Avoiding The Wall

After a long day yesterday, a full day’s work today and then a Chorus rehearsal this evening I’m pretty knackered, so I’ll leave off writing up the last day of the holiday until I have more energy.

Today was kind of easing back into work gently; instead of getting right down to dealing with the long list of emails I left my Out Of Office messages switched on and had an all-day training course instead. That got me back into the swing of things without the feeling of running into a brick wall.

The training course was very enjoyable; Travel Safety for the Business Traveller. Myself and four senior consultants in a room with a chap who has been all over the world in various capacities and now runs a business passing on the knowledge he has gained. It was a fairly informal course with lots of discussion about the issues raised; a couple of the consultants had also travelled very widely and had lots of anecdotes and advice.

The morning covered the more familiar aspects of travel safety; planning, kit, getting about, eating, basic health/medical, situational awareness and that kind of thing. The afternoon was a bit more hard-core, dealing with muggings, physical attacks, kidnapping, action under fire and checkpoints. We were shown a fascinating video of rifles being fired at a variety of surfaces such as brick walls, concrete walls, car doors, etc. and I think we were all surprised at how easily most things were demolished by a few rounds of fire.

One of the highlights of the day was just before the video, as we were discussing the lethality of various weapons, someone came in to deliver a message to one of my colleagues and saw the (deactivated) semi-automatic pistol and AK-47 rifle lying on the meeting room table along with rounds of various types of ammunition – his face was an absolute picture as he retired from the room; I’m sure he thought we were planning the revolution!

After the course though, it was back to Mundania and I had to face up to my inbox. To be fair, it wasn’t too bad and I cleared it by the end of the day with only a few things to investigate or follow-up tomorrow.

Then it was on to Chorus. Tonight is the last rehearsal before our summer break but, instead of winding down at the end of the season we are still polishing the repertoire ready for the Classical Music Festival in Turin in early September. My heart wasn’t in it, even though I need the polishing as much as anyone else.

Home now and off to a much needed early bed.