The day before tomorrow

I guess you are wondering where the hell I have been. There may also be that nagging feeling that "Charl is terribly inconsistent" and you would be right. I seem to live my life from fire to fire. More accurately, I am a fully fledged fire fighter.

For those of you who have read How to make friends and influence people you may remember the one chapter suggesting that you don't criticise, condemn or complain - so I will, in true ME fashion, try to stick to it...but before I do...hahaha. Just kidding, I have a little more willpower and dedication than that however, my patience has been pushed to the limits this month. In explaining this, you may also see why I haven't been that good with keeping in touch.

On my birthday I spent the day in York. When I got home, I couldn't find my credit card anywhere, so I did the usual...PANIC!!!!! After running around the house, tugging at my, by this stage, white hair I contacted the bank and put a stop on the card. I then had to cancel my camping trip to the Lake District. So, the disappointment started to mount. Anyway, I took the knock on the chin and decided to make the best of the situation. The Friday that I was supposed to leave for the camping trip I ended up going to a work BBQ. While sitting and chatting to my colleagues I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out...you guessed it...my credit card. My banking woes don't end there. The Monday following that, I started getting letters from my various service providers (water, electricity, gas, council tax...you name it) to say that my bank has cancelled my direct debit and I need to make alternate arrangements. This is as a result of bad service that I received and completed a telephone survey and indicated that, "I INTEND leaving HSBC". They made the decision for me and closed my account. Anyway, this meant I had to activate my Barclays account, move all my direct debits over and have my salary moved too. If any of you have followed this course of action, you will know the amount of work involved in this. It also meant that many of my service providers wanted to change my payment terms and as a show of good faith, some wanted the annual payment as opposed to the usual monthly one.

Anyway, that is enough of the harp playing section. I have nearly completed my Management Development Programme. It has been extremely welcome and useful. It has pointed out areas for improvement and places where I can manage better and has also suggested ways to tackle those hard to reach areas...hahahaha. Doesn't that sound like I am trying to sell you all some Toilet Duck. Needless to say, I feel far more confident in my job, my staff seem more reciprocal in their approach. In two months, I will be made permanent and a few days later I will be flying to Singapore to visit my mum as they have moved there from Jakarta. There is an element of relief about the move as Singapore is more of a first world country.

Watson is nearly fully grown now, still causing all kinds of havoc, still a little terrorist but the light of my life. He is there when I get home in the afternoons. He is very talkative too. He wakes me up in the morning but at least he gives me till 7am on the weekends - lucky me. I had him neutered at the beginning of July - so the poor boy is a boy no more. He doesn't seem to notice and still walks around like a mini John Wayne. He is much smaller than the neighbourhood cats and is often bullied (poor thing). I allow him the freedom of going out when I am home. He just loves to investigate and he is always in a neighbours yard or sitting around the corner sniffing some bush, weed, leaf or wind blown paper.

Well, let me publish this. I bet you are as bored as hell now. Just to let you know that I do think of each of you and although I am the world's worst at communicating, I haven't forgotten you. I love hearing from you and promise to email back if you email me. Oh, my email has changed. I now have an email for life. It works like a router and doesn't matter how many times I change service providers (ie. yahoo.gmail, hotmail etc.) this email address remains the same...charl.uys@bigfoot.com

Got to dash - be back in a flash.