Committee Meeting

Don't you love it when someone arrives late and makes you go back over all the stuff you've been talking about for 45 minutes.  Anyway, the meeting is over and there's some progress so its not all bad.  My Nephew will join our Lodge next year, all being equal.  That will be nice and will follow "family tradition" kind of :-) as his Granddad, my Father in Law, and his my father in laws father in law was in the Lodge.  Let's hope he enjoys his time.

We are going through some growing pains as younger members have more demanding jobs these days and tend to drop by the wayside as they have families and through their work commitments.  Now I could bleat and say that I always managed it even through my hectic travelling and working away years.  However, I have to accept that these days things are different and no doubt our 290 + year organisation will adapt as required to meet these challenges.  We just needed to make certain that we don't take our own eye off the ball.  Lodges are living things and need new blood regularly and that's the problem where the younger guys peel off to do their own thing and it still leaves us old stalwarts to run the place.  What happens then is that people consider that we are hanging on in our jobs and not moving out of the way.  Oh well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.

I managed to make a bit more progress myself this afternoon with possible ways forward should nothing come of these ghost jobs I've heard nothing about so far.  I can see an interesting path forward which might just about do the business and keep me in beer and food. I need now to work on that as rather than relying on a single stream of income I am looking at perhaps doing a number of small jobs all on a flexible basis.  It may just work.

Gradual Improvement

Today feels a bit better but I have to be cautiously optimistic in these things.  I'm reasonably happy this morning but could do better :-)  Life doesn't seem quite so bad at the moment and so that's a good start and there aren't many things to gripe about other than something I ordered hasn't turned up - I've kicked off a progress email and so hopefully that will sort things out.  If I haven't heard by tomorrow then I'll just go into cancel mode and get it elsewhere.  It's a good thing that I ordered way in advance of requirement.

I continue to formulate and pull together ideas for my potential future venture.  If I hear nothing from things that are out there at the moment I may just burn my bridges and draw a line under my last 20 years in the IT industry (oh yes and the charity) and move on to something new.  Getting stuck into something will I am sure give me the focus I need to sort out some of the other things in my life.  I'm looking at a number of things I could do and how these could all fit around each other.  Not easy as I'd like all of them to be flexible and move around to suit.  Well, that's the plan anyway.

At least it is a better day than I have had for quite a while and for that I'm grateful.

A Better Day

All around it has been a much better day today although I'm still not buzzing and hyperactive.  That will take some time I feel, unless I win the lottery on Tuesday night of course!

I keep looking back to the bit of advice that states you can't make all the changes you want (or need) in one go, you have to work them as you can and gradually.  There is no big bang and everything realigns itself to the way you want it to be.

Out tonight so getting ready for that, computer and cash bag needed as Treasurer for the Lodge.  It is normally a poorly attended meeting as it the one after the main Lodge meeting on Saturday added to that we have our annual committee meeting tomorrow and it could be a very quiet evening indeed.

Monday starts OK

The vacuum cleaner engineer arrived and undertook some major work replacing the motor and then some other components.  I purchased a new filter and so the total came to less than £10 for what looks and works like a new machine.  Thanks goodness for its 5 year guarantee. 

A chat with my business partner today also cheered me up a bit but of course he and I both suffer from people not getting back to us.  I am due 3 phone calls and he is due 2 and we've heard absolutely nothing.  Typical and the issue is that these calls actually influence what actions you are going to take next.

I'm in a reasonable sense of humour today certainly not as bad as I have been for a while but then I've done a number of chores and the vacuum cleaner is fixed, the Christmas food is now ordered and confirmed so we will at least be able to eat Christmas Day :-)

I am beginning to bring together my plans for a business way forward but not personal moving on at the moment - it's too difficult to think about and perhaps another week or two will bring the thoughts together.

Bad night better day

Have to say that I was pretty low last night when I got home, I really hate the silent treatment, apparently it was late and I'd have got a taxi back as it is no big deal.  Oh well.  Today was a little bit better but still it wasn't the greatest of days as the vacuum cleaner decided it wasn't going to work, some stuff on the Internet that I needed to do wouldn't work either and so I need to stay in for the engineer tomorrow and retry the order tomorrow too.

I spent some time planning and decided that I ought to at least look over my old notes and start to review the possibilities of working from home on a number of small projects that I have been considering.  Nothing major but some ideas that would keep the wolf from the door perhaps.

First though I need to make certain that things get sorted tomorrow and then move a small step at a time forward.  The day got better which was great but I must avoid these triggers that drop me into being down and depressed.  The trouble is, it isn't anything major it can be something very trivial and that catches me off guard and suddenly I'm really down and of course I can equally be up in no time too.

Nice Day

Shame I had to come home really.  Sounds bad?  Well that's how I feel at the moment.  I enjoyed some really good company and a lot of people seem to enjoy my company which is great.  Shame it had to end and that I'm now home and suddenly it's like a crushing weight.

Perhaps I should have stayed out and got a taxi back.  I think that next time I will do this.

Lodge later today

I have something to focus on to this afternoon.  It was a pretty appalling evening and L went back to Uni and A was late back from London and I may as well have not been there.

Oh well a meeting later this afternoon will cheer me up and I've got all my preparation done for that.  As Treasurer I have to collect and disburse the money so it can be quite entertaining for a while hoping I get enough money in to be able to pay out later :-)

I managed to do the bulk of my Christmas shopping online yesterday and now I just need to keep an eye open for the impulse purchases I normally make leading up to the day.

What an awful night

I'm absolutely knackered - I've hardly slept at all and my mind hasn't particularly been working on too much or been overactive.  I suppose if anything may have caused it, it was the realisation that not a lot is going to happen on the job front so I need to now revert to plan B perhaps in a few weeks time when I get back from Scotland.  That's if I get there with the flight now having changed twice!  

I think that week will be a bit of an interesting one for me as I'll be centre of attention for some of it and that will be nice.  I'll have some time to unwind a bit too.  It will be near enough Christmas to allow me to set a series of targets leading up to that and then go for it in 2013.  Of course not everything may be sorted out by then so there is that to consider as well.

Anyway, I'm up and about this morning, sorting out the back ups and sorting out my head too :-)

Missed a Birthday

26th October 2006 - first entry in this blog. 

Happy sixth birthday!  A lot has happened in 6 years.... :-)

Once again yuk!

Yes once again I feel like cr@p again.  Almost tearful tonight but that was probably because I was just a little annoyed with things (software wanting to reboot my PC when it was backing up and just doing it).  I kind of knew it was going to be difficult again tonight as L was coming home, A was going to be late and Mrs. F. kept losing various things around the house, mobile phone, keys, pens, receipts and then proceeded to clatter around just as I was listening to about episode 6 of 8 where the plot line was being explained.  A bit of catch up TV will be needed so I can at least understand what went on at the end.

There's the realisation that none of the three job prospects have gotten back to me and in some ways I'm relieved and in others disappointed but that's where I am with it and so I need to push on past that now and decide what to do next.

I'm having great difficulty expressing exactly what is wrong and what I need to happen and like many of these decisions I feel that I don't want to make them or say anything that would lead to a major falling out or lead to something worse and yet somehow I fear that is what might happen.  

Tomorrow I will see what I can do to move myself on a bit because now I can set a date in the calendar that will mean I have to make a decision and I will have to move things on as I cannot continue to procrastinate for much longer.

My backup system is in and despite other conflicting software trying to sabotage my initial back ups it appears to work just fine.  The only problem I foresee is that it is a little bit noisy sat as it is on top of my sub woofer by the TV and so I may have to work out someway of damping the sound of the fan.  Other than that it does seem to do the job very nicely indeed.   

Backup System Installed

Despite the doom and gloom mongers in the internet reviewing world, my Drobo-FS arrived this morning and within 5 minutes it was up and running.  Even a dolt like me can make it work and so I guess these reviewers must of had bad luck, were working for the opposition or were really thick. Mind you mine must have been delivered by an ex-SAS man as I didn't hear the doorbell and there was a card stuck through the door - I hate those but luckily it was left with my next door neighbour...

So now I have all the PCs backing up to the new RAID system and I am moving all my other date there too so that I will now have 3 or 4 instances of all data and some key files are double backed into the cloud too so that I can access those anywhere. With 2 x 3TB drives in play to start with I hope that I will have solved the loss of data issues at last.

I had a good afternoon and evening yesterday and it was great to see one of my friends who became the Master of his London Livery Company.  My goodness he has the most packed schedule this coming year.  It is the Lord Mayor's Show on Saturday and he will be there and has already had a series of functions to attend to.  What a wonderful thing that must be.  It is fascinating seeing the Livery Companies and their role in London (City) life.

The meeting was tinged with a little sadness too as we said goodbye to a very popular member who died in September.  I bumped into his son a few weeks ago and passed the time remembering the dads.  I like that my school friends and I who meet every month have a little toast to the dads when we meet, all 4 of us no longer have our dads with us.

I'm calling my mum everyday still but perhaps I will slowly get that to 2 or 3 times a week.  She is getting out and about a fair bit now and has applied for her bus pass which will be great as it will give her some mobility and freedom to go into town.

This morning has been a bit of a mixed bag.  Once the kit arrived I was happy enough but before that I was a bit flat again.  I'd had another series of quite vivid dreams and strangely enough the ones I remembered were exhausting mentally with so much going on and with surprisingly complex plots and sub plots.  I wish I could record them, some would make excellent books :-)  This one made some sense and then lost itself in some amazingly complex relationships.  I felt quite worn out when I finally snapped out of the dream.  

I have to say though I was quite bad for a short while and very depressed and then quite quickly I was past all of that and back on with the day.  Strange stuff indeed.  

I'm getting used to this bumping along the bottom and to the strange thoughts that pervade my waking day sometimes.  The dream had once more involved cancer and death and today I was drawn back into thinking that my demeanour might be something more.  That's how strange things are, I recollect my dad saying he hadn't been right for some time but couldn't put his finger on it and in a way that's how I am at the moment.  I haven't been right for some time but I'm pretty certain that it is all "in your head" not in my body.  At least I'm not getting any worse and I'm not in the really dark places when I do get depressed.  It's manageable shall we say.  

No news is good news

I guess that is the case especially when I had my scans etc.  Of course when you want to hear something or get a phone call (a watched phone never rings) nothing seems to happen.  So it's been weeks now since the opportunity at Wimbledon and absolutely nothing has happened.  Then there's the big job up in London and yes, you've guessed it, not a squeak either.  I think there was one other but I'm quite good at just dropping stuff out of my head if I think it doesn't have legs.

This does nothing to add to my current low feelings (shall we call them).  It isn't a surprise in reality that you don't get responses these days, there are too many applicants for the posts available and people no longer follow the social norms or writing to you etc.  I've had people ask me for a job and I've always had the decency to get back to them as normally I can't employ anyone due to the nature of my business but at least I have read their CV and can make suggestions on where they can look or what they might want to do to their CV to improve it etc.  It is after all common courtesy and decency to do so, I treat people how I would like to be treated generally although as you probably know if you are about to try and sell me something I don't want, have phoned me and are wasting my time or are some other waste of Oxygen, you will be told in a more colourful way what I think of you :-)

So back to not hearing anything.  It will be what it will be, I know that.  I find it somewhat amusing that like many of these things I still, after all these years, get excited by the prospect of possibly getting a gig and then finding out that there isn't even a follow up at all :-)  It shouldn't affect me anymore, I've been there, got the Tee Shirt, the DVD, Blue Ray, book and everything!  However it has to affect you because it re enforces the conclusions I've already arrived at and that is that I probably would only be doing those jobs for the wrong reasons.  The money mainly followed by the status of the jobs too (they build you up as you call the shots and run the projects etc).  Yet as I saw last week, I hate the commute now and whilst I find people fascinating, I certainly found the commute to be stressful and full of unhealthy and unfriendly people.  There's nothing remotely civilised about being transported to and from work in cattle trucks and perhaps I just need now to nail that into my decision making process.  I do sometimes look at the salaries and the conditions and expect one to offset the other but I am erring more towards living than having all the trappings.

The more I don't hear back, the more I'm leaning towards doing my own thing.  The trouble with that is that it is a home based business and I think that has some dangers considering I've been working at home for a number of years now.

Nice Walk

I'm lucky as I live very close to the countryside and the sun was shining nicely and we, Mrs. F., A and I went for a long walk through the woods checking for damage to the Ash trees from this new horrible disease that may wipe them out.  We certainly had a nice walk and then came through the football field through the oldest part of the village and to the local pub where we had a drink and some food.  So that was nice.

I was OK with that and enjoyed the walk and the fresh air but you know what?  I still have no idea on what I want to do.  I couldn't tell you other than the extremes of my thinking.  The extremes are indeed extreme, this involves me taking off and leaving everything behind and just going somewhere and living a simple existence, reading, writing and perhaps doing some sort of research work, painting and sketching, being some sort of artisan, sculpture or something constructive.  Don't ask me why that would be, I have no idea but that's what is screaming out from me at the moment.  I want to live in a small cottage and be involved in a local community and make a small difference but more than anything else I want to be away from this life I live now. 

So that's the extreme of my thinking but it is strangely a place in my dreams and my imagination that I'm comfortable with.  I fancy this being in the countryside or by the sea and I envisage that I would have some sort of comfy room surrounded by my books and there would be a desk and roaring fire.  Happy enough with my own company most of the time, there would be a local country pub and happy locals to spend the odd social evening with.

It appears to me that this is some sort of message and reaction to current situation, perhaps fight or flee reaction.  I note that there is no room for anyone else in these visions and plans at all.  It is all about me running away and rebuilding some sort of idyllic life for myself and just spend the time really enjoying what I like.  I find myself trying to work during the day at the moment and maybe I should be spending some more time out and about, perhaps reading or learning to play the piano better than I can now and all the other things I ought to be doing.

I have Lodge meetings later (today now) and that will take away some time for thinking and considering what to do for today.  From next week onwards, crazy November takes over as I have meetings almost one after the other for 2 weeks.  I just hope I can keep track of it all.

Mid Way

And now I'm midway between a high and a low and it is one of those things I guess.  The Sun is out and so that cheers the mood.  A chat with Flocky Bicep and spoke about what we need to be doing in the next few weeks has given me some things to look at too.

I can't say that I'm particularly in a happy place because I'm not.  I am trying to be very careful that my moods do not affect any judgement calls I make.  By that I'm overly concerned that I'll do something silly or impulsive which I am prone to do when I'm out of my normal happy INTJ area of comfort which just happens to be now :-)

INTJ types aren't great at situations with people and because often these don't make sense they often don't understand what is going on - well that's me exactly.  Past experience tends to make decisions even narrower and fall short so that I don't go over the line (wherever that may be).  So I'm very cautious in this area - perhaps too cautious.  I don't read the signs at all well.  The other downside is that I can go off the rails and overdo things but this mainly tends to be drinking too much.  However the upside is that I just go to bed and sleep it off and realise why I stayed for "just one more".  I then tend not to do that again for quite a while :-)  Gone are the days of drinking and smoking all night although I occasionally will do a late night I certainly don't drink right through.

So having said all of that I'm not quite in that level nor do I intend to get there either.  I am overly cautious though as I dislike upsetting people - and I've done that whether I knew it or not over the past 7 years.  What it feels like is that everything I've built will come crashing down around me if I really say what I think but I just don't know - perhaps I'm overreacting or not reading things right (likely) and that's the problem.  

I suppose, to try and get this into some sense for anyone who isn't me, I could try and sum it up like this.  I consider the thrust of my problems to be 60% of my own making and 40% of my current home life.  Only I probably know that breakdown.  Of the 60% some of that is known and understood and it has taken me 6 years to try and get some level of understanding around that.  the 40% is hinted at but I fear that bringing that up will leave me without anything.  I mean no home, no marriage and so on.  I fear that because I don't know how broaching the subject other than being hurtfully honest (brutally honest) is possible I can think of no subtle way of saying that I no longer enjoy living here and that some of my problems can only be down to that.  I could lose everything and burn my bridges and yet is that really my problem?  

I'm not saying it very well here but I find part of the problem is to do with the changed me and that because of that I will affect those nearest to me even more than I affected them in the past 7 years.  I now see that I wasn't great to live with before Cancer - maybe for some years leading up to being ill.  I don't suppose that matters to them - it matters to me.  I sometimes feel a bit like a ghost here anyway as rightly or wrongly they just all get on and do stuff around me and don't involve me.  Then again, I'm not the sort to want to join in and go shopping and that sort of thing either.  I don't fit here anymore and that's a survivor problem.  In some ways I'm here because I didn't die. 

Life's a bit of a tangle at the moment.  I've made myself go and do things later this month (and earlier this year) to force me to start living again.  Making myself go out and interact, meet people and so on.  It's a big move for me to start to get doing things again to start to get out of the house.  I suppose seeing my dad's predicament also spurred me on too.  However, I want to do a lot more and I feel my current environment isn't set up to do that. 

Oh well it is difficult to set it down on paper / blog and that sort of shows how complicated it is.  It isn't a single thing, it isn't something that can be resolved easily either.  We are looking at the mind of a cancer survivor who has a wish to use the remaining time to do something (sorry that's about the best I can come up with) and finds that in his household only he thinks like that and whilst everyone is being very accommodating about it they are drifting away from him at the same time.  No one has any of the same interests anymore, we all do different things now and the unit where we all did things together shattered sometime ago and more so when I got Cancer (I really wasn't up to going out and doing stuff they wanted at that time).  Habit and circumstance means that we have very few common interests left.

Anyway - enough written as it is going around in circles.

Helter Skelter

You may recollect the Beatles Lyrics:

"When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide

Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride

Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.

Do, don't you want me to love you

I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you

Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer

You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Helter skelter, helter skelter

Helter skelter."

Life is definitely back at the bottom today and yet it was all quite good last night and then morning came and the same old same old as I woke quite alone on a Sunday, very late (and I've been sleeping late - another sign of good old Mr. D. returning for me).  What I hate about this is that it's like that most days, I get up on my own, cook for myself (which I do most of the time), and then I appear to exist in another dimension whilst things happen around the house around me without appearing to coincide with where I am and without us crossing tracks at all sometimes.

The thing about my depressions is that they aren't long lived but they are a little too frequent for my liking and they are without real rhyme or reason and they can go in an instant, so good am I at acting my way out of them and being cheerful and with it.  Yet even now I realise that I must be difficult to live with as I'm in my quiet reflective mood - I'm not moochy or nasty, angry or disagreeable, I'm just awful quiet and withdrawn and deep in thought most of the time.  

Mrs. F. suggested we do something on Tuesday when she is off work but I have no idea what that might be.  I also have no idea if on Tuesday that I will enjoy doing whatever it is we may want to do anyway, my mood will determine that I suppose.

For weeks now I have been having the most vivid dreams and episodes that circulate around relationships and places of work and that sort of thing.  I've heard very little back from anything and whilst I realise that is the way things often happen, it adds to the tension but also, strangely enough it adds to the paradox.  The paradox being that I'd probably like the job but hate the travelling and yet the job would provide position, money and power and that would overshadow the travel yet as I found last week I hate travelling on the crowded train services.  

I prolong my own deliberations because whilst these jobs would be amazing and give me many things they wouldn't ultimately answer the questions or solve the problems that I have.  This is the bottom line of it.  It doesn't actually matter what the job is because it is nothing to do with that - other than anything I do must support my ultimate objectives to live the remainder of my life doing what I want to do (I know I don't know that either).  The fact is that none of the jobs would improve things as they stand, they might accelerate the change or make it possible for me to change, they might even put off the process of change as well and just let the problem fester?  

I don't foresee an easy way out on all of this because it is so complicated and yet one of the dreams made it all so easy.  There was I away from here, no real complications in life, a small cottage, a local pub, fabulous walking countryside and someone to share it with who just enjoyed doing the same things and the late summer sun played across the garden and glasses of wine sparkled on the patio table whilst insects and birds darted through the shafts of light caused by the branches of the trees.  That's the dream of course and it doesn't always come true.

The difficulty must be that anyone who knows me must think I've got it all made here.  Two kids who are normal, well educated, one earning, a nice house in the village, a steady life and a nice area to live in etc.  Perhaps it is me and my dark reflections that is the only one who doesn't like it.  Oh well, bed time now and I'll see how I feel in the morning.

You'll Be Surprised Just What You Can Do

Chatting to someone who wanted to know a bit more about my Bladder Cancer and I walked through some of the things I'd had done to me.  At this time, especially if you are male, you start to squirm when the operations and the treatment regime are described.  "You were brave" he said.  "Not at all" I replied.  You see you just need to make a decision about whether you want to live and then you have to trust your team and all the pioneers who have gone before, your fellow sufferers who have also done this - it isn't as if it is new science albeit that things have moved on even in the last 7 years.

Looking back I surprised myself quite what I was able to achieve and what I went through and I should take some comfort that I stood up and did these things (well stood up may be an oxymoron) but nevertheless I faced my demons, I had these things done to me, even recently, and I am here.  

I wonder then why I'm not standing up to my personal demons now and why I'm not being proactive and determined as I was then?  Well I suppose I had no choice in terms of treatment, it was a life or death decision (cue trainspotting narrative) and of course this personal turmoil actually has choices, choices of outcomes, compromises, emotional pain, sadness, joy and all sorts all mixed up together it is far less black and white (am I allowed to say that in the EU?).  It is a route with variable courses of action open to me and that's the thing.  If you choose one way will you also regret it or find it some sort of half hearted compromise?  I don't actually know (of course) who would?

There are no parallels here, if I make a decision I can change it, I can modify it, I can do many things even back track but when it came to Bladder Cancer there was only a binary decision at the beginning, I think it was live or die.  There were only a couple of possible  ways it could progress and there were other outcomes - keep or lose you bladder (my friend just lost his).   There were other minor course changes and choices that may have been there but they weren't my call, the were my Consultant who, whilst discussing these with me, I felt had the ultimate say, I just had to big up and have them done.

So I look back and suggest that you will be surprised what you can do when presented with a life changing problem.  In some ways, some of the decision making is taken away from you but you can do things to help yourself and life style and diet are part of that.

Where you don't have that guidance and the stakes aren't quite as high then you may have problems.  Me, I'd like to pack up and run away right now, go somewhere in the country, near the sea and scrape a living just so I could enjoy the area, walking and so on.  I really don't like being where I am right now.  Nothing against the people as such apart from they've not had these experiences and they don't look at things the way I do.  My mind was re-wired by cancer and my sights set elsewhere.  My value system is completely different as is my moral and spiritual conscience.  

I hate people trying to change me or trying to sell me something I don't want and I don't want to sell my ideas like that onto others - I don't think it is fair on them and certainly looks like being an extremely selfish act on my own part.  This sounds a bit rambling but what I mean is that out of the household I'm the only one who is not the same person I was 7 years ago.  I no longer recognise the me of 8 or 9 years ago at all.  I find myself to be diametrically different and there is the problem.   I'm no longer at ease with what I have, where I live, who I live with, the things I/We do etc.  My friends are still my friends but dynamics have changed there too, Only I see my friends these days regularly.  We don't do much together anymore and that allows me to go and do my things (Monza, Scotland later this month etc) and once that starts to happen more regularly then the cracks will open further.

Trying to tackle this is difficult and very slow and steady.  No idea whether it will succeed though.  But unlike when I was ill and I could face these things head on, this needs kid gloves and psychology and political management - it's like treading on egg shells all the time.  Progress is slow - perhaps too slow but lets' see where we go from here.

Enjoyable Day

I took myself off to the local Masonic Centre and went to see a lecture and also I went to buy a copy (well 4) of the lecturer's book, Sacred Secrets.  Unfortunately getting it from the author meant I paid face value but I did get each one dedicated to the recipient and signed.  I have brought them home, handed one to Mrs. F. and asked her to wrap it up and give it to me for Christmas.  At least I will have one present that I actually want :-)

It was so nice just to turn up, do nothing and listen to a really interesting talk that had been well researched and that was entertaining and educational.  It really is a fascinating subject.

I appear to have a bit of a cough and a slight sore throat again - I hope it isn't from the journey on Thursday but it could well be as it was like travelling through the Plague or Black Death on the trains.  How on earth I did that sort of journey every day for all those years I have no idea.  A chat today with my business partner looks to be interesting as he has a potential project on the go but we have poked holes through it already and so we may decline before we get to price it. I'm thinking that I'll give the present set of opportunities a further 2 or 3 weeks and then if they don't come up with the goods I will go back to working on my own business opportunity.  I've partly stopped that although I'm still noting down things as I go.

All in all I am feeling a lot better at the end of the week than I did at the beginning so that's a good thing.

London - A good day out

However I did find the journey in and back a strain and one of the pubs made me feel quite ill as it was just so crowded and airless - I had to go stand outside!  That said it was a good day and nice to get out and about again.  

I'm off to a meeting this afternoon in a short while to meet a chap who is delivering a lecture and has written a book.  I'm getting the book for some people for Christmas and getting myself one that I can give to Mrs. F. to wrap up for me too! :-)  

A strange afternoon just had a storm come over, hail, double rainbow lots of rain following, had to put the lights on it was so dark and now we have blue sky and sunshine!  

I wonder if I'll ever get used to commuting again?  Have to say I wasn't best pleased with the people on the train yesterday, all the windows closed, like a sauna, coughing and spluttering.   It was so bad I half expected Florence Nightingale to walk through the carriage administering aid to the sickly bunch.  I just hope I haven't caught anything from them.

Not a lot more to report today, I'm in a good mood this afternoon and will enjoy this meeting but not be dining so will have a beer afterwards and then head on home.

Good grief my desk IS made of wood

There you go a little discipline and I can make a start on clearing things up and organising my desk which appears to be wooden :-)  It didn't take too long, I just needed to ask myself did I actually need the bits of paper - if so they were filed - if not they were shredded or thrown out as required.  At least it gives me a little free space to work with now.  

I'm checking with Mrs. F. to make sure we can pay for the backup solution I'm favouring at the moment for the home computers.  I priced up off site (cloud) storage and was horrified at the cost.  We have a lot of photos (with A being a photographer) and I have a fair amount of scans and photos that need to be protected.  I've made sure all my most precious stuff is backed and indeed synchronised but I've not backed up my music or many other files - well I had but to a drive that went AWOL even though it was repaired I'm still now very nervous about it.  My solution will be a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device which will allow both the Windows and MAC machines to back up to it.  The difference being that this beast is RAID enabled and will have a backup of the backup type arrangement.  I'm going to populate it with a pair of 3TB drives to start with and I might add the 1TB drive I already have.  I can add more drives when required which is great.  It will allow me to set up the family's PCs and MACs to be routinely backed up and to place their files there independently too.  It's a bit on the expensive side but when I think of the time I've put into getting my music stored electronically and perhaps I'll put films there too in future and all my family history stuff - it will pay for itself pretty quickly.

So a little organising should pay dividends in case of future failure of drives.

I'm going to be out and about tomorrow - catching an early train and meeting a friend who will be getting a new Masonic rank at Great Queen Street in London.  To celebrate we are going to Simpsons in the Strand for breakfast (nice) here is the menu and we are dining afterwards at the Grand Connaught Rooms.  This is guaranteed to blow the diet out of the water but it is only one day :-)

I should have been at my Lunchtimers event so I will have to go afterwards and see if there are any stragglers and have a beer with them.  I'm looking forward to an interesting day out.

I hate Halloween

It's a pagan festival that we appear to have inherited from our cousins across the pond and this trick or treat nonsense - or as I like to call it begging just appears to have taken over from the penny for the Guy (Guy Fawkes) which is of course the 5th November.  I don't see much fun in the event at all especially the idiots who just go and a use the cover of dark to wreak mischief everywhere.  I don't find eggs thrown at the house particularly amusing.  

Maybe I'm just a bit crotchety when it comes to this stuff but I don't like the idea of people almost being driven from their homes as they feel obliged to join in.  If you want to join in, stick a lantern in your window - great.  However, I don't particularly like the idea of people turning up on my doorstep demanding treats or they'll do something if you don't.  Isn't that called blackmail?  Or worse extortion and racketeering? 

So having now got that off my chest, let's get on to more important things of the day.  Tidying my desk might be the first :-)