my new office has Art Deco influences

All in all a very eventful week.

1 first week at my new office
2 share price volatility
3 lots less travel time
4 held a leaving do for my old colleagues
5 miscellaneous, I want a new computer

1 first week at my new office
I have now gone back to my old office, a few minutes from the railway station, so I no longer need to add a tedious bus journey onto my daily commute. On checking wikipedia, I find that my new office has Art Deco influences, and was completed in 1939, as well as being Category A listed! It is somewhat like being in an episode of Poirot sometimes, although for much of the accommodation, it is rather timeless, - office type accommodation, being as office type accommodation is. Getting used to my new location, and new colleagues, though I had worked with them to some extent in the past.

A little apprehensive to begin with, but now hugely impressed with the move, office, colleagues, work etc. Apart from the commute, I really liked where I was before.

2 share price volatility
the shares of the world seem to have dropped through the floor, with the FTSE even going below 6,000 for a while. I think that this demonstrates why you need a steady head to invest successfully. I took a print off of my share portfolio and the whole portfolio was down 11%, mainly shares I have held for a year, with every single share showing a loss.

Accordingly if I had sold everything the week before, and then bought them again, I could have made a tidy profit. Demonstrating why the shrewd investor always has a time machine. Somewhat galling too, was that I had recently sold off half my stock of a building society and bought shares in 3i, if I had held off the purchase I could have bought much better.

However on reading some articles, and checking my portfolio again, I'm now showing a more modest loss, and 3i, is once again showing a profit. Clearly for the long term switching from a building society to 3i has been a good move.

My most problematic stock has been British Energy, which I have been buying opportunistically when the price has gone down, but to be honest the price is down more than it is up recently, so I am wary of increasing my exposure. It is by any measures a high risk stock, it is not inconceivable that they could fail again, leaving the stock worthless. However they provide a fifth of the UK's electricity, and it is difficult to foresee the UK without nuclear energy for the foreseeable future. I would not buy shares that I felt were unethical, and I do have a green tinge, but I feel that realistically nuclear energy is here for the next thirty years.

3 lots less travel time
as per my new office, I now find myself in the happy position with at least an extra hour to myself each day. I have always told people that I spent three hours a day traveling, but was less sure on the precise split. So I knew that moving to a more central office would make a difference, but was not too sure how much. Based on the past week, I reckon that it must be easily an hour per day that I am saving now. Now I simply get off the train, and arrive at the office ten minutes later, though if I ran it would be quicker. Similarly for coming back, I just leave the office ten minutes before my train leaves, rather than leaving forty minutes before the train leaves, and still missing it sometimes.

Basically I have now lost the bus journey that I used to make, and the connection time and faff, involved. So, for once I seem to be back building up flexi time, have some spare time at lunch, and have a whole extra hour in the evenings. I seem to have more time and energy everywhere. I even managed to spend a couple of hours in the garden during the weekday evenings, something I've not been able to do in years.

Lately, the gardening has been a chore that I have had to squeeze into the weekends, with long grass to cut, and overgrown borders to weed. Being an overdue chore has sucked the pleasure out of it, while being able to simply spend an hour pottering, is much more pleasureable. Being an hour, offers scope for doing something that is a bit of a chore, and something else that seems more fun. That way, neither particularly seems a chore. And to be honest, the evening is much the best time to potter, as it avoids the day time heat.

So this week, I have managed to give my main lawn a much needed mow over, thankfully I have a flymo, so it will cope with grass upto "gosh that needs a cut". Also tidied out my cold frame and started pulling onions and laying them out in the cold frame to dry. Not yet complete with the onion pulling yet, but if the weather is upto it, having some time in the evenings will make a vast difference. Often the problem with jobs is not that you don't like them, it is just that you have too many the same. Accordingly it is nice to spend some time in the garden after a day in the office, or even spend half a day doing the garden, and the balance doing something on the computer.

However now the heavens have opened and rain has stopped play. Yesterday the burns were all swollen, I would not be surprised if there was flooding. Many of the developments round here have been built with sustainable urban drainage systems, which means that a lowered area will fill up with water during periods of prolonged rain, and gradually drain over the following days. I suspect that our heavy clay is part of how this works, clearly it would not work on a light sandy soil. In any event it is quite nice to be plugged into what is happening, to see these ponds created, fill up, and then drain away, as the weather changes.

4 held a leaving do for my old colleagues
in order to catch a few more people, we postponed our leaving do by a week, so we had actually left, but came back with some bottles of wine, to be presented with the usual card and gifts.

I must say that I have been hugely impressed by my old colleagues, I did give the customary speech, which probably included most of what I wanted to say. Of course being introduced by the Unit head, as possessed of a fabulous dry wit, with lots of competing free stand up comedy available at the Fringe, I was under no pressure at all!

I suspect that my management style is Management By Worrying About, and the leaving do was one of those things that I worried about, but on the day it all went well, and it was wonderful to be able to say how much I had enjoyed working with these people. They are friends now, rather than colleagues.


5 miscellaneous, I want a new computer
last week we set up a new desk, with bed above, in my daughters' room. They are still working on tidying the room, it currently being at the "oh my god, this is even worse" stage, which I am advised comes before, the "see it is perfect now" stage.

Megan starts at high school next week, and she was worried about having somewhere to do her homework, so hopefully this desk space will help. I am minded to buy a new computer, that way I could put my current computer up to the girls' room for them to use. Current intention is that although they have a computer in their room, they will not have internet access, they will need to use the computer in the living room to access the internet, something that seems to work better than software based parental controls.

But with Tiger coming out in October, there seems to be very little incentive to buy an iMac before then. Also, I have still not seen a new one in the flesh yet. John Lewis apparently won't get any for another three weeks.

If I was an apple reseller, I would be mighty pee-ed off that you could buy a new iMac at the Apple store now, but were not even getting to see one in the flesh yet. It is after all having stores like John Lewis being willing to sell Apple Macintoshes on the high street, that is helping drive the brand.

I currently have a 17" screen, and would sensibly like to move upto 20", though being immature, the 24" really is very big!

Of course I would also like to be sensible and boost my share portfolio, buy a whizzy digital camera, scanner, etc etc.