Hi folks. It's been a few days since my last blog so a bit to catch up on. :-)
In fact it was last Tuesday and that was BS, as in before snow! Well, for Wednesday 16th December I had nothing in my diary so it would be a day when I would be either at home or in the office. The office being only a 5 minute walk from home meant that I could take a stroll there when ever it suited me. I'm lucky in that I can work from home or the office.
Now this Wednesday was to a day of rest so it was to be a day at home combined with a walk at some time. Just to let you all know that my current plan, agreed and organised with T, is that I need to put on weight. And I agree with the plan. having seen the pictures of me at my Katie's wedding I have lost way too much weight. I look gaunt and well, to put it simply, not me!
But I need to keep eating a healthy diet as part of my campaign to stay around for many years to come. So it's lunch at the local village centre where I can get a good hot meal at lunchtime. Great food, what we call Nan's food, with lovely veg and if I'm feeling hungry a great pudding and custard :-).
But just before lunch i get a call from Mike. Mike is one of the directors in our business and lives way up near the Norfolk Broads with his wife and four girls. Mike was traveling down to our Bristol office but wanted to come via my office to drop off the meeting table and a few other things we used a short while ago at a trade exhibition. he was going to leave between 12.30 and 1pm so should be with me by 4 ish. We agreed that he would call me when he was about 15 minutes away to make sure I was at the office when he arrived.
So off I went for a lazy lunch of chicken casserole, mash potatoes, green beans, carrots and cauliflower followed by apple crumble and custard. Yum, um, it was great and they do a wonderful pot of tea there too :-)
Finishing lunch i thought "Now what?" and decided to go over to a friends house for another cup of tea but after a walk round the village. There is a great walk that I do that is just a simple walk in a circuit that takes me about 30 minutes when i stroll or about twenty minutes if I put a bit of speed into my actions. I love the walk as I seem to see new things every time.
It was a chilly afternoon and I needed the tea at Jen's house. And a good cup of tea it was. Then Mike rang. I looked at the clock as I answered my phone thinking "he's made good time, should be perfect with him getting to the office about 3.45pm latest.
But that was not to happen "I'm stuck on the M25" he says "looks like I wont be with you until at least 4.30 at the earliest. "Don't worry" I say "Just call me when you get clear and know a better guess on timing"
So I was able to stay a little bit longer to put the world to rights, gossip about people and generally have an afternoon of rest and relaxation.
In the end I get to the office at just after 4.30 and Mike arrives at just after 5. With a full car park we have to move my car so that he can get closer to the office door and the unloading starts. Still under orders I take the light things up and Mike does his "He Man" impersonation and carries the heavy stuff up single handed. These are the times when I do feel guilty, when will I be able to struggle carrying something that IKEA would say that needs two people to carry? Soon, I hope...
All the stuff deposited in the office Mike continued on his way to Bristol and I went home to food, a fire and another rest on the sofa. I had been a good boy and rested on my enforced day of rest. Roll on 2010 when I can get back to being full time at work. But then again the long tea breaks and walks are fun...
And so we came to Thursday and I'm off down to Bristol myself for the works Xmas lunch. I get to the office about two hours early so that we can do a bit of a team meeting to work out the final design strategy for the Ebbw Vale project. Then it's off to lunch. Now because we all work all over the place and only a core of people work from the actual offices we very seldom are able to get everyone together so we have a few missing people. Sad but then again, 150+ miles for a lunch is a long way to come for many of them. But hey, I travel 100 miles and Mike travels a good deal more but then it is our business so it is slightly more important that we get there!
The food was good and we had a fun time. Just 11 out of the fourteen possibles but when the "tell us your most strange food story" started the laughter just grew and grew. Lunch had started at 1pm and it was close on 4.30 before some of us started to leave. text reports from our other halves had reported snow falling and I knew that my little village was likely to be cut off with snow by nighttime.
And that wasn't wrong. Lots of snow as I came the final couple of miles. I wonder what it would be like in the morning? What I didn't know that Thursday evening is that Friday would start badly. But that's life I suppose, a few good days and then... well life still has it's ups and downs and not all connected with the big C.
More later folks!
Andrew xxx
