It won’t be a the early morning that’s tough – though a poor night’s sleep tonight make me a bit more bleary-eyed I imagine. It won’t be the working either – aside from the fact that my iPhone has allowed me to stay in touch with the office and my emails during my time off, I enjoy my job immensely so it won’t be hard to jump back into. The hard part will be being away from Freddie (and Robert) for most of the day.

It’s also going to be tough leaving Sara in the morning, knowing that she’s going to be coping alone all day when she’s had me around for the past 3 weeks to help. I suspect I’m often more of a hindrance mind you, and I have every confidence that after a few days of settling in she’ll be running things like a well-oiled machine – but it’s still going to make me feel very guilty when I kiss them all goodbye in the morning.

Luckily for me, I’ve only got a couple of weeks back in the hot-seat before we’re heading off for a week’s holiday in Devon to celebrate my parent’s 40th Wedding Anniversary – so I’m being eased back in quite gently, relatively speaking.

I suppose I should be grateful that I live in a country where I’m given any time-off at all – these three weeks have been really brilliant for building a bond with little Frederic, and I’ve already been able to witness so many tiny milestones in his development. Sitting here contemplating a return to the rat race makes it very easy to worry that I’ll miss out on some of his bigger milestones later on – will I see him take his first steps, or roll over for the first time?

Thinking back to Robert’s own milestones though, I don’t really feel like I missed much – or if I did, I don’t remember what I missed anyway! :D

So think of me (if you’re awake) tomorrow at about 7.15, when I bid my burgeoning family adieu for the first time…. Then think of me again at about 12.45 – I suspect I’ll be enjoying a sneaky lunch-time nap on the Tamar sofas…! :)

For some reason, the microphone they attached to me looks like a small black Lego man has committed suicide inside my shirt – I think that adds to the (limited) appeal of the video though…! It possibly distracts attention away from my double chin too…

My Year in Photos – February 11th – “I ain’t got no beef…”, originally uploaded by henweb.

Busy day for team-Social today, with not one but two potential clients to meet, as well as a lunch with a couple of friends from NMA, Will and Charlotte. The photo above was taken in the restaurant we at lunch in – Gaucho on Charlotte Street. Gaucho isn’t something I’d experienced before (much to Steak-loving Will’s shock) but I can report that it was a delightful, if a little overly-beefy experience – cow-hide chairs…! The steak was delicious though, so a good experience all round.

Despite the beautiful blue sky you can see in this photo – taken this afternoon – just over an hour after it was taken I was stood in the middle of what can only be described as a blizzard. You know the UK is ‘over’ the snow when it had been falling for at least an hour this afternoon before anyone even deemed to comment on it. I’m still firmly in the ‘love snow’ camp, but to be honest it was such rubbishy, fluffy snow, there isn’t much good can come from it apart from getting you cold.

The photo was taken in one of the many odd corridors that there are in our building at work – a building which was apparently once a carpet factory, though you’d think it was actually a prison from this area of the building. I took the photo from the edge of B-block, near the warden’s office :D

Today’s photo is of our office manager, Anthony, after what can only be described as a mammoth clean-out of our office kitchen. You don’t want to know what he found in this box of cereal which had been sat at the back of one of the communal staff cupboards, but needless to say we’re now going to keep a much closer eye on expiry dates from now on… :O

Today was a busy day at Tamar HQ – our annual planning day, which was this year held in the delightful surroundings of Kensington and Chelsea. However, a day of planning, brainstorming and fun presentations didn’t produce very many exciting photos, so I’ve opted for a photo of the only other thing my aformentioned, detoxing colleague Milly can drink – namely some very uninspiring-looking Mint Tea. She had three cups of this stuff while I (very meanly) ate a Chocolate muffin, which almost pushed her to breaking point…! :D

My esteemed colleague Milly is doing a January detox, as a result of what she claims is “200+ fish and chip suppers last year”. The detox she’s chosen is this revolting looking mixture – lemon water. Or as she overly-glamorously describes it, “detox lemonade”. It smells just as revolting as it looks, and there’s been much discussion around the office as to why Milly has what looks like a urine sample on her desk. She’s been doing it for 2 days so far, but I’ve told her that if it starts affecting her work (it’s literally all she’s eating) I’m going to force-feed her a McDonalds..