I’m a lumberjack.....

I had been dreading today - the last round of people who have been made redundant finish these days over Christmas and New Year. Amongst them a wonderful Ethiopian engineer who is brilliant at developing water systems for refugee camps who had worked for Oxfam for 29 years; three colleagues I have worked alongside for more than a decade who between them had given 50 years, but the person I will miss most is my dear friend Ulrich who is not only great fun, but brilliant at his job. If you ever have the misfortune to be caught up in a disaster you want Ulrich to be the person organising the help you need. We gave him a new toolkit (many of us having benefitted from his generous loan of drills, chainsaws and anglegrinders) and a checked shirt - something he has been fascinated by since he came to the UK: British men’s love of a checked shirt.