May 25, 2002

(Toby)

The stuff before Prague that we forgot to write about, and some current stuff…

If you remember, a few weeks ago Tom and I mentioned that people here bring 'cakes' to work on their birthdays. Well, here's a picture to show you what we were talking about. It was Alex's birthday (one of my employees - well, ex-employee but that's another story, maybe next week) and this is what he brought. Although people are constantly eating at work (mostly crisps and chocolate), this kind of thing seems to last a lot longer than I thought it would. If it ever came to a junk food eating competition, the folks at Interleaf (old US job) could beat the pants of the Akzo Nobel crew! Well, maybe not. Maybe it is because they are constantly eating the other stuff that they don't usually get to finish the birthday stuff. Dunno. All I can say is I'm glad we joined the gym. What I mean is, I'm glad we're going to the gym. I've joined them before…

And while we're talking about work, here's a picture of my crew. They are (from left to right in the back) Tara (support person for the group, age 20), Alan (credit controller, age 19), Alex (ex-senior credit controller, just turned 26 and resigned a couple of weeks ago), and Peter in front (credit controller age 34). We have just hired someone to fill Alex's void and she will start in early June. I'll update the picture later and include Sharon (my boss). She was originally in this group shot but it wasn't a very good picture of her. (I've had Tom cut her out of the picture because just yesterday she said she was going to check out the website and I'd like to keep my job;-) Life at work has been one big soap opera (really!) for the past month or so but things are settling down now. I think it would make a good sitcom once it is all sorted out. Never a dull moment though, I will say that! Too complicated to really write about. We'll talk.

If you've been following along since we got here, you know that my company basically sells car paint. There are 2 divisions if you will, Car Refinishing and Commercial Transport. I mostly focus on Car Refinishing but do have overall responsibility for Commercial Vehicles too. So a little while back I got to go to a commercial vehicles trade show. You got it - BIG TRUCKS. Lots of big shiny trucks - it was huge. Here are a few pictures of the show and of our booth. Cool van, huh? Somebody from Akzo took us around and showed us some of our paint in action as well as some of our competitors. It was a good way to get a better understanding of the business. A little better anyway. I've still got a long way to go to understand the differences in car paints. Thankfully, I don't really have to to do my job. Phew. (Sikkens and Masons are two of our paint brand names.)

Last week I got to take a road trip with my boss, Sharon, and another big wig. We went to visit two of our body shop branches - Cardiff and Birmingham. They are basically our in house distributors and look like big warehouses, but it was good to meet some of the folks we talk to all the time and also to get a better feel for how the business works. Good too to see all of our products all lined up. Generally, it was a very worthwhile trip.

(Tom) Work is heating up for a big proposal - that'll probably last through June and means I will be working long hours for the next few weeks. That's okay, as long as these things don't come up every month! And, my predecessor, Rich, is coming over to help on Tuesday. It will be nice to have him around and to have help on the work-front.

Outside of work, we had a nice Friday night dinner at the Wantman's (relatives of family friends of Toby's). They have a nice open door policy on Friday nights (and in general) - they never know who's going to show up. Here are two pictures of the crew - there were too many for one shot!

One Saturday Tom saw an ad for asparagus picking in the paper and the next day there we were! The farm was only about 15 minutes from our flat. The field looked pretty picked over by the time we got there, but we did manage to get a good solid bunch of fresh asparagus. YUM! Not nearly as messy as strawberry picking can be. If only we'd had a blender we would have made some soup.

That's one thing about being here short term - we're just not sure what is worth buying and what we can do without. So far we've done pretty well with our limited cookware, but I think a cheap blender just may be in our future. We can always have a car boot sale before we go. (Mom, you will come and help, won't you?)

The picture of the yellow field is an example of a rapeseed field. It's not a great example, but you get the idea. There are lots of them all over, and they are really pretty - especially when you see one just as you come over a hill. I've heard they smell sweet as well, but we're usually driving by too fast (with the windows up) to notice. Wolvercote Green (the field across from our flat) is starting to turn yellow too. We're not sure if it is rapeseed or not, but we'll try to remember to post a picture as it gets prettier - or at least more yellow.

Continuing on with the earth portion of this weeks posting, here's a picture of some flowers in front of our flat. These are cowslips and they are protected flowers (we think, or so says our neighbor). As you can see, the gardener mowed around them. There are a few protected species here and lots of buttercups! It is still getting prettier all the time. And those are apple trees in the picture, which, we're told, produce a lot of apples!

Last weekend we finally got to have a proper Sunday Supper at the Plough, our local pub. It was a beautiful day so we sat outside and ate our roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Yum.

They advertised a street festival here in Summertown (a mile away) for this morning but it turned out to be really dumb. It was scheduled from 10-12 but there was nothing really going on except some music in a few places and one area where kids could write on the sidewalk with chalk or get their faces painted. We took the camera to show you but there was nothing to take a picture of. There are lots of open studios in the area but they don't open until noon when the so called festival ends. Wouldn't have been so bad if there really was a festival. We came home. Way poor planning in my book. Now we had to get motivated to go out again, and since Tom is downstairs watching Star Trek, I wasn't sure it would happen. However, one of the artists participating is a mosaicist (?) who lives in our complex. We did go to that one and a few others - even one illustrator of kids books (Korky Paul) who signed a book or two for us. Saw some lovely art as well - perhaps we'll see more as this continues through next weekend.

Tomorrow we are going to an art exhibit in London called Body Worlds. It's an exhibit of pickled people - inside and out. Sounds creepy but we've heard it was really good. Check this out:

BODY WORLDS…is an anatomical exhibition of real human bodies that provides unique insights into the healthy and diseased human body. Individual organs are arranged according to area in order to learn more about their functions and typical diseases. The exhibition also includes the opportunity to study individual, complex, anatomical structures in whole-body and cross section specimens.

Enough nonsense for now. Here are a few bits and bobs to hold you until next time.

Bits and Bobs:

• Expression of the week: When something is settled, or over they say it is "done and dusted"
• Urinal is pronounced "your-INE-al"
• A nap is known here as a kip (Tom Says: Dad-take note for your visit)
• Lots of my (Tom's) male coworkers go to stag weekends for their soon-to-be married male friends
• The equivalent for women is called a hen night or hen do or hen weekend
• The game Clue is called Cluedo here. No one knows why.
• Today is our 6-month anniversary!