You shall go to the Ball

Miss Sensible.

The end of GCSEs and official secondary school education does need some celebration after all.

I can't help saying she does scrub up rather well...when you can manage to get her out of jodhpurs :o)

With friends like this...

...who needs enemies!

Thank you Ms. Cor-Blimey for reminding me how unruly my locks are!!!!! ;o)

This lovely lady will take pride of place on my desk along with the other wacky bits & pieces which were were presented to me by my erstwhile colleague as parting gifts...

Not quite sure why I deserved pressies...maybe it's for staying put in the face of adversity!?!

Mrs. Cor-Blimey will be very much missed by us all, but most of all by me for her profound knowledge, crazy sense of humour, psychic tendencies, telepathy, pragmatism and occasional bouts of Tourettes which made my working days fun & maintained my sanity. There's no longer anyone to help while away my journey with amusing anecdotes, or broaden my palate via new offerings on the breakfast run...

The office feels very empty...

Invite to Queenie's Birthday Bash

One of the ex. Army chaps in my team very kindly managed to obtain a couple of tickets to the Queen's Birthday parade aka Trooping the Colour. Who could resist the opportunity to go to something as unique an occasion as that? Ms. Cor-Blimey and I duly accepted and yesterday I found myself on the even more ridiculous o'clock train down to London suitably attired in line with the formal dress code.

When we got to Horseguards Parade the place was buzzing with an atmosphere like a pop concert. There were gentlemen in morning suits, ladies with stunning outfits, and hats & fascinators which wouldn't have been out of place at Ascot, as well as Diplomats in their traditional dress. The parade itself was superb...faultless. I'm not really much of a Royalist but I couldn't help feeling very proud of our heritage.

2:52am so my alarm clock reckoned....

when I was woken by something scampering around above my head then happily gnawing noisily. How am I supposed to sleep knowing that I've got something up there!?!

Pulled the quilt back over my head but....Nope! There's definitely something above me and I'm convinced it's in the loft space & not on the roof. Sounds somewhat bigger than a mouse too! So much so I kept wondering if it was going materialise through the ceiling at some point! Stayed where I was as I was too knackered to move and did eventually drop off again but dreamt of rodents taking over.

Having undertaken Hostile Environment Assessment Training, firearms and defensive driving training I should better equipped than most, but maybe I should ask our Specialist Training dept whether they run anything focused on dealing with Ninja Squirrels before I venture up there to repossess my loft….

Well it has been a month

so someone obviously thought I might be getting withdrawal symptoms...hence it was off out to Dubai again last night. This time I sampled a new hotel - The Grand Hyatt and it has to be said this is my favourite so far...mainly down to the pool which I didn't actually manage to use, but did get to stroll around...

Ah the joys of business travel....Maybe one day I'll make it back there at some point without my laptop or work colleagues!