Tuesday 21st December

There's a weird kind of end-of-term atmosphere at work. Some people have left already for the Christmas break, others have returned unexpectedly from Heathrow having had their Christmas holidays cancelled by the weather - others, like me, are here until Christmas Eve and have tons of work left to do. There is a lot of chocolate about the place, and our Quality Street-wrapper ceiling decoration is still hanging "proudly" above the marketing department. One nice moment comes when our sales director announces that he'll be taking us out for dinner at Mosaica - the surprisingly posh restaurant hidden deep inside the converted Chocolate Factory across the road from the office.

In order that there are still some people in the office when we're eating, we have to head over at 12pm (a little early for my liking) and I order a bottle of Peroni to sip ahead of my gammon and eggs. This is, needless to say, already much more satisfying than the car crash of a Christmas party we had last Friday. We chat merrily for an hour and a half or so before heading back over to the office - pausing only for a brief snowball skirmish with the work party heading to replace us at Mosaica.

I spend the rest of the afternoon in something of a daze - full of food and with an oddly discombobulating single midday beer inside me my eyes feel heavy and entirely unwilling to focus on the acres of spreadsheets and emails on my screen. I do, however, find a way to survive the rest of the working day and head home.

Somehow I find room for dinner (much later) and K and I sit around catching up on some TV shows we've recorded. Just before bed we get the happy news that K's sister has managed to squeeze onto a flight from Hong Kong that leaves tonight (UK time) meaning that she should be here tomorrow morning, snow or not - an unexpectedly positive result.