Saying goodbye

Typically, I was late leaving this morning and encountered the bin men in "cut-throat" alley in Holcot. Two vans in front of me reversed, so I did the same. I tried to make up time on the rest of the journey and arrived in the car park at work on the dot of 7:30am.

When Kathy arrived at work, I was given a lovely leaving card, a £50 voucher to spend at Beckworth, or any Blue Diamond garden centre, and a bottle of peach fizz. I tried very hard not to get emotional, and it was wonderful seeing all the kind messages people had written.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day was extremely quiet, and I had nothing, and I mean nothing, to do. It wasn't how I wanted my last day to be. I sent off the moan report and said how much I'd enjoyed working with everyone, and had some very kind messages in return. The rest of the time was spent tidying up my emails, and the time dragged. It was a huge relief when 4:00pm arrived, and we could leave. I bid a fond farewell to Nicola and Kathy and walked away for the last time. These are the things, for posterity, that I will not miss:

1. The horrible commute to work
2. The niggling worry that I won't find a parking space
3. Driving through the hospital grounds
4. The odour as I walk into the building. It's a kind of sewage smell
5. The horrible kitchen, which I can't ever see getting finished and being somewhere nice to sit and relax! The water from the tap is never cold!
6. Walking through the sports hall to get to our office and disturbing a class or people playing badminton
7. The heat we've suffered recently in the office and the lack of air conditioning
8. The dismal outlook
9. The wooden floor
10. The lack of drawers or cupboards to store our things. It was unbelievable that we weren't allowed to take our drawers with us
11. It took ages to fetch my lunch, and it was even worse if I had to heat it up in the microwave. Half of my fifteen minutes had gone by the time I sat back down at my desk!
12. No printer or shredder in the office
13. Nicola being so close behind me when she used to have her own office
14. No cleaner to empty our bins or keep the office clean
15. Getting off the hospital grounds to go home. On some occasions, it's taken me almost twenty minutes!
16. I hated going to the loo, as well!

I think the time has come for something different! 

I drove home and relaxed, and when Sophie arrived, we opened a bottle of English Pinot Noir rosé and munched on some lentil crisps with a salsa dip.

We watched Fake or Fortune again, and it was riveting! I'd like to see a whole series of fakers and forgers!

Dinner was a spicy chilli con carne, and after dinner we continued watching a Netflix documentary about the 2012 sinking of the Costa Concordia. I'll never look at cruise ships in the same way again!