Well - that's been one heck of a week and I don't know if I'm coming or going!
Excellent course in Gloucester - a great group of delegates and a real opportunity to show another 9 people what a fabulous language Perl is, and how it can be really useful in what they're doing. To give them some practical experience, and to show them how to write code that is not only good at doing its job but will also be maintainable into the future.
Yes - I know that I give courses week in and week out but the joy of the subjects I choose to teach never ceases to enthuse me!.
So what else on that full week?
Well - we've had the unwelcome news that the next draft timetable for the train service to Melksham slashes the services to just 2 a day each way - and one in each direction seems to be timed to suit the operational convenience of the operator rather than any traffic surveys we've done. See my efforts on the
Save the Train web site and
press coverage
On a much more positive note, we've exchanged contracts on
Well House Manor so, barring an unsuccessful planning application, we'll be offering business accommodation included with our training courses, and taking in visitors to other businesses in the town when we don't have a course running here. Although this is an enormous positive, there's been the usual round of papers flying back and forth between solicitors, accountants, vendor, purchaser with things crossing in the post, little issues getting blown into big ones and vice versa.
And as you may have read yesterday, I got a phone call telling me that son Chris was (and still is) in hospital after a road accident. The good news is that it's "just" a broken leg and give him a couple of months he will be as right as rain ... but that was hardly what we wanted to happen. As you can imagine, lots of family activity on this - Chris himself seems to be the quiet eye at the lull of the storm although he's frustratingly bored lying unable to move in a cast in Frenchay Hospital.
Are we in for a quieter week upcoming?
No - "pigs might fly"!
Off to a trade show in London tomorrow to see all the latest in hotel and accommodation offerings; we're working our way very seriously into this and there's a big learning curve. Then I'm off directly to Liverpool for the Dublin ferry - a course there on Monday through Wednesday.
Then what?
Amazingly, I don't know. We DO have a course booked in Glasgow on Thursday and Friday next, but a phone call and email late on Friday afternoon asked about postponement so that the customer can get more people together, and we didn't hear about it until our contact was gone for the weekend. Lisa's going to have to deal with that at the start of next week. And I'm going to have to go to Dublin with all the resources I need whether I'm coming back to the office or carrying on to Glasgow later in the week.
One thing's for sure, it's not going to be a boring week!
(written 2006-02-18, updated 2006-06-09)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
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[20] Not two the same - (2004-08-20)
[26] Matching Cat - (2004-08-24)
[110] Friday, busy week! - (2004-11-05)
[149] Fish stocks - (2004-12-12)
[206] Fox and Python - (2005-02-08)
[228] Beard Justification - (2005-02-26)
[232] Diverse activities - (2005-03-01)
[238] Difficulties with a trolley - (2005-03-07)
[271] Different course every day - (2005-04-07)
[283] Natural or man-made? - (2005-04-18)
[307] Farming yesterday - (2005-05-10)
[330] An O level comes in handy - (2005-05-30)
[363] Greetings from Edinburgh - (2005-06-29)
[446] Up early - (2005-09-16)
[455] A Stengthening day - (2005-10-04)
[473] Looking different in town - (2005-10-22)
[474] Vintage Bus Day - (2005-10-23)
[516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
[580] What to do with milk - (2006-01-28)
[584] Loosing breath with Gerald - (2006-01-31)
[605] Design your day with a walk - (2006-02-13)
[613] Greetings from Dublin - (2006-02-20)
[623] Behind every face is a person and a story - (2006-02-25)
[635] Odd one out. - (2006-03-06)
[645] Lost Camel - (2006-03-14)
[654] Making use of disabled facilities - (2006-03-22)
[655] Can some food be TOO different? - (2006-03-23)
[692] Healthier eating - (2006-04-20)
[698] Catch up weekend - (2006-04-24)
[706] May day away - (2006-05-01)
[724] Helping mental health through diet, exercise and other lifestyle matters - (2006-05-18)
[752] Over zealous police activity? - (2006-06-09)
[777] On Crosby sands - (2006-06-25)
[817] Working on Weekend in Wiltshire and others - (2006-07-29)
[843] To join an organisation? - (2006-08-23)
[882] Rocks, hard places, trains and funerals. - (2006-09-30)
[897] Too much for the National Trust - (2006-10-18)
[908] And so to Inverness - (2006-10-29)
[911] Letter Home - (2006-11-01)
[921] French Exchange - (2006-11-11)
[978] Wellhouse Manor, Hotel, Melksham - (2006-12-10)
[992] Enthusiastic, but .... - (2006-12-16)
[1056] Another frantic posting! - (2007-01-30)
[1057] Selling by phone and Skype - our policy - (2007-01-30)
[1061] Take vehicles off the road - put all the passengers into one - (2007-02-01)
[1100] Wondering where I have been - (2007-03-06)
[1138] The Holiday - unlikely romantic comedy? - (2007-04-08)
[1151] Gordon Dodge, R.I.P. - (2007-04-16)
[1178] Ducking stool for Melksham? - (2007-05-06)
[1189] Meet, greet and welcome - (2007-05-16)
[1272] Behind closed doors? - (2007-07-22)
[1303] Heading Upstate New York - (2007-08-14)
[1429] Remembrance day - inside a church and inside the day - (2007-11-11)
[1643] A lack of technical content - (2008-05-16)
[1810] Middle aged subsidise young and old - (2008-09-26)
[1953] End of Training, 2008 - (2008-12-20)
[1979] Looking forward, in Melksham, in 2009 - (2009-01-05)
[2000] 2000th article - Remember the background and basics - (2009-01-18)
[2008] The Month Ahead - What is happening in Melksham - (2009-01-25)
[2024] Carry on Training - in spite of the weather - (2009-02-03)
[2027] Who sticks by you in the snow? - (2009-02-05)
[2030] The final step to being British - (2009-02-07)
[2034] Through Snow and Flood to Linux and Tomcat - (2009-02-10)
[2064] East of Melksham Countryside - (2009-03-02)
[2068] Playing Catchup - (2009-03-06)
[2090] Melksham to Georgia - (2009-03-19)
[2105] Hire Car, from Atlanta Airport - (2009-03-27)
[2106] Learning to Twitter / what is Twitter? - (2009-03-28)
[2118] Spring Sprung - (2009-04-05)
[2121] Out in the Vale of Pewsey - (2009-04-07)
[2141] Town Crier competiton - (2009-04-25)
[2159] A long day to guess where - (2009-05-06)
[2164] Updating my public profile - Graham Ellis - (2009-05-09)
[2217] Enjoying the summer weather - (2009-06-04)
[2264] Learning about others private lives - (2009-06-30)
[2371] Quiet summer days? I think not! - (2009-08-22)
[2401] Back Tomorrow - (2009-09-10)
[2450] Family Gathering at 404, The Spa - (2009-10-11)
[2580] C course inspires new teaching examples - (2010-01-16)
[2868] A move towards the family - (2010-07-12)
[3125] The family is defunct. Long live the family. - (2011-01-09)
[3316] Twitter Phishing Trips ... and a great new alert service - (2011-06-04)
[3319] Moving on - a task for the hotel staff! - (2011-06-08)
[3463] Busy weekend of contrasts. - (2011-10-03)
[3553] Changes to morning routines - (2011-12-16)
[3743] Sunday - no longer a day of rest - (2012-05-28)
[4222] Five lessons learned or re-learned on my travels - (2013-12-15)
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