So since I’m covering a couple of weeks I’ll start of with something positive.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself sourcing the building materials to create some spice racks. I had the hard wood for the shelves cut and sanded in Falmouth, Cornwall. The plastic was cut in the midlands. Black 132mm elastic bands were soured from Manchester and sliders from Leeds. The result?
Ta-da!:
Exactly what I wanted at about 10th of the price of buying them from the US and far more fun. Added benefit too of being exactly the size I wanted, of course.
So in the run up to Valentine’s day I did all I could to be distracted. It still, as always, was a tough day in a sense. I hibernated for most of the Sunday.
I finally became a member of the Outdoor Lads and started signing up for outdoors activities – walks and the such.
One of the things I’m looking forward to doing is the London Loop – a 240km walk all the way around London which is on my New Year’s Resolutions for this year. I’m starting on 5th March and will report in due course.
Alas, as hard as Valentines Day was for me and other singletons this year, it was harder still for the family of my new (since October) manager’s family. I’m very sorry to say that he passed away on Valentines Day having recently been diagnosed with cancer. It broke my heart – I was so looking forward to working with him, he was such a lovely, funny, relaxed and bright guy. It reminded me, inevitably, a lot of my mother’s brief battle with cancer in 2000.
Finding this out the day after, on Monday of last week, put a bit of a strain on the last week or so which was a tough one to get through. I didn’t do as much exercising as I’d normally like to but did at least manage to get some personal records in for cycling – I arrived into work in record time of 17minutes 14seconds which I suspect will be hard to beat. When I first started cycling to Triton Street I took around 23 minutes so it’s very satisfying progress.
On Tuesday I met up with A&T as well as Tom down in Victoria for a pint and a curry. It’s been quite a while so it was great to catch up with Tom and lovely to see A&T, as always.
The rest of the week went by in a bit of a blur. Work wasn’t going as well as I’d thought – quite tough but on the up, hopefully, now. We did a lot of work for the next fiscal year and that was very satisfying. I played about with some programming which haven’t done a lot of in my current role just yet, though I plan to do a bit more in the near future. The European Council / ‘BREXIT’ nonsense at the end of the week slightly distracted me from other morbid thoughts as I blushed as my country began a humiliating renegotiation of terms of membership – again. I’m pro-European and just cannot imagine why people truly thing the ‘project’ of European integration and political union to be so evil. We’re very odd in this country sometimes.
The weekend was a total blast – really cheered me up after such a miserable week.
On Saturday I enjoyed a very good brunch with my club. Went down to Brasserie and Wine Bar, Toulouse Lautrec – an old haunt of mine. Brought back lots of memories of the good old days. As well as Eric who had visited before, I was pleased to have met some lovely new people; Jonathan, Larry, Fraser, Peter, Michael and Zac. Though I did have a minor spat with Zac over the EU – he’s 24, formerly at drama school and now working in admin. and like so many friends (and not) of mine has an air of authority on this issue which is just not justified by his (lack of) experience. I find it infuriating.
After brunch I went back to another old stomping ground, Bethnal Green – changed a fair bit: some for the better and some for the worse but nonetheless the familiarity was welcome. It was Mlle’s birthday so I joined her, L1, Rachel, Chris, Alex and Danni for a few quick drinks. The cycle there reminded me of when I lived in Bow and used to have to cycle through Tower Gateway each day – still as death-defying as it was back all those years ago.
Having swiftly helped the assembled celebrators with their Prosecco I headed back down to BTL to see the wonderful Paul / Archipol in concert there for the first time in 3 years. I remember the first time we met there in about 20010. I was grumpy still in 2010 and his performance did much to relieve that as it did again on Saturday. A splendid evening was had and of course it was finished off with absinthe, as is a traditional treat / ending to an evening there. 
On Sunday I, L1, Colm and Nigel, as well as V. went along for Sunday roast lunch at The Swan at the Globe. They’ve renovated and it’s stunningly well done. The food was so much better than my last visit and the service from a lady called Nora was first-class. I wrote the manager an impromptu note and hope he/she takes it seriously.
Afterwards we went briefly first to The Anchor, on Southbank and then to the Wheatsheaf at Borough market and swung gaily on their new tyre-chairs, suspended with chains from their outdoor area. It’s such a lot of fun! Nigel and I particularly enjoyed. We tested the patience of the staff, I fear, but it was well worth it.
Post Wheatsheaf Nigel headed back to The Royal Borough of Greenwich (as he invariably refers to it since it got it’s Royal status) and the rest of us headed down to my local, The Trinity, for a brief game of Ingenious which L1 won with a little assistance from yours truly owing to the fact that he was almost asleep at the table.
A few final drinks with Colm and V at home and brought to a close a really excellent weekend which contrasted so heavily with such a sad and tumultuous week.
Nice post,thanks for sharing