2008

December
2008

• Excellent Christmas in the Touraine marred only by the ‘death’ of the freezer (and loss of all food), the failure of a razor and re-starting the car following a night of -7C.
• Invitation to dinner and cabaret at the Paradis Latin - an excellent evening!
• ISP issues solved but Windows XP failed on startup following overnight Hibernation. System disks in London so recovered data to external USB hard disk and used backup laptop.
• Change of ISP in Paris (new owner) proving less than straightforward but should be resolved in due course.
• Fewer contract possibilities than usual but surprisingly, the quality is better than usual (apart from one large corporation which head-hunted me one week only to eliminate me from the short-list the next).
• Busy social pre-Christmas calendar at London club and with friends and associates.
• London and the accounts, final purchases for CHL including a new LCD monitor and Camtasia upgrade (for training video production).

November
2008

• Saw Franck Dubosc at Palais des Sports in Paris - French stand-up comedian and actor. Excellent and tested my French for speed and understanding.
• Removed Norton and installed Zone Alarm Security Suite - the PC appears to run better - time will tell.
• Installed Acrobat 9 and tried out the Buzzwords online word processor - no paragraph styling yet so very limited for any structured document.
• More work in the Touraine and swimming at 14C.
• Networking & calls and possibilities appearing on both sides of the Channel.
• Back to France for the long weekend (Armistice day is a public holiday in France). Installed Corel Painter for more photo manipulation / art experience (see example on the left).
• Final administration re company pension scheme and possible interest by a large corporate client in Communications work.
• Borrowed a car for a quick visit to the home town of Portsmouth to see friends and my favourite beach - warm enough to swim but no towel :-( . Visited David Tebbs on return to London.
• Telephone / broadband line finally fixed and compensation negotiated.
• Paving complete and to London by Eurostar as normal. A mass of mail, accounting and bills to pay: damp proofing treatment, plumbing as well company insurance.  

October
2008

• Weekend in Paris and Étampes for a repeat flying experience in a Robin over and round the clouds of Pithiviers.
• A week in Paris with online working and a return to the Touraine to paint copper and plastic pipes, paint doors, feed sheep with fallen apples and organize paving of the entrance. Warm enough to swim and sunbathe!
• London telephone failed again following repair - very inconvenient!
• Alas - lost a contract due to budget changes in a client affected by the financial shocks of the second week of October - more sales and networking to follow.
• A brief break in the Touraine to do the ‘harvest’ of apples and nuts and yet more maintenance on the house and lawn.
• Networking and sales - old habits die hard.
• Damp Proofing in the kitchen and consequent cleaning up of plaster dust.
• End of project administration and reporting, accounting and VAT as ever. First steps in having the London landline fixed (see the September entry below).

September
2008

• Final hectic day as expected followed by a flight to Paris for an overnight stop and on to London and Amersham for the wedding of a close friend.
• Run up to the deadline on 26th September - busy with more business objects, service operations and message data types as well as checking / converting German English to English-English.
• A weekend with my partner in Germany visiting Heidelberg, Speyer  and other smaller towns - historic and very interesting churches and architecture.
• Challenging to get and tricky to understand the raw information from system developers in Bangalore, but very helpful colleagues in an impressive set up.
• Long days and learning the proprietary web content management system in a Citrix environment.
• A quick weekend in London - discovered a fault on the main telephone line  - so please use the French landline or the messaging service or the UK mobile - see Contacts.

August
2008

• Hotel, work and selecting a restaurant comprise the daily fare with much to learn, do and check. This looks to be the routine of a short but intensive period with weekends punctuated with long check-ins and short flights.
• Flight from Paris to Frankfurt and on to a ‘small town in Germany’ for a large software house - I will not become John le Carré but am using a proprietary content management system.
• Updated Will (not related to the two previous entries!), went swimming and returned to Paris and finally received confirmation of the planned project in Germany.
• London: company accounts, finished personal tax online and borrowed a car to go to Portsmouth where a flying stone smashed the windscreen - a great month so far :-( .
• A short weekend in the Touraine and the return to Paris; shocked the following day by the accidental death of the friend of a Touraine neighbour’s grandson - very sad at 12 years old!

July
2008

• To the theatre - with my partner who was invited by Jean-Pierre Castaldi to this light, entertaining farce with Claude Gensac (La Perruche et le Poulet). Updated Photography page.
• Installed OpenOffice v2.4 on the backup laptop and tried out Writer, Calc and Impress (Word, Excel and PowerPoint equivalents) - easy if you already know the Microsoft products. Will try out the database, draw and math applications soon. Apparently v3 has better language support so I will upgrade when it has passed the Beta stage.
• Reviewed and provided updates for the English version of a Belgian web site. Client happy [“Many many thanks Stephen!!! All those good ideas, new text... thanks... I am busy now at this moment changing it all...”]
• Updated the Paris desktop PC, ordered more memory and networked with the laptops.
• Another written test and a heavy sales & marketing push.
• Grass cutting, wardrobes installed, more paving and a vacuum cleaner purchase as well as a birthday celebration with the family. Received a bicycle, edge cutter as well as books and wine - spoiled rotten!
• Splendid Champagne lunch with a friend before returning to Paris and on to the Touraine.
• Upgraded the memory of two laptops and updated all the ‘protection’ software - anti-spam, anti-ad, anti-virus, firewall, Microsoft updates and Firefox browser on the laptops and a desktop.
• Back to the UK for June accounts, starting personal taxation online and the coincidence of a small hot water system fault which was fixed on the same day.

June
2008

• Some memorable flights in a Robin with a nephew from Étampes around the area and to Alençon for lunch.
• Completed various tests and interviews for some interesting work across Europe.
• Took a slightly long weekend with visits to Azay le Rideau and the Château de Candé (where Edward & Mrs Simpson were married) and the music festival at Veigné.
• IFA meeting and back to France for a sales meeting and to the Touraine to organize more renovation works.
• Translation project from French into English about a Microelectronic power laboratory and university collaborations in France - interesting with some new vocabulary.
• Met a colleague in Kew and borrowed a Terratec device to connect a phono vinyl record deck to a PC. Recorded Beethoven’s 1st & 8th Symphonies, cleaned up the sound and put on a CD with the scanned-in cover - smart - must do more.
• Back to the UK for May accounts and house maintenance - much needed following 15 months away with only brief visits. A fight to enter  the lawn but 7 sacks of garden waste later, the battle was over.

May
2008

• Finished the month with a number of proposals and with preparation and painting of the hall in Paris.
• Web site updates and organizing the trip back to London for sales and the month end.
• Busy with client / agent calls and then back to Paris in time to see the new musical ‘In search of Josephine’ - Josephine Baker from the 1920’s - including New Orleans jazz and tap dancing. Very well done.
• Another 3-4 days levelling the cleared earth, cutting the grass (half a day with a tractor) and trimming the borders - very tiring work but satisfying.
• Marketing & sales continued by Internet, E-mail and telephone.
• 4 days of preparation - clearing the land, placement of support planks, heavy plastic base, iron grid, protection of the building and then delivering 32 tons of concrete. (See video [11 mb wmv file/ 7 minutes).
• Spring clean in Touraine and agreed major path / terrace work.
• Even briefer return to Paris before departing for the Touraine.
• Brief visit to Brussels to see friends and collect forgotten camera.
• Added the Site Map to assist navigation.
• Updated details of Peter Murley and David Tebbs and their CVs in the Download section.

Apr
2008

• A short break with some hard work - painting 9 doors and a wall in the Touraine and the repaired conservatory in London, followed by a very short visit to Portsmouth before returning to Paris. Marketing and sales continued though!
• Updated details of Stephen Helms and his CV in the Download section
• Updating the web site (see Internet sections of Documentation, Onscreen and Comments from Brussels.
• Another piece of French culture - Chez les Ch’tis - a kind and amusing look at the north of France by locally born comedian Dany Boon. As John Lichfield said in the English newspaper The Independent: ‘Pity the pauvre biloute (poor bloke) who has to subtitle it into English’.
• Stayed in London for business meetings and a conservatory repair then back to Brussels to pack up and return to Paris by car.
• Eurostar to London to meet my partner, a cousin and his wife (not seen for 41 years!) and a close friend for Sunday lunch. CHL has no commercial link with Eurostar but without it, business for CHL in the three capitals would have been a lot less easy!

Mar
2008

• Finale to contract in Brussels with synchronizing speech recordings with six presentations and web site updates (see TeamSite).
• More progress in the Touraine with a kitchen and a videophone.
• Nephew has a son making your editor a great uncle!
• Completed Business Plan, Annual Report & Newsletter.
• Splendid dinner with my partner and friends in Tremelo and a weekend in Paris. Very good evening in Bercy for St Patrick’s day special event for all the Celts - memories of Ireland in 2006.
• Another video - this time on Interwoven TeamSite and updating Service Announcements on the portal (see Training videos).
• Continued the busy work period with the 5-year Business Plan, Annual Report for last year, latest Newsletter and Reports  plus web site updates as normal. Lots of new graphics in Visio.
• Surprise dinner with a fellow technical writer - met in Rennes (see News 2005) and now in Brussels - ‘très convivial’.
• The usual rushed visit to London for dinners with friends and the mass of mail, bank reconciliations, end of month accounts, house cleaning and gardening.

Feb
2008

• Started editing / updating the 5-year business plan.
• Theatre visits in Paris - Brazilian dance and ‘Diner des Cons’ with Dany Boon & Arthur - entertaining.
• Installed and started experimenting with Paint Shop Pro 12 while still using Photo Shop CS2 for a client - interesting differences.
• Completed Newsletter and distributed to a waiting public.
• Developed and distributed a short video on software tool to back up Outlook files.
• Preparation of Outlook templates for announcements, requests.
• Another excellent visit to the Touraine to see the family and the newly installed kitchen and bathroom tiling.
• Lots of ‘exciting’ web updates - acronyms, glossary and assigning page ownership as well as updating the navigation a few times.
• Additions and changes causing some delays to the latest Newsletter and monthly reporting on project work.

Jan
2008

• Starting to introduce the scene and activities to the new incumbent who will take over the role I have been fulfilling with a series of interim projects.
• Masses of feedback and minor corrections on the newly launched web site, announcements and reporting as well as more research on IFRS and the December/January Newsletter.
• London for the 2007 year accounts and the audit, followed by the report, checking and signing.
• Busy first week back in meetings and updating presentations with the management team for the finale at the end of the week for a local and a remote audience.
• Back to Paris for a long weekend and the return to Brussels.
• Sending 2008 New Year wishes and restarting computer work.
• Starting the year in the Touraine with the planting of a present - a Brugnon tree (a cross of a peach and an apricot). One of my favourites but suspect at least a year or two’s wait before this tree bares any fruit.