Machine mugging

I put my sixty cents in the machine and request a Snickers. (tangential rant: When I was a child this bar used to be called Marathon; a name which conjures up sport and stamina and maybe ancient Greece and war too. Then they changed the name to Snickers; which for me sound likes “sniggers”, or [...]

Dilemma

Next week I have two days off. Not just days at home looking after the kids during their school holidays, but days when I’m left completely to my own devices, free to fill the time as I choose. Like many people with children who don’t get a lot of “me” time, I dream of this [...]

Worth a thousand words

I’ve mailed this link to a few of you already, but for those who haven’t seen it, there’s a great collection of vintage amateur photography here. Check out the dreamy images in the “On the limits of memory” gallery, or the bacchanalian decadence of The Party…

A nice way to start the week

Mondays should always be like this: My boss and colleague are off on holiday all week. Server problems made work impossible for large chunks of the day, giving me a perfectly valid excuse to loaf, lounge, and take extended coffee breaks. I took a test to determine my level for a free language course at [...]

Out to lunch

Today I used my lunch break to pop into town and buy a wedding gift for our friends in Tokyo. As I entered the department store I was forced to make my way through the lingerie department in order to reach my destination. I hate it when that happens:   Purchase made,  I scoffed a [...]

Bits and sods

I’m so glad I don’t have to “date” any more. Fascinating story. I’m changing jobs sometime in January (same organisation; different department). Apart from the fact that the new job will be more interesting, and more in line with my past work experience, the location of the new office is more central, which means that [...]

Back to life

Brussels doesn’t seem to have entirely woken up to 2007 yet, with two consequences for me this morning.  One – little or no traffic on the road to work this morning. Good.  Two – café at work closed, forcing me to get my morning cappuccino from the machine. Bad. Machines cannot make cappuccino. They make [...]