2010

August
2010

• Back to Paris and started seeking new projects.
• Portsmouth & Chichester in a smart hire car to see aging aunt, friends and swim in the sea - a great trip.
• Paris for more maintenance and to London for checking a wall repair, boiler repair and a dental hygienist.
• Swimming, pool cleaning, cutting the grass and cleaning the paving with a high-pressure water hose. Physical work is as pleasurable as ‘normal’ web work when you see the results. 

July
2010

• Paris by road (14 Km of road works on the A1), overnight and on to the Touraine for a break.
• Clean & show the apartment. Brussels, Leuven & Antwerpen over the final weekend; dinner with old friends.
• Final week of the project - busy to complete the big documents, a claims process, the project report, a bit of training and final administration. Added some SharePoint 2010 project details to Stephen Helms page and updated his CV.
• A long weekend, which felt short, in the Touraine - cut grass, clean pool, big lunch party, visit family (sadly, one ill) and back to Brussels.
• Tedious transfer of data from the Beta version to Release To Market. Restarted the restructure of some big key documents for the Library.
• To Paris in the heat but good to be home with my partner.
• Working smarter rather than harder on the more interesting bits of SharePoint - types of selection columns in the CMS, a better glossary and site map. 420+ pages and structure created.

June
2010

• London for the accounts, CHL building works and insurance update.
• Confirmed need to recreate SharePoint site from zero so started the task.
• Weekend trip to Koksijde on the Belgian coast - great weather and company.
• Updated Liz Joynes CV (see also  CVs)
• Thanks to Jurgen de Dobbeleer we now have details of the latest roles available at BNP Paribas Fortis in Belgium. Updated 19 August 2010.
• Migration issues with SharePoint Foundation Beta to RTM (Release to Manufacturing) but continuing with surprisingly interesting content on EU VAT rules.
• Brussels, Paris and London in short order for the start of June: project extension in Brussels, friends in Paris and London for the May accounts.

May
2010

• Ended the month with the prearranged break with friends in the Touraine.
• Updated the web site with a makeover, new styles, updated content and news.
• Updated CVs for Derek Gardiner, Jurgen de Dobbeleer and Bernard Barnes (see also CVs). Jean Harrison, David Farbey and Howard Whitener have now retired from the site to concentrate on full time roles.
• Received confirmation of project extension so back to EUROCONTROL in Brussels.
• Return to London for the usual accounts, backups and gardening but enhanced this time with dinners with friends and the 75th Anniversary of my club: 1920’s theme so: Helms as Poirot...
• Election UK results providing an unusual coalition -  having spent £50 on postage to ensure my votes arrived in time.
• A little culture at the Theatre de la Porte St Martin: Panic at the Ministry - well received by the audience and amusing.
• Software issues with Google Analytics / Firefox / IE8 / Cute FTP and Snap3 - irritating but not show stoppers. Not alone with the apparent IE8 / Google Analytics conflict. Cute and Firefox fine; await Snap version 4 to solve the known issue.
• A project extension appears possible - await confirmation.

April
2010

• Restarted marketing and sales - seeking more projects.
• London garden and a super visit with an American friend to the Science Museum: Middle East, Middle Ages culture and IMax 3d film of deep sea life. Dinner with a fellow tech writer, his daughter and a political discussion.
• To the Touraine once more to tend fences, cut grass again (Spring really has sprung) and to London for the ‘excitement’ on the P60/14, P35, P11, P11D, P11Db, VAT and the EC Sales List on line - more unpaid work for HMG.
• Paris for project extension proposal, end of project admin and accounts and return by car to the Touraine. Fixed the tractor battery, cut 4500 sq. m. of grass and collected dead wood. All set for summer - see video 2010_Touraine.wmv (10Mb). 
• Back to Brussels for the final touches to the SharePoint site, demonstrations, thanks and farewells to colleagues.
• Topped up the pool, ‘Hoovered’ it and cleaned the telescopic roof. Hand mowed the grass round the house and back to Paris.
• Tractor battery flat so need to fix before the big first cut of the year.
• Thalys to Paris and car to the Touraine on Good Friday for a family dinner.

March
2010

• Devised workarounds in SP for navigation and concentrated on converting 400 pages of Word 2007 into SharePoint pages - just about done before Easter.
• Brussels once more with SharePoint (SP) Foundation 2010 Beta (AKA StressPoint Frustration 2010 Alpha, for the job in hand). The full product will be better.
• Back to Brussels for a few days work and to London for the dentist and the completion of February accounts, meals with friends and buying new lighting.
• A short weekend in Paris and to Charles de Gaulle airport for the flight to Fuerteventura - a week’s break in the sun following a long, cold winter. Solo in the sea at 07:15 to swim and watch the dawn - just for me - merci bon Dieu pour tous les jours.

February
2010

• Business Processes understood and basic flow completed in Visio 2007 - real progress :-) and somewhat slowly to Paris, passing the scene of the accident - very sad.
• Back to Brussels and snow but fortunately avoided the effects of the terrible train crash near my friends in Halle. A busy time chasing payment for my agent & me, fighting insects who came in from the cold and organizing travel to Paris and beyond for a holiday.
• To London for more audit and VAT papers - admin will never cease. Nonetheless had a great evening at the club, saw ‘The Single Man’ with a friend and her mother as well as seeing another old friend who has recovered well from chemotherapy - good news.
• ‘Many ways to skin a cat’ - this English phrase says it all concerning several  individual solutions for a business activity - document the best if you can!
• Updated Jorge Martinez’s page, CHL clients page and Stephen Helms’ Projects page.
• Paris for the weekend, punctuated by travel troubles on the RER.
• Dinner with an ex-colleague in Brussels’ Galérie des Princes - excellent magret de canard and wine from a Bordeaux Chateau.
• Identified more issues with Billing and Dispatch so the document grows to 390 pages and a 12 Mb PDF for review.
• Business Processes for Claims against Air Route charges - somewhat difficult but a challenge.

January
2010

• Installed Office 2010 Beta on the backup laptop. Welcome back to the File menu with the old functions + Help and About - a stunning ‘advance’.
• Updated the CVs of four associates: Jorge Martinez, Peter Murley, Steve Pheasant and Duncan Williamson, see CVs. Updated software Tools used page.
• Tired at the end of the week and pleased to have my partner travel to Brussels for the weekend. Still, we visited Maasmechelen to see the renowned shopping village and abandoned mine shafts.
• More experiments with the latest issue of SharePoint 2010 but still waiting for the production version. Hence a project review and more content preparation in Office 2007.
• A busy weekend but also managed to have a dental checkup and dinner with friends including Richard Alberg who is justifiably proud of his new online outplacement business - myworksearch.
• To London for the month end, quarter end and VAT, year end and Audit 2009 as well as developing the Audit report - this with Sage and Office 2003 - so on more familiar ground.
• A week with a steep learning curve identifying the issues and inconsistencies between the old and the old with a new coat of paint. Creating / modifying flight plans more interesting than system changes.
• PC at work converted to Windows 7, Office 2007 and Visio 2007 along with Acrobat Professional 9 and access to test and backup systems.
• Shopping to get the apartment in shape & administration to prepare for the 2009 Audit of CHL.
• To Brussels on the 3rd January to restart work on the air route charges system - always tough to restart following a good break.