Three more days to go

We find ourselves arriving at Wednesday, which gives me three more working days before breaking for Christmas.  The rest of the family are spending their days doing nothing, due to a combination of illness, bad weather and UTTER BONE IDLENESS.  I on the other had am slavishly applying myself to work matters to enable me to provide for myself, my family and my new shed.  To say that I would rather be doing most anything else is to inquire as to the ablution habits of bears etc etc but needs must, and maybe there is no point running up the rhododendron tree until the rats have fled, so onwards I march.

What I am trying to do, in case you were not sure, is to use up my 750 words and yet say absolutely nothing.  My mailbag is testament to that.  As Mrs Trellis of North Wales said just last week:

Dear Mr Humphries,

I was appalled on tuning in this morning to hear a torrent of blatant filth, with terms such as 'Big Bang', 'Large Firm Success', 'Satisfying Performance', and worst of all, 'Job Blows'. It was the most disgusting edition of the Today Programme's Business Report ever!

Yours faithfully,

Mrs. Trellis
Maybe if we both just agree it was about 750 words, we can call it quits now and get on with something more interesting

Back to basics

Had I given it just a shred more thought, I could have come up with a better title, but hey ho, it does set the scene I guess.

I am off to the Chiropractor today, for my first back session through Starfleet's medical insurance cover to get some bones cracking in my back and neck.  I have friends who work in the NHS, with pride, so I tend to mention that in very hushed tones.  Me, I guess the softening of older years has moved me a bit to the right on the political spectrum, not in all things, but for the idea that being detached from the government is a good thing.  I like the idea that I depend on the government for very little these days.  Or course I need the NHS infrastructure, however I can declare a modicum of independence from that, and child benefit will soon be gone and I expect nothing on the pension front from the big team.  This I find I like.  Government is very fickle, and the idea that our contact points are few is to my liking.  Of course they have to deal with the little big stuff - they empty my bins, and they also sweep the streets and all that stuff.  The also deal with the big big stuff, such as banking, world peace and financial prudence and all that other stuff, although to be honest a chap would be forgiven for starting to lose a bit of faith in their abilities on that front.  Will the bluey-yellow team do better than the red team?  Only time will tell.  I do get the distinct impression that some of the red legacy is not to my liking.  There.  I nearly expressed a political opinion.  Enough before I go all gooey and say I love you or something.

On other fronts, the shed continues to dominate the garden.  It is a truly magnificent structure, and merely saying that out loud says a lot about me, and not so much about the shed.  Nuff said.

I am also looking to present a clean work-stack to the Christmas season, although a number of leader activities have taken me away from my day job, and that means there are a number of loose threads on which I really need to concentrate lest they get away from me.  Hopefully, like Bad Man, I will get a chance to wind down just a bit leading up to Friday.  I have to say this working up to the end of Christmas Eve is definitely not to my liking, and it does mean that Christmas Day is on top of me before I know it, but again, hey ho, that is life, I will just have to go double rations on the mince pies to get me in the mood.

I do have a chance to get into a bit of the spirit of things on Thursday evening as we have been invited to the yearly drinks evening at friends.  These friends have just had an extension completed so I am excited to see the work, and to discuss the finer details of three months of dust.  We will also get to meet a bunch of our other extended friend network over a few drinks, nibbles and chat.  That should start me off nicely.

Until we speak again.

What a wopper!

The shed has arrived, and it is quite big.

The home stretch

Ever since my days working at a construction company, which closed for two weeks of Christmas, the thought of working between Christmas and New Year has been an anathema for me, so I find myself in the final week before some well-deserved time off. 

To be honest, the construction company spoilt me, as the truth is that my three to four days of holiday usually get me much less than two weeks.  This year I get nine days off, which is really just a week off with a weekend each end, but let's not split the cracker before the turkey is basted.

This final week will be pretty busy, since it makes sense for everyone if I can close down as many actions as possible before the break, since a week off and as many mince pies as I can eat will rot even the most sturdy of brains down to something resembling mince pie filling.  The trick is of course to write down last thing Friday everything I will need to do for the first couple of days back at work.  If only I didn't also lose the power to read, they would come in very useful.

Other news in the Scobi household is that the weather is getting right on my wotsits.  I am meant to be having a new shed erected Tuesday, something I will chase today to see the likelihood of it actually happening.  I would also desperately like to be giving my new door frame an undercoat, and making good the render on the outside, but both activities really need to be done in temperatures ten degrees centigrade or higher, and the prospect of the thermometer reaching that heady number are about as likely as the trains running on time.

Finally, spare a thought for my relics.  They flew from Spain (twenty degrees, rained twice last month) to the UK (minus wotever, snowing constantly) last Tuesday, having had to re-arrange their flight from two weeks earlier, which was cancelled due to snow.  They were due to return on Saturday, so on Friday night they stayed at a Gatwick hotel ready for their 0620 flight Saturday morning.  They were on the Easyjet plane, but due to the cold, the rear doors could not be fully closed, and by the time the engineers had finished their full English and attended to said door, the snow was thickly falling and they were returned to the terminal.  They bought a flight from Monarch, and got to 1800 hours before being told the flight was going nowhere, to arrive back home at 2330 hours.  The next Easyjet flight is not until Christmas Eve, so they have gone Monarch whose prices have mysteriously doubled in the intervening day, for this coming Tuesday.  Let's hope the snow stays away and the airport schedule returns to something like normal so their low-priority flight can get off the ground.  Needless to say they may well not come back to the UK half way through their six months next year.

Now I really think this may be the last word on sheds

At home today, snowed in and rather glad to be so.

I had to read my blog just to check that I have not already told you this.  To my surprise, I had not.  What was I thinking?

Just wanted to give you a quick update on the shed, coz I was very happy with the outcome.  £217 was the final price, bought by someone from a few miles away, and who was v. keen to come and get it on Tuesday, except I was working away on that day so had to put him off until Friday.  And then it snowed.

Hopefully it will clear by Friday, we will have a checkpoint Thursday evening, and if so, he and a friend will arrive to dismantle and take away a very good shed, and I will have some notes to go towards the base.

Result.

Only other quick mention is for I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here, which myself and LO are rather addicted to.  Sure it is full of calories and has no goodness, but hey, sometimes you have just gotta feed that addiction.  So Gillian has finally left to have a colon cleanse and a chat with her agent to see what Panto's are available, and some of the true colours of the inmates are now coming through.  There is the "funny guy who is a bit arrogant really" one, and the "butter wouldn't melt toppless totty who may have a bite after all" one, and the "big man who is a bit of a wus really" one, not forgetting the "seemed really stupid but is actually quite clever and is coming across better and better" one.  All I can say is, keep it coming.  It is TV that you can watch and read a magazine at the same time, so it is definitely not time wasted.

Something for the weekend sir?

Another successful week, I believe, albeit one that was not without its stresses and strains, but then that is the lot of the modern information worker.  Too much information, not enough meaning.  Sometimes too much talking, not enough information.  Even worse is too much posturing and not enough talking.  There, in three sentences, is Darwinian theory applied to the information worker. Am I talking too much???

This weekend I have some important tasks to do.  I put my old/current shed on eBay last Sunday, in a rash move to apply some pressure to get me to empty it, in preparation for the new shed's arrival.  

It is currently on eBay with 108 watchers, a record for anything I have ever sold.  History tells me that the majority of these may well be rubber-neckers, but I only need two or three to have a real interest - and judging by the questions and phone calls and, tonight, a visit - for the bidding to go quite nicely.  I am at sixty two notes right now, with two days to go, so by my reckoning there will be a bit of action over the weekend and thank you very much.  Doing a bit of research, there are lots of second hand sheds of similar or worse condition and construction to mine, that are in the one fifty to two hundred bracket with time on the clock, so I am actually quite hopeful that it will make a few bob, which will help to fund the laying of the base, which I am paying someone to do.  I have thus far always felt funny paying someone to do something I could do myself, but with life getting busier, I am starting to do that a bit.  In this situation I am only on the wobbly edge of my abilities to do it anyway, at least to do it properly, and by the time you have paid for sufficient materials to make a base four inches thick and ten feet by fourteen feet, I think the difference between doing and paying is not so great anyway.

I am also going to be insulating under the suspended floor of our ground floor, so have a garage full of lamb's wool insulation, so I need to move that temporarily to the 'van to give me room to migrate the shed stuff to the shed or the tip, so I can then take the shed down.  Actually, to be precise, I intend to leave the shed up until the eBay buyer has seen it, so they can help take it down and therefore understand how they will need to put it back together again, but it does need to be empty, hence my weekend challenge.

We are also having a dinner party for eight on Saturday, so I will need to reserve some energy to be my usual sparkling witty self, or more importantly to ensure I stay awake beyond nine o'clock.

I hope you have a good weekend, speak next week.

Shed loads of shed research

You may or may not know that we are in the process of building an extension.  To be precise, we now have planning permission and are in to the detailed design phase.  As part of our master plan, we are moving my study in to what is currently a half garage, used as storage for all sorts of stuff, some of it junk, some of it useful stuff like top-boxes, sleeping bags, tools and other occasionally used items.  We therefore plan to install a larger shed in our garden to take all this stuff and give the space over to my new study, the logic being that a new shed is cheaper than our original plan to extend out front a bit to enable us to retain the half-garage along with our re-modelled utility room, downstairs shower room and study.

So the power of Google has opened me up to yet another strata of civilisation that I had thus far not really appreciated existed.  What I mean is, when I typed in "large sheds" in to Google, there were 28.5 million hits.  And that was just for the immediate area around my home town*.

I have now had a crash course in the ups and downs, the ins and outs, the cladding thickness, the roof felt material, the concrete base, the strengthened glass, the roof struts, the additional shelving and various, etc. etc. etc.  I could go on**, but I think you get the idea. 

Anyway, it is mighty confusing.  Confusing, that is, until I went in to a local showroom.  I had actually forgotten this particular establishment existed.  I was on the way to Halfords to pick up Maggot 1's Christmas present***, waiting in the queue at the traffic lights, when I glanced to the left, saw a shed showroom, and immediately turned right to visit said establishment.  And what a joy it was.  I was absolutely, completely and utterly and delightfully sold to.  Sometimes a salesman can be off-kilter, and therefore become quickly annoying, but this guy was fantastic.  He was the owner, was very knowledgeable, and for me, very good at selling his product.  He had exactly what I was looking for, his prices are comparable to the internet, and the price includes fitting, plus he hit all my "hot buttons" in terms of build quality (quality being my number one requirement) and features, and I am pretty sure, once I have received purchasing permission from the finance director, that I will shortly be placing an order.  I want to order soon, however I did smile when I was told of the worldwide timber shortage**** that is driving up prices, so he would be putting his up from 1 December.  I think he may nearly have himself a deal.

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* Hopefully no need to say this is a little fib, adhering to the strategy of not letting reality get in the way of a good story.

** ... and usually do. Ed.

*** Say no more.

**** Apparently those pesky Chinese are consuming all the pine Scandinavia can produce, and are prepared to pay for it.