I don't live to work, I work to live, and live at the weekends.

Well, so far work is pretty good. I had my induction in Manchester on Thursday, which went well. We had various talks about the firm and the job and the different streams (audit, tax, business restructuring) that people are doing. It was also a good time to meet everyone and start getting to know people. At the end of the day we all got the train down to London, and headed off to the Hilton, no less, for the night. It was, to say the least, quite flash. My room had two queen sized beds, which is about 4 times more bed than I need. Still, I wasn't about to ask to be moved to the nearest Travelodge! We went out for dinner at a random Italian restaurant (located above some suspicious looking night club with an ominous sign stating "Minimum spend per person: £44") which was fairly nice, and I wowed everyone with my maths skills by dividing the bill in my head. Which was fun. We headed off to a pub for a drink then all crashed back to the hotel.

The next day started with breakfast, as it should, but this was no ordinary breakfast! This was Hilton hotel breakfast, which means you can have just about anything you can think of for breakfast. I went for Danish pastries, yoghurt and cereal. Quality. After that the real business of the day began with our full on induction. We had more talks about the firm, and this time also had specific talks about the training for our particular stream. For me, that meant 3 hours or so of being told about the tax training, which sounds pretty tough really! We shall see. We had a fancy lunch, and at the end of the day headed off to "the BDO pub" as it is apparently known, being as it is round the corner from BDO's main offices. Drinks were free, which was handy as I had no cash on me at that point. After a pint some of us headed off for the train back to Manchester. I finally got home at ten, in time to feed Beth before bed. So that was that.

So, jobwise things look good so far. All the people are nice, and the job looks hard but interesting, so that's good. No fears realised just yet.

This weekend has been good, but busy. I've been doing some of my homework ahead of time (keen!) so that the coming weeks are slightly less stressful. We tried out a new church this morning, which was a bit of an experience for one reason and another. Some bits of it were a bit on the Adrian Plass side, for those of you who have a clue what that might mean. We'll try a few more places and then see what we find. This evening has been a bit mad what with getting everything packed up for the coming week in London, which is not helped by the fact that I have to get up at half six and drive to Stockport to get the train on time. Fun stuff.

Ali and Beth are doing OK, though I do feel a bit bad leaving them behind on their own. Ali should cope, but I know it's an awful lot easier when there's another person round. Hopefully some people can visit her or she can visit them or something (hint hint). Beth is doing well. She's getting really heavy now! We're trying to teach her about hand eye co-ordination by attaching one of the cats rattly toys to her wrist with one of Ali's hair elastics, but she's not really getting it yet. Oh well.

Last but not least... my mum bought me the best card:



And no, that doesn't mean I've stopped playing computer games! See you all later.