My week down south was about as enjoyable as I had been expecting. By the end of Friday, my colleague and I agreed that if we had a choice between voluntary euthanasia and life in Wantage, we would choose euthanasia. And I don’t even agree with voluntary euthanasia. Well, not really.

To be fair, the hotel was alright this time. I could pick fault with it, on the grounds that the milk in my room had gone off, the water came out of the cold tap warm, and it wasn’t obvious how to get water into the bath, but such sins can be forgiven when a place has free wireless The attached restaurant was Italian, which should have been really good, but unfortunately it was too posh to serve pizza, and when I ordered lasagne it came complete with peas

Being at the client itself was weird. I hate that place with a vengeance. Seriously, I think I’ve spent some of the unhappiest times of my life there! Yet on the other hand, I know it so well now that in a horrible sort of way it feels quite homely. I can navigate my way through the labyrinths of unlit corridors from the canteen all the way to the shipping department without getting lost. I know exactly the right amount of change required to get a coffee out of the machine. I no longer blink at the onimous chemcial smells which are emitted once the night shift starts. And all sorts of random people who I must once have spoken to regarding a query with some chemical component or other keep stopping me in the corridor to say hello.

Which is nice, in a way Though I am terribly stressed about going back in January because I am going to be in charge (of three other people!) and the turnover looks like it’s going to £39m, which makes it the biggest company I’ve ever been left unattended to audit Still, if I manage not to mess it up, it will make a favourable impression and perhaps people in the office will start to take me a little more seriously. And the good news is that by working until 11 two nights last week, I’ve managed to at least impress the supervisor on the job by getting all the tasks she set me on Monday finished by Friday. It transpired that she hadn’t realistically expected me to get it all done, so she was rather pleased that I had

Moving onto happier things, this weekend was nice and restful, although not as exciting as last weekend. I had the bright idea that Babel and I should go to the German Christmas market which has set up shop in Birmingham city centre, but it turned out not to be the best plan in the world Never having driven into Birmingham city centre on a Saturday afternoon before, it hadn’t occurred to me that this was an experience best avoided. We must have sat in a traffic jam for the best part of half an hour before we finally got within striking distance of our preferred carpark, and when we did it was only to find a “carpark full” notice erected outside We decided to try our luck anyway. For a long time (around 12 floors!) it looked like it might all be rather hopeless, but when we hit floor 13 the perseverence paid off and Babel managed to get the Moosemobile into a space

I have to say that already by this stage, Babel wasn’t terribly pleased with me and my idea. Things were destined to get worst, as we emerged into the shopping crowds, full of Christmas aggression To say it was busy in town would be an understatement. The city centre was totally packed, and the closer we got to the market the worse it got. There are a couple of traditional bottlenecks where the market stretches down New Street, and we got caught in a slow-moving queue for several minutes. Bizarrely, one of the audit partners from work was also caught in a slow moving queue, but going in the opposite direction. Eventually we managed to push our way up to the furthest corner of the market, where the fried potato man lives. It was rather a crush here also, but I managed to buy us some dinner, and after a while Babel began to look less like he was going to spontaneously combust and/or murder someone.

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking around bookshops to destress, and stopped off for a coffee in Smiths. I thought I had done ever so well to carry a cup of tea and a latte all the way from the counter to our table without spilling a drop, but at the last minute I ruined it by knocking the table with my arm and sending scalding tea everywhere Although luckily not into Babel’s lap

The funniest moment of the weekend came when we were in a queue to buy a wrestling book in Smiths. Tim said something vaguely insulting so I went to hit him, aiming my punch in what I hoped was the vague vicinity of his kidney. I appeared to miss, so I confessed that I wasn’t entirely sure where the kidneys were, prompting the following remark from Babel:

You know where the kidneys are when I punch you there!

The middle-aged lady in front of us in the queue and shot Babel one of the filthiest looks I’ve seen in a long time

Anyway, in the evening we headed to our favourite Harvester, with a nice relaxing blast of minstrel music on the way As usual, seeing Babel cheered me up The rest of the weekend, ie Sunday, wasn’t quite as fun, as my family spent half the time eating cabbage and the other half laying guilt trips on me, plus I had to go to church on Sunday evening and there was a coffin This week looks like being a fairly relaxing one at work, although I have a recruitment consultant pestering me for a CV so I might have to spend this evening making mine look presentable. Plus I still need to tell my parents that I’m going away for New Year (I tried to do it yesterday but didn’t quite get all the way), and I need to decide whether I’m commuting to London next week or getting a hotel. But other than that, life is okay

Tags: christmas market

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