service

Happy(ish) New Year . . .

/ Tony / 2 Comments

The Crown

Didn’t get off to the best of starts! We stayed up to see the new year in by watching the annual Jules Holland Hogmany show. It had got to about 00:40 and K*** decided she was too tired to stay up any longer. I thought I would check some emails that had been pinging away since midnight. I fired up the laptop, which I had shutdown earlier. It can often take 5 minutes before the machine is usable, and during this time, I must have closed my eyes. When I opened them again the time was show as 02:50. I had know idea where I was, what I was doing, and wasn’t too sure who I was.

We decided to resurrect our tradition of a News Year’s Walk. K*** quite fancied trying a pub in Boston Spa that had recently reopened. It’s a 5 mile round trip and by the time we got to the pub, we were ready for a drink. The service was appalling! There was only one person serving at the bar, and he was also taking food orders. It took at least 10 minutes to be served but we eventually got our drinks and began to warm to the place. Warm that is, until we decided to have another drink. I’m not sure if it just bad luck, but it again took 10 minutes before I was served. Not sure if another visit is on the cards!

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R***, our youngest had gone back to his care home on the 30th. He usually goes back before New Years Eve as he struggles with the noise of fireworks. In his flat, they can ensure that the noise doesn’t disturb him, which is something we cannot do here as there are usually fireworks being let off most of the night. It works well for all of us and to be honest, he was ready to go back. He was sat waiting in his room, and as soon as his primary caseworker arrived in his car, R*** was downstairs and ready to go. It is really reassuring to know that he thinks of his flat, at the care home as his other home.

Then yesterday, we got our usual daily call (or so we thought) from his care worker, who informed us that because of the rising number of Covid cases in the area, the place was going into a mini lockdown until the end of January. It was not unexpected, and we were just glad he was able to come here for Christmas, and glad he got back. It was around this time last year when the country went into full lockdown, and Rhys was not able to come here for about 5 weeks. The year before we went into lockdown in March and it was July when he was ‘released’ for want of a better word. Then in October 2020 we had another lockdown and we were not sure if he would be allowed home for Christmas at all.

But through it all, he has amazed everybody with how well he has coped and understood. It could have been so different. We are convinced that this is partly due to him having a planner, that shows what days he is where and the team that look after him. They know him and know just how far they can go. Couple that with the fact that he is no longer on any medication for his condition, we continue to be amazed.

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Yesterday also brought some news that was expected. Another member of the team at the cafe where I work has decided to leave. That makes three of my friends leaving in the past three months. It leaves me worried about my position. A*** was at one time the top person in the team. The one to go to for help or advice. An expert in her job as a Barista. But she seems to have fallen out of favour with the management since our new team member started. He is one of those annoying people that will do anything to please. At least he thinks he is pleasing.

Anyway, she is going which leaves only one trained Barista left . The manager can do it, but she is not going to want to work six days a week. So I think it is going to be a big change all round, and I cannot forsee the outcome to be anything but a disaster.

All is good . . . eventually . . .

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Well the update went as well as I had expected. This time it only took 9 hours and 40 minutes a massive improvement on the 11 hours and 10 minutes of the previous update on my secondary machine. Everything seemed to be fine, with no issues, until yesterday morning. Everything seemed to be slower, a lot slower. Three minutes to open Outlook, which used to open in three seconds before, for example. Throughout the evening, it remained as slow as the morning. I wondered if I had got a virus or some malware ad been installed.

I opened up the Windows settings and at the top of the screen there was a message that Windows update needed attention. I opened it up and saw that one recent update had failed, due to some service not running (a bit beyond me) and needs to run again. It also told me that there was another four updates that needed running. They were only small updates and it didn’t take long to run. After a restart, all is good again.

I posted the issue of an IT website, to see if anyone else had had the same issue, and it turns out that the major update (the 20H2 update) that I ran earlier has a tendency to disable tis particular service. I happens randomly and nobody seems to be able to understand why. But there you go, that’s Microsoft for you.

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Random tech problem . . .

/ Tony / 6 Comments

© Microsoft

I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my OneDrive. I have two laptops. My main one is downstairs but when I bought it, I decided to keep the previous one upstairs as a kind of back-up machine. It is a bit slow, but it was a good machine. I did want to try and connect both as a home network, but that doesn’t seem to work with Microsoft Home edition. I had ‘misplaced’ a couple of files that I now need to use. They were not big or even complicated files, I just didn’t want to re-write. I thought they were on my OneDrive, but I could not find them. I then had the idea that they may just be in the documents folder on old laptop. And they were.

© Microsoft Office

I copied them into my OneDrive, along with some video files that I had forgotten about. Must have spent a good couple of hours opening, and copying the files, or so it seemed at the time. I shut down the old laptop and trotted off downstairs ready to work with these newly found files. But … they were not in the OneDrive I was accessing from downstairs. I ‘ummed and ‘ahhed for a while before deciding that I must have two OneDrives. Seemed reasonable as the Office package on the upstairs laptop was Office 2013 and downstairs it is Office 365. All I need to do is copy the files I wanted onto a Flash Drive and then onto the downstairs machine. Problem solved … or not.

Try as I might, I could not get the files copied and was receiving an error message:
Error 0x8007016A: The Cloud File provider is not running …
Restart after restart would not cure the problem and in the end I gave up for the evening.

© SanDisk

This morning, after a lot of Googling, it came to light that I must not have signed in to my OneDrive on the upstairs Laptop. In fact, the service was not even running, I must have disabled it in Task Manager. More clicks and reboots ensued and finally I was able to copy the files to the Flash Drive and onto the main machine. Then I found that they had synchronised and so all the copy and pasting was a total waste of time. Thankyou Google and all who sail in you. If the fact that I was not signed in to the OneDrive upstairs reason had been one of the first in the Google search screen, I could have saved a lot of time and unnecessary brain work!

Not really retirement, but . . .

/ Tony / 5 Comments

This post is an attempt at a response to the Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge (fingers crossed I get this right)

Back at the beginning of 2016 our Head of Service, brought our team together for it’s monthly ‘Team Talk’. The theme, if you could call it that, was staff cuts. There had been a lot of hushed chatter among some of the more senior members of the team regarding the reduction of office staff in the department. The Council’s solution was a programme called ‘Early Leavers Initiative’ or ELI. What people liked to think was that it was Early Retirement, but was actually Voluntary Redundancy, with the benefit of being able to draw down the works pension scheme early, albeit slightly reduced.

It was made clear to everyone in the room, that the Department were looking for ‘volunteers’ to take advantage of this. It was also clear that this was a case of ‘jump before you are pushed’. If that had been the case, then it would have been compulsory redundancy, with no arrangement to take the pension early. After a lot of discussion at home, I decided I would go for it.

Not the real cake!

The day came, and it seemed to be just like any other day. I was taking calls and trying to keep my excitement under control. My manager asked what time I wanted to leave, and I had worked out my hours so that I could finish at three pm. At about half past two the office manager appeared with a large cake which was shared with the staff on duty. It was significant that my line manager and the service head weren’t present.

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I decided that I would have a couple of weeks living the life of luxury, then get a part time job. It took a lot longer for something to come up. After about 18 months, my current part-time job suddenly happened. Now furloughed (as at 11/03/2021) I am now just waiting to return. It is not looking god, but I will have to just wait and see. But . . . on the 19th April this year (2021) I will have reached my state pension age and will have to decide the future. Do I carry on with two days a week? Or do I cut down to one day a week? Or . . . do I just stop all together?

Beyond belief …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

Sometimes, things happen that are quite honestly “Beyond Belief.” Our youngest son sometimes proves that. R… is 28 and Autistic. We are gradually phasing him in to full time residential. At present he goes on Monday morning and returns 11 days later for a weekend visit. He gives us the impression that he really enjoys  his life there.

ppeHe has a regular care-team, his own flat and his own motorbility car. During the ‘lock-down’ he went on the 23rd March and did not return until 10th July. Then again he went on the 19th October and was not allowed home, under the rules until 11th December.

All this, he seemed to take in his stride. In fact, we were more stressed and traumatised than he seemed to be. His care team kept us well informed  and rang everyday to let us know what he had been up to and with a weekly FaceTime we just about got through it.

White-one.jpgNow the interesting thing is that his daily life there is different to here. He does things there that we could never even dream he would do. When he is here, his daily routine is to sit in his room, with his laptop and TV. He will come downstairs for his lunch, then goes back to his room and that is it. Occasionally he will come back downstairs and use my laptop for a while.

Whilst in his flat, and this is the thing that amazes us, he takes on household jobs. We have photos of him mopping his kitchen floor, cooking his dinner (usually beans or sausage rolls) loading the washing machine and various other tasks around the place.

He was able to come here for Christmas, although there were times when it looked impossible, but his care-manager and all the teams put enough precautions in place for it to happen, so on Christmas Eve he came home. He would have had to come here anyway as he has a hospital appointment on Tuesday at which his legal guardian (horrible phrase) has to be present.

Now, on Christmas morning, we witnessed first hand something Lichfield Cathedralthat completely amazed us both. In fact, I still cannot get my head around it. My wife and me were downstairs getting things ready, as you do when I that he hadn’t had his morning drink of milk. I took his cup upstairs.

There was some typical Christmas church music playing and I assumed that my wife had not turned the radio off. How wrong I was. Normally, he would have one of the children’s channels on his TV , and he would also have a children’s YouTube video playing on his laptop.

CanterburyNot today. The TV was turned down and he had on his laptop a video of a Christmas church service. This played for an hour and a half before he started another similar video. I later found out that the first one was the Christmas Eve service from Lichfield Cathedral from 2000 and the second one was the previous nights service from Canterbury Cathedral.

By lunchtime he was back to watching old episodes of The Telly Tubbies as if nothing had happened. He did used to go to the local church to see the Christmas service when he was a school, but how he made the decision to watch that kind of video at that particular times, amazed us both

Not sure if I enjoyed it …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

Hyundai – York

It was that time of year again, when my car needed a service and it’s MOT. We have been using the same garage since we bought the cars. Minstergate at York was the dealership that we bought both my car and my sons car. They have treated us well over the years and it’s a place we have some trust in. What we tend to do, is to drop both cars off in the morning, then get the ‘Park & Ride’ bus into York for the day. It is something we have done now for 7 years.

Both cars were dropped off at 10:00 and we set off for the 15 minute walk to the ‘Park & Ride’. The company used to give us a lift to the ‘P&R’ but with the virus, that has stopped for the time being. But it was dry and there was a footpath so not an unpleasant short walk. The only hindrance was the occasional cyclist who didn’t seem to care when they passed pedestrians.

The journey into York was okay. People were wearing their face coverings and keeping apart, except for the obvious family groups. We got off the bus and began to wander around the city. The idea was that we would look in a few shops, the go for lunch (we had booked a table at Ask Italian) then look at a few more shops before heading back the the garage.

This is where I began to feel a little uncomfortable!

The shops were mostly fine. Limiting the number of customers when busy, with people keeping their distance. I say ‘mostly’, it was the children that were the problem. They just didn’t seem to care where they walked. Of course there was the odd customer or two that did not seem to grasp how to wear a face covering. But you get them everywhere. The restaurant was good. Table numbers were limited and well spaced. They were all sanitised when a customer left and they seemed to have got the place as pretty well as safe as they could.

Ask Italian – The Grand Assembly Rooms – York

No, the place I felt most uncomfortable was in the streets. The whole idea of ‘social distancing‘ seemed to alien to most people. People would pass you very closely or walk up behind. One person got so close that I could almost feel his breathe on the back of my neck. I could actually hear the person he was talking to on his mobile phone. It was not a nice experience. Although, the place I expected to be the worst, was realistically the safest part of the city centre. That was the outside market. Almost everyone was doing what they should do. Again it was children that seemed to be the issue.

So not the best visit to York I have had. Here’s hoping the next time will be better!

From then to now … gets a bit boring !

/ Tony / Leave a comment

When I say ‘… a bit boring …’, I mean that nothing really eventful happened. YawnA few new residents zones installed, new staff, new equipment but nothing startling for about six years. The team and me just plodded along. So as I say, when I look back, it was just a bit boring. Still enjoyed the job and most of the staff were easy to work with and I had built up a bit of a reputation, but that was about it.

Then, towards then end of 2012 rumours started appearing about job/staff changes. We had two members of staff leave and they were not replaced and this started to worry a few people. We were told that they would be replaced in the new year, but that we would have to manage until then. Which of course we did.

Around about this time, the Council were beginning to look at reducing staff to cut costs. Central Poundsfunding was being cut and departmental budgets were being squeezed. The Council was promoting what the called ‘Early Leavers Initiative’ or ELI. Essentially what this was voluntary redundancy. Staff would leave, get the standard redundancy payment and gain access to their works pension. I thought about this a lot and K*** and me decided that it might be a good move. Leave the Council and get another job somewhere else with a nice lump sum of money in the bank. So in January 2013, I applied for this ‘ELI’. After a few weeks, I received a reply, explaining that I could not be considered as I was ‘too valuable to the service’.

Later in 2013 me and a colleague (one who I had a bit of an issue with) received an email, quite out of the blue which explained that service was being reviewed and that we were part of that review. I Astoundedqueried this ‘review’ with the Assistant Manager who dismissed it as ‘… just something the Head of Service had to do and that it would not affect us …’ His face was a picture when both me and my colleague, G*** forwarded him the email we had received. He still claimed that it would not be an issue and that he would get someone to explain it all to us.

A couple of weeks later someone from HR did come and explain. What was happening was that some Worriedof the posts throughout the department were being looked at, to try and centralise some of the functions. the example they gave was that G***, who was our Training Officer would probably serve the department better if she worked within the Training team, where there would be vacancies in the future. The same applied to me, and I would be of more use in the departments IT service area. We were assured that we would still have a job, but it was still a very worrying time and made a mockery of the reason I was rejected for ELI. Not so valuable now, I thought.

From then to now … end of the dream …

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After the initial ‘first night’ nerves we began to think that we were going to make something of ourselves.  Lunchtime service was working well and we were getting a slight increase in numbers. But it was Menuthe evenings that were starting to show. Wednesday was usually the poorest night, but then again nobody seemed to go out on a Wednesday and Saturday was the busiest. Numbers were increasing by the week up to a point where it was necessary to book for a Saturday night. The biggest issue was the menu. It was far too extensive. As I remember there was about ten different cuts of meat to be served from the grill. Each of these had a choice of at least three different sauces or garnishes. For example beef steaks: there was rump, sirloin, fillet and T bone. Then there was lamb chop, Barnsley chop, lamb loin and lamb fillet. There was also chicken, ham, pork chop and pork fillet. All this made for a hard time for the grill chef (me) and the pass chef (K**h). It got so difficult that the owner hired an assistant to work Friday and Saturday.

The numbers were quite steady and we had a stream of regulars and then disaster struck. Disaster World cup 1986in the form of the 1986 FIFA World Cup. The final was on Sunday the 29th June, but the two/three weeks before gave us lots of problems. Have the games were played at 12:00 local time, which meant 6pm here in the UK. We first noticed that things were not as they should be was on the Wednesday to Friday of the third week before the final. There some popular games being played on those nights and were suffered with the number of covers. Saturday picked up, and we thought we would be okay.

The owner said that it would be fine if they big names played later in the day, but on Wednesday the 18th, England played and the numbers dropped dramatically. The following Wednesday saw the first of the semi’s. Again the restaurant suffered. But the biggest hit came on the Saturday the 28th. Although England had done the usual and had gone out the previous week, Saturday was a big day. It was the day that third and fourth place would be decided. By Friday night, the No Bookingsdiary should no bookings at all for Saturday. By 3pm on Saturday we still had no bookings and the owner was considering not opening. We did stay open but did not sell a single meal. As this was the days before big screens in pubs, even the bar was deserted. Bookings were down on the Sunday too, even though the final was later in the day.

We did not see the owner on either Monday or Tuesday, but Wednesday evening he called a meeting. His wife was with him, and they both had a very serious face. the owner announced that he had been with the accountant over the past couple of days trying to work things out. The bombshell was, that the restaurant was losing money and was being supported by takings in the bar, which as he said could not go on. He had checked the bookings for the Friday and Saturday and had decided that he would close the restaurant on the Friday night. Nothing anybody could say would change his mind.

We worked as normal as we could those last few days, but it was a depressing time for all. ClosedThe news had got out, and we had a few cancellations on both the Thursday and Friday. Friday night came and neither of the waitresses turned up and as we only had two tables of four booked, the owner decided to close after those tables had left. 

It was the end of the dream. Fame and fortune was not coming our way and it was a pretty hard time for K**h and me.

Quick update on the car issue…

/ Tony / 4 Comments

As I mentioned, the car was going in to have the ‘knocking’ noise looked at. Knowing my luck, I was expecting it to be expensive.

It had to be in the garage for 10:30 and we got it there for just after 10:00. It was booked in and we were told to go have a complimentary coffee, and they would let us know what was happening. I could see my car from where we were sitting, and by 10:45, it still had’n’t moved. Then around 11:00 I saw it being driven down to the service area. “Not long now” I said to K***.

Just after 11:45, K*** went to see if they could tell us how long it was going to be. We both thought, that they would have a look and come and tell what it was, when they could do it and more importantly how much it was going to cost. The answer she got was, I thought just the bog-standard ‘they’re working on it now’ answer.

Another 45 min later, and K*** was up and asking the question again. After about 5 minutes, I went to see where she was.

Found her talking to the Service Manager, who had the job sheet for my car (saw the registration, so that’s how I knew). She was nodding and almost smiling, so I thought it can’t be that bad then. The manager explained that it was one of the ‘suspension’ rods had broken, and that was causing the noise. I stood there, waiting for the bad news. It never came. There was no charge. It was covered. I bought a 5 year extended warranty when I bought the car, but stuff like this is never covered. Never covered! I drove home with a smile on my face that is still lingering!

 

One week later (or maybe a bit longer……..)

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Well I’ve had the new car for just over a week, and it seems to be fine. Acceleration is not as good as the Ford, and handling at 70 mph needs full attention, but I’m quickly getting used to that. What will take a time is what I’ve been told is my ‘heavy clutch foot’. Occasionally, I will come off the clutch too quickly and stall. It has been a small problem, since I learned drive. I even managed to do it on my driving test. I thought i had failed, but I “…responded to the problem, quickly and correctly, so it’s just a minor fault…” or so the tester explained. The comments I have got from people range from “dinky” and “nippy” to “smart” and “economical” and I prefer the latter two. The audio/entertainment system is great. Great as in 500% better that the radio cassette player I had in the other car. It has a USB port, and can play MP3 tracks. So haring along the country lanes, with the window down and Bruno Mars belting out, is quite a new experience.

Long, hard day yesterday. I was decorating the bathroom. Now when I say ‘decorating’ I really mean refreshing the current decoration, as we’ve kept it the same colour scheme. I bought, what I thought was a decent paint-pad tray, but it turned out to be so bad, that I binned it rather than try and clean it (note to self … the stuff from the £ shop works just as well.) Ended up using an old pad for the ceiling, and a largish brush for the walls, so it took a bit longer than expected, but it’s all done now. Saying that, I need to do the ceiling and door frame in the en-suite, when the lighting has been sorted out. Deep joy!

Work continues as only work can continue! The bitching, the back-biting and the internal politics are as ripe as ever. I try not to get embroiled in it all, as I’m not sure who’s side I need to be on yet! And of course, there has to be sides so people have someone to blame when things don’t go right for them! I thought the last review was tough, but this one has yet to get going properly and it ready shows signs of it being a bad experience. At the last team meeting, the Service Manager could give us no “ ……new information on where things stand at the moment…… ” and promised to tell us as soon as she know anything. I took that to mean, tells us “ .. what we need to know, when they think we need to know it …… “. Politics !!!

Long time…no post

/ Tony / 1 Comment

   As the title says, it’s been a long time since my last post. The holiday went much as expected. It seemed to take us until about half-way through the week, before we realised that R*** may have not been at his best. Stupid really ! He had just had a tooth extraction, on the Thursday, and we were expecting him to be happy. Well, thinking back, he was probably still in pain. That makes me feel a bit of a sh*t really. Apart from that, it was quite a good week. The weather was very kind (makes  change) and we were out every day.

   The Saturday and Sunday were a bit noisy. It appears that it was Whitby’s year for the annual Scooter rally. Over 2,000 scooter riders, and their partners were in Whitby for the weekend. It was good to see some of the old machines, and reminded me of the one I had when I was 16. A Lambretta Li125 in light blue and white!!! Actually saw the same model while we were there, in the same colour !!!

   I have some pictures (boring landscapes I’m afraid) and I will try and upload them to a page on here. That does, however, depend on my finding a way of uploading said pictures to a separate page. Methinks a trip to the forums may be on the cards.

   We seem to be having a bit of a backlash with him at the moment. He only want to stay at home, in his room. a great many Autistics are like that. It is his space, and he can control it. He will go to school, but that has become part of his routine, so he accepts that. But holidays, and days out, upset his routine, and he reacts to this. Usually with violence. It is as if the the violence is his only way of communicating his displeasure at what we are trying to do for him. He has been out tonight, with his support worker. He apparently had a ‘hissy fit’ as Mrs H put it before he went, and has been very angry and upset since he got back. Interestingly though, his support worker (or PA as the Council likes to call him) says he was fine while he was out. D** is very keen to engage with R***, since working with him at school, and tries very hard to find things that he thinks R*** would like. However, at the end of the day, what we, or anyone do or think, matters little to R***. His Autism does not take into account our feelings.

   The expected showdown at work never materialised. I was fully prepared for pistols at dawn, but I now feel, that both parties say my point of view. At the end of the day, I am not interested in egos or personal agendas, it is the end product, the service, that matters. If that sounds a bit trite, then I’m sorry. Saying that, however, I think everyone is looking out for themselves at the moment. A lot of people, seem to be in a very precarious position. Certain jobs, could be deemed as being ‘surplus to requirement’ in the current economic situation, and the people in those jobs are trying (if they have any sense) to keep themselves safe, so to speak. I don’t have a problem with that per se, just so long as it does not impact on me.

   I think that will do for tonight. I hope I have made up for the lack of postings while I was away. It is a bit of a chore, trying to post by email from a smartphone. Teachers report : Must try harder !!!

Another day off ….

/ Tony / 2 Comments

   Yes, another day off on Wednesday. well it is my wedding anniversary, so i think I’m entitled. A reasonable day at work today. S**** appeared to be in a better mood than yesterday (I’m still flavour of the month) although still managing to be a pain. The migration from Lotus Notes to Outlook continues, with very few hitches that I can see. A couple of people have had a few problems, but no one seems to have anything major. The photocopier/printer packed up today. It was unbelievable. The status message said ‘Faulty Printer Board  – call service engineer’. Now you would think that would indicate that a serious problem existed. However, it took one of the staff nearly 20 minutes off trying to remove imaginary jammed paper, before they told me of the problem !!!!

   Mrs H ordered the new car today. She’s not picked the colour yet, as there are new models coming out in December. Apparently, because of the popularity of the Volvo C30, she was advised to order now. It will seem very different for her, from the Scenic.

   The car seemed fine after it’s service, although it was a nightmare driving to work. Dark, foggy, lots of rain with plenty of spray on the motorway, made for a scary experience. Most of the drivers seemed to take note of the conditions and drive appropriately, but there are always the odd lunatic, like the guy that left it too late at A1/M1 junction. The half-wit came flying across from the 3rd lane and joined the A1 by crossing the hatchings. Another few seconds, and he would have hit the banking.

   The quote came through for my car insurance renewal today. I have not had a claim in 4 years, and LV have increased the premium by 10.5%. Outrageous !!!!

A good deal ..

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   I got the car service and MOT done today. No major problems, except one with the rear suspension. Apparently ‘one of the bushes on one of the suspension arms had too much movement’ which partly failed the MOT. All gibberish to me, but it was a similar thing with the front suspension last year. It appears that this is one of the things with the Ford KA, but speed humps accentuate the problem even more. Still, they ( K & M Motors, Nowell Lane, Leeds) did a good job, and I’m satisfied. At £190.00 for a full service and MOT seems like a good deal to me. Looks like I’ll get a better deal with the insurance, if I go with ESure too. That means that the tax will be the only thing I paying through the nose for.

   I was supposed to be doing a User Acceptance Test (UAT) on the upgrade to our system tomorrow. However, due to a slight communication breakdown (don’t you just love that phrase), our IT department were blissfully unaware, that the software house needs to do some configuration work first. The UAT has been put back until the 6th. It is crazy really. No-one else has to go through this fuss with an upgrade.

   Most people are beginning to get to grips with the change to our email system. Saying that, quite a few did not migrate last week as expected. They all claim, that they did not get the ‘upgrade email’ from IT, but I have my doubts about that. IT knows which office everyone works from, and the migration was office based. I have a very strong suspicion, that the ones who did not migrate, did either failed to do the online training (which was compulsory) or failed to action the upgrade email. Of course, everyone denies this !!!!

Well if that was the weekend ……

/ Tony / Leave a comment

   Not a lot happened this weekend really. Youngest got through the day without any medication again. There was a couple of close calls, but when I look back on it, it was probably my fault. He probably just wanted his space.

   Eldest came up for his drama rehearsal this afternoon. He was helping out in the hall this afternoon, and brought his friend B** back for dinner, which was nice. He seems to quite a decent lad, and I think S**** looks up to him a lot. No-one went to the pub tonight. I was already with my coat on when S**** sent a text. However we both went for one.

   I’m dropping my car off at 09:00 for it’s service tomorrow. P*** T has kindly agreed to pick me up and bring me into work. It is not too far to walk, about 45 minutes, but if the weather is bad…… All I need now, is someone to take me back at 4pm. If P*** can’t do it, I may ask A*****, if she is in.

Quite a good day …

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  On the whole a good day. No lie in of course, youngest awake at 5am (as expected). I got one of the light switches fixed, which leaves one more that should be done. Also got my desk lamp fixed, which was almost as tricky as the light switch.

  I managed to get my car booked in for it’s MOT and service. The garage did not look as if it was busy at all. I only went on the off chance at 4pm today, and it is booked in for 9am on Monday. They did a good job last twice, and the price was what I expected.

A long day

/ Tony / Leave a comment

   It seems to have been a very long day. I was dropping asleep around 9pm. I think it was a combination of the hot bath, and the late night last night. It was an interesting evening. I don’t know about K***, but I felt a little bit out of it last night. It was as if, they tolerated us being there, but I felt that we were not really being included. I got a bit of that last week. I don’t think I’ll be going next Wednesday, and I’ll have to have an excuse ready. May play on the fact that it too near pay day. May work.

   Our service head was in the office today. She was looking into a case, that has been escalated to her level. She popped over to see me, to thank me for the comments I had posted on the service bulletin board. Told me she was glad to see people using it. She is the type to mention things like that, but it was a nice touch.

   I’ve been doing a bit of fraud prevention this week. Our service manages the residents parking in Leeds. Because of the cost and restrictions, anywhere close to a site such as a hospital or shopping site or station, parking becomes an issue for the residents. In these areas, the Council will introduce residents parking permits. In some cases, the residents will try to make money from this, and the closer to the city centre, the more lucrative this can get. I recently spotted on a website, someone offering their parking permit for rent. After a bit of easy investigation, we are now in a position to take some action. Exactly what that action will be, remains to be seen.