Another bank holiday, toddler tantrum

Another bank holiday sort of crept up on me this weekend, although this time I can profess to having found out about it a little earlier than last time (Wednesday? something like that). Following a week that was a bit like wading through treacle work-wise, it was very welcome.

So, if you're interested... on Friday night I started to teach the Kiwi how to play chess, and from the looks of it she'll be beating me soundly in relatively little time. She has a naturally analytical, strategic mind that lends itself well to the game, whilst personally I struggle to have the patience. We'll see. We're both about as competitive as each other, so perhaps I'll develop a bit more aptitude for it out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

Saturday we both caught up with friends separately, and Sunday we went to the rugby sevens at Twickenham, at which England beat New Zealand in the first quarter-final round and thus were out for the rest of the day. With that and the tennis result I'm uncharacteristically smug for an English sports fan - we don't often get the chance so I'm rather milking it. That said, rugby was definitely a secondary attraction of the day, the first being smuggling as much alcohol into the ground as possible, along with the usual results. Streakers, pitch invasions, hailstorms of plastic pint glasses, cardboard beer trays, hats and at one point, the construction of a snake of empty pint glasses being constructed that stretched pretty much from the back of the stands to the front, and the length of one whole block.

We called it a day afterwards, and came out of it relatively unscathed. I did run to a cashpoint (run? why? I don't know) and back during the course of the day, out of the ground what I reckon was about 1.5k at a sprint in my non-running shoes, which I think is responsible for every muscle and joint in my body aching today and a suspected pulled calf muscle. Hopefully this will be a learning experience.

Yesterday was hilarious from start to finish, the highlight being the sight of my Kiwi, face down on the living room floor throwing a proper toddler tantrum about having to tidy her clothes off the floor of our bedroom. Fists banging on the floor and everything. Second to this, superb food all day, with a brilliant borlotti bean minestrone for lunch (her) and good ol' roast chicken & veg & pan gravy for dinner (moi). And a short week ahead of us! Brilliant.

One Year In

Oh, and I forgot to mention. I've been in this company for exactly one year today, and what a year it's been. Tremendous stuff, feels very good indeed.

Run of the mill mentalness

So I'm sitting here at my desk in London, wondering why I'm so dog tired, and then it hits me - it's 0745. I'm precisely one hour early, and for no good reason. Note to self, if you're going to get up that early, either don't, or do some exercise or something. I blame the Kiwi, she's the one who's always in shockingly early, she works way too hard that lass.

Anyway, so in the lead up to the Move, a few interesting things have been happening at work. Firstly an offer of a contract came in with a different employer, which would have enabled me to save a fair bit of cash and, being self-employed, would have some decent tax benefits. So I took this offer to my current employer, told them the context (ie the Move) and the offer, and fortunately they came back with a counter-offer, despite the impending Move. This slightly changes my role here, and adds a huge amount to my workload, but the benefits are... tangible.

This will rather annoy the party who made the original offer, but I suppose it's all about No.1 when it all comes down to it. The rest of this year should be a bit of a challenge.

Back to reality today though, it's one of those 'head down' days where I finally get around to writing up stuff I've been talking about for weeks. Visio and Excel will be getting a bit more of my attention than they're used to I think, oh joy.

Oh, and I've decided that the new Martha Wainwright album is about 85% brilliant, the new Elbow album is still 100% brilliant, and I'm undecided about Santogold. Seems about 40% brilliant, about 50% meh, and 10% barking (and not in a good way). Recently I've had two songs going round my head constantly: Kate Bush's 'Moments of Pleasure' and Elliott Smith's 'Tomorrow Tomorrow'. The latter has been ringing in my ears since New Zealand (March), and is now feeling like a sort of muso-y tinnitus. Could be worse I suppose. Both of those last links will enable you to play the full track should you wish - just press the Play button.

Hoots

What. A. Weekend. Kicked off on Thursday night (as the best weekends are) with a work social at which we threw a baby shower for one of our consultants, complete with milk-based cocktails served in Tommy Tippee mugs. As with many of our work socials, it doesn't sound like it'd work but curiously, it did.

Friday was mental throughout, full of meetings in the morning and struggling over to Hampshire to the Hatter's house with boxes of wine and shoes, for 'twas his WEDDING on the Saturday morning and we needed to get ready and such, being as I was his very Best Man and very proud of it as well.

Those of you who have befriended me on Facebook have access to photos of the event, including one or two of your blogger in a KILT for the first time ever (and yes, I was wearing pants). A truly tremendous garment, I have to tell you - would happily wear one more often. Were I a true Scot, I would, but I'll have to settle for Sassenach Troosers as it is. Hey ho.

I am a fool

How did that happen? Where did that bank holiday come from? Seriously, I've always been bad at working out when they were, but this really takes the cake - it was 1600 on Friday (FRIDAY!!) before a colleague mentioned it to me and this was quite literally the first I knew about it. How does one find out?

Anyway, twas a nice surprise and a much-needed break in the eternal scramble that my professional life has become. Friday night I took the Hatter out for dinner cos he's getting married this weekend and I'm sort of his best man. We went to the French House, which although they always overcook the steaks I really do like, and we drank rather too much.

Saturday I took my hangover round to a friendly American's house and killed it with red wine, the Kiwi having gone to the Nuremberg Horse Trials or some such. Sunday I cooked a semi-disastrous set of creme caramels to take round to dinner with some recently-married Kiwis nearby (it literally did take all day, in between Wii bouts and screwing up the caramel-making bit. The kitchen was covered in strands and blobs of caramel in various states by the end of the day, which the Kiwi and I left to dry and then went round cracking bits off and munching on them like Hansel and Gretel).

Monday (MONDAY!!) I finally got around to getting my bike out of the wardrobe, putting it together and cleaning it.  The resultant pic of the Black Panther I posted on Facebook provoked a fair bit of response, which presumably means the respondents thought I'd actually ridden it, when in fact having cleaned it I celebrated the act by doing nothing for the rest of the day.

One step at a time, sweet Jesus...