Time flies

Is it really Christmas again?

Freeze

I got to work and found my car door frozen this morning

Bit of a shock - went to get out of the car and the door wouldn't open - it was fine when I got INTO the car at home! I eventually had to clamber out of the passenger side in a most undignified way.

Further investigation seems to indicate that it wasn't frozen at all, but probably broken. Looks like the car will pay YET another trip to the garage (it's only just come back from having a new expansion tanl)

Update: The door is officially broken. Garage man said it's probably one of the clips inside the door.

Festive

The festive party season is with us again

At least, it is for most people. Because of silly company rules about not taking partners, herself and myself find ourselves going to parties along, or not going at all - respectivley.

The closest I got to a company do was my team boss' leaving do. That was quite a good affair, only marred by the fact that we got to the curry house so late that I had to leave to catch my train before the curry arrived - not at all pleasing.

There was a get together for a select group of neighbours this weekend, which was quite good, and we do have a party some distance away at the weekend - which should also be pleasant, so I guess, for me, it's quality and not quantity that counts.

Top pie

Yes, it's time for the annual mince pie tasting again.

We had a number of new pies this year, from diverse providers including Raymond Blanc, a local cookery expert, the Co-op and Greggs as well as our favourites from last year, Sainsburys Organic and Waitrose All Butter.

The shock news is that the winner is the same as last year - Waitrose All Butter were judged to be the finest mince pies by an expert panel of judges including myself, herself and our next door neighbours. Our tipple of choice this year was mulled wine.

Yum!

Poison Chalice?

Things are changing at work and I'm not sure it's for the better.

Our team boss (my bosses boss) is leaving next week and my immediate boss has been transferred onto another project. This now leaves 2 of us on the team for my project and it looks like that may not be for much longer.

We work on a system which integrates a number of older customer management systems together and it has a rather difficult time in the organisation. It threatens some, whilst others think it isn't a good solution - which is true in many ways - but it fills a gap in the IT systems which would otherwise be very costly thing to do.

There is always a battle to keep funding for the project and that seems to be where we are now. The future is by no means certain, but it looks like whichever way it goes, it's going to be down to me to plan and organise it all. Given the bureaucracy and suspicion that seems to be rife in the organisation, I'm not sure I'm happy taking this on.

Time will tell