Just a warning... as you realise, I tend to use this blog as a sort of diary of what happens, even though it should really be about stitching.

One thing is that today I did show Suzette and Madame LA the WIP that is David's present, I think they were envious and wanted it on their walls. It was my last day at that place, also Madame LA's last day, I've never walked out of a place with so little to carry. We went to lunch at the Thai place, downstairs and ordered a la carte - I had some scallop ravioli, then green curry with sticky rice.

I am pleased to get out of there with my health and my life to some extent intact, and I'm pleased to have four days now to get organised. Tomorrow I will rest and try to buy a suitcase, Friday (also theoretically a holiday for me, I hope I run into Sylvain in the office) I must go to our own office and print out documents frantically, also pick up my new corporate Amex card (that came in the nick of time!). I may even buy a handbag!

One thing that has happened is that I seem to have a new lawyer in the US, the old one vanished somehow overnight, I hope that I don't get messages telling me not to travel because of this. I'm officially not reading email until Monday, by which time I will be there. I talked to Leo last night, he called me while I was on the train, and he will do what is necessary so that everything goes smoothly. I've ordered a taxi to take me from Larnaca to Nicosia, and now I need to order a taxi to take me to the airport here. Goodness the packing I have to do, and the housework beforehand. There will be little stitching done.

I'm looking forward to being on the plane with a glass of something cold, and my stitching and a level 7 Sudoku book! Looking at the seating plan, I am the only one who so far has an assigned seat in the front cabin on Saturday. And as this is a long weekend, and school holidays, I think there will be more people travelling tomorrow than on Saturday for once.

Should I buy a really nice Mr Kipling grey roller computer bag? mmmm....

I am now caught in the middle of lawyers and HR again.... our dear little lawyer in Cyprus informed HR yesterday that there was a bond of 1000 euros to pay for my work permit (in case I do something bad and have to be deported!), and my response is, oh, why didn't someone tell me about that before? To which HR says, well, the lawyer told me it was a new requirement, just voted. Nonsense, I said, you may wish to ask her what she did with the bond the company posted for me last year, plus the ones for all the other people who have worked there - HR is new and hasn't had experience of this lawyer before, but goes off in shock to find this out. Have not heard back.

The really hilarious thing is that the lawyer said, all Ally needs to do is to go to any Cypriot bank in Paris and pay this! Lovely, in theory, but in fact there ARE no Cypriot banks in Paris. Like there are about five Cypriot banks, to start with, they have branches in Cyprus and usually in Greece, maybe in Australia or the UK, or even Russia, but not in Paris. This is typical of this lawyer, she is the one who told me to go to the Cypriot Embassy in Paris between last Christmas and New Year and get a visa for Cyprus - this embassy is not open between Christmas and New Year, except for emergencies, and does not issue visas to New Zealanders, in any case, as they do not require them. I also told her that in any case I had plans for that week that did not include being in Paris to visit embassies, and her response was something like, well, as you live in Paris and you are not married, I didn't think you would have anything else to do at Christmas! After what I said about that, Leo wouldn't let me talk to her again...

Still have heaps to do before I go, but I did manage to get to the Post Office this morning to pick up a registered letter that turned out to be some linen from Sew and Sew in the UK, enough Antique Ivory for a sampler, and some Flax that I need for a few smaller things. I must get the stitching bag packed.

It's so long since I wrote anything, but last week was very stressful... this week at least should be short (public holiday Thursday, RTT on Friday, unless Sylvain is still in his "rat week for Ally" mood). But it hasn't started well, I felt so ill on the metro this morning that I got off and took a taxi the rest of the way. I feel somewhat better now, it was just some stupid heartburn or something, probably because I hadn't eaten either dinner or breakfast.

We had a rather tedious project meeting this morning, at least it was followed by Thai lunch. During which Suzette revealed that there will be Halloween celebrations in the office on Wednesday, apparently one of them told her she had to wear orange and black. No-one had told me that, and there is no chance of my doing so. Of course there are people here who don't need costumes in order to look gruesome - miaow!

It is also raining to such an extent that we may have to call boats to go home, although this has given me the opportunity to wear my new aubergine-coloured rain cape:

I may not get to wear it again this winter, except for maybe at Christmas. Which I have not decided about yet, I may well spend this in Cyprus. I went to the doctor last week and persuaded him to give me a prescription for three months medication, on condition that I came to see him after three months, which is at the end of January. One thing is sure, I do not need to buy a new woollen coat at present.

I went to the hairdresser on Saturday, then wandered down to Montparnasse for a Hippo lunch, and then wandered through Galeries Lafayette there, and yes, yes, yes, they had Eucerin, which is the sensitive skin range I use for my face at 30% off. So I bought everything. Apart from that, did nothing at the weekend, apart from washing, sorting out clothes, and watching two movies "Friends With Money" and "The Gathering Storm". FWM was TERRIBLE, I couldn't stand anyone in it, but the other one, which was about Winston Churchill in the leadup to WW2, was extremely good, I will watch that one again and again. I still have "Miss Potter" to watch - of course WH Smith have been having 3 for 2 deals again.

The really good thing that happened is that our new mega-company gives an employee savings plan, where they give us some money each year, depending upon the profits, and we can add to it, tax-free - I got a letter on Friday to say I qualified for 1600 euros this year! I am not complaining, because I am a bit behind in my savings target this year. Although I have done not badly financially, because I still have no debts and I am fairly confident I will not again be in such a situation as I was after I got divorced. This is kind of the first really positive thing about the mega-company, in fact.

My main problem now is how to survive the next two days, without going berserk, Gil and Sharifa are each in their separate ways driving me mad. I don't think Sharifa has listened to anything I have said, still less read anything I've recommended. In meetings she tends to flap her hands and say 'oh they were confusing me', which is really helpful, of course. Gil then barks, which makes her flap more. And flapping is not recommended in this job, it will get her nowhere with Gil or the client, or anyone else for that matter.

Gil also wants me to sit down with her and "teach" her this new development thing, that I have very little experience with myself, and in fact have been learning out of the book as I go along. She seems to be very much a person who needs to be shown things, instead of finding them out for herself, which is a huge liability in this job actually.

So I have to survive here until the end of Wednesday, then it is running around arranging, packing etc, and then flying on Saturday afternoon....

In lieu of any real photos, here are the subjects for the Susan O'Connor classes I just took...

My thread-painted pear will not look like this, as Susan brought real pears to the class, and we each chose one to draw and stitch.

As you know, this is the title of a magazine from Australia, that has "broderie traditionelle" mostly - I don't do a lot of this, but I couldn't miss the opportunity to take two days off work for workshops with Susan O'Connor, who designs the most beautiful things for them. The classes were Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and I wouldn't have missed a minute.

Thursday we did monogramming, whitework with a monogram in raised stem stitch, beautiful. Friday was thread painting, and Susan went out and bought pears for us to draw and stitch, so everyone has their own, instead of just copying hers. Today was stumpwork, which I have never tried before, but it is just lovely. I think I have now overcome my satin stitch phobia, it was quite good working padded satin stitch in one thread of stranded cotton. So I have three things to finish now, of course! I did also succumb to a kit for madeira embroidery, which I have always wanted to try.

Of course I am tired after three days of classes, especially as there were transport strikes on Thursday and Friday - in fact, I couldn't have gone to work those days anyway. There will be more in November, but thankfully I will be in Cyprus by then. I heard during the week that I can definitely go as planned. So now I have to think of packing and so on...

The best thing about the three days was that I met some lovely ladies, and we will keep in touch as well, everyone was very keen to do this. Today's class was the biggest, and we had a woman who has published two magazines and a book on ribbon embroidery and two who teach, also two from the Netherlands! Some people had come from Brittany, Normandy and Aix-en-Provence as well. And so many nationalities, at my table today there was a Canadian married to an Englishman, a Frenchwoman married to a Vietnamese and a French Vietnamese woman married to a German. The latter was nearly a beginner, who recently started stitching because she loves her garden and nature. The lady whose husband is Vietnamese - they met while they were both doing doctorates at the Sorbonne - told me she did many types of embroidery and said one of her favourites was hedebo, did I know it? Well, of course I had brought my hedebo runner for show and tell!

Now I am off to bed, because I really am dog-tired....... tomorrow I'm not getting up before 10!

This week I am obviously having my mid-week crisis on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, given that I only have three days of work this week. I felt depressed in the train, and it wasn't improved by having to wait twenty minutes for a bus and share it with a lot of screaming kids.

Then I get here, and Sharifa is having an attack of nerves about her presentation. I disobeyed Gil's edict that I was not to attend, and a good thing I did.... there were not a lot of people there, but goodness, one of them was rather disruptive, such an aggressive manner and really not very bright, in my opinion. She has another presentation on Friday morning, on a much more complex topic, and I am sure she does not understand it properly. Also am sure that Gil does not understand it either. But I shan't be here, I shall be at a Susan O' Connor class, all I can do is prepare some notes.

At least I hope I shall be, we have the great transport strike on Thursday, allegedly only for one day, although apparently the unions have deposited notice of an indefinite strike with the government. I did look at staying in a hotel over at Levallois, where the class is - but of course, they are all booked out because of the World Cup. The nearest ones are 2.5 kilometers away, at a minimum for 500 euros for 2 nights. As I live 4.5 kilometers away, I will just set out early on Thursday, and hope that I can catch something somewhere, or else walk. It wouldn't even help to be able to ride a bike, as the newspaper said all 14,000 Velib' bikes would be taken from 6am onwards! And forget taxis, it will be the same for them, and in any case, the traffic will be at a standstill, so it would be very expensive.

I'm just downloading and reading the latest Gift of Stitching, I forgot all about it until now! There is a really nice piece from Atelier des Fees Brodeuses, whom I like very much anyway, plus the next piece of the mystery sampler - I haven't worked out yet if I like that. I think I do, but they say it gets a lot easier after this part, which means it might get boring also. If I did do it, I certainly would not be buying the full kit, it is 345 AUD!

I have quite a bit of stuff in a pile to go to Cyprus with me, supposing I do get there, I have heard nothing this week with how lawyers etc are going, although everyone assures me they are doing a lot of work on my behalf. They have a website where supposedly you can see what is happening, but all it ever says is "In Progress", very helpful. But I am assuming I am going, and preparing accordingly, which will be two suitcases, plus a shoulder bag full of laptop etc.

Should get back to work, I am testing things and generating log files for the technical people to look at - of course none of them are here this week, so I just send them out into cyberspace and hope they can look at them. Of course, I have a terrific headache, as often in the afternoons, since we have this loud-voiced young man who seems particularly vocal after lunch.

The French are sad again........... I knew they would be, I knew they were not going to win this one. It is a great contrast from last Monday, when they were all talking about when they would win the World Cup. Yesterday, however, there were a great many hungover but happy-looking English people in the street. I went out to Le Bon Marche, as it was open yesterday, as a special exception, and encountered a lot of them on the way.

Le Bon Marche had 20% off Noro yarns, so I bought two balls of Silk Garden for mittens and a ball of Ganpi Abaka tape for a scarf. Also bought a travel iron, foldable, and with steam, as I don't always get to stay in hotels with an iron in the room, and I like to have one when I want it, instead of having to ring for one. Also I know this one is clean and will not wreck my clothes or my stitching.

On Saturday I did go out to La Defense to buy my ping-pong ball, except I had to buy six of them, you can't just buy one. After that I had to go and buy myself some Aerosoles suede ballet shoes in racing green, with patent leather toes. Yum. And I walked past the epilation place exactly when they were not busy and had my eyebrows done.

But I slept a lot, I was really tired on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, so I haven't done a lot of anything, apart from lying on my bed reading "Vogue", which is not very productive. At least this week should not be too bad, I am only at work three days, then three days of Susan O'Connor classes.

Sharifa the new trainee is back from her holiday in Mahgreb (I don't know exactly where she is from, it's somewhere in North Africa), and Gil - who has gone off to the USA for a week - has left instructions that she is to do two workshops with the clients this week, to present the system configuration to them. Of course normally I would do this, but, as I am leaving this project, I have been asked only to do the preparation and Sharifa will do the presentation. I will not even be in the room. I actually asked if I could be, as I don't think this is really fair on her, but got told to keep well away from it.

Today I have tracked down my missing SIM card.... it turns out it went to the office, was signed for by someone other than me, whom no-one seems to know who it was, as it was a very common name, not quite Marie, but nearly. So my new best friend Manuel at the supplier has cancelled it, got a new one and is sending it chez moi by registered post.

Also on the bright side I have been quite useful to the technical gentlemen and have downloaded nearly 50 fixes for them - they had a list of nearly 200 that they had to download before they could apply them, so I spoke up and said could I help with this. It is the sort of thing that is dead boring, but has to be done. I am really glad I am not a technical architect, because I would die if I had to do that all the time. On the other hand I have been testing functionality for them, to see if what they are doing affects the application, and they've asked me how I can bear to perform the same test fifty times when I know it will fail.

I had a slight hissy fit this morning when I finally got an email from the so-called lawyer who is handling my Cyprus issues. He said I needed a work permit and he was busy finding out the documents that I needed to submit! Of course I panicked, as this is stating the obvious, we all know I need a work permit, how come it takes him a week to find this out. But Mr Resources Director has just been reassuring me that they are doing something and I should be able to get there by November 5th. Bonfire Day, how appropriate! I should probably have a bonfire with fish and chicken for the street kittens, I expect they will be happy to see me back, given the amount of money I invested at Nando's on their behalf.

Plans for the weekend - onwards with David's present, and, if I am really good, start the With All My Heart biscornu. The linen for this is really nice, a limited R&R pink. I can't believe how much I have liked the latest two pieces of R&R I have got, when the first one I had, last year, was so horrid that I have never used it, all mottled, as though it had just had a cup of coffee, or even something not very nice, thrown at it.

I also have to go out to La Defense, as I need to buy a ping-pong ball, for the Susan O'Connor classes next week. I have this awful feeling that we are going to draw it, with shading, in the silk shading class. That should be fun, at least everyone should get a good laugh from my drawing. Anyway I will go out there tomorrow, and see if I can succeed in buying a single ping-pong ball, there are a couple of sports stores somewhere there, and, according to Madame LA, they should have these, if only I can get through the displays of enormous shoes. I have to say I think trainers are the most repulsive shoes ever, especially if they are thick white ones worn with blue jeans. I may well have to go through the shoe stores as an antidote to the sports stores.

So far this week, two more "technical experts" have turned up, and are deep in the reconstruction of our databases.... the latest timetable shows that testing cannot start again until the week before I am supposed to leave this project.


Therefore I still haven't got a lot to do, apart from some testing which is more or less unit testing, as I can't do anything in a business process sequence, because of the databases. I've also been trying to chase up my work permit and my SIM card. Actually I am nearly on the point of going out and buying my own - SIM card, I mean, I don't think I can buy a Cyprus work permit, although nothing could surprise me in this regard. No-one will answer my mails on either subject, and the SIM card is being dealt with by a help desk in India!

In fact, yesterday I went home early afternoon, pleading a headache, and slept for three hours, which I think did me some good. I'd like to do that every day, but fat chance. I told the rabbit this morning thatI felt completely useless at present, and he comes up with the bright idea that I do knowledge transfer or training for our clients. This is something we have tried before - not just me, but everyone - and it normally ends up being a six hour monologue from one particular person, and not much is learned by anyone.

In lieu of posting any actual stitching, here are two recent SBQs:

What for you means to achieve mastery as a stitcher?

Well, sometimes I think I never will, that's for sure! Sometimes I think I have achieved a certain level, as normally everything I do from a chart or a book comes out correctly, and that includes some fairly complicated stuff. But maybe a true master stitcher is the old lady I met in Lefkara, who only does tray centres, no two of which is ever the same - she puts the traditional stitches together in her own way, after a lifetime of stitching to order for others.



What are your favorite online stitching supply sources?

I use quite a few, depending upon where I am, what I want and when I want it - for example, Wyndham will not ship to Cyprus and are fairly slow to anywhere, although they have a terrific range. Sew and Sew in the UK are extremely quick, so are Elegant Stitch, and Stitching Bits N Bobs can be very quick, also they are very reasonable and have terrific sales. I also get quite a bit of stuff from Traditional Stitches in Canada, including the Stash Enhancement package every month. And there are French stores too, such as Broderieshop.... When looking for something in particular - if I can't find it at my LNS, Des Fils Et Une Aiguille in the rue Chabanais - I tend to check the French stores or Sew and So first, as that means I will get it more quickly.

As for the weekend, I slept and worked on David's present.... only a little shopping, at Monoprix to buy some socks, stockings and an extra set of skin-care products for my three months away. I'll have to buy another full set as well before I leave, I use a French brand for very sensitive skin, it comes from the parapharmacie and I am sure that it is either unobtainable in Nicosia or very expensive. I did find out last time that Avene sun block costs about £20 there! Even toothpaste is expensive, about £6 for Elgydium, as opposed to 18€ for six tubes here. And don't even get me started on John Frieda Blondes hair stuff, it is totally unobtainable in Nicosia.

Of course I have plenty of time to plan - rather surreptitiously - what I need to take with me, as of course we still have database problems. Kent solved quite a lot last week, but when we started testing again, I found more, and it seems they are due to mismatching versions of things.

I am also fighting the battle of the cellphone, you will recall I said that all of ours just stopped a few weeks ago, because our new bosses didn't pay the bill! Well, after it became apparent that we were not going to get a replacement contract in a hurry, I ordered a new SIM card, and that was three weeks ago. No SIM card has turned up, and I can't even contact anyone to find out what has happened to it. The buyer, who is in India, gives me autoreplies saying to contact a help desk, who do not answer either phone calls or emails. I have a stack of autoreplies from them as well. I really don't know what will happen, and I'm starting to wonder if it is a plot to get us all to buy our own phones. Actually some people do have personal ones, but won't give the number to the company. I'm not sure if I would go that far.... but it is getting very inconvenient, I don't want to travel without a phone.

I've actually just tried to cancel the order, my boss told me to do that and place a new one marked URGENT, but I can't even do that.... so I've sent him a mail asking if he can cancel it. It's all very frustrating, although at least I have time to do this sort of thing at present.

I am also browned off because I haven't heard anything more about Cyprus yet, although I have asked everyone what is going on. And the last thing I am cross about is the transport strike planned for next Thursday, when it is the first Susan O'Connor class - it means I may not even be able to get there, although if I am feeling well, I will try to walk the four kilometers. It will apparently be a complete strike, although that is very rare here - normally something is running, and I would love it to be the 92 bus. If it does go ahead, that means I wouldn't have been able to come to work anyway - it is at least 20 kilometers, and the uncertainty of getting back would make things very risky - so it wasn't really much use Sylvain yelling at me for taking that day off, because probably everyone will!

I guess that is enough for the daily moan....

I am hoping that there will be no problems with the work permit for Cyprus, and that I can finish testing before I go - the first is in the hands of the lawyers, and I have provided them and HR with references to the statutes of Cyprus regarding the employment of 3rd party nationals who are European residents! Before this finishes, I probably will be able to get a job as a Cyprus immigration lawyer myself.

Regarding the database, Kent is still sitting here three days later, saying "muppets, muppets...", but he has fixed a few things, and has managed to work out a lot of what is wrong. Although we still don't have a working database here, and I am testing in the Far East, mornings only, as it's the only time the connection is fast enough.

And we are all going to club together and buy Sylvain an anger management course for Christmas, he has really surpassed himself this week, he has yelled at everyone, including me. He did this over the phone yesterday, which was terrible, and I think he is doing this at Madame LA now, as she is yelling into her phone. I just burst into tears, fortunately all the clients were out at lunch. That's the trouble with all this daily travel and the whole stress thing here, we are all at the end of our tether, and there's only so much you can do to keep everything together.

At least the Rabbit did come good today - yesterday he was with Sylvain while he was yelling at me, and this morning he took me out for coffee and asked me to make allowances for Sylvain's stress levels that are causing him to behave inappropriately and say things he doesn't mean. I have no idea whether he is sincere, but at least he is making some effort for the sake of the project to keep things going.

I have not been stitching, what with all of this, but I have been making lists of stuff to take to Nicosia, and I have also ordered this:

It's from Blue Ribbon Designs, "With All Your Heart", a kit that costs $28 USD, with all proceeeds going to a breast cancer foundation. After my recent little scare, I'm only too glad to support this cause, plus of course I adore the kit! It comes from Elegant Stitch.

On the subject of the Rugby World Cup, it is almost impossible to find a newspaper this week without the All Blacks on the front page. The worst headline was "Y'haka Les Battre" on top of a picture of them doing the haka. It means, "We only need to beat them", and "Y'haka" is substituted for the French "Il y a qu'a", for which "ya-ka" is the colloquial pronounciation.

Also haka lessons are the in thing, they have them at the Musee Branly, which is the ethnological museum here, and they quite often feature in the newspapers as well. When they had the multicultural street parade in St Denis for the opening of the World Cup, all the different groups participating did a haka, and it is slightly surreal seeing this being done by ladies in Breton bonnets.

No more news about anything, I spoke to Mr Resources Director last night, and he needs to speak to Leo and Sylvain to work out about Cyprus. I hope they decide quickly, here is really awful, and the Hilton Nicosia has a terrifically nice indoor swimming pool.

The good news is that Kent has turned up, our technical expert, and he has already managed to sort out one thing for me. He is wandering around, murmuring "muppets, muppets..........", which I think is the politest description he can find for the people who did terrible things to our database.

Apart from that, I am not feeling too brilliant, I haven't been sleeping the past two nights, with all these database problems. Although I have made progress on David's present, I'll post a picture later on in the week. I'm actually thinking of going home at 5pm, given the way I feel.