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:

Today was one of those days where the plan went out of window within 10 minutes of getting into work. Clients have caused quite a bit of juggling of priorities today, but we got all we needed to get done and have planned tomorrow, so I’m fairly happy with my performance. Certainly managing projects and clients is a full time job and all the other stuff I need to do has been ignored this week.

It was such a complicated day that I didn’t get to take time out of the office for lunch today. Also, it was pouring with rain over lunchtime which didn’t motivate me! Of course the sun came out later in the afternoon and
this is the nearby picnic table where one day I may actually eat my lunch!

The big news today is that it was Ben’s first day at school. Obviously we took photos! His school has a “settling period” system so this week he’s only going for the afternoons and it’s a few weeks before he’s going full time.

It was quiet in the house this afternoon!

He seemed to enjoy himself as he came back with chalk dust on his face and told us that he played with Lego. Jon was also back at school today and seemed to like his new teacher, which was good. He has been a bit worried about schools starting as he’s in a new class which is a mixed years 3 and 4 class. So far, all is going well.

For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t take my lunch whilst sitting at my desk working. Today, I went to St Margaret’s church, Corse and took a few photos. Of course, it rained. Then the sun came out, so it wasn’t all bad. The church is actually a long way from the village. It’s the other side of the A417 and down a long winding road. As I was driving down, I was beginning to think the sign was wrong!

When I got there, I had a walk around and took a few photos. Mainly I just wanted to get out of work and put a camera to my eye. I didn’t get any fantastic shots, but it was good to be not thinking about work.

Now that the complicated summer months are over, we’ve started exercising regularly again and it’s a killer! Three times a week, you’ll now find us using exercise bike for half an hour each. During this time we watch something that’s been previously recorded on Sky+. Today, it was Top Gear – the Bullet train race episode. I have to say that I like the look of the Nissan GTR!

In other news, the boss is away this week, so I’m in charge! This means that I’m 99% project manager this week as it seems to take that much time to keep the clients up to date and the rest of the team on track with what they are doing. This isn’t a problem and I quite enjoyed heading off a problem with a client by altering stuff around the keep him happy. There’s a couple of tight deadlines coming up that are going to require clients to approve stuff quickly, so I expect they’ll be delayed though!

Jon also seems allergic to sleeping this evening. it’s nearly 9pm and he’s still awake. Tomorrow is not going to be a good day I suspect…

Productivity comes in waves for me, especially on personal stuff. This weekend has been particularly productive. I’ve sorted out lots of stuff that’s been hanging around for a few weeks.

I’m particularly pleased that I’ve got the camper packed up for the winter. It is now hoovered out, the bed sheets are packed away and I’ve also put on the winter cover. I have also processed all the photos from our last holiday now and published them to my Flickr account and onto the photo album here. I’m not very fast at processing, so it was good to get them all done.

I’ve also started preparing for my conference trip to Santa Clara, USA, in a fortnight. Travel is now all sorted as the plane tickets are booked, along with travel insurance and the hotel. For the travel insurance, I went with Norwich Union as they gave me a good deal, probably as we have other insurance with them too.

Jon, Ben and I played Boom Blox on the Wii this afternoon. Ben is struggling to use the wiimote to control the game. Jon has completely “got it” now and has no trouble flicking his wrist at just the right moment. Boom Blox is quite good – it’s a play on Jenga and quite addictive.

So, all in all, a great weekend. Now it’s time to play World of Warcraft…