The update before Christmas

If you can keep a secret, the boys are getting scooters. Santa will delivering those in only a week. He'll be leaving some chemical snow footprints that don't melt, from the front door to the tree.

Up in the mountains, there's plenty of white. Hope it stays a bit cold up there for our visitors! Down here it's 13 and almost balmy.

So here's the news:

Giving away some work shirts
I had a few old shirts with work logos which I never wear. It was hard to give them away. They were size medium, but almost no-one in the team would fit them. Medium in Australia is about XL in local sizing. One guy is 6ft/183cm and 72kg for example. Seems skinny, but the BMI calculator I used says he's right in the middle of healthy.

Paying the electricity bill
Sadly we'd just received an electronic remote key from our bank, and been locked out of our account. So I:
1. go to the electrical company website, enter all details, press pay. Then get asked for code received by sms. But the phone number is old.
2. ring up the bank to unlock the online access, register the electronic key device, turn it on, enter my pin, get a one time key, enter that all good. Each time I log on, it asks me for the name of my old cat.
3. repeat step 1 as it's been a while
4. get back online at the bank to phone number. It's not changeable online.
5. Try download the form to fax my new phone number.

On the to do list: installation of a giant pair of underpants.

6. get latest Acrobat,
7. log in and try getting the form again.
8. Give up and mail a cheque


The Space Smoker
When we first got here, the messages they put up at work seemed a bit weird. Now they're just plain funny. Recent announcements of upcoming events, in writing, on the walls:
- Wash Ecological Automobile
- Cover of the space smoker
- The Christmas chalet suggests you discovering our range of residential products.
European English speakers all understand each other. The native speakers speak funny it seems. We've got an Indian, a Scotsman, and an me at work. No-one speaks like they speak on TV, and less so like the locals. It's hard for them to tune into 3 different accents.

Things now in place: restoring company sells bread.

Olives pulped, and in the press.

Last weekend
And in other news, we went to visit Marie's cousin Jelena and her family. It was a lot of fun as far as I could tell. We stopped at Pavia on the way through. It's got an amazing bridge, and a lovely old town centre.

Jean Louis, Romain, me, Louis, Marie, Ollie, Leah and mixer.

The weekend before
We went to see some olive presses. We watched the crusher, the mixer, and finally the press. The boys had a good time, and it was fun watching the olives go round. We tasted a bit, straight out of the mixer.