Today I've mostly bin...

[Bunnylump]

Well, it all went really well. We had PE in the living room, metal work in the dining room, food tech in the kitchen, chemistry on the patio and music in the front bedroom. The day was beautiful and sunny, and almost everyone dressed up - we had a headmistress (me) lots of school pupils (some more delinquent than others!) a lollipop lady, a dinner lady, a caretaker, two PE teachers and a school secretary.

School dinner consisted of pizzas (which were made in the food tech. lesson) followed by spotted dick and custard.

[chazzie]

I'm pleased it went well and you had good weather as well....

[MBH]

That looks like a fun party (and lovely weather).

Sorry I'm not around but I've mostly bin....

Writing away for jobs - there is one advert that caught my eye because it actually included humour and personality within it. I did put in my covering letter that I liked this but would resist the temptation to reply in kind.

You will be "reporting" to the Technical Director (because he owns the company and insists everyone report to him)...

....reviewing RFI/RFP documents (fancy word for project briefs) ....

Roll up your sleeves and write some code to support developers...

Amazing ninja coding skills are always desirable but we are really looking for someone who has the ability to lead teams, work under pressure and is not flustured under difficult situations.

For extra bonus points, Github or Bitbucket account with evidence of contribution to open source projects.

OK - so I'm going nowhere with the last one but it gives a flavour of what they expect from a job titled 'Lead Developer'. I wonder if they will give an 'older guy' a second look [I've seen their photos on LinkedIn ]


At the same time I have a college assignment due in a week on Thursday (and a backlog of little jobs like 2-3 weeks reflective journals), AND a 2nd draft at a Business Plan for this Friday after my first 'mentoring' session with a lady from the Council last week. A lot of copy and paste, but I need to so some market research and try and find out about 'the competition' as well.

SO - a bit busy at the moment with this and the rest of life. Worrying about time running out on the money side, so the aim is to relaunch Taylor Made Solutions in April (after the tax year end) and I need to have as many potential clients ready to give me dates in my diary as possible. I'm creating advertising and need to sort out a website (and the skills to create/maintain it), while at the same time visiting my 'Client Management System' [Yeah - an Excel spreadsheet ] to talk to some fo the contacts I already have and tell them I'm going live.

Hope you're all well and enjoying the puzzling - I will catch up with you from time to time.

[Biscuit]

Haven't participated in the forum in ages but im cheeky enough to ask for help.

Want to plan a getaway with the family -

would like center parcs as it has so many activities etc. does anyone know of anything similar, trouble is it will need to be in school holidays as my daughter is a teacher. Could possibly be a villa abroad in the greek type place but need to have activities to do etc

problem is i do not know who will be going. I wanted to let the kids take their boyfriends/friends etc. so potentially 7-8 adults.

[Bunnylump]

The only remotely ACTIVITY based holiday we have done was when we went to Eurocamp, they had pools / archery / that sort of thing, but it was probably more suitable for younger kids. But I would have thought that if you went for something abroad and picked a resort which had things like jetski / snorkelling / boat trips available, that would probably keep most people busy? Some places do pony trekking and things as well... Of course, it would probably be easier to book something in this country from the point of view of people just turning up at the last minute? We did go quad biking in Devon once, which was fun, but that was something you had to book separately.

[Bunnylump]

...Wondering what has possessed me to make a giant vat full of lime and lemon marmalade... Trouble is, I had lots of lemons and limes left over from the "chemsitry" last weekend, and it goes against the grain to throw food out. So it was either that or taking up drinking gallons of vodka and tonic and mojitos...

so I suppose that lime and lemon marmalade is probably better for my liver!

[giraffe]

You can always slice them and freeze them to use as ice cubes in drinks. (alcoholic or otherwise) Pays to lay them out separately so they don't stick together.

[LAT]

I need to remember that.
I have a couple of recipes I do which call for grated lemon zest and often the rest of the lemon goes off before I get around to using it in anything else. I'm sure it would be fine frozen without the peel though.

[Bunnylump]

...I also made use of lots of root ginger I had by making ginger syrup. Mmmm, yum. I can strongly recommend it on Weetabix in the morning. Although I could actually do with a kitchen three times the size it actually is to store all this stuff I keep getting urges to make...

[Bunnylump]

(OK so this was last night...) Went to a quiz night, and we (for once) had the perfect quiz team (well, for this kind of weird quiz, anyway. ) We had my nephew on it (who is 28, and knows everything there is to know about DC Comics and children's cartoons, his girl friend, who appears to be an expert on chocolate and celebrities (!), D who can count drum beats in music, my brother who knew random facts about alloys, and my sister in law who is a knitting expert! I did the anagrams and missing words bit, so we were well away. In fact, it was a rather embarrassing ten points over every other team. However, I fully accept that on most occasions in life these are UTTERLY useless skills / pieces of knowledge.

[LAT]

Sounds like you had the perfect team!
Well done!

[Bunnylump]

Been to Brighton for hen weekend #2. Had lots of good bits including a pampering session, followed by afternoon tea (that we all baked at home and constructed complete with china in the hotel room!) We also saw some wonderful jazz musicians in the evening at The Verdict on Saturday evening. HOWEVER (and this is a big however) the manager there was, well, how can I say this? A complete anal orifice? Suffice to say that I have since written a letter of complaint, demanding a written apology, prior to me posting my comments on Trip Advisor...

ANYWAY...Today was great. We went to Brighton Cookery School http://www.brightoncookeryschool.com/

We had chef, Messa Ben, teach us cooking techniques, including: making our own linguini, how to joint a complete chicken and to prepare French cut chicken breasts, how to make a jus reduction, a crème brulee (including using a scary industrial flame torch!) and much more. So basically, we were supervised whilst making a three course meal, and then got to eat it!

PS I see I am talking to myself again.

[Scurra]

PS I see I am talking to myself again.

Well apparently you're the only person who actually does anything.

[LAT]

Sounds like a good weekend. Hope you get your apology though.

I got taken out for lunch today! Probably the first time I haven't cooked lunch on Mothering Sunday for about 15 years but we needed to take something up to K in London at some point and I managed to engineer it that we did it today.
And I even got an email from my son who is currently in Buenos Aires. No news though, just 'Happy Mother's Dayyyyy' in the subject.

[Bunnylump]

Lovely, lucky thing!

I must say that I was also a lucky Mummy, K had remembered to get me a lovely card and gift, which she took with her to give me this weekend. And Dibble (who came home for the weekend while I was away) had made me some yummy meusli biscuits for when I got home!! (Like I need to do some more eating after this weekend, but hey, the thought was there! )

K did feel very guilty that she'd taken all the other "hens" away from their Mummies on Mother's Day though!

[eirian]

I agree with Scurra, Bunny is about the only person who does anything on a regular basis on here!

I got a nice bunch of tissue flowers made at school from my son for mother's day (I also got a proper bunch of flowers, plus some nice things to eat and drink, although I couldn't eat/drink them yesterday as we were at the in-laws for their traditional mothers day gathering)

Of course, I totally ignored my own mother, but since mother's day is so close to her birthday usually, we never have made much of it. And anyway, she knows how much we all love her!

[giraffe]

Saturday I bin .....in London. Taking our German visitor to see the sights. We were all absolutely exhausted by mid afternoon and by the time we got back to the train I could barely walk! Fortunately we got the last of the seats before the train was invaded at Milton Keynes by a friendly but loud swarm of football supporters.

[Bunnylump]

I agree with Scurra, Bunny is about the only person who does anything on a regular basis on here!

Well, judging by Giraffe and LAT's posts then that's not true! I think the truth of the matter is that I just write more drivel on a more regular basis and don't care either way whether people are interested or not! I was just feeling a little self conscious this time because it appeared to be MOSTLY me saying I'd done this or that.

Just downloaded the few pictures I actually managed to take and this one made me laugh!! And yes, they are in pyjamas and face packs, and yes, my "little" girl is the one towering over the others!

[LAT]

Yes, but if you read my post all I actually said was that I went out for lunch and received an empty email. Not terribly exciting in the general scheme of things!

So where's the scary photo of you?

[Bunnylump]

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of those too, but obviously I wasn't taking them!! Although, actually, I had to take the face mask off PDQ because it was causing an allergic reaction!!

Here's a photo of part of the afternoon tea we produced in a hotel bedroom!!