Fri, Dec 15

Where do we start? This morning Paul drove over to Harlow (about 25 minutes drive) for his 4th job interview. However, after being kept 20 minutes because the Finance Director was late in for work, he was informed that his CV was too system-related, and that he was too senior for the role they had. Oh well.

This afternoon Dawn attended her official company Christmas dinner. Well, she did for about 45 minutes. Although Dawn had no real intentions of staying very long, she made her exit a little sooner that she had planned because the event was turning into a farce. In a nutshell, the dinner was actually a drink-a-thon. The guest list of around 170 each received tickets for 5 free alcoholic drinks. The food that should have been served buffet-style ended up being finger food served on a platter where the waiters bumped shoulders with the guests there was so little room. The lighting was almost nonexistent; it took several minutes to acclimatize one's eyes to the dimness on the room. And finally, the room all this was happening in was down two levels to the subterranean London. A fire hazard if ever there was one.

Anyway, Dawn met Paul at a local Costa coffee shop before we made our way to Islington to grab an early dinner. Our first shock of the evening was when we visited the building where Paul worked for 17 years before we immigrated to Florida. The old warehouse that had been offices for the best part of Paul's working life was now a three-level open-planned arts store (photo above). Paul felt strange to say the least walking around the art supplies where there had been for many years office desks, filing cabinets and partition walls.

We then found a Mexican restaurant, Desperados, for dinner. However, the food was far from what we would regard as authentic Mexican. It was barely Tex-Mex. All we will say is that the cheese nachos were cheese-flavoured Doritos covered with cheese, guacamole, sour cream and jalapenos. Worst of all were the pictures in the men's toilet wall. Paul would have preferred graffiti that you could choose to ignore than a full length mural of women in various sexual positions with skeletons.

Our day never ended there, though. About 8.30pm Paul noticed that we had a leak coming from our living room ceiling. Well, Tiny really noticed it, as water hit her on her back and freaked her out. Anyway, we called out an emergency plumber who found that the shower pump in our bedroom closet was and had been leaking for quite a long time. The plumber removed the guilty culprit and left shortly after midnight. This means that we will be washing in the sink until we get a new shower pump. Hopefully on Monday!