More English than the English?

So, I'm not dead, just resting. We haven't been up to much except planning the big trip. I haven't been back to London for a fortnight as there were too many people away at work. It's going to put some pressure on over the next few weeks though... So little time left.



I won the St George quiz on St George's Day at work. It's a bit poor when a Kiwi beats all the Poms in a quiz on their own national day, so perhaps they should all go home and learn how to guess as well as I do. I've suggested a quick sing-along of Land of Hope and Glory might be in order at the next meeting (non-English excepted of course).



It's been pretty busy for the others at work as they've been testing changes for Quarter 1 reports that haven't worked. I carry on with it all happening around me, a bit like those TV shots you see of a person standing still while the crowd moves in fast-motion around him/her. My own report gets run this week and again next week, but I'm away in London 3 of those 10 days and another is a 'bank holiday' so it could get busier. Of course, my report was supposed to have been automated way back in December, and while I'm grateful for the extra work, it's a little disappointing I won't get to see the finished product!



Mum gets in tomorrow week plus a day, so she's quite excited. We've got a house-sit in Glasgow for a month when we get in from Italy, where we have to mind two dogs and a cat while the owners go to Aussie and, somewhat ironically, to Christchurch. Mum could have done a houseswap! So we may end up settling in Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, but it really doesn't matter as we weren't committed to anywhere in particular anyway.



The car is back on the road, but we've spent as much again as its buying price I think. New radiator, new water pump, jerry-built gearbox linkages, new tyres, and we still don't know if it'll pass the MoT (WoF). We've both swapped our NZ licences for UK ones recently too.



This weekend we went to Hay-on-Wye (the Town of Books) via Gloucester. I liked Gloucester Cathedral, especially for its solid Norman style. It has the very first examples of fan vaulting don't you know? (See J's blog for the best pic). In Hay-on-Wye I spent a good 8 hours browsing the military book sections. One shop in particular had a fantastic selection of regimental histories and personal histories, although rather expensive. I could even have bought the British Official History if I'd had a spare large sum of money. We stayed in a nice B&B run almost on an honesty system (the chap was in the hills somewhere and his instructions were to choose a room, make ourselves at home and catch up with him later). It was a very pleasant weekend away, with so few weekends left.



J caught up with a friend from one of the schools she worked at. They are converting a barn into des res, but they have a hell of a lot of work to do even to get it to a point that you would consider the beginning of the project. I admire their vision, but it wouldn't be something I'd consider.




I caught up briefly with C after the family came back from Aussie, and we will see them for dinner next week. It'll effectively be goodbye I suppose, although they might make it to a farewell lunch...



The flat has had two viewers: one a friend of the Italians, and the other through an agent. The agent made two appointments and didn't show up so I got the landlord to give him a bollocking. Hopefully they'll communicate better now.



Anyway, time to go.



Distinti Salute

Quiet days

Well, another two weeks with no blog entry - you'd think there was no news, and you'd be almost right.



It's been quiet at work. A few people off sick but we still seem to manage OK. I've had the odd frustration as people failed to supply the data I need to run my reports, but at 5:00 it doesn't matter any more. My biggest wins this week were getting the drinks machine and printer fixed. Two weeks ago someone called the repair people about our tea/coffee machine. A week later the tech was in fixing the innards. He went away and still no machine so I rang them after a week to see what was going on. I think he had just forgotten to turn it back on because we saw no tech, just the usual maintenance/filling person and next thing it was going! The worst thing was that they seemed to have left the tea and coffee in for the whole two weeks so it was a fairly well brewed cuppa for the first day or two.


The printer was broken for half a day before I put the call in. By the time it was fixed there were two days of print jobs on it, which of course no-one bothers to pick up. Lots of confidential stuff lying around for anyone to pick up... The lack of security at the bank really has surprised me. They've recently had a push on security, including enforced encryption and so on, but you'd think the ideas were all new from the way they go on. OGHS was more secure than Lloyds in some respects.



The car park continues to provide some interest. Last week we got home to find a burnt out wreck in the next block. (We only went out one day in the whole weekend and that's when it happened.) The cars either side were scorched and had their trim melted off so they'd be a tad annoyed, but not as annoyed as the owner. Apparently it was an electrical fault, but there was very little left of the car and the scaffolding it was parked under was burnt. That scaffolding has been there almost as long as we have but we haven't seen any sign of actual work. It must be costing a fortune. Later that week there was a row of cars with wheel clamps on - one had two clamps for some reason. A while back they closed off the rough carpark so there are now 20 fewer parks in the street and the workers get desperate for somewhere to leave their cars. It's crazy because nothing has been done with the closed lot.



On motor related issues, we can no longer get reverse gear nor 5th. J has the car booked in for Tuesday, but I'm not looking forward to the diagnosis. From a quick Internet trawl it would seem the linkages are the most likely cause, as they are plastic and wear quite quickly. If so it won't be horrendous, but still money we don't want to spend.



The pound has dropped to a record low against the Euro which is probably good for Mum but a disaster for us on the eve of our trip. It has dropped from 1.65 when we went last year to 1.23 so quite a significant percentage. They are talking recession over here so it'll be interesting to see how that impacts on us.


We went for a walk around Hotwells, which we hadn't explored even though it is very close. I've put some pics here. There are whole quarters of the city we haven't looked at, but we haven't done too bad a job thanks to J.





I have to hurry up 'cos she who must be obeyed wants to cut my out of control full head of hair back to a no 3. She cunningly cuts it to make me look like a semi-bald 40+ year old.