It's time!

Moving on!

I have a friend who's just changed jobs after the old job, which he had enjoyed, had become nothing but troublesome.

Although many of the soft and hard skills are the same for both roles it is a very different firm with a different culture and different criteria for success. 

Having been in a similar situation myself I understand the conflicting emotions but I believe this quote to be true, the future, the undiscovered country, is an exciting place. 

:0)

Sharing an office with a PR firm

Having worked my whole life in IT and financial services I'm used to working with certain types of people.

The Public Relations firm we rent office space from have quite a different mix of people, and also often have unusual items in the office waiting to be despatched as part of a publicity campaign.

Today's offerings:

wine

 

miniature desk gardens

 

and, the ultimate:

monster chocolate rabbits, in a handy carry case!

Visiting the past

In Bath for a family party and, on a whim, went to see the house my grandparents had lived in.

My grandmother died when I was about seven and then my grandfather lived there until the early eighties.

The house, a late Georgian artisan terraced house, was owned by him leasehold and a compulsory purchase order was served on the land in the early seventies along with several others in an area known as Little Mudcombe.  Some were demolished straight away to allow the building of a school and the others were allowed to become derelict as people died or moved on.

In the end my grandfather was the only one left, gardening eight gardens, loved gardening, grew enough veg to keep the local shop supplied, living in an increasingly derelict house.

Thankfully the Bath Preservation Society managed to stop the demolition but by then many of the houses were uninhabitable.  As the only remaining resident m grandfather was paid for the house, given compensation and moved to a warden controlled apartment so that renovation could occur.

This was how it looked when I last saw it (not sure the dereliction shows that well):

 

and now:

 

Really lovely, although I'd forgotten how small they are. I hope my grandfather would be pleased despite the lack of vegetables being grown, as he always said 'you can't eat flowers!'.

 

 

Travelling home

So, today we find ourselves heading back home after a great week in The Alps.

Andrew does all the driving, 12 hours over 2 days, so I get to sit and talk to him and watch the landscape, and plot the next holiday.

I also get some useful time because, frankly the scenery isn't always interesting on a French peage:

 

 

so, I'll  do a bit of planning for work, plotting the next iterations for our IT development:

 

and do a bit of studying for my next exam in the middle of June. Got a good 4 hours done!

 

 

No milk in the house!

The problem with getting home from holiday is that you never have any milk in the house.

Andrew was convinced that some was arriving on Monday morning (we support a local milkman) but it was a Bank Holiday and when we opened the door there was no sign of any friendly bottles.

What to do?

Option A:  Go to the shop and buy a pint
Option B:  Go out for breakfast.

Option B won!!