Spoilt with fish

I am getting very spoilt on the food front. When I moved to Sydney I was very happy eating Barramundi, which probably has the same status and similar texture as Cod in Europe. I used to order Barramundi whenever I could. Over the year I have migrated to John Dory, which is a very delicious white fish, with thick flaky meat. I usually have my John Dory at our weekly lunch at the Manly Fish Cafe. However, the last couple of weeks they have had some absolutely great lobster tails with garlic and ginger. But recently picked up some fish at the Market. The John Dory's were to large so got some Barramundi. I thought it would be fine. Unfortunately when I finally got to eat it I was very disappointed. I am sure it was not the cooking, but just me getting used to the nice stuff.

Not very well

I am stuck with the cough from hell. I don't have a fever or sore throat - I just cough if I try to talk & and have a very silly voice, and it is not very pleasant. Fortunately I have managed to work from home most of this week, but that still means work. Telling people to e-mail or SMS instead of calling is not working and I myself get frustrated when I e-mail and then realise whoever is off site and I have to call anyway if I need a quick answer. Today revelation hit me - there is medication stuff. Not even considering a pharmacy I headed off to the corner shop for some Coke and throat thingys. Bought a packet of Strepsils. It said on the package suck on one every 2-3 hours. However - I found out they only last for 15-20 min, so you end up taking 2-3 for each hour. They give a great relief so it is hard not to take one every time you have to talk to someone. As a result - I could talk without coughing at the end of the day - but I do feel a bit light-headed & groggy. I have read the back of the package but am not sure exactly if I am in any danger of anything.
To ensure my absence of coughing during the evening and reduce the risk of "Strepsil- poisoning" I found a "bin-end" quite cheap bottle of red wine called Cock & Bull and it absolutely works. One little sip and cough is gone, but you have to continue sipping... What I really would like is some Swedish Blossa Glogg with Rum (hot wine and spices, but IKEA has no licence to sell it here). Guess I really should get some cough medicine, but have no idea about how to go about to get the real stuff over here (I am talking Swedish brand names Coccilana and Mollipect) which has been the only stuff working for me. Ideally taken together (not allowed - and makes your heart go funny - but works!). I tried to get it in England but they do not do prescription cough medicine in any circumstances - and I guess in any case not one that contains morphine ;-(
I really would like to just take tomorrow off sick, but really can't. Nobody at work will care if I don't work tomorrow, but shit will hit the fan if I do not deliver my current project on time, and tomorrow I have several serious issues to solve. Any one of them not solved, may cause a delay and I might be sent back to Europe quicker than expected...

Lawn Bowling

The GFC (Global Financial Crisis) has not hit our entertainment budget yet. A couple of weeks ago we had a Project Management seminar, with around 50 PMs and a very pleasant dinner in the evening, with a pub-crawl to follow. I now know how much it costs to take a taxi home from the city ($50).
Last week we did lawn bowling. This is a boule-like sport which is played with large, unbalanced balls. Around 70 had accepted, but only around 10 showed up at the start. Personally I blamed the secretary who sent out the agenda after people responded. Before the fun - we had to endure an hour's lecture on Operational Health and Safety. The presenter must be credited for at least trying to make it a bit fun and interesting. Another 15 dropped in over the next hour.
Afterwards we got a crash-course in how to play the game, free bar & nice finger food. I would have posted a picture of Sissi-in-action, but sadly I can't find the camera cable.

Clean Teeth

One of my benefits for working here is a private healtcare plan, which means everything gets paid for by my private insurance, paid by my employer. This include a dentist check-up a year (plus all treatment I need - if any), and as it runs yearly and I joined in June, I booked a time at the dentist which operates on the ground floor of our office building, with the cool name of Duang Hong.
I haven't been for around 6 years and either things have moved on pretty swiftly - or I just visited one of the gadget mad dentists. This one had an x-ray machine that looked like one of those new airport body-scanners. Swished around me at various angles and playing a tune as well. It took pictures of all my teeth which got uploaded to a computer screen in full colour and was the main basis of how the dentist did his investigation. He also did take a couple of the old-fashion x-rays as well. Then it was time for the cleaning part, and I got ear-phones with a choice of music, and sun-glasses to protect me against the bright light.
All-in-all I was in the clear. He found a filling that could do with replacing, but nothing urgent. Not too bad after 6 years!

Table for all

We are now the proud owners of a new dining table. All are welcome for a meal when you have the opportunity. with winter arriving (maybe it is already here - hard to say) it is way to cold to sit on the balcony unless the sun is shining. Otherwise there are no good news. Work is taking all my time and blogging is behind as I don't have time to do things - and it would be too boring to write about work every day.
Truth is that I am responsible for upgrading the alarm system at one of the Australian telecom operators. I have a fixed deadline, but delays outside of my control and a lack of resources is making it near impossible. It does not help all the HW has either been delayed or re-routed somewhere inconvenient. It is interlinked with projects that need to be done before (that are late) and projects coming after - which I will get in a lot of trouble for delaying, so I spend most of my time "fire-fighting" and re-scheduling. Not given up though - I usually find a way ;-)

Here I come

Just booked tickets to Europe.
I will be in Stockholm the weekend 4-5th July (hopefully seeing Karin & Ove, Anna & Magnus), leaving on the Monday afternoon from Skavsta to Liverpool (Lars and Mia - can do lunch in Nyköping perhaps if you are around and fancy an outing - or maybe we can come down to Linköping). I will then be in England until Saturday 11th mid-day, leaving for Copenhagen. Helsingborg should be Saturday afternoon (Hi to Brita, Agneta, Marie & Emily I hope) and then the over-night coach to Stockholm, as there were no suitable flights or trains. Sunday the 12th I am flying back to Australia, landing Monday evening.
So, if you are around and like to meet up - please let me know where and when.

Not the recession

We have a building site next door, and in the beginning it was a bit irritating to hear the starting of hammering early in the morning on Saturdays and on WorkFromHome days. However, recently it has been quiet and as I was WFH all day I noticed that there was really no work going on. They recently announced the sale of the two penthouses for AUD 13M (79M SEK & 6.4M GBP), so I did not think they had run out of money.
Fortunately, senile me, forgot to press "2" in the lift, so got chatting to the guy who lives on "15". He told me the builder had been fired and the council had told the developer he was not allowed to let the purchaser of the two pent-houses knock them into one.
I have a feeling it will be quiet for a long time (which is good for us) as the developer is struggling to hire a new builder because they do not want to take on a half-finished job (which is bad for the developer). Anyway - I will have several more long sleeps on Saturdays coming up.