Still alive

Just in case anyone reading this blog was wondering, I am still alive and capable of typing.

Having been cruelly abandoned by a husband swanning off to the November Ops meeting, I find myself in the unusual position of having some time to blog, having already finished preparing the accounts for Sanctus 1 for last year, done a practice exam, bought some stocking fillers and some booze for me (There's a thought - excuse me for two minutes while I go and pour myself a glass.....................................................................sorry, that took longer than I was expecting, awkward shrink-wrapping over the cork) as well as some proper gifts, banked some cheques, picked up a parcel from the sorting office and earned a quid for participating in a market research survey. (Now then, you're conducting market research about chocolate bars, and you're paying people in money not chocolate. What's the thinking there?)

There's a few things I still haven't achieved today, but then I hadn't planned for Husband to detail me to exploring the European Christmas Markets in Manchester in search of stocking fillers. I have duly trudged through all the god-awfully twee clay cherubs and santas, foodstuffs, contenders for the title of most useless piece of clutter you could give to someone you really hated, and jewellery stalls staffed by the most miserable oriental women. Is it me or are they actually trafficked here in the same container as the merchandise and beaten if they don't sell enough tat?

I do like the Christmas markets for the atmosphere, the mulled wine and the opportunity to restock the larder with raclette cheese and salami, but I do also find they're really crowded, and better for buying Christmas decorations and burgers for yourself than gifts for other people.

Big points to: the guy with the stall between M&S and Burberry who's selling wooden things and scented-candles-in-wineglasses, the hand cream and other luxuriously smelly things merchant on the steps of the Town Hall, and the rather charming Frenchman tirelessly demonstrating the magic of telescopic fruit bowls in the middle of Albert Square.


Less points to: the choir of young people who turned up in St Ann's Square and sang beautiful a cappella arrangements of popular songs. Lovely to listen to, but they had dumped all their bags on the top step of the war memorial, on top of a wreath which had been laid there. There were other steps available.

goo goo g'joob

Dinner was out this evening: we went to Walrus, on Manchester High Street.  Most satisfactory.

Myn started on tempura squid, while I enjoyed thai fishcakes.  Mains were crispy pork and a beef mussaman curry, both served with a sufficiency of sticky rice.

Now, regular readers of this blog will be reminded of some menu descriptions from our time in Cambodia.  Indeed, the full menu included many items that gave me a brief flashback to many an evening spent trying to decide how to feed twelve hungry mouths.

Anyway, the food was lovely; the house wine was a surprisingly pleasant ugni blanc / colombard from Gascony; and the service was faily attentive, well informed and quite attractive.  The decor is a little eclectic / modern Japanesee, but not startlingly so for all that.

Would recommend it, and would definately go again.  A Rob Rave.

black ice

Overnight frost + early morning rain = not fun cycling conditions.

It also does funny things to train running times.

Never a dull moment

Truly, there are few dull moments when you work in a small team, headed by a man who should never be allowed caffeine.



We scaled the heights of surreality today in a web training session on the new accounting system. We had a teleconference call to someone in Georgia who knew all about inventory management (you say inventory, I say stock, let's call the whole thing off). We also, via the magic of the tinterweb, had a view of her computer screen, but of course no actual sight of the disembodied voice who talked us through the new system.



Note to office workers: you may like to switch the preview pane for new MS Outlook messages off before beginning a training session in which colleagues across the world can see your computer.



After a series of high pitched yappy squeaks, we began to wonder if there was a dog in her office. Then she broke off explaining bin and warehouse maintenance to comment that 'she obviously wasn't getting enough attention' and five minutes later 'I'll have to put her outside.' Yep, there really was a dog in the office, which someone who's physically met the woman referred to as a pit bull, but which sounding all yappy and frilly and lapdoggy. Until half an hour later it suddenly, from outside the door, let off a low, blood-curdling wolf howl. It's weird assuming someone is in the office, and then realising they must be working from home. Mustn't they?



One truly cringeworthy pun later*, we got on to the subject of being able to review your planned entries to the system before actually making them. As the nice lady in Georgia explained, she doesn't really have an accounting background, so she regularly runs things past her finance people before posting things, as, in her words, the financial controller will really beat you up if you put things in the wrong accounts. Of course, it was our financial controller she was talking to, although she seemed to be under the impression he was a software engineer. Gleefully, he agreed with her that the financial controller is indeed a grumpy sort who shouts at him all the time. Really, we ought to have explained to her what all the barely suppressed mirth was all about...





*You won't thank me for repeating it.**







**Oh all right, it was on the subject of tracking stock with individual labels printed with Bark Codes. You see? I have to work with this man all the time.....

Views from windows

We've been back a week now. We had a short holiday on the Isles of Scilly, with H & T on the Isle of Tresco. This was the view from our window:

In comparison, the previous week, I was on a work visit to a large industrial site on the Cumbrian coast. I stayed in the quite lovely Sella Park House Hotel, and had a view of the No. 1 Pile from my window.

Still very nice, though.

I am a Husband

1] What's the old fool on about now? I've known that for ages.

2] Huh? He never said: the git.

3] So what? I've heard that one before...

I wonder which of those choices was your reaction to the title of this post.

Actually, there is a fourth option. I am a comedy husband, represented in many an advertisement for air freshener, shampoo, washing up liquid, and numerous other household products.

Myn is away for the weekend, being a highly skilled practitioner of her First Aid craft at the Sugar Hill festival, leaving me to cause all kinds of havoc at home.

Homebrew continues apace. I bottled the "Pacific Quartet": a blend of white grapes from (guess where?) the Pacific coast of the USA, and started off a Chilean Carmenere / Carbernet Sauvignon. So far so good. However, I used a combination of screwtop, cork and sherry bottles. It always seems a waste to bottle and cork some wine, only to uncork it a few days (or hours) later, so some "easy access" bottles seem to make sense. The problem came shortly after I put the bottles in the winerack.

One of the sherry bottles rejected its cork, spilling about 2/3rds of its content on the hall cupboard floor. I discovered this in the evening and spent a fun hour or so trying to extract as much wine from the carpet as possible. I left a fan running overnight, to try and dry it out further, but was woken this morning by the sound of running water. Wine, as it turned out. Two further bottles, in fact, with a third about to go the same way. I have spent more time today drying out the same carpet again.

If that weren't enough, I managed to break the door off the washing machine this evening. While cooking dinner, I bent down to look through the oven door, and somehow managed to sit on the open washing machine door, pulling it off its hinges.

What will I do next?

news

Just to keep everyone updated, I'm now working as a Finance Manager in Trafford Park. It's a smallish company that's part of a bigger one, and it's a very friendly and pleasant place to work, although unfortunately there's no receptionist, so phonecalls come through to Finance and we get to screen out all the useless sales calls, including the occasional very cheeky operator who claims to be something they're not in order to get straight through to the managing director.

It's all slightly manic as it's monthend and me and my boss have only eight weeks or so experience of the company between us. Onwards and upwards!