:: pix

I finally cobbled together a page of photos of my holiday on Halki. I had been working on a more complex setup with words as well as pictures, but it was a dog's breakfast so I ended up doing just a simple array of thumbnails with captions.

I was going to do a separate page of words this afternoon, but when I got back from walking the dog nothing electrical in the house worked. Phone, fridge, tv, video, computer, stereo, kettle, lights -- all dead. The power company says it'll be fixed by 6pm, which is no use to me: no video of the first episode of the new series of Six Feet Under, wah! Or the second episode of the new political thriller State of Play. Oh well.

When we went out for another walk (couldn't even mow the lawn, my mower's electric!), there was a large lady rummaging around in the substation cupboard thingie up the road, so hopefully the cut will be fixed before our freezers all defrost.

:: back home!

I got back from Greece at nearly 1am on Thursday, went up to Inverness on the train that day, then came back here on Saturday. I had Sunday off, and was back at work today (ok yesterday, as it's after midnight).

I've started making a web page with some of my photos from Halki, it should be ready to go in the next couple of days.

I had a wonderful time -- lots of sun, sea and good food. Bertie also had a great holiday -- he nearly caught a hare!

I'll email everyone when I post the pictures.

:: I'm so tired

I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired.

Finished work this morning (Friday) at 5:45am, after a 6pm start. Drove home, stopping off en route to fill up on diesel and coolant (a red light came on on the dashboard, I had to look it up in the owner's manual!). Went straight to bed (in the spare room, due to the roofer having decided that Friday morning was an ideal time to replace my spouting). Slept fitfully -- I never sleep well when I'm overtired. Woke at 11:30am. Found message from gas man and phoned him; he wanted to come round right away. Argh. No sign of the roofers -- just a ladder leaning against the wall.

Had breakfast. Snarled at gas man and gas man's helper. Left them to get on with boiler inspection while I had a shower. Phoned roofer and got lowdown on what their plans were (work will be finished tomorrow), phoned Jenny re Bertie, who was sleeping over. She said she'd be right back. Snarled goodbye to gas men. Jenny and Bertie arrived in rainstorm. Made tea and chatted. Roofer had meanwhile arrived but was sitting in his van. Later he ventured out and set to work painting the new spouting. Jenny headed off and I took Bertie for a quick walk before heading off to work, an hour early due to minor crisis there.

Tonight was horrendous, beyond horrendous. I had to do my usual job, plus full-on tech support for a team of three subs who are really struggling with the new software, plus pull in the full results for the Scottish elections and fix the broken coding. I was on the go from the minute I got in until about five minutes before I started this. I managed to grab a sandwich at about 10pm, but didn't have a break before then.

Compared to that, the 12-hour election stint was a doddle. I had a sharp cookie helping me, and the coding on the results wasn't broken, so there was no problem running them in. The company laid on snacks and coffee, and a chef came in and whipped up bacon and egg sandwiches at 5:30am. There's always a great atmosphere on election night, a real buzz. But tonight was just a long grind.

Anyway, the good news is that the software changeover has been delayed for a week, so I won't have to work tomorrow. I'm still going out to dinner with my colleagues tomorrow night though, and I'm still going to train the staff at the Westminster office before I go to Greece. I'm so happy not to be working tomorrow! I have so many little things to do I really need the extra time.

Speaking of time, it's time to go home!