If you are following this Blog you will know that Christine and I are in the Bahamas having a break following my retirement from Project Management, giving me time to reflex on the past few months. It is also worth noting at this point that up to two years ago Christine had never used a computer and up to last September when we started a major renovation and extension to our cottage had never managed a project of any sort. She may of course say that running our house, finances and social life for ten years while I’ve been working away was in fact a project but it would spoil the story.


When I say ‘we’ started the project I mean Christine and the builders. Now Christine is all about style, fine clothes, lovely gardens and cosy rooms; about creating an environment designers would be proud of. But one morning in September, in comes the digging machine, the dump truck, men and mobile toilet. She is now sitting in the middle of a building site. I, of course, am very busy working away staying in a very nice hotel.
Footings are being dug, skips are lined up in the street, concrete lorries are pouring concrete and I’m still in my nice hotel. Walls are being knocked down, windows changed and doors replaced. I have now moved to a different very nice hotel. Christine is dealing with all these people daily. I realised quickly that if I didn't answer my phone she would deal with the issues herself as they cropped up.


I only get home on a weekend and providing I don’t get home before 6.45pm on a Friday then the men have gone, Christine has cleaned up as much as possible and the tea is cooking. I look at what’s been done and ask a few question which if you’ve had a bad day and are feeling a little stressed may sound a little critical and suddenly Christine has lost it. She is explaining something about not being a project manager and if I don’t like what’s happening I should get home more often. "Love to dear" I say "but it’s work, very busy". I hand her a glass of wine and say we should look at things tomorrow.


I get the Black Book (keep up, if you don’t know the Black Book see earlier sessions) and make a list of things for Christine to discuss with the builders next week. In a blur, the Book is in the footings and it looks as if I could be in there with it. I pour more wine.


But of course Christine is coping very well answering all questions and making decisions and the work progresses well until the electricians and plumbers arrive with another set of questions, this is the final straw. I get a message on my mobile to say the project manager is off to the Bahamas for a month which she did just two days later. I suddenly had to check out of my very nice hotel and go home.


Christine is home again, the work continues and I retire from work. The day after the buider has finished we lock up the cottage and both fly off to the Bahamas. The project is now suspended or is it….


And this is where I get to the point of this story. I check my e-mails regularly and find one from the kitchen company with designs for a new kitchen complete with a quote for approval. What! When did that happen. Another one telling me when the cane furniture is arriving! What cane furniture? One telling me the hand made tiles are ready, the storage units are ready even the garden stone is ready for collection. What’s happened?



I sit down with Christine and establish that she can now down load catalogues, e-mail suppliers, transfer money from one account to another and pay bills via the internet all while sitting at the computer looking out at the ocean. Frightening how easy spending money really is but if she can organize all this while being in one place maybe she should have had my job for the last ten years, she could have made it look easy.