tower of doom.........

well this is not my favourite shot of the day but best represents the impending truma that is the annual company event. to everyone else in the world it's the christmas bash but we are not to call it a christmas related event. don't know why and don't really care. just more office type bullshit. i don't know how i have coped for so long in the world of the office worker. well i do. it's because my job involves me being out of the office for long periods, this in turn makes being there for those brief periods tolerable.

a bit of a sad day as one of our friends had hr last day today. she has only been there a few months but will be sadly missed (by three of us anyway.) on the upside she joined blip today so pop over and say HI.

lets end this on a high. my travels took me over to sutton today. nice enough area and typical of many a high street in london. (not sure if it is london). i always thought hounslow was in london having been based there for 4 years but apparently it's in middlesex. again, big so what? who cares? sorry folks. i digress. so there i am sitting on a bench in sutton high street, enjoying the smell emanating from the grill shack. which is just as it sounds. a shack with a great big barbecue in the middle and one huge grill on a pulley that can be raised or lowered. so as i said i was sitting there when an older lady (senior citizen) sat down beside me on the bench. just taking a break from her shopping to have a quick fag. and then had a quick gripe about being persecuted for being a smoker. as i was having a fag myself i didn't want to argue. i actually have no problem with the smoking bans, although i do think the weird ruling about what areas can and can't are a little vague. either ban it or don't. anyway we got to chatting and before i knew it half an hour had passed. so she got up to carry on with her shopping and we said our goodbyes. i felt so happy after this little encounter. it has been a long time since i have had a random chat with a complete stranger. it was one of those, what can only be described as a "nice" moment. just a pleasant exchange of thoughts between two people who had no reason to speak at all. i do put it down to living in london that i can only think of one other occasion on which this has happened. people are too scared to speak to the person next to them or folk are too busy. who knows the real reason? it can't be just one thing, can it?
still as i said that moment set me up nicely for the rest of the day.

thank you random old woman, enjoy the cruise in march.