Monday 6th January, 2014

Walking along a hale-strewn, windswept and lightly flooded street, I found myself uncharacteristically drawn to the warm (ok, dazzling neon, but dry) glow of Furniture Village and its near neighbours, SCS and Oak Furnitureland. Enticed for the first time into these back-drops to December and early Jan TV, I found myself in the centre of a small flurry of salespeople tripping over themselves to offer tea, hot chocolate, cake, biscuits, sweets, or anything, anything at all in, not that surprisingly, empty shops.

Feeling not unlike the Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman (just sadly minus the leg inch and ok, lots of other things, plus the added English embarassment at being treated well by shop assistants), I decided that the New Year would bring with it a whole new look and replaced almost everything in our sitting room.

And New Year is like that. Whether we want to or not, we can’t help but think of the future and see our current situations in a new light. Of course, the same is true both in our workplace and in terms of how that work will change and develop in the year ahead.

9th December, 2013

When one conference session finished and it was time for Apprentice finalist Adam Corbally to take to the stage, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be staying. Nothing personal, just not a fan of the kind of chest-beating, toe-curlingly embarrassing displays the show is sometimes associated with. But, I was sat with colleagues, and I guess I was curious, so I stayed….and I stayed….and I waited.

Finally, thirty minutes later he turned up after some confusion over timings. No problem I thought – these things happen. Then the visuals didn’t work. Then the visuals did work – but the sound didn’t. Amid much shuffling of feet, I was starting to regret my decision to stay.