Spoonful

Friday has had the usual distractions of work to fill the first part of the day. The document started yesterday and delayed by GF's writer's block started to take on shape today. Despite severall calls, it turned out to be a good day.

Mid-afternoon GF and the Silver Vixen got in the car and headed for London. It was a potentially awkward time to travel as we had to think about when we would eat, whether we would arrive at the target car park in time to get a space, and whether Friday night traffic into town would be a problem. As it happens we need not have worried about the journey up to town (though the return was another story).

Stopping at Fulham (parking next to the Chelsea Football ground) we went looking for a TGI Fridays that GF had eaten at several years ago. Clearly, GF did not frequent it enough as it has now moved. We stopped at Wagamama's instead and both enjoyed a really good spoonful of rice or noodle dishes.

With an eye to the time we moved on, arriving at the Imperial College car park a few minutes after it opened and in good time to find a parking spot. We then headed to the Royal Albert Hall for the evening's entertainment. After a brief stop at the bar, we made our way in to the main seating area to find that we had superb seats, at the end of a row and with a walkway in front of us - this gave plenty of leg room and ensured we didn't have to keep moving as people came and went.

The support band came on stage and started their brief set. Gary Clark Jr. seemed to have learned his technique listening to the great guitar players of the 60s and 70s and there were echoes of Jimi Hendrix and Pete Green in his style. The Gorse Fox concluded that it was an excellent way to start to the concert and it boded well for the evening.

The intermission provided a few minutes to stretch the legs and grab an ice cream. The GF, however, added to the drama by dropping his wallet - without realising. He then went back to eat the ice cream and wandered off to take photos before a kind couple sitting near by caught his attention and returned the missing item! (You get a nicer class of person at an Eric Clapton concert),

This, of course, brought us on to the main event. At eight-thirty Eric Clapton and his band came on stage and started a two and a quarter hour masterpiece of entertainment. The set had something for everyone - new, old, acoustic, electric, blues, and rock. There tracks from his solo career, from his time with Delaney & Bonny, from his time with John Mayall, and of course from Cream.

The set list included favourites such as: Wonderful Tonight, Crossroads, Sunshine of Your Love, Layla, My Father's Eyes, Black Cat Bone, Cocaine, High Time We Went... and many more. It was a fantastic evening - and one that will be remembered for a long time.

Buzzing with the excitement of the gig we returned to the car. Unfortunately the journey home was significantly prolonged by the closure of the A3 and insufficient prior warning to choose a good alternative - this meant following all the diversions and cutting across country. Never mind, it had been a great evening.

The Bomb Squad

On this anniversary of the Damnbusters Raid, the Gorse Fox thought he should mention a problem that that has been vexing the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox.

It seems that the washing line is sited in such a way as to attract "gifts" from passing birds. Slowly but surely they are depositing the fresh contents of their intestinal tracts on all of the Gorse Fox's clean shirts and have now started to pick on garments belonging to the Silver Vixen.

What we need is a Hawk!

Quieter

It was a quieter day today.

It started, a few minute after the Gorse Fox sat down at the computer, with a knock at the door. A man stood there with a parcel - but the Gorse Fox couldn't remember where he had left his keys last night. So after a few minutes charging round like a headless chicken he finally managed to get the door open and relieve the driver of his delivery. The new ADSL microfilters seem to have been successful as the broadband speed has climbed from 5Mbps to 7Mbps since fitting them.

The Gorse Fox continued working from home and was able to get some real work done between phone calls. Most satisfying.

Workshop

There is a word that can strike fear into the hearts of the design professional, it is "workshop". Worse a workshop at which project planners and managers would be participating. So it was that the Gorse Fox started the day at  the Royal Scots Club in a room crammed to the gunwhales with "interested parties". A meeting set up to agree some technical strategies and challenges had been hijacked.

To be fair, much of the day was devoted to the right problems and issues and the Gorse Fox had the chance air the major concern, i.e. its all very fine talking about the various silos of activity, but how do all these activities and the associated components come together and how does data flow between them. It was very clear that there were nearly as many misconceptions and misunderstandings as there were people in the room. The Gorse Fox was being urged to bring the conversations and debates to an end, but he was keen to allow them to finish so that we got all of the issues out on the table and achieved some form of consensus.

By the end of the day the Gorse Fox was quite satisfied with the outcomes, and whilst he had picked up some more actions - they were not unexpected.

He is now sitting in the airport waiting for his flight back to Sussex. Looks like he should be able to work from home for the rest of the week.

On the move, on the network

The Gorse Fox worked at home as planned. The first telecon was at 0800 followed by another at 0900 and so it continued. `there was a break late morning when the Gorse Fox was able to catch up on expenses stretching back to early April.

The Gorse Fox had to prepare some material for tomorrow's workshop and that seemed to stir some debate.

Headed off the Gatwick. From the new house it takes a full hour to get there, but the Gorse Fox did have to adjust his planned route as a result of a road closed off by the police. Gatwick was busy compared to recent trips, but sufficient time had been allowed - even if the plane hadn't been forty minutes late.

Heavy day

The Gorse Fox had a hard day. His bad foot/ankle started to give trouble again during the train ride and he was a pathetic sight as he changed trains as Clapham and as he made his way from Waterloo to the Starfleet office. A couple of ibuprofen seemed to take the edge off it and by lunchtime the problem had resolved itself (again).

Long telecon during the morning triggered another long telecon during the afternoon and that, in its own right, has triggered a trip to Edinburgh tomorrow evening in preparation for a meeting on Wednesday. refuse to waste 4-5 hours on the train as well as travel to Edi tomorrow, so will work from home.

Done

The Gorse Fox has finished the wardrobes. It did mean a little re-engineering was required, but after a little drilling here, and screwing there, the wardrobes and their drawers were completed and the Silver Vixen then started to strip layer after layer of clothes off the bed and hang them (or re-allocate them) to make the best use of space.

Next weekend another wardrobe will succumb to the ministrations of the Gorse Fox and be filled by the Silver Vixen.

Meanwhile time has been spent chatting with Cousteau-cub online and selecting accommodation for the Thailand trip. Finally we selected the villa and separately the Gorse Fox booked the hire car. We are spending a lot of money, but it is our 40th wedding anniversary, almost incorporated Urban-cub's birthday, and should incorporate a repeat blessing of Cousteau-cub and the Coventry Hobbit's wedding vows.

We need a Plan B... or is it E by now?

The phone rang.

It was Helen from the builders of our intended property. She was phoning to tell us that the house we had been waiting for, is no longer going to be built. She had pointed out that there were only 2 of that type scheduled and she had effectively already sold one of them. That held no sway. Head office has decided they don't want our money.

After a year of planning for that house, we now need to consider some other plan.

Pooh!

Two and a half hours

...my foot!

Flat packed wardrobes arrived on Thursday. The Gorse Fox planned to construct them today. As he opened the boxes and checked the contents he was pleased to see that the instructions indicated that it should only take two and half hours to construct. Indeed, as the Gorse Fox is pretty adept with a screwdriver and hammer, he expected to be even quicker.

It is now six hours since he started and there are still four drawers to construct. He has decided, for the sake of his sanity to leave these until the morning.

Two and half hours... and the rest!

Fin de semaine (or whatever)

Well the Gorse Fox is not keen on spending Friday in town, but when the client calls he has to respond. The morning's meeting was very interesting but cut short. Whilst we were discussing his design organisation, and the way his governance works across the lifecycle we were interrupted by a scheduled status call. The call was long, rambling, and immensely frustrating. By the time it was over the Gorse Fox had picked up more actions and lost his joie de vivre. 

Back in Starfleet there was another teleconference which got rather fraught and emotional and involved a lot of shouting from the other end of the phone. The Gorse Fox tends not to rise to such displays.

Several calls scheduled for the next hour or two - but it will pass the time on the train.

Fluctuating

Speed of the ADSL link is swinging wildly from about 750Kbps up to 5.9Mbps and back again. Hopefully it will stabilise at the upper end before long.

Surprise

The Gorse Fox heard from BT. Apparently they will not need to visit us in order to activate our line as their records show that there already a line to the house. They only need to activate in the exchange. The Gorse Fox decided to plug in the phones and broadband router in expectation for next week.

Checking that his connection was visible from one room to the main computer GF realised he had an internet connection. Not sure if it will last - but for now he has slow broadband. He won't make a fuss over the speed of the connection until after Tuesday - just in case he is plugged into some old circuit at present. He wonders how long that circuit has been active?

The phone line itself isn't active yet, which is a little confusing.

Help

Well evidently it has come to the notice of the powers-that-be, that the Gorse Fox is completely snowed under. He has been given another colleague to help and it should work out to be a good match. He is very process-driven and orientated towards project management - whereas the Gorse Fox has little interest in those areas. Should work out ok as long as we manage the demarcation between us.

The "engineering diagrams" for a project this size can be troublesome to produce - particularly when everyone wants their say and nobody wants to give you the time to actually have that say. Several half-starts have ended up with rather unsatisfactory outcomes, but some initial work from one of the team provided just the catalyst for the Gorse Fox to wade in and make some significant progress this afternoon.

Most of the Gorse Fox's colleagues are at n event tomorrow - he decided he was far to busy to attend and will either work at home or from Starfleet's Portsmouth office tomorrow.

The Gorse Fox has just realised he hasn't had anything to drink since mid-morning. This may require the intervention of a beer on return to Fontwell.

Back at the keyface

Well, it's not as catchy as coal-face, but for the Gorse Fox it makes a bit more sense. Catching what is now becoming his normal train, the Gorse Fox headed up to the Starfleet offices by the Thames. For some reason the journey seemed a little slower today, but he was still in the office about 2 hours after leaving home.

The day was spent splitting time between writing a short presentation on systems integrators, working out what to delegate, reviewing plans, and setting up meetings for later in the week. Not exactly riveting, but a fruitful day nevertheless. Thursday is looking promising as many of the Gorse Fox's colleagues are at an all day meeting. This should give him a quiet day to make some more progress.

Late in the afternoon the Gorse Fox managed to catch up with one of his team for a coffee and a chat. He's been so busy he has been neglecting his team recently and really must get back to his regular calls.

Bank Holiday

It was a quiet day but that is what Bank Holidays are all about.

Spectacular

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen headed for Chichester. The GF needs new glasses so had his eyes tested and selected some new frames. Given that the frames are rimless he struggles to reconcile the final product with the £600 bill.

Booked

Flights booked for holiday in Thailand. It'll be a good summer!

First world problems

Life without Broadband is becoming intolerable; with no newspaper delivery the Gorse Fox had planned to read the papers online - barely feasible over slow and patchy 3g. He has some banking tasks to catch up on - but that will have to wait; he has expenses to to claim - but they too will have to wait. Yesterday's review of shopping options was barely achievable as every interaction took ages. More importantly the Gorse Fox has not yet booked the flights to Thailand for the summer vacation over with Cousteau-cub.
Its a real pain.

Today will see the Gorse Fox and the Silver Vixen heading up North to the bandit country of Buckingham. It is the birthday of one of the Silver Vixen's nieces and an opportunity for a family get together.

Long weekend

It starts here.

Reality is that squeezing 270 sq m of house into 100 sq m is not easy and it is clear that we need more storage. After a little research we headed for B&Q to look at their wardrobes. After a little debate we decided they were not right for us and returned home for some more research. In the end we ordered some and expect them to be delivered during the week. It won't solve the problem but it may alleviate it somewhat.

It seems the grass has grown again this week. The Gorse Fox had to do his bit to trim the lawns ( after having been to Rustington to allow Angus to trim his unruly mop).