Back To Work!

Well, not quite as it was before... Funnily enough, I still remember most of the folk I met at the xmas party last week. As mentioned before, they’re a pretty good bunch.
The work is a bit slow, as they’re still to get me logged into their system, but I’m happy enough to be paddling in the shallow end for now to ease back into the working life after over 3 months off. Far better conditions to work under than what life was like at CGU, however whilst we were always trying to get the Melbourne office to cool down, here in London, we’re trying to get the office to heat up!!
All up it’s pretty much just smooth sailing for now... And the fact that we live close enough for me to run home in just over an hour is pretty cool! Let’s just ignore that I took a wrong turn and added a couple of K’s to my run. I don’t think the folks at AXA expected me to run home on the first day...

Ahh... the joys of riding the Tube, and what a marvel it is!! In three days it has taken me just over an hour (Mon.), less than 45mins (Tues) and then just over an hour and a half!!! The sooner I start riding the better! It only takes me just on 30mins to get to AXA on the bike - healthier for me as that black soot in the Tube isn’t a concern, as well as the other benefits of physical activity, and best of all riding is FREE!! And even in 4C it’s fine once I’ve warmed up on the bike. Stuff trudging to the Tube in the cold! Or, for that matter, walking through the streets to make it to a bus stop that you're sort of aware of how to find, only to end up spending half an hour finding something that should have been a 15min walk...

After riding into work today (Thursday) we discovered that we had no heating for the day as the building’s boiler had packed up!! What a day to leave the gloves and scarf at home - it didn’t fit in the backpack... However, at least the work has improved in terms of things to do. Seems they’re discovering quite quickly that they’ve underestimated me as I’m now doing something they deem to be quite difficult (if not a little dull). Let’s just say that I haven’t had to review changes to policy wordings for a bit, and certainly not in English Legalese! Last time I saw wordings like these was back in the early nineties!! One paragraph took five lines just to basically say that ‘we won’t be paying more than the sum insured on the schedule’. They seemed surprised that I could interpret it as well as sum it up so easily.
Anyway, the two best times of the day were the ride to and from work - I certainly got a blast by being amongst a bunch of other riders along the roads home! Didn’t take long before a couple of us were upping the pace a little. Playing with people’s egos can be rather entertaining!

Friday - casual day, festive food put on for lunch, finally logged into their system, a pint in the neighbouring pub, and 3 extra kilometres for my ride in thanks to a wrong turn!! At least I took the short (see: correct) way home! Riding home in the streetlights shining through the cold evening mist, while erie, is somewhat cool.