Working at home today. It's cold. My hands are cold. It's a real November day. Drizzle. Wind. Cold.

The excess rain in the last week has kept quite a few people on their uppers. It has been reported that Ireland suffers from an unusual level of weather (or some such scientific thingy) every five years. Which means that every term of government will have to respond to some natural disaster or other.

Here, it's mostly flooding. In the eighties the then Taoseach, Garret The Good, famously said that if people live by a river then once in a while they can expect to get wet. The sort of truth people don't want to hear when there's three feet of water in their sitting room.

The reaction to the latest flooding was various promises for aid, radio shows about the planning processes that ignore the location of flood plains and (locally) talk about the six million or so Euro that would be needed to sort out the local town's problem. There's a contemporary myth about a car manufacturer who found out about a defect in the design of one of their cars which under certain circumstances would cause the car to explode. They did nothing, figuring that the cost of recalling the cars and replacing the defective parts far exceeded any possible cost they might incur by being sued.

So I wondered if there was any political will to spend money on drainage, flood control, river dredging or any other preventative measures when it might be more effective to throw money at the disaster; if only in terms of votes garnered. People might better remember a being helped out in a crisis than remember how bad things used to be and sure don't we have this government to thank for no flooding in the recent past.

So either you spend a hundred million once every five years sorting out the mess, being seen as an active public servant or you spend money and time sorting out the root causes for an ungrateful public who never associate those drainage works with either you or the fact that they've been dry ever since.

Which is the better investment, from a political point of view?

I got news from base camp that they're re-locating our team to another part of the building. I'm only there three days a week, so it shouldn't impact me too much, but the others area bit miffed at the second class citizen feel to how we're treated.

In truth we are a bit of an oddity. We don't fit in the main stream of the company's business, which is hardware and managed services, and we are a hang over from the development team that used to happily populate the entire building all by itself.

So they don't know what to do with us, but we're bringing in money and contributing to the bottom line, so they keep us around. We're due to be transferred to another part of the parent company in the new year, which won't involve a physical re-location, but our paymasters will be different.

Some of us (not me) would be happy if they got laid off. I really have no idea how likely this is. I think I'm too long term and it would be expensive to get rid of me, so if there are people to go, it'd be others.

I missed the visit of the occupational therapist who was checking out our sitting positions and monitor placement and so on. One of our team who is short of stature has been asking for four years for something to put her feet on and this time it looks like she might actually get it!

The wheels of HR grind slowly.

I'm taking a couple of days off and heading to Galway for the week end. I'm taking the children with me and Sally is going to a party and then seeing where life takes her from there. Drinking, I imagine. I am going to do some christmas shopping. I am going to be prepared this christmas. I hope. I have an idea for Sally's present (unheard of), I am determined not to forget anyone. I may even send christmas cards.

This will be Paddy's first real christmas and I'd like to make it a good one.