in future. This "I told you so" received it's just deserts a few moments later when I heard her admonishing Tyson for helping herself to a couple of faggots left, in Tyson's and my opinion, way too close to the edge of the worktop.

The day continued with a walk around the Three Miler and a trip in to Worcester to pick up a couple of HDMI cables for the Apple TV. Whilst I was mooching around Maplins, 30% had wandered in to a nearby Home Furnishing store for a browse and I joined her once I had picked myself up off the floor after recovering from the the shock of the price of HDMI components ...

... and so we found ourselves wandering around aisles of cushions, glasses and mirrors and then we saw it nestling amongst a collection of rugs. It screamed "IMPULSE BUY" and now we are the owners of a Blue Wildebeest hide. Sometimes you just have to go with a gut instinct and work out where it can go in the house at a later date. I think it fair to say that the hide most definitely falls in to this category but it looks fantastic and we have plenty of floor and wall space to fill in The Pile.

Having completed our shopping trip it was time to wend our way over to Trish's house for a splendid Dinner and then a return home at a civilised hour...

... Oh, and I nearly forgot; we had our first egg of the year today. One of the Minorcas has finally got with the programme.

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* This Desk Side Support visit was accompanied by a constant stream of expletives and invective questioning Noggin's parentage and proposing an entirely suitable number of options for bringing his life to  an early and painful end.

When?

The fragmentary and contradictory information coming from my US colleagues about the start, and more worryingly the end, date of my next project is becoming very frustrating.

Today I saw one e-mail saying we would have a clear steer on what we were to do towards the end of next week. Another said that it might be the back end of the month before the Client decides on the scope of our work. That second mail then went on to say that we would start work anyway without a clear idea of what we were doing*...

... I see a "fun" few weeks ahead of me and the deferred start date could mean that the work reaches its conclusion, or at least reaches a critical point  in the week that 30% and I have booked away in a cottage on the Gower Peninsula. To complicate matters further the colleague who is riding shotgun with me also has that week booked off. I see an interesting chat with the Idiot Manager ahead to wander around the edges of this resourcing issue without ever reaching a satisfactory conciliation or actually any conclusion at all.

Away from/during work the video library project continues and I now have more than 70 titles ripped to the 1TB drive. As I glance across at the shelves behind me there still seems to be an awful lot of titles still to be done. The plans for the weekend include a trip out to pick up a couple of HDMI cables and an HDMI switch unit and it will be time to explore the debris that has accumulated under the unit that houses the various satellite receivers and audio/video paraphernalia...

... I am expecting dust, at least one discarded dog chew and the odd tennis ball**. I am hoping that this is technology that requires only one expedition in to these dark and dusty realms.

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* Nothing new there then.
** Before you adopt the look of intense distaste, are you sure that it is spotless and pristine behind your telly? If so, can you let me have your cleaner's 'phone number.

School Report

On the work front I need to do little more than reference Tuesday's Journal Entry. Today was very much more of the same.

On the home front TP had the first of his GCSE Science examinations today and came home reporting that all went well. He had also been given the results from his first Maths paper where he got an A and his recent English mock exam where an A* was awarded. We are all delighted, although 30% was somewhat miffed as this display of swottery means that he was excused the regular dressing down for his equally regular failure to empty the dishwasher and recycling bin.

40 miles for 5 minutes

Wednesday saw yet another trip in to the nearest Circle of Hell. On this occasion I had been summoned by my second line manager for an update on the latest project. To be honest she is a pretty good Boss and was incredibly supportive on my last project, so it was no big deal to drive in to work and spend a few minutes giving her a heads up on where we were and what was likely to be in store. She made the trip doubly worth it when she said she would look in to a minor resourcing issue that had presented itself in the last 24 hours.

To be honest, today was pretty much a repeat of Monday with plenty of frolleagues in attendance and the consequential piss-taking that results...

... Amazing fact of the day is that Granddad Jack's wife has so much confidence in his ability to master the piano that she felt it necessary to give him only three lessons as his Christmas present, the unspoken assumption being that this is all that is necessary for him to achieve a professional level of competency. We all therefore expect him to be capable of a recital at some point around the beginning of February*.

Quote of the day came up in a chat with Jack about the appraisal system and whether one's rating should be viewed with optimism or pessimism, I decided that I am currently erring between "glass half full" and "drained poison chalice"!

I am still in a "holding pattern" and took the opportunity, presented by the ongoing delay in my project, to nip home shortly after lunch and walk T&M in the late afternoon rather than the dark.

I continue to digitise the family DVD library and am hoping that the ease of access presented by an Apple TV will actually encourage us to watch a few films rather than the tripe that the TV Schedulers seem to be offering at present. I am aware that easy access means that we will no longer need to stand bent at the waist with one's head tilted to an extreme angle to read the titles but am concerned that having me, 30% and TP offering suggestions for an evening's viewing will result in conflict rather than consensus...

... it is an old adage that a man can walk in to a DVD rental outlet** make a decision on a film and walk out in about 5 minutes. His wife can walk in and do the same, but if they both go in together and attempt to find a film that suits them both it takes and hour and they walk out with a film that neither of them want to see. They spend the rest of the evening blaming their partner for the shitty film and only an experienced marriage guidance councillor can actually save the relationship.

I'm starting to have second thoughts.

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* I have never attempted to play the piano but understand that Mozart had it pretty much mastered by the age of 6 so I see no reason why Jack, who has at least 54 years on Wolfgang Amadeus, can't achieve Concert Pianist standard in the next few weeks.
** I originally typed "video shop" and then realised a) this was seriously outdated and b) none under the age of 20 would have clue what I meant. The sad thing is that I can remember the first Video shop opening in our local town when I was 17 or 18 years old.

A Ripping Day

I think I may have mentioned that I am currently sat in a "holding pattern" waiting for my next project to kick-off. There is only so much "getting your ducks in a row" that a man can take before the Cliche Police burst in through the door and I "accidentally fall down the station steps get a damned good kicking".

I therefore spent a good chunk of today perambulating between my work laptop, where I checked for "significant e-mails", and the iMac. I am in the process of ripping a large number of DVDs to an MP4 format as another of my Christmas presents was an Apple TV and this is of little value without a media library to support it. The Mac was therefore doing an admirable job of turning the family DVD library in to a neat little directory of files on the external 1TB Drive.

Golfy had suggested a couple of applications to download to deliver a polished product and these are now ripping and embedding meta data like there is no tomorrow.

40 miles for 20 minutes

Today I had planned  a trip in to the nearest Circle of Hell for my appraisal meeting. Normally I would be on  the way in at around eight in the morning but I was not exactly busy and didn't want to spend all day in a sterile Office kicking my heels. My plan was to spend the morning at home and then wander in at some point in the afternoon. This seemed like a great idea apart from the fact that I was sharing the "home office" with 30% and T&M.

30% seemed to be spending a lot of time explaining processes   v-e-r-y   s-l-o-w-l-y  and in very precise English to colleagues in India and T&M had decided that today was a great day to practise their barking ...

... at a little after nine o'clock I discovered that Golfy was also in the Office and this was the clincher. I had a quick shave and bundled my laptop in to it's bag. I was soon on the road and heading in to work rather than endure the mayhem at home.

Dante's nearest Circle of Hell was actually quite good fun as I bumped in to many colleagues during the day and seemed to spend much of my time chatting and  "pressing the flesh".

The working day ended with a wander over to a nearby, and newly opened, hotel to try out it's bar before trundling back home ...

... oh, and the Appraisal Meeting ... Can't Complain.

Weekend Round Up

Saturday started at a very leisurely pace for 30% and me but not so for TP, whose failure to set an alarm only left him 40 minutes to get his arse out of bed and be at the bus stop to meet up with his friends for an outing to Worcester.

We drank coffee and watched as he scurried round. It is nice to know that he does actually have a sense of urgency but it is unfortunate that this rarely aligns itself with our scheduling! Having bade farewell to TP we had a leisurely breakfast and headed in to town for a traipse around the supermarket. I wouldn't normally document such a mundane activity* but on this trip to Sainsbury's I wandered down the "Reduced" aisle and a new keyboard and a 1TB External Disk Drive found their way in to the trolley. The former is for my work machine as I am not a fan of laptop keyboards, the latter was to be connected to the iMac and will provide the infrastructure for a video media library.

The afternoon involved the usual round of dog walking and domestic duties and I'll make no further mention as this tale of domestic tedium is reaching levels where those of a sensitive disposition may be at risk.

Sunday continued in a similar vein; a trip to the Rugby club for TP to train, an enjoyable but muddy walk around the woods and fields by the club and an afternoon spent working out how to convert an extensive library of DVDs to MP4 files on the aforementioned new external drive.

The narrative may suggest something to the contrary but it was a great weekend.

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* actually, reading through some Journal entries, I believe I have noted far more boring things than this

Calm before the Storm

It is Friday and the end of the first week of the year. To be fair it has been far less frenetic than it could have been due to a delay in the start of my latest project but a call on Friday morning indicated that this was truly the calm before the storm.  As Fred Astaire put it so perfectly "There may be trouble ahead"!

As for Friday, I finished my input in to the spreadsheet from Hell and then send it on to the next unlucky recipient*.

I was pretty much finished by lunchtime and the afternoon involved nothing more arduous than a walk with T&M...

... oh, and a stroll out to the garage and log pile for kindling and err logs.

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* Think pass the parcel with horrific forfeits and absolutely no chance of winning the prize

Work 'n Play

I have spent all of my working day cutting, pasting, re-calculating and re-formatting data ...

... Kill me now!

By five o'clock I had lost the will to live so I shut down the laptop, lit the fire and warmed my bones for an hour. By the time 30% arrived home I had recovered a modicum of enthusiasm and set to slicing the bacon that I finished curing earlier in the week. This meant that I also had an excuse to play with the vacuum packer that was a Christmas gift from 30%'s Mum and Dad.

I just need a label printer now

This was the trial of the new cure recipe that contains star anise and needless to say a rasher got thrown in the pan for the necessary taste test. I can report that it works very well. The bacon has a sweet and spicy note to it's flavour and one of the four packs is most definitely not going to make it to the freezer.

The loin produced just under 3 lbs of bacon (about 36 rashers). I haven't the foggiest what it cost but would guess that it was in the region of £8 - £9. This give me cost of £3 per lb for the bacon which seems to compare very well with current supermarket prices.

What is the definition of futility?

After a very easy Tuesday I started on what was to become a very tedious Wednesday. Initially I thought that I was going to have another quiet day but things changed after a call with a couple of pen pushers ...

... I now have to spend the remainder of my week extracting data from a series of spreadsheets, reformat it and and then paste it in to another spreadsheet. A colleague and I were repeatedly advised that this was a mandated process and there was a considerable amount of name dropping* when the discussion reached the subject of completion dates blah, blah, blah, blah.

It will not take a rocket scientist/brain surgeon/chimp scratching it's arse to realise that this electronic equivalent of form filling is not my favourite job as it's purpose is not clearly defined and it's value is easily questioned...

... let me give you an analogy in an attempt to explain the non relevance of this stupid bloody task...

... Imagine an Explorer stood on the coast of a newly discovered land. He arrived there by the usual route; heard a fascinating story from a drunk in a pub, researched the roots of this tale, combined this with a desire to see native ladies, who are renowned for having bare bosoms,  and decided to seek funding for a voyage of exploration.

So now we find him stood on a white sand beach with a huge pile of boxes wondering a) where the matches are and, more importantly, b) where the native ladies are...

... we now leap many months forward in time. Our Explorer Chap has recruited porters, seen more bare breasts than you can shake a stick at, and has trudged hundreds of miles through almost impenetrable jungle. He has shot anything that came in to sight, has endured scorching heat and frightful diseases and, on more than one occasion, wondered whether it was actually necessary to bring a pianoforte on this journey.

All of this was in the spirit of exploration and our breast obsessed Explorer eventually returns home with a huge collection of exotic biological and ethnographic samples. He has sufficient tales to  dine out on for the rest of his days** and last but not least A MAP.

Now imagine him returning to his Patron to be confronted by a couple of lackeys that have no interest in any of these discoveries and instead ask him to re-write and re-format his original exploration grant application.

Is it me?

I suppose I should point out that this analogy is not perfect but it is close enough. The truth of the matter is that I have been asked to present a set of costs as they were on the date of a particular review. This presentation takes no account of a series of major subsequent events that mean that this is no longer relevant...

... However, it is easier to tell my Dick of a Manager that I have been doing this rather than "playing with my iMac"

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* The same names that depend on me doing my proper day job to a) justify their existence and, more importantly b) be successful at it so they actually get a salary
** although some of them will need to be cleaned up for mixed company

A close inspection of the grindstone

It was a major relief to find that the first day back at work after the Christmas/New Year break was incredibly quiet. I am about to start a new project and had been forewarned that I might have to hit the ground running today.  It was therefore a complete delight to find my in-box filled with promotional e-mails from Amazon, eBay and many other Internet based retailers but nothing significant from my colleagues in The States...

... I therefore spent a few minutes filling my trash folder with the aforementioned "promotionals" and wondered what the hell I could do to fill the remainder of my day.

To kill some time I removed the flitch of back bacon from the fridge, washed off the dry cure and soaked it for an hour before wrapping it and hanging it in the kitchen. I had started this cure a couple of days after Christmas and am intrigued to see whether the star anise makes a difference to the flavour of the bacon. I suspect it will be sliced and taste tested before the week is out.

Back in front of the laptop I discovered that the only conference call of the day had been cancelled and hence my working day was to comprise nothing more than shuffling a few e-mails.

Away from work I took T&M for a VERY BLUSTERY walk. Over the past few days I have been using a whistle to attract their attention before giving them a command. The reason for this new approach is because they seem to be somewhat desensitised to verbal commands. This is probably down to the fact that we all prattle on to them like they are members of the family and hence they now ignore everything we say*. The whistle has caused a complete transformation. I have been using it in conjunction with edible rewards and the dogs now come charging back to me after a single blast. It is still early days and I have yet to use it to recall them from playing with another dog but it seems to have potential...

... watch this space.

I also managed to move my i-Tunes library from my work laptop to the iMac. After a bit of faffing the two devices talk to each other as nature intended and my laptop now has far less baggage cluttering up it's drives. I should probably point out that the "faffing" is down to my lack of familiarity with iTunes and Mac OS X rather than the machine.

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* just like teenagers really

Who changed the rules?

Apparently it is no longer the "done thing" to have a G&T at eleven and a glass of wine with lunch.

It was "de rigeur" yesterday but today it is a key indicator of impending alcoholism!

The Festivities draw to a close

New Years Day started a little before 9 o'clock with 30% presenting me with a cup of coffee in bed. This is a most unusual occurrence as she is not, by nature, an early riser*. After that splendid start to the day it was time to get a wriggle on as we had guests for lunch. I thoughtfully left 30% to the kitchen type stuff and got T&M out on their leads for a traipse around the Three Miler.

Now this might seem a little selfish but there was concurrence on this approach. By walking T&M early they would be a) tired and therefore far less boisterous on the arrival of our guests and b) it meant that neither of us would need to stir after munching our way through a splendid Sunday/New Years Day roast lunch to walk the little sods.

Lunch was lovely. We were joined by Trish and Andy who are the parents of one of TP's school friends; Nathan. It was Trish and Nathan who we accompanied to Twickenham back in November to see Australia destroy the Barbarians.  Andy is more often to be seen project managing air-conditioning installations in Dubai but was home for Christmas and it was great to see him after nearly two years.

Nathan had joined us here at The Pile for New Years Eve which meant that TP had company and 30% and I could slump on the sofa and do little more than occasionally provide the boys with food and soft drinks.

Having read this entry I agree that it is a complete and utter temporal mess but I cannot be arsed to re-write it. Basically Nathan came for a sleep over yesterday and Trish and Andy joined us today for lunch. If it's not clear now it never will be.

If I mention the stuff about Trish borrowing the car for an airport run because hers is too small it just gets even more complicated so I'm not even going to mention that ...

Oh Shit I did, Hmmm, I'll just gloss over that and hope nobody notices that...

... needless to say we had a lovely start to the new year with proper friends. We ate good food and the company could not be bettered. I only hope the year continues in the same vein.

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* as understatements go this is one of monumental proportions; think along the lines of thousands of slaves dragging huge stone blocks up ramps in a desert to get some idea of the scale of this understatement**
**then multiply by 6.34

Air Dried Ham; Day 21

So I find myself at the end of 2011; if you are expecting a neat summary of my achievements over the past year you are about to be disappointed. That would defeat the aim of keeping a Journal. If you want to know how the year panned out for me check the preceding pages.

The day started with an early wander around the Three Miler with T&M. I really owed them a walk as a combination of atrocious weather and a trip in to town meant that no walk had happened yesterday. The Christmas/New Year walkers were out in their hordes this morning and I counted more than a dozen of them. I have had a minor rant about them on previous occasions so I'll not bother with that today other than to make the observation that their numbers are expected to decline significantly in the next 48 hours and by the end of next week it will just be the usual miscreants out in the lanes.

After lunch it was time to excavate the leg of pork that I had been salting in the garage in preparation to make an air dried ham.

The leg weighed 6 kilos (a tad over 13 lbs) when it was placed in the salt on 9th December. After 21 days it now weighs 4.77 kg (10 lb 9 oz) so the salting appears to have reduced the weight by approximately 20%.

 After a thorough rinsing in cold water the leg is patted dry and then given a good wash in white wine vinegar.

It is then dried, wrapped in a double layer of muslin and then hung out in the garage for the next 6 months. All being well I should have a fine Prosciutto type ham towards the end of May 2012.

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Other Stuff: 

TP returned home today after a few days away with his Mum, Bro and Sis down at Grandma's. 

On an entirely unconnected matter; 30% let Noggin & Tog have their first experience of outside today. Noggin nearly caused 30% to have a fit of the vapours when he headed straight for the main road. Tog, on the other hand, was far more cautious and took a long look around before a careful exploration of the patio. Having completed one circuit he re-entered the house with the look of a cat that thought the garden had not quite lived up to his expectations...

... perhaps he will change his mind when he discovers mice, shrews, voles and LBBs*.

On a slightly connected matter the Christmas Tree was taken to the local recycling point after achieving a world record three and one half day residence as a piece of living room installation art before cat attacks caused it to be deconstructed and placed in the garden. I think it says something that I liked it upright with baubles and lights intact whilst N&T preferred it sprawled across the floor with it's trimmings strewn across the room...

... We have a little under 12 months to rectify these artistic differences.

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* Little Brown Birds

An Apple (a) day

Wednesday involved a trip over to Bad Man senior's to provide Step Mum Sue with what is know in the trade as a desk side visit. We had bought them a Kindle e-reader for Christmas and she wanted a little guidance on downloading books via the USB cable*. Having "closed that ticket" we took a brief trip in to Worcester before returning home for lunch and the daily walk.

The afternoon finally saw my new i-Mac removed from it's box and set up. It is a thing of beauty and after the painful tedium and irritating frustration of a Windows PC it is an absolute delight to use. It will take me a while to familiarise myself with the interface but so far it seems very intuitive...

... and as for the screen, it is huge and the image quality is amazing

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* There are two things to note here; 1) "Senior's" home is not a wifi hotspot and 2) "Senior's" approach to computing is based around a very sophisticated voice interface ...

... "Sue, can you Google this for me, Sue can you print that off for me, Where is that photo we took on holiday? etc etc".