Project 4th March

I have started a Project called 4th March, it's following Prince2 methodology - it's bloody hilarious actually, remember when Nige did his Prince2 course and he did all his emails like this for months afterwards? - well, cough, now I am...Serious point here though, Nick and Dave, if you are interested, the headings really are for real and the approach is genuine...you might wanna think on before you call me a cant...right. Let's Kick this project off.

Project Mandate

• To meet up with so -called mates in St Albans to get hammered
  

Starting up a Project

• Outline Business Case

1. Reasons - We need to catch up from time to time fellahs, you know? and just chidder chat, bitch and moan
   
2. Options - Do nothing, not meet up OR meet up, have some fun.
3. Benefits - All work and no play makes us all dull, let's face it.
4. Risks - Nick wont show, but like, so what, he never does anyway and we can talk about him if he doesnae
5. Costs - £20 each. max.
6. Times scales - Between 4-6 hours solid drinking oughta cover it

• Customer Quality Expectations (Fluffy - nice to haves)
  

1. To find a nice boozah
2. Meet up with old mates
3. Get hammered
4. Not spend too much cash
5. Dave to get well oiled and spill beans re: Riga and state of he and Claire

• Acceptance Criteria (measurables - these are the minimum requirements)
  

1. Date - Saturday 4th March
2. Time - 2-3pm
3. Place - St Albans, venue to follow refined Business Case in Initiating a Project Stage
4. Find any pub
5. Meet up with anyone I know
6. Get hammered (zero tolerance threshold here)
7. Spend whatever it takes to get hammered
8. Get Dave to spill beans on Riga OR Claire

• Risk Log

1. No ones shows up
2. We all show up but can't find one another
3. Nige serious when he said Manc Dave is turning up. Risk = High / Impact = High
   
4. Nige serious when he said Gregg is turning up. Risk = Low / Impact = Low
   
5. Nick fails to show. again. Risk = High / Impact = Low

• Identify Suitable responses to Risks

1. Prevention
   
2. Reduction
3. Acceptance - Hey, whatever will be will be - let's just accept Dave will show and Nick won't.
   
4. Contingency
5. Transference
   

• Project Approach

1. email boys
2. Get Nige to suggest venue and time
3. Square it with missus

OK, That's the end of my start-up stage. Think I've covered all the bases.
Next Stage - Initiating a Project. Stand-by

Rounding off a perfect few days

Of course, losing ones wallet on the flight home didn't really help much either...it was when I reached the car at the airport, hullo I thought, wait a second..where's me bloody wallet?...drive back to terminal, have to pay, so missus drops me off, then begins one of many circuits, around the airport to avoid paying the parking. I go in, yes sir, a wallet has been found on the flight just in from Gdansk! great, where can I pick it up from? Oh no sir, you'll have to call them tomorrow, as it'll be locked in a safe by now.
Next day I call them, yes sir, we can let you have yir wallet back....but it'll cost you!...sure sure, whatever...so then sir, can you discribe the wallet I'm holding in my hand? Er, yeah, it's black...with a tesco's credit card inside...and...hold on sir...I'll just stop you there if I may...this isn't your wallet. WHAT? found on flight bla bla from Gdansk? Yes. yesterday? yes sir, that's right...but it's not a black wallet...with...no sir. goodday. Fuck. what are the chances of that happening? seriously?
Problem though as we need that credit card to part pay for a new car we were palnning to pick up that weekend. nightmare...all falling to pieces....think damn it, think!....

Old Town

The hotel, sorry, hostel, was a state, all of the six pieces of furniture in our room, all were broken in some important way; the wardrobe doors were hanging off and all four beds were cut-and-shunt jobs, bits cobbled together from older beds…wait though, the table was fine, notwithstanding the years of cigarette abuse from burly communist ship builders over the years…Anyway, we weren’t here to soak up the atmosphere of the room, we were here to…what exactly?…to...erm...head into town

We head into town for some lunch and we make our way into the Old Town, the only bit of Gdansk of any real interest. We find a pizzeria, look in, decide it’s closed, walk away, come back, try the fucking door, it’s open, we head in. sit down and order a beer, couple of cokes and a glass of wine for the lady. Lovely waitresses, no atmosphere though…In fact this seemed to be the case in every pub or restaurant we went into. Empty. And on both nights, we had the owners, waiters, bar people, whatever, hovering over our table, clearing away the dishes before we’ve swallowed the last morsel by around 7-8pm! Lights bloody turned off on our way out the door!
It was freezing and, apart from the views of the harbour and that, not a lot for kids to do, so we headed home the first night early and tried to get them into bed and asleep while we sank a bottle of red wine and tried to read our books and this was valentines evening I ask you! – So, day one. Lost baggage, early night, and me hankering after some panky but not to be.

Sopot

Day two: Do something, not another day wandering around town, please! Fine then, a tried and trusted route to killing time, find the station, get on a train, doesn’t really matter what train, to where, but as it happens, we head out to the coast, to a place called Sopot, on the Baltic coast.


Now, this place was something else, it had a MacDonald’s and a pizza hut and everything including the most enormous hotel I’ve ever seen! We left the train and headed towards the sea, down through this very wooded path and when we hit the beach, boy, was it cold, the smashers in their English coats froze half to death, the younger one kept screaming that he wanted to go home! And wasn’t interested in building any snow or sand men. We thought we could get the ferry back home, but the jetty where the ferry lands was just so bloody cold, none of us could stand walking up it, I kid you not, that place was probably the coldest place I’ve ever been. So, we get the train back and stop off at the ship yards where Solidarity happened and all that; seeing the entrance to the yards and all those famous flags we used to see on the news all those years ago was weird.
Into the Mercury Hotel to warm up, it was 20 floors or so, and I promised the smashers the view, but the bar was on the bloody ground floor, how dumb are these people anyway? So we had something warm to drink, then headed back into the old town for dinner at this Scottish themed pub, which was ok, but the waiters seemed peeved because I think they were all set for an early night, but fuck it, we wanted food and it was only 7pm by our watches. I must say, but the end of day two, like the end of all my days two’s I was ready to head off to the airport and home.

Lech Walesa

Like I say, note to self: Never, ever ever – (how many ever’s is that…) ever! Take the family on a mid-week city break to anywhere ever again…It all started well enough though, that’s the weird thing…

4am: Up with the birds, getting the smashers into their winter clothes, ready for a family mini city break in, wait for it, Gdansk…that’s in Poland, yeah?..and the flight is fine, is on time, is quick & the smashers well behaved throughout the two hour flight. Amazing. Everything peachy, until we decide to rough it with the locals and get on a bus at Gdansk airport, into town like, not my preferred route into anywhere, but hey! It’s a family adventure and everything is an experience…two stops in and the bus is heaving with sweaty locals and we’ve absolutely no idea where the fuck this bus is taking us, really, half an hour in and we’re traversing hills and valleys, all covered in thick thick frightening snow..

Then this local, obviously concerned by the terrified faces of the English, now squashed up between Lech Walesa lookee-likes, pushed through the crowd and said that if we wanted the centre then the next stop would be our best bet. Great, excuse me, push-evi-push, hello, excuse me..shove shove..honestly…you get the kids, I’ll get the push chair…shove…and I’m off, holding two smashers and all our hand bags…great, here comes the missus…but where are we…and we look for a map…

Missus: Er…where’s our suitcase?

Me: Er..I dunno, didn’t you get it when you went for the push chair, that like, was standing right next to it?

Missus: Oh fuck, that’s brilliant…you’ve lost us our bloody suitcase!

Me: Me?…you stupid bitch??

We both look at the disappearing rear end of our bus, chugging fumes up over the next hill…taking all our clothes with it, all our wash stuff, our duty free, the missus shoes and her hair straighteners..and we’re still miles from our hotel, and it’s minus 10 and it’s snowing…and it’s still only 11am….and the baby smash just started to cry

Mind you...they did like the traditional "Scottish-Polish" themed pub with polish waiters in Kilts and everything...not sure what they put in the hagis though.. 

Note to self: Never, ever take the smashers on a mid-week, city break to a former eastern-european country...they just wont appreciate it... 

Would Sir like to try the red?..it gets one really pissed

When is enough enough eh? I ask you, or I asked myself on Friday afternoon when I must've sank my tenth glass of wine at a trade demonstration at the Ritz. It all started so serenely, in fact I arrived 2 hours before kick off, so wandered about London, lost in my thoughts and when I arrived and the waiter asked what I'd like to drink, said, Orange please...orange...but as I settled into the plush armchair and listened to some piano music whilst waiting for the demonstration to start, I thought, hmmm a nice glass of white wine would go down nicely, everyone else here is indulging, so why not?..an hour later, after we were served the first course of our 3 course lunch, I started on the red wine, well, I was about to eat some chicken after all. The wine waiter approached me, to re-fill my empty glass and said would sir like some white or red wine? and I naturally enough said both please, fill both glasses up!...and there was a pause, long enough for me to turn in my seat and look up at a genuinely pained expression on the guys face, OK I said, just fill up the red...but leave the bottle! ahaha...at least he grinned as he walked off with my bottle, but I began thinking, right son, yir pissed, slow it down yeah? ease up a little here or there'll be trouble...an hour later I'm suggesting to one of the attendees a bunk-up in the posh lavs...luckily for me, and her, she was an old ex-colleague so understood my "humour"...I remember stumbling home and finishing off in a local boozah, 2 pints while the missus came to fetch me home..that night, I polished off another bottle of red. and the next morning felt terrible. and if it wasn't for all the product guff in my bag I'd've sworn I'd been on the piss all the previous day.

We're rubbing a gong on the chest of a slave....

One of the other great things that has recently happened is that, despite her protestations at the beginning of the year about holidays and money and debt, the missus sat down last Sunday and booked us all on a mini break to Poland! Yes, for a little over a hundred quid we’re all off for two nights to Gdansk; staying in a hostel, 4 bed room. Now, what the hell we’ll all do in Poland in minus degrees fuck knows is anyone’s guess but that’s not the point, she’s relented, I’ve broken her and it feels good! The kids hate walking, hate museums, hate restaurants/pubs, hate the cold but hey, maybe we can find a leisure centre there and we can all go swimming or something…

This only days after booking us all on a weeks holidaying on the Isle of Wight in June for a week, ok ok, I know but it’s a holiday damnit and at the beginning of the year all I heard was days trips, holidaying in the garden, we’ll get the paddling pool out and the kids’ll be happy enough and I was like, what about me? Will I be happy enough? Will I ever be happy enough?…bloody garden, bloody days out….no than-you…gimme Gdansk any day…

Coming to go to bed now?

There's been a few developments recently worth mentioning I suppose...the first thing is that finally I think we've managed to get the younger smasher potty trained, after a few false starts; not a big thing you may think but for us, it's the beginning of the end and so it's a major stage. Look, you see those mad women still breast feeding their toddlers and young children way way beyond normal age yeah?...well, these potty woman just can't let go, don't want to move on, they like the nourishing part of motherhood and to wean the brats off titty means the kids no longer have that special bond anymore...whatever, same with nappies....no more nappy buying, wet-wipe wiping, soiled and smelly nappies will be no more and therefore the last baby I'll ever produce has moved beyond the baby/nappy stage and it scars me, worries me, delights me all at once...
The other things I'll blog later. stand by.

ahhh dib dib dib...my son the nazi!...so ashamed but hey, it's his choice and it gets him outya the house and into the company of strange men, so what do I care?