Rob's Ego Trip!

I seem to have lost the habit of posting here for some reason. Probably because it doesn't feel that much actually changes.

Over the last month or so we've started decorating the lounge/dining area. I completed the dining area at the weekend, so we're onto the lounge over the next few weeks. I'm expecting this to take a while as we've got both boys' birthdays coming up over in early May with associated parties at the weekends. We also have a Christening coming up on Sunday which should be fun.

My laptop's motherboard died and it is in for repair. I'm currently using an old desktop with Windows Vista on it and fee like I'm in limbo as I have just a minimum of data on here. Using Windows again after using a Mac for a 18 months is proving hard too as I keep pressing the wrong keys!

Only 2 more days to go though!



(hopefully!)

Georgina celebrated her birthday today with tea in bed opening her presents with the kids. The kids were at home all day as the school was closed due to the snow. As a result they had a lazy day and then we went out for a meal this evening at the Beefeater as they are so good with the children there.

Happy Birthday, my love.

Seem to have had a run of unhappy clients where most of their problems haven't been our fault. Today's was though :(

Fortunately, Georgina has baked biscuits!

After a meh week, this weekend has been quite good. Yesterday was spent doing chores. For me, this meant that I've succeeded in chopping down the remaining bushes from the front garden. Just need to get the roots out now.

Today, we went over to Jacky's for lunch to celebrate Georgina's upcoming birthday. Jacky took us out to The Weston Cross where we had a very nice meal. One nice thing about this pub is that they do not skimp on the vegetables served with a Sunday lunch and it was all nicely cooked and not stodgy. In the afternoon, we had hedgehog birthday cake, which was excellent also!

The Almera has had a slow puncture for a little while now and today I organised getting down to Kwik-Fit and getting it sorted. The local Worcester Kwik-Fit is staffed by some nice people and is always very busy. As a result, it took over an hour before they were able to look at the car. Once they did, they repaired the tyre quickly and with a low charge. I was quite impressed as I was expecting to be told that I needed a new tyre.

As it's Saturday today, we did homework. For Ben, this turned out to be his activity bag which had a farm animals theme. He liked the matching pairs games and the fuzzy felt best. Jon also went to guitar lesson today and seems to be getting on okay, even though he found today's lesson quite hard.

We've got key fobs that open the car park gate now, but they don't work from inside the car! A fairly standard day at work, but I did get to go for a walk over towards the Symphony Hall where I took this photo:



There's something about photos with reflections in them that I really like.

Today, one of our clients went bust. They didn't owe us a lot of money, but it was still a bit of a downer first thing in the morning. As a result, I didn't work on a project specification for them and cleared a hundred or so emails from my inbox instead.

At lunch, I went to find a Post Office and found one in the Jewellery Quarter. Whilst there, I took a photo of this cafe:



Hard to know what to say really!

Every Monday I write a report about all the ongoing projects we have for one of our key clients. The main reason we do this is that they have a lot going on and usually, there's 40 to 60 items on the list. The best bit for me is that once per week, I can make sure that I'm on top of everything and that there's nothing that's stalled due to lack of action on our part.

As a result I get very little else done, so I took a still-life picture this evening:

A lazy Sunday today with a very nice fish pie for dinner.

I've had a busy Saturday today and have managed to get stuff done. Jon went to guitar lessons with Georgina, so I helped Ben with his homework. I then did ironing and put on the next load of washing. When Jon was back, I took out another bush from the front garden. Only two left now, but one is a conifer, so it going to be difficult!

This afternoon, I took Jon to town to purchase trainers for outdoor PE lessons at school and rounded off the day by cooking a fry-up for dinner :)

!

I managed to cross off precisely two items on my to-do list today. Fortunately they were big ones, so a fairly productive day. Also, one of our clients complimented me on my management of her projects this week, so clearly I'm on top of things from her point of view!

I went for a walk around Victoria Square in Birmingham today. Rather obviously, but I didn't realise it, there's a statue of Queen Victoria there, so I took her picture.

On the way to school, Ben managed to walk into the barriers they put in the middle of paths to deter cyclists.

Ouch.

As a result he's got a massive bruise on his forehead. Oh well...

In other news, I wrote an article that was published in the php|architect magazine. I received my copy today!

It rained all day. I didn't get much walking done as a result. Did manage to tick off the main items on my todo list at work though!

We did some more painting with the kits that the kids got for Christmas. Then we played on the Wii :)

I also spent time today taking photos in Manual mode, so I have started to understand the meter built into the camera.