Trouble at t'mill

Seems like there is a problem posting to the blog from normal interface. This is a "mail-in" entry to see if the problem is endemic to the blog, or limited to the normal blogging interface.

Clinging to the Edge

Urban-cub had broken the Nexus 7 GF had bought for her last birthday. Well, strictly that isn't true - her dog leapt on it and cracked the screen.

GF is going to get this fixed as her birthday present this year. He has found an outfit who do such repairs and took a walk into the charming village of Walberton to drop the device off at the Post Office.

Despite some overnight rain, it was quite hot still and the 5km walk was a pleasant stimulus!

GF has also ordered a Kindle, today, for the Silver Vixen. It should turn up at the weekend and hopefully will fit the bill.

Living on the edge

It is clear that, now retired, the Gorse Fox is living on the edge. He has read the papers, drunk some coffee, checked some web-sites, written a letter to the Premium Bond people, and transferred some more money between accounts.

As if this wasn't enough excitement, he has also retrieved a hold-all from the loft to lend to Urban-cub as she prepares to go off on holiday tomorrow.

More Admin

It is frustrating that the GF cannot get more done, but so many things are dependent on the post code file - the master might have been updated but until that rolls out to the online service and PAF clients, GF is picking his way through the tasks that can be completed. In doing this, he has discovered another insurance policy that could be cancelled. There is little point insuring an appliance that we no longer have!

He also spent some time on the phone to HMRC. It appears that whilst they have recently changed his tax code - they sent the notification to Starfleet instead of Starfleet's Pension Trust. As a result GF is still on the wrong tax code. This, in its own right triggered some questions regarding the Silver Vixen's accounts and the benefit of an HMRC R85 which stops tax being deducted from the accounts of non-tax payers. Talking of accounts - Santander seem to have a very good deal with the 1-2-3 account which pays interest and gives cash back on a number of regular expenditures. Looks like a very good deal, so we have made an appointment to go to Chi and open said account.

Again GF's attention wandered. He started to look at the cost of energy. The new house is likely to be more efficient than this one. But by judicious account switching, GF can already see nearly £300 - £400 of savings annually - based on current consumption.

Very quiet Sunday

The Silver Vixen had some sewing preparation to do, and the Gorse Fox had nothing specific on the agenda. The SV disappeared up to her craft-room, and the Gorse Fox spent some time in the study.

GF had a book on the go. This has been ignored for the past month, so he plugged in his earphones and spent the afternoon finishing "Th Flood" by David Hewson. As he had his earphones in place he was able to get on with other things. A nice piece of gammon was simmered in Coca Cola, onion slices, cloves, and red peppercorns. After a couple of hours it was set aside to cool. Then it was roasted slowly at 150C for an hour whilst being basted in honey every 15 minutes. Hugely successful.

Quiet

A viewing had been booked this morning, so after a quick run round with the vacuum cleaner and tidy-up we made ourselves scarce so that the agent could do his job. We took the opportunity to go out in the car and try to stitch together a few roads that could prove useful when we have moved - in that they provide alternative routes out of Bersted.

Back home, most of the rest of the day was quiet. GF contacted Arun DC to inform them of the move. That was straightforward as they already had details of the new postcode. However, BT are still in the dark and whilst GF spoke to a very nice man with a broad Belfast accent, the chap couldn't do anything until they get the postcode. He promised to keep a check on it and get back to the Gorse Fox. (GF may be a little cynical, but somehow he is not expecting that call back!).

We went through the address book and highlighted those people who we would need to inform of the move - deciding who would get a card, who would get an email, or who would get a phone call. Once we have have details of the phone (whether or not we can keep the number) - GF can get that process under way.

Chi

The Silver Vixen had an appointment in Chi.

The Gorse Fox had some errands to run, so dropped off the SV and headed out to the recycling centre (where he was greeted like an old friend). Then stopped at Staples for some envelopes. The family will know that letting the Gorse Fox loose in a stationary store is at best reckless, at worst disastrous. GF managed to keep himself at the reckless end of the scale and ended up walking out with more envelopes, cards and what not than was ever intended.

Then GF headed back to Chi - and observed that there was a better class of busker than one is used to wandering the town. First stop was NatWest where he had to deposit a cheque. The queue stretched to the door so GF decided to use the automated teller. He filled in the details and place everything in a rapid deposit envelope. Unfortunately he then put this in the wrong machine - rendering that machine out of service. Eventually he spoke to a member of staff and owned up to breaking their machine; getting assurance that they would sort it out and handle the deposit.

Next stop was the Halifax where he closed an old account that has been dormant for many years. List completed, he wandered around until he could meet up with the Silver Vixen for lunch. As it is "Glorious Goodwood" the town was quite busy, so we sat in the rear courtyard of Pizza Express and spent the proceeds of the now closed Halifax account.

It was lovely afternoon and the courtyard was quiet and sheltered. We sipped some cold white wine, ate our main dishes, which we both thoroughly enjoyed, and were then tempted by the sweet menu. Gorse Fox is not (generally) one for sweets - but cannot resist a summer pudding. Summer Pudding with marscapone was the first item on the menu. How could he resist? Well, as you can see, he didn't. The Silver Vixen enjoyed a sorbet with cappuccino... but GF is sure it wasn't as good as the summer pudding.

That's it - no more food for us today.

Admin

Basic admin today.

Finances being moved around bit-by-bit to ensure funds for new house are all in one place when needed. (They had been spread all over the place in order to afford them some degree of protection from Bank failures).

Contacted Royal Mail to get new address included on Post Code database. Was surprised how quickly they responded... and complied. This should mean that the Gorse Fox can start talking to BT about moving the phone and broadband.

Lawns mowed.

The Silver Vixen spent much of the day ironing.

The nice man from Amazon delivered the new shredder. This was a much more robust unit. When operating it has all the subtlety of a jet engine - but boy it gets though the paper. Yesterday's pile has disappeared and there is now a sack full of chippings waiting to be taken to the tip.

Observation - after nearly a month of retirement you might expect GF to be well-known at his local pub, local restaurant, and even (heaven forfend) local gym. Actually, he is only known at the local refuse recycling tip (and is expecting an invite to their Christmas party). As he leaves the facility, the gateman asks what time he should expect the Gorse Fox on the next day! A clear indication where priorities currently lie.

Progress - sort of.

The shredding proved too much for our shredder. It has given up the ghost. It is no more. If it wasn't plugged in, it would be pushing up daisies. I has gone to meet its maker.

Mr Amazon will be delivering a replacement in the next day or so.

Meanwhile - a bit of a strop-a-gram seems to have woken up the builders. They have now confirmed our completion date as 29th August. Now the fun really begins.

Call me Fred

The Gorse Fox has a pile of paper several inches thick. All of it is confidential. All needs to be shredded. Given that the shredder only handles 10 sheets at a time, and only operates for 60 second bursts - this could take several days.

As usual, however, such a clear-out has revealed some interesting stuff (including all the school reports for Urban-cub and Cousteau-cub)... and a bank account that GF forgot he had (unfortunately there was no fortune squirrelled away for a rainy day).

More stuff

The Silver Vixen had set aside a car load of clothes, material, and knick-knacks for the local charity shop. This was first stop on today's itinerary. Then we continued across to Bognor Regis again. A bed we had seen last week would fit nicely in the spare room... And there were only a few days left in the sale.

That sorted, we stopped off for some sealer and some paint for the garage floor (Gorse Fox doesn't want to leave it to the last minute and find they don't have any).

Back at home we contacted Stonepillow (a charity for homeless people) and offered them the other items we won't need. They were very eager and will come along next week to see what is on offer. We also contacted the removal company and invited them round to give a quote. Gorse Fox isn't sure if they are having a quiet time, but was delighted when they could come this afternoon.

It is clear we are changing gear. (Let's hope the builder is, too)

Numb bum

The Gorse Fox has spent all day at the computer. He has modelled bedside tables, multi-drawer cabinets, a coffee table, and a fireplace.

These are all based on the actual designs of the articles we have selected, and it enables us to ponder where they should be placed.

The coffee table was a bit of a devil as it had four flutes on each face of the legs. Final version, however, is a very passable facsimile of the item in the brochure.

The fireplace was also quite a challenge as there were some details that were quite awkward to get right.

Again the finished item is very close to the brochure-picture and when placed in the house-model is obviously a good choice.

All-in-all, a very satisfying day made even better by the certain knowledge that the Gorse Fox is not back at work in the morning.

(Just for interest the furniture modelled today is from New England Lifestyle Company and the fireplace is from W&H Supplies Ltd.)

Disposal and decisions

We concluded that there is still a good deal of stuff that needs to be disposed of. A small fridge went onto Freecycle, but the rest we are looking to give away to a charity. We found one in Adur, but they don't come across as far as Fontwell. They recommended a Chichester organisation - but they were not open. We will try them on Monday.

We still had to decide what to do about the existing lounge suite and various chairs we have scattered about the house. These all got modelled and were added to the 3D model to help us choose. Again it took several hours to determine the various options and try them out. Eventually we concluded that most of the seats are to be retained initially.

That brought us on to the bedrooms and again some simple comparisons and options were examined. We now have a fairly clear view of our way forward. Lots of fine grain modelling to do to finish off. That can wait for another day.

Models

Yesterday's trip to the New England furniture store has resulted in a day of modelling so that we can visualise the placement of the dresser in the house.

It has taken a bit of fiddling about, and some guesswork regarding the exact measurements of the various panels and draws, but this is a reasonable facsimile. Importantly the external measurements are accurate.

The beauty is that it now exists as a 3d entity in virtual space and we can move it, rotate it, and place it anywhere in the model of the house with absolute certainty that it will fit in real life.

The Gorse Fox thinks Sketchup is the bees' knees.

Eyes Wide Shut

We have had several ideas regarding the new house. Let's face it, we have had long enough to think about things, and some of these ideas may actually come to fruition.

Today, it was the turn of shutters. We have been rather taken with the idea of having shutters rather than curtains to dress the windows on the front of the house. GF had researched a number of options and we slid into the car and headed out. The first two suppliers we visited were primarily offices rather than show rooms, but we persevered. The last supplier was quite impressive. The actually manufactured the shutters themselves, on-site - rather than ordering them and shipping them in from China. The twice-retired gent who showed us round explained the pros and cons of all of the various options. Once we have access to the house we will contact them and get a proper survey and quote.

John Lewis provided a stop-off point for a coffee and some cake before we went across to the local supplier of furniture in the New England style. Outside it was 31C, so their showroom provided a little respite from the heat. GF took lots of photos of various items of bedroom furniture which we will have to consider, and we put down a deposit on a dresser. A very successful trip.

Overload

Well, that turned out to be an interesting exercise. The Gorse Fox had saved nearly 81,000 emails since 1996, and the archive was over 11,000,000 lines long.
Next part of the exercise will be to construct a suitable SQL table to allow easy access to the data.

JAFLOC

There is an acronym in programming "JAFLOC" - this means Just a Few Lines of Code... and is the traditional answer to any problem posed.

The Gorse Fox has 24 archives of emails stretching back to to 1996 that need to be extracted so that he can mine them for useful historical information. This is a classic JAFLOC... but like most JAFLOCs it is a little more complex than it first seemed. Firstly it is a matter of detecting the transition from one email to the next - which GF finally worked out as the "0C"x code. Then each email seems to have a number of keywords - but the keyword list does not appear to be consistent. Before GF can decide on a final storage mechanism, he needs to isolate the keywords to decide how to handle them.

His code is currently mining its way through several million lines of text searching for the definitive list of keywords that will have to be handled. GF has processed over 40,000 historical emails so far... but the code is hammering onwards.

Mobile Apps

One of the features of Mobile Apps is the difficulty in determining what might be wrong when they do not behave as expected. The Silver Vixen usually complete the weekly Ocado order by wandering about with her iPad and creating/amending the order as necessary. Of late this has become problematic, interminably slow, and sometimes will not work at all.

GF resorted to class problem determination:

1. Any obvious setting wrong? - No 
2. Any problems with WiFi - No
3. Any known problems reported on internet? - No
4. Close it down and retry - any better? - No
5. Upgrade IOS to latest version - any better? - No
6. Is it working from the iMAC? - Yes, but that's a different interface.
7. Does it work from the other iPad? - Yes !!!

Ok, so the problem was isolated to SV's iPad, the question is how to solve the problem. GF erased the app entirely from the iPad and re-installed it from scratch.

Everything now seems to work. Harmony is restored.

Decision made

Our landlord has decided to sell the house we are renting, once we move out. This triggered some calls and a visit from the agent. This morning she turned up to take photos, so we had made sure everything was ship-shape and Bristol fashioned.

Well Saturday's planning of the new living room layout resulted (finally) in a decision and today the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen headed back into Bognor Regis to order the furniture.

For the uninitiated, Bognor Regis has all the faded charm of Pompeii, albeit without the pyroclastic debris and body casts. If ever a town needed some investment - this is it. It makes Worthing seem classy! (Though isn't quite as bad as Lancing). However, it does have a traditional old furniture shop with a stunning display of stock and salesmen who actually know about their products and provide sensible advice and guidance.

Well that wasn't expected.

The Gorse Fox went out to the back garden to clean up some garden chairs. Over to one side of the lawn he found this little chap.

Jasper, the cat, seemed very interested in the little bundle, but was still keeping his distance.

He seemed uninjured, but obviously was too young to fly. Looking round carefully we ascertained that there were no nests nearby, so concluded he must have been dropped by some predator.

Not sure quite what to do we guessed it was some kind of duck, from its shape, so GF put it in a box and took it along to the village pond. He eased it down into the water - and it promptly sunk. Lifting it back up GF let it collect its thoughts, and tried again - again it sunk. Again the Gorse Fox retrieved it. Obviously it wasn't yet ready for water, so GF took it round to a shaded area where there were some reeds. As he was about to release it a nearby fisherman asked to have a look. GF explained what was going on.

"And he sunk" stated the angler. GF answered in the affirmative. "Probably because it's a pigeon." he said, dismissing GF.

Now GF feels dreadful have tried to drown the poor thing, thinking it to be a water bird. He doesn't suppose it will survive, but at least it has a better chance being out of the water and out of the range of Jasper.

Planning

The Gorse Fox cannot believe how much time it has taken to come up with, what should be, a simple decision. Do we have a chair, a 2-seater, and 3-seater sofa; a chair and two 2-seaters; two chairs and 2-seaters; and any combination or permutation thereof. The trouble is how best to lay out such a selection in a room which logically has the focal point of a fireplace, a second focal point of a TV, and a bay window. A room that you wish to be a sociable space, not one dedicated to the altar of televisual images.

Sketchup provided a canvas for trying the various options, but it seemed that whatever we chose was a compromise in some way. (We also resorted to paper and pencil - as a cross-check that GF hadn't got the measurements wrong in Sketchup). Eventually, with a little bit of "out-of-the-goggle-box" thinking we came to a conclusion... though in the fullness of time this will mean some further design work to accommodate the TV the way we envisage.

Another by-product of the decision is that we will plan to provide all video from a media centre - thus ditching the need for DVD storage or CD storage. Music is already stored on our network storage - the trick will be to transfer all the DVDs as well. This may take some time. Gorse Fox has already tried some this afternoon, but though the transcoding works well, the metadata regarding the films is lost. Will have to did deeper before embarking on a mass transcoding session.

Suite

A few weeks ago we started looking for a suitable suite for the new house. It seemed a fruitless exercise even though we were looking a specialist shop.

A few years ago we bought a recliner from a furniture store in Bognor Regis. We decided to give them a try so pottered down to the coast. The store is laid out over 4 floors and there was a vast selection from which to choose. Several hours later we had several firm candidates in mind and needed to go back to the plans to decided what configuration would suit the room best. The other store may have been a specialist warehouse, but you can't beat a good old-fashioned store when you are looking for something special, and just that little bit different.

Bit by bit

Aha! News from the dealer. The Silver Vixen's car delivery has moved forward to November. This is progress. The last estimate we got was early 2015. Now we just need to synchronise with her Birthday and get it wrapped up with a big ribbon. 

Despite two calls to the Ford dealer, Gorse Fox still has no outlook on his car. He supposes this is what  you expect with Ford. Gorse Fox has been spoiled by his loyalty to VW over the past decade or so.

The Gorse Fox is enjoying a quiet afternoon in the garden. He seems to be getting a real flair for being retired.

Middle Earth

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen had arranged to head into Middle Earth and tidy up the garden at Mother-in-Law's old house. It was a 240 mile round trip, but it had to be done. It was a lovely day and the traffic was kind to us.

There was one moment when we realised we had left without the key to the afore-mentioned property, but a brief call to Becks reminded us that the Estate Agents would have a key. Panic over.

Once there it only took about an hour to get everything done, and then we set up our picnic chairs for an impromptu lunch, before packing everything away and heading fro Bicester Village.

Now, much is said about Bicester Village, and certainly it is impressive in terms of size and the range of outlets they attract. The problem, for the Gorse Fox, is that it also attracts legions of shoppers. Legions arriving by car, by coach, and even train. It is a tourist destination and was completely overrun. Today there seemed to be two-thirds of the population of Beijing shopping there, and as you entered any of the outlets they just seemed to swarm like ants all over you and the shop.  GF found such crowds to be an unpleasant experience, even though he is sure the Village was probably quite nice.

Slindon

With the Silver Vixen out with her coven, and the primary chores completed, GF considered his options. Top of the list came a walk... after a nano-second of thought all further options were dismissed.

Within a few minutes walk from the house, The Gorse Fox plunged into Slindon Woods.

The dappled shade made it quite pleasant despite the summer heat.

The Gorse Fox kept to the footpath that ran just in the edge of the woodland, looking across the fields.

The summer breeze swept waves across the crop and was quite hypnotic.

Crossing Mill Lane, GF entered the National Trust land and stayed along the bridleway to the next proper road where he turned left and made his way up to the A29.

Crossing the A29, the Gorse Fox dropped back through the fields to the edge of Slindon Village.

There is a quaint Community Hall, The Forge (which seems to double as tea shop and village store, and an orchard.

The village green was crowned by a magnificent willow, bestowing its shade

Leaving the lower part of the village, Gorse Fox walked down Park Lane and back towards Fontwell.

It was only about 5 and bit kilometres, and took about an hour - but it was very nice.

Sad Farewell

The Gorse Fox has bid a sad farewell to his boy's toys. He has had to dispense with:

• Table Saw
• Thicknesser/Planer
• Dust Extractor
• Morticer
• Compound Chop Saw
• Router Table
• Heavy duty Router

There just won't be enough space in the new house (even if there would be enough time, finally). Rear Admiral Dabbler and his XO came round this morning with a trailer. Thirty minutes later it was all loaded and disappearing down the road.

Raring to go

Awake: check.
Shower: check.
Coffee: check.
Breakfast: check.
Email to local MP: check.
Letter to Prime Minister: check.
Clear garage: check.

Good start to the day!

Frantic

It has been a frantic start to the week.

The Gorse Fox read the paper then had some breakfast with the Silver Vixen. We chatted for a bit and had some coffee. Then GF managed a few emails and a bit of tidying up in his study.

We pottered into Chichester so that GF could get some clothes and change the SIM in his phone. (The latter taking significantly longer than expected).

Exhausted from such stress, we stopped off in Prezzo for some lunch and a coffee before heading home.

The pace of life, once retired, is relentless!

Quiet Day

It has been a quieter day today. The forecast had been a bit mixed - but it turned out to be a lovely sunny day.

The Silver Vixen went through a pile of magazines, deciding which could be passed on to other crafts people, the Gorse Fox played around with the model of the new home to try and get some view of what an orangery may look like, and what its dimensions should be; how many doors, how many windows, and what size of "lantern". It was interesting to see the options evolve, but frustrating how long it took to work out the best way to model the glass roof.

Supper over, it is time to get ready for the World Cup Final. GF is, unashamedly, hoping for a significant German win. (Unfortunately, that is often the kiss of death).

Parham

It was the annual Garden Show at Parham House. The weather was fabulous, and it seemed like too good a day to miss.

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen headed across the Downs. He was a little surprised by how busy the Show was, even fairly early on.

He was concerned that some of the Silver Vixen's friends had got there first. He was lucky. Though similar models to those used by her coven, these were the 2014 models on display. (GF should have noticed).

Once inside the crowds seemed to melt away. Though there were plenty of people around, it didn't seem crowded.

At first a brass band played in the background as we wandered from stall to stall.

There were flowers of every colour and type, there were old galvanised sinks and buckets and other bric-a-brac to make a garden look "twee", there were food concessions, and goodness knows what else.

We wandered on past the exhibits and along through the borders.

These were awash with colour, with smells, and with bees and butterflies. It was a very inspiring.

Eventually we found our way down through a walled garden and out into the Park itself.

Outside the walls we we approached the lake. You can only walk along one side as much is fenced off, but it was immensely tranquil as we sat on a bench and watch the butterflies as they swooped and hopped from flower to flower.

We dragged ourselves away and back to the "Pleasure Garden" where there were refreshments.

GF queued for some tea and salad and then again for a burger. These burgers were wild boar with apricot, or venison. Nobody flinched as they order wild boar, or venison, but when the Gorse Fox requested a "Bambi burger" everyone when "Aaaaaaawwwwww!".

As we sat down with our refreshments a Jazz duet started to play. Somehow, it seemed perfect... a quiet summer's afternoon, a drink, some mellow jazz, and bits of Bambi dripping from the side of the mouth.

Progress, perhaps

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen fought their way through stupid Friday afternoon traffic to meet with the solicitor in Rustington. GF had allowed twice the time for the journey as you would expect it to take - but still arrived a couple of minutes late.

The good news is that the forms we had to sign have been transferred from the standard conveyancing department at the Developer's to their Completion Department. This is progress. Progress measured in geological time, but progress. Even our solicitor acknowledged that he has never known such a long delay between Exchange and Completion.

We stopped off, on the way back, at a showroom that featured conservatories and orangeries. The upshot of this is that we think we may have found a possible solution for the extension that we had been thinking of.

Technology, eh? (the sequel)

Gorse Fox just tried to log on to the Online Banking app to make some changes to some regular payments.

The service is down at present. (snigger)

Technology, eh?

The Gorse Fox had a very interesting chat with the bank manager yesterday. Among other things he told GF about some of the features of their mobile app. GF has made very little use of the NatWest mobile app, up to this point.

The feature that impressed him most was the ability to pay people by phone. You go into the App on your smartphone and elect to "pay a contact". This throws up your address book from which you can select the recipient. Then you enter the amount, and a message an press the confirm button. Et voila. A message is sent to the recipient and they just follow the instructions to deposit the money onto their account.

Budgets

The morning has been spent on the budgets. The Gorse Fox started this a while back and had a fairly good handle on things, but today he has gone back through every transaction in the past year and ensured they were all correctly categorised and there was a clear distinction between ad hoc payments, monthly payments, and annual payments.

It has been an informative and cathartic exercise. GF is feels he is now "in control" of all the facts and all of the comings and goings from the accounts. Very satisfying.

Racing - a new approach

Fontwell Park is a small racecourse east of Chichester. There are regular meets where horses career round the track - urged on by race goers and gamblers.

Judging by these posters they are branching out and extending the races beyond the normal race horses. This could make for interesting sport, particularly if the going is soft, and high-heels are worn.

GF is not sure that the Silver Vixen would be up for it, but maybe some of her coven could enter.

Eastergate and Walburton

The Silver Vixen was out. She had gone to meet up with her layabout friends (The Gorse Fox should immediately stop digging and explain that these are friends from Pilates, which as far as GF can tell, consists of a lot of laying about, squeezing, clenching, and giggling).

It was too nice to stay indoors, even though GF has lost of things to get done on the computer.

A walk seemed like a sensible plan.

Grabbing the OS Map (on the iPhone/iPad) GF quickly decided on a route. It's only 5.5km, but seems like a nice stroll on a sunny summer afternoon.

Fontwell - Eastergate - West Walburton and back to Fontwell.

Nothing too strenuous, but a pleasant walk nonetheless.

GF had oft noticed the village pond, by the green at West Walburton, when sweeping by in the car. It was nice to get up close on foot. Clearly, it is a very beautiful spot.

GF plotted the route on his OS App on the iPhone - but at this point has not worked out whether he can extract and include it in the blog.

Nudge

Evidently yesterday's visit to the house has been part of a lurch into action. Our solicitor has received a notification from the builder's solicitor, requesting us to sign a transfer deed.

Still no news on dates, but things are obviously stirring.

Hampton Court

Hampton Court was one of Henry VIII's great palaces. Every year, the Royal Horticultural Society run one of their big flower shows in the gardens of the Palace.

It seemed like good idea to make the most of a "Members' Day" as the Silver Vixen is an RHS member.

As we had been to the new house in the morning, it was was approach 3pm by the time we got there and found the entrance and the ticket booth. At three, the price drops from the full day price to a discounted price - which was a bit of a result.

As might guess, the Gorse Fox took hundreds of photos. Far too many to show here, but he thought this little collage may give an inkling of the afternoon.

We had a lovely time, though the weather did get rather wet late in the day. We left the gardens at about 7pm and started to stroll back to the car for, what turned out to be, a surprisingly quick and trouble-free journey back home.

New House

The started well. We arrived at the site in plenty of time, and got togged up in safety gear - steel-toed boots, hi-vis jacket, hard hat, and gloves. We were then given the first of several safety briefings. We were escorted along to site office where the construction manager greeted us and gave us another safety briefing before handing us on to the finishing foreman who proceeded to give us a further safety briefing.

The visit wasn't a snagging visit. It was just an orientation visit for us to see the plot and the building so far.

Finally we were on our way and got a chance to see the road where our house is. To the right is some public space that has been tastefully planted.

Our house is on the left towards the end of this section of the road.

This formal planting will provide a nice outlook from the front of our house.

Behind the hoardings at the back they will be building a block of apartments in the style of an old manor house.

We were surprised by how big the garden area turned out to be. It is all very fine knowing the measurements, but sometimes it is only seeing the space that you appreciate what the numbers mean.

There's still a bit of finishing off to complete, and they still couldn't give us an idea of a moving in date. But clearly, it won't be too long.

Oh yes, and it was thrashing down with rain - but then it is the English summer!

Smooth

Well, that first non-work work-day seemed to go smoothly enough. The Gorse Fox feels that he could get into the swing of this.

The morning was spent working on budgets... only interrupted by a call from the Bank Manager (always the opportunist). The Gorse Fox has agreed to go see him on Thursday. Meanwhile there is more work and analysis to complete on the budget data.

In the afternoon GF and the Silver Vixen went into Noviomagus. SV had a few items to pick up at the shops and GF was happy to tag along as bag-carrier... and he needed to pick up some new printer cartridges.

Tomorrow looks interesting with our first trip to the new house... but more about that tomorrow.

Care in the Community

The Gorse Fox often wonders whether some people should really be allowed out without a carer. Perhaps he could share a couple of recent examples.

Example 1.

The Gorse Fox is walking across the concourse at Waterloo Station (last week). An attractive lady (let's call her Olga) with a young child is asking another lady (say, Cressida) for directions. Her accent was almost impenetrable. Cressida asks in return "Where are you from?". "Russia." replies Olga. (So far, so good. Nothing extraordinary). Cressida then asks, in cut glass English "Oh, that's interesting. Do you speak Russian?"

The Gorse Fox nearly tripped over the person in front as he did a double-take.

Example 2.

We visit Bignor Roman Villa. This was buried under several feet earth until 1811. Visiting the room with the hypocaust this is particularly evident because there are notices bringing to your attention the level of the ground outside. In order to protect the find, a brick built hut has been constructed over the site, topped with a thatched roof. As the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen walk around reading the information plates, a couple walk in behind us (in keeping with Example 1, let's call them Frank and Doris). Frank starts to explain to Doris how the hypocaust works. Doris peers down at the void beneath the floor, nods then looks up at the thatched roof. "Was this the roof to the Villa, then?"

GF can only echo the sentiments of Old Father Time "Be afraid. They walk among us".

Classics

There was a classic car "show and tell" on in the car park park at Bignor.  It seemed to be arranged by the South Hants Vehicle Preservation Society. There were some absolute beauties on display.

What did they ever do for us?

To quote from some comedy sketch of recent years...

There was an 'event' at the Roman Villa at Bignor, just a few miles from home.

The Gorse Fox had visited before, on one of his walks, but the Silver Vixen had not seen it. As it was only 15 minutes away and the overnight rain had cleared, it seemed like a good opportunity.

Bignor, nestling under the north face of the South Down, just west of Stand Street, was discovered in 1811. A local farmer's plough caught against what he thought was a rock. It turned out to be part of an extensive Roman Villa.

The Villa was extensive, with some 70 rooms surrounding a central courtyard. In the northern range lies one of many surviving mosaics. This particular mosaic is some 24m long (out of 70m in all) and is the longest mosaic on show in the country.

In addition to the mosaics, they also had an exposed hypocaust - which was beautifully explained, and there was a museum displaying and explaining many of the finds that had been made on site.

As part of the "event" they had people dressed in Roman garb, wandering around. Soldiers, gladiators, servants, and the lady of the house. It was all done rather well, with each of the "Romans" able to tell you about their clothes, their role, and the general background.

A number of shows were being put on throughout the day. When we arrived there a gladiators practise session being staged in the arena.

The practise was great fun and the tableau explained the training, the different types of armour, and the different weapons.

They also staged several fights.

All in all it was great fun, good value, and local. Can't get much better than that

Powering down

The Gorse Fox has been very lucky. He has received some lovely comments and wishes and cards regarding his change of status. He has also received his first pension payment - and that seems larger than expected, which can only be good news.

We heard from the agents at the building development, yesterday. We have an appointment to go and visit the new house on Tuesday for a walk-around. It wasn't totally clear from the call whether this is a "snagging" visit, an orientation visit, or just a looksee. GF guesses we'll find out on Tuesday - but will be ready for anything.

Urban-cub came round after work (GF remembers work). She joined us for a celebratory meal at the local restaurant and then stayed the night, which was nice.

Today, the Silver Vixen is at a workshop. Interestingly it was within walking distance of our last house, but is a good 20 minute drive from our current home. GF dropped her off this morning and will collect her later. This saves wear and tear on her broomstick.

We seem to have a lot of ants wandering about outside the back door. The trouble is some decided to enter and investigate the kitchen. A batch of dishwasher salt last night seems to have suppressed them, but today GF wandered along to B&Q and has purchased a spray that should eliminate them.

(written on the resurrected, but still quite slow, Samsung netbook)

Architecture

Well that's it.

Farewell to Starfleet... and their London offices. A study in architectural brutalism if ever there was one.

The offices may be in a prestigious location, here on the banks of the Thames, but they are plug ugly. This was particularly noticeable after the Gorse Fox's recent trips to Sao Paulo and Madrid.

Anyway - laptop is returned, badge is returned, credit card is destroyed and returned. GF will reset his phone in the morning.

A new era begins.

1...

Well, wouldn't you know it? Plans have changed.

Whereas GF was expecting a quick trip to the Starfleet offices here in the Shire, a call yesterday evening has meant that he is heading for the offices up by the Thames.

Oh well, it's not as if he's busy!

Only thing on today's agenda is hand back his laptop, his Starfleet credit card, his badge, and his phaser.

Cleanup

The Gorse Fox has just finished with his laptop.

He has set his email "away from office" message and is now running a secure data disposal routine that will completely overwrite the hard-drive on the laptop to ensure no data can be retrieved.

Now he is relying purely on his phone for any last minute contact.

The shackles are falling away.

2...

The whole portfolio of documents is now complete and delivered. The Gorse Fox has left a legacy that will, hopefully, prove useful for many years to come.

Today will be dedicated to scrabbling through the remote corners of his laptop to try and find any morsels of useful personal information that he may have left, inadvertently on the device.

Nurse, Cancel all further Ops today

It started simply enough.

The Gorse Fox wanted a coffee. He went an switched on the Nespresso and as he went to insert the coffee pod, he realised the receptacle where discarded pods are collected was full. He went to the cupboard where we keep a plastic bag into which we save the discarded pods ready for recycling. This is where it started to go wrong.

The plastic bag had leaked coffee over the inside of the cupboard. He quickly dropped it in the sink and grabbed a cloth and some Cif. As he started to clean the shelf, the phone rang,

He dropped the cloth and made a dash for the living room - kicking over the cats dry food and water bowl.

Phone call complete, he returned to the kitchen and started to sweep up the food pellets and then mop the floor.

Bowls empty, Jasper the cat arrived. GF refilled the dried food bowl, then refilled the water bowl and promptly dropped it as was putting it down.

GF retrieved the mop and started to clear up again.

Biorythms (remember them?) are obviously dictating a very clumsy day. GF does not do clumsy (as the cubs will attest). For this reason he has decided to withdraw from attempting any further brain surgery until at least tomorrow.

Safest thing to do is to return to the laptop.

3...

Not much left to do now.

One document to complete, the GF will wander through his files and contacts to see if there is any outstanding handover activity to complete.

Nearly done

Well Gorse Fox has saved the biggest document for tomorrow. All of the others are now complete and filed away.

GF sent his valedictory message to his friends and colleagues this morning. In it he summarised a few important points.

GF has no doubt that he has lived through one of the most exciting periods of technological change seeing computing move from the esoteric, hallowed, machine rooms spoken of in hushed tones and awe, to laptops and smart-phones accessible to the masses...

I wish you all he best for the future and I urge you to remember:

• Time is one resource you can never get back - If you GIVE Starfleet (or anyone) your time, that's it - it's gone. Do not work for nothing. The days when that counted in Starfleet are long gone.

• Respect for the Individual may no longer be one of the basic tenets of Starfleet (and more is the shame) - but it should be. Mutual respect was what made us great - the loss of that respect is corrosive.

• Do not be afraid to say NO (see bullet 1, above).

• Someone else's bad planning or stupid, ill-conceived commitment does not have to become your late night or lost weekend. (Your own, however, that's on your head).

• Look after your family - they should be the most important thing in your life. They want to see you (strange as it may seem), your time, your love, and your attention are the most precious gifts you can give them.

• Make contacts in Research and in the Labs - you need them, and they need you.

• Take care of your careers - nobody will do it for you.

• For those of you in the Pretorian Guard remember if you work 44 hours a week that is 7 hours longer than your contract - so a bonus at the end of the year is only going part way towards paying for all the over-time you have given away for nothing

• Starfleet is the greatest technology company on the planet - build on that strength, the strength of its research, and the strength of its methods.

• Fight bad behaviour, shouting,  and bullying. Fight it tooth and nail. It is becoming endemic in some areas. It is unacceptable and must be stopped (see bullet 2, above). You would not accept it in your private lives, you should not have to accept it at work.

• Look after each other - colleagues should be more than just acquaintances - they should be friends; I have been lucky I consider you all to be friends.

• If you are ever in the Chichester area - give me a call - we can grab coffee/drink/meal/ice cream as appropriate

It appears that this had a certain resonance as GF has been inundated with responses from his friends and colleagues. The basic message being how GF had hit the nail squarely on the head.

4...

The list is down to 3 documents left to complete - 165 have been written in the last couple of month. GF has a fighting chance of getting them finished.

No calls scheduled for today, so he should get a good run at them.

The Long Goodbye

This afternoon saw the Gorse Fox head up to town for a farewell drink with several of his old colleagues.

As the Gorse Fox arrived a bit early, he went in to check the venue - a well-known haunt for Starfleet. They had reserved the mezzanine for GF and the manager showed him round and asked about payment arrangements (a tab, or everyone for themselves) and whether we would also like any food.

Ordering a few platters and sorting out a tab, Gorse Fox said he was going for a walk and would be back in 20 minutes.

Though the clouds looked threatening, it was still warm and sunny, and the Southbank is always vibrant and interesting.

 There was evidently a theme of "Love" to all of the decoration around the Southbank. GF suspects it is left over from the Gay Pride weekend just past.

Certainly it was bright!

 From the bridge spanning the Thames you could see the colourful stalls that lined the river bank. Strangely, for during the Winter these often sell food and souvenirs, they didn't seem to be selling anything, but were just colourful booths in which to sit and watch the world go by.

 Heading up-river slightly the booths were replaced by a funfair and the entrance to Udderbelly comedy store. Just out of sight is the Millennium Wheel and the old Count Hall complex.
It is a lovely place to just go and wander about and watch the world go by.

As the Gorse Fox started his return journey he climbed up to the bridge level and, passing the Festival Hall, he was accosted by a young lad - probably 15-18 years old. The lad rushed up to him and asked if he could take a "selfie" with GF. Somewhat taken aback, GF acquiesced and the lad held out his phone and standing up close with GF, framed the picture and took the picture. He thanked GF and as he went to leave, GF asked "Why?" The lad explained he was just approaching people at random and taking these photos. GF was a random victim.

Gorse Fox headed back to venue and soon after he arrived, Deep Blue turned up. For the next few hours various colleagues arrived and we had a few drinks and nibbled at the platters they brought along.

Several colleagues couldn't make it - Starfleet demanding they be in Edinburgh, or Manchester, or stuck in office managing quarter-end. However, it really was a lovely couple of hours.

5...

The final run-down.

GF has a few calls scheduled and is then heading for London this afternoon where he is meeting up with some colleagues for a farewell drink.

Just Stuff

On this day many, many years ago. When electricity was still new-fangled, when London was monochrome, and quite possibly, Roman Centurions roamed the streets - GF was presented with a little sister. Happy Birthday, Sis.

Other than that, nothing too special about today - just stuff.

The stuff started with some more tidying up of the data backups. Over the years it had become a little convoluted and GF needed to rationalise some of the locations and copies that had built up over the years.

Mowing the lawns was more stuff... but as it has been so dry, the grass hadn't grown much. This was fairly quick. The Silver Vixen was trimming a vine in the garden, so GF still had a fair bit of rubbish to take along to the dump.

Other than that, there wasn't too much to report.

Data Security

The Gorse Fox is paranoid about data protection. As a result he frequently reviews his backup regime to ensure everything of value is copied to some backup device, and that it is also stored "off-site" in the "Cloud".

The role of managing backups has fallen to Eagle, his PC, for the last few years. It was however becoming a little convoluted and a good backup regime should be simple and easily understood. Also, Eagle is not switched on all of the time. It was time to move the backup controls to Condor, GF's iMac.

So it was that the new regime was designed (yes, GF applies architectural principles even to his home computers) and documented. Then GF downloaded a bit of software that was analogous to that run Eagle for Condor. The individual schedules were developed (different folders have different requirements regarding frequency or even destination of backup). Everything started to click into place and the new backups have started.

On a different subject, GF was glad to see Brazil get through to the next round of the World Cup - even if it was a penalty shoot-out with Chile, in the end. GF was not keen on Chile's play-acting and whining. Similarly it was great to see Uruguay given their come-uppance by Colombia.

Special Evening

It is the Gorse Fox's little sister's birthday this weekend. We had arranged to meet with them for dinner in Chichester. GF had booked "Amelie and Friends", based on the reviews in Trip Advisor.

The restaurant was busy - probably because of the Festival of Speed - but we were shown straight to our table where we went on to enjoy a superb meal. Appetisers of home made breads and of pork crackling; starters of bruschetta, of smoked haddock, and of crab; and main dishes of Onglet steak, and of sea bass. Everything was cooked to perfection and presented beautifully.

This was a good choice. Trip Advisor had provided good counsel.

When we finished the meal J&T came back to the house where we sat and continued our conversations from dinner - the news of the kids, their health, the new house, the England Football Team, the World Cup in general, and the family in Canada. It was a lovely evening, and all too soon they had to leave and head home.

Festival

This weekend sees Glastonbury taking over much of the airwaves. However, despite the hype, there is another festival. Here in Chichester we have the annual Festival of Speed. This means that the A27 becomes impassible for hours on end - but it also means that the Gorse Fox can wander into the front garden (as he did this morning) and watch the Red Arrows go through their display in skies between Goodwood and Fontwell.

6...

Yesterday was a huge step forward - 42 documents were added to the portfolio and that only leaves a handful. Gf will try to make inroads on them when he has woken up fully.

It wasn't me then

The Gorse Fox's Samsung Netbook is back. The Mr Fixit ordered a second new battery and that too failed to charge. He then swapped the battery with another Netbook he had hanging around - the alternate batter worked and charged fine in GF's machine; the new batteries failed to charge in either. The problem is evidently with the batteries.

Mr Fixit gave GF the alternate battery and Sammy is now home and happy.

7...

Back to the document portfolio today (after sorting out some stuff for Cousteau-cub).

There are a number of document defined within the portfolio that will essentially be blank canvasses for the author to write their own content. This is because the content is likely to be so unique to each project that model document is difficult to create, or because different projects will demand different interpretations of what should be included. This means that progress on these is very quick and GF is getting through a significant number of such templates in just a few hours.

8...

Today saw the Gorse Fox travelling up to meet with Jean-Luc Picard in Middle Earth. The journey north was remarkably trouble-free - and now GF's wheel-bearing has been fixed, wonderfully quiet again. GF will miss his stealth craft when he has to part with it.

The work was, to some extents, a status check and hand-over. J-L needed to know if anything would be left when GF goes, or whether he would have cleared the lot. He also reviewed some of the other details - like GF's style guide, and help guides. Those these were essentially created for his own benefit, these are now wanted as part of the overall portfolio.

Review complete, we headed to a nearby restaurant for a farewell lunch. We sat overlooking the countryside of Middle Earth, with the canal just below us. Canal boats pottered silently by as far as the lock where people leapt out to handle the gates. Just away to our east a mill could be seen among the trees. It was a lovely spot - and GF is amazed that this was the first time he had been there, after 30 years of travelling to and from Middle Earth.

Bidding farewell, GF got on the road and headed back to the Coast. It's all very fine going to Middle Earth, but it's a long way from the edges.

Ubiquity

The advantage of the relative ubiquity of WiFi and mobile phone signals is that when the Gorse Fox needs to get his car serviced (or a wheel bearing fixed - as in this case) - he can drive to the dealer, leave the car and settle down in their waiting room whilst remaining online and accessible to work, throughout.

9...

The day started with a request to convert an old file to GF's new format. There should be a straightforward way to do this, but MS Word has some quirks that do not allow a simple copy and paste from one template to another without compromising the styles that have been defined. Sometimes it works if the author has been consistent, but usually you end up with a mess that takes ages to unpick. GF adopts the approach that it is quicker to copy the data as unformatted text and then apply formatting-styles than it is to clean up the mess. It may have taken a couple of hours - but it is done, and complies with the template GF has defined (and all the US spelling has been corrected).

GF was pleased that Brazil finally switched up a gear and played some good football last night against Cameroon. The next round should be interesting with a Brazil-Chile game set up for the weekend

Gene pool

You have to worry about the quality of the gene pool. Customer Service Agents from Opodo have been revealing some of the complaints and questions they have received.

• When one customer's flight from the UK to Miami was cancelled, the man asked whether he could take the Eurostar to the American city instead.
• One customer called about the sand on the beach in Mexico claiming that it had too many pebbles, one of which had chipped her manicure.
• A thrill-seeker who had booked a trip to Universal Studios, Florida, requested a refund for his trip as one of the rides, the Incredible Hulk rollercoaster, had been too scary.
• A customer called about her holiday abroad as it was “too hot,” the food “too spicy” and “hardly anyone spoke English.”

Countdown begins: 10...

Ten working days to go. The Gorse Fox is has a distinct lack of motivation this morning. The weather looks glorious, and it would be much more appropriate to be sitting outside with a glass of sangria, than sitting in front of a screen trying to finish off some of the outstanding documents.

P.S. Was glad to see the Colonies did well in the World Cup last night. It's a shame the Portingales managed to equalise in the dying minutes.

Sunday Admin

It has been a good morning.

The Gorse Fox has spent time going through his "Money Dashboard" account and clearing up some previously uncategorised transactions. There were about 130 all told but he has it down well below 100 now - and may of them would be allocated if there was a suitable category. The one big draw-back of Money Dashboard though is the inability to manage and allocate categories as you would like.

We managed to have an online chat with Cousteau-cub. GF started the chat, and then handed over to the Silver Vixen as she hadn't chatted for a while. Meanwhile GF headed out to the mow the lawns. As it has been fairly dry over the past few weeks, the grass hadn't grown too much - fortunately.

Order, order!

The Gorse Fox decided today was the day. It was suitable close to the end of the quarter that he may be able to negotiate some deals.

First stop was to order the new car for the Silver Vixen. It took a few hours to get the deal done and the paperwork completed, but in the end GF was happy that he had negotiated a good deal, and he was getting the top of the range car for the price of the next model down.

Overall the deal is working out less than he had budgeted. The only issue now is how long it will take to deliver - given that it is a factory-build (i.e. no stock exists that matches our spec).

GF suspects it will be October before it is available - but at at least we get what we wanted.

After grabbing a bite of lunch we headed back out. It was time to order a car for the Gorse Fox.

Again, it was an opportunity to do a deal. Again, some straight-forward negotiation, and an approach that said "I understand you are in business to make a profit, but you need to try and compete with the online broker price" managed to get a good bargain with about 12% knocked off the price.

Again, the car is factory build - in order to meet the spec. required. GF suspects that, again, this is likely to mean October before it's ready. The beauty is that we aren't in any hurry.

It was good

Despite the trouble with the SatNav in his dream last night, the Gorse Fox has had a good day. Several calls interrupted his progress, but he has managed to create an assessment sheet that will automate the assessment of a nascent project and decide whether it can be considered as "Lite" or "Low Fat" from a workload migration perspective.

Why was this worth mentioning? Well GF has created a simple visualisation that effectively moves a button around a graph to show the scale and complexity of the task - according to the questions answered. Furthermore, the graph depicts some thresholds (which were an absolute nightmare to produce) to cordon off the "Low Fat" from the high octane (to mix metaphors).

A rhetorical question perhaps, but could Microsoft have made the creation and formatting of bubble charts any more difficult?

Meanwhile the Silver Vixen has been away with her coven at Sandown Park. GF is not sure whether any of the old nags won any of the races, but no doubt the quilt show kept them busy.

Where to?

The Gorse Fox seemed to spend an inordinate amount of his dreams last night trying to find the address of a venue to enter into his SatNav in order to attend a VM User Group in Buenos Aires!

The Silver Vixen is convinced it is because he has spent so long working that now he's retiring, he doesn't know where he's going! Personally, GF thinks it's just that he's unhinged.

Headlines

The Gorse Fox can only assume that the warmonger Blair is back in charge somehow. BBC Sports news reports: "England will attack Uruguay"

Come to daddy

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen's Nespresso coffee machine has just been returned. New pump has been fitted, and it now works a treat.

Normal service can now resume.

Printing

More progress made during the day - though it was at a snail's pace. Over 100 documents now nestling in the portfolio that GF will leave.

He received a call from Springbok, a colleague with whom had worked last year. Springbok is deeply disillusioned by work in his division of Starfleet. He has been interviewed by one of the managers in GF's division and was asking for the Gorse Fox's opinion. GF laid it on the line:

• He would have professional, full-time managers, not professionals who had to fit in the management role round a full time-fee-earning role.
• He would be expected to work hard, but he is measured against his 37 hour contract, not some arbitrary 44 hour expectation
• His utilisation targets would be lower (55-70%, not 85%)
• His division would be focussed on technology, and technologists were respected - as opposed to being cannon fodder in practise full of self-opinionated, ill-informed, project managers and fly-by-night consultants
• Only expected to be away 3 nights a week, if at all
• Some interesting roles in the pipeline

Seemed like a no-brainer to the Gorse Fox.

During the afternoon GF re-installed Silver Vixen's printer, switching it from USB to Wireless mode. This revealed that it had an Airprint feature, allowing printing directly from iPhones or iPads. Nice little bonus.

Talking of bonuses - GF received a voucher from Prezzo, the restaurant chain. This seemed like a good excuse, so GF and Silver Vixen headed for Arundel and enjoyed an Italian-themed meal. The surroundings were beautifully laid out in what was once a wine bar, if GF remembers correctly. Light oak panelling, lots of mirrors and a large orangery at the back, over what was once a courtyard. Very tastefully done. The food was good too!

Answer

In answer to the Daily Telegraph's headline "Why are so many goals being scored in Brazil?" the Gorse Fox would venture: "Because that is where the World Cup is being played at present".

Disappointed

Well, GF has been looking at Belgium as a dark horse for the the World Cup, but tonight's display was disappointing. They won the game (against Algeria) but really made heavy weather of it. They will need to improve a lot to be in contention.

Having said that, Brazil (the favourites) were stemmed back by Mexico and despite their lapse into a typical South American style of play-acting (cheating) there seemed to be nothing Brazil could do to break down the disciplined Mexico team.

Not much to report

Tuesday has been quiet. GF was glad to see the US had won their World Cup match last night and was looking forward to the Belgium game and the Brazil game later. The Silver Vixen was out with her coven for the day, and the Gorse Fox continued to develop the documents he has been working on for the past month or so. Not exactly riveting stuff, but it feels good to get them out of the way - one by one.

Deep Blue called. He had been scoping out a possible venue for the GF's farewell drink. Sounds like the ideal place - but shame about the fact they want a guaranteed spend of £1000 in order to reserve us an area of the bar. Now GF and his colleagues have been known to have a thirst, but he suspects that is just a fantasy. He has volunteered to review a couple of further venues so that GF can compare.

Passphrase

Starfleet has a deserved paranoia regarding the security of its systems and this extends to smart phones that provide access to Starfleet's mail system. This paranoia expresses itself by insisting on an 8 (or more) character passphrase to unlock said phone before it can be used. This renders a very useful device about as irritating as shutting your fingers in the car door.

Today, an alarm went off. The Gorse Fox had a scheduled call in 5 minutes. He gracefully finished what he was doing and grabbed the phone. He entered the passphrase (mistyping it the first time). The phone stared at him blankly then popped up the message that it was time to change his passphrase. There had been no previous warning - but it had to be done NOW.

Despite having just entered his old passphrase, he was asked to enter it again. Then he had to set a new passphrase - the first attempt at which broke some rule or other and another had to be selected. That had to be repeated to make sure GF really meant it. By this time, the phone was in  danger of becoming a projectile. The passphrase was accepted and the phone presented itself, finally, as a usable device on which the Gorse Fox could have his teleconference with Jean-Luc Picard.

GF will not be upset when he can strip all this Starfleet security from the phone and he can return to the standard security measures.

Picnic

The forecast had been for a nice day - the forecast was optimistic. It was overcast and a little chilly. We had, in ancient English tradition, decided to have a picnic in the grounds of Petworth House along with Urban-cub and her family. The decision was made a week or so back, and ratified yesterday.

The first problem was that arriving in Petworth, access to the House was blocked by a road closure for a cycle race. We hit the mobile phone and intercepted Urban-cub and re-directed her to Parham House.

The second problem was that Parham House was hosting the Sussex County Fair, or some such event. As a result we were directed into a field far away from the House and Gardens. Here we parked and were filtered towards the main entrance to the event. One look at the prices told us, tents, and fairground told us that this was not what we had in mind.

We returned to the cars, exited the field and drove back onto the Estate. This time we ignored the signs and headed for the House. Much better.

The weather was at least staying dry, so we got out the picnic things and sat overlooking the House and Church whilst we munched through our various snacks. Urban-cub had presented the GF with a lovely canvas featuring the photographic highlights of our last trip to Thailand. - it was super, and featured several photos the Gorse Fox had not previously seen.

Once the picnic was finished and packed away, U-c and her family left, and the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox went for a stroll around the gardens. These were quite beautiful - but with some sunshine, would have been stunning.

Purring about Pirlo, Pah!

The Gorse Fox is frustrated about the way the pundits purr about the Italian midfielder Pirlo. That is not to detract from his undoubted skill. GF would observe, however, that anyone can look slick and commanding if every time they receive the ball, the opposition backs off and gives them space.

The papers are full of positive reports regarding last nights World Cup game in Manaus. There was, certainly, much to be positive about. However, there is the basic problem of letting the Italians have the ball. The Holland team, the night before, showed that if you get in among the oppositions and disrupt their play, and give them no space and no time to dwell on the ball - then you can break them down. We seemed to accept that whenever the Italians got the ball we would back off and try to defend around the box - a deeply flawed tactic. Defend high up the pitch - keep them pinned back.

Cosy

When we finally move in to the new house there will be a gaping hole in the living room. The house has a chimney and a space for a fireplace - but no actual grate or fire surround. It was time we gave this some consideration.

So it was that we headed to Ford where there is a large fireplace showroom. When the Gorse Fox says large, he means astonishingly large. We wandered around for an hour or two looking at the various offerings and trying to decide what would best suit the room. Unsurprisingly we both had similar thoughts and liked the same designs - but in a place that big, that didn't narrow things down significantly. We spoke with one of the assistants and he, clearly passionate about his job, took us back and forth between models explaining the features, the pros and the cons of each fire and each fire surround that fitted our ever developing criteria.

In the end we had chosen - now all we need is to get to the house so they can sort out the survey and fitting. GF is not sure how often the fire will be used, but it will be nice to have it there for the odd occasions we may need to top the heating up.

Meanwhile, back at home the Gorse Fox has finished going through the pension forms, and has had a chat with the HMRC to ensure he understands the tax position. He has one more number to complete on one form - which he will do on Monday after speaking to the Starfleet Pensions Trust... and then it will be sealed in an envelope and returned - decision made.

Numbers

Finally the numbers have come through for Gorse Fox's pension. Now he has to decide how to take the fund. Due to a) the disgraceful and disingenuous behaviour or Starfleet over the pension scheme (and as censured by the British Courts); and b) the theft of over £100Bn pounds from UK pension funds by Gordon Brown, Gorse Fox isn't getting as much as he has planned on 20 years ago. However, he is lucky compared to many.  

Now he just needs to determine how much to take as a pension, and how much to take as as tax-free lump sum. Now this is not an arbitrary decsion... one wants to be comfortable, yet have flexible options for the future. He called his brother-in-law as a sounding board and got some good advice.

Now, the sums have been done. The tax implications have been considered. The monthly and annual budgets have been estimated. Now Gorse Fox needs to sleep on it and revisit all the calculations tomorrow.