Relaxed and happy

Despite the various issues clouding, or attempting –unsuccessfully- to cloud my life, I’m happy!

Just got over a minor panic when I looked at my bank statement online and saw a payment of just over £1k from my company. The immediate thought was that I’ve somehow suffered an horrendous paycut, been raided by the taxman or something equally evil and unavoidable. A moment’s thought, backed up by, unusually, opening my payslip, determined that the payment was expenses and I still have a salary payment to come in this month. Whew! I think it also means I’ve now collected all of the accumulated £7k+ expenses paid out for my living in corporate heaven so I’m back in funds and only out of pocket for the last week at the Hyatt and the test conference I went to the other week.

Having cheerfully avoided the formal and official company Christmas events, I had a lot more fun joining the dev team at the unlicensed and highly recommended Al Frash where I had fabulous food, my share of the bootleg run Chianti (cheers, John, good choice!) and rounded it off with a couple of glasses of gorgeous black sambucca before we all headed back to the hotel in a small fleet of taxis. The hotel bar staff remembered that I’ve started drinking Talisker and had it half-poured before my poor boss found out what I wanted to order. He was most put out when I asked for Corona later on when it was someone else’s round in the dance club we all went to. Silly really, the Talisker cost the same as a glass of wine would have done and I’d otherwise have been rather upset at someone swiping my drink while I was dancing. I wasn’t going to go clubbing, especially in company with ten guys but they said they needed a handbag to dance round so off we all went. I suspect the token girl thing was the reason they let us all in despite the several pairs of trainers and great amusement was had when we bumped into our biggest boss boogieing with a couple of local lasses. I declared an end to the evening and discovered it was already 2am but some of the others continued to the casino and were much worse for wear the next day despite almost everyone having won. Nearly forgot the amorous colleague, he didn’t follow me to my room this time, but did manage to extract the room number from reception and call me for a confused conversation with a few ‘sorry’s mixed in with pleas for me to come to his room or let him come to mine. Flattering but not enticing.

Last week saw my sudden but not unexpected exit from the Birmingham project I’ve been working on since April: no issue, the project is now live on the net and there’s nothing to do until they sign up for the next release. Boss’s boss blew the gaffe a bit early which meant I was better prepared for my own boss telling me what he needed me to do before I left and his being so relieved I wasn’t upset that he chanced venting his own angst about not being allowed to move to another project he really fancies. Meant I had only one whole working day left this year and I decided to leave the hotel booking for Wednesday night and enjoy a mini-holiday, complete with late checkout before spending the afternoon getting lost in Birmingham town doing some Christmas shopping.

Sometimes life just does lovely things for you, I’d taken my car back to the hotel deciding that one day’s parking was worth it rather than having to get a taxi back to the secure compound at the office so there I was, engine idling in the red devil, waiting to get to the frontage of the very busy hotel to try my luck, when one of my team fetched up and said I wouldn’t get in as she’d just been told she had to park at the NCP down the road. While she was talking to me, one of the porters came over to the car so I rolled down the window and asked, winsomely, if they had any space. “Course we have darlin’, you just spin it round and I’ll get someone to drop the chain on the car park”, he said. Giggling uncontrollably at the look on J’s face, I so did and walked the fifty yards to the hotel entrance to find her haranguing the porters who looked entirely unrepentant. Amazing what sharing a smile, a word and a couple of quid now and then can do for a girl, especially if she drives a sexy red sports car.

My last night in Brum involved a relaxed and friendly chefs special dinner with J, Bill and Claire at La Tasca, B&C gave me hyuuge Christmas wrapped pressie which they declared was for me and my not-partner to enjoy romantic picnics (in December?) then J and I retired to the Hyatt bar where I indulged in a Johnny Walker Blue Label: had to be tried. I’d looked at the price in Boisdales – over forty quid, had had some conversation with the barstaff in the Hyatt when I saw it on the back of their bar and established they only –only?- charge £28. So that was my farewell drink extravagance, and very nice it was too. Top shopping buy the following afternoon was some wonderfully elegant lingerie in TK Maxx which cost less than anything I might have bought in any cheap high street chain but had a price tag of almost two hundred. Smug! Meant I was able to feel incredibly elegant for my personal Christmas dinner with Mark at Boisdale on Friday. I’d even managed to find my grandmother’s pearls to wear with the wicked black dress. Understated for a change, I can do elegant when I try.

Train times and taxis sabotaged me in Aylesbury, not helped by my return-to-London ticket not working, OK the nice man checked it and let me through, only to discover at Marylebone that what I thought was an open return from Victoria on the 11th was actually a day return D’oh! However, British Rail came up trumps and let me through on the basis I did have the receipt for it, obviously hadn’t used it, and did happen to have my network railcard with me. Onward to a taxi, already past 7:30 for an 8 o’clock table –ouch. I’d called Mark and bleated that I had bags with me and didn’t want to meet him at the restaurant with them, so I gave the taxi driver the address and said I wanted him to wait and take us on to the restaurant. What a star he was! He asked what time the table booking was and hurtled through town via Marble Arch giving us enough time to do the bag exchange half-way up the stairs and be searching his book of knowledge for the restaurant. It really is walking distance and I think we did get to the restaurant on time. Well, I say ‘on time’, I think there may be a reason Mark gave me a wristwatch for Christmas. More of the usual lunacy when our faster than a speeding bullet driver put the fiver change on the little shelf almost before he'd been paid and we managed to fumble it enough that it started wafting gently up the road on it's own. Mark put his foot down and that was the end of the great escape.

The restaurant is lovely, and the food totally amazing. Deep gratitude to my boss’s boss’s boss for nominating me for the award that paid for most of it, we enjoyed every penny.

It wasn’t quite as up-market as I’d imagined, but they have a very relaxed attitude and it truly was an evening out rather than just a dinner. We had booked a table on the cigar terrace but didn’t have any trouble finding a seat even when we popped upstairs earlier than the booking. The table we used did have a reserved notice on it but if it was ours and they were managing it, it really was ‘as if by magic’. We we were quite disappointed when they closed it and we had to rough it smoking outside on the street.

There were some real types there, a chap chatting animatedly and heatedly, pacing up and down the terrace on his own without sign of phone or Bluetooth earbug to explain his agitation. Another waving a fat pink baton from Ann Summers and a real mish-mash of sartorial elegance and error. We did see the chattering chap in company with some other people later but he may simply have been standing near them and quiet for a change. Later in the evening, Mark gave a big bum hovering next to my face the bum’s rush, which wasn’t appreciated and involved a bit of a starefest until bigbum decided to take the hint. It almost got too exciting but the business of Mark’s refusal to sell me to the aristocracy deserves a surreal in ‘illa tag.

I’d noticed a couple of elderly types, all distinguished white hair and expensive clothes at a table across the room when we moved into the main bar to be closer to the Jazz. Later one of them wandered (or followed us?!)outside when we went for a cigarette. I can’t remember how we started talking but we did, and he declared himself to be the chairman of the CCC, up to town from the Isle of Wight for a regular meeting with his friend Shaun. My family (sounds so grand!) have a house on the island which we are free to use so we exchanged some chit-chat about the island, his job, and various other nonsense then we somehow ended up in a conversation where he declared his interest in me and was seriously putting the arm on me to ditch Mark and go off with him! Blink.

Pushy wasn’t the word. He said directly that I “didn’t want to go home with him , and should ‘come with me instead’”. It was screamingly funny. I glanced at Mark and tried not to laugh out loud while saying quite firmly that I did, indeed, want to go home with Mark. I foolishly said I was his mother when asked what we were to each other or similar and both BLOKES decided to believe me. Although this was certainly the deathknell of any shred of a chance he might have had, it still didn't seem to put my elderly admirer off at all, and should have earned Mark a clip round the ear, but I asked if he wanted to be known as a motherf*** instead and we managed to extricate ourselves elegantly even if I don’t remember quite how.

Real-time catching up now, am off round to Sid’s who has been prevented from nervous breakdown by the discovery that he’s not expected to cook Christmas dinner for anyone but me this year rather than me, Donna, Paula, Mark and anyone else his panic suggested. I’ve had a lovely few days in London, even got a Christmas card from Mark’s local, which is really sweet of them. I may remember to come back and blog up other bits and pieces: I begged indulgence to check out the shop opposite the pub for Sid’s Christmas present on our way to his friends housewarming and am really really pleased at what I’ve got for him but can’t say cos he’ll read this before Christmas day.

For those I love and care about who aren’t speaking to me: that makes me sad but doesn’t change my definitions of friendship. We’re all still the same people we were and I don’t have a past tense for caring.