And of course in the middle of Sunday lunchtime's chaos, I get the phone call I've been looking forward to for the past week!
Poor old RH always rings at t h e worst times and again I had to cut him short!!

I will, I promise, give him a call this week and we'll have a decent catch up.
There's so much going on it's hard to keep tabs on it all and I get a bit bored writing it up tbh. Not necessarily here, but in my metamatic blog. It's become 'something else to do' and another one of those things that isn't really going how I wanted it to.

Over a year ago we discussed putting up on the web a kind of diary of progress, so that at least if the site wasn't being updated then people could read the progress diary and know that things were going on in the background. That just hasn't happened.
Not only has that not happened, but apart from the major update at Christmas time and a couple of bits on the News page, the whole thing has ground to an embarrassing halt again.
I feel awkward.

He's become a good friend, and everything looks brilliant. I feel VERY privileged to be in this entrusted position and never would have hoped that it would come to this two years ago. BUT, having said that, I am now in a position to be able to see weaknesses in the structure that he is perhaps blind to, and I'm not sure how to point them out. I suppose, as a friend, it shouldn't be too difficult as he's always said how much he respects my opinion.
His attention has been diverted away from the site by all the other *** related work he does,and there simply isn't time to work on the site. And, more importantly, because of all the shit he has to put up with, his inclination has waned and things don't get done.
I'm a little disappointed that all my research, anecdotes, corrections etc haven't yet been actioned and none of the media I am sending through has appeared online.
In truth, I'm not sure how much I am actually helping.

Of course, I now have done the dirty thing and twisted this towards my own agenda!
That's how it sounds, reading this back.
I AM helping of course, simply by being someone on the other end of the phone to rant at about the unfairness of it all and therefore taking pressure off and relieving his wife (and mine) from listening to the same boring stories over and over again.

What I want to suggest, but I'm not sure I quite know the implications, is that I take over the day to day admin and updating of the site by putting a Content Management System in place and R takes on a more managerial, overseeing role as a consultant and general in-charge-person.
This takes the pressure off him a bit, and gets the site up and running effectively. I believe that at present it is a victim of its own success and has become too big to grow organically within the current framework.
It's called delegating, and I should listen to my own advice!
Perhaps it's through runnng a business that I can see this perspective. What D and I have created is now taking on a life of its own and will one day need for more than we can provide on our own.
The website needs to be released, set free in order to grow.

So there.
Thanks for reading. Rant over.

Click, click, drone…

Is there anywhere more beautiful in the world that the English countryside in early spring?

Everywhere is so green just now, and it was great just watching it all from the window as we drove up the the farm yesterday.

The farm itself is full of birdsong and leaf. The kestrels in the barn are now feeding a second brood and there were a couple of yellow wagtails skitting about in the meadow. One of those calls you don't hear for ages, but as soon as you do you know instantly what it is. Robins and tits everywhere, even a fantastic green woodpecker in the garden for a moment which Stan thought was brilliant.
All the flowers are out now, and M has done a great job getting back on top of it.
We had lunch in the garden (LC christened the new bench with a cup of milk) and spent ages int he afternoon chucking a frisbee about.
Only took me an hour to go through the books and sort out the VAT return, which is done. How he makes a living on the farm I'll never know. Without all the subsidies he would have gone bust years ago.

We left early as it's school today, and came down the A1(M) to avoid the new speed restrictions on the M! in advance of the widening programme between M25 and Luton that's going on for the next 18 months. Still got home in less than two hours.

Seem to have spent all day in church on Sunday.
I went in an hour ahead of the servcie to help set up, and then it went on longer than usual until nearly 1 0'clock.
This put pressure on lunch (we had two families over) as we all had to be over at the nearby Catholic church for A christening service at 2.00.
That was bizarre, and I thought completely rubbish. The priest was about a million years old and not wearing a mic. He mumbled to the parents and godparents at the front, btu didn't engage the rest of the congregation at all. It's as if we weren't there.
He then forgot Arthur's name twice, and referred to the servcie as the boy's birthday!
It's no wonder the Catholic church is viewed so badly by people who don't go.
Anyone in church for the first time at this service would have been put off for life!

There were nearly 100 people back at their house afterwards. Chaos but fun.
Caught up with a lot of people too which is always good.
I'm not generally very good at that tho, and there was a lot more I could have said.