Lis's handy guide to database managing

Or database management? Managing?

Hello everyone, my name is Dotty the Database Manager. I manage a database. I don't create any of the data content, other people do that (user group A, we'll call them). The data is created in language 1, and can be translated by users (with the appropriate profile, user group B for instance) into languages 2 through to 12.

The main data sets are created and translated accordingly to a timetable that is drawn up 6 months in advance, communicated widely, and updated regularly. This ensures all user groups can plan and manage their workload for this content.

When user group A creates content, I leave it up to each user to inform user group B that data is available for international adaptation. Group B needs to receive this information in a timely fashion, because the data must be ready for use in each country according to a strict seasonal calendar. Sometimes group A gives the wrong information about new data to group B. This causes confusion and can lead to errors. If I were in control of the information group A gives out this wouldn't happen.

Recently I had the IT team develop a great new module where user group A can create new content entirely autonomously. It's fantastic because they no longer need to work to a restrictive calendar. They can create content as and when the fancy takes them. Once content is created, they can edit at will, with no fiddly un-publish/un-link/re-link/re-publish operations as with the main data sets. Even better, if content is already translated, they can still edit and even delete without any restrictions (unlike the main data set, where you cannot modify any content that has been translated, you have to create a new record). Sounds fab, doesn't it?

There is no timetable for the creation of content in the new module. Users in group A don't communicate when they create content (to me, Dotty, or to user group B). The new module does not include any type of automated alert to inform me or other users when content is created/updated.

If users in group B want to adapt the content in the new module for use locally, they have to check, one by one, close to 300 folders to find out whether content is present. If they have a vision in a dream informing them that changes have been made to already-adapted content, they have to check, one by one, close to 300 folders...

Sounds fab, doesn't it? Oh, no, hang on, sounds shit. That's because it bloody well is, Dotty!

As you'll have guessed, Dotty is a fictional character. But she is largely based on somebody in my company who has had a module added to her database, but no has no control over what is created and updated, or when, in the module. So she has no way of communicating this information to users who need it. When I stamped my feet and pointed out that this was not good enough, she suggested a query that could scan the data sets and look up changes. We could run it every 2 weeks for example. OK great, I'll take it. 3 weeks of development time before we can have our query. Eh?

Lessons to learn:
1. Don't create features that allow users to create/edit data with no controls whatsoever
2. Manage your user groups so they inform you, database manager, or at least impacted user groups, of new or updated content
3. Take responsibility for your scope

Harrumph.

Every fool's got a reason to feel sorry for themself

And this fool's reason? This fool has been feeling sorry for herself because she suddenly realised her job had gone from "quite interesting" to "boring 9 to 5". I don't quite know when that happened, but I woke up one day and realised I didn't want to do it any more.

So I'm going to do a career assessment. What's a career assessment, you all say. Well. It's a... well, a career assessment. It goes something like this: You have several meetings with a consultant who asks you lots of questions about you, your job, your aspirations, your likes/dislikes (work-related and not-quite-so-work-related). It's like a great big personality/skills/career assessment. The aim of which is to make sure your career is on track to where you want it to be going, where you feel comfortable with it going, and how to make it go where you would like if it's not there already. Sort of.

I'm feeling enthusiastic about doing the career assessment, because I know it will help me identify where my strengths are, and my weaknesses. When it's done, I'll have a much better idea of where I want to go and how to get there. The expectation being that my destination will be something I have chosen and decided, not something that just sort of happened to me (which is pretty much how I ended up doing what I currently do).

I am feeling a bit crestfallen about my employer's reaction to all this. Having explained that I wasn't motivated by my job any more and no, it's not the company, it's the job, I was maybe hoping my manager might say "so let's talk about this, tell me what you'd like to change if you could". But no. They just said "OK, well, keep us posted". I almost heard "OK, well, let us know when you're ready to resign".

Hey ho.

Still, will not let that dampen my enthusiasm. I have a challenge, a project. It's mine and I don't care if my employer doesn't want to share it with me. Maybe I don't want to share it with them ;)

How long has this been going on?

This week I made a long overdue visit to Next's website. Was intending to pick out a couple of tops and maybe jeans that Mum could bring over for me next month. But, what's this on the page footer? What are these flags of various EU countries? Could it be? Yes it is. Oh joy! Next deliver to France!

It's very sad, I do realise, that something so frivolous should bring about such glee, but clothes retailers in France are shite. Choose from cheap H&M fashion, or unaffordable couture chic. There really doesn't seem to be a middle-of-the-road option. Now I can indulge my retail habit from exile. Yay. Of course, spending money on Next online means less to spend on Pink shirts and Carvela shoes in Edinburgh, but hey.

In other news:
The small car passed its MOT, as I was expecting but much to doubting Hubby's surprise. Apparently there's a little bit of play in one of the shock absorbers. I said to the guy, "well, they've never been changed, so...". He was so surprised he even said to the mechanic, "look at this! 186,600 km and never changed the shocks!" Yes, Mr Man, that's because I slow down over speed bumps.

We went to the DIY store to buy salt for the water softening whatsit. Expensive salt: we paid €113!! Because Hubby said I could have some plants for the garden. [Grin] Bought plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, some flowers, some wooden edging things for the bit next to the raspberry canes that I would like to turn into a vegetable patch... And some other stuff.

We've chosen our translation management server system and work, and the techy issues that were looking dodgy have been or are currently being resolved. Now the fun starts, with pre-project workflow analysis, settings definition, installation, deployment, training and change management!

Hubby is away playing shoot'em up PC games all weekend. I'm hoping the rain stays away so I can grub in the mud and take Doggy for W's. If it doesn't, I have plenty ironing to keep me busy.

What a way to make a livin'

At work I regularly receive graphics files for translation. These are product communication materials (POS, catalogues etc). It's great being able to work directly on the native format (rather than send the translation to the execution agency in a Word document), because it saves a huge amount of time on two fronts: I no longer have to convert PDF files to text, the graphic execution agency no longer has to copy that text into the native file. We reckon it saves about two days. And it practically eradicates errors.

But it's not all roses. This week I received 80 product signs. They happened to be for bikes. The file format is indd (InDesign). Now we work with a translation memory package (essential tool for any translator). It supports InDesign files, but not the standard .indd format. I have to export the text content in a sort of xml file (.inx format). Then I can translate the text, save the translation as an indd file, and the only DTP required is to update image links and check the fonts. Great isn't it?

Only exporting the .inx file can't (to my knowledge) be done as a batch, it has to be done file by file. So I took my bikes signs, double-clicked each file to open them, clicked OK on the message in InDesign that tells me I don't have the latest modules, clicked again on OK at the message that tells me I don't have all the fonts in the file installed on my system, and clicked Don't repair at the message that asks me if I want to update links to missing graphics files. Then I hit Ctrl E to open the Export dialog. The default file type is pdf, so I opened the drop-down list and chose InDesign Interchange. Then I clicked Save. And I did this 80 times. I don't know how many clicks that adds up to. But it's a LOT.

Once I'd finished exporting it was time to create the translation projects. The translation memory software operates with projects. You create a project, import your source files (basically, extract the text), translate in a specific interface, then export the files (a process which recreates the original file with all attendant formatting etc.). So I created my projects. For 80 files. And sometimes, if the source file size is quite big, it doesn't import properly on the first go. So I reimported quite a few times.

So. Now I have my translation projects and I can get cracking. Except that I can't just yet. Translation memories work on the basis of "segments". The translations they save are not single words, but segment entries. A segment is usually a sentence, but most memories will also segment when they detect a line break in a text. Makes sense. Except that in my graphics files some text boxes are on quite narrow columns which means one sentence can have four line breaks in it. The translation memory duly segments the sentence into 4 lines. Only, in the memory database, the translation is saved as one line, not four! Fortunately, I can join together segments before translation, to stick together the sentence and thus obtain a match from the memory. So before running a pretranslate on my files, I joined up the segmented catchlines on 80 product signs.

Can you possibly imagine a collection of tasks with any less added-value than that?

Finally, after probably the best part of an hour mindlessly clicking, I was ready to pretranslate. And that made it all worth while. Because out of just short of 25,000 words, only 3,200 or so remained to translate. So an hour of brain-dulling, wrist-numbing and finger-fatiguing click-clicking is a good trade-off really. Because if I had to translate all that without the memory, it would easily take four days. Now it will only take four or five hours.

That's why the translation memory is such an excellent thing, especially for product communication. Because, with bikes for example, we don't bring out a whole new range every season. So POS and other materials don't radically change every 6 months. There might be a new size added, or a limited edition colour. But the bike still has an SRAM X7 drivetrain and a RockShox fork with remote lockout. And the marvellous translation memory has it all stored in its database.

Sorry for this lengthy and boring insight into my daily routine! Just thought I'd share the highs and lows as it were. But I did exaggerate somewhat about the number of bikes files. There were only 79 really.

Anxious fatty cyst woman

Yesterday I went to the Doc. Actually I saw the replacement Dockette, as Doc was on holiday. Is on holiday. Anyway. I went because I have a little lump at the top of my thigh. I already asked a doctor about it in December and he said "oh that's nothing, it'll go away all by itself". I duly forgot about it. Until the other day, when I noticed it was still there. So, being a slightly anxious type, I decided to see if it was still "nothing".

And it is still, "nothing" that is. A fatty cyst (ha ha, that could be me all over!). It will go away by itself. So while I was there I stocked up on the pills to make the thing in my head that's not right work properly. (I am doing very well, only take 1 or 2 a week.) Dockette not knowing my file, she asked a few background questions before handing out the prescription. What sets it off, how do I sleep, etc. Apparently I present textbook anxiety symptoms. Good to see I can get something right, I'm a textbook example!

She asked where I worked. "[Employer]," I replied. "Oh, right," said she. In a "that explains a lot" way. This isn't the first instance of a GP tsking like that when my employers are mentioned...

Ach, I dunno. I love what I do but I don't know why I'm doing it where I do any more. Is it time to move on? At the moment I'm seriously lacking in motivation. I feel like I've been in the same "place" in relation to my work/job content for the last year and a half at least. Sometimes I'd like to freewheel for a couple of days (you all know what I'm talking about), but that's not an option because if I don't do the stuff, no one else will (oh poor me!!). What I mean is, look at Hubby. If he's feeling demotivated, he might ease up the tempo a bit. So his work doesn't get done. At the end of the day, what are the consequences? His work doesn't get done. I feel like easing off and my work doesn't get done. It doesn't get done and maybe a product catalogue isn't printed in time and maybe the company misses out on customers and sales because of it. And maybe my employers will decide they can find someone else to do my job.

I'm feeling a bit all over the place. I don't know where to go from here. I'm fed up (can you tell?), tired, and feeling seriously under-valued (both financially and skills-wise) in my job.

Arthritic athlete

We played calcetto at lunchtime today. This is a truly fantastic way to spend 45 minutes getting a bit hot and sweaty, let me tell you. Calcetto is like 5-a-side football, played outdoors on an enclosed pitch that's roughly the size of a tennis court. There are no touchlines so the ball is always in play, and there are five metre high fences all round the pitch, so you never have to trek halfway across the playing fields to go and fetch the ball when someone misses a pass. Most excellent fun. And we won. ;)

So why an arthritic athlete? Well I did spend the afternoon hobbling about the office wincing when I moved my right leg. I think my body is rebelling against my fatness because whenever I've done any running lately my right hip appears to seize up. It is a subtle message from my skeleton to say "lose some weight you big heifer!". As soon as work calms down a bit I'm off to the gym, I promise!

Ah yes, work. It's like a battlefield in my Inbox. There are many casualties. It's not pretty. I work for a sports company and I don't have time to do sport. It's a disgrace. I added up all the things I have to do, and the time I spend doing them. The total comes to 156 hours a month. I'm supposed to work 140 hours a month. Hey ho.

What's your point ,caller?

So what *is* my point? What is the point of this blog? Do I have anything useful to say? And why is the wifi so bleedin' slow today?

First I have long overdue blushing thanks for Mya's nomination of this blog for a glittering prize. One day hopefully quite soon I'll display it with pride. But for now I'll just say "thank you, Mya, I'm touched".

I have lots of blogs to catch up on. I lazily technorati'd this morning to check out the latest news from my "favourite" blogs. Was upset to see that the dazzling Miss D has been struggling with her demons, and indignant to read Sugar's story of her freaky date and how all men just want to bed you. And there's lots else going on in the blogosphere and look how behind I've got!

I still don't seem to be able to hold on to an idea long enough to be able to write one down. I so want to blog about just what we've been up to (braderie last weekend, it was really warm and we made about 200 euros - yay!), what we're going to be doing (visit home soon-ish), and just generally give forth on anything and everything (as I'm prone to do)... But my mind is in a big rush and won't let me take the time to make up a proper post on anything. So you're just getting a sort of stream-of-consciousness pile of nonsense. Sorry!

So we did the braderie. It was hot (in October?!). We sold champagne corks (no kidding).

Hubby had an interview in Brussels on Wednesday but we don't really know what for. That doesn't make any sense. The employer is an IT services company and the job would be as a "consultant". But no further information. The compensation package sounded very generous so it probably means they expect you to work 10 hours a day. Every day. Hmm.

On Friday, Hubby got a call from a company in the UK that had already contacted him a couple of weeks ago. They want to arrange a telephone interview. Exciting!

I made Greek stuffed tomatoes out of my Rick Stein book. Surprisingly managed not to butcher any other fingers (last week I did some amateur amputation surgery with a Sabatier paring knife on my little finger - damn sharp them knives). They were a bit fiddly to make but really pretty tasty.

I also think I've accidentally stumbled on some kind of time warp/hole/thing. In the office, we don't have Earth minutes, we have Work minutes. They must only contain about 22 Earth seconds, and probably a Work hour lasts about 13 Earth minutes. This is the only possible explanation for how quickly the days whizz by. Except there is also a sort of reverse time warp that happens when someone says "I'll send you the files in about ten minutes", and two hours later, you still haven't received them...

I opened my last pack of tea bags this morning. I only have about 42 tea bags left. We're going to Scotland in 3½ weeks. Two cups of tea a day into 42 tea bags doesn't add up to enough tea until we go. Even mathematically-challenged Lis can work that out (and I didn't even need a pen and paper to do the sums)!

I wanted to debate (well, have a one-sided rant) about the hypocrisy of being a member of Les Verts (political party not unlike The Green Party, surprisingly enough), but nevertheless driving one's child to school every morning although you only live about a fifteen minute walk away (with no busy roads to cross en route). I don't get how you can join a party that claims to fight for the environment, but pollute so wantonly and pointlessly. But there is nothing to debate. The person in question is a hypocrite. End of.

I also want to know why the eco-mental green-friendly liquid hand soap is only sold by the dispenser-load. I mean, they don't sell refills. You have to buy a whole new dispenser each time. It doesn't make any sense.

And lastly, I'd like you all to have a look at the Earth Clock. And think on. Thanks to maxxo for leading me to that. Maxxo is a clockwork bunny who likes brewing nice cups of tea. I think she sounds interesting.

Overstretched

On Friday I did something rather silly and cried at work. It was Hubby's fault. He rang me just as I was looking at my Inbox and thinking I probably wouldn't be able to escape until the following Tuesday. I had to scuttle off to the ladies' and dry my tears and blow my nose.

It's been a tough couple of weeks. Work is stacking up in all quarters. There is the day-to-day work, then the project work on top of it, and the emergency can-you-squeeze-this-in work. Plus the other person in the team was off three days in the last two weeks. I'm not blaming her, everyone has times when they need 'unplanned' leave it's just the way things go.

I'm debating whether it's worth discussing it with my manager. She'll almost certainly blithely tell me that I don't manage my priorities/workload properly, and that's why I'm overstretched. I beg to disagree. When someone asks on Thursday morning if you can fit in a job which, after examination you will take less than an hour and can easily be fitted in along with all the other stuff, for Friday end of the day, you say yes. When at ten to five on Friday that same person sends you the documentation again saying "we made a few changes" and there is 50% extra work, it's not my failure to manage my workload that's the problem.

Also, when I plan priorities and work to come, I do so on the basis of available resources. When 50% of your resources are suddenly removed, it kicks your clever and careful planning into touch, somewhat.

Ach I dunno. My manager is a very insightful person who brings a lot to our activity, but she doesn't understand the nitty-gritty of what we do and is given to flippant remarks like "you're so lucky, you can outsource your work". Riiiiight. But when I do I have to triple-check it because no matter how much care I take in referencing my suppliers, they don't know the company the way I do and sometimes just don't "get" the content of documents. So I have to check and correct. But if I say that to my manager, I'll be told I need to get new suppliers!

I'm really very lucky because I have a job I really quite like. But sometimes it expects too much of me.

Bruised and battered

Monday comes around ever so quickly, don't you find? You hardly have time to get to weekend cruising speed and suddenly it's Monday again. Oh well, it's out of the way for this week now at any rate.

Been a busy weekend here at Franco-British HQ. Mum and Dad (or, The Grown Ups, as Hubby calls them - not sure they would agree with this moniker) were here for a layover between the end of their hols in the south of France and the journey back up Britain. They came laden with many goodies, mostly of the food variety and some of the fermented grape juice variety. All very pleasant. As usual, the time went by too quickly and they were packing up the car to leave this morning. I cried like a big baby (because I am), and Mum stoically didn't cry until she was in the car (because she has to put on a brave face for her little girl). And off they went.

Because the mundane aspects of life (like work) have a habit of taking over, I had no time to dwell on my sad heart, which is maybe not such a bad thing. So off to work it was, and to a team meeting. With my office-mates we had the usual ritual of "have you prepared your presentation?" "no, why, have you?!", but it was surprisingly useful (meetings often are in my job, it's always nice) and informative. At lunchtime we went and did some archery (corporate "rules": team meetings must include time for sport). I am now the proud owner of a nasty bow string bruise. Whenever I do archery, there are never any arm guards provided. Only once did I manage to avoid the dreaded bow string bruise. Should I report it as an occupational accident? Is quite sore actually.

Anyway, enough of feeling sorry for myself, I have a blog-addiction to feed...

It's not fair

The sole purpose of this post is to have a moan.

I left work at 7.30 tonight, and my colleague was still there finishing things up. And why were we stuck in the office until so late? Because for a month now we've been having IT/network problems that prevent us from working properly.

Some background: we use translation memory software, and the memory database is stored on a server (it has to be, so we both have real-time access to it). We also store all our "working" files on the same server, as we both need access to them.

So for the last month, the connection to this server has been woefully unreliable, some days it goes off ten or more times. Each time the server connection is lost, if we're working in the the TM software, the whole thing freezes and the quickest solution is to kill it in Task Manager and start again. Can you imagine spending about 15% of your working day just re-starting a program?

The other really great thing that can happen is this: if the connection to the server is lost at the very time when you are "writing" to the TM, this can corrupt the whole database (two and a half years worth of translations here), rendering it useless. This has happened twice since I came back off holiday. Luckily, I copy the TM to my hard drive every morning so we don't have to wait for IT to restore the file from the backup.

And what solution does the helpdesk offer? "Work from your hard drive and copy to the server at the end of day so everything is backed up". And how exactly does that allow real-time sharing of the database? Well, they don't have an answer to that one.

I estimate that in the 10 days I've been back at work, I have lost 3 of them to this problem. Great productivity! Which adds up to things taking far longer than they should, and us being stuck in work until late to finish projects.

I did warn you it was a moan. :(

***UPDATE: they have bought a new server. Yay.***

White collar slave

Back to work today. :|
Don't really like it. I don't know how many messages were in my Inbox this morning after two and a half weeks away. A lot. A big lot. And of course there's always one who hasn't figured out what the Out of Office Reply message means. When you send me a mail and an automatic reply comes back straight away, saying I'm back in work on 20 June and telling you who to contact in my absence, that means I am not in the office and I cannot read your message. So there is no point in sending THREE more messages over the next two days asking for a file that I cannot send to you because I am not in the office and have no knowledge of your file. Sending lots of messages will not make me suddenly appear.

Hmm, sorry for that minor rant, it's just that the whole not understanding the Out of Office Reply thing really bugs me. It's not that difficult a concept, is it? Anyway, there were plenty of other messages from people who knew full well I wasn't there but had nevertheless decided to ensure I wasn't short of stuff to do on my first day back. Hey ho. I suppose it is better than sitting there with nothing to do... Isn't it?

And while I'm having a grouse, amongst the huge pile of paper mail awaiting me (ha ha paperless office), most of which was invoices, was a letter from a supplier we stopped working with at the end of last year. Early this year they emailed to say they had outstanding invoices. A quick check revealed we'd never received them, so we asked the agency to send some duplicatas. They finally came while I was away. And in the bundle was an invoice dated 30 April 2006. Surely that's taking the pee a bit, no? That gives you some idea as to why we don't work with this particular supplier any longer - poor organisation.

It's the weekend!

It was getting to be time for the weekend. Thank goodness for flexi time days, eh? :)

No snow here. Possibly the only place in the world on the planet where it hasn't snowed. :( Of course, I probably would feel relieved if I had a forty minute drive to work in fine weather. But even if it snows it still only takes 15 minutes to get home.

We bought a lotto scratch card on the way home from work. We won 12 euros. I was debating not telling, because I don't want to get lots of begging letters and hangers-on after a share of our fortune, but I've told you now. :)

Dog is full of beans. She has gained 200g since her operation. I thought she was looking slightly less scrawny.

No plans for the weekend. Probably housework!! Weather outlook poor, but we'll see.

Monday cold

It's been cold today. I forgot my gloves in my camera bag so my little hands got cold. I think I would like a car with a heated steering wheel.

Work busy. No change there then. I need to sort out my annual performance meeting stuff. Who has any ideas of amazing things I can say I did at work in 2006???

Nothing much going on here.

Top Gear -6 days, and counting :)

Oh oh oh, it might snow!! :) Then again, it probably won't :( We'll just get boring rain.

Browsing through photo archives

And I came across this little gem:

In a recent post I talked about seminars at work. This one is from the year launch 2005.

Cheers!

One more day then it's the weekend

We started working on our team's year launch sketch at lunchtime today. We just brainstormed lots of ideas around everyone's projects and it has turned into a sort of TV and advertising-inspired nonsense fest. Most of the scenes are based on either TV adverts or as parodies of TV shows. I don't know how we are going to fit in what are effectively seven mini-sketches in our 20 minute slot, but it should be fun.

I'm looking forward to the year launch a bit more now. I haven't been up til now, but we're getting ideas for our sketch and we'll have a laugh making fools of ourselves, so hey. For those who don't know the score, an annual tradition with my employer is the year "review/launch", which takes place in January. Every team is supposed to take time out to review the year (lots of teams do this by doing comedy sketches of what they've worked on), and launch the coming year's projects. It also usually involves a bit of a party and then some sport with the whole team. Previous launches I have attended included "orienteering", tree-walking and quad biking in Belgium, land-yachting on the Picardy coast, snowshoeing in the north Alps. It's a good idea I think, to review projects and achievements, and boost everyone's energy after the Christmas and New Year break.

Another staple is the mid-year review. These are fun too, taking place in June and involving a mid-year review of projects, a party, and some sport. Most memorable was a mini adventure raid in the south of France in 2004 - canoeing, via ferrata, abseiling down an 80m rock face... Then a big party :)

There are definitely worse companies to work for. And I know this because I've already worked for at least one of them!!

In other news:

Either all our rechargeable batteries are flat or there is a problem with our clock in the living room. That's pointless information I know, but that's what my blog is all about!

Weather is non-descript. I did feel a little ray of hope this afternoon on the way home from work. If you looked to the west, just at the edge of the huge bank of cloud hanging over Lille, there was a patch of clear sky and it wasn't dark. It was clinging on the last traces of day light. Of course, it was only just half past five, still far too early for it to be dark, but there is hope.

I saw a thing on the news about the long term climate forecast for 2007. Apparently they say it's going to be hot again. That's because we're destroying the planet, like I keep saying. I also saw an item about people working in Indian granite quarries, risking their limbs as they use pneumatic drills wearing only flip-flops. Westerners really are like locusts. We use up all our local resources, and then head off around the world to pillage some unsuspecting poor countries and exploit the locals at the same time.

In yet other news:

My dog is lovely. That doesn't really change from one day to the next but she's such a honey I thought I'd mention it.

My husband is alright too. He cooked dinner tonight. And loaded the dishwasher. However this last one was on my orders so only half counts.

And that's all I have to say about that.

We can now go "official" in France

Our French marriage certificate arrived today finally. So now we can go "official" here. Of course, that means that I'll have to make up my mind on what my name's going to be ... No rush, right?

Round to Jo's tonight to celebrate his birthday, which was on Tuesday. Then it's the braderie (sort of yard sale/car boot sale thing) on Sunday morning. Early on Sunday morning. I need to seriously set aside time tomorrow to go through what we'll try and flog. Hope we make enough for a nice meal out!

Poor Hélène still not properly moved into her new flat. The painter and the plumber seem in absolutely no hurry to finish all the work. Lazy g1ts.

Been a busy week at work. I did the stats tonight before I left - September's figures are comparable to YTD. Which means we've been more productive than usual, as we're down to 2, and we have project management, daily admin, satisfaction surveys and all the rest to do on top of the translations. That's given me a boost because it's been pretty hectic all month.

Oh, and this is something I should already have posted: to those of you who pray, please remember Joffrey and Sophie Catteau who lost their son Elie last weekend.

And on that rather low note I'll leave it there for now. Be back on Sunday (maybe!) to gloat about how much easy cash we made. :)

Fish & Chips tonight

Not forgetting the mushy peas.

Spoke to Jeni last night at length. Her bump is growing mighty fast apparently. She sounded happy but a bit frazzled with work. Her maternity leave starts soon so she needs to get everything in place for while she's away.

Work for me is going better. We are installed in our new offices and, setting aside some teething troubles, it's incomparable to the mess we were in for the last two weeks. We don't have people digging up the ground right next to our office or knocking the walls down or (even better) digging through the main power cable into the building!!

Work for Hubby appears to be as inspirational as ever (not). Of course, he needs to get his CV sorted out so I can start finding him a job he'd like to do. As I don't really understand what he actually does currently, there is only so much of his CV I can write on his behalf.

We had the usual suspects round for drinks and nibbles on Friday. We finally met Delphine! She seems nice and Jo is happy and that's what counts. Everyone seemed good. It was a good evening.

I got a start on the wedding thank yous. Still have about fifty to do I reckon but at least I started. Mum says she'll pick up the photos tomorrow. I'm a bit jealous that other people will see them before we do but that's life.

Talking of weddings, we still don't have our French marriage certificate. I sent a rather pointed e-mail to the consulate in Edinburgh today to find out what they're playing at. It's not that I care about their stupid French paperwork (after all, we have the marriage certificate issued by the registrar in Scotland that's the main thing), but we actually need the French marriage certificate to sort out more stupid paperwork here. And some of it has to be done within a certain time after the wedding. French administrations, what can you say.

I read one of my 3 for 2 books. It was called Only Strange People Go To Church. I have to say I thought it was going to be better than it was. But it was an easy read and passed the time and did have a couple of funny moments. Don't buy it though you can have my copy.

I'm reading The Incredible Adam Spark now. It's much better. It's one of those "stream of consciousness" type books. It's a bit odd when you start but I'm quite well into it now and it's a good read. Buy it. Of course, I could offer to lend you my copy but I haven't finished yet.

Anyways I have to go my fish & chips are ready.