Get In The Rocket

My Dear Princess, Loulou and Fellows,

"FREE FOOD!!!" 

This was a meeting invitation from Gromit today. 

"I'm so useless," she admitted. "I had Ellie organise catering for a meeting this morning and then I was sitting in the meeting wondering when it was going to be delivered and realised we were supposed to go and pick it up."

Consequently, the senior managers in that meeting got NOTHING but Gromit's team got FREE FOOD.

I told Gromit I wanted to take a picture of it for blip and she was delighted to be in it. "Hiiiiiiii Edinburgh!" she said*. 

It was a nice break in a (mostly) nice day. I am working on 2 projects. The fun one and the shitey one. So the shitey project meeting was shitey, but that is all right because I feel on top of it. 

The rest of the time was spent with Faz and Gromit. Today, Faz and I were planning our trip around New Zealand which is due to begin imminently. 

This is good news for you, I think. Hopefully you will see more from me than pictures of the cats and the back garden for a change. Faz and me will literally be going from one end of the country to the other between now and the end of June. I'll try to remember to take pictures.

In the middle of planning our trip, we all got talking about our parents. I'm not sure how. So I told a couple of funny stories about my dad because he provides great material, and Gromit told us this story about HER dad.

Gromit's Dad Story
Apparently her dad is a boob man. Boob mad, he is and she grew up looking at rude pictures of semi-naked women in the garage. He was especially obsessed with Pamela Anderson. His wife, Petulia ("Petchools") was very patient and put up with it.

One night, the family were sitting around discussing, "If you got to take a trip on a rocket, who would you take with you". 

They clearly have better family discussions than I did.

So apparently the whole family laughed when it was Gromit's dad's turn. "PAMELA ANDERSON! PAMELA ANDERSON!" they chanted. 

Apparently he just sighed and turned to his wife. "Just get in the rocket, Petchools," he said.

It is apparently now a family catchphrase. "Just get in the rocket."

We were laughing at this but Faz's dad died at the start of the year. He raised her alone and she was very close to him, so she started to cry. She recovered herself after a minute, but was very apologetic afterward.

"It's all right," I told her. "You know we're all friends. In fact we're like this little family." And I gave her a hug. 

I do feel that way. It is a quite special team. 

I don't know if I'm going to be good friends with Gromit years from now. She's a bit like a rock star. EVERYONE loves her. She has HEAPS of good  friends. When I walk through the office people are always calling out to her. 

I suspect after I leave Kainga Ora, she'll adopt a new pack of stray dogs and move on. But I hope Faz and me are always friends. She's a lovely, intelligent, funny woman. I can see us staying in touch.

After this we had our freeeeee food. Not Faz, of course, but she sat with us anyway. And if felt like we were all in the rocket together.

S.

* With apologies to Wiesbaden.