Old Dog, New Tricks

They say you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, but I am hoping to prove them wrong. There isn't much I can do about the shaggy mane, my breath and the urge to roll around on things found in the grass, but the new tricks I shall work on.

Essentially at the end of March the technical support role I have been performing ( see what I did there ) finally came to an end, and they transferred the responsibilities to another company. I thought I was going to have to resort to crying to get a new job, but luckily they decided to save the hankies and offered me a new role within the same company. I could still work from home, but the tricky bit would be that the team I am working with are all in Tewkesbury, which is in another country and is 370 miles away. The new job is essentially supporting an 'application' which stores, archives and retrieves all types of documents for Barclays bank. This 'application' is accessed worldwide, by all levels of Barclays staff, and therefore has a very large profile. My role is part technical / part account management, and I am basically the new whipping boy for Barclays, and I jump when they say jump etc ( it is like being married, except that the money comes in, instead of out ). At least with the travel to Tewkesbury, and sometimes one-day round trips to Manchester, I actually get out of the office and see real people again. I have stopped sitting at the keyboard for 8 hours a day typing " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy ".

We had some seasonally early Spring-like conditions recently, and have been out and about, including a day with friends on an island on Loch Lomond call Inchcailoch. Our wee girl does not seem to feel the cold and paddles around until she is blue and we have to force her back onto dry land again.



We recently decided that the kitchen was too outdated and that we should get Ray Purdy in to give us some advice. He kindly assisted in designing a new kitchen with us, and then we had IKEA install it for us. It is mostly done now, with just a few tasks for the electrician to finish off and then we can paint. Ah the bliss of having a dishwasher after hosting dinner parties.

I thought this dog had remembered some old tricks, but found out last Saturday night that riding my new birthday bike was not one of them. After spending a long evening drinking orange juice at a friends Eurovision Song Contest party ( no wonder I drink ) the wife and I cycled the 2 miles home on our bikes. A bit along the lines of the old joke " Did you hear about the Irishman who when he found out that most car accidents happen within 2 miles of home, he moved ". I must have felt the same thing, as when we got within 100 metres of our gate, I must have started to go to sleep and fell off my bike onto the gravel road. Luckily I was so relaxed that mostly my pride suffered the greatest fall, but the bike also has taken a battering and has to go to the shop for repairs.

Right, I hear the fishman outside the door, as it is Wednesday and he drives to our house, we choose delicious freshly caught fish, homemade pates, and fishcakes from his van.

Yumm.

Woof, woof

Lots of love

The McKs