Friday 19th May 2023

Most of my European colleagues took Friday off so to have a four day weekend. And who can blame them?

I did mean that for me, work was quiet. I was able to get my tasks done, except for travel expenses, and post and/or file everything.

I arranged two meetings for when I come back from my latest vacation, which was due to start at 14:00, my annual orchid holiday, the grand tour round Kent and beyond.

Other than that, it was a usual Friday in late Spring.

There was the bins to do. Cats to feed. Birds to ensure their feeders were full and clean.

I filled up the wildlife pond, and surprsed two frog and a tiny froglet when the water began to pour.

And that is that, really.

I was sitting on the patio when Jools came home.

What's the plan?

No plan.

Shall we go to Covet Wood?

We shall.

So, we did.

Covet wood has been our favourite orchid site for many years now, and this would be our second visit this year, but that first one was about six weeks ago. I put the Audi through its paces along the A2 before turning off, and trundling down the lanes to the site, parking at the bottom of the bridleway.

Sadly, the Lesser Butterflies at Stockbury have been run over by a twat on an ATV, and all spikes have been crushed. So, I went up the long slope hoping that I might find a spike here, where they used to show well, though never in large numbers, but none seen really for five years at least.

And, sad to report, no Lesser Butterfly seen, and numbers of EPO are well down, almost to single figure, the wood on the left hand size which used to be full of them, now empty. Maybe the reason numbers are falling is linked to the Lesser Butterfly dying out, I don't know, but it was sad to see.

Back down the slope and over the road to check on the Lady Orchids there, and pretty much the same story, with numbers greatly down. Less than 20 seen, whereas a few years back there would be 100 at least. I snap a few, and I turn back to the car, but had to wait half an hour as Jools had the keys and had gone on a wander.

She came back and we drove home, as the big cats had to go to the vets for their jabs so the cat prison would accept them next month. We round them up with no trouble, as both were asleep in the long grass near the pond, and Jools puts them in the car and takes them to Whitfield. Both are fine, though Scully has a touch of arthritis so we were advised to brush her more to help with grooming.

As a treat, we were meeting Shaun and his wife at Nameste for curry, beers and chats, which I had been looking forward to all week, as socialising is good, even if it takes several sticks of C4 to get me out of the living room.

We met at seven, and oddly, the place was only half full. Seems it is being taken over, and the new owner was there to see how things were run and tell customers about his plans for the future.

It was all rather jolly, with talk of holiday, photography and work, time slipped by, and the food food went down well. Some kind of coated potato slices followed by lamb and lentil curry, rice and naan for me.

Too much, of course, and we were stuffed by half nine, so we bid farewell, and Jools drove us back home in the cool twilight.

Thursday 18th May 2023

Ascension Day (DK)

Meaning all of my Danish (and German) colleagues had a day off.

Meaning I could catch up on all my work, without interuptions.

Which is nice.

And the weather was warming up, so I might find time in my hectic schedule to go out for a walk....

Anyway, seems that I am good at getting lots of sleep lark, even going back to sleep when Jools gets up, only waking back up when Jools is making coffee or Cleo comes to lay on my legs.

Either way, time to get up, and get ready for whatever the day could throw at me.

In fact, it was a quiet day as expected, with my main task to write an agenda for another audit, so with my second coffee, I settle down to get typing.

Oh yes, coffee, everything I thought about how to make it was wrong. I like coffee, but the taste can be harsh from the mocha pot, so I use sugar, but when the pots bubbles and whistles, its too hot for the coffee and make it taste bitter. After watching a video on that YouTube, I fill the pot with boiling water, put it on the hob and low, and stop the brew before the bubbles.

And its amazing coffee.

Wh knew?

Despite it being the middle of May, its still cool, with a keen north wind, and temperatures in single figures most nights. The expected glut of butterflies has not happened yet, and maybe its just this area as species like Comma are more numerous in their summer broods.

I did the usual walk, out across the fields to Fleet House, down pat the farm then up to Windy Ridge, along Green Lane before turning down for home.

I did nap a Holly Blue, but the Speckled Woods were too flighty, as was the Red Admiral. But that was all I saw.

Lots of horse riders out, all said hello as I stepped out of their way not to spook the horses.

A good day to be out and about, despite work being more demanding than ever.

I suppose I should be tankful that I have something like 27 more months of work, if I want, and then I can have a life of riley.

Back home to prepare fritters for dinner, and feed the cats, though when the weather gets warmer they get picky, so I put just a single pack out along with crunchies, and they seem happy enough.

Fore the evening there was the last Marc Riley shw to listen to, as there is changes afoot on 6 Music. He's still on, but later, and sharing the slot with Gideon Coe. Not a good change, but will mean I won't be so keen to be home at dead on seven like I have been.

Wednesday 17th May 2018

Another day in paradise, or as we call it, the renewable energy sector.

Boon, and indeed, tish.

And the big news, biggest news of the day was that after thirty six long and gruelling days driving the crappy Citroen were to come to an end, as our lovely Audi was being released from the shop in Lydden after being repaired and rebuilt.

Before then there was work.

And with the completion of the audit report, there is the catching up on all the other stuff I missed last week.

Funny how time flies by like when you're the driver on a footplate, there and back again, when you're actually busy. I mean I wouldn't rushed off my feet, but lots of meetings and things to deal with, and having to participate in meetings and instead of insulting someone think of how to insult them with them realising it.

I mean these are difficult things to deal with.

At three, Jools comes home and we go to collect the car. I drive us to the units next to Lydden Hill circuit, and outside looking all blue and metalic is our car. We go in and get the repair record where the total bill picked up by the insurance company was £8,800! Must have come close to being written off.

I drive the Audi back, Jools takes the Citroen to be cleaned, all on a fine warm and sunny spring afternoon, what could go wrong?

Well, the tyre pressure warning light would come on and warn of decompression of the front right tyre.

Eeek.

I drive home, check the tye and cannot either feel anything in the tyre or hear any air escaping. I start the car and the warning is still there, so with Jools needing it to get to work in the morning, I drive into tow to Watling Tyres to have it checked out.

Two greasemonkeys have the tyre off, and test for leaks of the tyre itself and valve.

Nothing.

Their experience is such that when they check the other tyres, they found that the front left was at 37, while the right at 31, that could have confused the computer. They make sure all are at 35, and say I'm good to go.

No charge.

I give them a tenner each for their 20 minutes of work, and they are reluctant to take it, but do.

I go home where I explain to Jools why I wasn't home when she got back, but happy that all seems well, so we have salad and more Iberian ham and bread for dinner.

Its been a full day, what better way to relax than to listen to Citeh thrashing Real while watching Coventry reaching the Championship playoff final, all while sitting with Scully, who purs as she snores beside me.

Why Brexit failed

I am an auditor and specialist in Management Systems and change management in particular. If I were to audit this Government using ISO 9001:2015, the lack of inputs and considerations of risks and oportunities would lead me to raise nonconformities.

Strategic decisions need strategic decision making processes, and none of that has taken place with Brexit.

In short, if a company was run the way Brexit was implemented, the CEO would have been replaced.

Maybe that's why we have rattled through Prime Ministers so fast?

1. No one in Government, Governments, from Camerons to Johnson's, did a risk and oportunity assessment of Brexit. That JRM was Brexit Oportnunities Minister some six years after the referendum shows how poorly successive Governments prepared for the single largest change in UK Government policy. Identifying risk and oportunities, ensuring oportunities are taken and risks mitigated against, is one of the most basic principles of change management, and totally lacking from Brexit.

Any critism of Brexit, or the way it was done, or the form that was chosen, as shouted down as project fear. And ignored. Only needing to be addressed later when it became a critical problem. The car industry, or what's left of it, is on the edge of collapse, and is begging the Government for sooftening of the import rules relating to rules of origin into the EU SM. Something that was warned about for many years. And ignored.

2. What were the expect benefits of Brexit, and what activities were done to ensure that those benefits were as expected, changing policies when the expected benefits did not occur.

From Cameron onwards, no PM wanted to show, officially, how much damage Brexit was going to do, so no impact assessments, even no such assessments before the referendum, and this was from a PM that wanted to Remain.

3. Consulting with interested Parties: business, the Stock Exchange, importers, hauliers, unions, warehousing, SMEs, supermarkets. Anyone really, who knew more about how the real world works than those headbangers who claimed to be doing the "will of the people". And still do, when poll after poll now states that the people think Brexit is going badly and want closer relations to the EU.

This week has seen more bad news for Brexit. One, that there is rules of origin issues from the car industry, and two, Barclays is looking to hire 200 bankers to work in France. Although the trade minister is denying the issues seen by UK industry is anything to do with Brexit, clearly a lie when the rules of origin issues only became an issue under the TCA.

Headline in the Hate Mail today with Starmer announcing he is going to renegotiate the UK's Brexit deal with the Eu if he becomes PM. "Showing his true colours", screamed the Mial front page. And yet the whole TCA has to be renegotiated in 2025, and Johnson tried to renegotiate it almost as soon as the ink dried on the treaty.

Tuesday 16th May 2023

Second working day of the week, and its like I've never been away.

I have a day of meetings and calls to look forward to.

Jools did not go swimming early doors, either way I slept through the alarm, and woke only when Jools came back up to say goodbye.

So, I get up and find the coffee pot waiting to go. But after over a decade with the stove pot, I have found how to use it properly and not make coffee as bitter as my ex-wife's black heart.

Would it be warm and sunny? Well, the wind set in fron the north, even with sun it wuld be cool. If not cold.

I have breakfast, and then power up the laptop.

Let's do it.

Not much to report, if I'm onest. There is work to fill my day, so I procrastinate much less, so the day flies.

Kinda.

I could have gone out for a walk, but decide against it.

Sadly.

I was waiting for the new episode of a podcast that never came. They're having a break, apparently.

So it goes.

I fill up the feeders and wait for the neighbourhood fox to appear and wait for food. He gets the leftover cat food as well as peanuts and fatballs. He seems happy enough with life.

It should be days of long and warm late spring evenings, but really is too cold to have the back door open, and I ponder with the heating.

There's always tomorrow, I hear my Dad saying in my head.

There is play off football in the evening: Sunderland taking their 2-1 lead to Luton, but they fail to hang on and are soon 2-0 down on te night, 3-2 overall, and that's how it finishes. In Europe, Inter beat AC 1-0 on the night, 3-0 on aggregate. The old San Siro was bouncing at the end.

Monday 15th May 2023

Granddad's 107th birthday. Or something.

Or would have been.

I often think of how much he would have loved the life we have here, and my interest in in orchids, bottany and butterflies with the occasional bird or two.

He tried to show me stuff, including a kingfisher once, but my eyes too slow to see the blue and orange flash.

As it is, life is quiet for the time being, with me a break between going to Ireland and a week off for orchids. And with the weather being cool and cloudy, with the wind set from the north, I really couldn't be tempted to go out for a walk in the afternoon.

But I have work to keep me occupied, and with every audit is the requirement for an audit report. So, between meetings, I will be writing the report for the next two days, at least.

Jools was up before five, getting ready to go swimming again. I slept on, only woken up when Cleo climbed back on after her breakfast. I got up just as Jools was leaving, so made coffee and checked oon the world. We're still screwed.

And then set up the office, and try to get down to work.

I have ten pages of notes to write up, and 20 findings to sort into serious, not so serious and improvements. Tis is the hardest part: you know there's something wrong, you just have to decide where the fault lay.

Eyes down.

This does mean having to understand my own writing, of course, which should be easy. But Mum's quip that I should have been a doctor with my handwriting was well-earned.

The day flies by.

Which included taking turn to tell a couple of guys why their new process failed and failed to comply with, just about anything. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

The day moves from morning to afternoon, I have lunch, and gets back to the report.

The day moves into late afternoon. I stop work, think about going for a walk, but decide not to. The cats want dinner, so I feed them, pack the work stuff away and the living room looks like a home again.

After dinner there is more football to watch; Leicester v Liverpool that Liverpool one with one arm tied behind their backs, taking on three touches and passes below head height. Leicester chased shadows.

Ended 3-0.

Leicester were lucky to get nil.

Gerrymandering

Yesterday, the Member of Parliament for the 19th century, JRM, admitted that the voter ID rule that was introduced for the recent local elections had prevented any elderly, thus Conservative, voters from voting.

Be careful if you gerrymander, he said, it will come back to bite you.

I mention this, because Labour leader, Kier Starmer, has suggested expanding sufferage to include 17 and 16 year olds, and also including those EU citizens who have right to remain.

The Daily Hate Mail has been incandescent with rage for the last two days for this "gerrymandering" it sees on the part of Labour, in increasing democracy, while ignoring the actual gerrymandering that the current Conservative administration has already undertaken.

As with most accusations from the right, their screaming warnings are pretty much what they're going to do; from cancelling culture, changing history to restricting voting and even free speech, which is only free if you agree with what the Government says.

Even the right to protest, or the thought of protesting is now enough to have you arrested. Or be in posession of selotape or glue.