Well Christmas is now a distant memory and it was a great time to spend it with the people that mean the most to you. How many days to Christmas now I hear you say, I haven’t a clue and don’t care. It will be when it will be.
My parents are still struggling with chest infections that they’ve had since the turn of the New Year. They’ve been quite poorly with it. They’ve had a roof leak too over the rear bedroom where the under-felt had torn a little and was allowing any driven rain to pass under the tiles to drip onto the insulation in the loft space. I’ve managed to pin the felt back up in place with the help of some cross battens between the rafters. Not 100% back to new but a reasonable repair that should just stop the water getting in.
We caught up with Sam, Matt and Harry at their house and even got a visit off Drew too. Harry has started his potty training this week and has managed to keep dry for the later part of the week, although he did have a couple of accidents at the beginning of the week. They all seem well and fine too. Drew was full of beans and looks well rested after his Christmas break. He’s finished work at House in Goosegreen, Altrincham and has also now sold his interest in Urban Burger Bar! Selling up in Urban Burger bar was a bit of a shock as he’d worked so hard to get the project up and running. However He’ll start over else where one day. He has also had an interview at the same hotel (Radisson Blu, Manchester) where Lewis works and starts there tomorrow (Monday).
My two youngest are fine, Lewis has been away in Bradford most of the week seeing a new young lady called Danielle. We met her for the first time on Friday evening and I must say what a pleasant young lady she is. Danielle is studying to be a nurse at Bradford Uni. Josh is fine albeit that he’s fully into being a stroppy teenager and has the attitude to match.
Michele and I are both very well, we both seem to have taken to our soup maker and are now into our second week of having homemade soup for lunch at work. I even made a beef and vegetable soup made from the leftovers of a beef casserole we had for tea one evening last week. Very delicious. I’m even getting my stash of homegrown chillies eaten up as they are being used in the soups.
The week at work was OK too, no boredom and not too stressful either. I had a trip to London on Friday to meet up with colleagues from Arcadis, Hyder Consulting and RTKL to discuss BIM (Building Information Modelling). This meant that i was on the 07:09 from Wigan North Western to Euston for the journey of just under 2 hours. I met a colleague at our head office near Kings Cross before catching the tube over to Victoria, then a short 5 minute walk to Hyder’s offices. The meeting was an open forum and introduction to where each of the separate parts of the business are at. We even had the meeting gate crashed by the Arcadis chairman Neil McArthur who was over in London for meetings. We all had to introduce ourselves to him before he chatted to us about what BIM meant for him. I got the impression he was quite excited about the challenges as well as changes BIM will bring to the construction industry. The meeting ended sooner than I had expected and i had a little bit of time to kill before my train back from London to Wigan so I wandered down to the Houses of Parliament for a breath of fresh air. I was also treated to a flyby over the Cenotaph by two Chinook helicopters, shame i wasn’t quick enough with the camera as they looked quite stunning flying low over London. My trip back was luckily by First Class as strangely enough it was cheaper than Second Class! In the First Class lounge I met a couple of friends – Alan and Tracy Brookes. (Friends sounds better than the boss and his wife as I’ve known them both for over 25 years now). After a couple of beers, a glass of port and chicken Teka Marsala i was well rested. Its nice to travell First class from London everynow and then.
Now settled down ready for what this week has to hold for us.
