The Big Move!

As I have been adrift with news since the middle of last year I thought when the chance comes up, I would catch up the bloggy news I missed.. one story at a time!  Today's turn is work!

Life at STS has been a little bit crazy the past few months. We took on some very complex jobs and as is usual for manufacturing new units the development is undertaken as part of the manufacture.. headaches, teething troubles, they are like humans really!  
Add to this the usual issues you have when you need 20 people to all be well and here every day but things happen to make that not happen..and you would find us finishing last year quite pressurised!

But bright and breezy with the new impetus a brand new facility brings and we are..as the kids would say..'well excited'!  It was only today that I realised just how fantastic it will be when the guys have all that space to work in. The welders are moving in early February and the assembly about a month later. The poor builders will be chased out as soon as the mezzanine wit the canteen and changing rooms are done,and they start work making us a new office for the Autumn.. I can't wait!

Not sure if you can work this out.. but this is the inside of our assembly workshop today, it's about 20 x 40 feet

..and this is where they will move soon..about 50 x 80 feet

 This brake press folding machine arrived last week and the plasma cutter tomorrow. They will make lots of processes so much faster and we should soon be able to have stock of items and less waiting lists.. which for me in sales is my dream!














Our old TomCat Joey, 16 this year is always around somewhere, hiding under the table in the office or enjoying titbits from the workshop guys when they snack!

Close up of the brake press.. tool porn for the boys.

Keeping up!

Well I have surprised myself, three posts this week I think.. it's all down to my new laptop. It's so good to be able to link to my work too, tidy up those lose ends in the quiet of the evening. 

I finally got the Christmas stuff away on Tuesday!



I am working up to having ten days away with Zac and Jordan, our baker girl. It's hard to spend quality time together with a busy manufacturing business happening in our back yard so away we go.. sun, sea, snorkeling and plenty of chat and relax time..not before time for poor Col who is suffering with a lost voice!



I have been trying to get sorted in my office and we also had a birthday this week.. our baby Annabelle is two years old. 




She is gorgeous little thing, the proper baby of the family and loved by all!  Jordan made her a bourbon and custard cream biscuit tower which was lovely, a good chance to try out some new ideas.




Lyla has caught Lilly's chicken pox but luckily they haven't been too poorly.. not like when I had them aged 9 and mum lost count trying to count the number on my feet!

.. or when Colin caught them just a month before I had Zac and ended up in Treliske Hospital as the docs thought he had got Malaria from his trip to Singapore where he had to go diving!






I had a change this weekend so I chose Nicoise Salad this time at Pizza Express. It was really very nice.. but I am guessing the dough balls to start will not have helped with calories. I really need to get more exercise, I eat better but do so little exercise (walk to the office and back again.. good job we have stairs in the house!) that it's quite hard to budge anything below the 10-10 I seem to have settled at in my hormone riddled 50s!

my boys

 

Busy days..

..the last 40 weeks or more things have been going on in our fields! 
Large pieces of machinery moving and shaping, then concrete being laid and a building being erected.  Two new factories have taken shape, the surrounding fields have become landscaped banks and tarmac and cleared areas for car parking.. it's been a big project and this week the tooling is arriving and soon we will be moving in.

Sadly us office crew will have to wait til the autumn for our new site but hopefully we can bathe in the enjoyment of new space across the yard until then!

Orders! The reason we are building.. and the way we are paying for it!

Hello, good evening and welcome!

So this is it.. the rebirth of my blog habit.. perhaps? maybe? quite likely!
My dear blog friend Karen has been encouraging me the last week or so.. (for encourage read nag) but for the best of reasons! New year, new intentions.. and for me.. a new computer! Yay!

I think I lost some of my blog momentum a year or more ago when we changed our computer station in our kitchen, and then we changed the kitchen too, for goodness sake! We got a new swish house laptop but we didn't like it, all Windows 8 and swiping and losing pages left right and centre. Add to this that I no longer kept my pictures on the computer and took most of them on my phone and it was always easier to Facebook them instead of trying to Blog.. yes, Blogger is for sure not compatible with mobile upload.. well not for me.. maybe that's just a bad workman always blaming her tools!

so.. a new computer.. a new laptop for my work.. to free me up and access my 'stuff' when not in the office. Our clever pals at IT West have set me up so I can 'Teamview' my work station and do all the jobs, just not from there...Perfect for the control freak that I am who wants to still have days away but keep on top of things.. I may even be able to go away with Colin more .. watch this space..x


I have a good feeling about this..there is Bluetooth for pictures.. and ..and.. and..let me try it..since I last wrote properly here are a couple of pictures of our life and times..

August 2014.. Colin's Dad (Pops) turned 80 years old and we had a 'Travel' theme fancy dress, Uncle Bill and Deborah came from the USA and the sun shone.. boy we were busy!

The week after we went with the STS crew and Ross and Jordan to the MotoGP in Silverstone.  Zac had to leave before this, we dropped him at Heathrow and took the Pod to Terminal 5.

A really great guy at the Drivers Centre took us round the F1 centre and we go to stand on the F1 podium, all of it would have been impossible but for the fact we were at the motorbike racing and not the Formula 1.

STS do the F1 Podium!

In September Kate passed her driving test and three weeks later took herself off to live near Oxford with her boyfriend. She found it very hard to start with, and even now when she leaves, but she has got a job and plans for a future up there for a good few years yet!  We are proud of her, she is so young some days but brave and determined despite the difficult days.. like learning that your house doesn't clean itself..;-)

We managed amongst the busy-ness to get a few trips out on the boat, some great fishing (though the spoils are still in the freezer)

And we had a building ..or two.. built in the field..

Oh yes and we took this Selfie in Lanzarote!

and we stayed in a Oxford Prison hotel!