The unfatness plan….sorted?

Posted on February 20, 2015 by thepogblog

I was looking for an old post on here the other day and stumbled on a huge number relating to various unfatness plans.  In the time I’ve been writing this blog I’ve done swimming, attempted pole dancing, failed miserably at the gym and been far too enthusiastic when it comes to cycling.

I’ve had the plan wrong all the time though.  I’ve discovered what you actually need to do is:

  • Walk 30 minutes from the station to the office, then from the office to the station, three times a week…
  • …carrying a rucksack that makes you resemble a German tourist (again, no offence to German tourists).
  • The ruck sack must weigh at least 1 stone / 14 pounds / 6 kg when full (I started weighing it when people started commenting that it looked a bit heavy).
  • And you must always be running a tiny bit late so, while you don’t have to break into a run, you’re doing a bit of a waddle-skip-walk type of thing.

The only slight flaw in the plan is discovering somewhere that sells amazing chocolate croissants that are a great reward for, well, just for being you.  If I manage to avoid that every morning I’m hopeful that by summer I may have a flawless unfatness plan, finally! :o)

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I pass this coffee place on my commute, and each day they have a new sign. I love it :)

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Time to de-frazzle*

Posted on February 17, 2015 by thepogblog

*I may have just made up that word.  But I like it :o)

A few of you might have noticed from the blog (and couldn’t have failed to notice if you’ve been unfortunate enough to talk to me), that things have been a little…well, frazzled lately.  On top of the other things I’ve mentioned, it turns out that my biggest issue with the new job has turned out not to be the fact that I sit with a group of people who don’t understand that humans are allowed to interact with each other.  No…the biggest issue is the fact that of a team of six people, in just over a week I will be the only one left (other than an intern in Philadelphia who works 1.5 days a week and needs micromanaging).  They have all quit.  Was it something I said?

It’s already silly busy – a few days ago I actually tried to join one call through the sound on my laptop (right earphone), one through my phone (headset on left ear) and as my hands were free, I tried to create a communications plan at the same time.  Needless to say, all that I achieved was a very confused brain and un-muting of the wrong call when I had to speak.

To address the fact that I am the last man standing and the workload is quite high; the powers that be have decided to bring in a consultant.  For two days a week.  They wont be hiring anyone new until at least April.  Now, I know maths isn’t my strong point, but I’m still not quite getting how this is supposed to work out.  And if one more person tells me ‘this is a fantastic opportunity’, there is a good chance I will bop them on the nose.  I have cried, panicked, asked advice, created plans, worked out quicker ways of getting through current tasks and now….now I am just trying to focus on having a balance.  I will work my bottom off when I am working, but I will not break myself to try to get more than one person can manage done. (Note:  This is today.  Tomorrow I could be back to the panicking or possibly the crying.  Who knows?).

I have to admit, I’ve not quite got this right.  The Saturday before last I was up at 6am to get some things that could only be done on a Saturday.  Unfortunately, the people in the US hadn’t managed their part overnight and I couldn’t do the bulk of what I needed to until they got up.  ‘Balance!’ I thought.  So I balanced my laptop on the ironing board, got out my sewing machine and between emails to management informing them that ‘things weren’t quite on schedule, but would be soon’ and ‘we’d hit a small issue, but it was not insurmountable’, I um…made an elephant:

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I think I got it better today though.  It was such a beautiful morning (and I’ve been working from home), that I took some photos between ticking things off my to do list.  It’s certainly given me a bit of perspective as I’ve not spent the entire day nose to lap top.  I thought you might like to see them in case you’ve had a frazzled day too :o)

Ice on my conservatory roof

Ice on my conservatory roof

Blue sky!

Blue sky!

Mr Blackbird

Mr Blackbird

lunch time!

lunch time!

And finally, after 4 years of waiting, Big Robin has a friend :o)

And finally, after 4 years of waiting, Big Robin has a friend :o)

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And now I am stepping away from the laptop.  To crochet a hippo.  Obviously :o)

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The importance of engineers and friends

Posted on February 10, 2015 by thepogblog

I’m ridiculously excited! (I should warn you at this point that this is coming from someone who’s been baking cookies for the cat – it doesn’t take much to excite me these days).  What has got me so excited?  Well, today, I have done three loads of washing in my machine!  (I did try to warn you…)

Almost three weeks ago I came home at 10pm to a house with no power as the machine had decided it had really had enough of the whole cleaning malarkey.  I put a torch in my mouth, climbed on a chair and did that trippy thing with the fuse box while on the phone to Dad, and once we exhausted the possibility of it being a fuse, I decided it was ok, because I’ve paid for an extended warranty for years and it would only be a few days before it was fixed.  Yeah, right.  Over the next 2.5 weeks, this is what happened:

 Dead washing machine day 4:

Engineer 1: ‘The last engineer has left your machine in such a state, all I can do is order EVERY part it is made up of and rebuild it. I can’t fix it now’

Call Centre: ‘We don’t have all the parts.  We’ll send someone out next week’

Dead washing machine day 10:

Call Centre:  ‘You know the engineer who is meant to be turning up in 30 minutes?  Well he’s called in sick.’

Dead washing machine day 14:

Engineer 2: ‘Engineer 1 has ordered the wrong parts’

Me:  ‘How?  He ordered everything!’

Engineer 2: ‘The system only allows you to order 10 parts.  He went over the limit.  And the hose that has arrived is the wrong one.  I can’t fix it now’

 Dead washing machine day 19:

Engineer 2 resurrected the washing machine.  On a Saturday.  Because I got REALLY grumpy with the warranty people but was still nice to him.  HOORAY for engineer 2 and grumpiness!

So the moral of the story is:

Don’t bother with extended warranties – I could have bought a new machine on day 2 with the money I’ve spent on it and saved myself rearranging 3 days of work.

Don’t think that your sister’s idea to thin out your socks and knicker drawer is a good idea and copy her.  It doesn’t allow for breakdowns and results in frantic driving to a very good friends house (you know who you are) to load your smalls in her machine.

Have a really good friend in your back pocket at all times who won’t mind you loading your smalls in her machine and who offers the fantastic service of drying and folding everything and sending you home with cake. (I really owe you!)

Those My Little Pony pants might be the most comfortable you own, but they do take a bit of explaining when someone else folds up all your clothes.

Don’t wash all  your clothes in excitement on a Tuesday if like me you have a yoga class in the evening….tonight’s downward dog is going to be rather damp.  But at least it will be clean :o)

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All sanity has left the building

Posted on February 3, 2015 by thepogblog

Every day I think “this job can’t get any worse”.  And then it does.  The good news though, is that I am through the ‘crying hysterically about it’ phase, and have moved on to the ‘slightly manically laughing about it’ phase, instead.

So, if anyone out there wants to save my sanity by offering a full time job crocheting and / or secret bakering, do let me know…  Because I have now sunk to new depths when it comes to obsessively making to distract myself (or new heights, I guess, if you happen to be Norman cat), and this weekend I actually baked….

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…. cat cookies.  (To be clear, these are cookies for cats; not cookies made from small fur balls). I can’t even eat them myself.  Well I could, but tuna-oaty goodness doesn’t appeal to me in quite the way it seems to appeal to Norman.

I also made these as they seemed marginally more acceptable:

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But I’ve just realised that in one blog post I have gone from ‘spinster with cat and crochet habit’ to ‘weird cat cookie making spinster with cat and crochet habit’.  I’m not sure there is any hope left – all sanity has left the building.  :o)

Posted in crochet, Pog Life, work | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

It’s the little things

Posted on January 30, 2015 by thepogblog

In amongst the hospital visits and work of the last few weeks, my washing machine broke, followed swiftly by the heating in my conservatory.

Now, that might not sound like a big deal, but I work from home two days a week (more often when mum was in hospital) and due to the neighbours inability to do anything quietly, the conservatory is the only place I can actually concentrate as their noise doesn’t (quite) travel this far.  I have a fan heater thingy, but the only thing it’s really effective at is costing me a lot of money to run.  The thing that broke was a tube attached to the wall which is low cost and really quite impressive as far as heating goes. As a result of the tube curling up its tubular toes, for the last week I’ve been starting work in a room my thermometer has informed me was 3 degrees centigrade (37 degree if you do the other). Even with the fan heater on, by the end of the day the temperature has only hit 13 degrees at the most.  I’ve resorted to multiple layers and fingerless gloves.

But today, the new tube heater finally arrived and I put aside 10 minutes to mount it in the brackets of the old one and prepared to take off a layer or two, or three.  Possibly four.  (It’s cold.  I am part toad).  So at the time I’d allotted, I opened the box to discover that some genius had felt it necessary to include the plug as an optional feature.  It was there, but it wasn’t attached.  I’m ashamed to say that I have never attached a plug to anything in my life and my first thought was ‘I’ll have to take it up to Dad tomorrow for him to put it together’.  Then I decided I am a grown up, I could do this and what could possibly go wrong?  Then I stopped thinking that last thought as it’s me and it was very likely that I’d blow all the fuses in the house or start a small fire.

But do you know what?  I did it!  I got out the screwdrivers, did a bit of frowning and a bit of swearing when I thought the wire-y bits were too short and couldn’t get the screws into that plastic whatsit inside, but suddenly it all came together.  AND I got it into the brackets AND it’s actually doing heating things now.  I couldn’t be more proud if I tried.  It’s the little things :o) Sadly, I don’t think my skills go as far as the washing machine, but if the engineer calls in sick again on Monday, I might just set aside 10 minutes for a quick tinker.  I could be on a roll here…. :o)

EDIT: Three minutes after posting this, every house in my road lost their power.  Now I’m sure it was just a coincidence and we would have had a power cut anyway, but maybe I spoke too soon…

The tube. Not exciting, I agree, but at least you can picture things properly now...

The tube. Not exciting, I agree, but at least you can picture things properly now…

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Poorliness and makingness

Posted on January 27, 2015 by thepogblog

Some of you will know that my Mum recently had a big operation – hence the lack of blog posts – it’s been a rather busy time.  My whole family are now very smiley that after almost every complication going, she’s finally home! :o) (Strangely, minus her tummy button which was either removed with other nasties, or has been sewn into her scar in an accidental kind of tummy tuck…).

While she was I hospital Dad went to sit with her every day.  Sister 1 provided light entertainment for her by taking Little Pea to visit (who apparently rather liked wearing sick bowls as a hat).  Sister 2 went down every morning to bed bath, and later shower, and dress Mum.  I love that my family all did their own bit and had their own role.  Sister 1 and Sister: you were both amazing.

This is not Mummy. This is Penny Gwen, who stole her bed for a short while.

This is not Mummy. This is Penny Gwen, who stole her bed for a short while.

I didn’t really have a role, other than ‘evening visitor’.  I would hurtle down to the hospital after work, moan about the traffic and try very hard to think of scintillating conversation.  I’m not very good at that, so I just went into making mode.  Big time.  I did making at the hospital, I did making when I couldn’t sleep.  I did making to distract myself from worrying.  I even read crochet patterns in bed.

Before Mum went into hospital, Sisters 1 and 2 decided to have a tattoo of an anemone done for her.  I’m not into body art like they are but Sister 1 asked if I’d like to join them.

Me:  How much will it hurt?

Sister 1:  Like a thousand wasps are stinging you.  And having a good scratch at the same time.

Me:  Hmmm

I decided to do my own version and made some anemone like flowers and made this for Mum instead:

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I attempted sausage rolls.  Mum makes them for Dad and I thought he might run out of homemade ones when we realised Mum would be in a lot longer than expected.  I followed the instructions Mum had given me before, but somehow it went wrong.  I made the BIGGEST sausage rolls ever.  It turned out these were enough for 5 meals…

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I made Sister 2 a hat she had requested for dog walking.  And I finished a caplet thingy for myself:

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And then a friend posted a picture of a light up rug on Facebook and I had a go at that too (Norman was not keen and decided it needed killing.  Little Pea now owns the rug….):

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And I did a spot of secret bakering for yesterday for office (I made some for Mum too):

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Well, it gave me some conversation material at the hospital.  Maybe not that sparkly, but as few of the other patients got involved, I don’t think it was too bad.  Oh, and as a result of wearing the capelet thing out, I have had my first crochet commission from a complete stranger.  :o)

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Little Pea and me, and lots of water and mud

Posted on January 9, 2015 by thepogblog

I had a Little Pea and Me day just as the holidays finished.  I should have known it wouldn’t go quite to plan when, the day before on a quick visit from Little Pea to Pog Towers, I decided we should make a few thank you cards.  It was Sister 1 that realised the felt tips I’d given Little Pea were permanent markers.  My desk had a few additional decorations and Little Pea gave himself a green beard and small brown beauty spot…

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Anyway, onto our day on our own:  Mummy (Sister 1) left, we went into the garden for five minutes and Little Pea sat in the dog’s water bowl.  We changed trousers, top and vest and went back in the garden.  Where Little Pea poured a watering can of water over himself.  We changed trousers, top, vest and socks.

I thought his wardrobe might be safer if we went for a walk.  Little Pea took it easy in the buggy.  Auntie Pog was a sweaty mess 30 minutes in (and we’d only gone downhill.  We still had to get back up…  It wasn’t pretty.)  I decided that a bit or running around where no water containers were around might be fun, not understanding the attraction of big sticks.

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Eventually, Little Pea finished foraging and we went to the play ground.

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Nap time when we got back, but not before changing trousers one more time (I can’t even remember what caused that one).  I sat on the stairs for 40 minutes, listening to Little Pea emptying the contents of his cot on the floor and doing what I can only assume was early training for the trampolining Olympic team.  We gave up on the idea of a nap and settled down for lunch…liberally (accidentally) scattering bolognese sauce over what was previously white wall paper.  I think the orange flecks provide an interesting talking point though.

I was a bit worried that we may run out of clothes if we stayed at home the afternoon.  I was also worried that I wasn’t doing a very good job of the auntie thing, with so many ‘oops’ moments, so we drove to Gorgeous Godson’s house to see if he and Big Brother wanted to come to the park.  Happily there were sensible grown ups there who not only pointed out the need for wellies, but provided them, and (thankfully!) came to the park with us.

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I think it’s safe to say that Gorgeous Godson and Little Pea got on well.  He also loved Big Brother, and later told me off for not taking any photos of him.

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After lots of running around, falling over, wiping muddy hands on Auntie Pog’s jeans and a fair amount of playing at the big boy’s playground, we went home to Mummy.  Where she took his trousers off that were very muddy…

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It wasn’t just his trousers – look at his right hand! Oops

… to discover that he even had muddy knees.

I went home and got a text message to say that Little Pea was fast asleep by 6.30pm.  Mind you, I was asleep on my sofa by 9pm.  Once again, hats off to all you mummies.  I have no idea how you do that every day.  Especially with so few changes of clothes :)

Sorry, I have to post this one too – I love it:

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A hat and a blanket

Posted on January 6, 2015 by thepogblog

Years ago, in the days where I went out a lot in London and could drink most people under the table (I did say it was years ago, ok?) I made a deal with myself.  On the way home from such a night I had to give any homeless people I saw some money – if I could afford a few drinks, I could certainly afford to help them.  (I don’t want to start a debate on the right or wrongs of giving money to homeless people here.  Frankly, I don’t feel I am in a position to tell people that they shouldn’t drink or take drugs when I am on my way home to a nice warm house and bed).

I don’t do much of the going out or drinking these days, but just before Christmas I joined some of the people in my new office for some Christmas drinks.  On the way home I saw a man who I see sleeping on The Strand every morning, selling The Big Issue.  I bought a copy, gave him a bit extra and we had a chat.

His name is Richard, he’s been homeless on and off for nine years and has been sleeping in that particular spot for a few months after being evicted from a flat he finally got when whichever agency pays rent screwed up and forgot to pay.  As a single man he’s now back at the bottom of the housing list.  He’s always asleep when I walk past at 7am because he doesn’t go to sleep until 6am so he can be sure that ‘the drunks and nutters’ have gone.  He wasn’t drunk or drinking, he wasn’t on drugs…he was just keen for a chat.

These days (as you probably know if you read this blog much) I’m far more likely to spend my evenings like this:

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And mostly I make things of very little consequence.  I wanted to do something useful though, so I decided to make Richard a new hat.  I saw some very cosy snood like hats at a Christmas Craft fair I went to and thought that might work well as it wouldn’t fall off and it would keep his neck warm too.  So I copied the idea:

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It’s just a rectangle with the back and part of the front crocheted together

Mum and I went up to London over the holidays and we found Richard.  He seemed pleased with his hat and let me take his photo:

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Yesterday when I passed him on the way to work he wasn’t wearing it, but then he did tell me when we last spoke that it wasn’t too cold yet…

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In case there are any other crocheters out there who might want to do the same, I also made this over Christmas:

It is squre - I'm not sure how I managed to make it look such a funny shape in the picture

It is square – I’m not sure how I managed to make it look such a funny shape in the picture

It’s to this pattern specified by a charity called SANDS.  They support people affected by the death of a baby before, during or shortly after birth and part of that is to create a memory box containing the blankets that people send to them.  There’s a knitting pattern too  (If you do make one, they have to be in white double knitting wool).

Sometimes crocheting with Norman is more useful than others :o)

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Christmas round up and some naughty finger puppets

Posted on December 30, 2014 by thepogblog

Just before Christmas is completely over, I thought I’d do a quick Christmas roundup.

I had a lovely Christmas Eve with Gorgeous Godson and his big brother.  We put out a drink for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolph and things were very smiley.

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Then the news was broken that Mr Max, the Magical Elf (elf on the shelf) would be picked up by Father Christmas to go back to the North Pole that night.  Gorgeous Godson was pretty distraught at this turn of events…..

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…but luckily Mr Max managed to cheer him up and things calmed down a little :o)

Before Christmas, I got really organised and made Little Pea a duffle coat.  I was really proud of it until I held it up against him to check the size on one of our ‘Little Pea and Me’ days.  It may fit him when he is about five.  In fact, it’s so big, it almost fits my Mum.

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I moved rapidly from organised to panicked, realising I had to give him something else for Christmas.  Then a brilliant crocheter who I follow started posting patterns on her blog for animals of the alphabet – she was going to make a blanket with them.  I found another person had posted patterns for crocheted letters (thank goodness for the internet and talented people who share their patterns for free!) and set to work.  You have no idea how difficult it is to crochet a unicorn…  When I finished, Mum, Dad and Sister 2 suggested I make it into a wall hanging rather than a blanket, so I added an extra bit at the top, popped a piece of doweling through it and ta dah!:

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Little Pea seemed quite impressed.  Well, he smiled lots and knew some of the animals, which was pretty good going.

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On Boxing Day we went for a walk.  In our onsies.  I don’t know why.  It seemed like a good idea at the time though and demonstrates how my family don’t take themselves even a little bit seriously.

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Even the sheep did a double take:

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And the geese where slightly startled:

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One of the Christmas jobs I gave myself a couple of years back was to make our crackers.  I thought this year I’d try something different and using a book, I crocheted finger puppets.  (If you ever try this, you’ll need a wooden spoon to jam the puppets into the cracker.  Along with a hat, joke and chocolate, it’s a bit of a squeeze).  My thought was that if people didn’t want their puppet, Little Pea could have them all to play with, so for once, the contents wouldn’t all get thrown in the bin.  You have no idea how long it takes to sew in a mermaids hair…

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So it was all very wholesome…until a certain Sister 2 got hold of the finger puppets.  Then it went downhill rapidly.  Avert your eyes if you’re easily offended ;o)

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Happy Christmas, Happy New Year and thank you for keeping me company here in blog land :o)

 

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On a hunt to find smiles

Posted on December 17, 2014 by thepogblog

My new office is not a terribly happy place.  On day 1 of week 4 I had the first conversation that I hadn’t initiated and was very excited.  And then felt grumpy as that was hardly impressive.  The people on my floor don’t seem to talk and hardly even smile.  It was all  a bit Bah Humbug.  But I happen to believe that you shouldn’t moan about something too much until you’ve made an effort to change things, so last week I put on my secret baker hat again and…well, baked.

I did forget that I now have a 30 minute walk to round off my commute (bring it neatly to 2 hours) and that I would be carrying two rather heavy boxes as well as the back pack that makes me look like a German tourist (no offence to Germans) and weighs more than Little Pea, so it was a rather sweaty Secret Baker that arrived on Monday.  I put the boxes in the kitchen:

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left the usual note:

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And… nobody paid the slightest bit of interest.

Then, a few hours later, I noticed people had started taking slices.  And they were chatting to each other. And, it’s hard to believe, but they were SMILING!  (Not at me, admittedly, but we’re taking baby steps here).  And then, very best of all, I saw this:

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Hooray!

So my next step on the plan to find some smiles was to embrace Christmas party drinks at the pub, complete with Christmas jumpers.  This is not something I would usually do (the work drinks or bad Christmas jumpers.  The alcohol, I was ok with, but had to drive home.  Grrrr), but I figured a group of people who’ll put on a daft jumper for a night, must be a smiley lot.  And they were!  They aren’t on my floor, but at least I now know there are some lovely people in the office.

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some of the smilers :o)

 

So slowly, slowly, I’m finding smiles.  Maybe it won’t be so bad after all :o)

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