Curry

It has been a quieter day than expected - but a lot was achieved. GF has interviewed several more candidates to join the project and made offers to a couple (well, by that he means two - they are not a couple).

After work we met up - The Mexican and his wife, Frodo, Deep Blue and a new colleague - at a restaurant that GF had not tried before. Anarkali (or however it was should be spelled) was a bright and vibrant purveyor of fine Indian food. It was very good and worth a return visit. Deep Blue gave GF a lift back to the hotel in his new Merc. He is very taken with it and GF was impressed.

Inca

It has ben a good day. Gorse Fox has managed to move a number of issues forward - rejected some candidates but accepted others. A new young lady has joined the team and is obviously an Excel guru - and therefore very welcome.

Quite a cluster of us met up for dinner at Pizza Express with plenty of wide ranging discussions and conversations covering film, TV, work, travel, fossils, and pre-Columban America. Very stimulating.

Bits

It has been a day of bits. Loads of bits. Nothing that took more than 30 minutes or so... just loads of them. Not many opportunites to surface up until now, but GF has decided that's it for today. He's back to his usual early start for his cross country trip in the morning.

Visitors

Pleasant day with a visit from Betty and Barney Rubble and much catching up on respective families. Lunch was taken at The Spotted Cow in Angmering which was (as usual) very crowded - but the food was excellent.

Cove

Another day spent at Urban-cub's flat decorating. In here normal organised fashion she had a list of tasks to be performed and a subset documented specifically for the Gorse Fox. Most wer completed quite quickly, but one posed a conundrum. How to hide the space at the top of a partion wall which was too big for a simple filler? GF had run out of filler anyway. He headed to the great orange DIY emporium to re-stock and whilst there saw some coving.

Back at Porpoise Place he showed effect. It was evident that U-c and the Silver Vixen were underwhelmed. However, it would look good if the coving crowned the whole hallway, he was told. He headed back to the great orange emporium and loaded up with 9 more lengths of coving, and some pre-formed corners... and several hours later the hallway was complete.

U-c was going out for the evening so the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen went to a restaurant in Littlehampton that they had not tried before. The food was very good and good value too. The restuarant itself was, however, family friendly. This apparently means that you can bring your family and allow the children to run riot whilst you shout at them from behind your beer glass. GF is evidently getting older (or it may be that he had a pounding headache from the paint and adhesive fumes) but there are times when he longs for a family-hostile restaurant.

Originally uploaded by Gorse Fox.

Pitching in Another day at Stamford Bridge. It had been a quiet evening and GF had an early night. A leisurely start to the day was spent reading the brief for the morning's exercises. The course kicked off with a Starfleet update and then it was back into role play. It is a while since GF has been on a course, but he must say that it was exceptional. It was a little galling to find oneself at Stamford Bridge - but at least it wasn't the Emirates (in which case he obviously could not have attended).

CFC

The Gorse Fox was on the first train out of the village this morning -
he had to be at Stamford Bridge for an early start to a two day
course on negotiation techniques. (He supposes that if he was any good
at negotiation he'd have arranged a later start).

There are a couple of hundred Starfleet captains on the course making
sure they have sufficient training to deal with Klingons and other
carbon-based life-forms that we might encounter.

The first day was superb and GF managed to network with a number of
colleagues. He made time during one of the breaks to head out into the
stands and take a couple of photos for Cousteau-cub.

Overnight he is staying in one of the hotels attached to the ground.
He's just walked back through the snow from dinner and is destined to
have a quiet evening with some reading and coursework.

Home early

Well not quite. Gorse Fox headed home a day early this week because he is scheduled to be on a course in London for the next couple of days... and he wasn't home early as the journey was a bit slow and he got caught for abou 15 minutes by the level crossing, which after a long drive is alway immensely frustrating.

Things to prepare and football to watch - must go.

onwards

The forecast 8 inches of snow turned out to be illusionary, at least
in Worcester. The rain pounded down throughout the night, but never
turned to snow fortunately. However, GF was pleased that he came up a
day early as it was clear that part of his normal was indeed affected
by the cold white stuff.

The office was interesting - GF started with a telecon with his new
manager, which went well. Sounds as she's going to be a great asset.
Then from there he started a series of meetings that would fill the
rest of the morning.

The afternoon was far more productive.

The streets of Worcester were quiet this evening as GF joined up with
the Abbot, Frodo and our Scottish friend. A fine meal followed at the
salubrious Pizza Express... and now the Gorse Fox is esconced in his
suite winding down for the evening.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Changing Plans

The Gorse Fox started the day with some telephone interviews. Then
there were a number of telephone queries, some documents to review
and some spreadsheets to tune. All was going well.

Then GF saw that the weather forecast of last night was essentially
unchaged. This meant that GF could expect up to 8 inches of snow in
the morning. On the other hand he could drive up to Worcester this
afternoon and not worry overmuch.

That was it - a late afternoon drive through the heavy rain and then
the sleet and increasing snow. Checking in to the hotel there was a
mix up over his room - but the replacement suite was adequate
compensation for the confusion.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Paint

Most of Sunday was spent up to one's arms in paint. The Gorse Fox, Silver Vixen and Urban-cub returned to Porpoise Place and contined with the decorating. At one point the nasty little neighbour from upstairs came to complain - Urban-cub was in no mood to put up with this so the Gorse Fox suggested that he walked away whilst it was safe to do so, and closed the door on him.

Cousteau-cub texted to explain she had laryngitis, so will have to use SMS this week.

Auto

Urban-cub has a problem. She shares her car and the owner now wishes to sell up. This means that she will be without transport and that is not a good thing here on the Gorse. To try and get a view of the options open to her the Gorse Fox accompanied her around all of the various dealerships and frnchises around Rustington, Goring, Durrington and Worthing. We saw Honda, Peugot, Toyota, Skoda, Renault, Nissan, Ford and (of course) VW.

She now has a good view of the market and can start to decide on her best course of action.

The Silcver Vixen decided to skip the sewing day with her coven and stay put to practise some new quilting techniques.

Insults, storms and teacups

Gorse Fox notices that Clarkson has been lambasted for referring to Gordon Brown as a "one-eyed Scottish idiot". 

Apparently the Scots are taking great offence. The Gorse Fox is at a loss: there is no argument that he has one-eye, and there is no argument that he is Scottish. Whether he is an idiot or not is a matter of opinion - but surely that is for him to take offence at - not the Scots as a whole. 

Or is it rather that they are offended that Gordon Brown is Scottish and don't wish to be associated with him?

Squeezing it

It has been a busy day for the Gorse Fox. A number of telecons, a stack of emails, CVs to review, new tasks to define, interviews and so forth. he was glad when he got to the end.

Since then he has been playing with Python - another programming language (one that he hadn't really tried before). He quite likes it. It seems fairly well structured and quite quick for an interpreted language.

Whether or not

Overnight the heavens dumped several inches of snow over Worcester. An eerie quiet ensued as the snow muffled the sound of the traffic. Clearing the car the Gorse Fox wondered whether the hill up to office would be passable but in the great scheme of things it was trouble-free. Work was a bit like the Marie Celeste (well, other than the fact it isn't a sailing ship, wasn't found deserted in the fog, and didn't have half-eaten meals everywhere) in that it was very quiet - many of the locals who live in outlying villages were trapped by the hills.

More heavy snow was forecast for during the day so once the most important meetings were over GF decided to head back to the balmy warmth of the south coast. Though concerned about what he might meet on the way - the jouney was trouble-free and it was a pleasure to get home at a sensible time.

Nights

SO the Gorse Fox has now left the world famous Worcester Pie Night.
The night is in full swing, but GF needs all of the beauty sleep he
can get.

What about the pies? There were pork pies, game pies, curry pies,
steak pies, chicken pies, chicken and leek pies almost every pie you
could shake a stick at. They were delicious... and followed by
crumbles, cobblers, and treacle pies.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Forecast

The forecast is for a heavy fall of pies. Tonight is "Pie Night" again at the Cardinal's Hat. This is Worcester's answer to Anthropogenic Global Obesity

Jam

It seemed innocent enough... it was, after all, a journey the Gorse
Fox makes week in and week out. Because of the weather he left a bit
later than usual.

All was well until he arrived at Chichester, then things went awry. GF
joined the back of a traffic queue - the A27 had been closed. Traffic
was barely at a crawl. GF was stocked up with snacks, drinks, warm
weather clothes (just in case) and settled back with his podcasts. It
took two hours and twenty minutes to do the first twenty-two miles...
and overall the journey to Worcester took about five hours.

Worcester seems to have got off very lightly and though cold was pretty clear.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Snow

Well the south east got hit with some snow. Not a lot down here on the coast (maybe a couple of inches) - but it was nearly 10 inches deep around London. Needless to say chaos ensued on the roads, but GF had the advantage of working from home today. Word has it that Worcester has a light dusting... and so he will trek up there in the morning (having cancelled the course that he was meant to attend).

More snow is forecast overnight so we will see what the morning brings!

Snow

The Silver Vixen headed off early to Ardingly for a quilt show. Urban-cub stayed in bed, and the Gorse Fox spent the morning reading and researching.

As the afternoon wore on a few snow flakes bega to drift across the garden. Withing half an hour it was looking quite wintery. The Silver Vixen reported a "white out" in Ardingly and it became clear it was heading our way.

As an aside GF was looking for a toll with which he could format and print a "blogger" blog. He doesn't want to spend any money and get a formally bound print (he's found sites that do this) - but he does want to create a PDF in chronological order. He knows he could write the code to do this... but can't believe there isn't something out there that will do this already.

End of Peer

Great quote from Peter Hitchins in the Mail:

Actually, it is still not too late to bring back Hereditary Peers, decent incorruptible old coves who have Britain in their bones and blood. Why do we believe that "democracy" is the answer to everything when it so frequently elevates idiots and crooks to power?

Half-light

The Gorse Fox has had to change a light bulb. 

Not a task that requires untoward exertion. However, it is clear that we are running low on "real light bulbs" and GF has had to resort to one of the new low-energy bulbs. He has picked a comparable bulb to that being replaced and is now sitting, squinting in the eerie half-light of planet-saving technology. 

His office has all of the welcome brightness of a candle-lit cave - but hey who needs to be able to see anyway.

Wisdom

A few words of wisdom from Clarkson:

At present most governments in the world seem to agree that the only way out of the financial hole is to print money and throw this at various state projects. Unfortunately, because we in Britain are governed by fools and madmen, the projects they have in mind are street football outreach co-co-ordinators and ethnic watchdogs who will ensure the dole queues accurately reflect the nation’s ethnic diversity.

You can see this is idiotic. We all can. So why not give the money instead to British engineering firms, which would use it, under close supervision to make sure they didn’t employ any health-and-safety people or ethnicity czars, to get the hydrogen fuel cell working on a practical everyday level?

Steppes

A bitter wind blew in from the northeast and whilst the temperature was a palatable 5C the wind that drove in from the Steppes made it seem much cooler.

The Silver Vixen and Urban-cub were pre-occupied with domestic tasks requiring the occasional assistence of the Gorse Fox who spent much of the day bringing Urban-cub's laptop up to date. He tried to call Cousteau-cub in Thailand a couple of times but was getting no reply so will leave it until tomorrow.

Dust.

Strange thing dust. GF took his computer apart with a view to checking on the memory type. The tower was caked in dust, but a a stern talking-to with the Dyson soon had it cleared out and humming again. Having checked the memory, GF has less than he thought (but isn't that the way with memory and increasing age). A minor purchase may be called for.

On planning

The Gorse Fox was forced to reflect on the nature of planning. A simplistic view is that planning is the process by which future activities are identified, sequenced, resourced, timed, and costed. This is a role normally performed by esteemed project managers. 

It would appear, however, that a gravitational anomaly can interfere with this process and long planned and agreed absence can suddenly come as a surprise as if emerging from a black hole.

What Climate Change?

This may not show up in the BBC reports, but it's worth a read (Click here).

Sweet or Sour

The Gorse Fox called home from his hotel room. All was well as it should be. He sat back to relax after a hard day. His mind wandered as some talking-head spouted the day's news. In the distance the Gorse Fox could hear voices. Bit by bit the voices became clearer... one was a the clarion call of a fine Austrian beer calling his name. It would have been churlish to ignore the call. The Gorse Fox headed off to The Cardinal's Hat.

A pleasant evening ensued that involved a number of colleagues, the Mexican and his wife, and a Chinese meal.

Very pleasant.

Drips

A strange day started with a degree of imbalance as GF struggled to
gain full consciousness in the early hours. For a while he was
concerned that he would not be able to make it, but he settled after a
while and got back into the normal swing of things.

Work was not worthy of mention... busy, but nothing special.

A quiet evening ensued.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Plus ca change

The Gorse Fox finds himself deep in the heart of Starfleet today. This meant catching the first train from the village up to the Capital. It now being over 4 years since he did this on a regualr basis he had forgotten what a zoo that early train becomes as it makes its way north. It was good to see some of the old regulars still waiting in the same places on the platform and still rushing for their favoured seats on the train.

Agenda for the day:

Assessments,

Meetings about favourite client.

Plastered

The Gorse Fox has commented before that he lacks any skill in the art of plastering. Back at Urban-cubs flat there was a need to cover a "distressed" ceiling and after some thought it was decided that Artex was the best solution. So whilst the Silver Vixen and Urban-cub painted skirting boards and walls in the bedroom and living room, the GF was at the top of a ladder smearing Artex onto the ceiling like icing on a cake (well a cake that is suspended upside-down above your head).

It became clear that the the work was making a huge improvements to the ceiling, GF evidently has no talent for Artex either.

Shod

Gorse Fox had a a strange day. He had things to do (shopping, plumbing, fitting a catflap)... places to go (Worthing)... people to see (well he had to go to the optician so that he could see people).

Power turned out to be the answer. He helped Urban-cub remove a door - it was stuck but more power applied with a boot made the difference. Later the catflap meant that the jigsaw needed some exercise, but it became evident that in such a big door, some puny jigsaw was not up to the job. This meant digging out the reciprocating saw with an 8 inch blade. The power allowed the saw to cut through the thick door like a hot knife through butter.

Fun

The Gorse Fox is not a frequent user of YouTube. He has, however, found found a useful set of videos giving some helpful tips on using Excel. Now this may not seem riveting to the average reader, but it has been quite useful for the Gorse Fox today.

To get started click here!

A day buried in financial modelling spreadsheets seems like a bizarre pleasure, but the Gorse Fox enjoys making spreadsheets sing and dance. He has learnt, however, not to release them to other people without due care.

With agreement approaching, and input awaited from other sources the Gorse Fox set out for the South Coast.  The chaos that had been caused by an earlier accident and subsequent closure of the M5 was over, and though busy, the traffic flowed freely. A surprisingly quick run saw the Gorse Fox climb out of his car just before 8pm, take a deep breath of sea air and smile at the thought of being back home.

Anachronism

Why is it that an Australian running a Tapas Bar doesn't seem too
strange, but when run by a Russian it seems a bit of an anachronism?

--
Sent from my mobile device

Momentous week

What a momentous week:

• Ceasefire in Gaza
  
• Inauguration of Barack Obama
  
• Government backs down over attempt to prevent publication of their expenses
  
• Starfleet announces record results
  
• The Stig revealed
  
• Spurs off the botom of the league
  

Can it get much more exciting?

One and one

The Gorse Fox is troubled on two fronts... mental, and pedestrian.

One the mental front he has just been to Pizza Express and for the second week running has had to explain some basic mental arithmetic to the waitress to help her with the bill. What worries him is that usually he is tended by a Portugese or Czech waitress and everything goes without commenty. For the last two weeks he has been served by English waitresses who clearly cannot do the most basic arithmetic processes even when supplied with a calculator. But hey... we are told that education is not declining so it must be GF's imagination.

One the pedestrian front GF suffers, like his Grandfather before him, with his feet. As a result, he finds it hard to find comfortable shoes - but once found he wears them into the ground (which, thinking about it, is what shoes are for). He has noticed that he might have overdone it this time. On investigation earlier this evening he realised that the stitiching on the leather uppers had disintegrated and his shoes were (quite literally) falling apart.

Cells

The Gorse Fox is back up to his neck in the cells and formulae of the pre-Christmas spreadsheet. This is beginning to take on a life of its own and instead being a means to an end it is almost becoming an end in itself.

Oh well, back up to Worcester tomorrow.

Splinters

A year to the day since the Ice Prince deposited its cargo of timber on our beaches a Russian vessel has lost 1500 tonnes of timber in the Channel just east of here. Apparently the flotsam is drifting towards the Dover straights so it is unlikely that we will see much of it this time.

Yo-yo

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen went to help Urban-cub with more clearing-out at her flat (or should he say Tardis). It is clear that this apartment, large as it looks, was actually able to contain far more than meets the eye.

Urban-cub has already spent several weekends clearing and cleaning, and in fact spent about 12 hours on Saturday doing more... but there was yet more to do. GF now understands what a Yo-yo feels like as he reeled down the stairs and back up time and time again with back and box.

Trough

The Gorse Fox mentioned it a couple of days back, but it seems to have reached the news media, finally. The Telegraph observes 

MPs' expenses will be made exempt from Freedom of Information laws, prompting claims that Commons' authorities are trying to keep secret the full scale of their claims

and claim that that the announcement was an attempt to bury the news on the day that Heathrow's 3rd runaway was announced. It went on: 

"Chief constables, local authority chief executives, senior BBC executives and others have to release their individual expenses claims, and that should be the case for MPs too."

The Times also picks up the cudgel and observes:

MPs threw out tougher rules in July last year when the vast majority of Members – 146 of the 172 – who voted to keep the allowance, described as the “John Lewis list”, were Labour, including 33 ministers.

Mmmm, the Gorse Fox wonders what that tells you about our egalitarian, socialist overlords.

Finally, Peter Oborne in the Mail has his say in a paragraph headed ".... and talking of people feathering their nests", but before dealing with the FOI controversy he adds:

On Monday, we learned that - at a time when most people's pension funds are collapsing and government ministers refuse to compensate the victims of the Equitable Life scandal - MPs have poured in a further £2.2 million of taxpayers' money to shore up their pension scheme.

And people wonder why some politicians are held in such low esteem

Beam me up

The Gorse Fox notices from a number of sources that at least one member of Starfleet was on the A320 that landed in the Hudson River. The Gorse Fox has never met the person, nor even heard of her, but somehow it made the whole event seem more poignant and personal. (She'll need a new laptop!)

Plane -vs- Water

What an incredible news story boke over the past 24 hours. The landing(?) of the Airbus in the Hudson River and the safe evacuation of all on board. Now, the Gorse Fox has flown many hundreds of times and watched the safety briefing time ad time again, but deep down he never really believed that there could be a successful water landing. He is delighted to be proven wrong.

Now with the UK Government announcing the go-ahead for Heathrow's third runway it makes you wonder if they could have used Staines Reservoir instead of Sipson and Harmondsworth.

Move along the trough

It looks like the MPs are up to their tricks. According to Boing Boing 

"Harriet Harman MP plans to use a special parliamentary order that can become law within 24 hours after being debated by MPs and peers next week. It will exempt details of all MPs' and peers' expenses from being disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, and nullify all past requests by journalists and campaigners to get them published".

So this looks like it will be rushed through to prevent too much furore as the bill gets signed. Can this Government actually get any more seedy?

Early doors

Whilst having a lot to do GF had stalled. He was waiting for input from colleagues. In the end he decided to head back down south and catch up once home. This was good as he walked in the door at a sensible time, but once looged on it was clear that he was still waiting... the data had not arrived.

It has been a good day for the Gorse Fox. Meetings ran more or less to
time, progress was good on various work items and it was generally
satisfactory.

GF is about to meet up with colleagues to check on the quality of some
Austrian beer. Apparently it is "Art Night" later... though GF tends
not to indulge in these late night ventures.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Refurb

The Gorse Fox checked-in to the hotel. Last week he was given a different room because his usual room was being refurbished. Today he was back in his usual room... freshly refurbished. He could hardly wait!

He opened the door and switched on the light and started to examine all of the changes. After a few minutes examination it became clear that "refurbishment" means replacement of the hair-dryer as it is the only visible sign of change.

Aaaah

The Gorse Fox  had a pleasant evening. 

One of Starfleet's Admiral's took him and few colleagues to dinner at the Oxo Tower. The restaurant is very relaxed with a subtle blue lighting that allows you to see out across the Thames to spectacle that is London by night. The food was superb and the ambience was ideal for a small celebration such as this. It semed appropriate that such an event was to celebrate the recent promotions "bisto'd" upon the Gorse Fox and his colleages and to welcome them to the gravy train! (He wishes).

Diversion

The Gorse Fox had to get to London. Not an uncommon requirement, but that's the way it is. The journey was not without its frustrations. 

The train left Angmering on time and pottered along the south coast as far as Hove. It then stopped. Rumour spread that there was jumper on the line. It seemed incredible that people would shed articles of clothing in such damp weather. It soon became clear that this was not the correct interpretation and that there had been a fatality and the line north was shut for the "foreseeable future."

GF left the train and headed into Brighton then changed onto a train that headed out via Lewes and looped back round to join the north-bound track north of the incident. The journey spread to over three hours, but eventually the gorse Fox arrived and was only a few minutes late for his meeting.

It is such a shame when people feel that the only way forward is to end it all and that perhaps the only attention they get is because of the disruption the cause.

The Gorse Fox has a quiet day. Well he does now.

The Silver Vixen had planned a trip to Farnham with members of her coven to attend a fabric sale (how many black cloaks and pointed hats can one person want?) This meant an early start so the alarm was set for 0700. However,m Urban-cub (who was out overnight) had left her alarm set and so Sunday morning started ot 0630. GF exploded out of bed confused by the unfamiliar alarm, stumbled myopically down the stairs, frightened the cat, and finally found the cancel button on the offending appliance.

Back to bed for 30 minutes.

Five minutes later the Silver Vixen's alarm went off - it had been set at the wrong time.

She got up at 0700 and went downstairs... GF dozed off but was awakened by the cat leaping on him. He growled. The cat scarpered. 

He dozed back off. 

The phone rang... he gave up and got up. Plans had changed and the Silver Vixen was adjusting the logistics. About an hour later than planned she headed off. The papers arrived and Gorse Fox settled down with a fine cup of coffee.

Christmas lunch (?)

It was a gorgeous but cold morning on the coast. The sun was shining and the frost glistened against the trees and hedgerows.

The Gorse Fox, Silver Vixen and Urban-cub headed up to Windsor. 

It was Christmas again. We had arranged to meet up with family at a midpoint which turned out to be a restaurant near Windsor. It was great fun and caused a degree of confusion to fellow diners as we exchanged Christmas presents.

Winter's Afternoon

Winter's Afternoon
Originally uploaded by Gorse Fox.

A cold winter's afternoon crossing Hungerford Bridge and looking down river towards St Paul's. 

You just can't tire of London.

Town

The Gorse Fox finds himself in London Town (this should not come as a surprise to him as he boarded a train to to the capital at 0741 this morning). 

The morning has been spent delivering the first of his batch of annual staff assessments. Now complete he needs to return to the day job... but will do that from home!

Miscellany

Gorse Fox had to escort the Silver Vixen to C2BAX for the results of the tests. Fortunately his analysis was positive and no major intervention is required.

My colleague's rumoured blog has now been tracked down and is linked as Poshbloke in the panel on the left. How the other half live, eh? 

Council meeting this evening promises a few fireworks. GF is donning asbestos gloves.

Farewell

Dreams. Strange coves, dreams.

The Gorse Fox became aware of his dream. It was bizarre. The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen were waiting in a car park with his grandfather (long deceased !).  A signal was received and we left the car park, crossed the road and headed for the crossroads where we turned left and  and entered a building. Bill Clinton (yes, that one) greeted us and thanked us for coming.

We waited.

Another signal was received and six burly chaps went out and marched back in with a coffin on their shoulders. (GF had offered to help but was much shorter that the rest so did not qualify). Once the coffin was in, the bearers carried it to the end of a trestle table with a cloth draped over it. The front of the the coffin was lowered and dropped, flipping the whole coffin end-over-end onto the table. We all giggled, think how appropriate as it contained (recently deceased) George Bush. 

Candles were placed on the (now upside down) coffin.

Places were laid and we all sat down to dinner with the coffin as the central table decoration. A fine meal it was too, and Bill Clinton was a most gracious host.

Watching the Defectives

The Gorse Fox headed out to get something to eat. It was about 1900
and -2C. On the corner was a Rover Series 400 with a chap sitting in
the driving seat with sheaf of papers. The engine was not running. GF
thought nothing of it.

Two hours later GF headed back to the hotel. The Rover was still
there. The occupant was still there. The windows were a bit steamed
up and he was wrapped up like Michelin Man

GF guesses he may have just returned to the car... but it is far more
intriguing to guess he is a PI watching someone in The Conservatory (a
nearby pub).

Chilled

GF went to bed in expectation of his early start. This meant that he started to wake soon after 0200 and kept checking his watch until it was time to get up at 0430... (he'll suffer for this as the day draws on). It was -3.5C when GF left home. Crisp and dry - but very cold. The roads, despite this, were trouble-free and GF made good time on his journey watching the the temperature fluctuate up to -3C and down as low as -6.5C (near Newbury). 

It's morning like this that you are grateful for car heating, heated seats,  heated front and rear windows and heated rear-view mirrors.

Breaking in

GF was greeted by the sight of a fine dusting of snow when he emerged first thing... it wasn't much, looking a bit like someone had gone berserk with a sieve and some caster sugar. It was all gone soon after the sun was up.

Today found the Gorse Fox breaking in the New Year from a work perspective. This was not easy. It took a lot of effort to ramp up to his usual level of enthusiasm. As a rule, on return from a break, there is a mountain of email to handle... but of course most people were also on a break so it was all done by about 0715.

His twisted knee seems to have eased and he sees no impediment to his journey to Worcester tomorrow except the forecast sub-zero temperatures. Talking of impediments, GF hears that Welshbloke broke his leg just before Christmas. Seems a bit of an extreme way of taking a few extra days off, and avoiding the washing up.

Danger

As you get older there seem to be innate dangers in the most innocent of pursuits. Sleeping for example! 

Gorse Fox went to bed on Friday night - tired but essentially fully functioning. He woke up with a twisted knee that caused him to hobble around on Saturday. Another night's sleep has not helped and he is hobbling even more - with the FA Cup now in full swing he's worried that he might be on the bench for the rest of the season!

(More to the point he is meant to return to Worcester on Tuesday - and at this point does not see that as a viable plan).

Admin

The Gorse Fox is not good with paper-based admin. He has a habit of not opening mail in a timely fashion if he can guess what it is, who it's come from, and its level of significance. After a while this does become overwhelming, however.

Silver Vixen was out with her coven today so GF decided to continue with the analysis of finances he began yesterday. Analysis showed an apparent gap in the information so GF decided to open some mail...

This snowballed. Urban-cub brought in the wheelie bin and the shredder and we hit the mail. The oldest letter was pre-2004 (there's no sense in hurrying these things). 

It took all day and slowly MS-Money started to absorb the missing data and finally the job is all but done.

LSD

The Gorse Fox seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time buried in Microsoft Money, today. He used to use Quicken many years back - but even after a few years using MS-Money he still finds it vastly less intuitive and a distraction from the job in hand!

Reporting or Making the News

The Gorse Fox was reflecting on the events of last year and a discussion he had with Cousteau-cub over the phone from Thailand a week or so back.

The islands off Thailand are suffering a bit of a downturn in tourists and this is affecting the hotels and the activity centres such diving. Some is inveitably caused by caution arising from the downturn in the economy, but some they lay squarely at the door of the BBC's reporting of the recent demonstrations at Thai airports. This was totally over the top and whilst it did disrupt air traffic, the demonstrations were peaceful, good natured and like a big open air pop concert. The BBC scare-mongering however has frightened off tourists and many workers are being laid off in tourist centres.

Taking this thought further - the Gorse Fox has always been deeply unsettled by the BBC reporting of many events - he then started to think about the "credit crunch". He discussed it this week with his brother-in-law and with Barney Rubble. His conclusion (which appeared to get total agreement) is that whilst things are indeed in a parlous state, this is to a considerable degree caused by the BBC's extravagant reporting and the fear and uncertainty that they caused by this in the markets. Even in this last week we have heard of a further catastrophic fall of 2% in the FTSE index, but not the 3% rise the following day. All of their graphics still show a downwards arrow and this is subliminally giving a message of depression and despondancy. 

Would the credit crunch have happened anyway - possibly. 

Would it have happened quite so suddenly and alarmingly - not a chance. 

The BBC's reporting was like dousing a smouldering fire with petrol, and whilst we are busy painting the Bankers as pariahs we should not forget the damage that the BBC has done to the economy through sensationalist reportage. It is time they got back to reporting the news and left speculation and opinion to the printed media - particularly when their opinion can cause such collateral damage.

HNY

Happy  New Year!!!

We saw the New Year in with Betty and Barney. Meeting up we headed for the cinema where we watched "Australia". This could only be described as epic - and really had the feel of one of the Hollywood big screen epics of the 50's and 60's - even down to some of the cinematography and special effects. Good film, though.

Supper was followed by another night on the Wii. This time exercising the little grey cells with Brain Teaser and subsequently with a driving game of some sort. With just the four of us there we had time to be silly and enjoy a very pleasant evening before watching the fireworks from the BBC, and the Jools Holland Hootenany.

Today has been much more leisurely... and is likely to stay that way.

Happy New Year

Rubbling

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen plan to head out west to Hampshire where we will meet up with Betty and Barney Rubble to see in the New Year... however this not before seeing out the old year at the cinema seeing "Australia".

X-drive

The Gorse Fox has been looking for a service that will provide him with several GB or disk space on te web that he can use as a network drive. Idea is that the resource is visible to all of his computers and appears as a "drive"... then files that need to be shared can be copied into the space and accessed form any of the other computers. He's found several (free) services that go some of the way but it looks like he would have to part with coins of the realm to do exactly what he wants.

Wii

The Gorse Fox's (little) sister and her family came to visit. This is always bodes well for a good day.

Today was no different. They had bought a Wii for Christmas as a "family" gift. (Blade works in a Gaming store so has access to such things). Once lunch was out of the way the cables, the remote, the nunchuks, the steering wheels and goodness knows what else came out.


We started with a simple 10-pin bowling game (Urban-cub got several strikes and was seen to celebrate accordingly).

The Silver Vixen had a go and soon got the knack (in danger of becoming a future Wii-whiz).

We moved on from bowling to Tennis, Baseball, Boxing, some driving games and goodness knows what else.
It is easy to see why these consoles sell so well and how people get drawn in to play together as a family.

Thaw for the Day

And then a hero comes along...

Super Keith, the plumber, swept in chanted some magic incantations over the recalcitrant boiler; there was a whoosh and there was heat. Radiators burst into life, the sun came out, birds sang in trees, butterflies flitted by the windows, lambs gambolled in the fields, there was peace on Earth.

Ok that may be a slight exaggeration, but you get the point - GF and the Silver Vixen are pleased to have the heating working again.

Ashes

Considering how many logs we have been burning over the past month (and particularly this week with the heating broken) the Gorse Fox is always amazed at how little remains, and therefore what an efficient fuel wood is. Clearing out the grate this morning for the first time this season, he removed a tray of fine ash... but left sufficient to cover the base of the fire for later (wood always seems to burn best on a bed of ash).

Gorse Fox should make mention of a by-product of Urban-cub's return. She has brought with her the Gorse Puma... a feline-noir that roams the house hunting shadows and reflections. With U-c away overnight the Gorse Puma was not confined to her room but followed us to bed... snuggling down under our bed overnight... or at least until the Gorse Fox's phone started to wail at 04:00 this morning. This "feature" is the calendar reminder function which kindly decided to remind us that Deep Blue is on vacation today!!! The Gorse Fox has had stern words with Mr Nokia and erased all calendar events from the phone.

Just chillin'

It's been a lazy day for the Gorse Fox.  Phone messages left for plumbers... but no real progess on the heating front. 

The Chill continues

Obviously the central heating has not spontaneously fixed itself so the house is chilly this morning. The log fire kept us cozy yesterday evening and some electric oil-filled radiators kept things on a cool but even-keel elsewhere. Fortunately, we have a separate immersion heater so at least we have hot water. 

Not watching

In years gone by Christmas was often the highlight of the TV calendar. 

Not any more.

This past weekend we were swamped with Strictly Come Dancing and Casualty... and now Christmas Day has another Strictly Come Dancing and two Eastenders episodes of misery followed by the Royle Family. 

GF will obviously retire to his study

Skype

Christmas lunch was taken at Brighton Marina. We have never managed to go out for Christmas lunch before, but this year everything came together and we had a super lunch with Urban-cub and here friend Looby-Lou.

We called Cousteau-cub on the way back. She had been at "Orphan's Lunch" at her friend's bar - open to all the folk away from home at Christmas. It was lovely to speak to her - but a shame she wasn't here with us.

Once back home the presents were opened and Agenet Mulder phoned in. This led us to Skype and a video call between the families. It was good to catch up and see that everyone was well.

Fanzine

Lifeblog post
Originally uploaded by Gorse Fox.

Cardinal Sin and the Bum Note fans reach out at Brighton Marina on Christmas Day

The Chill

Either Santa has been mucking about or the Gorse Fox has upset the Russians. He has come down to cool house this morning and fears the central heating has packed up. This does not bode well, fortunately we still have the wood fire.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Faster

Everyone must be at the shops. GF's email inbox for work has been almost silent. His phone is collecting dust, and he's finally managing to get through the work that he had planned for the week. All seems quiet.

GF had to pop out to shops himself - it was late afternoon. He reasoned that everyone would have finished by now and be home avoiding the last minute chaos. 

He was wrong. 

They were out contributing to it. Police were overseeing things in Rustington town centre as people jockeyed for the best parking spots outside the shops. GF chuckled and parked away from the worst of the crowds and walked. He bought the intended item and then headed back to his car observing the same people circling round looking for parking spots that were there when he arrived.

He's about finished for the day now, though does have a few more assessments to write up over the holiday period.

Draining away

The day started with the Gorse Fox up to his armpits in the drains again. Whoever said we don't know how to have fun on Kingston Gorse has obviously no idea! Some progress was made as the backlog of undrained water dropped another 300cm. An hour later it had not moved another millimetre.

In the background the Stitch Witch's Admiral had phoned. He has a set of rods that could be just what was required. Silver Vixen was off out and resolved to collect the rods on her way through. She returned mid-afternoon. GF lifted the inspection cover and started again. 

• He started jiggling and rotating the rods...
  
• It didn't work.
  
• He then tried the rods in the drain itself.
  
• It didn't work.
  
• He went back to the inspection cover and jiggled again.
  
• It didn't work.
  
• He returned to the drain and tried plunging it, scraping it and generally fiddling.
  
• There was a huge belch and the water disappeared.
  

The drain was clear. he got the pressure washer to clean it off a bit more and to clean the rods. That was when the Gorse Fox had a good idea.

Well maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

The rods included a half-moon shaped blade. If he could just push that up from the inspection hatch it would clear any remaining debris.

Well that was the theory.

In practice the half moon was hinged (like a grapple) and once in the pipe it had no intention of coming back out. GF pulled and yanked. Nothing. He dropped down into the inspection hatch and pulled and yanked, using his foot as a lever. Nothing.

He sat there giggling. He could see that he had replace a simple blockage with a solid piece of brass. He could foresee a jackhammer being needed to drill through the driveway to retrieve it. It was time to call the Admiral and ask for advice. "Turn it to the right and jiggle it" came the considered response.

Returning to the hatch, and dropping to the bottom he again grabbed the rods. He turned them to right and jiggled them. It took a while. It took a lot of jiggling. It also took a lot of twisting... but voila the rods came free and all was well with the world.

And to think some folk in the City will have wasted an afternoon at a Christmas Party when they could have been having fun like the Gorse Fox!

Drains

There are some things that you really don't want to hear when you are working away at your keyboard. One is "I think we have a blocked sink"  (Another is "There appears to be piranhas in the bath", but this latter was not a problem faced today!). On further investigation you realise it is actually a blocked drain, outside, it's just started to drizzle and it'll be dark in 20 minutes. 

Prepare tools:

• Long stick (for rootling about)
  
• Big screwdriver (to undo manhole cover)
  
• Trowel (to lift debris)
  
• Bucket (to receive debris)
  
• Power washer (to cover the surrounding area in debris)
  
• and so on

GF got stuck in - not literally - but despite his best efforts the problem persists. He did observe, however, the huge colony of snails that seemed to have taken up residence. It needs to be addressed in proper daylight so will have to wait until the morning.

Deck the Halls

It was necessary to replenish supplies ready for the festivities. This meant the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen descending on Sainsbury and spending 90 minutes avoiding collisions with people who had overdosed on their stupid pills. It was not as bad, according to Urban-cub, as Tesco where customers were arguing in the aisles and staff were moaning about how rude the customers were , as part of the traditional build up to Christmas.

On returning to the Gorse (and unloading the shopping) it was time to start on the Christmas decoration... not the GFs favourite escapade of the year.  It's done, however, and we can relax.

Gone in 60 seconds

Urban-cub had put her old car up for sale on eBay. The 7-day listing came to an end today and though bidding was initially slow, she ended up with a winning bid of nearly twice what she expected... and only £10 less than she paid for the car two years ago. Not a bad result.

The purchaser turned up at the allotted time, handed over the crisp bank notes and signed the registration documents and disappeared with the car. Job done. 

Biorythms

Some days you just know you should have stayed in bed.

In fact that was the start of the problem. Gorse Fox peered myopically at his watch and misread it. This meant that he leapt from bed, heart pounding (which, he supposes, is a good thing), and shot downstairs to get ready for today's trip to London. It was at that point he realised it was 0600 not 0700.

It wasn't worth going back to bed so he pottered around, drank some coffee and made start on today's emails.

This confusion had not ended there. He caught the train and met up with an old friend, spending the journey in conversation. He was heading to another Government office near GF's destination so the conversations continued onto the tube and back onto Embankment. It was there that Jerry gave GF a strange look as they parted company and GF crossed the road and headed down a side street. Some hundred yards further on GF thought to himself "I've never noticed that building before".

In his confused state he had turned off the intended route and ended up walking round the block to get back to the building he had been standing next to as Jerry said goodbye. That was, after all, where GF was headed!

Chaos

It has been a long day again. The various estimating activity has come to a head and the Dark Lord seems to have been overcome by the opportunity to add elements to the model. The Gorse Fox is am sure a logical analysis page by page would reveal more than a hapahazard scattergun approach, but then, what does he know.

The drive back to the South Coast was very slow. The whole world seemed to be on the move and the A34 and M3 were particularly slow and congested. Eventually, GF staggered in through the door to be greeted by chaos.

Urban-cub was trying to put her wardrobes together in the hall. Like most modern furniture it had been designed to be put to together once and never touched. This was the second time (at least) that these had been dissassembled and on each occasion more damage was done to the various fixings and the cheap chipboard. As we trid to lift the unit on its side it collapsed. GF had to resort to double-threaded screws strategically placed to maintain the unit's integrity.

Next it had to be moved into the bedroom.

This is when it became clear that the bed had to be dismantled to make way for it. And this is when the Urban-cub managed to kick the footrail of the bed into GF's shin.

Eventually everything was in place. Enough was enough. Day was done,

Done

The early start was as stimulating as usual - Not.

The day at Worcester was spent esconced with a confusion of project
managers in a conference room with a couple of Smart Boards.

Meanwhile back on the south coast, Urban-cub is continuing her move...
piecemeal. Bit by bit her belongings are creeping into our house. The
big bits are being moved this evening, so she'll probably move in by
the weekend.

Tonight promises another concert by Cardinal Sin and the Bum Notes.
The last of their Stadium(*) gigs before Christmas.

(*)OK it's not a Stadium, it's a pub. (A very small pub)

--
Sent from my mobile device

Tests

The Gorse Fox was on duty today. The Silver Vixen had to have some tests, so GF spent the day with her. As usual the attention received was excellent and they shuffled the test sequence around to accommodate us and let us get back on the road home by mid afternoon. We now have to wait for C2BAX to call and arrange a time to discuss the results.

GF is less than pleased that he has got to head back up to Worcester in the morning. This will mean that this week he will have covered some 800 miles (ignoring the train journey to London on Friday).

Was also apalled to see that our neighbour may have been the target of some vandalism - with one of their garden ornaments broken and a "For Sale" notice thrown into their garden. This may seem petty to the reader, but the Gorse Fox is sure it is most upsetting for his neighbour.

Long and Winding

It was a long day.

The Gorse Fox was up and on the road soon after 5 heading across country to Worcester. The roads were quiet and the journey trouble-free.

Once in Worcester the day started with the normal daily review and then the Gorse Fox spent most of the rest of the day driving the now infamous spreadsheet whilst gaggle of project managers offered advice as to what numbers should be entered.

Day done, and PMs trying to enter the findings into a project plan, GF hopped back into his car and headed back to the South Coast.

That was a tiring day.

Envelopes

The Gorse Fox has been pre-occupied with both the spreeadsheet that has filled the last week or two and domestic duties. On the latter subject the first task was to get the envelopes for the Christmas cards all printed. This was pretty uneventful except for the occasional paper jam... as a mail merge extracted all of the correct addresses from the relevant database.

Skype allowed us to chat with Cousteau-cub until the line dropped after abot 45 minutes. Here it was grey and dull, cold and damp. There she was barbecueing outside their house at 11 pm. It was 37C and too hot still to go indoors. The tourists have dropped off a bit, probably due to a combination of the credit crunch and the recent protests at Bangkok airport. She's still managing to dive just as much but is often teaching one on one instead of groups.

Laundering

The Gorse Fox has been fighting with the forces of international drug cartels, terrorism and the banks. You see in an effort to protect against money laundering the banks have made it ever more difficult to do anything with your money. The Gorse Fox wanted to transfer some money to Cousteau-cub... something he has done many many times before - though not recently.

The saga then began:

• He logged onto his Online banking account. The signal was poor in the hotel so he kept losing the connection.
• He went down to reception where the signal was stronger, logged on again and went to the relevant section to set up the transfer only to be rejected as he needs a special card-reader to authorise the the transaction. (Cousteau-cub has changed banks so he could use the existing transfer he has used in the past). He doesn't have one. It takes about a week or so for one to be provided and set-up.
• He phoned the bank. They couldn't help on the telephone banking desk but realising he was a Private Banking customer put him through to the Private Banking desk.
• The Private Banking desk couldn't help because he needed to be authorised for level 2 services. Apparently he hadn't requested this. (Gorse Fox not only had requested these services he even knew hs password and pin and secret question.... but "Computer says No").
• Only solution was a visit to the branch.
• The Gorse Fox would head out at lunchtime to do do this.
• The work on the spreadsheet model took over - Thursday was a 16 hour day - the bank would have to wait (for some reason they're not open at 11pm)
  
• So the Gorse Fox headed out into Saturday's gale to the Bank.
• The bank couldn't transfer the money because Cousteau-cub banks with a different organisation. (Gorse Fox thought that's what the clearing house was for). In the end he withdrew the cash (plus some extra because with all of the delays C-c has probably incurred some charges) and walked round the corner to her bank (praying it was open on a Saturday) to deposit the money.

Done.

Gorse Fox thought these online services were meant to make life easier... but because he may be laundering drug money or financing terrorism life has to be made intolerably frustrating.

Phew

Work on the model restarted soon after 0500 this morning. It was all beginning to come together at last so Gorse Fox hopped into the shower, grabbed breakfast, and headed up the hill to the office.

GF expected the review to be somewhat tense... but actually it was very positive and whilst there were some areas where some changes were needed, in general it seemed well received.

GF got on the road early in the afternoon and was relieved to be home soon after dark.

Nothing to see

It's 22:07 - GF is still buried in his spreadsheets. It has been a frustrating day as the model is immensely powerful, but is limited by the data availability and the time.

Big review tomorrow... so have to crack on.

Weird

Some days are just weird.

Meetings started early again and then the rest of the day was spent
working on the Gorse Fox's estimating model (it makes climate models
seem trivial in comparison).

An exec turned up at the end of the day to pass on the latest
information from Starfleet (or at least our part, thereof).

Then it finally hit weird.

Online banking claimed that the Gorse Fox couldn't do what he wanted -
and the help phonelines claimed he could never have done it. Inb fact
he was trying to transfer some money to Cousteau-cub as he has done
many times before. There was no quick way round it... he'll have to go
into a branch.

Then he went to Spur 0... it was pie night. Everyone was expected to
bring and share a pie. GF, warned, had brought three pizzas. He was
abused - they're pizzas. So GF burst into song "When the moon hits
your eye like a big pizza pie; that's amoure" (ok he didn't sing -
that would be unfair on the gathered throng - he just quoted). With
this incontrovertable proof he was allowed in and pie night continued.
It was great fun.

Phew

A 4:30 start is rarely a pleasure.
Today was not an exception.

Armed with hot coffee GF was driving north by 0500. Podcasts kept him
occupied as he crossed the country and watched the temperature drop
bit by bit as he got closer to Worcester.

The morning was not one of life's pleasures... but as the meetings
finished and the work started the day improved immensely.

At the end of the day GF called the Silver Vixen to check on her day,
which was evidently equally stressful but for very different reasons -
it is always hard to say a final farewell to a loved one. Today was
Aunti P's final act.

Finally a pizza and some red wine called and GF and his colleagues
answered. It was only polite, so to do.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Town

The Gorse Fox has packed his spreadsheets and headed up to London
Town. It makes a change, but does mean a fairly late trip home. The
Silver Vixen has gone up to Buckingham so it is not too inconvenient.

He has been at an interesting meeting for Starfleet leaders who are
dealing with The Fedferation. GF had to present what has been going on
in Worcester - just to keep the city folk appraised.

Dinner was interesting - it was too late to wait until he got home, it
was not feasible to go to dinner in town, so he stopped at Wasabi for
some Chicken Teryyaki and Udon Noodles. Excellent evening meal enyoyed
on the train as the Gorse Fox splattered it all over his fellow
travellers as the noodles flapped about between the container and his
mouth.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Shuffling

As days go Sunday was different. Urban-cub came round and spent the day with Silver Vixen clearing out the front bedroom ready for her impending move. We have a moderately large house but little storage space... and the room in question had been used to keep fabrics, cushions, a couple of spare beds, old electronic goods and so forth. What followed was a bit like that game where squares are moved around a small tray to form a specified sequence where only one blank space was available at any time.

The Gorse Fox helped out when a little muscle was needed but spent the second day of the weekend buried in spreadsheets to keep the esteemed client happy.

PM

It is what the Gorse Fox calls a Poughkeepsie morning. Crisp, cold, and cloudless. 

The GF has spent many a winter working in Kingston and Poughkeesie and looks back on those days and the cold cloudless skies with great affection. Morning such as this always bring those memories flooding back. (Including the less pleasant memory of being evacuated from the Edison Motor Inn into the car park in the middle of the night after their boiler broke - it was -23F at the time).

Sew

Sew it is Saturday and the Silver Vixen went off to spend the day with her coven sticking needles into things and trying hang on to threads of conversation.

The Gorse Fox buried himself in admin - first expenses, then back to yesterday's spreadsheet. Not the ideal way to spend a December weekend but when you are getting "design by committee" progress is ephemeral. At least he is not expecting any further changes to pop up during the weekend.

Urban-cub spent the day setting up advertisements for her flat, taking photos of things she wanted to sell on eBay and and generally ticking off the items on her "action plan". Very organised!

The Gorse Fox thought he'd check on the progress of his aunt but phoned the wrong number and had a very pleasant chat with a complete stranger... it didn't help that when he said his name she obviously knew someone called the Gorse Fox and it was a little while before the penny dropped at each end of the phone line that neither end knew the other!

Spoiler

The Gorse Fox has started to receive spam comments so he has switched on comment moderation. He regrets the inconvenience

Seismic

There has been a seismic shift in technology adoption. The Silver Vixen has entered the world of text-messaging... as a sender (not just receiver). This is a major step forward for mankind.

INDIRECT(CONCATENATE("'",$B5,"'!",D$4))

Scraping the ice from the car this morning, the Gorse Fox realised what a boon the front and rear windscreen heaters were. heavy snow is forecast overnight and tomorrow, though it isn't clear whether it will reach this far south.

The day has been spent buried in spreadsheets - which means that it has been a day of little stress and great pleasure. The Gorse Fox likes developing complex spreadsheets riddled with mathematics and complex relationships.

Looks like Urban-cub may be moving back in with the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen for a while. This will be fun... and we look forward to it. (She will however have to find new homes for the cats as GF is so allergic to them).

Working through

The Gorse Fox managed to grab this photo of The Mexican working hard at his desk, last week. It was mid day which is why there is the blank patch at the bottome left !!!

Chef

Poshbloke (The Abbot) and Welshbloke cdressed in their Chef's whites... though it looks more like welshbloke was preparing for a "how to be a Ninja class".

Pizza

The Gorse Fox attended a dinner last night. A dinner with a difference. The Abbot was called upon to work the pizza ovens along with Welshbloke. The Gorse Fox and several othe luminaries were asked to wait on the tables.

The Abbot and the the Welshbloke were given chef's whites and set to work.

The Gorse Fox and the other victims were given T-shirts... largest one being 36in chest. Much huffing and puffing and several minutes of contortions made it clear that the Gorse Fox's athletic frame was not going to fit into the said T-shirt. So off he went to start taking orders for the starters and main courses. It was a a terrific evening with great fun had by all present.

There was a quiz - which the Gorse Fox's table won, and a "guess the baby" where photocopies of baby photos had to be identified. This was all very fine, but the Gorse Fox's picture was guessed to be the late Andrex!!! One of the other tables won that - but then three of the people featured were at that table.

There seemed to be a worrying decline in red wine stocks throughout the evening, but it was not immediately evident why. Various "thick heads" this morning may provide a clue.

Changes

Just for a change the Gorse Fox has to head for Worcester a day early. He has been invited to a dinner and feels is beholding on him to attend. It should be fun as I know that some "events" are planned - though have no idea what they are.

GF heads out soon after lunch for the cross-country drive.

Urban-cub was on the phone first thing and has invited herself round for dinner with the Siilver Vixen this evening so at least the void created by GF's early trip will be filled by U-c.