A Fresh Start

Bloody weather. Bloody drivers. Bloody drivers in hot weather. Bloody middle-lane-hogging idiots (who, it seems, hog lane 3 if you’re on a 4-lane stretch of road).

Still, at least I didn’t come back via the M25 or I’d still be driving behind the wheel now.

I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am at the prospect of temperatures in the low to mid thirties in the first half of next week. Our current orifice already gets unpleasantly hot when the temperature tops 20ºC. Maybe this will be one final hurrah as we’re moving en masse to a new orifice on the far side of Norwich city centre next weekend. One the one hand it’s a pain in the butt as I’ll no longer be able to tumble off the Park’n'Ride bus into work. On the other hand, the new place is rumoured to have air conditioning. Ooooooh!

Right then. At last night’s international food and drink festival (where I purchased cheese, cheese, cheeese and cheese) a number of insects mistook me for one of the stalls and helped themselves to some free samples. I think I’ve got some anti-histamine cream somewhere and it’s now vitally urgent that I find some before my scratching draws blood …

I’ve been making appointments for a wheesh of inspection appointments in the morning, have been to visit dad and - once his washing’s done and hung out - a woman has invited me to a festival.

It’s a hard life.

Dear Sirs,

Please find enclosed a cheque for £9.75 for cleaning the windows at my father’s house on 15th July.

I feel I should also take this opportunity to apologise for any distress caused to the staff member who cleaned the upstairs windows.

Had I known that your staff make routine calls on Saturday mornings and that my father’s house’s windows were due to be cleaned this morning then I would, of course, have taken suitable precautions such as drawing the curtains in the bedroom, sleeping beneath the sheet and/or wearing some sort of nightwear.

I would commend your staff member on his use of language during and immediately after his fall (”Oh my giddy aunt!” being a perfect exclamation in an area where small children might overhear). It is a pity that he was unable to continue in this vein - I’m sure I heard rather more colourful language coming from below the window as his colleague took over the task (by which time I was safely beneath bedding, I hasten to add).

I hope your staff member’s ankle was not too badly bruised and that his injury did not curtail his work for the remainder of the day. I am grateful that further embarrassment on all sides was avoided by your operatives then stuffing an invoice through the letterbox and driving away at speed rather than waiting to be paid in cash.

Yours faithfully,

Em3

This time last week I was, um, let’s see … relaxing after the most strenuous day of the holiday and that hike up to the Briksdal glacier.

I was operating on reduced power in a photographic sense as I’d managed to lose the spare battery for my P820 on the very first day I was in Bergen and had established that there were no stockists for Kodak batteries (well, not for the KLIC5001 at least) in Norway.

Now, a week later, I’ve already received over 50 prints from the holiday snaps and have just received confirmation that my order for two spare KLIC5001s has been shipped. Meanwhile the photobook is printing (won’t be here before I leave for Cardiff tomorrow, unfortunately, but I’ll be able to go through it with Dad next week instead).

Maaaaarvellous.

I cancelled my lunch date with Stubby - she’d mentioned yesterday she needed to go out to buy a leaving present for someone leaving tomorrow and I received a nice cheque from those nice bastards at BT, necessitating a hike across the centre of Norwich for it to be deposited.

“You’re standing me up?!” she exclaimed, shocked but smiling.

“Yeah. Sucks, doesn’t it?” I smiled back.

This had clearly been playing on her mind because on my way home I received a text:

R u ok seem a bit low. Is it just holiday blues? Hope u r ok!

I replied:

I’m fine, thank you. Just missed you while I was away and I’m regretting cancelling our date :-). I’ve got holiday pics at my desk if you can spare 5 mins tomorrow.

quickly followed by:

Too much?

There was a pause.

Quite a long pause,

Quite a worrying long pause - had I blown my big chance?

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