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.