Hump back whales and pallets

Is it me or has the weather been absolutely rubbish for the last 2 weeks? If that wasn't enough I had a conference call scheduled with Andy, the IT Director of Baumhaus (click here to read more about this illusive and often shady character). Andy is one of those people who always inadvertently has a story that makes bad weather in England seem more disheartening than it is already (he lives in Australia by the way).

"What have you been up to?" I politely enquired, secretly hoping that he was going to say, 'nothing, because the weather has been awful here.'

Instead, he said "I took my boat out along the coast of Sydney last weekend with Annukka, and we got surrounded by a pod of humpback whales, each of which was at least 40 feet long and they were jumping out of the water right in front of us," he replied, "what about you?"

"Ummmm.... a toilet blocked in the ladies because someone had put hand-towels in it." I replied.

I tried to divert attention from Oxford by asking, "have you got any pictures?"

"Yeh sure, and a video," he said. "I will Skype them over. [What. a. git.]

Pic. No. 1 Andy skippering his tub

Actually, something has cheered me up in the picture above - can you see those clouds in the background? He he he! (that was my Cruella DeVille laugh).

Pic. No. 2. Blimey. That fish is making me feel hungry

Sure enough he had some spectacular pictures of a whale doing acrobatics not 30 feet away from his boat. To put it into perspective, the whale is the same size as the boat and the boat has three bedrooms.

Pic. No. 3 Arty shot of aforementioned tub heading back to Sydney in the evening

"You need to come over and visit us before Christmas," Andy said, "because I think we are moving to Singapore after that, so the sailing won't be as good."

Blimey o'reilly. That sounds like a plan doesn't it? Don't you just hate it when these things crop up.... not.

"Okey dokey, I will start looking for flights, but it will probably be a bit later in the year, maybe September-ish."

"Cool." he replied.

Pic. No 4. My lovely Sister-in-Law, Annukka complete with skeleton hand

Then it was back down to earth with a bump. I walked onto shopfloor, and the first thing I encountered was Phil with his foot stuck in a pallet.


It all felt completely hapless after hearing about the humpback whales. Even sadder was that I concentrated on taking pictures of Phil in his predicament rather than helping him extricate his foot.