Elvis has left the building

Feeling *very* emotional indeed - sad, nervous, scared, excited, giddy all at once. Why? Yesterday was my final day at Xpertise after almost six years of working there.

My final week was spent in London running 2072 (SQL 2000 Administration) and I had a cracking week, apart from feeling pretty off-colour on a couple of days. I had a lovely bunch of students - hello to any of you who are reading this - and the course went very well. By the time Friday came and the course drew to a close I found myself rounding it all off and my voice was cracking, then when I said goodbye I had tears welling up. Once everybody had gone my friends from London (Neville, Amit, Frank and Lisa) all said goodbye, some shaking my hand, promising to keep in touch. I quickly dashed out in search of a taxi as I just knew I was going to cry if I stayed any longer. So I caught the flight home and when I landed in Manchester that was that, the end of seven years with Xpertise, and I was effectively unemployed.

I tried to make my final week away as fun as possible for myself. I had some cracking meals (discovered the delights of Pizza Express' "bufalita" pizza, and Peroni Gran Riserva & Corona beer), went on the London Eye (very tall and slow), and spent large chunks of time sitting looking out across the Thames reading a book ("TV Cream" - great fun). Also had the rather pleasant experience of walking three miles through an eerily silent and deserted London at 1.15 AM after drinking rather a lot of Peroni with three guys from Xpertise (Gareth Thomas, Mike Brown and John Rogers). All in all it was a good week, but very emotional.

So what happens now? I'm effectively unemployed for the next week, so I'm a man of leisure (cue lots of housework and catching up with the backlog of CDs I've bought over the last year or so but not listened to yet), then a week today we go to Lindos for a fortnight. Then, on Monday 12th September, I start at Remarc...