Blog Week 35: Be careful what you wish for.
Sunday 23 July 21.53
Back in May I was moaning about the lack of sunshine. When we received a drop of the gold stuff, I started getting poetic about city life.
Just goes to show I have to be careful about what I wish for. This heatwave is fantastic, but also so tiring. Can anyone sleep properly in such heat? Thankfully the office has airco.
Really enjoyable weekend.
Well it started off ok on Friday with the Belgian National day. I was close to the Royal Park on Friday and so saw some of the celebrations. In Belgium these national celebrations are never very impressive. Apart from the air fly-past, the other celebrations, like the inflatables and balloons, are - to be kind - nothing special. Did not bother to hang around for the fireworks; the Belgian government is careful about how it spends taxpayers' money.
Instead went with some friends to the Geenste Feesten - an open-air festival in the city of Gent. It was fantastic: loads of live music and friendly crowds. We had such a great time on Friday night that we went back over the weekend. I think it is going to take me a week to recover. Good the office seems quite at the moment...
Monday 24 July 23.54
A new lawyer started work today. Strange month to start - after the summer break is more usual. Also not often that someone starts towards the end of the month.
Currently most of the office is quiet; apart from one team beavering away on a trade and environment submission. One competition law matter should get busy soon. Shakespeare said as most of the Commission case team are shortly heading off on holiday, a massive information request is expected the day before they leave.
Tuesday 25 July 23.53
Meeting this afternoon between Pierre, me and Hedgehog (the remaining library services guy).
Since the recent departure of Fox - Hedgehog's pre-merger rival - Hedgehog is now "top-dog" (to mix the animal images) in the office's library services department. The firm is now considering various options about the future of it's European information services. Hedgehog is methodical and slow, so Pierre talked Hedgehog through the various options under consideration.
Initially Hedgehog favoured the option centring as much work as possible on the Brussels office. But after a while it became clear the partners are using this exercise to find ways to actually cut costs (resulting in more work with little or no extra resources). Hedgehog then cooled to the Brussels-taking-over-everything-as-soon-as-possible option. In fact Hedgehog seemed pretty lost by the end of the meeting.
But at least Fox is not around anymore.
Wednesday 26 July 23.43
Every where I went in the office today people were yawning. Not due to the boredom (although things are quiet right now). More to do with the collective lack of sleep due to this heatwave. I am going to start a rain dance ...
Thursday 27 July 23.48
Another last-minute decision: taking a holiday next week.
I know, I know, I have only just had some holiday. I was saving my holiday up earlier this year as it made sense to holiday off-peak. But as you may have guessed from recent blogs, I have recently started seeing someone and we are taking a holiday together. I'll not say anymore (as I said at the start I do not want this blog to be Bridget Jones' diary en Bruxelles).
On the subject of holidays, a colleague from a US office recently said he could not believe how much paid holiday Europeans get. He has a point: the way things close-down across parts of Europe is a bit excessive. But currently my office life involves with dealing with various intra-office differences (arising from the merger), I'll not even start with the intra-office differences.
Blogging is addictive. Before it filled a hole in my life, but perhaps that hole is getting smaller. But I'll try and blog more next week.
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