1:15pm: Get to the pub (late) but just as everyone is arriving.. something was going my way!
So I started drinking – 3 pints down me and I had to contemplate going to work, on my day off. From work, I was to trek on bus number 284 [thank you MetroLine] to Tong, of all places. I set out with a mission in mind fresh in my head as I first stepped into the outdoor air this morning. My fhe first stop? The pub!
Now I’m not an alcoholic but I will have a few beverages when someone is leaving somewhere and it’s a sad time when a fellow work colleague leaves your department – especially if you’ve had a laugh with them. I was up for a few drinks to celebrate another breaking free of the many things wrong with where I work. I arrived and got to the bar, just as the 2 hour lunch break of Hannah’s started (an hour and fifteen minutes later than it should have!). You couldn’t ask for more: To be on-time yet “fashionable late” (my excuse for my inability to keep a schedule that complies with the human concept of time).
Drink pints, eat cheesy chips, have a laugh, go to work on a day off, sign the leaving card, donate to the collection box, say my goodbyes, get out of work (not before collecting some goodies brought in by Hannah), get to Tong. That was how it was supposed to happen, instead, I signed the card, got sidetracked, meandered and helped someone get out of work for a while – officially 😀 [I saw someone leave to go to Boots but it didn’t “click” at the time – she was going to get a leaving gift I hadn’t put any money into!] I found all this out as I was inside, signing the card…
Enlisting the help of another work colleague, Ben, we drove from work so I could get some flowers. I couldn’t let someone leave without giving them a parting gift. Flowers! I don’t know how I’d approach a boss when I was at work to ask to go out and help someone else buy a gift for someone leaving – after someone else had already gone, but he did it! We drove to find flowers [thanks Ben].
It was during precarious post-pub planning of a nice gesture that I had a lift offering to take me to Tong! If you are wondering who or what Tong is, it is not a DJ, it is a place in West Yorkshire – Aerial photo at multimap… I didn’t have to venture on the 284 and then try find my way back again! Hannah goes that way home so she offered me a lift for 5:30pm. She had goodbyes to say, the car park was not moving, it was Friday night – were we going to make it?!
It was a race against time and when that ran out, we got lost – we could have driven around for half an hour and not made the shop by closing time or we could ask for directions… A such simpler option in a civilization advanced enough to have an average vocabulary of over 1000 words! Two minutes until closing time and I just got through the door as they locked it! Success!
My travels were to be made even easier! Next stop – Bramley train station. After one of the shortest train journeys I’ve had in a while, I was in Leeds train station – keen to snap some photos… I didn’t, but I got some from my travels home. Firstly though, a couple of my favourites…
Tomorrow is another day – have you got anything planned?
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On a side note:
Who’Links”Here?
