Remote based working

When your employers ask you to work from home you might be tempted to think that you can get up late, work short hours, take a morning to do the crossword and have a nap in the afternoon.

I have been working from home for more than ten years and it equates to lots of travelling., longer hours and lots of unforeseen stressful situations. I have learned to cope with being on a conference call at the same time as the postman turns up, dog-blog starts barking and then the courier arrives with Mrs Blog's latest purchase from Amazon/Ebay. Today, however, was a first.

I was working transcribing fifteen flip chart pages crammed full of useful ideas from my team planning day last week. The info was so good that we are confident we can single-handedly bring the UK of recession in 2013. There I was with the flip chart pages scattered around the room typing up the content on my laptop when Mrs Blog popped her around the hitherto closed door.

"Muffin (dog-blog) is out of sorts an I think she wants to come in here,"said Mrs Blog

Dog-blog had just been out of sorts in a very wet garden.

My teams output now looked like this

Dog Blog jumped on the sofa as she was instructed to do by Mrs Blog. I kept my mouth shut I have been in tough situations before.

Mrs Blog left the room and closed the door, Mr Blog sighed in a resigned sort of way, Dog-Blog sat on the flip charts!

Movember

This morning myself and Mrs Blog "Skyped" Son-Blog through the wonders of a PC and an IPhone 4. It was the first time I have seen Son-Blog for a little while and it seems he has joined the "Movember" craze...

It was quite difficult to know which way up he was!

Carrot Mystery

For the last two days Mr Blog has been in Yorkshire with the relatives. One of the said relatives was the internationally famous two year old Blog -Nephew "Ben-Blog" (see earlier posts with "Swiss Cooker Problems" in the titles).

I knew Ben-Blog would be there for a number of reasons, not least of which was that he had caused Swiss-Sister-Blog to yell out on a phone call on Tuesday. Sister Blog was already in Yorkshire and I had called her at about Ben-Blog's tea time. During the conversation she had clear sight of Ben-Blog eating his tea evidenced by the said yell...

"Hang on, Ben has just put the hot water bottle on his dinner!" said Swiss-Sister-Blog.

I thought no more of it.

During my trip to Yorkshire I discovered the following facts which are critically related to the above "yell".

1. Swiss-Sister-Blog was very impressed with Ben-Blog's appetite on Tuesday because he had eaten almost all of his dinner including a portion of carrots. More remarkable since Ben-Blog has a love-hate relationship with carrots.
2. Other-Sister-Blog-Christine discovered carrots in the sink on Wednesday and assumed that Swiss-Sister-Blog had mistaken the sink for a waste disposal unit.
3. Swiss-Sister-Blog had retrieved a hot water bottle and thought the Mum-Blog had had a senior moment and filled the hot water bottle with some weird substance

Solution to the "carrot-mystery"

Ben-Blog had decided the only way he would get a pudding (which he loves) would be if his plate was clear and Swiss-Sister-Blog thought he was still hungry. Not wanting to eat the carrots but still wanting the pudding he hid the entire portion inside the hot water bottle. Which was subsequently filled with hot water and used that night.. He managed to do this undetected, unscrewing the top and screwing it back on again afterwards. You gotta love him!

Clock Chaos 3

Clocks and the Blog household have been having a bit of a rough time this year. It has got no better. Today I was packing my overnight bag for a business trip to London tomorrow. I always make a point of setting my alarm at the same time as I pack - kind of a routine I have. This routine was interrupted today.

I packed my bag as usual, three chargers, wash-bag, shirt, tie etc. Then went to the bedroom looking for an alarm clock (there are four of them in the Blog household). The blog bedroom was bereft of alarm clocks! Not one in sight: not on Mr Blog's side of the room, not on Mrs Blog's side of the room. Not unduly worried I headed for the bathroom where Mrs Blog keeps a spare alarm clock. Nothing. The same was true of the two unoccupied bedrooms. The Blogs were out of alarm clocks.

In desperation I asked Mrs Blog,

"Do you know what has happened to all the alarm clocks?"

"Yes, I put them in a drawer. They were too noisy."

I have still not found a response.

Mr Blog goes romantic and blows it

Mrs Blog and I have just returned after a three day short break in beautiful Glencoe. (Incidentally spell checker thinks Glencoe is Glycogen). I booked the trip nearly two months ago on the web and at the time though how lovely it would be to take up the hotel offer of delivering a bunch of flowers to Mrs Blog at breakfast with a card containing a personal message. This is exactly the kind of service you would expect from the TripAdvisor recommended "Glycogen Hotel".

So on Sunday night we checked in, had a fine meal, free bottle of wine and slept like babes. Breakfast came and Mr Blog completely forgot about the romantic gesture he had pre-booked for Mrs Blog. Not only completely forgot but absolutely completely forgot. The waitress came up to the table with a card and bunch of flowers and said
"for you!", to Mrs Blog
"Who on earth are these from?"
"Not me," I said, "it must be daughter-blog"
"To my lovely wife" read Mrs Blog.
"They must be for someone else" I said.
Mrs Blog, looked crestfallen.
"They are for room 101...Leeson" said the waitress.
At this point a fuzzy, hazy memory surfaced and I sheepishly admitted that I had in fact ordered them. Romance is not dead it has just slipped our minds!

Quiz night

Quiz night has featured before on this blog. It usually takes place on a Thursday and Mr Blog and his mates humiliate themselves in public at the local pub by demonstrating our collective ignorance.

Last night I phoned the home of quiz-regular Dr Computer. His daughter answered and said he was in the bath. I asked if she knew whether or not he was going to the quiz and she said "yes". Not wanting to disturb Dr Computer in the bath nor to have such a mental image in my mind, I declined her offer to speak to him. Undeterred she passed me to Mrs Dr Computer who immediately headed up the stairs with the cordless phone plugged to her ear.

Unable to dissuade her from disturbing Dr Computer and still not wanting to have such a mental image I asked her
"Do you have a plant spray?"
"Yes I do," was the reply.
"Could you get it and fill it up with very cold water for me?"
"...and squirt your husband?"

"I can do better than that" said Mrs  Dr Computer, "We have a detachable shower head on the bath!"

Ten seconds later I heard a shower head spray Dr Computer with freezing cold water. He yelled and started laughing, Mrs Dr Computer was shrieking with laughter for a full three minutes before she passed him the phone.

"Are you going to the Quiz tonight?"
"Yes but a different one. By the way my wife just sprayed me with freezing cold water!"
"Really? Which quiz are you going to?"

It turns out that he was going to a quiz organised by the Freemasons. I thought better of it, not being a member of the Masons, they probably would not tell me the answers to the questions!

University Life

Son-Blog left for St Andrews University this year and has so far stayed alive, sane, injury free and un-expelled.

Several times now, he has rung during the day to complain about the "ridiculous" level of work he has to do for his two main subjects  - Italian and French. In fact all manner of academic evil seems to have befallen him. This evil takes the form of essays, assignments, presentations, revision, tests, translations and copious amounts of reading. I have been left with the impression that Son-Blog has been working into the wee small hours every night trying to keep up with the workload and consequently feeling pretty sorry for the poor lad.

Last night I spoke to his sister...

It turns out that Son-Blog has been up into the wee small hours, however there has not been a book in sight. Son-Blog it seems, is becoming something of a legend in St Andrews. Aside from walking the streets dressed as Cruella D'Ville, he has been out partying carrying a beer sabre (several cans of beer stuck end to end with packing tape) and even found time to relocate a traffic cone to an inaccessible point on the architecture of this venerable town! (by all accounts the cone is still there).