Spread a little happiness

Why is it that January and I'm afraid even the imminent month of February always seem to bring such doom and gloom? Frankly I am seriously thinking of not reading newspapers or listening to the almost 24 hrs of repetitive news fed to us by TV and Radio.

When the weather is cold and grey with, as we had yesterday in London, the bone chilling drizzling rain then I need something to smile about. I grabbed a truant hour in my business day yesterday to pay a quick visit to The Daughter and Granddaughter No.2 in West London. The beaming smile and skip and hop of delight from the three year old when I was spotted through the front window was well worth the detour. So I watched Beauty and the Beast for an hour and was serenaded by my little princess with all the songs [which she knows by heart and insists on singing] and then instructed to help her put on her "Belle" dress [a Disney fancy dress costume we bought for her every increasing collection of dressing up outfits] at the exact moment in the film when the character changed into her ballgown. Escapism at its finest. A lovely cup of tea made by The Daughter and then I was on my way duly uplifted and able to cope with a long business meeting which ran into the evening and ended up with a long tube journey home.

I think we should all make an effort to find time for a little happiness - for ourselves and to spread around.

I arrived back in time to watch the second half of the TV programme DIY SOS - the team completely redesigned and practically rebuilt the home of a young lad who had been paralysed and brain damaged in a Rugby Game. He had spent a year in hospital and could not come home to his loving family until the house was adapted. The team not only created a ground floor suite for the young lad by building an extension [in seven days!] but also redecorated the entire house for the Mother and two other children. Of course this was a big job and they were flooded with help from local tradespeople, fundraisers, friends, neighbours, the lad's school chums -it was so wonderful to see such community spirit and kindness. Why don't we hear more about that on the news?

A Good Week

I have been very busy workwise this week charging around London visiting Clients on existing projects and having meetings for potential new work. In these difficult economic times it certainly brings a little cheer to have confirmed work [and therefore fees] on the horizon.

Another excellent piece of news is that we have just received our first confirmed booking for our holiday apartments on our property in Spain. Two Dutch families are coming for three weeks from the end of July. They sound really nice and I do hope this will be the year that our vacation properties take off, we love our property in Spain but income from the lettings will help keep expenses down.

Still, no thanks to Talk Talk, working online via a Dongle so until on broadband proper my posts will have to be short and sweet.

Broadband Rant

This is going to be a very brief post I am afraid as I have been struck by the dreaded Broadband cut-off!! To precis a very long and very frustrating story, on my return from Spain I found that "Talk Talk" my internet provider had taken it upon themselves to decide I wanted to cancel my connection WRONG.... Phone calls to Call Centres in Manilla, then after much research for UK numbers, customer service [now that really is a joke] in Chiswick, Suffolk, Glasgow - you name it we've spoken to them. Apparently in this age of advanced technology they are unable to reconnect me until the beginning of February. I am now using a dongle just to be able to keep the business and personal emails coming in and out. It is beyond frustrating. OK rant finished.

Belated Happy New Year to you all.

Normal Service will be resumed

Today Tuesday 4th January most of my clients in London are back at work while me and The Man still have two more precious days in Spain. I have been very lazy about writing my blog during this break, my one excuse is it is more expensive going on line via "the dongle" and wifi.

So this is just a brief note to say normal service will be resumed from Friday onwards back in the UK.

Our friends flew back today so it is just the two of us now, the house to tidy up and lock away possibly until April [at the earliest]. We will be seeing a few of our Spanish friends before we leave and catching a few warm rays of sun to set us up for January and February back home.