The Adventures of TinTin and Snowy

The past few days have been a bit stressful. It all started off on Friday morning when I turned up for work. I was in a pretty good mood coz I was looking forward to a few days of R&R. I walk into the office and I'm greeted with a lot of morose faces. "Why the long faces?", I asked one of my colleagues. "I've been asked to leave", he replied in a deadpan voice. "Where are you going? Which client?" , I asked, innocently assuming that he had some meeting somewhere. He then went on to inform me that he was actually fired and that he was clearing out his desk. It came as quite a shock to me and initially I thought he was yanking my chain. But when it all sunk in, it was quite an eye opener. I mean, we all like to think we are indispensable and that we are invaluable to our companies. At least, that's what HR says to keep the morale up. But the fact of the matter is that when business isn't great, people start getting laid off. I've always been aware of lay offs but its never come and struck me in the face like this. The actual sense of job security that I had all this time has been rattled a wee bit. I was reassured by the MD that I've got nothing to worry about as my product line is doing great, but it does make you start reassessing your situation.

Gloomy things aside, Ani and I set out to pick up Dixi (Ani's sis) from Heathrow. What was supposed to be a 3.5 hour journey ended up being a 7 hour journey, thanks to Ani's impeccable navigation skills. She always does this and all I can do is sit there and follow her directions. I'm so paranoid about taking the wrong turn every time we come to a junction where there's more than one option to follow. When she tells me to turn left, I've got to ask her if she's sure, because chances are that she'll look at the map again and tell me to turn right instead. I mean, how many times can you confuse your right and your left? Women! My old driving instructor puts two big stickers on the steering wheel. One is a big "L" and the other is a big "R". He says that most of his women students keep going right when he asks them to go left. I'll be getting into trouble tonight for this, but at least I've had my say. Sorry chechi!!

Did the usual touristy stuff in London. Will try to put up the video that we took. Cooked biryani for everyone. (That recipe will never be put online...Its an ancient family recipe...Stays in the family) Drove back up here via Stratfor-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace) and Birmingham.

Can you believe Shakespeare. I mean, what a stingy miserable git. When he died at the age of 52, he was reasonably wealthy. He left his wife, his only wife, his "second best bed". That's it. Nothing else. His bed. Not the best bed. But the second best one. How miserable can you be. He left one of his daughters, a golden goblet. That's all. A lousy wine goblet. He then left 5 of his houses and all his other wealth to his other daughter. I dunno what she did to deserve that, but that poor lady, his wife, got a bed. Something about that just winds me up so much.

Back at work today. Will be working tomorrow too and then I'm off for Easter.