February 21st, 2022

I’ve got Reggie with me in Filleigh this week, we’ll return to Twickenham on Thursday evening. Victoria and Olivia have gone to Venice for a few days and by the sounds of it they had a lovely time.

The week started with an annual review with Danny and Marcel at ZNAPZ, it is the first review I have had in 3.5 years. It was a chat really. They would like me to get more involved in marketing now that Laurens has gone to IBM and to help the functional team to get through MAS 8 certification. There was a small inflationary increase, unexpected, but very welcome.

Having Reggie at home inevitably increases my step count. In the morning and late afternoon, we go up Long Walk, not so far in the morning, nearly up to the arch in the afternoon. Reggie disappeared for 4 or 5 minutes which was alarming, bounded up a bank and into a copse of laurels on the chase of the few pheasants which are still around after the shooting season. I could hear him, but couldn’t see him, and no amount of shouting brought him back, until he returned into view on his own accord and was promptly put on the lead.

Before lunch Reggie tells me it his time for a walk, almost on the clock of 12:00 each day. We now head into the field and the cleared woods and stream. The large group of snowdrops at the top are at their peak, to think that for 20+ years they have been out-of-sight of mankind covered over by a mass of brambles. With all the rain the ground is sodden, and with Reggie on the lead it can be a struggle to remain upright, the ground is always sloping down towards the stream. The waterfall we have discovered was thundering away and towards the bottom there is a cascade of stone steps with the stream dancing down to the bottom, the area I am studying for the potential ponds.

I do not believe the stream is escaping over the bank into the waterlogged area with the massive rhododendron that has probably not flowered for decades. With all the rain it was more obvious where the stream through Spa Wood is running, and it is this stream which is overflowing into the surrounding area. Through the trees you can see another waterfall, smaller in height but much wider, it was very evident this week. 

The game keepers must be putting out seed because there were two trapped pheasants in the netted compound, which were of great interest to Reggie, but out of reach with our new fence, I’m pleased we decided to put down stock proof fencing. Back out into the field Reggie runs back and forth going out of sight with the brow of the hill but returning into view and not always stopping for a chicken treat, checking his territory for potential bird intruders. For years I have never really gone in our paddocks, certainly not during winter months, and there are a few areas of snowdrops along the garden hedge but not visible from the garden.

I’m maintaining the hour of podcasting on most nights, documenting mainly, I am still weeks away before my first recording. There was a Podcaster’s community call on Tuesday, not that well attended, which means that we get almost personal guidance from Richard Midson, one of the course organisers. The call was titled “How to make a podcast trailer”. It was very interesting and useful, more so because from my notes Richard improvised a Maximo Bite Size trailer. It was unbelievable, it sounded so good, and I’ve since found the place on the recording and written it down.

The theme for my podcast has now materialised after weeks of being sure one week and not the next. Previously it was going to be a summary of the Maximo topics I was working on during the week, followed by a summary of my non-working life that I was going to call After Hours. A sort of weekly journal. Now it looks as if I will have a podcast to help people navigate through the subject areas of the Maximo functional certification that I was involved with last year. A second podcast will be the memories of my non-working life for which this script will be an episode, and I’ll use this to learn how to become a podcaster even if this is for an audience of one.

It was a good week for Maximo Secrets. On Wednesday 16th February I exceeded my previous daily views record of 1,350 set nearly two years before in April 2020, with a new high-water mark of 1,460. A new record high for the week was also achieved 6,000 views. This was a bit of a surprise because I haven’t published anything new in the last two weeks, still working on articles for Linear Assets.

On Monday I heard that I have been made an IBM Champion for 2022. This was great news; I had hoped that I would be successful following the three nominations I had received from IBM. Danny wants to announce it, and I’ll add something to Maximo Secrets over the next couple of weeks, but I think we should wait until something is publicly shown by IBM. I’ll make a reference to this in the podcast trailer, Richard says that you should include something which indicates why someone should listen to you rather than someone else who may have a podcast in your area of expertise. There are probably only 7 or 8 champions representing Maximo worldwide, I wonder who they are, Amy Tatum and Craig Kokay seem to have been successful, but who else?

It’s been windy this week, with Storms Dudley and Eunice, I’ll not see what damage has occurred until I return next week, a few slates are down for certain. It was windy also in Twickenham, not quite so bad I think, but cold as well, with windchill. 

On Friday night we headed to Rick Steins in Barnes for Olivia’s Birthday, the 6 of us with Harry, Polly and Phil. It was very nice, food was very good, particularly the fish soup I had as a starter. It might be very difficult to not reorder that if we went again. The lightly curried fish for mains was also very nice, but in hindsight I think I should have opted for something which could not even partially disguise the taste of the fish. It was not at all overpowering, but I can’t say I’ve had fish curry before, and I’ve concluded that fish is better not in a curry and curries are better with anything other than fish in them. Dessert was also lovely, a chocolate and peanut butter cheesecake, that made no attempt to stick to the top of my mouth as cheesecake can sometimes do. Two bottles of wine, Spanish white specially selected by Rick Stein and a Vino Verde which I marginally preferred. The White Hart pub around the corner which Victoria and I went too first because we had overestimated how long our bus journeys would take, and arrived miles too early, was how a local pub should be and busy, Friday night I know, but with covid still around it was good to see that pubs were beginning to fill-up again. 

As I am writing this we have just returned from a meet-up at Marble Hill Park with the Cockapoo club, that formed during first lockdown, several dogs of a similar age, not all Cockapoo as I discovered, one a Labradoodle, but all with some mix of poodle. Today I think there were 6 or 7 dogs and several owners whose names are just beginning to sink in. Victoria goes out socially with the girls every couple of months and there are dinners which apart from one I’ve not been able to make, being in Devon most of the time. Victoria is meeting Olivia and Polly up in town this afternoon, somewhere around Fitzrovia, I opted to stay back with Reggie, not that I’ve seen him since lunch, napping somewhere upstairs, I think. 

First thing this morning we had to fix a fence panel which had come loose in the garden between us and our neighbour Annie, courtesy of storm Eunice. A ring at the front door, and we have just been greeted with a bunch of yellow tulips as a thank you.

We are meeting Olivia and Polly for a walk in Richmond Park and then lunch at the pub Lass O’Richmond Hill where we had enjoyed a Sunday lunch for my birthday. We walked to Richmond along the Thames path, Reggie kept showing interest in the banks of the Thames and I didn’t want him jumping up at one of our girls with muddy paws, so he was eventually put back on the lead, not that he seems to mind. We coincidentally met up with Olivia and Badger on Richmond Bridge and walked up the hill together to find the gates were shut for the yearly culling of deer. Once Polly had arrived, we did a short walk on Petersham Common Woods below the Star and Garter and then back-up again for lunch.

Lunch was disappointing, Reggie was restless, the two of them in a cramped area, it was hot by the fire and three of us got our lunch and Olivia’s seemed to have been forgotten. The service was fighting for our drinks order at the beginning of the meal, now they didn’t seem to want to look our way, and eventually I got up and pointed out the mistake. The roast beef came with no gravy, repeat process, get up find someone of interest, now two pots of gravy arrived. All-in-all it seemed to create a tense atmosphere which is best forgotten, except I am about to record the event for posterity.

On the way home to Filleigh on Sunday evening just after reaching the top of Exmoor there was a huge hail storm that forced a slowing down to 30 as the ambient temperature dropped steadily from 6.5C to 1.5C over a period of about 2 minutes, a reminder that we are still in winter, and a reminder that tomorrow we’ll have another storm, Franklin and I haven’t yet seen what damage has been caused by Eunice.