Better the Devil you know?

I had another quiet day at work as I could see little point in starting anything* as I have the next two days booked as holiday. Note the use of italics for the word "holiday" as I plan to finish sanding the dining room floor, clean up the dust and apply the first coat of liquid wax. There is very little mention of country walks, shopping or settling down in front of a roaring fire with a glass of red wine and a good book, as one might more normally expect of a British January mini-break.

As I mentioned on Monday, we are in the midst of a cold spell and there was another hard frost overnight. It is icy out but it has brought a firm crust to the sodden ground and I was able to take the dogs up in to the fields for the first time in many weeks. I also managed to complete the walk without falling flat on my arse like I did yesterday.

Back at the desk I whiled away the hours until I could set my out of office and dialled in to IM's weekly team call. It was the usual village pump chat with urgent messages and instructions followed by a round the table of who is doing what. At the end of the call IM advised us that he was moving on to pastures new** and that he was to be replaced by, perhaps, the less than Artful Dodger.

Golfy pinged me immediately to say "Yay, maybe?" and I thought about this. IM  did not make a great start as our team manager and his first broadcasts within minutes of starting were patronising and insensitive. He is very much an analytical person with no knowledge of the work his team perform and a manner that makes him difficult to get to know. As a result many members of the team, myself included, have found it very hard to form any great bond with him and more importantly develop any great degree of trust or respect...

... BUT, I realised very early on that he wore the Manager's hat*** and it really was a case of his way or no way. As a result I have bitten my tongue and played the game according to the rules he has set down and have done well. I will admit that I have had some good luck along the way but fundamentally this prickly, insensitive stickler has given me the best performance ratings I have ever had and has sponsored me through the promotion process. It would be churlish of me to say anything other than he has been alright with me.****

Now, what of the Artful Dodger? I have known him for a couple of years as he has a role in assigning Subject Matter Idiots to my teams. He is a likeable sort of chap who has a much greater understanding of what I do and seems to value and respect my skills. But, will he be better than IM? That remains to be seen. My recent promotion means that I now swim in a different "pool" and have needs for different guidance and mentoring if I am to keep my chin out of the shit that Dante's regularly forces us to stand in.

So is this a case of "Yay, maybe?"

I'm not so sure.

---

* it is not as if there is anything much to start!
** He is not going  that far and will still be found hanging from the  petticoats of my second line manager.
*** If I had ever found it I would have definitely pooed in it.
**** That is not to say that he has managed to fuck me off on a regular basis and has frequently left me to sort out crap that really was his to resolve. I suppose that showing that I could put up with that sort of crap might be why he rated me.

I wasn't expecting that ...

... If I am totally honest a combination of a complete lack of urgent work, a lack of enthusiasm for on-line training and two days scheduled holiday at the end of this week mean that I am having problems getting my arse in to gear on the work front.

Today I needed to get myself in to the nearest circle of hell for my appraisal meeting with IM. Instead of spending a full day in an office environment, that is not very conducive to completion of training courses, I spent the morning at home and took T&M out for a walk. There had been a hard frost overnight and stretches of the Three Miler were covered in sheet ice as a result of the near constant run-off from the fields. As I picked my way along the slippery lanes warnings were exchanged with the few people I met and I took care in the worst areas. Even the dogs went skittering across the road in a few places and tended to charge along the verges where the grip was better. As I passed the half way point and headed back in to the village I suddenly lost my footing and went from vertical to horizontal in the blink of an eye. One minute I was walking along the road, the next I was flat on my back, looking skyward. I hauled myself upright and there was no damage done although I contemplated the fact that I could have easily cracked my skull in many of the alternate universes I might inhabit.*

Back at home I got my act together, tidied myself up and headed in to the Office. The appraisal meeting was of the traditional format; how was 2012 for you? what went well? what didn't go well? what do you plan to do as you move in 2013? blah, blah, blah. I think when you have sat in a few of these you get a little bored with the foreplay and really are only interested in the money shot. It might seem strange to use sex as a metaphor for an appraisal meeting but fundamentally that is what it is ...

... a series of manoeuvrings to get both parties in the right frame of mind and then the delivery of the assessment which will hopefully leave both parties satisfied - in that one will get slightly less than what they want** and the other didn't get berated or physically abused for getting it totally wrong.

Everyone goes into these meetings with an expectation of their appraisal score. These expectations can range from delusional to overly cynical. I must admit that, after working for Dante's for more than twelve years, I tend to sit slump at the overly cynical end of the spectrum and not have any great expectations. Eventually the thirty minute point came and it was time for IM to justify his existence by giving me the number we had been dancing around for the last half hour...

... from my perspective the year had been reasonable. I had had successes rather than wins, had managed to justify a promotion and hadn't fucked anything up. Fundamentally, I thought that I had done alright and might get a slightly better than average score. I was therefore lost for words when IM delivered his final score.

Looks like I might get another pay rise this year.

---

* most of these are very similar to this one although in some of the more peculiar ones 30% is a lot calmer and Marauder can talk!
** but enough that they don't make a complete fuss

Togetherness

An inch of wet snow meant that I had the pleasure of working alongside 30% at home today...

... Bless Her, she may be incredibly good at identifying risks but I think that she really needs to work on her impact analysis as the roads were clear and traffic was flowing freely. However her argument was that she didn't need to go in to the office and consequently was not going to go in. That argument is probably valid for at least 50% of her time but she has only pulled it out because there is an inch of rapidly thawing snow on the ground. Ho hum!

The net result is that I have listened to several halves of conversations as she has busily progressed through her day. I'm not sure which are worse; the ones about circuit decommissioning, about which I know nothing, or the personal chatty ones, where she recounts our comings and goings and I get to spot the exaggerations and omissions. Either way it is not an environment that is conducive to me getting my head down and concentrating on Leadership training modules so in the end I give up and take the dogs around the Three Miler.*

As I left the house the snow had turned to a cold rain and there was little left on the ground by the time I returned home and took lunch.

The afternoon was much like the morning and I alternated between work and sanding the dining room floor to fill my time until I could stop and light the fire.

Tomorrow I get to meet up with IM at the nearest Circle of Hell and see what my performance appraisal was for last year.

---

* I love her dearly but I am so used to working in silence that I find her work conversations incredibly distracting.

I can take it easy tomorrow

Sunday morning was much more intense than I would prefer ...

... 30% had spent the night in Hereford which meant that I was responsible for a range of activities that are more normally handled with a divide and conquer approach. As a result I was out of bed shortly after seven and by 8:15 I was leaving the house to take T&M for a walk. This ensured that I was back home in time to take TP over to the Rugby Club for the ten o'clock pre-match warm up session. I then drove home for a much needed coffee before returning to the club for the eleven o'clock kick-off.

It was a cold but sunny morning so I grabbed my camera and took it out for it's first real outing with the intention of taking a few shots of the match. The bitter cold meant that I was not as keen to take pictures as I would normally be and, to be honest, would rather have had my hands stuffed in my pockets or wrapped around a hot cup of coffee. For most of the match I had no feeling in my shutter button finger but managed a few half decent snaps ...

"Half Decent" described the team's performance too. They lost but could have so easily won with a little more effort and coordination.

After the match it was home for lunch and 30% made an appearance a little after two o'clock. She recounted tales of a Tapas evening with folk/rock entertainment and it sounds like She and Pinky had a fabulous time. After catching up on her news we popped over to local Furniture retailer as we have finally admitted that our memory foam mattress seems to have developed Alzheimer's and it is definitely time for a new one.

As the afternoon faded in to the evening I dragged myself away from the fire and had an experimental session sanding the dining room floor. All went well and it should need no more than a day to complete it.

All being well I should get the first coat of liquid wax on by the end of the week.

Another productive Saturday

Saturday started later than usual, as I had had a late night due to the need to collect TP from a party somewhere in the wilds of South West Worcestershire.

There was a cold wind and the odd flake of snow in the rain that was falling as I let the chickens out. At least they are laying now and my early morning trudge in to a soggy garden has a small reward in the shape of an egg or two.

After a couple of cups of coffee and breakfast I made a start in the dining room and 30% pitched in to help finish off the skirting boards, door frames and architraves. By lunchtime we had just about finished and had swept up the worst of the dust. There is only the floor left to do now and Steve and Andy have been booked to come and paint in three weeks time.

After lunch I took down the loin join that I had cured and set about slicing it before vacuum packing the rashers and freezing it. It was then time for a brisk walk around the Three Miler with T&M. I arrived back just as 30% was about to leave for a "girly night" in Hereford with her friend ; Pinky. I'm not quite sure what they are actually up to but have a vague recollection of some mention of seeing a band or something? No doubt both of them will drink more than is wise and 30% will return later than she expects to.

My final task of the day was a trip in to Screwfix for sanding and electrical sundries and I am now hurriedly trying to finish this entry as there is a fire lit in the lounge and I am desperate to spend a few minutes in front of it before I make a start on supper.

The weekend cometh

Thursday and Friday blurred together in to a period of wading through training material interspersed with sanding the woodwork in the dining room ...

... both tasks are going quite well but neither of them are particularly enjoyable and neither is particularly straight forward. I suppose there is some peculiar analogy that could be made between decoration and career development where time spent on preparation is key and only that leads to satisfactory results.

There is, however, only so much of this that I can take and I have decided to take a couple of days off work at the end of next week. My plan is to use that time to finish the sanding of the dining room floor and get the room swept up and vacuumed. That will leave me the following weekend to get the floor sealed with a liquid wax.

There is little else to report; the chickens' output is increasing and we now have one of the Marans, two Barnevelders and two Araucanas laying resulting in a steady trickle of three eggs every day. I think that we will be pickling before the end of the week and that 30% and TP will be taking egg sandwiches for their packed lunches. I also saw the first lambs of the year when I walked T&M on Friday.  A set of twins were seen gamboling in a field on the three miler but I must admit that poor little devils didn't pick the best week to make their entry in to this world as the weather is now starting to turn quite cold and pessimistic forecasters are mentioning snow...

... I'll believe it when I see it.

Splatted

It was another quiet day and I alternated between sanding and training.

The one thing that stood out today was the peculiar item of road kill that I encountered whilst I was walking T&M ...

... early in the walk I pass the Church before I wander down the bank and out of the village. As I was passing The Old Vicarage I noticed a tiny and strange looking splat on  the road. I paused to inspect the corpse and realised that I was looking at the remnants of a newt that had not stood up well to the pressure and grip imparted by a modern radial tyre.

I contemplated this little corpse for a few minutes and was surprised that an amphibian would be out and about at this time of year. A quick search of the internet suggest that newts normally emerge from hibernation in February or March when conditions are moist and the temperature rises above 0 degrees centigrade. I am guessing this little fellow was active as a result of the incredibly wet and mild weather we have been having.

Oh, I forgot ...

... I cut the Christmas Tree in to pieces and dropped it off at the nearest recycling point and took a circular route back home taking in the lamp shop where I collected the ceiling light for the dining room,

Stuff ...

The chickens laid two eggs today and I managed to complete one on-line training course ...

... the jury is still out on which of us was the more productive!

I do however now know two things; one, that we will soon be flooded with a multitude of pullet eggs and rapidly need a plan to deal with them* and two, that my Management issued Performance goals are very badly written.**

Away from work I persevered with the sanding of the woodwork in the dining room and have got to grips with the architrave around the doors. The plan is to leave this as stripped and waxed wood which means that over a century of paint needs to be totally removed. A hot air gun took the worst of this off months back but it is now a long, hard slog with abrasive paper and various profiled sanding blocks to remove the residues from the mouldings.***

---

* pullet eggs are very small and with a dozen hens we could get as many as ten a day once they all come in to lay. As the egg size increased we can sell the surplus but not many people want to buy small eggs. I am guessing that I will be pickling eggs very soon.
** today's course required me to review my Performance objectives against a set of drafting guidelines for goals. My conclusion was that they all clearly demonstrated the signs one would expect of goals provided by a senior manager in that they demonstrated wide scope for interpretation and were very difficult to pin down when it came to assessing performance against them ... is it any wonder I am so disillusioned with Dante's appraisal system.
*** bad man's tip of the day: sections of bamboo garden canes are great as a sanding block for concave, curved profiles

Are either of us learning anything?

After three days of faffing about last week I really needed to apply myself and  be able to present some demonstrable output while I am waiting for my next assignment. I therefore applied myself to a programme of training that I had been enrolled for and had failed miserably to progress over the past three months.

As is typical at Dante's, this is on-line, self scheduled training and I have over thirty courses to get through. As is slightly less typical, a feature of this programme is a monthly e-mail to me and IM telling both of us how much I have failed to achieve. It is time to get that issue rectified.

For most of today I have knuckled down and completed the first two elements of this Leadership Programme and it hasn't been too bad. I have to keep a Training Diary where I record notes and the outputs from the various exercises I have to complete. It is a chore but I have to say that it does ensure that at least some of the content actually sinks in. This is unlike a lot of "education" at Dante's which tends to be presented in a patronising slide show plus voice-over format followed by a multiple choice test where one is allowed unlimited attempts to achieve the required score.*

Away from work there was not a huge amount to note; the dogs got walked and I made small progress in the Dining Room. There is also a high probability of home grown bacon and eggs as one of the Barnevelders laid a beautiful brown egg today and I removed the loin of bacon from the cure, soaked it and hung it in the kitchen while I contemplate whether to smoke it or rub it with black treacle. ** I also had a couple of conversations with TP about the need for balance between personal and school life ...

... I use the word conversations but they were very one sided.

---

* All one learns is that you write down the answers at the first attempt at the test and, should it be necessary, these allow you to pass with an acceptable mark at the second attempt.
** or just slice it and eat it.

... or not, as the case may be.

Yesterday's Journal entry was entitled Mistakes and learning from them and this is a follow on from that piece. It will not take a genius level IQ to determine that, despite his abject apologies, TP is still being led by his hormones and his electrochemical systems have yet to catch up.

But before I get to that I will set down a quick recount of today's activities. The morning started with the first trip of the year over to the Rugby Club to deliver TP for a training session. 30% and I then nipped over to the nearby car sales lot to test drive the Audi TT she took a liking to yesterday. It is fair to say that it drove well, is in nice condition and would suit 30% down to the ground but it is priced right at the top end of the market and it isn't quite worth it. I think 30% would buy it if she could get a decent discount but I'm not sure that the salesman wants to move on the price. I therefore think she will back off as there are many, many second hand sports cars out there in her price range. I also have to be honest and say that, although it handled beautifully, the 1.8 turbo, petrol engine didn't have a significant amount more oomph than her current 2.0 litre turbo diesel.*

Back at home after the test drive it was lunch, followed by a walk with T&M and then back in to the dining room for more sanding. I am making progress but there is still a huge amount to do including the floor and some quite intricate architraves ... painting rather than stripped and waxed wood is starting to look like a great interior design alternative.

After knocking off I got myself cleaned up and settled down for the evening. Shortly after dinner TP disappeared upstairs and from the occasional muted voices it was apparent that he was "Skyping" his girlfriend. At ten o'clock I went up and pointed out that he needed to say goodnight and think about going to bed as he is back in school this week and needs to get back to "school hours" rather than his holiday time zone which involves rising at eleven and going to sleep after midnight. I received a semi-committal nod and grunt and returned downstairs. Twenty minutes later it was apparent that he was still skyping ...

... so I turned the wireless router off at the mains.

---

* and, before you ask, I did red line it through the gear box on a nearby bypass.

Mistakes and learning from them

I don't tend to write much about TP in The Journal. He is a fairly typical teenager; could be worse, could be better but on the whole he is a good lad who just needs the occasional kick up the arse like most young men of his age. Today, however, I thought I would jot down a few lines as he is rapidly growing up and I wanted to capture something from this period of change.

He is currently supposed to be revising for his GSCE examinations but has also managed to persuade a pleasant, but obviously mentally defective, young lady to "walk out with him". As a result he has a tendency to borrow 30%'s iPad* for the purpose of extended Skype sessions with the aforementioned young lady, requires frequent lifts  to Worcester and it's environs and the use of Lynx body spray seems to have increased by an order of magnitude too.

As, is to be expected, he is understandably absorbed by this relationship and so we have the interesting juxtaposition of increasing maturity with an increased need for us to manage and shepherd him as he has, to use the vernacular, his head in the clouds most of the time. It has therefore fallen upon 30% and I to ensure that revision happens and other necessary non-girl friend related activities get completed. To be fair to TP he will complete the non-GF stuff but I wish we didn't have to nag him so much.

Today was a classic example; TP planned to take the bus in to Worcester to spend the day at his GF's house. He planned to be home shortly after six o'clock in order to spend some time revising for his upcoming science and english exams. Shortly before ten in the morning he wandered down to the bus stop and fifteen minutes later 30% drove past to check that he had made it on to the bus. It didn't come as a huge surprise that he managed to screw up his interpretation of the bus timetable so first detour of the day was an unexpected trip over to Norton to drop him at Chez Amour ...

... 30% and I then had a fairly normal Saturday. We took a trip in to Alcester to look at lighting options for the Dining Room and then made an impulse stop on a car dealer's forecourt where she instantly fell for a little Audi TT Roadster and made arrangements for a test drive tomorrow. It was then home for lunch after which 30% popped over to Pinky's to help her celebrate her 50th Birthday. I took T&M for  walk and then made a start on sanding the woodwork in the Dining Room.**

30% came home shortly before six and busied herself with the iPad with the aim of becoming an instant Audi TT expert. I continued to cover myself and the rest of the room with dust and grit. A little after six 30% popped her head around the door and she didn't look happy. She had just seen the Worcester bus pass the house and there was no sign of TP. A 'phone call was made and it appears that TP had missed his bus and needed picking up. I volunteered for this duty and am expecting some sort of award for services to humanity because 30%'s would have killed or maimed TP and many innocent bystanders in her current frame of mind. It is fair to say that she was furious***.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that TP had spent much of the day snogging and obviously the last passionate embrace was five minutes longer than it should have been hence he missed the last bus home. I pointed this out to him on the way home and tasked him with placating 30%.

As punishments go that one is far, far worse than a dressing down from a mildly amused Dad.

---

* his iPad doesn't have the forward facing camera
** Lord knows what the Victorians used as a primer but the tiniest residue clogs abrasive papers.
*** actually "fucking furious"!

Meh continued.

It is Friday and I am safely through my first "working" week of the year. I can report that I have done little other than enter my results in to the staff appraisal system and am greatly relieved that I managed to evade the horrific assignment Dante's intended for me to pursue.

There is little else to report. Hopefully some proper work will arrive in the near future as I am at the point where I am going to have to endure a large amount of on-line training to justify the timesheet code I am forced to use.

On the bright side, I only have six weeks before I have a week's holiday down on The Gower ...

... not that I am counting.

I could write 8,000 characters or simply say "Meh"

Dante's staff appraisal system is one of the most unpopular and, many would say, unfair processes that I have ever encountered. Whilst I have managed to do well out of it recently I have many colleagues that have felt it's malevolent side and I have concerns that my recent promotion could well come back to bite me in about twelve months time. Putting that to one side it should be noted that Dante's do their best to worsen the appraisal process experience by ensuring that it is as protracted as possible, combined with a strong tendency towards vagueness.

The reason I bring this up is that today I finally got my arse in to gear and decided to document my performance results for 2012 in advance of next Wednesday's deadline. I had already done this twice before in a mandated spreadsheet format and now I was required to summarise the results in a web application. Is it me, or does this seem like overkill and it certainly leaves me with negative and cynical feelings as I have no faith or trust in the process.

So, what have I done today? Well I have spent a good chunk of time reducing a semi-fictitious tale of solid and consistent performance to 8,000 characters or less. The strong vein of Procrastinator*in my character meant that I didn't finish the summary as that will give me something to do on Friday as the week has been quiet following my escape from baby-minding duties.

Away from work I can report the production of a second Araucana egg and a trip to Drunken Bidford to pick up oak filler and floor oil for the Dining Room project.

---

* obviously I made no reference to this in my summary

Jammy Git?

One thing I have learnt over the past couple of years is that the worst thing I can do is take a peek at my e-mails whilst I am on holiday. I know from bitter experience that a work e-mail whilst on holiday has the same effect as a cold shower has on one's ardour. I am not that good at separating work and home life and am unable to simply ignore these communications. As a result I end up niggling and worrying about them when I should be relaxing and enjoying myself.

Having learnt from past experiences, I am now very strict with myself and the laptop is turned off at the beginning of a holiday period and I avoid the e-mail app on the i-Phone. This self imposed rule was strictly followed this festive season in view of the absolute pile of shit, masquerading as a project, that I was theoretically supposed to be baby minding this week. I had already advised the Management team that I was unable to travel due to Tendonitis and had checked my e-mail JUST to ensure that I had read receipts from the key individuals. I secretly hoped that my rapidly improving condition was still sufficient for them to find some other sucker to look after this monstrosity. 

This morning as I returned to work I noticed a horrific communication festering in my in-box. Despite my protestations of injury there was a task list as long as my injured arm and there was absolutely no chance that this list would be completed by next Tuesday's deadline with just me assigned to it. I stoically realised that I would not be able to refuse this poisoned chalice and that all I could do was start at the top of the list and work my way through it. As I started to mull things over I noticed that IM was at work and pinged him to discuss my concerns. His response was surprising to say the least ...

... "bad man, why are you looking at this project?" he asked, and then went on to advise that I was to go nowhere near it and that a colleague had been assigned to take it forward. It appears that my shoulder was sufficient to escape this mess but that every single manager involved in resourcing it had failed to notify me that I was to stand down. 

RESULT!

Other Stuff:

This morning I was surprised to find that one of our young pullets had laid it's first egg. I had noticed that one of the Brown Leghorn's comb had reddened which is a sure sign of impending eggs but had heard none of the increased vocality that usually accompanies the coming in to lay. As it happens I had been observing the wrong birds as Leghorns lay white eggs and our first diminutive egg was a most definite blue green in colour. It was one of the Araucanas that provided the first egg of 2013.

It'll be a while before we get
anything like the one on the left

The dutchman and Gravlax

Yesterday was quiet, today was quieter still. I spent the morning cutting and fitting a couple of dutchmen in to the door frame in the Dining Room. At some point in the past the door has been moved from one side of the frame to the other and, as a result, there were two sections removed from the frame for lock mechanisms. These are now filled with pieces of timber and, after sanding and staining, will look a lot less conspicuous than the two tatty holes they now fill.

After this hour of carpentry 30% and I took a walk around the Three Miler and spent out time calling back the dogs due to the horde of New Year Wanlkers, lunch followed and in the mid-afternoon we were joined by Pinky for afternoon tea and chat.

We strong-armed her in to sampling the last of the Gravlax and, based on her experiences in Denmark, she declared it a success and demanded the recipe. So here it is ...

Gravlax

2 x 1 lb salmon fillets (from either side of the fish towards the head end)
3 tbsp cooking salt
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
25 - 30 g chopped Dill
1 tbsp spirits (I used Gin)

• Mix the salt, sugar, black pepper and dill together in a bowl and put to one side
• Place a length of cling film about 18" - 24" long on a work surface and place the first piece of salmon, skin side down, on the plastic film
• Spread the salt/sugar/pepper/dill mixture on the piece of fish
• Sprinkle on the spirits
• Then lay the second piece of fish on top with the skin facing outwards
• Wrap tightly with the cling film but leave the ends of the parcel open
• Wrap with a second piece of cling film and, again, leave the ends open
• Place the salmon parcel in a glass dish
• Place a second, slightly smaller dish on top and weight (I used about 3lbs of weights)
• Refrigerate and turn the salmon over every twelve hours, pour off any liquor that accumulates in the dish
• After three days remove and unwrap

The salmon should now have changed both in colour and texture and can be thinly sliced on the bias as is smoked salmon. It is fantastic served with cream cheese and rye bread.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was a quiet day here at The Pile. The weather was pretty vile so, for once, the daily walk was abandoned and T&M spent most of their day alternating between loitering in the kitchen in the hope of titbits or curled up in a warm favourite spot.

30% and I did pop over to Alcester in the hope of selecting light fittings for the Dining Room but the lamp shop was closed, presumably not thinking it was worth opening for a single day between Sunday and the New Year Bank Holiday. However the trip was not completely wasted as we visited a little Antique shop that had recently opened on the High Street and, whilst chatting over a small purchase, the owner seemed quite interested in an old and quite distressed veneered chest of drawers that has been sitting in the garage for many years. We arranged for him to visit later in the day to inspect and hopefully purchase this waste of space.

Back at home I finally got my arse in to gear and started the cure of a loin of pork that has been sitting in the refrigerator since just before Christmas. This will be a fairly standard dry cure for a week with the option of a second week coated in black treacle for  all or half of the loin if we fancy some Black Bacon. I had just about finished when the Dealer had arrived and within a few minutes he had a chest of drawers in his van and 30% had £35 in her purse. It was not a huge amount of money but it was better than nothing ...

... which is exactly what we would have received from the significant number of people that had responded to 30%'s advertisement of it on the Freecycle website.

I then set removing a further job from my Dining Room to do list and filled the two holes where the wall meets the hearth stone.

As evening drew in the 'phone rang and we were somewhat surprised to hear Village Idiot on the other end of the line. He called to advise that he had recently dispatched a cockerel but that his muscle wasting condition meant that he no longer had the strength to remove the feet from the drumsticks ...

... ten minutes later he was sat in our kitchen whilst I plucked and removed the drum sticks and then filleted off the breasts for him. A grateful VI then departed with a plastic bag containing the key ingredient of a chicken casserole.

We had a quiet New Year's Eve and did make it through to midnight and were quite surprised to receive a "Happy New Year" call from an apparently squiffy SMS. We then spent another twenty minutes pacifying T&M ...

... They really don't like fireworks!

Home Straits

There has been some improvement in my shoulder and today I was able to break away from the Christmas/New Year hiatus more normally filled with grazing on left-overs, slouching on the sofa and the watching of shit television...

... after an early walk with the dogs I wandered back in to the Dining Room and spent some time cutting and fitting the door stop strips on the cupboard along with the handles. I then spent the rest of the day with wood filler and caulk ensuring that the skirting board fixings are concealed and that the slight gaps between boards and walls are filled.

We are now very close to the point where there is just that mammoth sanding session before Andy & Steve are called in to paint. The outstanding job list looks like this :-

• fit retaining catches to the cupboard doors
• fill the last few knot holes in the oak flooring
• mix up some plaster and fill the two holes where the wall meets the hearth stone 

and that is it. I just need to sort out those few tasks and it is time for the huge sanding session. I know that there are a load of post decorating jobs such as fitting light fittings and curtain rails but basically I am just about there.

The Orphan of Zhao

It was a quiet day here at the Pile. The dogs were walked and the house was tidied.*

Late in the afternoon 30% and I put on our glad rags and took a ride in to Stratford. We took a late afternoon wander around the shops and made a few purchases but our overriding impression was that the town was very quiet for a Post-Christmas Sale Saturday. We also noticed that very few of the goods were enticing and our purchases were definitely necessities rather than impulse buys.

We loitered until six o'clock and then popped in to a local pasta restaurant for an early supper as this evening we had front row seats at The Swan Theatre for The Orphan of Zhao ...

... "no, I'd never heard of it either", but it was a Christmas present from 30% and it was an absolute cracker. It is a Chinese play that has it's origins over 2,500 years ago and was the first Chinese play ever translated in to a European language; French in the 1730's.** It is a long time since I have last been to the theatre and I had forgotten how much I enjoy the simplicity of it's story telling and how so much can be portrayed with so little in the way of back drops and props. The Orphan is sometimes referred to as The Chinese Hamlet and  I could see the similarities to some of Shakepseare's works and there was even a Hamlet in-joke during General Tu Angu's first speech.

It was a fantastic evening and a refreshing change from the recent entertainment fodder of recycled TV Christmas Specials and repeat showings of films. A most definite 10/10.

---

* a little!
** I didn't know this until I looked it up on Wikipedia afterwards

Out for lunch

A combination of paracetamol and prescribed drugs meant that I had a half decent night's sleep and it was nine o'clock before I dragged myself out of bed  and released some very annoyed chickens from their coops.

The morning was taken up with a walk around the Three Miler, accompanied by 30%, as I don't yet feel up to holding on to T or M with an injured shoulder. I realise that I am starting to sound like a complete hypo-fucking-chondriac and promise that I will not make reference to it again.

After the walk it was time for a wash and brush up and then we set out over to Broadway for an extended lunch with the Oranges & Lemons clan. We spent a happy few hours chatting and munching and returned home in the evening to vegetate alone as TP departed to his Grandma's yesterday to catch up with his Mum's side of the family.