Verily, violent vehicular veering verged on the villainous. The victim? Vexed!

( View vivid violation )

Commenting on the snow by now would seem kind of redundant. It hasn't even settled here yet, ah well. On that note though, a line from one of the Christmas songs playing at work recently struck me, it's that "Free the World" one. "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time" it laments. How often is there snow at Christmas time over here!?

The last couple of days I've been helping my dad out at Sparling Benham & Brough. Seems the workload has picked up since the credit crunch first hit and that combined with various people either using the last of their holiday or falling ill has resulted in a bit of a back log. The question asked the most is whether or not I miss it.
Hell no!
The guys are still great and everything, I just hate the job even more now that I've done one I actually enjoy. Heck, the busier it gets around Christmas the more I'm enjoying it! Being sat down at Sparlings typing stuff I know nothing about, answering phones about matters and people which mean nothing to me... it's so frustrating. It should be easy, and in a way it is, but I really really hope I don't end up back in that kind of environment.
Could I hack it? Possibly.
Would I be able to put half as much effort in as I do at Modelzone? Ever so no.

On the plus side (as well as being paid!) I got invited to the office Christmas party, which was today. It was at this little Italian joint in Frinton (Piatto I think) which is always very nice. It used to be a normal restaurant called Alistairs, then got remade into a different Italian place. I'm not sure if that one ever opened, either way it was closed down under allegations of money laundering shortly after the conversion was finished. After a couple of months lying dormant it opened again under its new name (and possibly new management).
Either way that particular backstory caused me endless mirth when the Godfather tune came on the background music...

One of the fee earners, Shirley, can't eat gluten and was a bit let down to find there weren't any desserts she could eat (bar the lemon sorbet, but it's not really ice cream weather). Feeling sorry for her I went straight home afterwards and whipped up a gluten free chocolate cake which I managed to get finished before she went home for the day, and thus Christmas cheer was restored!

Anyway, I need to be up at a sensible time tomorrow to sort out the Christmas tree so I shall cut my criminal overuse of brackets short.