Two things are especially important today. One is outlined in the previous blog post and made all the more special by THIS:
CAKE.
Every office loves a good cake. It's up there with visits from old colleagues (that you miss and actually liked) and a magical courtesy day off at Christmas (like last year, but not this year, sadly. HINT.)
But you see, in some sense, this cake is even more special than all those things. For this cake is HOMEMADE by the hands of two lady members of the Biteback team seemingly unafraid of lending weight to gender stereotypes. Some, more sceptical, colleagues might have been suspicious of such a treat: 'why?', why they might ask, would Jess and Hollie have done such a thing? What's in it? Is that really a sultana or is it the bud of a mystery plant chock-full of cyanide? How likely is it that this is the beginning of a chemical coup?
But not I. I knew this was an act of genuine kindness. Because it was for Nam. And they love Nam. As do most others, especially the Big Cheese who has awarded Nam with the employee of the month award every month since its inception in July this year. With the notable exception being September when he awarded it to Jess simply because she'd screwed up the least that month.
It's a lovely carrot cake. Made by domestic Goddesses who know, as every human should, that a cake is not a cake unless the layer of icing isn't at least 60% of the thickness of the base.
The other good thing about today is that our last book of the year arrived in the office today, Greek Memories by Compton Mackenzie, the British Secret Service's man in Greece during the First World War. If the cake bakers are trained killers, they could learn a thing or two from this book, I ate a wedge an hour and forty minutes ago and I'm still WELL alive.
Greek Memories is available from 21 Nov, here.
This cake is available in your dreams.