Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Well, I'm back after a week in the wilds of Shropshire and the Welsh coast.

I find that in my absence my computer has been improved. I must now spend some time restoring it to what it should be, notably reinstalling the bits and pieces it no longer recognises since the improvement. That will be fun since I do not know where half the software is.

I don't think that I am strong enough to take breaks from work. For the second time in succession, I have taken a week off and ended up consuming antibiotics. Words you generally do not want in the same sentence: tender, antibiotics, and size of tennis ball. That is all I am saying on that subject. I am going to have to think long and hard before I take any more time off in the near future.

My life continues its move to the surreal.

In addition to the unexpected improvements to my computer, I now have a server hidden away up here in The Tower. I can now network, I believe, up to ten computers. I have one.

In the mail awaiting my return, I find that a toy company in Hong Kong has sent me a polo shirt. Nice. One-sixth scale, but nice. I haven't thought of a use for it as yet.

I see that you have all ben very busy scribing away on your journals. I am afraid that I don't have the energy to trawl back through ten days' worth, so please do not take it personally when I say that I intend to read none of it.

Right. A coffee, I think, and then a lightning trip out to Waitrose to stock up the fridge.

It's just turned midnight and I find that I must iron a shirt for tomorrow. I have learnt from the emergency hotline, that the office will have power tomorrow (indeed it has power now), and that we are all expected to turn up and earn our pittance.

There is, of course, one caveat: the air conditioning will only be operating at about 50% efficiency. Chiz, and indeed, curses. Fatties like me depend upon such amenities in the summer (and let's be frank, they're pretty good in the winter, too). I mean, they took the time out to fix the rest of the circuitry, why not the air conditioning? Are we to work in a mediaeval sweatshop, like some far eastern textile worker? I say, no! Never! To the barricades!

Oh, who am I kidding?

Iron shirt, shave, take shower and go to bed. It's a school night.

Grumble.

(And by the way, I hate the US English spell checker on this thing. If I want to use learn as a hard verb, I bloody well shall, thank you very much).

Well, we've survived 20 years of Seamus O'Timing Device and his boys, and a month of the new wave of unpleasantness,but a faulty circuit has now done what the bombers could not accomplish.

It seems that there was a power surge in Eland House sometime early this morning, which caused a short out in the basement transformer room, and then a fire. So, no power in the building, and no work. Maybe none tomorrow, either, depending upon the damage. I'll know later on, when I phone the information line.

The irony is that I got into Victoria a little earlier than usual, because I have a lot of stuff stacking up to be done. Instead though, four of us decamped to the Costa Coffee in Victoria Station, supped a latté and came home.

Unexpected free time! Hurrah! If only I'd known before I set out this morning... still, mustn't grumble.