The Business Cards

Arrived on Friday - they look the business - well, they would of course.

Today I fixed my friend's Laptop PC, his kids had managed to infect it with something that looked and acted as if it was actually helping you and yet all along it was tricking them and screwing up their PC.

I managed to start it up in isolated mode and clean it all up there were hundreds of adaware, malware and trojans on it. Clever little program - it turned off all the firewalls, virus checkers and defenders and I had to go in using safe mode to fix it. Hopefully it is all done and he can now reuse it. I've even speeded it up for him too so with a bit of luck that will keep it clean for him for a while.

If he had had to pay someone in a shop to do that it would probably have cost £180 given the amount of time I had to attend to it whilst I did the analysis and effected various cures.

I'm feeling pretty good still, I was impressed that I'd lost weight and was now able to fit into my suits and shirts again. It is amazing how much of an uplift that gives you.

I need to do some more work over the weekend on administration as I find myself busy for the rest of November and December. It is hardly believable but I only have one free weekend between now and Christmas. It means I probably wont get up to see my folks before or after they move and maybe not until the New Year. Having said that, I am getting pressure to go away for a few days around Christmas as we didn't have a real holiday this year.

I feel that it is going to be a very interesting time these next 4 to 6 weeks.

The Art of Distraction

I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted, I must not get distracted.

The level of interrupt is quite high even though I'm not in an office or really involved with anything beyond what I am doing. I do tend to deal with things immediately they arrive. That way I don't have them hanging around my head. It is clearly one of those things I've grown up with I don't like leaving things in my in-box. I'm good at deleting stuff that is noise but quite a lot of things demand my attention if only for a few minutes, like small items of research and articles and news that relate to what we are doing. These distractions and time wasters just pull on your ability to tackle work in an organised and concentrated way. I have actually moved away from the computer and have been using my flip chart more and more to get my ideas down rapidly and then I can document them later. I can still write and draw faster on a bit of paper than on a PC any day.

Here's a little victory though, I finally fit back into my 16 1/2" shirt collar shirts, so all the really nice shirts I bought about 18 months ago are once again able to be worn as are my suits etc. It is also nice to see that all my belts are in a notch. I've dipped below 16 stone and I am very slowly heading downwards, I'm about 15stone 12lbs at the moment which is rather pleasing considering I haven't been doing any exercise for the past month. I am being quite careful about what I eat but the start of the Masonic season always makes things a bit difficult as the meals feel like they are chosen by my late Grandmother who always suspected that my mother wasn't feeding me enough and so made up for it by baking huge vats of stuff for my visits :-) So you get something like a soup starter, a Steak and Kidney Pie and then that is followed by some stodgy pudding like Jam Roly Poly and Custard!! Oh and then there are Cheese and Biscuits afterwards. Too many of those and I'd soon be back where I started.

At least at home I am limiting food intake and eating sensible foods.

I just realised the big distraction this morning - writing this blog entry :-)

The Office

Not the one with Ricky Gervais but the office of the Charity where I do some work occasionally :-)

I popped in on my way to lunchtimers and met the folks, it is quite nice to catch up with them but I am so glad that I don't work there any-more. What I am doing at the moment is so engrossing and so interesting that to go back to that sort of sedentary life might just polish me off BUT - let me not underestimate how glad I was to have that bolt hole and sanctuary during my recovery. I cannot dismiss that - the money - which is and was paltry wasn't the main thing, and making a difference was important so was recovery, rebuilding "me" and whilst I'm not fully reconstructed - there is a way to go until I'm healed - it was probably the very best thing that could have happened to me at the time.

I enjoy the people of course and I like the office up to a point but if they saw the amount of work I am getting through here and what they do - it would amaze them. Tell the truth it actually amazes me too.

I was declared the Chairman of the London Lunchtimers (at lunchtime) and we had a great meeting and a friend from Denmark or Damnark as his business card said (he mistyped it!) arrived too so that was great. As often happens, I met a chap last night at the Mark meeting and he did a response to a toast speech. He happened to also be at the meeting today - that's the coincidences that you tend to find all the time. A happy time and followed by a Shriners meeting where we had a Frenchman, A Finn and an English guy join the Shrine. Very interesting but they are trying to get me in as Treasurer, Secretary and all round good guy. I am however doing enough as is it. Perhaps in a year or two.

The business is really beginning to look good but the images for the web site are giving us headaches at the moment. It is very difficult to stop people pigeon holing the business and so we are trying to be quite cute with out images. We signed up for the hosting package and soon hope to have email and the web site in place - it will be a major hurdle and at last we can "come out" and start to put ourselves about and go for funding. It is a phoney war at the moment.

Talking of war I was able to do my Chairman's moment today which is nice. I did a bit about the national charities and what they had done plus a bit about Remembrance Sunday in 2 weeks time. Here is what I said - I hope you like it:

"Chairman’s Thoughts"

"I’d like to thank Brian for telling us about Prostate Cancer – which now ranks as the highest Male Cancer above Lung Cancer and Colon Cancer.

In 2004, £1 million was donated to The Institute of Cancer Research for research into prostate and testicular cancers. Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer affecting men in the UK. Each year 27,000 cases are diagnosed and 10,000 men die of the disease. ‘The Grand Charity of Freemasons Chair of Molecular Biology’ is currently held by Professor Colin Cooper who is working on developing a test to identify the aggressiveness of an individual’s prostate cancer. If successful, thousands of patients will be spared unnecessary treatment, whilst those with an aggressive cancer can be given the life-saving treatment they require to fight the disease. Our Deputy Chairman and I were privileged to meet and hear Professor Colin Cooper talk about the progress he has made in that work. There are some major breakthroughs coming. What scared me was that up until 14 years ago – there was little if any research at all into Prostate Cancer at all. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak you will be mightily impressed.

In 2008, it was decided that a substantial grant should also be made for research into a women’s health issue and a grant of £1 million was approved for Ovarian Cancer Action. Ovarian cancer kills 12 women every day in the UK and tragically a lack of awareness of the disease and its symptoms means that women are often diagnosed only after the disease has spread to other areas of their bodies, with an impact on the opportunities for treatment. Professor Hani Gabri – a leading expert in the field – is undertaking this research at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre in London. Complementing this important medical research, the grant is also being used to help Ovarian Cancer Action reach more women with information about the symptoms and potential causes of ovarian cancer, with the aim of increasing the survival rate.

One of the reasons I joined Freemasonry was a belief that it helped others less fortunate than myself. What this brings home is that the benefits of this work affect everyone in this room and our children and our grandchildren so let us not underestimate the scale and the enterprise of investing this money. As a Cancer survivor myself, I can tell you how much I appreciate what these scientists are doing to identify cancers early but not just that, this work is fundamentally about prevention in the long term which has to be a good thing.

I am reminded that it is again November and soon it will be Remembrance day. The day before we have the pomp of the Lord Mayor’s Show and the next day the sombre but respectful tribute to all those who have perished in the service of their country and in many cases their adopted country. Last meeting we remembered the few for it was 70 years since their great exploits and so today I’d like to consider the many. There are no remaining Comrades from the First World War which is perhaps 3 generations removed from today’s children but a grateful country continues to remember into the next century that war to end wars. The second World War and the wars that followed continue to take their toll on our brave service men and women and in more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, lives are lost, bodies are maimed and they will continue to do this. It is right that we should spend at least those few moments in silence remembering their sacrifice."

News of my reputation spreads far and wide

In a strange twist my exploits on Monday night have taken on a life of their own.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. — Winston Churchill

I find it funny that whilst I knew that I was pretty menacing, no one had ever seen me in my "evil, nasty, menacing but calm" way before so that's impressive. I have yet to see how I get on with him next Monday :-)

That aside, tonight was an enjoyable meeting of two of my Lodges and I'm the Chaplain and get to do some really nice readings. We had a nice meal and as it was Installation there was port and cheese and biscuits afterwards which was also very pleasant.

It was announced that I was OK at this meeting which really pleased everyone and so there were many people saying how well I looked now. I also got comments saying that I now fitted back in to my old suits - which I do which again is nice.

The amusing thing about this is whether I looked like poo before if I look all right now :-) However, the nice thing about Freemasonry is people are genuinely interested in you and thats part of the magic sauce - frankly all the talk about secrets and all of that is - as I like to say bollocks - they were written down in an expose of the craft in the 18th Century - all the words, all the signs and everything so there aren't any secrets at all. The secrets are nothing to do with the ritual, the "funny handshake" (thanks Monty Python!) and all that, the secrets are within every member. If you are interested enough you will unlock those secrets within yourself. Mind you for the rest of the world it is fun to poke fun and call us Lizard People (didn't you know that we are from another planet and it's all a big conspiracy). I always make the joke when that one is mentioned to ask whether there are many flies around today? Most people say there aren't so I just lick my tongue make a sort of gurgling noise and blink :-)

Tomorrow I become the Chairman of the London Lunchtimers Club www.lunchtimers.org and I am really looking forward to having a year in the Chair although I have already taken 3 meetings this year already as Vice Chairman.

We will host the UK Shriners who have been granted a licence from the US to set up over here and in Europe. They do great work right out there in the community of course and so it will be interesting to see what we make of them in the UK. Incredibly I actually know a number of them already! How small a world this is.

We forget how productive we are

And today was no exception as we cracked on and did a load of work to sort out company business structures and how things would hang together. We are desperate to get the web site up and running in the next week or two. It will make such a difference and our business cards should be here this week along with our domain, email addresses and all that sort of stuff.

We are quite hard on ourselves about our progress and yet, when we went through the plan and saw where we actually were, we can see that we have come a long way. I guess we are 4 to 6 weeks behind schedule and as such will have to think about when we get to start meeting people and discussing the small matter of finance.

I met a friend of mine last night who has bladder cancer and gave him my good news and his is that he is now clear again but on three shots of BCG maintenance just before Christmas. The young lad with Appendix Cancer is going to have an operation in the New Year. He could have had it sooner but it would render his Christmas over as it takes 13 hours in surgery and 3 weeks to recover apparently. I can't say I envy him that operation nor the recovery afterwards. I find three days in Hospital a bind, a couple of weeks would see me stir crazy.

And so I want to go to bed and my brain

Well that has other ideas altogether. Yes it wants to keep playing mind games and solving puzzles that I don't altogether remember setting for it. Things like how I can build a UK wide sales force, logistics channel and service offering (well you asked me...).

To give you a rough idea of the way my brain is working; today I did a competitive analysis of the businesses identified as being nearest to us, I did a massive spreadsheet of figures and came to the conclusion that I had already answered the question before I set off to do the spreadsheet which proved it. You see there has always been this problem. It started at school where I, and my parents, were warned that I always had the right answers but never showed how I got to the answer. I therefore lost points, not because the answer was wrong but because I could not demonstrate how I had arrived at my conclusion. For all of my life I have had the same problem. It sounds vain to say that I am always right for that isn't correct but generally, I can be given a complex set of variables and will be able quite quickly to give an opinion based on logic and experience. Today I guessed some figures and outcomes and was surprised (and pleased) that what I had concluded was about the same as the stats and final calcs came out at.

My brain is buzzing away at the moment about shares / equity / finance and how the business can grown in an international market. I can't stop it doing that, it is getting ready for tomorrow's meeting and running through the register of all the possible scenarios that meeting can take and all the avenues open to explore. I like the way I think sometimes but when it does this or goes into meltdown because it doesn't understand certain social situations that's when it gets silly and I'm up half the night whilst the computer between my ears does the maths!

Talk about angry

Met a guy tonight who just turned on me, all of a sudden, rattled on about how his wife may not make it through the night and Hospital talking about she was dead already.....

Bizarre moment - had him do this to me a few months back or possibly last year just go into Mr. Angry mode on me. Have to say I was taken aback but decided to give as good as but not deck him as my initial reaction was going to be. He gives me at least 20 years I guess so it wouldn't actually be fair to have thwacked him a stiff right hander. However, I do find this sort of behaviour a bit annoying and told him so. Glad my mate also gave him a "what for" as well. Perhaps I should have really opened up on him - I reckon I could reduce someone to tears if I went into the depths of the depravities of the treatment I've had. BUT - this is one lonely, smelly, guy and I kind of feel sorry for him but, offering him friendship and a bit of camaraderie you'd have thought that it would be comforting for him to know we were there but to launch a sh1t tirade at me, and I'm pretty inoffensive sort of person was a bit much. I was remarkably restrained for me, normally I'd have torn the guy a new ar*ehole but there you go.

I find it sad now, though I was pretty angry at the time. If none of my mates had been around I do think I would have just hit him quite hard for what he said to me. Lucky for him then that I managed to hold back the urge. If things are as he said and his wife isn't going to make it through the night why turn up at the bar at all???? Things don't add up sometimes do they?

So - there we are, I live to fight another day and luckily so does he.

An interesting day tomorrow as we go headlong into discussing the equity model of the business, it should make for an interesting debate if nothing else. If anything screws up a realtionship it is how much you think you bring or brought to the business. Our past collaborators had some high ideal that their effort (a few days in real terms against our years at it) was worth close to 25% of the business! It is an Elephant in the Room and at least we can address it tomorrow rather than let it fester. It is good as I wrote a positioning document to bring this out into the open about 5 weeks ago and added a caveat last week to it. The interesting thing is that only one person is concerned and that is fine but in reality I discussed this over a year ago in an open meeting and documented it but everyone's had a chance to think about it since they agreed it.

None of it matters in the long run. If we make money we all share, if we fail - as most start ups do - then it doesn't matter either. Having said all that - having the discussion now will resolve it before it gets any further so the strategy of publish and be damned has worked nicely.

I'm finding this new PC amazing, despite all my whining on the subject, at least it does what I want it to do, rather nicely and rather better than my old PC managed of late.

The underlying anger - a reprise

I find that listening to music tends to calm me down a bit especially stuff like this which you may or may not like. It is currently doing the rounds as the backing track to a rather stylish Ford advert (if that isn't an oxymoron).



So I am beginning to calm down internally but I still have this stuff rattling along in the back of my mind and its going through some quite strange stuff including how companies treat their customers - thinking back to my weekend experience and trying to cancel some insurance this morning, it's all about catching you out and making you pay for stuff you don't want - fraud would be my take. It is also pretty much the way of it that you can buy something today, stick it on your PC which some how breaks down, you try and reload it on new machine and they wont let you. Ownership in the modern world. Imagine Ford or Jaguar not letting you drive your car again after a breakdown!! Yea right....

Oh well, no time for writing this blog - off to change the world :-)

The underlying anger

I find it both useful and destructive this underlying anger that I have these days. I can't tell you what that is about as if you know me you probably realise that most of the time I'm pretty much a level headed sort of guy, old enough to have politics a little too far right for the comfort of my kids (hey that's what Dads are there for right?) and I'm a pretty funny guy, I have the most warped, off the wall, lateral, sarcastic, off beat sense of humour. I'm prone to being quite opinionated about things, I know that, it is my job to take things and drive them through as a champion so I'll argue my corner but if you have a good point to put, that's OK too. If you let me I'll take over the meeting.

I'm just as likely to be quiet and keep myself to myself and that is also the other side of me, so you wouldn't really expect this black anger as I rarely let loose on my friends and even with idiots from companies who think they can do the customer service nonsense on me, I'm normally firm but fair.

It's the seething anger that lies within me that is a little disturbing. I've only truly vented and exploded with my full Mr. Nasty 3 or 4 times in my whole life. I remember one of my friends saying to me afterwards he had never ever seen someone so angry before. I wasn't violent with it, it was just nasty, and I remember thinking afterwards, don't ever get me really nasty as I have no idea what I would be like if I lost control. Channelling the anger is one thing but the adrenalin fuelled ferocity of it was something to behold. I hardly remember what it was about but probably someone had been baiting me and I let loose and didn't repeat the same swear word twice and probably didn't draw breath for 3 minutes whilst delivering the benefit of my experience. As someone once remarked after hearing me drilling someone that they hoped I didn't kiss my children with those lips - probably because all of the bile that had been forced through them at my target.

Even these explosive moments are not a patch on the dark and brooding anger that wells up occasionally within me. I can't even tell you what it is all about, it's like the dark dog is trapped in there trying to get out and stick me back into depressive moods but not succeeding and then there is some sort of "Injustice" anger - no doubt doing the "why me" victim bit and there is something else in there about how no one "gets it" and how tangled up you are in your own survival and that no one else gave a stuff, other than cosmetically. There's the recrimination voices giving it the "if you hadn't done ........(stick in anything you like here) then you wouldn't be in this predicament" and all the voices and nags that you get are just all in there arguing together and occasionally there is this real wish to just let someone have the benefit of this broadside of anger for, at the end of it, no real reason. Someone might be acting a pratt and I'd just like to tell them they are but who am I to say it.

Funny old thing the mind - it gives me more grief than being ill ever did. It plays tricks and pokes me, it's owner like some school room bully. I find it fascinating and annoying all at the same time. It does affect me as it makes me question my actions and I give myself such a hard time over something I may have said or did, over things I have no control over even.

Tonight, I can't tell you why it is, I am just seething. It doesn't have too much to do with the hassle of the weekend and the trials and tribulations of getting this new laptop/pc working. No it wasn't that. It isn't the fact that this month is full on, it isn't even the fact that the business is about 1 month behind my plans, no it has nothing to do with any of those. So what is it? I wish I knew myself because then I could do something about it. By writing this down I have come down a huge series of notches and I think that what it boils down to is having someone to talk to about it. My "condition" has hardly if ever been discussed in the house apart from when it has been absolutely necessary, I very much doubt the "cancer" word has been spoken more than a dozen times in 4 years 4 months! Beyond the realms of feeling tired, hungry, sleepy and wide awake, I doubt it is discussed at any depth. That could be it I suppose? This blog is good for getting stuff off of your chest and out of your head. Whether its right or wrong it doesn't matter, the result at this end is always that it makes me feel better to have written and shared it than left it bottled inside.

In the course of writing this particular missive I have gone from seething anger to quiet and calm - that's the power of blogging when no one is listening.

Halloween

I don't get it - at any other time of year it would be extortion with menaces but apparently it is quite acceptable practice to get dressed up in a disguise (remember bank robbers do this so as not to be caught) and go around the town suggesting that if you don't give a treat you'll get a trick. When I wasn't particularly well a few years back that was eggs thrown at the house, without - I hasten to add - anyone actually turning up at the door.

We know who they were and justice appears to have been done somehow or the other.

So this pagan festival that we exported has been redelivered and repackaged for the 21st Century and we now have people roaming the streets dressed hideously begging at doors! It is a strange world indeed or maybe I'm a spoil sport. I can't quite see the attraction in sending your kids out begging dressed as zombies and witches? No wonder so many people are screwed up these days.

The weekend has been given over to sorting out this PC and many other technical problems that you have to deal with day to day if you have to work with computers and PCs. If ever a device could be called the spawn of the devil it must be the Personal Computer for there is nothing personal about it at all.

Back to work tomorrow and a month coming up that is full on. It starts tomorrow with my kid brother's birthday for which I must call him. It then ramps up considerably over the next few weeks as I have meetings and my trip to Scotland to look forward to. I become Chairman of the London Lunchtimers (if voted in on Thursday) www.lunchtimers.org and that will be rather fun. I'm not sure if I will be up there for the evening as well, I'll say maybe at the moment.

I am out Wednesday too and I now have to swot up on some words for a meeting in two weeks time. In between all of this I need to be working on the website, business plans and other stuff. It all adds to the pressure on me to get things delivered in the next week or two and by the end of this month I need to be in a strong position to go and start talking to potential financiers - interestingly the business cards will arrive this week and the letterheads are ready to go so just the web site and we can really get motoring.

There is a further meeting about the wiki I developed for the central charities and it looks as if I will have some work to do this month that will give the business some revenues in December. Talking of which - I need to invoice for the work I did last month too. Suddenly there are loads of things to do and it feels like not enough time to do them. That feels like that because of the inevitable set back changing technology has had this weekend - it feels like I've lost 3 days just fiddling around trying to get the technology to work for me.

Clear up and some rest

I realise that this past week has been hectic and full on for me. I managed to get to bed at around 2 am this morning after wrestling with the vagaries of re-building my PC which required multiple reboots and all sorts of attention grabbing actions, that only I could do to help it decide what to load, where to load it and whether or not I wanted a load of garbage-ware added to bloat out my system even more.

I am actually looking forward to being able to use it tomorrow in anger on work. It does work like a dream and is a fast as you like. It still has many of the silly issues that I hate about software and computers.

In other news my parents have sold their place, bought their new place 10 minutes walk from my brothers house (which is a relief to me) and are hoping to make the move just before Christmas as there aren't many people in the chain. They have to downsize considerably to do that of course which is causing some anguish. These days I'm pretty certain that there are lots of things I could do without and with modern technology I could get all my record and CD collection electronic, all my books digitised and wander around with a laptop and my Kindle and MP3 player - let's face it, the only space they take up would be tiny compared to what they take up now. I'm sort of going off possessions and things to own. Somehow they don't hold the importance they did for me these days. Some sentimental stuff for sure, a box of family bits but ornaments and the like - I'm not sure.

Mrs. F. and A are gradually getting better, they appear to have lost a fair amount of weight. Mrs F has lost 4 lbs which given that she is vertically challenged anyway is a lot of weight for her to lose. A has lost almost double that which she is secretly pleased about but it is still an alarming amount to lose in a week but they just haven't been eating properly and are only just getting back to normal food now. Hopefully they'll get stronger this week.

Oh Dear 26th October Missed

Yes, how dare I miss such an important date as last Tuesday? For important it was. I guess with Mrs. F and A being sick as you like and neither are that good even now 6 days on I missed the date altogether.

It is 4 years since I started the blog, four years in which I've probably gone through ever conceivable emotion, every possible scrape I can get into and fortunately I've managed to still be here. If I make it to next July - then I am going to plan a 5 year celebration along with my business colleague.

Today has been difficult as I have been awaiting the synchronisation of my old and new PCs. That took 24 - yes - 24 hours. I have just had a row with Microsoft as the old software from the PC that died cannot be used on this PC even though the old PC is completely trashed and after I paid a fair amount of money for it. Apparently as it is part of a Vista PC not a Window 7 one they wont allow it to be put onto this new machine. That's the problem with modern day highway robbery for you. You can't get a Vista machine (who'd want one anyway), if I did have then it would have been OK. The irony being that I've had to upgrade to windows 7 this time and pay out even more money to not be able to run my software on it. The answer is easy enough, there is plenty of other software out there and it will be my mission to avoid ever using Microsoft again in this way. If they'd have listened to what I was telling them instead of reading off a script then maybe they'd have understood the grievance I have about it. As it is, nigh on telling me to take a flying leap and then saying have a nice day at the end says volumes about their complete neglect of their customers. Toss pots!

Having said all of that - the new PC is rather splendid and I'm now enjoying it but still getting used to the odd way it does things.

Happy 4th Belated Birthday dear Blog.

Confused

I got that wrong, I thought I had been reading Julie when I had been reading Jeanette. That's what happens when you are concentrating on 10 things at once, like why it took 24 hours to synchronise my new and old laptops! Now happily done.

Well almost - there are as always lots of issues around drivers, software that wont load and all that guff. I like the way it refuses to load one of my expensive Microsoft software packages - it now wants me to do some other nonsense. I haven't finished yet - it is pants having to spend two days just loading and transferring stuff. There has to be a better way? But there is, if I get enough finance to make it so :-)

A big Raspberry to you Mr. Cancer

Why you shouldn't talk to your cancer.

Have a read about attitude to cancer (about 2/3rds way down)

HERE

Well said, the world's a poorer place without this lady.

I wasn't expecting this news

Another warrior has gone. I've followed this blog for years and this morning was totally shocked to hear the news that Julie had died. She had been given a year to live but didn't make it past a few months. She was just undergoing trial treatment and there isn't much news about what took place as the last thing I saw was the trip to get the treatment a few days ago.

It felt like someone had punched me in the chest. What a shock for her children - one of whom is in Japan studying and only really went as he knew he could get back by the time it was expected his mum would die.

If you ever get a chance to read through this blog, it has some great moments in it, some sad ones, of course and the episode with Citibank is pretty disgusting really, at least now they'll get their hands on the house - blood suckers! I hope the VP chokes on his bonus.

RIP Julie - I'm quite upset about this this morning - you become quite "attached" even though you never actually meet your cyber friends I am reminded of a quote I like to use at times like this:

"Don’t cry because its over, smile because it happened."

Slowly the household returns to normal

A isn't well still and has to go and have a blood test today to sort her out, she has been completely knocked sideways and remains lethargic and in bed or wandering around in PJs and jumpers. Mrs. F. is just exhausted and unable to go to work this morning. In fact she did 1 hour working in the house yesterday and that was that.

I'm working away and have finalised the logo and most of the artwork, letterheads, compliment slips and the web site icon. The Web site is being built now and so finally things are moving forward but perhaps 1 month later than I would have liked. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Today is new laptop - well desktop replacement - day. My Sony Vaio arrives later and will no doubt require setting up and messing around with for most of the weekend to get it to fit the home network etc. Having worked out the printing issues and the network issues I just need to start all over again. This thing is a bit of a beast as it has a whopping 18.4" wide screen on it! and a Tb of storage. It is an amazing piece of kit and I'm looking forward to that but also have a tinge of sadness as my trusty old laptop (well desktop replacement also) will be relegated to back up machine. For 7 years it has travelled around the country with me. It has been dropped, bumped and thumped and at one time it travelled all around London with me and my projector giving presentations. Amazing :-) It's just had the one new hard drive in all that time. Lately though it has been a real pain as it will not run modern software - shame. It may get a new lease of life if it is still around when our new service gets to market.

Taking Stock where are we

Well, A and Mrs. F. are getting better but they are still very weak. I spoke to my Nephew who met up with A and Mrs. F. on Saturday at the V&A in London, they all had different things to eat but it appears that the restaurant they went to may be the connection as he was also ill on Sunday night.

I've lost a fair amount of sleep, worry or attention perhaps? Anyway, today was a half decent day and we moved the business on a bit further meeting the web master. There are some frustrations of course as we still await some deliverables and these are now becoming critical.

Yesterday I went to the dentist and this was a less than pleasant experience only because of 4 years of tartar build up needed to be sand blasted off. That did hurt and made my gums bleed but now, of course, it is fine and feels great. The last fillings are over and now it is one root canal and one extraction and that should be me set up.

I have purchased a new laptop at last, this one is 7 years, almost 8 years old now. It has done well and now is beginning to show its age. I remember going for top of the range and it has paid off and happy with my Acer I went and looked at another, did my research and saw a stunning one that was expensive but worth it - I found another that was a better price but with a couple of bits of less specification. So I found that I wanted to get the one that was slightly less specification but had some superior features. After putting it in my basket and being made to register, I was then informed that it would be extra for delivery, OK I suppose but at that price (over £900) I would have thought it would have been included. Then they wanted a load more money for me to use my Credit Card. I await their phone call tomorrow with some interest :-) as I got fed up at that point and cancelled the order.

By luck I looked at a site I was looking at earlier had some end of line Laptops and I secured the last Sony Vaio with a whopping 18.4" screen - excellent and looking forward to getting that on Friday.

All these problems I have been having with my PC are apparently all down to its age and so this should sort things out on that front.

My parents have now sold their house and put an offer in on another not far from my brother so that will be good if they get it. It is much smaller and less work for them and so that also is a great relief as the other place was becoming a little too much to look after. Being near enough to my brother is also quite nice - perhaps 5 minutes drive if that.

I still feel a little pressurised to get things done and I need to work out all my commitments and make sure that there is time to cover everything off. I think that I just need to sit back and take a little stock of the situation and not be too worried by it. I'd like to think that this is just me doing some checking on my self :-)

A little quieter now

I've collected L from the station - she had been up in London seeing a show. Mrs F has stabilised - at one time I was almost certain it was ambulance time I have to say. A is showing signs of recovery as young people do. She has to go into University tomorrow but I will see how she is in the morning. I'm just taking stock, having now repaired the network adapter (but not sorted the overall network problems). At least we can all get on-line now but seeing th network and sharing files and printers may take a few more tries :-(

I am now under some serious pressure to get things sorted out. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that I've lost the best part of 10 hours work today. Tomorrow looks to be equally as bad and with a trip to see my dentist - the afternoon looks to be pretty much a lost cause if my mouth is as numb as it was two weeks ago :-)

In fact, I did say to my business partner that we are both putting a little too much pressure on ourselves and perhaps just need to take a break for a breath and some reflection and then go on from there. We forget how much we have produced and how far we have come. We got a stack of work out last week and are really in a good position to tackle the more interesting parts of the project now. With a bit of luck we may even get to a position to talk to financial backers before Christmas which would be good. However, we may need to temper our enthusiasm a little bit as the market does get a little quiet in December.

Well - I'd better finish off down here, drink my cup of tea and get off to bed or rather to my chair as I don't want to disturb Mrs. F now that she is resting at last...

What a day, what a day....

I don't like Mrs. F. being ill

She is pretty ill as is A today with some food poisoning, they both had some strange concoction of chili sausage and were both ill, A first overnight and Mrs. F from the early hours. she isn't good at all. A is slowly recovering but looks pretty awful, Mrs. F. is vomiting nothing at the moment. I've got some stuff from the Pharmacist and some of the rehydration stuff too but that eased for an hour or so before that reappeared. She doesn't want the Doctor and there isn't a lot you can do about food poisoning other than let it takes it course. L is out in London and due back late so I need to pick her up from the station gone 11 tonight I guess.

I don't cope with illness at all well these days, I used to be OK but I have a series of bad nightmares about being ill and it doesn't help that I can't do much other than bring water and clear up the mess. I doubt I'll sleep much tonight either as she is pretty restless, maybe I'll just sit up in my rocking chair in the bedroom and keep a bit of a vigil. When A came up and asked if mum was going to be all right I nearly lost it. I've at least satisfied myself that I have enough knowledge to keep her sorted out and have phone numbers handy in case she isn't OK.

What a horrible day, the poor girl has been terribly ill. I couldn't go out tonight and just had to leave everyone to it. I don't like letting them down but needs must. In addition I was going to blog about the talk on Saturday - I will have to do that when things calm down. In addition to all this - somehow all the PCs have gone wrong - which indicates to me that the Microsoft updates that arrived over the weekend have conspired to kill off my network printing services and I can no longer share files or anything else across the network I built. L's laptop doesn't want to connect at all - and whilst I have managed to get the others to connect they wont print or share files which means more hours of messing about courtesy of some technical wizard trying to make things easy for me!

I have the dentist tomorrow - I shall look like a Zombie by the time I see him in the afternoon. I also find that my trusty laptop will probably have to be replaced too now after 6 or 7 years of sterling service albeit with a new hard drive. More expense to explain away to Mrs. F. when when feels better. At least L passed her theory test for driving today which is great news. We could hardly share it when she got home as it looks, smells and sounds like a Hospital upstairs :-)

I had some great plans to get some work done today and they have been completely scuppered as have the need for me to get ready for an important meeting on Wednesday when I have the web designer coming around so we can resolve all the technicalities around that.

I could end up being quite stressed out by the end of this week if it continues apace like it is!

What a weekend and today

Just hasn't started in great fashion.

I'll do some more later in the week but it looks like an attack of the Norovirus here - or something similar. Mrs. F and A are being sick all over the place and luckily L who's theory driving test it is today seems to be all right. I am not feeling great but I now have to get her to and from the test centre - which effectively kills my morning off.

The Weekend was full on as I had a Lodge meeting Saturday morning followed by lunch and then an Ladies' Night with 5 course dinner to navigate. Especially as no one had worked out they needed an MC and Chaplain - which I ended up doing myself.

The house sounds pretty awful this morning as you can imagine. I've been up a fair bit of the night tending to the wounded and they don't appear to be an awful lot better. L and I so far appear OK. I certainly don't want anything like it.

I'll pull a post together about the talk we had on Saturday from an eminent research professor who is one of the world's leading experts on Prostate Cancer. Amazing things he mentioned and discussed with us. Suddenly, my regard or Ketchup has gone up and it appears that this is one of those "special" food stuffs - amazing yet true.

Stay tuned.