Caterpillars...

...have invaded the basil and have been merrily chomping away! Bastards!

I don't know, you turn your back for 5 minutes (or two weeks) and the whole thing goes to pot. It doesn't help when your appointed herbacious assistant has a pathological fear of caterpillars and, when I announced from the balcony that I had found one of the little buggers, promptly slammed the door and locked it, refusing to open it (or even turn around) until i had deposited the aforementioned over the side of the balcony. Rex, do you do housecalls in Japan?

Now back in the swing of working again and my what a pleasure it is to be back. The holiday seems but a distant memory. The suitcase finally arrived on Tuesday afternoon with nothing, it appears, broken. However a spent camera film seems to be missing, so if Parentals or Chard come across a random Jessops film, pass it on, otherwise all the memories I have of the trip will be those haphazardly retained in my alcoholically befugged cerebellum. Either that or Rex or Bert will have to sort out their digital ones and get them emailed across sometime.

Second half of the holiday passed without apparent incident. I managed to get to London and meet up with Colin, an ex-colleague from Centre People, sounds like the company is doing ok but with the same weird boss with all her hang-ups (like sacking people, for instance). Also spent a day at our London recruitment office, which was good although it was only meant to be a morning. Still, I have claimed a day's less holiday as I consider it a day of work, I even tried to claim overseas daily allowance for it as well, but the boss was having none of it. Lastly I managed to get up to Leicester and meet my MBA tutor, Saeeda, (first assignment returned, I got a 'B' with 67% - 3 more and it would have been an 'A'! - am more than a little proud of this, not to say somewhat surprised) and have a good old chinwag - this after losing all the phone numbers and maps of how to get there, not an auspicious start. Anyway Saeeda didn't really talk (and she likes to talk) about the last assignment, or ideas for the next one, rather she went on about the dissertation, due in 2.5 years time, and then suggested that I start thinking about doing a Doctorate! Well just hold on a minute there, I think I'll just try to plod through the rest of this course before thinking about that sort of nonsense (although was secretly a little flattered).

Then got back on Friday night and got whammed with Chard and Hugo in the Duke of Devonshire, played a little arrows and beat a couple of locals, which, I suspect, made us bellow. Most impressed with Chard who, along with Bert and Rex, forswore the puffing of fagarettes during the lakes and who managed the whole night in the Duke without the help of one of the little fellas. Nice work, long may it continue.

Then back home. Just to say that the parting image of blighty was of apparent chaos in the departures hall of terminal 4, which pretty much summed up my experiences of the british transport system whilst back. I mean, it comes to something when the most effective and efficient mode of public transport when back was the train from London to Leicester and back.