Where to start? December at CRAP was a jokey affair - imagine being told by the boss that you have been doing your job too well and that as a result too many of the client groups have gotten jobs! The command from on high was 'SLOW THE GRAVY TRAIN!' So it ground to a resounding halt! It appears that the not-for-profit organisation is concerned that if we get too many people back on the right track and into work too quickly we won't get funded for another year! I thought the objective was to get everyone back to work so that the tax payer doesnt have to fork out for this kind of CRAP organisation anymore. But NOOOOOOOOooooooooo it seems that the powers that be have some high brow notion that the remit is to do the job slowly and eek out the funding for as long as possible so our new remit is to hold pizza nights and go for bike rides with the NEET group not get them into work or training. During these events we are to survey the poor over surveyed individuals further and then survey them again over and over ad nauseum thus ensuring further funding for future years - I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS CRAP. So xmas came and went in our household all the recipients of gifts were suitably delighted including myself. Then new year arrived.
The day before new year we bundled into the pick-up and headed up north to the outlaws to a lovely place near Fort William, we ate we talked and we left - driving through glencoe in what were godamn awful conditions - we assisted in getting a car out of a ditch on the way home and then we got home and slept.
The next morning was new years eve and again we bundled into the pick up and this time headed south to my sisters farm in cumbria, we drove down through one of the worst storms we had seen in a long time, leaving my father at home in scotland as per his request.

Soooooo New years party ensued and we were all partied out when our mobiles began going frantic. Emergency roof repairs ( we run a building and maintenance company) so with hangovers galore we had to travel back up to Scotland on new years day and prepare ourselves for an onslaught - 167 roofs needing emergency repairs ( arrrrrgh) -plus our own chimney had been blown over and was precariously threatening to come through the roof.
That was soon fixed ( lucky us!).

Jan 5th return to crap day arrived - and I arrived at work clutching my resignation in my hot little hands - yipee our business is booming and I am now to spend my time taking my directorship a bit more seriously than I had previously, bliss i was to be my own boss.

and thats where I am today - i do miss my colleagues but no more travelling to and from work, no more putting up with crap and conducting endless surveys or participating in what i consider to be an organisation set to fleece the system for as much money as possible while doing as little as possible.
and that about sums up the catch up