I headed into the office and took care of a couple of errands then took myself off to the boardroom for the luncheon. I was earlier than I expected, but it gave me time to take in the view of the city from the window. The Eureka Tower does rather stand out as the tallest building in Melbourne now.
The catering goddess had worked wonders again and the spread was amazing but I limited myself to a single plateful and one square of brownie with some fruit afterwards. The purpose of the lunch was to bring together a group of twenty or so staff from across the business to get to know one another better. The idea is to explore the diversity within our group and get to know a little bit more about what other departments do.
This was the third or fourth lunch of its kind and from my perspective it was very successful. We discovered within our midst, a ballroom dancer, a yoga enthusiast, an art historian, an Olympic medal winning netballer, a practitioner of Brazilian jiu jits, a woman mad for music, overseas travellers, and the owner of a jungle python! It was a really fun group and it was brilliant hearing everyone's stories.
I've always maintained that knowing people face to face does make intercompany workings run a lot more smoothly. Being able to visualize a face and its smile when dealing with someone by phone or by email, goes a long way in removing that 'us and them' attitude that can creep in between branches and departments. In that respect, I feel these lunches are a great initiative and I hope that the top level managers continue to support them.
After three or so hours of lunch and chit chat, I headed back to the centre to continue on with resolving my role ready for my transfer at the end of the month.
I headed home after work to collect a waiting Mr Smart and head to dinner at Piccolinos Pizza. Today's personal engagement was a family dinner due to Dad being in town for a couple of days. Bertie, Tricky and my nephew were already waiting for us when we arrived. Dad was unfortunately stuck in traffic but arrived not too long after us. He arrived to hot garlic pizza which we'd thought to order in advance of his appearance.
We ordered a hearty meal once assembled and enjoyed food, wine, chatter and laughs until everyone was very full and thoroughly exhausted. My nephew is still working on his cutlery technique but he managed to cut up a slice of pizza with a little assistance from me holding the plate steady, and he sort of used his fork to eat his chicken nuggets. It's a work in progress...At the end of the meal everyone debated dessert in an 'oh, no I really shouldn't' kind of fashion. In the end, most had dessert, or at very least coffee in the case of Mr Smart.
We rolled out of the restaurant and headed home. It was only 10pm when we go it, and Mr Smart had brought with him the final episode of Utopia! I'd been eagerly awaiting it so, after dealing with minor technical difficulties, we curled up on the couch and watched as the answers unfolded on the screen before us. It wasn't until the very end as the credits rolled and some questions remained that the BBC voice announced that that was the final episode in series one. I had thought it would just be a single series show... oh god, a whole year's wait until the next series! At least Game of Thrones series three is soon to be released!
It was midnight by the time we finally slunk in to bed. Mr Smart decided to read a while, but I opted instead for turning face down into my pillow with Pengi (who has decided to visit with me a while) and going straight to sleep.
Today's food was:
- Breakfast was two slices of toasted Bürgen wholegrains & oats bread, one spread with Vegemite and the other spread with a smear of Yumi's Hummus.
- Morning snack was an apricot and a white-flesh nectarine.
- Lunch was a slice of lamb with rice and eggplant, a scoop of potato salad, a scoop of quinoa salad and a scoop of Greek salad and two pieces of sushi accompanied by a 375ml can of Coke Zero.
- Lunch dessert was one piece of chocolate and raspberry brownie, a small wedge of watermelon, a piece of mango and three blueberries.
- Dinner was three small squares of garlic pizza, two warm king prawns with cocktail sauce then a divine pasta mista. Pasta mista is three choices of pastas and sauces to be shared between two, in this case with Mr Smart!
Our choices were: Rigatoni Ragu (beef, onion and herbs, slowly cooked in red wine and napoli sauce), Prawn Linguine (king prawns with cherry tomatoes and chilli in a napoli sauce) and Chicken Gnocchi (house-made potato gnocchi with chicken and capsicum in a napoli sauce). - Dessert was a white chocolate pannacotta (quite mousse-like) with strawberries and a snap of chocolate.
Goodnight all!
Jess
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