Catchup

On the Tube on the way to work yesterday, I stood opposite a young man who was picking his nose with great gusto, vim, and vigour. He was relishing it greatly. And this was a somewhat crowded carriage. His nostrils were capacious, so I imagine they had collected a lot of furniture. (My mother calls nose-picking "moving furniture".)

I make light of it now, but I nearly gagged then and forced myself to stare at the floor whilst I could still hear him sucking his fingers and knuckles. *shudder* As I stared at the ground, I thought to myself, I do hope he is not a parliamentary clerk...and what do you know? When I got out at Westminster, he went through the passholders' private entrance...right into the Houses of Parliament, the cheek!

**********

So, this job I am doing. It's very involved, and I got thrown in the deep end on Monday morning. They had no idea so much needed doing within the first two hours.

But it settled down and the department director thinks I am picking it up rather quickly. Maintaining links with people who had got used to the persons I had replaced - the first moved upstairs and the second, a temp, got a job two weeks after starting. It is a huge international project that is winding down in the next couple of months, and I'll be there till then, I guess.

One thing I don't understand is my odd change in attitude. While being rather amiable before, yet hesitant with phones, I have noticed this week I have become unusually reserved face to face, but suddenly pretty good on the phone. What is that all about???

Anyway, first day on the job I took minutes at a 2-hour strategy teleconference between London and Brazil - no idea what anyone was going on about, but I wrote stuff down on 8 pages, and before I lost my hold on what they were going on about, condensed it into 3 pages of bullet points. The director checked it over today, said she had no idea how I got it down to that, and then I sent it out to everyone. A reply came back from the other London attendee: "Blimey, that was swift, thanks!"

**********

I took an hour's walk today, from Westminster along Millbank to Chelsea Bridge Road and then to Victoria. This room temperature weather is awesome! Lunch in the park was also pleasant, specially as it was a very neat toasted Mexican tortilla wrap stuffed with slow-cooked pork, refried beans, sour cream, cheese, and spinach, and topped with guacamole. I say it was neat because despite being a wrap, nothing fell out and it only dripped twice. I think sometimes wraps don't need to be as overstuffed as they are.

**********

Sunday, I walked to Camden where I joined my aunt, cousins/hubby and kids at Marine Ices, a friendly family restaurant that is 75 years old this year. Pizza, pasta, and ice cream. Well, I had zabaglione. They didn't have any semi-freddo.

I like Camden. It's funny that I can say that after living in St John's Wood for the past 3 years because I hated it when I lived in Hackney. :)

Anyway, my cousin Mich said to her son Zack (he's 6), "I'm relying on you to help me with the twins." (They just turned 2.) And Zack said, "But I'm not relying on myself."
He's funny.

It was on the agenda that I would explain to Zack how trees make oxygen for us, so while I explained it, Mich wrote the chemical formulae for oxygen and carbon dioxide on a piece of paper for Zack to see. (Seriously.) He said, "Why is there a 2 after the O?" and Mich replied that it was because there are two oxygen atoms attached to the carbon atom. I love how she tells him everything! That is how I want to be with my children.