If Omar Sharif lived in Gateshead I doubt he'd be Omar Sharif

The engineer from the phone company came out on Friday. The company I work for arranged for business lines to be installed in all of our houses, and I think the engineer they sent to my house was one of the Chuckle brothers. Instead of installing a new, additional line, he cut off my phone line. Twat. So it's taken until today to sort it out, and I'd like to say that it didn't stress me out. but it did. So I'll just get that nice big GRRRRRRRR out of the way!

It was a pity that Friday afternoon became so stressful, because I had had a very enjoyable day. We had our team away day at Warwick castle. We had a presentation about risk logs in the morning (yes, I know) but spent the afternoon in teams, doing a sort of treasure hunt around the castle grounds. The weather was beautiful and I was teamed with some excellent people, and although we didn't win, it was so much fun to explore around the castle and grounds.

Phone cock-up aside, it really was a lovely weekend. Nic and I popped by to see C & N and their new carpet, and to share some extremely tasty Lansdowne chips, and then we went to the pub. The rest of the weekend went by in a bit of a blur and I couldn't recount it with any profit. Nic and I have been busy getting him ready to go to Michigan for a conference - I knitted him a scarf and we found him some nice warm and smart coats in the charity shop around the corner:



Ooh, and I also managed to get MY winter coat sorted out. Not, unfortunately, from the charity shop around the corner:



Not that Northern Ireland will be as cold as Detroit, but still. It will be good to be wrapped up warm. And good to have a week off - it has been a stressful fortnight. And this is boring, so I will leave off here.