Today I had a big surprise at work.\u00a0 I sort of knew that something was being organised as a few folks at work had indicated they’ll be meeting me for lunch.\u00a0 I figured it would just be a get together in a meeting room.\u00a0 My manager had suggested one or two of us go for a meal at lunch.\u00a0 I thought this was a ruse to make sure I was around at the right time.\u00a0 But in the end we did go out and there were a whole bunch of people waiting for us – including Helen.\u00a0 They had managed to get hold of her and have her join.\u00a0 That made the surprise all the more special – for both of us.\u00a0 I really had no idea.\u00a0 So we had a nice Italian.\u00a0 There were some speeches and some gifts – all very nice.\u00a0 They included a great nautical clock which we’ll mount on Dignity somewhere special.<\/p>\n

So – now that we’ve had the goodbyes and the speeches I still have two days left at work.\u00a0 Officially.\u00a0 Practically I have cleared my desk both figuratively and metaphorically.\u00a0 I’ve actually agreed to stay in touch for longer than Tuesday in case there are any questions and to provide continued mentoring to my ex staff. I’m going in on Monday to hand over my pass and (this is the best) my Blackberry followed by some more beers.\u00a0 I’ll go into work for the last time then on Monday but I doubt there will be much to do.\u00a0 So in way, today I am retired.\u00a0 Ish.<\/p>\n

Ben (with his girlfriend Jesse) and Sam are coming over tonight.\u00a0 Ben turned 21 yesterday.\u00a0 For some odd reason he wanted to celebrate his becoming a legal drinker with his friends last night in and around the bars in New Brunswick.\u00a0 Tonight we’re all off for a curry to celebrate.\u00a0 Sam gets to drive.\u00a0 Anne and John, now the extended family, are coming too.\u00a0 All good fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I had a big surprise at work. I sort of knew that something was being organised as a few folks at work had indicated they’ll be meeting me for lunch. I figured it would just be a get together in a meeting room. My manager had suggested one or two of us go for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboarddignity.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}