Ticker treat...

What with the foreign cuisine and my winning yet another mixed grill pack in the meat draw last Friday (and eating it all over the weekend in my lethargic man-flu-induced-can't-be-bothered-to-cook-a-proper-meal fashion), it's fair to say my current chances of losing any weight are nil, at very best.

To add to the temptation, I bought a load of funsize bars to reward any suitably attired tikes doing the rounds on my first halloween living here. At a little past 8:00pm, I'm pleased to report that there have been no callers yet and I may have to "dispose" of them myself. Shame. Still, better to play it safe, after all, they may go off if I leave them till Christmas when little niece and littler nephew come to stay.

I ought to get back on the running machine, but I'm still not fully recovered from my recent malaise and anyway, think of all the extra exercise I'll be getting lugging this additional weight around...

Free time...

It's that absurd time of year again when we all have to run around the house, trying to track down every last item with a time display and adjusting it by an hour. I'll guarantee that in a few weeks time I'll still find something that I've missed.

On the upside, I suppose we are gaining an extra hour this time of year, so I guess the challenge is deciding how to make use of those extra free minutes. Sleep is usually my preferred option, but this year I've chose to embellish that with random fits of coughing, sneezing and wondering whether I can shovel enough concoctions down my neck to be fit for work Monday morning...

Dzien Dobry...

Time to update the "30 Things" list again as I add Poland to the list of countries I've visited.

Business again I'm afraid, although I'm pleased to say that after a day of hanging around in airports at Humberside and Amsterdam, we arrived in Warsaw in plenty of time to venture out of the hotel for the evening.

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that my expectations of Poland were pretty bleak, but I was pleasantly surprised at Warsaw. It is an eclectic mix of glass skyscrapers towering above the city and a beatiful "Old Town" area full of beautiful Bavarian style architecture. I'd jumped to my own conclusions as to how this contrast had come into being, but I'm led to believe that even the traditional looking buildings have been there for little more than 50 years.

The restaurant of choice for the evening was U Dekerta where the traditional looking surroundings were curiously filled by English people. I enjoyed fried mountain sheep's cheese with cranberries; veal with red caviar followed by a less traditional sounding chocolate cheesecake and ice cream for dessert. The wine was a bit excitable in price at around 20 quid for a bottle of red, but the overall cost of the meal was very reasonable adding another 30 pound or so to the bill for two of us.

A two hour taxi drive next day took us through surroundings more in line with my original expectations to the site for a day and the real purpose of our visit. After a very busy, albeit informative day, we got a lift to a local, more modest hotel and passed Europe's largest open cast mine en route. For the second evening's meal we were recommended to a local bar where, their English was approximately as fluent as my Polish (we ordered in a mixture of English, French and German!) but we enjoyed so superb home-made pizza (very traditional eh?) washed down with a few glasses of beer.

Most of yesterday was spent travelling home again, but I have to say that I much prefer being able to be back home within an hour of the plane landing in the UK.

Today? Back to my regular office for the first time in almost two weeks, but I suspect it won't be long before I'm back out on my travels again...

Show and tell...

Cherrypie's request for pictures gave me an idea, so here's the how the end of last week went

















And here's a clue as to what this week has in store...

More, More, More...

More problem solving and work done today

More roast ox for dinner this evening

More sleep required before it all starts again early tomorrow...

Off to a flying start...

After a genuinely healthy breakfast this morning, we all jumped in the minibus (classy eh?) and enjoyed a much more scenic route into work than the banks of the M180.

My project brief is separate from the rest of the team, so after arriving at the Portugal factory this morning around 8:45, we parted ways although it was a good 20 minutes before my hosts sent someone to greet me. That said, we made good progress during the morning, covering considerably much more ground than I’d expected.

After a dubious lunch consisting of some kind of soup and something else that resembled burger and mash (classy eh?) I re-joined my English colleagues for an afternoon of data-cleaning merriment.

Rounded off a busy day with pancetta and melon, fillet of roast ox with the strongest (and most delicious) garlic mayonnaise I’ve ever tasted and a crème brulee for pud – all washed down of course with a couple of glasses of local red and the obligatory 20 year old tawny.

Yes, I still have a whole heap of work and travel ahead of me, but right now, the work-life balance feels about right. Suspect it could feel different in the morning though…

If I hear the word "jolly"...

Left the office around 12:30 and arrived at the hotel a mere 10 hours 15 minutes later. The drive to the airport went without incident and the flight itself was only half an hour or so late taking off, needing a rather turbulent half an hour longer than usual to deliver us at Porto airport in torrential rain.

Personally, I really enjoy flying and still find it difficult to accept how we climb into metal boxes, hurtle off at hundreds of mile an hour and just leave the floor, while everyone sits there going about their usual business taking it all for granted. Except for one of our number who unfortunately is so traumatised by the very thought that he has to fill himself with happy pills before even considering it. Well, that's his excuse anyway.

Its soo easy to complain about hanging around waiting in airport queues waiting to be checked, searched, scanned, checked again, scanned again but personally, I would rather get on board the flight knowing such security measures are in place. If I were to complain it would be about the hundreds of morons who have apparently missed all of the notices in the news, ignored all of the signs at the entrance door, check in gate and everywhere else and decided they were special enough to ignore the rules and try to carry on an extra bag, or that pair of scissors, or that bottle of drink.

When we finally did arrive at the hotel, it seemed that they hadn’t got my reservation – despite my showing them an e-mail with the details on it. Fortunately, they had rooms available anyway.

So, we’re here and I’ve managed a couple of conciliatory Super Bock Stouts before bedtime. Let’s see what the rest of the week has in store…

Reportugal...

I've decided to invest in hotel internet access this trip (a lavish 25 euros for 24 intermittent hours) so although I'll probably have to take a few liberties with dates (i.e. cheat), I can keep the blog updated with any interesting happenings. I anticipate most of them will involve beer or food and hopefully very little about work - the reason I'm actually out here...

I know what I like...

When you have a few minutes to spare, check out the website www.likebetter.com - a kind of quiz where they show you two pictures and you simply pick your favourite. After a few answers it tells you something about yourself and I have to say I was impressed by it's accuracy when I tried it.

If you're after something vaguely similar but entirely more trivial, there's always the Who'd You Rather game on the Liquid Generation site.

Reminds me of the story about the little boy stood in the central aisle at Tesco, crying his little heart out.
A concerned shop assistant stopped, "Oh dear, what the matter?"
"I've lost my Mummy", wailed the boy
"Well, what's she like?", asked the assistant, thinking she could put out an announcement across ths store
The boy replied, "Big willies and cheap vodka"...

Superstition ain't the way...

You've got to hand it to Stevie, he certainly knows how to throw a tuneful ditty together; I just wish I could go along with the above lyric.

I've posted before about my absurd obsession with magpies (twice in fact) and how I feel duty bound to salute whenever I see them.

I'm fully aware that we have a Friday 13th day after tomorrow, but it also happens to be Mum & Dad's 44th wedding anniversary (note: 4 years before I was born, contrary to popular belief) so it's certainly brought them both their fair share of luck.

Hell, I even manage to fret about wearing the right socks (although I got it wrong yesterday, forgetting that I had taken Monday off).

Aware of my need to spend around 4000 miles in the air over the next week or so, I'm sure a bit of extra luck wouldn't go amiss, so you can imagine my reaction when I spilt a container full of salt all over the kitchen floor this evening. I immediately knelt down and picked up a pinch with my right hand and threw it over my left shoulder (cop that you little devil) then looked on in dismay when I realised I would just have to run the hoover (or more accurately, Sanyo) even further round the kitchen floor.

Question is, what do I do when I come to empty the vaccum cleaner into the bin? Does that count as spilling it again? Then,what about when I put the bin liner into the wheelie bin?

Either way, it's lucky for Tesco I suppose as I'll have to buy some more salt...

Fun in the forest...

After a less than pleasant end to my working week last week, it was good to hop in the car in the early hours of Friday morning to collect Mum and clear off down to the south coast for the weekend to visit Little Sis & family.

The primary reason was to surprise my little niece by meeting her from school on her birthday which I'm pleased to report went pretty much to plan. As a bonus, we also got to collect her little brother from nursery which was a (hopefully nice) surprise for him too.

Despite all the parties and other pre-planned activities I think the event that amused us all most was during an impromptu trip to the New Forest. They are very fortunate to live a short drive away from such a beautiful area and it proved the perfect venue for a last minute "KFC picnic" yesterday afternoon. I'll skip the various attempts required to get the moronic youth behind the counter to understand our basic order but eventually, we piled the food and drink in the back of the camper van and headed off for Lyndhurst.

Zinger Tower Burgers, Fries and Popcorn Chicken may not be traditional picnic fare, but they served their purpose of leaving us all feeling too full to walk very far although we had been looking forward to taking a wander in search of some New Forest ponies (which are seldom too far away). As luck would have it, three of them wandered right up to where we had parked the van and one of them stopped to see what we were up to.

In fact, he decided to inspect the van at such close quarters that we began to wonder whether he would actually get in! Incidentally, I say "he" as at one point he proved the matter beyond doubt.


(Apologies for picture quality - I'm still trying to work out all of the features on the new mobile)

After a brief snack on a discarded french fry, a plastic beaker, a loose curtain and my brother in-law's arm, he eventually moved far enough back for us to push our way past and close the door.

Well, there's something you don't get to see every day...

Clumsy bugger...

Something I neglected to mention in my previous post, was to confess that somewhere between clambering out of the taxi and arriving at my front door on Saturday night, I managed to drop my mobile phone. Into a puddle. Which bizarrely enough did not contain distilled water. Suffice to say it wasn't very well on Sunday morning and despite lots of dismantling and leaving out to dry, it had to go to the big Carphone Warehouse in the sky.

Regular readers may recall that it was only a few months when I bought this last phone and although I'm notoriously (and inaccurately) known for changing them every time something new comes along, I suspect that 5 months is a new personal record. It is also considerably within the minimum 18 months I'd signed up for. Rather amusingly, I'd also decided at the time that insurance was a bit of an unnecessary luxury.

For those who don't know, there is a considerable subsidy paid by the mobile networks to provide handsets at throw-away prices and it seemed I was looking at the wrong end of 300 quid for a sim-free like-for-like replacement. Alternatively, I could start up a fresh contract or buy a pay-as-you-go deal, but I would still be looking at 13 monthly payments above and beyond whatever the new unit would cost. Things weren't looking too bright.

Sometimes it's good to have mates in the know and today I was reliably informed that as long as my old sim card was in decent nick, it should work in "any old" mobile configured to the same network. Big grin on face, I fled work this evening (you have to take these chances sometimes when no-one's looking) and made a beeline for Argos, who for a much more reasonable sum (less than a third of the above), provided me with mobile phone number seven:



Although it is a lesser model, it boasts most of the same features as it's predecessor. Better still, I get to keep my previous number, free minutes/texts and the only inconvenience is having to re-enter the contact details. I also opted for insurance this time; considering it the preferable option to wearing it on a heavy chain around my neck in a heat sealed plastic bag...

It's alright for some...

I can't imagine what is must feel like to wake up on a Monday morning knowing that you don't have to go to work any more, but that is the well-earned luxury that awaits Mum tomorrow.

Having left work for the last time on Saturday afternoon, I'm pleased to report that her efforts over the last 11 years in that particular job were rightfully rewarded and her house is probably displaying more flowers than the local Interflora.

We both enjoyed one of Dave's delicious specials from the menu after which we joined a great turnout of the regulars for a few drinks and rather a few too many flavoured sambuccas.

So no prizes for guessing todays main activity for me, but I'll say that it involved not moving very far and expelling a lot of "z"s...

So long, farewell...

There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall...

In fact it's probably a relieved sound of sighing now that dreadful prime-time audition show has finally finished on a Saturday evening. Not that I watched a single episode; usually favouring some quality control (to excess) in the Tap or watching something more interesting on the other side. I enjoyed the film (especially at the cinema when I first saw it) and the songs are all classics, but stage auditions to not entertain me in the least. Okay, maybe I'd think differently if they were auditioning for Evita, but I digress.

Today's post shares the title of the song I expect to be singing to the remains of my social life for the foreseeable future following a video conference call I was involved in this afternoon. I've already successfully restricted social activities to Fridays and Saturdays, avoiding beer on school nights at all costs, but it seems even that may need trimming down further. Today I suddenly acquired a workload of epic proportions with a deadline of... oh, there it went.

So plenty of early starts and late finishes to look forward to and plenty more short notice to-ing and fro-ing across Europe, which always manages to sound a lot more glamorous than it is in reality.

Somewhere in between I have a Mum who's finishing work to enjoy a long overdue and much deserved retirement and a special little Niece who's about to turn seven. Obviously, these celebrations will remain at the top of the "to do" list because as far as I'm concerned, some things should always take priority over work.

Oh, and I'll try to update the blog as often as possible but for tonight, I ought to be getting an early night.

The sun has gone to bed and so must I...

Protein overdose...

Today's lunch has been brought to me by the words "tap", "meat draw", "George Foreman grill" and the sound "hmmm".

For the second week running, I've bagged the mixed grill prize in the pub meat draw and for the second time, I've greatly over-estimated the amount I can comfortably eat in one meal.

The prize itself consists of two rump steaks, pork steaks, gammon steaks, lamb chops, six linconlshire sausages and a couple of tomatoes, so I didn't think it unreasonable to freeze half and grill the other half with a couple of fried eggs. I'm pleased I didn't bother with any chips, mushrooms or onion rings as it was all I could do to eat the miniature farm that was laid out before me.

I really don't antipate much activity taking place this afternoon and can't remember feeling this disgracefully over-nourished since, erm..., last weekend...

What Friday nights are for...

Earlier this week I was invited to join the Tap football team.

Surely, you didn't even consider that I might actually play? No, they had a bowling night planned for last night and a few of us were invited to go along on the understanding that there could possibly be a beer or two along the way somewhere. Chances are, the younger ones would finish bowling and head of for a wild night in Cleethorpes and the "more responsible" among us would sneak off and get a meal somewhere.

Do you ever start reading a post and instantly know what's going to happen next?

It had all the elements of an excellent night out. I threw in a half decent game of bowls, there was the ancticipated high volume and variety of beers, visited a few bars I've never been in before, fish and chip supper, one of the guys anounced he's about to become a Dad, another celebrated his birthday, there was even a very attractive stripper amongst the proceedings.

It's surprising how many people have cameras on their mobile phones these days...

Fair's fair...

I'm fully aware before I even start typing that I'm venturing into delicate subject matter, but what the hell, this is something that has been on my mind for several years now and I was reminded of it again this morning.

I spend a considerable amount of my working hours these days attending refresher courses or updates on employment law; usually as a result of amended legislation being introduced to actively discourage discrimination. Although our litigation-obsessed society is clearly here to stay (thanks Uncle Sam), I am genuinely in favour of any changes to make the working environment a fair one, albeit grounds of sex, race, religion, age, physical stature, or anything else you care to dream up.

Without getting competely on my holier-than-thou high horse, I think there is enough tension around this planet of ours as a result of someone feeling or being undermined by someone else.

So on to my case in point. Tonight at the Royal Albert Hall, London sees the 11th annual MOBO awards. MOBO in case you weren't aware stands for music of black origin. Please believe me when I say I am by no means racist and I am aware that the awards are open to musicians of any race performing music of black origin, but still, can this be seen as politically correct? Would the concept of a music of white origin awards be considered appropriate? Many would argue (maybe correctly) that the other major music awards ceremonies are already fulfilling that role.

Surely, the way forward is to open the minds of those selecting categories in non-discriminate awards ceremonies rather than creating these divides?

Idealistic? Maybe, but I thought it was worth a mention...

'kin spiders...

Todays title is one of my favourite exclamations of recent times and often heard in the vicinty of a certain long-haired mate of mine.



However, my rationale for the phrase of choice this evening is not that I have been surprised by anything particularly, but simply that I am getting sick of 'kin spiders, although to be fair, it's not so much the little critters themselves.

Admittedly, I've never really been much of a fan and I deliberately searched for an arachnophobe-friendly illustration, but having spent a lot of money on a place of my own, I'm not about to give it up for some little eight legged intruders. As with the crane flies I've mentioned before, I'm not keen on killing them either, preferring wherever possible to perform the time honoured glass tumbler and postcard trick.

No, my raison de witter this evening is the very subject of the photo above - I've had enough of walking into their bloody webs. Anyone who's actually seen me would testify that it's an impressive web that would capture me long enough for Boris to come along and satisfy his appetite, but they can stop you in your tracks in a second, with a sudden need to flap and brush the miles of sticky silky thread from about your person.

I think things reached a head when I noticed one had spun a web across the entire width of my drive between the bungalow and the fence. There he was, sat in the middle of it, with a menacing grin [probably], watching me park the car on the other side of the gate and awaiting my countergambit. My crude response was to walk around the perimeter of the bungalow with an upturned brush, sending them all on their merry way to set up home elsewhere (hopefully still outside).

Of course, what I hadn't bargained on was that while I'd been busy at work all day, so had they. Like I said, 'kin spiders...

Calling time...

It's been a busy weekend, what with sampling the limited edition Hewitts Ale at the Tap (even more limited now I've had my fill) and re-aquainting myself with the regulars and my little friend the Hobgoblin, I hadn't had chance to ring Little Sis.

I know we now have the open forum of Blogger to hurl coments back and forth about who had it toughest as a kid (bikes, pianos, smoking mothers, blah, blah, blah), but we had the serious matter of the my niece's forthcoming birthday to discuss. Problem is, her reading is improving at such a pace that I daren't risk giving anything away on here. Come to think of it her daughter, Little Z is a pretty good reader too these days. Oh-oh, Seany's in trouble.

For once I remembered Jajah before I picked up the phone, so I took advantage of getting a free long distance phone call as I recently discovered that if you don't use their services for two weeks, you have to re-activate your account, which is a little inconvenient. I also discovered this evening that if you haven't said everything you wanted within an hour, they disconnect your call.

Still I'm not complaining, even with these limitations they are still providing you with a free telephone service and it's not like anyone talks on the phone for more than an hour. Except for me and Little Sis apparently.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I can assure you that I have no connection with this company at all and I'm not on any kind of commission arrangement with them, it just seems to good a deal to keep to myself...

Geek shame...

Way back in my BTEC Computer Study days at Grimsby "College of Nolledge" as it was affectionately known, we were let loose on the pinnacle of modern technology that was the Commodore Pet. (I'd probably better quickly brush aside the fact that I found that picture on a computer museum site). It was on one of those machines that I was first introduced to VisiCalc and the concept of spreadsheets; a fascination which I've been unable to shake off since.

Since evolving through SuperCalc on my BBC Model B and Lotus 1-2-3 on the office PC, I eventually settled down with Excel and despite my years of working with the things, I'm still fascinated by what you can get them to do and learning new tricks all the time.

I sat for a couple of minutes at work this afternoon feeling rather pleased with myself having just finished the testing on my latest creation. It is a veritable symphony of cross-references, control buttons with macros and nested logical formulae that would make the hairs on the back or your neck stand on end.

Did I mention I've not been to the pub for 4 weeks? Can you tell? Well, the weekend is almost here and I anticipate some serious priority re-alignment for a couple of days...