I had been looking forward to staying in the Hilton because I figured we might get nice rooms, so I was quite surprised when I checked in on Monday night to discover that it was the second worst hotel room I’ve ever stayed in in my entire life. The fact that it was only a single bed didn’t bother me, because I am perfectly happy sleeping in single beds, but the fact that the room was only wide enough for a single bed and so I didn’t even get a bedside table, was rather a disappointment. The second thing which struck me as I entered the room was that there was a nice long window at the far end of it. I approached this and pulled back the curtain to see what sort of view I had, and this is what confronted me…

The view from my hotel room!

Yep that’s right, I had a beautiful view of the hotel restaurant As it was evening, the restaurant was full of people eating their dinner, all of whom were able to look straight into my bedroom and see me I found it a little unnerving, and was depressed by the fact that I had to keep the curtains completely closed all week :cry:

The audit itself was as unpleasant as I expected the audit to be. The client was awkward from day one (when he refused to send out letters to his customers asking them to confirm their year end balances) to day four (when he refused to sign the report I’d written to say he agreed with it). I called my manager after this last objection to ask him what I should do. He suggested I “go upstairs and tell him to stop being a cock”

My assistant was also a pain and I have decided he has an obsession with balls. Within the course of the week he frequently used such expressions as “I’m just doing some ballpark analytics” (I’m sure that’s not what I asked him to do!), “the client just threw a curve ball” (or perhaps a curved ball, I didn’t quite catch it), and “I enjoy playing hardball” (after which I got an uncontrollable fit of giggles and had to go to the toilet to text a colleague about how weird he was!).

He turned out, however, to be the least of my problems, because on Wednesday morning my computer tragically passed away I don’t know quite what happened. I had the piece of software we use for out audit files open, and I flicked to a spreadsheet. While I was looking at the spreadsheet, the audit software closed. I tried to open it again, but it’s a very cumbersome application and once it’s crashed, the only real solution is to reboot your computer. I duly did so, but as it was loading Windows again I got a strange error message saying it had been unable to load my personal settings. Initially I wasn’t too concerned by this, but then when I tried to log into Lotus Notes which is the software we use for our email, it wouldn’t let me. Never mind, I thought, and opened the audit software. That worked fine, so I carried on auditing. After a while I needed to open a spreadsheet so I clicked on it… and received an error message saying I didn’t have authority to open that document. I tried a different spreadsheet, I tried a word document, I tried a pdf… I couldn’t open any of them. I needed one of them rather badly so I tried to copy it to a memory stick for one of my colleagues to open. It told me I didn’t have authority to make a copy.

I turned the computer on and off five times, and when there was no improvement I called our technical support guy. He was about as helpful as technical support guys generally are, but eventually it emerged that because my computer had somehow failed to load my personal settings, it didn’t realise that I was myself and therefore it had encrypted all my data and wasn’t going to let me read it. The implication being that I was now incapable of opening any document which I had previously saved on my hard drive. Oh. Dear.

The tech guy wanted me to bring my computer in immediately, which my manager said I couldn’t do on account of me being in London. So in the end he told me I’d have to struggle on for the rest of the audit and bring the computer back into him on Thursday night. Initially he wasn’t going to provide me with a replacement computer, but my manager convinced him that I needed one, and last night I did indeed manage to go into the office and effect a swap.

In the meantime, though, life was rather difficult. Funnily enough, a lot of the documents saved on my harddrive were rather important, and thus for many of them the only solution was that they needed to be redone. By me, in my spare time. What fun! Let’s just say I skipped dinner on Wednesday night and I also skipped a lot of sleep and now I feel a bit sort of dazed and dead. I was so grateful that Babel had provided me with my own computer, because otherwise I would have been screwed. There was one point where I’d spent several hours writing an important word document, was totally happy with it, clicked save and was informed that I didn’t have the authority to save word documents. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I could then switch to my personal computer and type it out again from scratch, I don’t know what I’d have done!

Somehow, and I really have no idea how, the audit was nevertheless finished by Thursday afternoon. I got a certain amount of satisfaction when we arrived at Euston yesterday evening and met up with the other audit teams who were down for the week to compare notes. One of my colleagues had also been up half the night finishing her file but she hadn’t even written her important word document, and she hadn’t had to cope with the world’s worst assistant or a malfunctioning computer, so ultimately I felt a little bit smug It was still a horrible, horrible week though. I hope next week is a little calmer!

And God, was it dark?! I was aiming to leave home as close to six as I could, due to the buses into the city centre being infrequent and unreliable at that time of the morning. I naively hadn’t appreciated that at such an hour on a December morning it was going to be pitch black, so when I stepped outside the door on Monday morning I got quite a nasty shock. I am not anywhere near as scared of the dark as I used to be. I can remember when I was twelve and started secondary school, literally running the five minutes between the bus stop and my house practically in tears because I was so frightened to be outside in it on my own. The dark of the evenings doesn’t bother me so much now, I walk home in it every evening and it rarely registers with me. But the dark of the early morning is another thing altogether. The dark of the early morning is quieter and lonelier. I think it’s actually the loneliness of it which gets to me more than the darkness, because once I get to the street lamps and occasional passing car on the main road, I feel safe and stop panicking. But on my road, which is lit very inadequately and has little passing traffic, I freely admit that I am terrified. I couldn’t leave the drive each day without looking backwards to check no one was going to be following me. With this established, I would set off at a reasonable pace, telling myself in my head that this was all perfectly fine and nothing to worry about at all. But strangely, it seems the closer I get to the relative sanctuary of the high street, the more I begin to fear that something is going to stop me reaching it, and so it was that after two or three minutes of measured walking I would find myself jogging the last few hundred metres. Which was interesting, carrying a heavy rucksack along a pavement covered in ice. I only fell over once

Once I got safely to New Street station, the main excitement of the day would begin, with the Battle to Get a Seat on the Train. The rules of engagement are as follows. One must get to the platform long before the train is due to arrive, and stand there nonchalently as if one is not expecting a train at all and has merely come out at this time of the morning for the air. You should take care never to stand on the part of the platform where you actually wish to board the train. When it arrives, and a door stops perfectly level with you, it is necessary to ignore this, sprint several carriages up the station, and push in in front of someone else because you always like to sit in carriage C, not carriage F. The best way to board the train is with your elbows jutting out and balancing a cup of coffee. Extra points are awarded if you can manage to do this whilst conducting a conversation on your mobile phone. Once you are on the train you have several options. You can walk up and down the train in the opposite direction to everybody else, trying to find an imaginary seat reservation you’re sure you asked your secretary to make. You can get on and block the entire gangway with your briefcase whilst you remove your pinstripe jacket in a leisurely fashion and fold it into the overhead locker. It is imperative that at no point do you speak or acknowledge the existance of another human being, especially if you tread on them…

To be fair, the trains to London Euston are very nice. Although they would want to be, for 123 quid a ticket. And I wasn’t impressed on Tuesday to have paid that amount of money only to have my train cancelled and have to board the next one, which would not in itself have been a dreadful problem were it not for the other 300 people who were doing the same thing. The result was that I stood all the way to the Big Smoke, and it was one of the longest hour and forty five minutes of my life

The offices where I was working were in the vicinity of Moorgate tube station, which was rather convenient because it’s on the Northern line from Euston. I was quite impressed, because I managed to work out which of the four northern line platforms I needed to be standing at, then managed not only to board the train in the correct direction, but also to get off at the stop I was intending to. For someone with a sense of direction like mine, that is indeed an achievement

I successfully located my junior at Moorgate on Monday morning and we found our way to the client. I shan’t even attempt to talk about the junior here, because if I did I would get incredibly wound up and never stop. I rarely end up working with people I utterly loathe, but I think he might just be the exception to my rule. Suffice it to say, once we’d got our computers out his first thought was not to go figure out where the kitchen was so we could get a coffee, but to ask me how “we” were going to decide who did what work and, when I allocated some work to him (me being the one who’s incharge and qualified and all), he queried whether I thought that was a good use of his time. Grrr!

All in all he was quite a weird guy, but believe me, if you stood him next to the client accountant, there was no contest. I can honestly say, I have never encountered such an inherently weird client in my entire life. His own boss, who is happily located a long way away from him in Australia, described him as “subhuman” – that’s how weird he is He was the sort of person who can’t look you in the eye when you’re talking, who can’t even utter a coherent sentence, and especially not one which bears any relation to what you just said. I would say that this could all be explained by the fact that he uses Linux, but I do actually know some people who use Linux and still manage to conduct conversations which don’t revolve around the evils of the Microsoft empire

The audit was happily rather easy, and although I got very grumpy travelling home every night through lack of food, I managed to get enough work done on site between Monday and Wednesday to justify working from the office in Birmingham on Thursday and Friday, and so I was reasonably happy

This Saturday was the day my sister and I had bookmarked for doing our entire Christmas shopping, and I looked forward to it with something akin to extreme trepidation, because I had no idea what sort of presents we were going to get for most people. In an attempt to miss the worst of the hellish Christmas crowds in the Bull Ring, we got to town just after nine and so had a couple of hours to walk around the shops in a confused and bewildered state before things really hotted up. It all seemed to take a terribly long time, but ultimately we were quite successful in our purchases. We bought my Dad a rather snazzy pair of cufflinks from Marks and Spencers, which was doubly good because I had some vouchers left so we saved £20 We needed to get two presents for my Mom because her birthday is over Christmas as well, which promised to be a little stressful, but in the end we did quite well, buying her something lacy from the German market for Christmas, and a beautiful Royal Albert mug for her birthday. We split up for a brief hour as well, which just gave me time to get a present for my sister as well, and of course at long last I managed to get something for Babel. I confess I had been a little stumped for ideas, having used up all my imagination for his birthday present, but literally on the bus that morning I had an idea for something he needed, and my sister helped me choose what will hopefully be something good

No shopping trip would of course be complete without a fair amount of eating and drinking. We started off with a frappe latte at a delightful branch of Caffe Nero which I have only just discovered in the city centre. Later in the afternoon we braved the vicious crowds at the German market, and managed to buy a rather delicious sausage in a roll over at the unfashionable side We had wanted to buy a cup of flavoured coffee to round it all off, but after a bit of confusion with the man on the stall, it transpired that he was only serving Irish Cream or Jamaica Rum, neither of which flavours we fancied, so we ended up with a take-away cup from Costa instead. After that we headed home pretty swiftly, having had just about enough of being bashed around in a sea of angry shoppers.

Sunday was a more relaxing day I finally got the lie in which I’d been dreaming about all week, and then in the afternoon Babel came over to pick me up and we went to our favourite Harvester for a spot of lunch. Being a little devoid of ideas for how to spend the afternoon, we figured we might pop into Redditch and watch a film at the cinema. I was absolutely positive there was a cinema in Redditch, and once we had negotiated our way round the ringroad a couple of times we discovered that indeed there was, but much to our disappointment, the only thing it appeared to be showing before 6pm was Madagascar 2. It didn’t look like my cup of tea, and we hadn’t seen Madagascar 1 anyway, so in the end we just had a little bit of a look around the shops and a leisurely coffee in Costa.

Mi ne volis reveni hejmen antaux la sesa, cxar mi ne volis cxeesti meson. Mi trinkis glason da rugxa vino kun mia tagmangxo, kaj estas granda peko cxeesti meson kiam oni estas ebria Babel tre afable konsentis veturigi min sencele dum preskaux horo, kaj kiam ni alproksimigxis al mia domo, li havis tre bonan ideon Do, ni atendis gxis miaj gepatroj forlasis la domon, tiam eniris kaj faris ion, kion oni vere ne faru en la domo de siaj gepatroj, aparte kiam ili estas en pregxejo. Estis tamen tre gxuinda sperto…

That was definitely the highlight of my weekend It was lovely to see Babel, and cheered me up as usual. The next few weeks until Christmas look set to be rubbish in terms of work – today is making me thoroughly miserable – but at least I have a nice memory of yesterday to hang onto

It all started at 5.30am on Saturday morning, which was the time at which my alarm went off. For me this was an interesting experiment, because I had previously been unaware that 5.30am on a Saturday actually existed, it not being a time I have ever seen Here’s hoping that I don’t have to see it again in a hurry! 5.30am on a Saturday is cold, dark, and more depressing than 5.30am on a Monday, because you *know* you should be having a lie in Sadly it was absolutely necessary to get up at this ungodly hour, because I was aiming to get to the London Olympia for 10.

Whilst I was going to the Language Show to help out on the EAB stall, my sister was interested in researching jobs and was coming along for the ride. That was nice, because it meant I didn’t have to sit on the train on my own We caught the 7.30 from Euston which was actually very pleasant, there being a far better choice of seats than normally when I catch it on a Monday! I think my poor sister was just relieved to get on the train at all, because she asked me when leaving the house if I had actually checked whether buses run that early on Saturday mornings. Slightly embarrassingly I hadn’t – just assumed they would – so I was rather pleased when the required transport arrived within 15 minutes and we managed to get to the city centre on time.

In fact we got there with time to spare, and so it was that we decided to buy ourselves a cup of coffee from Costas. No I must confess to not being a big fan of take-away coffee. I don’t like the taste of drinking out of those nasty paper cups, and if I do anything other than sit completely still whilst drinking something hot, there is always the risk that I’m going to pour it over myself or someone sitting next to me. But there are some situations where any coffee is better than no coffee and this appeared to be one of them, so I resolved to make the best of it. I would, in fact, have been quite content were it not for the fact that my cup had a hole in it It was a strange sort of hole, invisible to the naked eye and yet capable of dripping milky coffee all over me every time I took a mouthful. Twas very bad luck, because there wasn’t a hole in my sister’s at all!

We arrived at Euston just after nine and made our way to Earl’s Court via Saint Pancras. Earls Court is a thoroughly confusing tube station, and I was very grateful for the advice of Thomas, who had explained to me in advance that I needed to look at the signs to work out where the trains were going Otherwise I would probably have got on the first train that came and ended up getting terribly lost. The journey across London was actually much longer than I had anticipated, and it was around 10.15 when we finally arrived at the Olympia. To my surprise I found it was an attractive old building, and having expected something more along the lines of the NEC I was favourably impressed Babel had instructed me to text him when I arrived and he would come out with my exhibitors’ pass. Text him I did, and called him too actually, but after twenty five minutes I had got bored of waiting for him and my sister had departed to listen to a lecture, so I decided to be proactive and find him myself.

The EAB stall, when I finally located it, was much more impressive than I had expected, if I can say that without implying a slur on the people who were in charge of it The leaflets and newsletters all looked very colourful and professional, there was an exciting array of books on the shelves behind, and all the posters and other bits and pieces pinned to the wall were well calculated to catch people’s attention. The promotional video ‘Esperanto estas’ was playing on a constant loop in the background, and although by Sunday evening I would be getting heartily sick of it, it is nevertheless and excellent piece of work and was well suited to our purpose

My purpose for being in London was of course to help out on the stall, and although I was turned up appropriately dressed for the occasion in my best suit, I potentially wasn’t the best person for the job. Whenever I have historically attended events similiar to this, careers fairs for example, my main aim for the day has been to run around as many stalls as possible, grabbing leaflets without speaking a word to anyone. Speaking to people in such circumstances has always been my idea of hell, but for some reason it didn’t dawn on me until I was practically in London that being on the other side of the stall was likely to be doubly as excruciating.

And indeed it was The stall was incredibly open, there wasn’t so much as a table to hide behind, and it felt horribly unprotected. I think I now have some idea what it must feel like to be an animal in the zoo. For someone whose worst nightmare is having people looking at them, standing so publically on display is a very nervewracking experience. There was admittedly a conveniently designed corner to loiter in, but someone had sneakily arranged the spotlight to point directly at it, negating its value as a hiding place at the same time as making it unbearably hot over a long period of time. I know, of course, because I endeavoured to stand in it for long periods of time

As the hours ticked by I got a little more used to it, and I did indeed talk to quite a lot of people. Most of them were very nice, although one of them smelled and freaked me out. I’m not sure any of them are likely to go away and learn Esperanto, but at least some of them now know what it is.

The Language Show itself was fairly interesting, although there was a pretty poor turnout by recruiters so my sister didn’t really find what she was looking for. I collected some interesting leaflets in German though, and overall the place just had a nice buzz to it

Fortunately it wasn’t all hard work, and there were enough people helping for us all to have generous breaks. Lunch time on Saturday brought the biggest excitement of the weekend, as I finally came face to face with Orry – a person I had heard so much about but never actually met. I wasn’t disappointed – he was pretty much just as I imagined

I was certainly grateful for the chance to sit down and have some food. Having eaten breakfast so early, I was absolutely starving and could’ve eaten my dinner before 11 I also hadn’t appreciated quite how exhausting it would be standing still in one place all day, and as the hours ticked by I was desperately craving the chance to sit down and drink vast quantities of water!

After a delicious pizza in the evening, we headed back to the place where we were staying in Tooting Bec. This wasn’t a straightforward proceeding, as at the start of the day I had had absolutely no idea where I was going, so had purchased a travel card for zones one and two, which is what I automatically do when I arrive in London. Unfortunately for me, Tooting Bec is in Zone Three and so my ticket wasn’t sufficient. Gavan tried to explain to me the intricacies of the pricing system and how the most sensible thing for me to do was to go to Victoria and buy an Oyster card. This all went somewhat over my head, as I only have a hazy idea of what an Oyster card is in the first place, and ultimately I got very, very confused. Things weren’t helped at Victoria by the fact that no one else could cross the ticket barrier to assist me, nor the fact that once I had made my purchase I was unable to take the same route back to the platform, but in the end everything was resolved, and I am now the proud owner of an Oyster card, even if I still haven’t quite figured out what that means.

We were staying in the house of a lovely elderly lady, and for hardly any money at all thanks to Pasporta Servo When we finally got there, I was so mentally exhausted that I would happily have gone to sleep, but a combination of circumstances meant that Babel and I ended up going for a walk round the suburb for an hour or so. It was rather dark and cold, because like an idiot I had left my coat behind, but at least the terrible rain from earlier in the day had stopped. I found it quite exciting to be walking around London, though I am admittedly easily pleased and bits of it didn’t look too dissimilar to Birmingham.

What we did when we got back would have to be my favourite part of the weekend, but perhaps it would be more discreet not to blog it Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it so much that I keep accidentally thinking about it when my mind wanders during the exceptionally boring software course I am participating in this week, and then I keep smiling to myself in a way which the sane do not smile about audit software.

Having got up so early, it would be an understatement to say I was now sleepy, but unfortunately the sleeping arrangements were not terribly conducive to sleeping. That is to say, we had a single bed – which is totally fine, I actually quite like sharing single beds – but somehow it seemed significantly narrower than normal single beds. Babel kindly let me sleep on the side nearest the wall, so I didn’t have to worry about falling out But there was so little space, I spent the whole night getting trapped in various positions and being unable to free myself from them without damaging either the bookshelf on one side of me or Babel on the other. First my side went peculiarly numb, and in a bungled attempt to turn over I knocked some of Babel’s money off the bookshelf on my side of the bed. Later in the night my leg got a horrible cramp in it which I think could probably have been relieved by bending it, but there wasn’t space in the bed to perform such a manoeuvre. As is fairly typical in these situations, I’d just about managed to get comfortable by the early hours of the morning… at which point Babel decided it was time to get up

Nah, I must say we had rather a nice start to the day I think I probably say this every time we go away for the weekend, but it’s so lovely to spend some time with Babel. It refreshes my memory as to how much I love him, and makes me wish so much that we already had our own place sorted. A lot of problems seem nowhere near as daunting when Babel is around

Sunday was a much quieter day at the show in any case, which was good in a way but also a bit boring. The morning seemed to go on forever but the afternoon was a lot quicker – perhaps the glass of wine helped – and remarkably soon it was time to pack away. I fear I wasn’t a great help in this respect either, as I don’t excel at tasks which require good coordination or carrying heavy objects, but I made a contribution of sorts and at least succeeded not to damage anyone in the process

Babel and I had a long journey ahead of us. First there was the small matter of four tubes back to Tooting Bec to collect our stuff. From there the rest of the travelling was in Babel’s car, so it was fairly restful for me, but sadly rather stressful for him as he attempted to find his way out of London without a map. He actually did exceptionally well – I don’t think he took a single wrong turning – but the longer the journey went on for the increasingly guilty I began to feel, firstly about the fact that I couldn’t drive to help out, and secondly about the fact that he was going out of his way to give me a lift I finally got home around ten thirty, whilst poor Babel had another hour on top of that. Still, we all got home safely in the end, and it was definitely an interesting experience. If I get time this week I shall write a more profound version for the JEBsite!

Have I blogged about my fear of bananas? It will have to be some other time because I’m exceptionally tired now. Suffice it to say that that was a highly disturbing experience for which Mark is not yet forgiven. The course itself was useful as I am in charge of the audit of one of our larger solicitor clients in July, although the only problem I have ever had on a Solictors’ Accounts Rules job is accidentally getting locked in after hours and setting off the burglar alarm

In an unfortunate twist of fate I also had to get up at five thirty the following Saturday, in order to get to Peterborough for ten thirty. I may have already mentioned that this was the fault of Network Rail, and I am not going to go into it again in case I burst an important blood vessel. Actually, if you catch a rail replacement bus to Leicester at 7.15 on a Saturday morning there is very little traffic and the journey is both swift and silent, by virtue of the fact that few other people are cracked enough to doing something similiar at that time.

I did make it to Peterborough and from there had a blissfully stress free lift to the wedding we were attending outside Ipswich, courtesy of some very kind friends. It would perhaps be bad manners to blog in detail about someone else’s wedding, but the bride looked beautiful, the groom was not bad looking at all, and I don’t know why more people don’t get married in April because the abundance of daffodils was really quite lovely I did get a little cold wearing my summer dress, but my boyfriend was kind enough to lend me his jacket during a particularly chilly interval, and at some point I am sure a very embarrassing photo of me wearing it is going to emerge My boyfriend didn’t even laugh at my dress and has gone so far as to say he doesn’t think there is anything strange about my legs so all in all it was rather enjoyable except for the bit where the mother of the bride saw me accidentally touch my boyfriend’s arse and because she herself was checking him out at the time, misconstrued this as me groping him :ninja: Plus there was a slightly traumatic episode where my boyfriend nearly refused to eat my carrot soup and I thought for a dreadful few minutes I might have to eat it myself Plus on a more serious note, it was poignant to have to sit through the church service and know that the choices I’ve made in life mean I will never be married, not by my definition of married, although perhaps if I’m good one day I’ll be allowed some sort of civil ceremony which will marry me in the eyes of the law, even if not the eyes of myself or any of my family, and perhaps allow me to change my name… Luckily the reception, when we finally made it there, was blessed by enough free wine to banish such sad thoughts from my mind, and having seen my boyfriend on the dancefloor later I don’t think I could bear to marry him anyway, so it’s all good

Another interesting rail replacement bus journey awaited me on Sunday, all the way from Peterborough back to Birmingham. This one was marked by several interesting interludes; the part when the bus became trapped on a small village high street and spent nearly half an hour trying to complete a painfully difficult three point turn, the point at which someone had to get off to be sick, and the point at which an incredibly irritating girl pronounced loudly that she’d been told she had an good phone voice, to which I accidentally said out loud, “I find that difficult to believe!”

More significantly, however, I have found the place where I want to live It’s called Stamford and I have absolutely no idea where it is except a very long way from Birmingham on a bus, and it is absolutely beautiful. It is also, I am sure, absolutely outside my financial capabilities ever to live in it’s remote vicinity, but if I let myself believe that I was going to spend the rest of my life in Leicester, I don’t think I would find the motivation to get out of bed in morning

Monday I got up at five thirty again for the start of a two week stint in London. Two weeks, two audits and my career depends on their smooth running. Not an exaggeration unfortunately; I messed up a while back and know that I am being watched like a hawk at the moment to see how I perform on these. The companies are part of a huge AIM listed group which constitutes one of my office’s biggest clients. Interestingly, I am the most junior person to be involved in the assignment and in charge of a job, which adds a bit of pressure, and because the client operates in the media sector there are all sorts of weird accounting standards I know nothing about to comply with.

Last week didn’t ultimately go too badly, although my inexperience meant I had to work ridiculously long hours. I was waking up at six to do a couple of hours before breakfast, staying at the client until about seven, which is as long as I could last without an evening meal, and then heading back to my room to work until I fell asleep. Unfortunately in the process I offended a couple of people with whom I had a long standing arrangement to go out on Thursday night, and also haven’t yet had time to go down to the Houses of Parliament and feel terribly excited about the fact that I’m in London.

It was fairly exciting just going to work though, by virtue of the fact that the client was just off Baker Street I did go out one evening to a steakhouse, which was also quite exciting because we don’t have steakhouses in Birmingham, although the evening was marred somewhat by one of my colleagues finding a spider in his food The rest of the week I mainly ate Italian which was pretty cool and I had one of the nicest meals I have ever had in my life; pollo carbonara at the Prezzo by London Euston.

And now it’s Monday again, I’ve been up since five thirty and I’m off to start my second audit. I’m more worried about this one, since it seems to have gone disastrously wrong last year and the FD appear to be new. That said, she can’t be any more slippery than the character I had to deal with last week and with whom I had a very difficult meeting on Friday afternoon which necessitated me calling for manager backup.

Tonight is, in any case, going to be an interesting night because I am going to watch the wrestling. Don’t ask. I’ll tell you about it if I survive it