Early Risers.

[Grizz]

Sorry I just had to post one more of the same view…the sun is cutting sideways through the mist. My iPad doesn’t do it justice. 
 

[RobAllen]

In other news, I worked too hard last week!



I didn't become a well-paid consultant to work these kinds of hours! 🤣



More seriously, it's so nice to have a work to do and onboarding to a project is inevitably going to take more time than average…

[woodenhead]

@RobAllen hope they pay you the full hours. Not all billing systems are equal and some only let you bill your paid hours!

 

Edit: me, I’m paid out of overheads so no current need to bill my hours.

Edited March 4 by woodenhead

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  It's sunny but cool outside.  I'm off to The Danglies for the second part of my eye test the probably to the opticians to part with money. 

 

Ttfn. 

 

Jamie

[Grizz]

8 minutes ago, RobAllen said:

I wonder how many people are able to take 3 consecutive weeks of holiday on a regular basis before retirement? 

My mother-in-law has been widowed for many a year now and very much enjoys cruise ship holidays. Personally, I can't imagine a worse holiday! Along with package holidays, they are much a marmite thing!

Working in a safety critical job with the mandatory control of working hours, which meant that our jobs had to be covered before we could get leave, coupled with us always being short staffed, meant that we ended up with so much leave it was difficult to take it. 
 

Pre retirement got 41 days leave. This is different to most as I had accrued a couple of days, and I was on call cover so it meant that I couldn’t take leave during those weeks. Some of my colleagues originally came from far away lands, so going home for less than 3 weeks at a time was relatively expensive and not worth it. As they were allowed to take weeks of leave at a time, then so was I, else the company would open itself up to accusations of discrimination (the companies bs rules and system not mine, but I was better at playing it than they were!).

 

So I regularly got at least 3 weeks summer holiday, usually starting around the second week of August. I still take at three weeks leave in the summer even now. Usually I accrue a few extra days during the year as I’m covering for someone or other. So I’ll normally get 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year, although it depends on possessions. 

[RobAllen]

14 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

@RobAllen hope they pay you the full hours. Not all billing systems are equal and some only let you bill your paid hours!

 

Edit: me, I’m paid out of overheads so no current need to bill my hours.

For the last 5 years or so, I have charged a day-rate to all my clients, rather than hourly and bill to the half-day. I track the hours more for me than them.

Over the course of a contract, it all comes out in the wash, and neither myself or my clients feel short-changed, so it works well-enough.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

8.5 hours sleep.. a record!

 

Last paid job I did meant working strange hours.. as in day and night shift crossovers..  delivering SAP training. My then director called me in one day to tell ne HR had gone nuts with him due  to my extra hours (one week it was 95 hours) . What should I not do? Just get on and do it.. just consider this a rollicking of course once SAP went live the flexitime kicked in and I could have (like my ex colleagues now do) had lots of extra holidays. PAH!

 

Only ever allowed to take up to 3 weeks off while I worked.. in retirement I can now fo things like 3 months in Oz and NZ..

 

Time to gerronwithit!

 

Baz

Edited March 4 by Barry O
spellung

[TheQ]

Apart from not being able to afford cruises, confined in a tin can with thousands of people is my idea of hell.  Also with other commitments I wouldn't have more than two weeks holiday spare, and no employer I've worked for  would allow more than two weeks holiday in one go.

An oddity in the RAF was you had to put in leave for your weekends, or in my case because we worked shifts, of two 12 hour days, two 12 hours nights , 4 off. In the worst case you could have to put in 12 days leave for 4 days off work. You weren't allowed to start leave on the first working day of a shift cycle.

 

Only in GEC were hours charged individually, each was to the nearest 15 minutes, .. They were charged to a 12 digit number, the first 6 digits were the contract, the second 6 digits were the task. I was lucky at most there'd be half a dozen numbers to charge my hours to in a week, some people could have to charge a dozen different numbers in a day.

GEC was also the only job where I physically had to clock in and out when on site. Elsewhere you just did your shift handover .

 

 

Mooring Awl,

7 hours near solid sleep a very good night for me.

 

Ben the I'd like to go out now Collie, took me on patrol, very frosty everywhere in the garden , but not enough to freeze the ground. The water levels have dropped again , but there are still puddles in the garden. Another pear tree has started braving the frost with flowers.

 

We have a contradiction in weather forecast, the BBC local weather says two Days with some rain this week, my favourite online forecast says no rain this week. Either way I really need to get some boat work done but it needs to be over 5C as painting and antifouling is required.

 

Plans for today,

Shovel work, try to level some of the muddy mess in the driveway/ grass.

Muddling.

 

But first.

Time for breaky..

 

 

 

 

 

 

[roundhouse]

Most companies that I worked for were fairly flexible with annual leave. Generally you couldnt take more than two weeks but odd extra days either side were often OK. The downside is that no one looked after your work whilst away even if they were told to, so things would be chaotic on getting back and could be very stressfull.

 

 

Saturday mornings drive to Abingdon was like being on a boat as the M25 was so wet. Luckily the sun was out when we arrivedin Abingdon to unload. A great time had both during the show and Saturday apres show pubs. The North Star in Steventon is a fantastic old world grade II listed pub. We had our own serving hatch above our corner seats for the ale served on gravity rather than handpumps and the roaring fireplace in the other room kept us very warm aswell. There was even a home signal outside the pub despite not being next to the GWR mainline but trians could be heared in the distance when outside.

 

Drive home last night was also in good weather with no queuing on the M25 around the M3 junction. There was queueing around the roadworks at the A3 instead. Just the boards to unlaod this morning once the heavy frost as gone.

[iL Dottore]

GREY POWER!

 

This past weekend the Swiss voted a) to increase the AHV [state pension], so from 2026 pensioners will get 13 monthly pension payments (two in November - helps cover end-of-year/Christmas costs) and b) to NOT increase the retirement age from 65 to 66.

 

The maximum AHV pension in Switzerland is currently CHF 2,450 (£2190) per month for an individual and CHF 3,675 (£3285) per month for married couples. Most people have 2 other pensions to count on as well (employer pension and "third pillar").

 

Of course the fact that we get up to £1615 less pension per month by being married, means that Mrs iD and I will be getting a divorce 🤣😱 - on paper at least.

 

£2190/month sounds like a lot, but in cities like Zürich and Geneva, £2190 doesn't go very far. Both of these cites are home to some very serious and very "old" money - with a concomitant knock on effect.

[roundhouse]

11 hours ago, Barry O said:

 

We met an American lady last year in Auckland.. she had gone "exploring" the rest of the cruise liner passengers stayed in their rooms...lummy.. Auckland is  a great place to have a look around with lots to do and see.. but no.. they were recovring from their 12 hour flight from California (put it into perspective, it took us 23 hours of so to get to NZ from the UK.. They were mortified!

 

The cruise left Auckland and went to Tauranga, Christchurch, Fijorland, Wellington , Melbourne , Sydney.. then home.. thats New Zealand and Australia covered in 10 days.... tick in box!

 

Baz

Pah, thats nothing, we 'did the world' in 16 days🙂

 

Admittedly 11 of them were in NZ arriving in LA before we departed Auckland. Apart from one night in Bangkok we have visited the other stop off points before or since then for longer.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, RobAllen said:

I wonder how many people are able to take 3 consecutive weeks of holiday on a regular basis before retirement?

Where I worked (Swiss HQ) quite a few.

 

As Switzerland has quite a few public holidays (and the company was generous in providing "bridge" days) with a bit of judicious planning a two week (10 working days) holiday could easily become a three week holiday.

 

The other thing was, at least when I worked there, work was episodic inasmuch as at certain times during a project's lifecycle it was "all hands on deck" with 12 hour days and weekend working; at other times as long you maintained "core hours" (about 4 hours/day), you could come in late and leave early. We called it "titrating our hours".

 

Furthermore, if we went way above a certain number of hours due to "the all hands on deck" project demands (such as preparing a submission for the regulatory agencies), then we were told to go away and not come back until all the extra hours had been used up. These did not count against holiday time.

 

The more I think about it, the more I realise how extremely fortunate I was with my employer of the best part of 20+ years.

[Hroth]

35 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

GREY POWER!

 

This past weekend the Swiss voted a) to increase the AHV [state pension], so from 2026 pensioners will get 13 monthly pension payments (two in November - helps cover end-of-year/Christmas costs) and b) to NOT increase the retirement age from 65 to 66.

 

The maximum AHV pension in Switzerland is currently CHF 2,450 (£2190) per month for an individual and CHF 3,675 (£3285) per month for married couples. Most people have 2 other pensions to count on as well (employer pension and "third pillar").

 

Of course the fact that we get up to £1615 less pension per month by being married, means that Mrs iD and I will be getting a divorce 🤣😱 - on paper at least.

 

£2190/month sounds like a lot, but in cities like Zürich and Geneva, £2190 doesn't go very far. Both of these cites are home to some very serious and very "old" money - with a concomitant knock on effect.

 

I think a lot of us here would appreciate a mere rise in Personal Tax Allowances* in the coming Budget. The Government seems to think that "tax cuts" will be more acceptable as an election bribe...

 

 

* They've been frozen since time immemorial

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Hroth said:

The Government seems to think that "tax cuts" will be more acceptable as an election bribe...

 

They should try reframing that as "service cuts"...

[Winslow Boy]

58 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

GREY POWER!

 

This past weekend the Swiss voted a) to increase the AHV [state pension], so from 2026 pensioners will get 13 monthly pension payments (two in November - helps cover end-of-year/Christmas costs) and b) to NOT increase the retirement age from 65 to 66.

 

The maximum AHV pension in Switzerland is currently CHF 2,450 (£2190) per month for an individual and CHF 3,675 (£3285) per month for married couples. Most people have 2 other pensions to count on as well (employer pension and "third pillar").

 

Of course the fact that we get up to £1615 less pension per month by being married, means that Mrs iD and I will be getting a divorce 🤣😱 - on paper at least.

 

£2190/month sounds like a lot, but in cities like Zürich and Geneva, £2190 doesn't go very far. Both of these cites are home to some very serious and very "old" money - with a concomitant knock on effect.

I take it then that when the Brains Trust mets up again you'll be pleading poverty due to you being a) married and b) a poor destitute 'pensioner' - please note the exclamation marks around the word pensioner.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

8.5 hours sleep.. a record!

 

Last paid job I did meabtcwotking strange hours.. as in day and night shift crossovers..  delivering SAP training. My then director called me in one day to tell ne HR had gone nuts with him due  to my extra hours (one week it was 95 hours) . What should I not do? Just get on and do it.. just consider this a rollock8ng... of course once SAP went live the flexitime kicked in and I could have (like my ex colleagues now do) had lots of extra holidays. PAH!

 

When Bear was running an Integration Programme at WHL I "got warned" by the Boss that HR had got the right 'ump because of the hours I was working.

"OK" says Bear to the Boss.

"You tell me what the maximum is and I'll not exceed it"

For some strange reason he wouldn't - cos' he knew I'd stick to it and it'd screw the job right up.  Never had any trouble after that, strangely.

Game, Set, Match to the Bear.

 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

GREY POWER!

 

This past weekend the Swiss voted a) to increase the AHV [state pension], so from 2026 pensioners will get 13 monthly pension payments (two in November - helps cover end-of-year/Christmas costs) and b) to NOT increase the retirement age from 65 to 66.

 

The maximum AHV pension in Switzerland is currently CHF 2,450 (£2190) per month for an individual and CHF 3,675 (£3285) per month for married couples. Most people have 2 other pensions to count on as well (employer pension and "third pillar").

 

Of course the fact that we get up to £1615 less pension per month by being married, means that Mrs iD and I will be getting a divorce 🤣😱 - on paper at least.

 

£2190/month sounds like a lot, but in cities like Zürich and Geneva, £2190 doesn't go very far. Both of these cites are home to some very serious and very "old" money - with a concomitant knock on effect.

 

Bear was just about to suggest that - does it (a) work, and (b) if so do many do it?

 

28 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I think a lot of us here would appreciate a mere rise in Personal Tax Allowances* in the coming Budget. The Government seems to think that "tax cuts" will be more acceptable as an election bribe...

 

 

* They've been frozen since time immemorial

 

And it's about time they got rid of the blatant discrimination against single Bears with no Cubs when it comes to Inheritance Tax - everything above £325K gets shafted by 40%, unless you start leaving oodles to Charity (which isn't a bad thing in itself).  Age Discrimination? Yep.  Sex Discrimination?  Yep.  Race Discrimination?  Yep.  Discrimination against LGPGtips?  Yep.  But single Bears are fair game.  B'sterds.  🤬  Most definitely a Rant.

So how much IHT will they be getting out of This Bear?  Nottafuggin'bean, that's how much; the new Will has made sure of that.  Screw 'em.

[Flanged Wheel]

I suspect that this post will be a little longer than socially acceptable, but various topics over the past 48 hours have piqued my interest and I will try and combine responses to them as succinctly as possible.

 

As you may have picked up, my family and I are currently travelling the world (24 countries in the last seventeen months). As @iL Dottore has commented, even this amount of time is insufficient to even scratch the surface of most places and we’re fortunate to have had three to four weeks in most countries. It turns out that the world is a really big place. 

 

During our travels, we’ve relied on public transport as much as possible (including the infamous El Salvador chicken buses). Like others, we found that the only place this didn’t work was the US. In the end, we ended up with the mother of all car rentals, picking up a Toyota Corolla in San Diego and dropping it off seven weeks later in Anchorage, Alaska (you don’t want to know how many Deltics the one-way fee accounted for but we did offset the costs considerably by camping for most of the way). Much public transport in the world is eminently usable, even if the state of repair varies considerably (we were on the Bangkok Metro today which was world class).

 

We’ve also eaten locally as much as possible, particularly at street stalls. This is partly for the experience and partly economical. But we’ve had some incredible foods (Bornean lemak is probably the favourite) and nobody has died yet… Durian has been very obvious recently. I had to finish my son’s durian ice-cream that he inadvertently bought. It was okay but I’m not in a rush to repeat the experience.

 

I’m definitely not a cruise ship person (and not just because I spent nearly twenty years messing around in boats professionally). From what we have seen of how passengers experience places, it’s not our style. But I appreciate that many people travel in different ways and I suspect that many want far more luxury than we do (and understandably so if it is a much-valued annual holiday).

 

I’m not going to dabble in the faith comments too much. I did have the ultimate multi-faith experience in Georgetown, Penang over the weekend, crossing the road to see a Chinese Buddhist temple with a father and daughter praying at a Hindu shrine on the corner with a Muslim call to prayer in the background and a cross hanging from the rear view mirror of the driver letting me across the road. We seek out churches when we can and have been made so welcome everywhere. Having said that, almost everybody we have met over our travels have been wonderful and kind, regardless of their faith background. I don’t use social media of any kind (unless you count RM Web) and stopped reading the news two years ago. I find that the world is a much brighter, happier place this way. 

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

All the joys of scraping ice off Mickey's windows this morning at 0530 😡;  how to win friends with the neighbours...

Another early morning silly session - 30 laps piddled in the pool this time; for some strange reason I noticed that the slow lane was inhabited by just one Bear + A.N. Other from Lap 15 onwards.  I wonder why?

Until recently I'd been wheezing like a knackered, worn out 2-day old green Paneer at the end of every lap; that does seem to be improving though, so that's a Tick - I can do the distance but it is fairly soul-destroying watching others go up n' down continually without stopping....

 

Right, swim stuff washed - now the Beary Pit to rebuild before I do something constructive that'll  hopefully keep the Beary Bonce away from destructive thoughts.....

 

BG

[Hroth]

34 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

They should try reframing that as "service cuts"...

 

The tenor of the Mirror front page this morning.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-68464778

 

As for the Personal Allowance, I got a brown from DWP a couple of weeks ago,  informing me that the current state pension consumes most of my tax allowance, and the rest of my pension will be prey to the Inland Revenue.  I then got another brown from DWP detailing the state pension increases from April.

 

Government ClawBack to fund the fatcat bribes.

 

As Bear would say, DEFINITELY A RANT!

 

 

 

[DaveF]

As a teacher my holiday dates were easy to sort out - whenever school was not open.  Despite the lengths of the school holidays I did a lot of work during them - as all teachers say and no one believes.  However with a bit of planning it meant I could go away for 4 or 5 weeks in the summer when I could afford it.  After I retired from teaching and did part time consultancy work I just took time off when there was nothing needed doing - but I always had a laptop with me if I went away so I could access work stuff if needed - now and then it was necessary.

 

I too would not like to go on a cruise, too many people and I hate crowds.  I like being on water, many years ago I used to sail which I enjoyed.

 

This morning there isn't a cloud in the sky but it was -1°C when I went downstairs to get my breakfast.

 

So far I've done my bit of the housework, the dusting.  My cleaner should come about 11.00 to do the rest.  I have a few bits to sort out about church and the shopping order to amend for tomorrow's delivery but that is about all.

 

At the moment even doing the dusting is tiring but I hope to go out for a walk this afternoon when it will be a bit less cold.  Until then it will be photos, reading and so on.

 

David

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

I think a lot of us here would appreciate a mere rise in Personal Tax Allowances* in the coming Budget. The Government seems to think that "tax cuts" will be more acceptable as an election bribe...

* They've been frozen since time immemorial

 

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

I take it then that when the Brains Trust mets up again you'll be pleading poverty due to you being a) married and b) a poor destitute 'pensioner' - please note the exclamation marks around the word pensioner.

What annoys me about tax on pensions is if you have an occupational pension your state pension is added to it for tax purposes. Fair enough as far as the occupational pension goes as you don't pay tax on the contributions. But the contribution to state pensions is paid for from NI contributions on which tax is paid so you are effectively paying tax twice over on your state pension.

[Tony_S]

20 minutes ago, DaveF said:

 

 

I too would not like to go on a cruise, too many people and I hate crowds. 

I didn’t think I would like going on a cruise, mainly as I didn’t really want to go anywhere where there was a dress code more formal than I would normally wear. However, Aditi was keen so it would have been a bit mean to object. We have never been in one of the giant 5000 passenger ships. The biggest we have been on were about 2500 .The one we will be on in July has 2900.It has just completed sea trials, and will have done a few cruises before we cruise to Iceland. 
Some of the entertainment, like shows or lectures can be full but we don’t go to the entertainment so are not affected. Other busy times are people quieting to get off early on port calls. Unless we are on an organised tour we wander down after breakfast and avoid queues.  When we went on QM2 our cabins were at the front and our designated restaurant was at the back. In the evening we could walk to dinner and not see any other passengers until we arrived at the restaurant. It wasn’t deserted as there  were always cabin crew cleaning something en-route. I don’t think I would like to cruise as a single person, but I probably wouldn’t go on holiday anyway. Aditi enjoys travelling and I like going with her, I am sure I will learn lots about lava on our next holiday. 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 
 

We stayed in bed a lot longer than planned, so I guess we needed the rest. Anyway, today’s weather is very much like yesterday’s, sunshine and blue skies, I wasn’t up early enough to see if we’d had frost or not! The plans for the day are to carry on with the cellar flooring, I’m hoping to get the smaller alcove finished and be part way, or even completely past the fireplace, by the time I call it a day. But there will be a lot of intricate cutting to do, so we’ll just have to see how things go. 
 

Back later. 
 

Brian

[Coombe Barton]

All this talk of cruises and holidays, I’ve just realised that apart from field trips which I’ve organised, and conferences, I’ve never stayed in an hotel for what may be termed a holiday. I have had to stay away on business, but that doesn’t count. We’ve always camped, self-catered when son was very small, or now in the caravan.

 

I cannot imagine going to a resort, whether on land or on a cruise ship, where you get waited on. That is my idea of hell. 

[Coombe Barton]

2 hours ago, roundhouse said:

The downside is that no one looked after your work whilst away even if they were told to, so things would be chaotic on getting back and could be very stressfull

I think there's the Tuesday rule:

• If you're away for a week, Monday someone will pick up your work. By the Tuesday it's "They'll be back next week."
• If you're away for two weeks, Monday someone will pick up your work. By the Tuesday it's "They'll be back a week on Monday."