6th Feb

A very cold Monday morning. I'm fully wrapped with my snow boots. I certainly need them to walk down to the station. Its actually starting to melt but because it is so thick it is very difficult to walk on as it keeps shifting underfoot. On my way down to the station I'm overtaken by the two a**holes who live at the bottom of the garden and who cut down our trees. I cuss and swear at them (under my breath - the little s***s).

The train is delayed. So i distract myself by looking at what people wear. I'm amazed. A few wear sensible snow shoes, many wear Wellies and a lot with walking shoes. But there are a stack of them wearing ordinary shoes and trainers. Men and women, young and old. One of the people on the platform is complaining to his friend about the train service, what its been like for the past two years and what needs to be done to improve it over the next few years. I feel sorry for his friend who has to put up with this for the next hour or so on their journey into London.

My connecting train is very late so I catch up with my book but start feeling the cold so slip my gloves back on and walk up and down the platform to keep warm. In the office, many people are in - they've braved the elements and made it into the office.

I have my weekly meeting with Steve (Site Manager) and we solve the woes of the world whilst we review progress on the refurbishment.

Back at my desk I do some more work on my post mortem of the project to procure the new ICT Contract and on my business plan for next year. I meet with Steve and Fred with out IT team to look at the weekend where we need to power down. They have to do some work on the server room and we want to see if we could merge this with the power down we have to do to service the main electrical switchboard. It looks feasible so we make plans for it to happen.

I then take Fred over to the main office to look at some of the lighting issues we have and we put together some ideas on what we can do.

I then get an email from our officious fire officer. We need to build full firewalls on the second floor, include walkways and lighting and install fire detectors in the roof void. This will torpedo the project. He has copied in the Chief Exec. Cherie reckons that he's trying to justify his job! I suspect that she's not far off the truth but I've noticed a lot of back-covering in this organisation and feel that this is also part of the equation. Oh well, if that's what they want to have done we will just have to face the consequences.

I get an earlier train than usual just in case! Turns out to be fine. The roads are clear of snow as it has started thawing and the trains seem to be running OK.