SOW

Today began with a trip with Django to see Mum, who was as confused as ever, but a little better physically due to medication prescribed for her chest infection. Her decline since the summer is remarkable. Back then she was using her tablet to access email and Messenger, and today she didn't know what her tablet was. Although it was a fine day, we walked back pretty much directly, because I'd got a lot of work to do.

I'm currently tendering for some commercial research into the feasibility of re-engineering a company's models so that they use open-source modelling software and, hopefully, our solver software. The main job would cost them a lot, even if we were to carry it out, but it would save them very much more per year. Even for the research stage, I've got to complete a detailed tendering document with things I've never had to provide before like Gantt charts, milestones, deliverables and a RAID (Risks and Issues, Assumptions and Dependencies) assessment. My attitude is one of, "It's research, we don't know exactly how it'll go, so just trust us and let us get on with the work" - particularly as I can't see who else they'd get at anything like our rates! However, although it was irritating at first to have to produce the document, I've gradually eased into the way of thinking, to the extent that I'm starting to believe in what I'm writing!