End of the week

The last 2 days of the working week have been pretty hectic - I've hardly moved from my desk - mostly doing annual appraisals of our Managers. Eight down, five to go - scheduled for Monday/Tuesday. Then comes the worst part - documenting it all - that's always a pain.

I haven't been to Bannatyne's since Monday. I did half an hour on the bike then, and have had a few shorter sessions on the static bike at home since then. I've managed to move the saddle down another notch, so that's progress, I guess.

At least it's almost the weekend now and our regular Friday night will be at the Burnett tonight, when our friend Nigel Meany will be making one of his infrequent appearances, having flown in from Dubai - on the day of his 55th birthday too.

Tomorrow morning we've got a house call from Everest - apparently just checking that everything was ok with our kitchen installation - although I suspect there'll be some hard sell going on as well. We've got Woodend Barn in the evening to look forward to, preceded by dinner at Buchanan's.

Last night, I featured in a vintage photo in the local Evening Express. This would normally have been one for Renshaw's Chronicles, but I'm already past 1987 when the photo was taken, so it'll have to appear here:

That's me lurking at the back, 6th from the left, eyes almost closed. I vaguely recall the event - the one outstanding thing I remember is talking to joint prize winner Ray Dinsdale (5th from the right). He was the MD of Richards, carpet makers, (in)appropriately, because he was wearing probably the worst "rug" I had ever seen. Your eyes were magnetically drawn to this thing on the top of his head - it was spooky.

That's our (now deceased) Chairman, Dr. Francis Clark, receiving the award, 4th from the left, with my colleagues Bill Hazeldean and Ron Porteous, 2nd and 3rd from the left respectively. I was but 38 when this was taken.