Aching Tootsies

I feel like I've hardly sat down all day. It's been one of those days where there is so much to do that all you can do is run around like an idiot all day.

Today we had a retirement party at work for one of my colleagues who has clocked up an amazing 37 years of service for the Eye Centre. Now you'd think that after such long and faithful service, management would make sure that they got a decent send off, wouldn't you? Yeah, well ... what can I say other than that our management couldn't organise their way out of a wet paper bag. We were astounded to hear a few weeks ago that they could (or should that be would?) only spend £100 on a party ... for approximately 50 people. I mean, what on earth can you buy for that? A cup of tea and half a soggy sandwich if you're lucky. My bosses were so outraged that they said they would pay for the party, which is really decent of them considering that this particular colleague doesn't work in our department.

So today, I've spent most of the day assisting in preparing our seminar room for the party, putting the food out, doing all the clearing up etc. And my feet were killing me by the end of it all. But the party was a great success, Maureen had lots of lovely presents and lots of ex-colleagues came to wish her well. She probably didn't realise just how highly valued she is to the people she works with ... with the exception of management, of course. This is the same management who all got big payrises with Agenda for Change, while the people that do all the hard work didn't. In fact, lots of colleagues at work (mainly those doing clerical jobs) had their salaries frozen, effectively they were downgraded. It's despicable! But there we go ... that's another rant I shall save for another day.

Other news ... my laptop arrived yesterday. I'm not too excited as yet - I didn't even open the box until 10.30 pm last night as I was struggling to get the VAT return finished, and I had an evil migraine, and really it was the last thing I was interested in. However, I did fire it up (in Colin's absence, he didn't get home from work until 2.00 am) and get it connected to the network, but as Col said I couldn't start moving my stuff across until he's loaded up whatever programmes he seems to think he needs to load up, all I can really do is surf the net. So for now I have to continue with this old laptop. Well, it's got Photoshop on it, so if I want to get any scrapping done then this is the one for me for now. This new laptop is going to be my prime opportunity to get all my stash organised how I want it, on ACDSee; and I should also organise all my photos and stuff too. It'll take some time, I suspect, but it has to be done!

Anyway, I'm rambling now so I'm going before I bore you all to sleep ... might come back later and post some pics from the party today.