First day back at work was a fairly gentle introduction. I didn’t get much of what I wanted to do as there was a stack of little things that needed doing! I also managed to migrate our CVS server to another computer which is useful as we’re retiring the old computer in 8 days!

At home, Ben had his first full day at school today and loved it. Georgina also got all the chores done much more easily today… not coincidentally! So all in all a very good day all round. I didn’t get to go out at lunchtime, so will have to try tomorrow.

Having been away for a week in the USA, I’m now back. Today we took advantage of the weather and went to Hanbury Hall for a walk around. There’s a set walk that takes around 40 mins or so which is just about the right length. The kids then had an ice cream and spent some time on the playground before we all came home again.

Today was a little frustrating as I failed to buy a new camera backpack for my trip. As a result, I’m taking my old one, but it’s not as padded as I’d ideally like. We’ll see how it goes!

I went down to London this evening to see my parents and to be in London ready for leave early tomorrow. I’ve had a good evening with mum and dad – mostly talking trains with dad :)

My last day at work before the conference was fairly uneventful. I managed to clear up most of the odds and ends that I wanted to which was good. I even sorted out some extra stuff for Carl to help for next week :)

Having trouble installing the database software on my laptop at the moment. I’m hopeful to have solved it soon though.

Today a new hard drive was installed into my laptop. It’s really big! I’m sure that I’m going to get to at least June before filling it all up… As a result, I’ve spent the day re-installing the software etc and still have a fair way to go before everything is back as I want it.

Also, today I decided to check how much space was left on our main file server and discovered that it was a few hundred megabytes. So I also upgraded the hard drive in that machine to a bigger one that I had ordered last month ready to be done. So a task on “when I get around to it” list actually happened today – a big accomplishment!

What is it about the rain at the moment? It was pouring down all the way to work and didn’t stop until gone 3! This weather is not helping my plan of going for a walk at lunchtime at all.

Today was an odd day as I ran of disk space on my laptop at about 10am and simultaneously one of our servers ran out too. It took over 2 hours before I was able to start the day and I’ve only got 3GB free space on this computer at the moment. Tomorrow, I’m going to Tewkesbury tomorrow morning to have a new 320GB disk fitted. I wonder how long it will last…

The boss was back today so we had a long meeting – 10am til 3pm… Still we caught up on all the projects and sorted out some new processes to make life easier. As a result I didn’t get much else done all day though. More importantly, I didn’t get out at lunchtime to take some photos, so this is a picture of the meeting table instead.

Today was also the day that Ben started going to school in the mornings. He still doesn’t go all day as they believe in breaking in the kids gently. Though I’m beginning to think that this is more for the teachers! Ben enjoyed himself and still looks very smart in his uniform.

Today was a particularly lazy Sunday. As we were late to bed last night, this morning was very quiet :) The kids played with their trains and I finished sorting out the laptop that I’m taking to the US. After lunch, Ben had a party to go to at the community centre. For this one, I took him. As I barely knew any of the other parents, I had a quiet two hours watching Ben on the bouncy castle/slide thingy. Ben really enjoyed himself as there were friends there from nursery that are now going to other schools. He enjoyed the catching up and the running wild around a big hall!

Today was an uneventful day. As is our wont, we didn’t get up especially early which was nice. In order to help use up all the plums that we ordered in error from Sainsburys To You, I went to tesco to get the bits required so that Georgina could make plum ice cream.

The rest of the day was taken up with preparing an old laptop for my trip to the USA that’s coming up soon. I also went into town to try and get some dollars, but discovered that I needed id. Not a totally successful trip! In Worcester, there was a charity abseil going on, so I took a photo:

This evening, Georgina has gone out with some friends to celebrate a birthday, so I’m home alone and sorting out paperwork for my trip.

Today was the last day with just me as the entire management team and on the whole, the week has gone very well. We didn’t get a site live as hoped as our client, a design agency, failed to communicate with the client in a timely manner. Never mind – it wasn’t our fault or problem, which was nice!

As Andy and James have recently joined us, we decided to go down the pub at lunchtime to celebrate. We don’t do this often enough… once a month would be a good goal to aim for I think! As I didn’t go out for a walk today on my own with the camera, this is a photo of the pub: