Back for a rest!

Well back from "holiday" in France. Was two weeks of hard work in the garden planting hedges all around the property. 127 bushes planted in that short space of time and with only 1 day off is pretty good going in my book.

Had to lay some "bache" or plastic sheeting first. It's 1.25m wide and 25m long so had to dig two shallow trenches lay the bache over them and then cover the edges back over, leaving a strip of plastic about a metre wide into which we planted the hedges.

Given that the perimeter is about 270m long this meant I had to dig 540m worth of trenches. Then we both layed the bache and covered it over. Some of the bache was laid narrower where we weren't bordering a neighbour, hence the flap shown above. This picture was taken while we were still planting but we did go around and trim off all the excess.

Hopefully when we go back next year the hedging will be about a metre high, although Claude, our non-english speaking neighbour and all round superman, tells us that some of them are very quick growers so we may have a big surprise waiting for us. He's a retired gardener so knows his stuff and is a font of knowledge on just about any practical subject. I think they turn their hands to just about everything in the french countryside.

It wisnae me

Sent a wee e-Mail round a number of folk at work berating them for leaving their PCs switched on for the last week.  Bear in mind here that I can see who is currently logged in and for how long and I still get the moan "it couldn't have been me, I wasn't here all week".  

Ah! so that means you've been running the PC for longer than the week then.  Come on, take the telling off on the chin and be a bit more environmentally aware.  When you have finished for the day and are going home, shutdown Windows and then switch off your monitor.  

Lack of planning

Due to others not planning ahead I'm now being held back in updating information that the rest of my company needs to see. Guess who will be getting the blame for this though, not the people who should have been passing me the data, oh no, the blame will land squarely at the feet of yours truly.

The thing that really annoys me though is that this constantly happens, we never seem to learn our lessons, despite me berating everyone every time this happens.

The long wait begins...

I've now handed in my written examination material and now begins the long wait until December before I find out the results of both this and the effect it has had on my overall mark.  I'm hopefull of getting a good mark and really only want to beat SHMBO's results from last year!  As long as I don't fail I will be happy though.

Enfin!

Just back from my French oral exam.  Think I did quite well actually, it wasn't as hard as I was expecting and everyone else that was in before me came out with a huge smile on their face, perhaps just relief but I think it was because they found it easier than they imagined too!

Got to wait until early December before I find out the result and I still have a written paper to send in by the end of this month.  Feeling fired up now though so not looking as onerous as it did earlier this morning.

Zut alors! French exam looming

Tomorrow I have my oral French exam. Not looking forward to it at all but c'est la vie, something I've got to do. Doing well in all my written assessments so far though with 84% being the lowest mark. This exam counts towards 25% of my overall mark so need to do as well as I can.

It's been a while

Deja vu or what? I've not been blogging for quite some time, at least not on public blogs anyway. I'm going to make a concerted effort to start being a bit more regular. Not every day and not on any particular topic (at least to start). Might have some grumbles, the odd joke but hopefully all light-hearted and possibly a bit interesting for someone.