Word Of Mouse

Many people may be wondering: so when the hell are they going to set off? What's going on? In short, have they bottled it? Well the answers are, taken in order, 1: middle of May (just before my birthday), 2: see below, and 3: no definitely not! What we have been doing is some freelance computer consultancy work to round off some things for Ali's ex-job, which had involved development of a website to coordinate the activities of voluntary groups working with young people in the West Midlands. Anyone interested in seeing the results can go and have a look at www.growingupinthewestmidlands.info. It turned out to be the project from hell: the work was much harder than either of us really expected, took over twice as long, and involved a lot of long hard battles with buggy and badly documented software. So for me at least, it was business as usual...
It came to an end (at last) and Ali and I have just taken a much-needed break in mid Wales during which we caught up on about a month of lost sleep, ate a lot of good food, read Enid Blyton books to each other and not really very much else at all. Except for a visit to the Alternative Technology Centre near Machynlleth, which was pretty much as we both remembered it: earnest, positive and rather shabby looking. We both agreed that while it was great that such a place exists, anyone viewing it though the hard cold eyes of modern business might be less impressed, and such people unfortunately are going to be involved as key decision makers in determining future energy policy for Britain, like it or not. Their plans seem to include updating the aesthetic of the place to bring it into the 21st century so it will be interesting to see where they go from here. But enough of that: looking forward, departure date is only a week away. Things are coming together in many respects, but lots still remains to do. The single biggest thing we have done together is pay off Ali's mortgage, so at least we won't be paying a building society for an empty house for six months.