I was mistaken for a nun today . . . !

I often stop for a coffee in our local shopping centre after work as a way of re-charging my batteries before tackling the shopping and other chores. Being a 'regular' obviously the staff have got to know me a little.

The majority of the staff are Portuguese and are delightful; always ready to help carry someone's tray if they're elderly or disabled or are struggling with babies and toddlers. They always have a kind word and a smile for the disadvantaged folk one often finds sipping a cup of tea in these sorts of places; those from the local care-in-the-community homes etc. and . . . poor old dears like me, of course!

Coming straight from work, I'm usually dressed in what I think of as typical office wear; smart-ish (I hope) work dress or skirt and blouse and sensible court shoes.

Paying for my coffee we exchanged a few words, as usual. I was asked if I worked in the church. Some of the staff know that I do. I replied that I did. 'Are you a nun?' came the response. Resisting the urge to laugh out loud, I replied that no, I was not a nun but worked in the office.

Of course if nuns dressed like this . . .

or this . . .

or, again like this . . .

then we'd all know where we were, wouldn't we? Just a thought . . .

Home Sweet Home . . .

As I have mentioned once or twice before, the Pater Familias travels a lot on business and has done so all of our married life. It's quite normal for me to hesitate for a split second before answering when friends ask, 'and where is he this week, then?'

It's a bit like the joke about the Japanese tourist saying,'It's Monday, so this must be France' - A bit hard on the poor Japanese who are probably no more like this than a certain type of tourist of any other nationality.

What is more, the PF tends to work in areas that have seen their fair share of trouble in one way or another.

Fortunately he decided to postpone his latest trip in good time but it is very warming to know people have his interests at heart. I have had several enquiries from friends this week asking if he's at home in the UK or, as is often the case, in one of the trouble-spots we are currently seeing on all the news programmes.

I keep telling him his guardian angel is doing overtime!

Now for something completely different . . .

As I said, we left the Teams Gathering to go onto another function in the evening. This was a company 'do' at an hotel in Cobham, only about 20 minutes drive away.

It was a real luxury to be able to relax in the hotel before the dinner, unwind and take our time to get ready to go and join nearly 100 other colleagues and their wives or husbands.

This was an annual event for all employees who have served with company for 25 years or more and they always do us proud with a lovely meal followed by not-too-long speeches and dancing.

As the Pater Familias has retired from the company now, this will probably be the last time we will qualify for this event so we really made the most of it.

A late, relaxed breakfast (now that is a luxury!) followed by a short drive home and plenty of time to catch up with the chores before Monday morning. As I've often heard others say, 'God is good!'

Manic Monday . . .

It's been one of those 'Manic Mondays' at work today. Which reminds of this old hit from the 80's.

Mind you, this later acoustic version doesn't sound anything like as manic as my day today.

Hope you enjoy it anyway.

A quiet weekend ...

It's been a quiet weekend this weekend as both Adrian and Mark have been away on a company trip to Lisbon. I've been alone. Note I said alone, not lonely! I've been used to spending various periods of time without my husband, thankfully usually only for a few days at a time, for most of our married life and you do get used to it after a while.

It's not so often that Mark goes away though, and to have them both away at the same time is a very rare occurrence. I must admit I quite liked being on my own, just for a couple of nights though it was lovely to have them both safely home again. (Even though they arrived home at about 1.30 in the morning!)

There's something very liberating about having nobody else to fit in with for a little while; eating what you like and when you like, going to bed and getting up as early or as late as you feel like.

Back to normal today and that's very comforting. I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy being on my own for much longer than a weekend. Knowing that it's only a temporary separation makes a big difference.

Computers ...

We're getting a new computer in the office so I spent a large part of my day there backing up files to an external hard drive, staring at a screen similar to the one in the picture watching files flying from left to right at varying speeds. It's quite mesmerising so you need to take a break now and again! It took ages because the reason we are replacing the existing PC is because it is getting old and slow and bits don't work as well as they should, or even in some cases, not at all. A bit like us really, as we grow older.

This got me to thinking. Sometimes people refer to a year in a dog's life being equivalent to 7 years in a human's life. I wonder how many 'human years' make up a year in the life of a computer? The office computer is only about 5 years old. If we take the biblical idea of a man's life being 3 score years and ten and do the arithmetic, then that makes a 'computer year' equivalent to 14 human years! Just a thought.

Roasted Quail, Fillet of Salmon Trout, Bubblegum Cheesecake ! .......

We had a very enjoyable evening at the Post yesterday. The picture above is of one of the delicious desserts chosen by many of us at our table - White Chocolate Fondant, Vanilla Ice-cream and Rasberry Custard. I wish I'd taken a shot of the 'Bubblegum Cheesecake' Apparently it really did taste like bubblegum - not my favourite flavour I must admit but it looked intriguing and also came with one of these spun sugar decorations.

It was good to spend some time together with some of Adrian's close colleagues,and their wives in particular. We found plenty of common ground without resorting to the dreaded 'W' four-letter word. Funnily enough at one point we were all discussing English Premiership football, even more surprising when one of the couples present was from the USA, although they have lived in the UK and Europe for many years.