Tuesday 26 June 2007

Sleeping on the job

Am I the only one often on long conference calls paying no attention to what is being said?

Great as long as you are not expected to participate answering or asking questions, not so good if someone suddenly asks your opinion on something you have no idea what they are talking about. Full panic til you either work out what is going on or decide to risk and say something which might potentially make it clear that you were not paying attention.

I just added my 5 cents on the call I am on, hoping noone else had said the same and also that it was at least relevant. Phew! I think I got away with it this time.

Sunday 24 June 2007

Great, its raining

Am so glad its raining, means I can sit in my chair and google and ebay all day without feeling guilty. Spent Saturday in garden centres which was great fun. Bought an olive tree for the glass house and some plants for the borders. Shopping for grown ups. Seeing as I can now spend an afternoon in the pub talking gardening tips and flowers with Tracey I guess I just have to admit to being middle aged a bit prematurely.

Johanna visited so she drove me round in my old Yaris (love that little car!) which she bought off me last summer. My car was being used by JD and Just for getting to Lewes for a round of golf. It seems our weekend was a bit old fashioned, with an almost sexistic division of labour. Jo and I cooked dinner and JD selected the wine.

Maybe I am not only becoming middle aged but also reverting to a behaviour that goes against everything our parents generation fought for. Maybe if it wasnt raining so hard I should burn some bras just to show the world I am not completelly buying into the patriarchal belief system. But its raining and I think bras are great, at least if you get the right size for you.

Wednesday 20 June 2007

More shopping

Haldirams - lots of sweets, v nice

Had to work late so didn't have time to do any other shopping which was disappointing.

Tuesday 19 June 2007

With Pratchett in Delhi

Am in Delhi, have spent some quality time in the car to and from the office, shops and hotel.

Love the hotel. Room is gargantuan and someone makes my bed, cleans my bedroom and opens the door for me everytime I come and go.

Love the shops, have bought 7 scarves so far (I think) plus lots of other stuff. Unfortunately shop closed at 7.30 so only managed to buy one silk blouse before being kicked out.

Love the food. Bukhara has the best lamb dish ever, especially in combination with their Dal and interesting breads.

Shame about the work. But it keeps me occupied 8-17 so I dont shop too much.

How did Pratchett get involved? Listening to one of his books on the ipod when I fall asleep, he is nice and soothing.

Sunday 17 June 2007

June in pictures


Angela and I, me with perry and Angela with Cider. Some of the other options were not so nice, tasts ranging from liquid used to clean sheep through to someone pissed in the vat.


Queuing to get onto the platform for the train back to Marylebone. Incredibly efficient considering the amount of people there.


Jenny and I on the London Eye.

Photos taken with mobile phone, whoever thought that feature is redundant in mobiles clearly is better at remebering to bring the camera than I am.

Training, drinking and music

Training other people is hard work, I am very glad I am not a teacher. I spent 4 days trying to convey the importance and workings of some Six Sigma tools - luckily not on my own but with 3 collegues who know a lot more than me. It was interesting but draining and at the end of the day not what I want to do every day. The training has left me somewhat scarred as whenever anyone uses the word mean I think, 'Ah and spread!'.

One of my collegues I was training with is Angela who flew over from Phoenix to lead it. She is good and nice and a pleasure to be around. Which isnt my normal summary of collegues, most might reach nice and ok to be around, but only between 9-5. But Angela is different, better than most at explaning statistical tools and also very open an interested so a treat to take around Brighton and to talk to. We had a bit of an interesting time training as 1/2 the class came there under duress and it became obvious that they are less than keen on the facilitators from their organization. So by end Tuesday we had 20 very unhappy bunnies on our hands, Angela had not been training Tuesday so it was me and the other two managing to make them this miserable. But Angela managed to magically turn it around Wednesday and by end of that day they were eating out of her hand.

On Friday Amy and Mark had a combined Stag and Hen weekend starting at Glastonwick ale festival, out at Coombe Farm. I had been clever enough to get us tickets early, which turned out to be lucky as it sold out. But that becomes irrelevant when you have a ticket. Angela came with me and JD and we had a great time drinking ciders and perries, we found two favorites after going through them all and stayed on these all night. Lovely setting on the farm and some interesting music playing in the background. Such a mixed crowd also means the bithching opportunities are unlimited and JD was shocked (well surprised) at our comments. I realized I normally bitch with my Swedish friends rather than my British ones, or that I am more evil in Swedish and my British friends are just a lot nicer than I am (or Angela is as it turns out...) Great night, got the free bus home and the bus driver got lost, but JD helped him find the way to Southwick square in the end.

Saturday Big Phil turned up from Belfast and we all went up to new Wembley to see Muse. The stadium is very pretty with the completely offcentre arc - designed with a logo in mind as we cant see it serving any purpose. There are lots of food, drink outlets and also plenty of toilets, all clean and with loo rool - key customer requirements - ouch done it again, backlash from training. We spent the day admiring the view over London, drinking and listening a little to the pre-bands. Rodrigo y Gabriela were v good, Dirty Pretty Things I missed most of, Streets were so so. But Muse themselves were great, due to sheer size of stadium they looked like ants. Their music is stadium music, all pompous and great for air guitar / air drumming fans. The best thing with the day for me was us all doing mexican waves during the Streets performace, 50,000 peeps or so deciding to entertain themselves...

Getting back home felt like it was going to take forever but it was surprisingly smooth!! I am soooo impressed with the organization of trains, subways and queuing. We made the last train, had to stand up all the way down to Brighton, but made it home in just 2 hours from leaving Wembley, 1.5 of that being on the train from Victoria.

Today we are going to Mark's surprise 40th birthday party and then I am off to Delhi for a week of sweating like a dog and wondering about if this mouthful will make me sick or if I am lucky.

Friday 8 June 2007

Books

We had out bookclub meeting last night. We have given up on the idea that we all read the same book, Barb always hated someone, one of the others managed to not read the book and in the end we had a five minute chat about the book before getting on to the more important topics of food, wine and bras. So now we meet regularly and bring all the books we have read since the last meeting.

Last night I brought along LOTS but unfortunately only managed to palm off a few, got about as many back from last time so ended up lugging about the same amount home again. Not great.

But dinner was lovely, Si Signore on Sydney street, an BYO restaurant that turned out to be v v v nice. Can recommend the pistachio milkshake...

Tuesday 5 June 2007

Terry, Chris and I

Radio is the glue that holds my day together normally. Today was not a normal day.

The morning started well enough, listened to Sarah Kennedy on the way to the gym, managing to catch the Showtime slot. Terry took over for the short drive to work, but this evening for the home journey Stuart Marconi was there instead of Chris. Its just not the same, and nowhere near as good... Terry and Chris really shouldnt be allowed to be off. Maybe record some extra shows and air these if they need time off?

Other great radio 2 shows - the Wurtlizer program which I seem to manage to catch most weeks when working late. Should teach me not to work late.

Monday 4 June 2007

Visitor

Jenny was here over the weekend and we managed to do all of this:

London eye tour
Stroll through London with the other million turists
Lunch at Savoy
Picknick at Hever castle
BBQ at Mikey and Traceys
Drive through picturesque country side
Walk on the Downs
Pub lunch (mmm crackling)