I know an old lady who swallowed a...

Locust

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51658145

Fingers crossed

I got home from work last night to find the house heating not working.  It turns out the plasterers were plastering around the control unit when it blew.  They replaced it but couldn't get it to work so last night we had no heating, brrr...

They got a electrician round this morning to fix it.  He is 90% sure he connected the heating to the heating controls and the water to water.  FFS!

Progress

It's getting there.  They were supposed to finish today but as some of these photos show they've got a at least a couple of days to go.  Hopefully they will be done by the weekend as the painters are in on Monday.

More than I would have liked to have spent

The initial quote came back for the bespoke work I wanted done in my new office and it was a touch more than I initially wanted to spend...

Fitted desk, shelves above desk and a fitted bookshelf on the back wall.  It came in at a whopping £3,300.  I initially costed out what I needed to be under £1000 (etsy / John Lewis), however the room is a really odd shape with curves and angles all over the place.  I think it would still look great with shop bought furniture it wouldn't utilise as much space as we need in an already small room.

I went back to the carpenter and with a couple of adjustments, i've got it down to less that £2,500.  I didn't want to spend that much but think it will look pretty cool once it's done.  As it will be for my office I can expense it so i'll get the savings on corporation, and income tax too.

Kicked out of my office

Working from home today, but the plasters have kicked me out of my office they can do some plastering, looks like i'll be working in various coffee shops and bars today.

I was in 65mm coffee with April earlier, now i'm in the Firestation

The Fire Station

Hallway

The top floor is mostly done now and they've made good progress on the hallway.  They're due to finish at some point next week.

Not very lady like

This is how our cat cleans herself.

Daddy's little helper

Flo helped me make panko risotto balls yesterday

A bit of a mess, but they tasted very nice.  April especially enjoyed the Russian roulette element of the meal.  50% of them had a small cube of Gruyere stuffed in the middle. 

Still flooded

The parkland around Tonbridge is still flooded.  It's been more or less like this for the past 2 months now.  The water levels in the river are very high and we're about to get storm Denis heading our way soon too.  Perhaps they're letting as much water out of the storm barrier now before they get another another load dumping on them over the weekend.

1 year at day rate

I started contracting a year ago today and all of that is at day rate!!!  And all in the same company, which is nice, one extension to my original 6 moth contract followed by a recommendation to another team, that another recommendation and a little part time back in my old team.  Pretty good really. 

My 3 month contract in Casualty comes to an end today.  Next week, I start work in Marine and Energy.  It's only for 6 weeks though.  Nothing new to go to yet but it's a little early to start looking.  In fact I won't be able to start on anything new as straight after this the Clark family are going on tour.  All the way to Australia.

It will be nice to get to somewhere warm for a while but I am not looking forward to the flights or more specifically having to look after a two year old on those flights. April will be nearly 7 months pregnant too so I imagine she will be milking it and getting me to do everything...

Time for a more reusable cup

This morning I broke my 3rd reusable cup.  I was taking it out of my work bag to make myself a tea to take into work when it flipped out of my hand and smashed on the kitchen floor.  Grrr!

I think my next one will have to be plastic.  I'd have to really try to break that.

3 days left

3 days left in my current role, and have just signed an extension to do another 6 weeks (30 days).  According to my contract

Specified Services
The specified services have been agreed with the Client and are to applied to the entire Assignment lifecycle.  Specifically:

• Head of Pricing skills

Not sure where this is coming from but it amuses me.  If only my daily rate matched that.

For those not in insurance.  Pricing is not walking round buildings with a pricing sticker gun, 

It's trying to work out how much money to charge for the risk the insurer is insuring.

Amusingly my company's web security didn't let me open the first webpage I tried to get this above image.  FFS

Doing my bit

April gave her old DS to a local charity that helps out our local refugee families.  My PS4 isn't doing anything (last played properly 18 months ago), so they may as well have this too.  They can always e-bay it.

Cat towel

I'm working from home today as I had a few bits and pieces to do.  Josie kept pestering me to open my office door so eventually relented.  She then kept wanting to sit on my lap.  We negotiated and compromised on this.

Daddy duties

I had Flo for most for a lot of the weekend, it's hard work, especially with the weather being so crap.

Here she is helping us make macaroni cheese.

All tuckered out on Saturday.  No such luck on Sunday.

Sabaton were shit but Apocolyptica were amazing (again)

Shaheen bought tickets on a whim after reading an article in the Guardian about them.  Apocalyptica happened to be the 2nd support act.  They were amazing.  I highly recommend seeing them life.  I've seen many bands in my time and live they are in my top 3.

The last time I went to Wembley arena was back in 1996 with David Bruce to see the Chili Peppers.  Nearly 25 years ago!!!

Ingenious beer (or in this case wine) carrying device.

It's getting there

Here's some progress on the back top bedroom.  Soon to be Flo's new bedroom (the new arrival (Jurgen) will be next to us)

They've got a fair bit to do in the next few weeks but it will look great once they've finished and even better once painted.

Ooh, that's fancy

I've probably mentioned before... but my company has a lot of art around the building.  Each floor probably has 10 'interesting' pieces.  I was up on the 9th floor today to chat to the interim CFO about the new short term project i'll be working on and spotted this.  A Damien Hurst.

Amused me

With all the working going on in the house we've had to move things out of the way for a while.

The builders stacked these two rocking horses in a surprisingly awkward position.

The results are in

I saw the consultant this morning and it's confirmed, I do have a bad back.  It doesn't require surgery at least (there isn't a surgical option for what I have).  Basically it's ware and tear of the flappy bits (not his words) on one side of my back, right at the bottom.

He's recommended I see a specialist who can inject me with slow releasing pain relief stuff.  I'd need to go back every 9-12 months to get it reapplied.

That of course means that I have to stop playing rugby as it makes no sense agitating it or making it even worse.

Yikes. They've properly started

The window guys turned up at 8am this morning, rudely interrupting my bath! 

My refurbed window

Landing window completely gone!

Same with the bathroom.

The plasterers are in too now so the house feels very busy.  Especially as we also had two carpenters round earlier to quote for work in my office.  They'll be building in a bookcase, some shelves and making me a fitted desk.  Hopefully it won't cost too much.

Is it just me?

I bought Elite: Dangerous yesterday and had a similar experience playing the tutorial as I did when trying to play Red Dead Redemption.

Try as I might I couldn't drive the damn thing (riding a Horse in RDR)!

I will give it another try at some point as I know i'll like the other sides to the game but if it doesn't click after that fcuk it!

All I know is...  you don't need to ride / pilot anything in football manager.

Where's the pram? A2

You sunk my battleship!

Flo's nursery has a new pram shed where parents are allowed to store their prams before heading into work.

I picked up Flo yesterday and thankfully April (who dropped her off) sent me this photo before hand so I new which combination lock to try.

One lady had no idea which one her husband used so had to try the same combination in multiple locks.  Doh!

Looks like somebody has a new entry system to the house

Today is the first anniversary of Josie joining the Clark family.  She's lost around 0.5kg which according to the vet is very good (she's fat and is on a special diet to lose weight).

Here she is asking to come in because she still can't get back inside through the cat flap.  She can get out fine but is an idiot and refuses to through on her own despite me shoeing her by shoving her back through the flap.

She's due her flea treatment today so she'll be very pleased when I get home tonight and administer it.

Incidentally that window (office / games room) was completely removed and refurbished this morning.  Let's hope it's back tonight as I may want to play on my computer.

Another extension?

I was held back at the end of our weekly team meeting today to see if I was available for another new contract.  This would be a very short one, 2-4 weeks in the Marine and Energy team.  But with nothing better to do I said I would be up for it.

It would be pretty good as that will give me experience in the main 3 parts of insurance pricing, Property, Liability and Marine.

It was only a brief conversation so not confirmed but is nice to get a few more weeks pay into the company.

Well that was well excecuted

Ebay novice alert.

I'm sure I could have found a cheaper delivery service, but by using the Royal Mail I basically spent double on the postage that I intended. Doh!

Work on the house

We've got electricians round today, window guys tomorrow (for a week or so) and plasterers around on Wednesday for 3 and a half weeks.  During that time we've also got a team of painters in to paint the plastering (once dried). 

Let's hope they all get on...

Then we get the carpet fitters in to do all the rooms, stairs and up stairs hallways.

Working from home too much?

By Wednesday this week, I will have worked from home 7.5 days out of 15.

Of course i'm working just as hard as I would in the office,

Scan review on Wednesday

I have a the review of my MRI on Wednesday.  My back's been generally fine the last few days but I can still feel it when I do the simplest of things like tie my shoelaces or jog across a road.

Superbowl night

I went round a friends last night to watch the Superbowl.  We watched Any Given Sunday before hand which was good.

I had to call it a day after the first quarter as I was shattered, so walked home at around 00:30..  I tried watching it when I got home but got as far as the beginning of the third quarter. 

Reading the report this morning, sounds like I missed a good second half.

Working from home today so should be able to recover.

Game sale

£125 for the first 4 I sold on Ebay, now to get rid of these.  At most i've played them twice, there's a least a couple there that I have never played.

Now to post them and hope i've charged the correct amount.

And something for April

I collected my order of 24 bottles of wine on Saturday and they gave me a free bottle of 0% beer.

Don't say I never get you anything!

There's something creepy about walking around empty hospitals

I'm at the hospital waiting for a scan on my back and bar someone on main reception I appear to be the only one here. Creepy.