Adieu, Adieu, to you and you and you.

It has been a few days littered with goodbyes.  As I may have mentioned, I finally, after 12 weeks of hellish notice period, left my job on Friday.  As tradition dictates I was expected to take in some snacks for the team, as part of the ritual of escape.

It may not surprise you to learn that I may have over bought.  I do…no, did, have a largeish team of around thirty, but I still defeated them, and ended up bringing home quite a bit.

I was, by some bizarre circumstance, quite busy on my final day, which was annoying.  Perhaps they may miss me after all, but frankly, you cannot imagine the enormity of the toss I do not give.  As the time came to actually leave, the goodbyes were made with arms full of gifts and excess food.

The saddest goodbyes were with the chaps at my favourite supplier Merus Software.  We have worked together for ten years now, never had a cross word, and I can honestly say that it was fun working with them.  As they are based in the South West, our virtual office that we share is a chat room, and the goodbyes exchanged there were harder to do than the ones face to face in Bury!

Anyway, on to the important stuff, what pressies did I get?  Well, I got a posh pen.  I am not an aficionado of pens, but it looks nice, and someone let slip that it cost £40.  These pen makers must live off the gift trade as surely nobody in their right mind would spend £40 of their own money on a bloody pen???  I also got some M&S vouchers.  A safe, and appreciated thought, as, within 48 hours they are spent.  Louise works on the premise that vouchers expire within minutes, and we have spent the day today in Bolton getting me some new clothes.

There, I admitted that I do clothes shopping at M&S.  I am officially 106.

I think I realised today how long it has been since I actually went clothes shopping for myself.  Put it this way, I didn’t know that half the shops we walked by existed.  The last time I was in town they were model aircraft shops, and toy shops selling Rubik Cubes.  Having only managed to get two items of clothing for the best part of £50 was also a bit of an alien concept!

My team also got me another present which was a little odd, but a nice thought.  A photo of the team!!  Now, my unofficial job title for the past ten years has been nerd herder, so you can imagine the subjects in said photo would not trouble the cover of GQ magazine, but as I said a nice thought all the same.  It now lives on my fridge.  It puts the kids off eating too much!

Emily’s work experience ended on Friday too.  The two weeks were probably two of the longest in her short life.  Anyway, on Friday she was allowed to “work on her PC”, which meant playing with Photoshop, and perhaps more likely browsing the internet.

Speaking of Emily, the second set of goodbyes were this morning as we waved her off on her school trip to Berlin.  Linked to this, yesterday I had to go to a travel agents to pick up some Euros for her, and I realised that people actually still book their holidays in these places.  Whilst queuing I overheard couples taking to “agents” (typically early twenty something false tanned travel experts) describing their ideal/preferred trip, and then sitting back as these girls then tap at computers and make phone calls to secure their holiday.

It brought back memories of doing this with my Mum & Dad, over twenty years ago.  Really, someone needs to tell them that internet has been invented.  How can you hand over thousands of pounds based on one brochure photograph and the reccomendation of Kirstie from Bolton (apologies to all Kirsties).

So back to this morning.  Having packed yesterday we wrestled her out of bed early, and drove her to school.  We then stood for half an hour as about fifty sleepy teenagers were packed onto their coach.  There was a slight delay as one chap didn’t turn up.  It turns out he thought the trip was tomorrow.  Oh dear.

At 9.30 the coach left, followed by all the parents waving at their particular bundle of hormones, all feeling a little bit sick and upset at the thought of their child being out of their control and protection for the next week…or was that just me?  I hate the thought of Emily doing the long journey without me driving the coach and sailing the ferry.  Who said I was a control freak??

As goodbyes go this week, this was the harder of the two!

Tomorrow of course I start my new job, so all those new kid at school feelings will resurface, but hopefully I can avoid having my head flushed down the toilet for most of the day.  To ready myself for the trauma of this new experience I have told Louise that the correct preparation is to sit on my arse for about six hours in front of the golf.  She looks sceptical, but she’s busy with her ironing hobby so she’ll be OK.

I still haven’t ordered my tickets by the way.  My finger has hovered over the button a couple of times, as it has with the purchase of dollars too, but with the dollar rate having a welcome surge recently I am holding my nerve as long as possible to gain those extra few pence that will make all the difference to our holiday.

We’re nearly ready though.  I have, with the aforementioned M&S vouchers bought a shirt that is one of those that you will only ever wear on holiday, as it is  –

1. White
2. A bit see through
3. Built for maxiumum coolness (and I mean temperature, as that boat has long since sailed)
4. Likely to get you beaten up if you even think about wearing it in Bolton

All I am missing now are my obviously brand new bright white trainers, bum bag and one size too small speedos!!  Now there is a mental image to leave you with…

Till the next time….