Wifey was not happy....

when I told her I was going on a course (which meant staying away from home) for two weeks, one of which was school half term. In fact, not happy is somewhat of an understatement. She was mighty pissed.

The Firm's training centre is in a very nice mansion house near Reading and going on a course usually involves;

• driving up in a hire car on the Sunday night and arriving just in time to catch the bar
• spending one or two weeks pulling apart a large production printer or some such device
• putting it back together
• pulling it apart and putting back again so that it works this time
• eating a lot
• drinking a lot (for me anyway)
• burping and farting a lot
• talking a whole load of bollocks with like minded people that you have never met before.
• getting bored

But this course was different because it wasn't a hardware course it was a software course and it wasn't an engineers course it was a network support analyst's course.

The network support job is a move up that I have been working to get for a few years now and due to the fact that a couple of big obstacles have been removed from my path (they left the company) I'm in a good position and this course was a big step in the right direction. It doesn't mean I'm likely to get the job any time soon though. I really can't say much about this as it involves work and the company.

Staying at the mansion house is nice but you get a bit fed with it after a while, and having been there so many times over the years the only different thing is that the people who run the centre seem to find a new way in which they can fuck up the restaurant arrangements.

room with a view

On the return journey for the second week I got stuck in a jam on the M4 only ten minutes away from the training centre and I didn't move for two and a half hours. Listening to a Harry Potter book on CD helped to pass the time.

After a couple of hours I decided to get out of the car, stretch my legs a bit and have a wee. I was parked in the middle lane and there were two lorries on the inside, as I walked between them to the hard shoulder to empty my bladder I noticed a police car a bit further back on the hard shoulder with it's lights on full blast. Which meant that I was bathed in light. I was a bit desparate by this time so I had no choice but to turn my back and grin and bear it, as it were, and have an illuminated wazz. It wasn't long before things started moving and less than a mile up the M4 was the scene of a horrendous accident which had left two cars with the roofs cut off, one of them was covered with a tarpaulin which I assume meant it was fatal.

same room, different view

After two weeks I returned home safely, my brain swollen like a Tefal scientist with new knowledge. Despite her concerns Wifey had not gone completly insane with post traumatic childcare disorder and all three boys seemed to unharmed by the experience of having no daddy for most of two weeks.

Back at work has been busy as usual but this doesn't appear to stopped Buzz from his new obsession. He has joined the Gym.