Show Me The Way To Edinboro'

8:06

As I was lying in bed yesterday morning, trying in vain to muster the willpower to separate back from mattress, I remembered I was meant to be in our Edinburgh Office today. The visit is primarily to give them tea and sympathy about their network connection, which they have outgrown. However because they are growing so quickly, they will be moving to a new office as soon as they can find one, so it’s unlikely we’ll be spending large amounts of money upgrading their current Internet access.

Not much happened at work; I felt less stressed-out than I have in recent days, although I was still switching back to the backup software screen every few minutes to check that everything was proceeding smoothly. In the end everything did and I left early to give myself plenty of time to get to Chorus.

Despite feeling more relaxed, I didn’t get much cheer out the rehearsal. We spent the first half note-bashing new repertoire which, while I am certain it will sound lovely in performance, I really couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for tonight. I ducked-out halfway through and sat in the foyer to ring my sister (who was well, but busy at work after being ill last week.)

The break was a blessed relief (I was at the front of the queue, so managed to get some chocolate biscuits before they all went!) although I just managed to miss making eye-contact with Zefrog (maybe he was blanking me, but I think not) to see how he was doing as I was feeling slightly guilty about taking my stress out on him over the weekend. I spent most of the break chatting with Mark G and one of the new guys, Paul L, who is from Massachusetts, over here to teach English.

The second half was somewhat more enjoyable, if only because we were rehearsing some of the ‘core repertoire’ pieces for the new guys to pick up; all were songs I like and enjoy singing, so that lifted my spirits somewhat and I was in a bearable, albeit very tired, frame of mind as we set off for home.

I needed to check-in on the backups when we got home and it took longer than I’d expected because there were yet more problems with the backup system. It seemed that at least one of the jobs had finished properly though and, since I couldn’t seem to achieve anything with the system remotely, I eventually gave up and started putting my overnight bag together. [I wonder actually if the backup problems might not be caused by me connecting to the backup server by Terminal Services, rather than directly. We are using a new ‘rebranded’ version of the backup software released after Veritas was taken over by Symantec and, based on past experience with Symantec takeovers, it wouldn’t surprise me if they rushed it out (skipping some of the bug-checking!) in order to get their logo out into the field as quickly as possible. That seems to be the main object of their takeovers, as the quality of the product invariably plummets afterwards.]

Got to bed around 12:30 and set my alarm for five.