Thank you to all that have, or will have wished me well, either here or by text. As ever I have no credit, even today!

I did indeed have a lovely day, well, weekend......

Friday night I went out with Gav, had a few beers and I did a bit of singing on the karaoke, as you do. We then went back to the 'Luxury Townhouse Apartment', as he jokingly likes to call it (because I don't live with him, I live out of the town centre, mine is 'The Country Residence'!) and spent a very relaxing evening eating junk food, watching trashy telly and suchlike.......

Last Wednesday Lisa and I went up to London with the rest of my family to collect Dad's OBE. Unfortunately the Queen limits the Buckingham Palace guest invites to three per medal, so only my sister, mum, and I could get into the palace with my Dad to see the actual ceremony, while Lisa and my brother-in-law Richard entertained themselves in the 42nd floor champagne lounge of the former Natwest Tower instead.

At the palace we got to admire the Queen's christmas deccies, which included little crown baubles on the christmas tree which I thought were a bit tacky.. my dad had to file off to be instructed on how not to address the Queen (cuddles are right out, apparently), while we went into the Palace Ballroom to watch the ceremony. To be fair to the Queen she earnt her money - standing up the front and shaking hands with no less than 107 new knights of the realm, OBE's and MBE's, making polite but short conversation with each in turn, and pinning each medal on herself - or whipping the sword about, as appropriate. All this was accompanied by flunkies announcing all the names, and the Queen's private little orchestra knocking out an odd selection of tunes, including - at one point - the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean.

i'm really enjoying the new job. it's been 9 weeks or so now, and while i DO miss hanging out with the family every day, i enjoy more having actual responsibility and being able to prove my skills and even learn something new on a daily basis. there is always a sense of accomplishment when i print a final piece of art for production (whether created by me or by someone else and adjusted by me to fit our pre-print specifications). this was the perfect move for me, especially at this time with so much happening with Damien's printing company, GLPD (2nd year has been phenominal and we're expecting the 3rd to be even better). i get to do something i enjoy, with even some side projects at work that will eventually allow me to put my web design and coding skills to work as well. i feel like the job is a weigh-station between where i didnt want to be (dad's) and where i do want to be (GLPD), but i can be happy there in the meantime, doing what i like and being good at it. something else is that this job has shown me that i AM good at it, and not just floundering to stay afloat to get through whatever art and/or order crisis is at hand. and i have learned a lot about pre-press in general, and now Damien and i "talk shop" a lot, usually him giving me ideas how to fix some problem i'm having, since i didnt know much of the pre-press/offset side of printing before i started the new job. it's definitely a challenge sometimes, and can be stressful at times, too, but always in a good way, and never without a sense of satisfaction when the day is done. my one and only complaint is that country music plays all day long, whether in the office or in the shop. i spend my lunch breaks in my car, blaring whatever rock/alt rock music i happen to have in my cd player.

Congratulations to my dad, Mr Gerald Francis Edward Cook - recently retired senior policy advisor to HM Revenue & Customs, and Vice Chair of the Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators - for bagging an OBE in the Queen's birthday honours list yesterday.

Go dad! You can look him up on the main list here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5083734.stm