Once again I was stuck in a lift, this time with a bunch of French engineering students from Nantes. The lift was formed in two parts shaped as a figure of eight. It only offered access to floors 16 and 18, which was extremely inconvenient because my room was on the fifth floor. It was rather disappointing that nobody cared that I would be left in lift limbo.

Later on I checked the handouts that I had put aside for each of the engineers. Given their lack on interest in me in the lift I decided to keep the welcome cards out for them, but remove the individual presents (such as the shiny silver whistles) and the birthday cards. It was lucky that I hadn’t found time to write the birthday cards beforehand. Now I could just recycle them. I packed the wee presents into a black nylon zipped bag. As I put them away I planned their future as possible stocking fillers or home-made cracker insides at Christmas.

Meanwhile my colleague JB was charging around the place telling everyone that the biggest priority was voting. I thought that at this time of year it could only be marking.