New York, New York...Part 1

Friday started a little earlier than usual as Mum & I set off to Manchester Airport to meet Sal for our flight. We both panicked a bit about making sure that we got there on time, having to travel round Manchester during morning rush hour traffic. Turns out there was no need to be so over cautious and after 1.5 hours we were parked and ready to get on the bus to the terminal. In fact we were in the queue to check our bags in while Sal was still at Nikki's house where she'd stayed over night. Sal arrived and we'd moved about 4 places in the queue as the Continental crew checked all the passports of people in the line, asked all the security questions and then still took ages to actually check bags in and give us boarding passes. Having checked in online on Thursday night most of the process seemed quite pointless as we'd had to put all the passport details, accommodation etc in online already so why they needed to ask for it again I have no idea.

Anyway after that the flight was fairly smooth, a bit of turbulence but nothing too worrying. I watched Benjamin Button, about 1 minute before Sal so if I'd missed anything on screen I could just look across to hers and catch up on it! I didn't want to watch another film so I went for a couple of episodes of House instead and fell asleep for a while.

We knew that the weather wasn't going to be so good for the weekend and the drive to the hotel started off a little grey but by the time we pulled up at the hotel it was pouring down so it was a quick jump out of the car, pull the bags from the boot and run instead - and we still got soaked. After finding our way all the way up to the 50th Floor we found our room and the fantastic views from being so high. It had been a fairly long day already so we lay down and closed our eyes for a bit before braving the rain again for some dinner and out to the Marquis Theatre to see 9 to 5. It was a great show, being very new (just a month of preview performances and the opening night) we didn't know what to expect but it was really good. The songs, cast and set were all fantastic. Sadly one of the most exciting things (I thought) was that I forgot in America that the programmes -Playbill - and they are free!

More West Wing....

I recently spent about 5.5 weeks watching all 7 series of The West Wing, morning, noon and night.  It was an obsession, I'd watch as soon as I got in from work, all evening, on the cross trainer, in bed - fall asleep watching it, rewind what I'd missed by being asleep and watch it while drying my hair in the morning, eating breakfast.... You get the idea.

Anyway this morning I linked through from another blog to Sam Allberry's blog because I was intrigued about a reference to a West Wing episode and Shibboleth that was mentioned and I found this post about West Wing episodes.  You need to read through the comments as well, I found it really amusing - and for the references that I couldn't quite remember I think it's time to start from Series 1 Episode 1 again....

Aches and Pains

I thought having a cross trainer was supposed to be doing me some good.  I can't say I've been keeping up with it as regularly as the good intentions that I started out with but considering the aches in my legs after my walk today it can't be doing me much good at all!

I walked into York from home with Ruth, we wandered round the shops a while, stopped for a drink and then walked home.  I've calculated it to be about 6.5 miles.  Considering that the regular walk to and from work that I was doing before Christmas was 5 miles then I don't think this should have been too difficult.

I was wrong, I spent last night stretching my legs out because they ached, in particular my right knee and all day at work today remembering how to walk properly after I'd been sat down for a while.  Exercise is not good for me!

No further questions

I got a letter a few weeks ago asking whether I would take part in a MORI poll about my recent experience with the criminal system. I quickly realised that it wasn't suggesting that I had committed a crime but it was referring to me being a victim of crime. It then took me a bit longer to realise what it was actually talking about because I didn't remember being a victim of crime. A little bit longer and I remembered, although I wasn't the one that reported the crime, I did end up having the longest witness statement and pretty much all of the evidence relating to a case at work that I had to investigate for disciplinary action into a fraud.

I had no idea whether the phone number I had given at the time was my old work phone or my own personal number so I thought I'd just wait and see whether anyone one rang. And they did, this evening. There I was with nothing much to do but watch TV and the phone rang and rather than saying I was too busy, I thought it would be quite interesting to see what they wanted to know so I was quite looking forward to spending the 15 mins required taking part in the poll.

First question - was I involved in the case because I am a police officer, expert witness, member of a legal body or the victim? Victim

Second question - is the status of the case still ongoing, closed with outcome or closed with no outcome? Closed with outcome.

Third question - am I over 18? Yes

Fourth question - what was the nature of the crime that was reported? Fraud / Theft

At that point the guy says because it was a fraud then that's it, no more questions! I was so disappointed, I wanted to give my comments about what happened and how rubbish I thought they had been. How even though I had a huge statement, and the police were very helpful at the start, I was never told of the date that the case was in court, or of the outcome. Instead I found out along with everyone else when it was on the front page of the local paper.

I guess I won't be a statistic this time.

Holiday!

I've had a lovely long weekend at Sal's. After a very long drive straight after work on Wednesday night, it was lovely to wake up on Thursday knowing that I had 4 full days before I had to be back in work. We had a lot of wedding discussions, trying to figure out what shoes I will wear, and going through the long list of questions that I had pulled together from being with Mum the weekend before. After hearing and reading so much about Jill it was also good to meet her at last!

Friday evening we drove over to Shepton Mallet to see Alicia in her theatre school performance of Old School Musical which was a selection of songs from the musicals - a perfect evening for Sal and I. The show was really great and Alicia did really well, she looked like she was really enjoying herself the whole way through.

Saturday we went to Winchester with Jill to The Pottery Cafe. Although after the last time Sal and I did this we said that we would have to plan our patterns before we went again, we didn't. But we didn't take as long as last time deciding what it was that we were all going to do. Again I did finish much faster - my attention to detail obviously not as good as Sal's, or maybe I just pick simpler designs to do.... Pictures to follow when we pick up the final glazed pots.

It was another lovely weekend to get to spend some time with Sal, next time let's go to New York!

Tribunal

One experience I hope to never have to go through is giving evidence in an employment tribunal. Given the fact that I'm a HR Adviser I think this wish will be a little unrealistic. One of my colleagues, Emma had to go through the experience in December and we spent three days watching the conclusion of the case this week.

I always knew that it was similar to a court room situation but I was nervous just watching and listening to the barrister's firing questions, being very arrogant and condescending (theirs not ours) and starting sentences with 'I put it to you...' And I've decided I never want that sentence to end 'I put it to you Miss Greenwood'.

So I'm going to have to work even harder to make sure that all of my cases are dealt with so well that they never get that far, or work really hard on making sure that any that do turn into a claim are settled well before it gets to a hearing. For anyone that's wondering the outcome of this case will be decided on 14th April - and it's not looking good for us.

Funny Story

The funniest story that I heard this week came from Ruth, it was one of those 'this happened to a friend of a friend' things but it wasn't that far removed so that makes me believe that it is true.

A friend (of a friend) was looking after someones house and dog while they were on holiday.  During this time the dog, which was very old, died.  Now I thought that was enough for the story but there was much more than that....

It was fairly late so she decided that she would take the dog to the vet in the morning to have him cremated so that she had something to give to the owners when they came back from holiday. (Not being a big pet lover myself I find this a little strange but anyway).  So she put the dog in a hold all, in the back of the car overnight.  After driving to the vet's the next day she got out of the car and went to get the bag (with dog) out of the boot.  By this time rigor mortis had set in and the bag was very heavy so as she was struggling to move the heavy holdall from the back of the car a guy came up and asked if he could help.  He commented that it was heavy and asked what was in the bag.  As she didn't want to admit that she had a dead dog in the bag, she decided that it would be better to lie and say that it was a laptop instead.   

Big mistake, the guy ran off with the bag stealing what he thought was a laptop!  I'd love to know what happened after that when he stopped to look in the bag...