Why does it have to be so nice?

Outside that is.

The air was cool in the shade, yet sweet-smelling with grass, trees and moist earth. Memories are still clinging from the last couple of weeks, and returning to work is a somewhat impolite (rude is a slightly strong word) awakening from a period of rest and relaxation. Back to the demands of work, people’s issues, problems and stresses.

I was wondering while in the shower this morning about whether I’d have to perform a particular piece of work this or next week. First thing I saw on the whiteboard in the office was that we had an urgent need for that to be done – at least I had an answer.

Things are coming back, although the brain is reluctant to get up to speed still. I have a feeling some more adrenalin will arrive later, when the US wakes up. Our MD is currently there, and I’m expecting to need a chat with him after this much time out of the loop. There’s also someone that wants certain materials shipped out that require very detailed and specific information before customs will let them in. Said person doesn’t seem to grasp that the information needs to be detailed and accurate with the kind of data that only they can supply. Customs don’t take kindly to vagueness, and our shipping people aren’t happy being hounded either. I sense a heated ‘discussion’ later too, as well as a lot of time for me to root through cold storage here.

It’s nice that people here are pleased to see me though.


And talking of detailed information – we had an odd experience involving home-made wine on the way home.

Phil (whose house we stayed in last week) makes wine in substantial amounts. He was kind enough to give us tasters and then a bottle to bring home with us, and this is where things got interesting.

One case was heavy (79lb heavy) – 50lb is the limit for the baggage handlers - while one was light at around 29lb. While moving stuff between cases the lass on the check-in desk noticed that we had a bottle of wine. Apparently home made wine is not permitted on internal flights for security reasons (I guess a wine bottle of liquid explosive would look V similar to a bottle of wine on Xray). After detailed questioning and offering to give it up (somewhat reluctantly) we were allowed to keep it, but with the understanding this was an exception. I suspect if we’d not been a family and of different ethnic origins then things would have been (understandably) different.