Am feeling pretty good and happy with things today, and am trying not to let stuff get to me. Of course it does help that I got some good news in the post before coming to work - an insurance policy thing I thought had another two years to run actually expires in November. The letter was of course trying to get me to re-invest the profits with them, but it was nice to know there is some more money coming this side of Christmas. Even just the amount I've put in coming back will be nice, so the profits too could be really nice!

Gary is back at work today, but has spent the whole time talking about looking for other jobs elsewhere so even his presence has not been a downer.

Got through all the area books now so waiting for the corrections to come back. In fact, even having to re-punch in a load of details I've already given people isn't bringing me down too much. Mainly cos I've got some top tunes to keep me going. The MD player had now been relegated to lunchtime and at-desk entertainment as I have let Dad have his car stereo back before getting rid of the car. This week's choice of discs has been: Orbital - The Altogether, The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole and Fuzz Townsend - Far In. All on a dance/techno trip to keep me happy. And right now some downloaded stuff from Yak's Tempest 3000 Nuon game are doing the same. Of course from tomorrow at 5 there will be in-car CDs to mention. Oooh, the anticipation.

Still no firm decisions made on getting away from it all. Joan spent another hour or so on the internet last night looking for stuff but with little joy. We were quite tickled by one page though - it had a load of cruise offers from around £600 to £2,000 a head. Then halfway down was one for £8,500. That made us look twice, thinking it must be a mistake but no. Seems you join the ship in January and after going round the world get home in April. Somehow I don't think we'll be doing that - even if we could afford it we'd never get the time off work. I have now picked up some brochures for UK hotels just so we do get away somewhere for a couple of nights.

Not having made my own lunch today, I was going to pick something up at Subway as they have just opened a branch in Ipswich. Saw them all over the place in Canada last year but never got around to trying them as there were so many other things to scoff. Looks quite good but was absolutely heaving so I resorted to good old Alberts instead. OK, back to work.