All Over the Place

Saturday started with a clear out of the tools in the Dining Room in preparation for plastering. I then really had to take T&M out for a walk as yesterday's torrential rain meant that we had not had a constitutional. To be honest the weather did not look too promising today either and the heavens opened before we reached the midway point. We all returned home thoroughly soaked.

Back home  and dried off it was time for lunch and then 30% and I took a drive out...

Stop 1 was to see Dave the Stripper and get a progress report on the Dresser Base. It should be completed and returned to us some time next week and after a wander around his workshop it looks like it will be accompanied by a set of 6 dining chairs too*.

Stop 2 was at Sally The Upholsterer's house where we dropped off the curtain material for the Landing, had a good long natter and warmed her up to the idea of reupholstering six Dining Chairs. This went down well and I can see another eBay session to find another hide as each chair will take an estimated 24" square**of leather.

Stop 3 was to see Trish ... Trish is the mum of one of TP's friends and has become a very good friend of ours over the past 5 years. Her husband; Andy works out in the Middle East and has recently started a contract in Qatar. The reason for the visit was that TP will be joining Trish, Nathan and sister; Abby when they visit Qatar for three weeks this Summer and we needed to provide passport details and so forth in order that flights could be booked.

We eventually got home from this marathon shopping/socialising session around six in the evening and whilst 30% made a start on supper I broke out the hot air gun and shave hook for a brief spell of paint stripping.

The evening involved much vegetation on the sofa whilst crimes were committed elsewhere ...

... Tyson was found to have helped herself to the remains of the quiche and TP returned from a party and didn't seem as steady on his feet as he should have been.

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* We also picked up a bed side cabinet but that came home in the car.
** I can also see a good few hours with furniture cleaner and wax polish as they are very grimy.

Ahead of the game

It doesn't require Rocket Scientist intellect to work out that I have had a number of tasks to complete this week, each of which being a "must do" before Andy & Steve arrive to plaster next Monday.

I can now report that these are all completed and A&S are welcome to come and hide my efforts beneath bonding and finish coats. I even managed to find time to hand strip one side of the door and, after sanding, it should look fantastic...

... All I need to do now is pick up my tools and give the room a sweep through.

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Other stuff

I got creative with the bread maker today too. This is a fab machine, that gets used regularly here at The Pile, and the "best of both" wholemeal/white flour loaf is a favourite for toast and sandwiches. Today I noticed a jar of chilli flakes on the worktop and remembered seeing a jar of sun-dried tomatoes too...

... tomato and chilli bread. I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow.

The roof ladder also finally arrived for the Defender today so I'll be out bolting that on once the weather improves. I then stand a chance of being able to reach the roof rack.

Marauder's Bumper Book of Crime. No. 11 in an occasional series.

Much of the Journal's content this week has been reporting the rewiring of the Dining Room. Today's entry is no different as I found myself atop a stepladder reconfiguring the ring main to connect the two sockets I re-sited yesterday. After an hour of making connections and checking and rechecking my work I went to the Switch Box and attempted to turn on the mains ...

... would it switch back on? Would it fuck! For some reason the trip switch would not allow power to be restored. Bollocks! After some head scratching and a lot of swearing I did the sensible thing and called 30%'s Dad. He is a retired electrician, amongst other things, and was quite happy to come over and give me a hand. While waiting for his arrival my annoyance turned to indignation and I started to recheck my work and then isolate each new circuit element in an attempt to find the problem. Within a few minutes I had discovered that the new spur was the problem and, once isolated, power was restored to the house ...

... just as 30%'s Dad arrived at the door.

He joined me in further analysis of the problem spur and noticed that a masonry nail securing the galvanised capping had nicked the cable insulation and was causing an earth leakage from the neutral wire. The location and absence of damage to the copper wire meant that some earth sheathing and insulation tape was an acceptable fix and rewiring the spur was unnecessary... phew.

Whilst this was going on Marauder had decided to find her own entertainment and, once the dust had settled, I wandered in to the lounge and noticed fragments of red plastic on the hearth rug. A quick search of the surrounding areas found the remnants of 30%'s watch ...

Can you fix it?

... oops.

More Elastic Trickery

Work continues to be quiet which means that my rewiring of the Dining Room can continue. I need to have it all finished before next Monday and I am glad that I have been able to make a start before the weekend. Today I managed to install a couple of double sockets that will replace a botched mess* on the wall by the fireplace. These are not yet wired in to the ring main but that will only take an hour or so when I next turn off the supply.

My investigations of the single socket near the door to the garden revealed that I am going to have to mortar in a couple of half bricks before I even think about chasing in a double socket box and re-routing the cables.

I must admit that I quite enjoy this type of work.

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* The ring main had been terminated in a junction box, that had been plastered over, half way down the wall. From that box a spur had been run to a "daisy chain" of two double sockets. The spur cabling had just been plastered over - no protective sheathing. The rectification involved relocating the sockets and restoring the ring main to one of them and establishing the other as a proper spur.

Elastic trickery

Tuesday was another quiet day and this lull gave me the time to nip in to B&Q to pick up a selection of electrical components. It also allowed me an early finish which meant that the switch and cabling for a picture light are now in place...

... and working.

Back at work for a rest ...

As I had hoped, today was quiet and I occupied myself tying up a few loose ends and crossing a few urgent items off a personal "to do" list.

30%'s parents paid a visit in the morning; carried out an electrical survey* of the Dining room and removed a box of eggs** in payment. I subsequently constructed a shopping list of electrical components and followed that up with a wander round the garage where I saved myself a fortune by tracking down 30 metres of 2.5mm cable and a couple of double socket boxes ... I still need to go to B&Q though***.

To be honest the day would have been better as a completely blank page in The Journal if it hadn't been for a wander around the Three Miler with T&M and a chance encounter with a mole near the Church. Firstly let me clarify that I am referring to the velvet furred, tunneling mammal rather than an Agent of espionage here...

... We were walking towards the church yard and I heard a scuffling noise. I looked down to see a mole quite happily rooting around in the leaf litter. He was quite oblivious to us and carried on for several minutes. As these little fellows are rarely seen above ground it was an interesting diversion to watch the mole equivalent of a fish out of water. Needless to say the soggy weather meant that I had left my camera at home.

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* 30%'s Dad
** 30%'s Mum
*** Sad Face :-(

My Shoulders Hurt

Sunday was taken at a slightly more relaxed pace. 30% took TP up to a rugby training session which involved a run in to the town centre to see the Olympic torch relay.* I loitered at home drinking coffee before taking T&M for a walk.

I then made a start on reviewing the state of the wiring in the Dining Room and can report that it is most definitely in need of updating and, in some cases, replacing. 30's Father was called upon to come and give a professional opinion and I will be giving him the guided tour tomorrow.

After lunch it was time for a run around the lawn with the Porn Mower and a short snooze on the sofa. I finished the day with a stripping session in the Dining Room.**

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* I see that TP is about as engaged as I am when he opined that the police escort and entourage was interesting but the Jimmy Saville look-a-like with the big fag lighter was rubbish.
** I made a start on the pine cupboard that utilises the void over the doorway.

Demolition

The skip is on the drive, dust sheets have been laid out in the rest of the house, TP and I are in our scruffiest clothes and are wearing a natty line in dust masks and eye protectors. There will be no more procrastination*. It is time to take down the Dining Room ceiling ...

...and that is how our day was filled; pulling down the Victorian era lath and plaster ceiling chunk by chunk followed by a forensic examination of the joists to remove any remaining nails. There was then a joyful couple of hours loading the debris in to a wheel barrow to be hauled and dumped in the aforementioned skip.

I think it is fair to say that by the end of the day we were both absolutely knackered.

Just as I was clearing up the last of the dust Steve appeared at the door to confirm that he and Andy would be here on the ninth. He was impressed by the state of the room and expressed surprise when he learnt that it had only taken us a day to prepare for the replastering.

Considering the age of this part of the house it is in good condition but a peculiarity of Victorian building techniques was that they would insert random blocks of wood in the inner face of an 8" wall.** There are a good few of these in this room and many of them have suffered the ravages of time. I believe the technical term for this is "rotten as fuck". Fortunately A&S are more than capable of chopping these out and replacing with bricks

All I need to do now is sort out the electrics before Andy & Steve turn up.

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* especially as Andy & Steve are booked in to come and re-plaster on 9th July
** presumably because they were available and less expensive than bricks

I haven't really been busy

I find myself in the latter half of Friday and note that The Journal is looking a little empty ...

... Well Tuesday and Wednesday were filled and I am using "filled" in the loosest sense of the word with preparation for a Client Meeting on Thursday and a series of on-line training / briefing / boring sessions that needed to be completed. I think it fair to say that these were not the most strenuous working days that I have ever encountered.

I finally reached Thursday, crammed myself in to my suit and trundled in to the Nearest Circle of Hell to meet up with the Sales executives that had arranged the client session. I must admit that I was having problems working out what the purpose of the session was and their suggestion that I just "chip in here and there" wasn't exactly clarifying matters either. A little before midday we set out for the meeting which was to be held in one of the slightly more civilised areas of the Black Country*. I must admit that I had a little fun at the expense of the Sales Exec as I had offered him a lift and left it until I opened the rear door of the Defender for him to work out that this was his ride to the Client's Office ...

... to be fair he took it really well.

We reached the Client's offices and were escorted in to a crummy conference room and spent the next three hours walking three fairly junior IT Managers through the basics of setting up an Outsourcing Agreement. I think it is fair to say that they were very naive and at one point appeared to be on the point of moving well in to the category of "shitting themselves". Reading between the lines it looks like their CIO has hired some hot shot Consultant and promised a humungous bonus if he can get rid of a load of cost in the next few months. The aforementioned Consultant is now breathing down the necks of the incumbent IT and Procurement Teams to get the  whole lot done for less.

To be honest the poor devils are floundering and we have offered some assistance to try to get the opportunity shaped so that it would suit us but some of the messages coming at in Thursday's session raised all sorts of alarms. Phrases like "mess for less" and "limited or zero growth" are not very likely to have me champing at the bit to get involved with this one further down the line.

And so I find myself at Friday ... this morning I took a trip down the M5 to sunny drizzly Weston-super-mare to pick up an eBay bargain. Last week I found a full length aluminium roof rack at an unbelievable price in the Global Flea Market. I watched it expecting it to soar in price but it just never happened and I now have a shiny piece of kit bolted to the roof at half the price I expected to pay.

We can now go on holiday without having to drag a Camping Trailer to South Wales.

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* If you have ever visited Tipton, Bilston or Walsall you might agree that Dudley and it's environs could possibly** be described as civilised
** I am using "civilised" in the loosest sense of the word

I hear dead people

I have a cordless 'phone at home. Now if I was typing this in the 1980's I might seem like some sort of early-adopter techno geek but here in 2012 it is an old-hat piece of technology in a world of smart 'phones and a population where a significant proportion no longer have a land line in their home.

OK, so where is this going? Well I have noticed that my cordless 'phone appears to be operating on an FM frequency that is very close to that of Radio 4. I use the 'phone a lot and first noticed it a good while back ... in the background there is a tinny, low level dialogue that is frustratingly just too quiet to identify. It was only when I picked up the unmistakable Archers theme tune one afternoon that I finally realised what the source was. Nowadays I am tuned in to it and can recognise the hourly time signal tones and snippets of voice and music.

Another explanation is that either my 'phone or me is somehow linked in to an alternate universe or plane of being. If that is the case and I am tuned in to the after life then I have gleaned some worry facts. Firstly there does not appear to be a naked Indian, with a gourd on his penis, acting as a Spirit Guide thereby denying me a lucrative career opportunity as a Medium.* The barely audible babble is not to be deciphered by a man wearing ochre and a member** of the Cucurbitaceae. I will not be making a mint by advising distraught relatives that recently departed Mam did want the house to go to Chanel and Tyler rather than let Dad sell it and invest in a dubious scheme involving a sure thing that will get 'em minted.


The other thing that is worrying me is that the after-life appears to be a bit Radio 4. Now I am a huge fan of Radio 4 but if, after shuffling off this mortal coil, I find that my atheist beliefs have been totally wrong and I am in fact to enter a higher plane of being the last thing I think I will need is The Today Programme, Woman's Hour, The Archers and Desert Island Disks. Great though they all are I would be hoping for something a little less terrestrial***

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* The cruel might say that I am most definitely not a Medium
** Did you see what I did there?
*** Some might describe it as the land of milk and honey. Hmm, if that is the case it is going to smell a bit after a few days and the wasps are going to be terrible.

Sunday in brief

There is not a huge amount to report for Sunday; a trip to the feed store was my first activity then I spent a couple of hours applying and polishing a coat of wax on the bannisters. This was my penultimate task on the Landing leaving just the replacement of a couple of stair nosings* before the carpet fitter can do his stuff. The afternoon involved a wander around the Three Miler and then very little else ...

... I see Monday approaching.

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* I have a ceiling to pull down first. These will be sorted in a couple of weeks time

Odds 'n Ends

Saturday started at a very leisurely half past eight, coffee was imbibed, toast was eaten.

The weather forecast suggested the arrival of a huge band of rain later in the day so outdoor activities were dealt with first; T&M were walked around the Three Miler and The Porn Mower was given a run around the lawn ... The Garden now looks quite tidy if you don't look too closely at the beds or in to the shrubs*

I think I may have peaked too early as it was a case of lunch and then most definitely nothing at all before mid afternoon guilt set in and I wandered in to the "to be" Dining Room and got busy with a screw driver. The curtain rails were taken down and the fire back and surround were removed.

Before ...

After

The fire back is long past it's best and a replacement is sat in the garage waiting to be installed once the plaster work and floors have been completed. I took a few minute to play with some image editing software to try to get an impression of how the marriage of Edwardian surround and Victorian back will look and I think it will be a success.

Hopefully something like this ...

After that it was time to get tidied up and out of the door for dinner with the Oranges & Lemons clan ... I'm guessing it will be a late one.

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* its a jungle out there

Musical Chairs

Yesterday I made the statement that "Thursday was the new Friday" and planned to have a very easy day ... it just goes to show that I know nothing. Early in the day The Idiot Manager called to advise that I had been redeployed from my current project and handed me two new pieces of work that I needed to get up to speed with as quickly as possible.

As a result I spent a large chunk of the day chasing people and arranging hand-over and briefing sessions.*

At the end of the day I was most definitely looking forward to the weekend but before that started I was required to run TP up to Nottingham. I therefore had a further 3 hours in the car before I could finally assume the role of Couch Potato#1**

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* and my expenses, and chatting to Tigger, and arranging for a skip, and walking T&M
** For Fucks Sake Apple, why do you deem it unnecessary to have a "Hash Key" on your keyboard? ***
*** I learnt today that it is [Alt] + [3]

Thank God That's Over

Another entry covering two days ... it has been a busy week.

Wednesday should have been filled with me studiously preparing for the client presentation on Thursday. I think it is fair to say that I have been somewhat preoccupied with this meeting as I am not a natural salesman and am being asked to spin the positives of something that currently has less substance than a light mist ... Cloud Bullshitting is a most accurate description.

I seem to have wandered slightly off the point or, perhaps more accurately, I was required to "wander away" as Wednesday was SMS's Father's funeral. Obviously it was a very sad day but he had made marvellous plans and the choice of venue was astounding. His chosen crematorium had a glass wall that meant the congregation sat looking at the coffin and behind was an elevated view over the trees and fields of Redditch's Abbey Park. It was splendid in the afternoon sun and made an initially odd choice make a lot of sense. There was a moment of humour too as he had apparently been interred with a copy of the Stratford Herald carrying his obituary so that he could be sure that he was dead.

A surprise attendee was my elder sister who I haven't spoken to since 2008, and very little prior to that, I think it fair to say that the conversation was stilted at best and I am absolutely certain it will be at a similar occasion that will be the cause of our next meeting too.

After the wake I was back at the desk writing presentation scripts and trying to make the words stick in head. I had rehearsal call with Victor and he seemed reasonably pleased with my spiel adding only a couple of more positive points.

Thursday started very early and I was out of the door by half past six and turning in to the car park of our "pre-meet" venue just after eight thirty. We spent a couple of hours going over last minute changes and making sure we were all "on message" and then it was a short drive over to the Presentation venue.

It all went really well and due to a lingering session on our Architectural Proposals I was asked to rattle through my slides. The consequence was that I did no more than stress they key points and tell Victor to move to the next slide ... It was a great experience and one that I will now feel a lot more comfortable with next time.

The car park, post-match analysis suggested that we had down enough and should expect to be going through to the next round which will be announced towards the end of July.

It was most definitely a case of Thursday being the new Friday as I climbed in to the car for the drive home. I plan to do very little tomorrow on the work front.

Two Days in One

This is the week in which we make our presentation to our prospective client. A result of this is that work is filled with draft after draft of PowerPoint slides with the occasional review of the deck for a little light relief.

There is no way I can make this interesting so I am not going to make an attempt.

A positive aspect of the reviews is that Victor has cut a number of my slides to keep within the time limits. If he carries on like this I will just have to introduce myself then sit there and listen whilst munching my way through the plate of biscuits.

Tuesday was a long day as Victor decided that central London was a convenient location to work from ... a three hour journey each way with at least eight hours of work in the middle ... it might have been convenient for him but a fourteen hour day where almost half of it is spent on packed trains is a long way off my definition of convenient.*

I thought I liked travelling on trains but today's journeys have added a few caveats to that statement. I can now advise that I like travelling on empty trains where I have space to spread my stuff out and alternate between snoozing and viewing the countryside. Today's trains were packed with Commuters and there was hardly space to sit let alone read or balance a laptop on the pathetic excuse for a table that drops from the back of the seat in front.

I'd like to give a special mention to the grumpy man I sat by on the journey home. I may have mentioned that the trains were packed and he was sat in the aisle seat with a vacant window seat next to him. I put on my cheery voice and asked if the seat was free. He looked at me like I had just asked him if he had any naked pictures of his wife and then GRUDGINGLY lifted himself out of his seat so that I could take mine. I thanked him in the same cheery voice and he sat down saying nothing, not a word, not a peep .... miserable sod. I must admit I was half tempted to annoy him further by engaging him in conversation and thought about asking him to join me in a short prayer to our Lord for a safe and speedy journey.

I'd also like to ask why First Great Western have spent a fortune installing aeroplane style television units in to the seat backs. I can see the purpose of these devices when one is 50,000' in the air as there are only so many clouds one can look at before boredom sets in but a British train travels at an altitude of 0' and consequently there is a huge amount of Britain to take a look at and even the worst of that is far better than the viewing options they had kindly selected for my "pleasure"

There is no way I am going to wander down to the Buffet Car and spend a couple of quid on earphones to watch yet another re-run of Top Gear when I can have a huge chunk of rural England displayed for free. I also shudder to think what Mr Grumpy would have done if I needed to get up anyway.

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* to avoid any doubt, I work from home a lot therefore convenient is out of bed, down the stairs across the hall and through the Office door.

Domesticity

This weekend was another two days spent sorting out the house. This may sound like drudgery but it is quite the opposite. We are finally at the point where we have moved from "Building Site" to "Nearly Finished"* and are able to see and enjoy the fruits of our labours.

I spent Saturday morning installing an alarm system in the garage. This seemed to go reasonably well but I must admit that I haven't yet got around to testing it. It makes the right sort of beeps when I arm and disarm it and that is good enough for the moment. Perhaps I will give 30% inaccurate rather vague instructions and let her set it off when she goes out to make a deposit or withdrawal from the freezer.

The reminder of Saturday involved a trip to the supermarket and the deposit of a huge amount of paperbacks at the local Charity Shop ... The de-cluttering continues.

Sunday morning was supposed to see me stood on a Rugby pitch whilst TP trained. This did not happen as neither TP nor 30% stirred from their beds before ten o'clock. I used this gifted couple of hours to rip the last of the CD collection to iTunes and get T&M walked before the Heavens opened.

I also paid a visit to wish BMS a Happy Father's Day and spent an hour or so chatting and drinking coffee with him and SMS.  He has recently inherited a pair of mobility scooters and the first of these has now arrived. I have been recruited to go and pick up the second in a few weeks time and this is one of the reasons for the drive to clear the garage at home ... BMS will need to scale down his power tool collection in order to store the larger of the two scooters** and as a result I will soon be inheriting his Planer Thicknesser.

I wondered how BMS would perceive the need to use a scooter as a consequence of his ageing and can report that he seems to see this in a positive way and is already planning a trip to the local garden centre.

Back at home the clearance of the Dining Room was finally completed and TP and I celebrated by stripping the sagging wallpaper from the walls ...

... next job; removal of the fire surround and then the ceiling will be taken down.

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* That still involves the complete refurbishment of three rooms though
** One is a "portable" model that can be carried in the car. The other is most definitely "roam from home" only.

Adding Value

I spent the day at the nearest Circle of Hell poring over PowerPoint Slides with Victor.

This is about as much fun as it sounds but there were couple of high points in the day; firstly the Facilities People have finally removed the speed bumps from the site roads. This might sound a little pathetic, especially as I drive a Defender, but they were on the large size of huge and necessitate a change down from third to second at each encounter. Previously, by the time I reached the car park, I was fed up with the jarring interruptions, now I can speed around the site terrorising pedestrians and cyclists with no impediment ... Bliss

The second high point was that I finally managed to get Victor to do some very simple sums to estimate the potential scale of the latest project. I have been concerned for some weeks about mixed messages from the Sales Team and, allegedly, the client. The Client didn't want to feel "second division" and the "numbers" being called out by the Sales Guys just didn't match with the scope being presented...

Basically Sales were calling out a reasonable sized catch of Bass but the Client scope was suggesting a record breaking Marlin...

... after presenting Victor with some startling numbers he sharpened his pencil and checked my calculations. After we had managed to re-locate his jaw I watched as he made a few "urgent" calls to his Superiors to ensure common understanding ...

... a point to me, I think.

Sofa So Good ...

On the work front we now have  better view of the lie of the land. Our prospective client has decided that the material crap we carefully assembled chucked together  two weeks ago meets their selection criteria and we have been deemed suitable to turn up and deliver a presentation to them on 21st June...

... at this point I am taking a moment to consider how bad any of our Competitors must have been to not make the cut.

So with this additional detail I now know that our Session will be longer than we originally expected and I will now have ten slides to fabricate and present rather than my original five. I have to admit that I am not looking forward to this at all. I thought that there was a potential "get out" as I have a funeral to attend next week but the dates do not coincide ...

... Bugger!

Away from work Bad Man Senior joined* me for lunch today and we had a great couple of hours catching up with each others news. He is quite happy to potter around and play with the dogs** while I work. He seems to enjoy the change of scenery and pace as SMS still works which means that he often only has Tilly for company during the day. Neither of us had anything of great import to impart but we just enjoyed each other's company and he likes to catch up on our latest home improvements.

On the subject of Home Improvements, yesterday evening we popped over to collect a sofa from a local lady who is a bit of a genius when it comes to reupholstery. This cane backed item had sat in our garage for many years but seemed ideal for the landing. After a bit research we managed to buy an upholstery hide from eBay for less than the price of a square metre of decent Upholstery Fabric and so the sofa is now refinished in a beautiful chestnut coloured leather. It now has pride of place on the Landing and fits perfectly against the wall by the window.

We still need to sort out the curtains

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* When I say "joined" I mean "I picked him up" as he has given up his car and rarely drives nowadays leaving that sort of thing to Step Mum Sue (SMS).
** This involves getting them to sit in a line, staring adoringly while he feeds them morsels of Digestive Biscuits. It is no wonder that his Vet recommends that Tilly looses some weight and that I need to walk T&M for at least three miles most days

Carpe (t) Diem

It is Tuesday and procrastination at work would be very dangerous* so I made a start on throwing some ideas in to a PowerPoint Slide Deck. The creative juices were flowing oozing reasonably well and after half an hour or so I had my first subject outlined. I chucked a copy over to Victor to get some feedback and he seemed quite happy so, with that encouragement, I carried on.

Late in the afternoon I knocked off to receive an expected visitor ...

... Last Sunday 30% persuaded me to take time out and nip over to a nearby village where there was an Oriental Rug Sale. If I'm honest I didn't take much persuading as, over the years, I have picked up a few rugs on my travels in Turkey and holidays in Egypt. We both, however, were somewhat cautious with an expectation of encountering a couple of Shady Geezers flogging machine woven, chemically died, mass produced rugs...

We, in fact encountered, quite the opposite; the Host was an established importer with more than 20 years in the Business who certainly knew his stuff. His Carpets ranged from simple runners to massive, intricate pieces that originally graced the interior of nomadic tents. We wandered around admiring his wares but unfortunately the colourways just weren't what we were looking for. He advised that he only had a small portion of his stock on display and had some local deliveries to make later in the week and asked if he could pop in with some carpets that might be more to our decor.

Today he called in and it is fair to say that both 30% and I were gobsmacked by what he had selected. They were truly beautiful, hand woven pieces that had been produced 30 to 40 years ago. After much stroking and standing back to admire the designs we finally settled on a runner for the bedroom and two other rugs for the Lounge and Dining Room.**

Initially they seemed a little extravagant but after being quoted between £425 and £650 to supply and lay a decent quality stair carpet they actually seem incredibly reasonable. 

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* There is a very real risk that we could be called upon to deliver this Presentation as early as next Monday so we need to have something to waffle in front of.
** Although, being rugs, they can be moved from room to room on a whim

Instead of a title imagine me shrugging ...

Today was a reasonably paced day at work. I had enough to get on with but nothing that needed doing urgently. So I settled down at the desk and made a start; flitting between activities and calls at a leisurely pace. All was going swimmingly until the three o'clock call ...

... After the frenetic activities of the week before last Victor had given me a few days to catch my breath and was now thinking of the next steps. Our prospective new client is a little imprecise on the timelines for this courtship* and there is a fairly strong possibility of us being called in to deliver a presentation at some point during the last two weeks of this month. Let's pause and take stock of that statement ...

... at some point between the 18th and 29th June (that is ten working days) there is a reasonable possibility that an unknown number of employees from Dante's Nine Circles of Hell will be invited to an unknown location ** and be asked to deliver a presentation of an unknown duration on a subject yet to be specified. The more observant amongst you will notice that the word "unknown" appeared a couple of times there. Now I fully understand why Victor wants us to be as prepared as possible and it is a reasonable supposition that our Presentation will be about the range of services we would propose to provide so that has converted one of the "unknowns" to a "probable" but we still don't know when, for how long and how many of us idiots they are prepared to provide tea and biscuits for.

As a result we are knocking up some generic material that can be honed and polished*** once we get our invitation. My problem is that I have been given four slides to draft describing a solution that doesn't exit yet - I kid you not. So far this prospective client has given us some scant information about their operations and asked a huge amount about our capabilities. They have been incredibly light on actual requirements and scope. I am therefore tasked with making some generic nonsense look like I have read their minds and have supreme insight that will solve all their woes...

There is then a reasonable possibility of me having to present and then take questions. Hmmm?

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* Having said that I have seen far, far worse
** Highly likely to be near Basingstoke
*** the polishing sequence goes; 1) Turd, 2) Sow's Ear, 3) Silk Purse ****
**** 1 and 2 are common enough. 3 is as rare as Rocking Horse shit, which interestingly takes us back to 1.