Productivity

I saw somewhere that the French have the highest productivity in Western Europe at the moment, which goes against the shoulder shrugging stereotypes. Perhaps it is because they haven't outsourced all their manufacturing to India and China, rather than the UK model of keeping all the management and getting rid of anyone who actually produces anything!

If the stats are true, then someone in France must be working very hard, 'cause we haven't done much for the past few weeks, as we have had an attack of visitors, so we were forced to down tools for a while.

One visitor, Phil, did help me start putting an extractor fan in the bathroom, and Tina's Mum did help out with planting the seeds for our vegetable patch, but otherwise that was it for a fortnight.

The fan is now in and working, but it took a full day to install it and wire up, which is a bit scary for when it comes to doing estimates for other people. I have seen figures that you should allow up to one day to install a new socket, but I had thought that that was allowing for cups of tea, reading the Sun and testing the new socket by plugging in a tele and watching the racing ( not me of course, I am a professional).

Motivation has never been my strong point, at the Banque de Cheval Noir where I used to work, they relied on threats of reprisals as a motivational tool.





However this week the weather has been good , so we have been hard at it in the garden ( ooh er ! ) . I have been out on Hank Hill, the mower, Tina has been stripping loads of brambles out of the hedge and I have been stripping the ivy of the dutch barn. The hedge is so bare now that you can see for miles and we've got a huge bonfire ready to go.




It's supposed to turn cold next week, so it'll be back to some proper building work.