Just Keep Going

'twas quite a week.

The dreaded agency debrief on Monday actually went quite well, mostly thanks to the head honcho of the agency presenting who was acting decidedly weird towards me. Must've dented his ego or something. My presentation in the afternoon did go ok as well according to feedback (I thought I was rambling a bit too much). And I made it out to Winter Wonderland in the evening to meet up with Frani & her friends & be sociable. I'll probably go back there tomorrow to hunt for Xmas presents (my flatmates demand I give the presents).

Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I roasted my first ever batch of chestnuts in the oven & didn't burn down the house. They were quite tasty as well. I count this as a WIN.

Had my GP registration appointment on Wednesday morning, which was thoroughly disappointing. It was just the nurse checking my pee for diabetes & any signs of cystitis, I also got a little lecture about being somewhat overweight which ended in her giving me a leaflet on healthy eating. Great. I was hoping for a blood test & some advice on my travel health, but apparently you need to make extra appointments for that. What a waste of time.

Thursday morning I set off towards Victoria to sort out my visa for India. I arrived on time, got seen & then turned away pretty quickly. I stupidly mentioned that I work in media in my visa application form, which I should've realised when I selected it that it was a huge mistake. Saying you've got anything to do with TV, journalism or similar professions is always a bad idea when you want to visit countries that are a little bit tetchy about people seeing what actually goes on. So I got to work only one hour late, arranged with my boss that I would take the remaining 3 hours on Friday & spent most of the morning battling the online visa application form. It took various attempts until I finally got something that looked like they would accept it.

And then the power went out shortly after lunchbreak. I was in the middle of telling our student placement's advisor how great he is (he really does a pretty good job) when lights went out. And they stayed out until they sent us home 2 hours later. Which meant we got to leave for my team's Xmas dinner earlier than expected.

I don't particularly like spending non-work time with my colleagues, but the evening turned out rather pleasant. We had a few drinks in some random pub near Carnaby Street, then ventured over to Revolution in SoHo & finally had something to eat at Busaba Eathai in Wardour Street. Totally tasty food, good veggie choices, too. The evening was rounded off in The Sun & 13 Cantons (what a name for a simple pub).

Today I've made another attempt at securing a visa for my upcoming holiday, didn't get turned away this time & I really hope that all goes well. Grabbed a sandwich at Eat, then loitered outside the STA Travel shop until they opened to visit the travel clinic. I tried to go to my GP for my jabs, but they only do a travel clinic once a week at totally useless times & the first possible appointment would have been on 11th Jan. Seriously. The guy/doctor at Nomad was cool, he checked the malaria situation for me (don't need anything for that) & stuck a few needles into my arm. Yes, I had to pay for the pleasure, but it's done, it went fine & I feel safe in the knowledge that the person advising me on my travel health knew what he was talking about. He also got totally excited about international certification of vaccinations booklet, which lists all vaccinations I've had since I was a baby.

Shots done, I rewarded myself with a Starbucks Chai Tea & made my way to work. We had a really impressive bout of snow in the afternoon (not much left of it, though) & my arm now hurts from that damn tetanus jab. I'm praying that the snow/fog situation will be alright for me to get home on Thursday (cue obsessive-compulsive checking of weather forecast), there's a definite threat of more snow for the weekend but things are still up in the air after that.

I'll hopefully get good news about my visa next week & maybe I'll make it to Av's Xmas bash tomorrow.

Now excuse me while I snuggle up in my cosy duvet, it's cold & Friday.