December
2009

• To Paris on Thalys & the Touraine for the family Christmas break and return to Paris for the New Year with our erstwhile neighbours close by in the 13th.
• Freezing weekend with some accounting, housework and friends.
• Reread the specifications for the graphics card (128Mb) so installed the new flight simulator (FSX) which worked well, especially with sharing two screens: GPS & Kneepad on the laptop (see photo).
• Winter continues in Brussels (like Paris & London) with snow everywhere - tricky to exit the garage with a slippery 45 degree slope.
• To Antwerp for a present for my partner and to Tremelo with friends and another visit to Leuven / Louvain.
• My partner arrives from Paris with the Windows recovery disk and the ERD Commander disk. Windows Recovery Disk fails to work but with Commander was able to access a Restore Point made just before the system crashed.
• Installed another Microsoft simulator which stopped the joystick working. So, uninstalled the simulators and joystick and the following day the laptop failed to boot. 99% of the data already on an external drive though.
• Weekend in London for the accounts, shopping for presents and dinner with our friends whom we met in Cuba.
• Detailed, large volume of project work continued.
• Brussels Christmas market and dinner with an ex-colleague - wintry with cold winds and hail.
• Started the month with my new neighbour - uploading her photos and helping her to choose a Belgian ISP.

November
2009

• Final weekend of the month in Paris including an excellent performance of Riverdance at the Palais des Congrès and a fine evening with friends from near St Germain en Laye.
• New LG screen (at half price!), toners for the copier in London and Snap 3 for screen captures all purchased / delivered / installed.
• Thalys to Paris and car to the Touraine to see family, check the house and clean the pool - algae gone but a bunch of swimming earthworms this time.
• Thinking aircraft & routes all day has rekindled my interest in Flight Simulation so have installed the older 2002 version on the laptop (graphics card not up to the final 2006 version). Downloaded Jeppesen charts and real weather so providing some interesting challenges - night flights, IFR and so on.
• Two clients somewhat tardy in invoice payments but diligent contacts led to payments mid-month :-).
• Partner to Brussels again - this will be at least monthly during the project - so dinners at home for my manager and my landladies of my last stay here in the Woluwe St Lambert.
• Plunging into the detail of the tried, tested and much updated COBOL / CICS system with some surprises - and jogging of the memory for problems of earlier times in computing. Nostalgia? - I think not.
• A short weekend in London for the accounts and an Italian restaurant with friends - one of whom unseen for 10+ years.
• Completed a structure in Word for the collection of information for the big system while waiting for SharePoint 2010 release candidate.
• Started the month with a somewhat disappointing restaurant in Paris but a good weekend nonetheless.

October
2009

• Even more settled in Brussels with regular work, cooking, a haircut and and evening with a new neighbour.
• My partner came from Paris for a good weekend in Brussels and Leuven; the discovery of another good local restaurant - but over too soon.
• Finally moved in and stocked with food, cleaning stuff and a cafetière.
• Weekends in Paris but one foreshortened by the return to Brussels to suffer a 3-hour inventory check.
• Completed second SharePoint demo and structured some large documents for update and later publication to states participating in the air route charging system.
• Administration both at the office and for the apartment takes some time in Belgium...
• Accounts, cleaning and gardening during a short visit to London.
• Completed work for the Paris clients.

September
2009

• Signed ‘le Bail’ (lease) on the chosen apartment. A busy month.
• Learning a lot about the business and the software I must use, short visit to the Touraine to bring the old Renault 5 back to Paris for ‘ecological’ part-exchange.
• Dinner with my landladies from 2007-8, a week in a hotel while searching for an apartment for the period of the project.
• Drove to Brussels to start the new project - to use Microsoft SharePoint Wiki and Content Management System for the documentation of the processes for nearly €7bn of air route charges (big numbers impress, do they not :-).
• Return to Paris to see the new stage version of Cage aux Folles with Christian Clavier and Didier Bourdon at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint Martin - amusing and very well done with great costumes.
• Fruit picking, cleaning, cooking for the mason and feeding the sheep in the ‘spare’ time available.
• To Paris and the Touraine for our friend the mason to lay the paving stones on the concrete terrace. A week of work for him while work for Paris continued, Brussels project and accommodation organized.
• Michael Rofe is actively looking for the next challenge. Broadcast Projects Globally get in touch +971-55-953-1157 or via CHL.
• Start of a nasty cold (not swine flu!) but the doctor’s medicine made it worse with stomach pains...
• Ray Notley’s birthday party in Surrey.
• To London for August end of month accounts.

August
2009

• Continued client work and organized events in London for the end of month and the start of September.
• Back to Paris to update the backup laptop and the web development system (Net Objects Fusion 11) together with the site itself.
• Good meeting with the Paris client and back to the Touraine where the pool had been invaded by algae. Lots of chlorine and subsequent cleaning returned the pool to its former glory and me to a state of fatigue. Harvesting fruit, watering plants and feeding sheep added to the workload - but still managed some productive client work!
• Request to attend meeting in Brussels following the June proposal so a hurried departure from the Touraine and Thalys to Brussels-Midi.. The meeting went well and informed a day later that the contract was won - now waiting for the formal contract.
• Back to Paris and the Touraine, cutting grass and continued with ‘real’ client work.
• A trip to Gatwick to pick up a friend returning from Portugal - took advantage of the trip to see a colleague with whom I had worked in Germany, also meeting his wife.
• Flying visit to Portsmouth to see an old friend and to visit the D-day Museum.
• Continued Information Mapping work for the French / American client.
• Met with associates David Tebbs and Ray Notley to keep up with their activity.
• London for a week for end of month accounts, back ups and the usual administration. CHL is now 20 years old - Happy Birthday CHL

July
2009

• Continued work on the British English text for the proposal text - interesting issues through French discussions and American source material.
• ‘Contrôle Technique’ (MOT in the UK) for the cars and a major service on the Peugeot, arranged the successful repair of the hand pump on the well.
• Large proposal dispatched, a smaller one completed and won for writing text for a French database driven proposal generation system being used for an American journal subscription company.
• Visits to Amboise, Saché (frequented by Honoré de Balzac), Clos de Lucé (where Leonardo da Vinci lived his last three years) and good weather.
• Jean Harrison arrived in Paris from Exeter and we three descend upon the Touraine.
• Completion of DVD and covers on the Touraine renovation project - 5 years on and nearly completed.
• Continued joint work on a proposal in French and in English - a lot of work for an organization that tends not to respond too well.

June
2009

• Updated Jurgen De Dobeleer’s CV.
• Joint working on another proposal in the Touraine, together with more work on the land, feeding and chasing escaping sheep, using the tractor, picking cherries and repairing the car.
• Drain repair, plumbing, a concert and more networking in London.
• Networking in Paris and a Brussels contract application + references organized.
• David Tebbs visited CHL Paris.
• Organized tractor repair, clearing the overgrown field, fed sheep and discovered a valuable Wi-Fi hotspot in the Touraine.
• Recession and a hot summer bodes well for an enforced rest - less well for consultancy work.

May
2009

• Major clean up of the London garden, painting of new kitchen plaster and return to Paris.
• Negotiated the settlement of a dispute between a seller and an estate agent.
• Translation and coaching for a French student taking an English oral examination. Interesting use of text and MP3 files and teleconference.
• Chasing up possible contracts for the UK and France.
• Fast overnight flight (strong tail wind) and settling again in Europe with administration of revenue and payments as normal.
• Two weeks of good weather, swimming in warm sea with the sunrise, visits to Trinidad, Santa Clara and Havana as well as a splendid nature reserve. Very nice people with a variety of ethnic origins, a lot of music and a very interesting cultural history.  
• An early meeting at London Gatwick with an ex-colleague and then a long flight to Cuba - the first non-European trip since Egypt in 2006 (see News - 2006).

April
2009

• Back to Paris for administration, sales and the meeting of the Coproprietaires (co-owners) of the property. Return to the UK.
• Easter week in the Touraine - fitting door handles, hinge pommels, cutting grass and polishing wooden steps and staircase - a change from pushing a mouse. Nonetheless, kept up to date on normal work via email, telephone and Skype.
• More networking and seeing old friends again in Portsmouth & Southsea (see Southsea Yacht video clip [wmv] and London - an excellent evening at ‘my’ club in town.
• Updated Liz Joynes and Stephen Helms CV and Tools list.
• Interesting meeting concerning work in Paris, organized a trip to CHL, Putney, London and planned Easter.
• Updates to the PCs in the Paris office; calls and a sudden mass of emails; reviewed a new web site for an associate and completed March accounts and UK VAT return.
• Final Deutsche Bahn return trip to Paris, a relaxing weekend and on to the inevitable project closure, filing and backups.

March
2009

• Completed the project in Germany having learned a lot about the proprietary user interface and its text editors, the Knowledge Warehouse and the Epic editor as well as the cascading standards of  technical documentation. In addition, met a lot of friendly, helpful people.
• In Paris and ferried a close relative from La Gare Montparnasse to Gare de Lyon, passing La Gare d’Austerlitz en route. Since using La Gare de l’Est twice this weekend, perhaps I should create a new French version of Monopoly.
• A fellow consultant with whom I worked last year arrived in Germany so now a little social life in the week.
• Completed February accounts remotely in Germany and France - needs must.
• Complex project issues mostly resolved, a deadline met and the discovery of a new friendly Spanish style restaurant serving good Chilean wine.
• Very late arrival in Germany due to French people on the railway line 20 minutes from Paris, followed by clothes missing from the hotel room.

February
2009

• Added Bernard Barnes’s to the consultant’s list and his CV of long business banking experience.
• Attended a vendor’s training course on a knowledge management system (Knowledge Workbench) including a customized Epic Editor.
• Eurostar and the DB ICE train in one day with 3 hours in Paris in between - tiring but practical given the London activities. CHL will be 20 years old in August and the busy-ness continues!
• A weekend in the Touraine and then Eurostar to London to complete the 2008 Audit documentation, January accounts, business meetings & remote connection tests to Germany and Canada; social calls and dinners with friends and associates.
• Good progress including remote access through Citrix and the start of  release note documents.
• Another short Paris weekend with evening trains in bad weather - reading a lot though.
• Back to Germany: Online training, audio & video conferences with colleagues in Canada, visits to some familiar restaurants and much research.
• Paris for the weekend, buying door handles and lampshades,  avoiding the snow in Germany and catching up with everything.

January
2009

• Deutsche Bahn ICE train from Paris into Germany for new IP project and helpful new colleagues. Hardware, software, access, travel and hotel organization.  Evening reading about France’s Henri II, Diane de Poitiers and Chateau Anet - must visit!
• Excellent soirée with friends near the Chateau St Germain en Laye. 
• Michel Bouquet in Molière’s La Malade Imaginaire at the Theatre of Porte St. Martin.
• More networking on LinkedIn and Facebook
• Confirmed project in Germany concerning Intellectual Property (IP) management - organized trains & taxis.
• Installed and taught the use of Olympus Master 2 (Digital Camera image software) and Samsung PC Studio 3 (Mobile Telephone software) followed by the inevitable online upgrades.
• Continued positive negotiations for repeat business projects in France and Germany.
• Updated Steve Pheasant’s CV and the web site for 2009. Returned to France and collected the serviced vehicle. Installed and tested Pixela software for videos from Canon camcorder.
• Final preparations for and the Audit 2008 itself - completed by 9th January.
• Confined to bed with ‘flu for 30 hours followed by the complete re-installation of Windows and all applications on the main laptop. Very tedious and detailed work required.
• London for a birthday party on the Thames - nostalgic to see so many buildings where I have worked / visited as well as the sights so colorfully lit at night.
• Failed delivery of new LCD monitor so purchase canceled.

2008
 

• See News - 2008