Of Grinning Carnivores

I had a great weekend. Friday night cinema. Saturday night dinner with friends. Sunday walking in the Mournes. The whole lot inter-dispersed with a good deal of work in the office and a good deal of DIY at home. Cracking!

My Saturday night friends Fiona and Richard are great hosts and always make me laugh. The latter usually has a few drinks, or "sharpners" as he calls them and a cheeky grin promptly appears that stays no doubt until cancelled out by a hangover the following day. With the grin cometh the gags and usually the poking fun at guests - often me for being a Vegetarian...It's an odd friendship him a huntsman and me an ex saboteur but we always manage to laugh off our differences like it doesn't really matter because I suppose it doesn't.

Of Missing the Full Picture

I went to see 126 hours last night. It was great but gruesome. I've never attended a film in which so people left part way through. I guess some people hadn't realised that they would have to sit through an amateur self amputation performed without anaesthetic with a pen knife. Read the reviews why don't you.

Afterwards I discussed with my cinema partner what we would have done in Aron's situation. We mused what we might have done if we had each got our arm stuck in the same rock. I said the usual gentlemen rule of "Ladies first" would have to apply so she'd have to cut her arm off first and then she could go for help. But I did add that as a true gentlemen I'd offer to cut it off for her. I think she felt that idea needed more work...

When I got home I watched the news for a bit of something more cheerful to take to sleep with me. I found it. English cricket fans - over the moon at their victory over the Aussies. Many were declaring this week to be the greatest of their lives - including one guy standing there in front of his family (suggesting, I summised, that it topped his wedding and birth of two kids...) Excuse me but isn't all that has happened here that one nation (that, incidentally, invented cricket) has beaten just one other team representing a country with a population almost three times smaller than England's over one test match. Or am I missing something?

Of friends in high places

Why are people so cruel to me? And friends too? Just when I was getting over my post holiday blues a mucker from Warrington sends me a load of photos from the holiday. And now I have to get over the holiday all over again!

I came into work Monday of this having devised a very specific formula to get over the post holiday blues. It is :

* Keep yourself really busy - avail of this duty by doing lots of fiddly DIY jobs you should have done ages ago

* Listen to The Jam's "Going Underground" in the car going to work to really pump up your mood

* Think of a friend or just someone you know or who you've heard of who has not been so lucky recently and tell yourself you've no right to feel miserable just because a good time is no longer continuing for you.

* Return home from work in the car listening to Squeeze's "Up the junction" for a happy tune about a person really down on his luck

Come on pump it up!

Of raining cats and dogs

My neighbour ventured out last night in the rain to come round with a confession. She told me, rather guiltily, that when I was away not only did she give plumbers access to my house to fix my burst pipes but she also availed of the opportunity to access my bin outside and deposit in it her dead cat. We both giggled. This was the same dead cat that was smelling a little in the boot of her car as she drove me to the airport the week before. She explained that she was waiting for the ground to thaw so she could bury it. She didn't explain why it went in my bin and not hers. I suppose she felt she had to take her off somewhere rather than end up in with the mix of Christmas wrapping paper and left overs.

I watched her depart up the road with her dog Isla. Isla is herself getting on a bit and I couldn't help but wonder whose bin she was destined for.

Funny folks my neighbours.....

Of Holding Tight & Here We Go

It's our first day back today after a really long break. It'll will be great to see everyone but there's so much to get on with that I think we'll hardly have time to wish each other Happy New Year before we all have to sit down to the porridge.

On the agenda this week we have a brain storming today objective settings Thursday before performance reviews next week with lots of one-to-one meetings sprinkled in between.

Why can't we ever do graduallllly in this company. I guess we never will. Hold tight here we go..

Of 2hours and 127 days

It seems I've done something in the last week that I don't normally do and wonder why others do it and some religiously. That's read a book of a film that everyone is going to see. I can never see the point in taking several hours to read a book when you've just seen the film in two. Granted, the book and the film may not be the same but you know how the story starts and finishes and a good bit of the in between too. So why bother?

In my defence I read "127 days - between a rock and a hard place" before I went to see the film. In fact, I've still to see the film. It's released on Wednesday and a friend of mine and I have already arranged to go and see it. It's about a guy who goes climbing in the Grand Canyon in the USA and gets his arm stuck underneath a bolder. After much struggling he realises the only way out is to cut his arm off. It's a superb read this book and it's full of great learning points. What I enjoyed from it most however was a quote not from the author, Aron Ralston but one lifted directly from Mark Twight. It reads as follows :

"Eventually I sickened of people, myself included, who didn't think enough of themselves to make something of themselves - people who did only what they had to do and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better".

Of New Year New Resolutions

Hah! So 2nd of January and time to declare a few New Year's Resolution. For 2011 these are as follows :

* Exercise more - at least 4 times a week
* Learn to cook 12 dishes of a standard they will do for entertaining
* Read 12 books in the year each one completely different from the last (NB last year I read 12 business related books and I feel hung out to dry from all the business advice)
* Drop in at least one really good holiday for 2011
* Continue to decorate/improve the house
* Learn some Spanish for when my friends from Venezuela visit in April
* Take myself off somewhere nice every Sunday, hiking etc.
* Surround myself by positive people
* Continue my memory training : beat my PB of 3 minutes 30 seconds
* Make better use of technology and time between meetings and travelling etc