Tom's Kitchen

Little B, fishpie and a bottle of Chablis. Celebration continues.

A fairy tale wedding in London

Exquisite. One of my favourite words. Today used by many to describe the dress the world has been waiting for.

Kate is no longer Kate but Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge. Sarah Burton did Alexander McQueen proud. What a dress. What a bride. What a couple. I don't think you have to be a royalist to be smitted by the beauty and the romance.

London today is a big, sparkling celebration filled with love and happiness.

Oh so nice

Pret pit stop at South Ken before continuing to business meeting. And then off to Precious T and my English family to plan for tomorrow's wedding celebrations. No hat but a spirit that will make up for it.

Pretty city

To cycle through the city after an evening yoga class when it's still light. This is the reward after the longest winter ever...

Hot or not

Five years down the line I still get asked about what's hot and trendy when it comes to London restaurants. I'm sooo outdated, but of course I don't say that. I share my old favs. They are still there, they are still good. But probably not where Kate and William go (neither of the Kates).

Full spring

Don't text and drive

You may be attacked by a tree. Even when driving twenty kilometres per hour. There are trees who all of a sudden just stand there and when you least expect it, they attack the side front of the car. The mean ones even go for you side-view mirror. This one was mean.

Swedish Paradiso

I left the city for the countryside in a car filled with plants, sweets and rosé. Arrived to a paradise of bird song, sun and spring buds about to explode. When it's twenty degrees it's hard to believe that two weeks ago the lake was still covered by ice. The nature is smiling again.

BBQ premier

Lunch break

A definition of insanity

"Doing what you've always done and expecting different results."

From today's reading on change management.

Yes, I'm having a restorative day at home, catching up on reading and design work. Almost done with the outline of June's workshop for senior project managers...

Facebook

It took me five years to update my profile picture (nothing to do with aging) and a whole employment to update my work profile. I guess I'm not the most frequent user. May be it's time to make a decision: in or out. The grey area in between is rather beige.

Spring explosion

Temperature rose, sun came and stayed.

Some go from winter coats and boots to shorts and vest tops. Outdoor eating, outdoor drinking. The pavements are crowded with tables, seats and people who have been in hiding for the last six months. The impact of the sun is amazing.

Never once did Sun ask Earth to say "Thank you". Thank you for giving us life back.

The uncomfortable hug

When you meet your ex-boss for lunch, do you greet each other with a hug?

I'm all pro-hugging, which have resulted in one or two (or many) uncomfortable situations where people probably felt I crossed the border when they would have preferred a handshake.

So if your ex-boss is a high-flyer audit partner, and hugging clients or colleagues is an alien behaviour, then my lunch-greeting hug is probably as uncomfortable as wearing a pair of too small shoes. You can do it and they look alright (or even really good), but the feeling of discomfort is always there.

My philosophy is 'one hug too many can't hurt'. So I hugged the audit partner. Not once, but twice.

Reading needs

On the kitchen table Harvard Business Review rests next to Marian Keyes' latest novel. On the bedside table 'Employees first, customer second' lies on top of Paulo Coelho's 'The Valkyries'. And then there is a pile of psychology slash spiritual books and another pile of yoga literature.

Something is missing though... Where is the glamour?

Vision and paragraphs

A three hour meeting with the solicitor, the COO and his business developer. The kick start of the coming negotiation process where the end goal is a shareholder agreement that both parts are happy with. The learning curve is steep, the excitement when we talk about future gains is stronger than the despair when we talk about potential losses. Who wants to think about red figures, disagreements and divorces when on a pink cloud? A good reason to have a solicitor present, who gently brought us back to the negative "what if" scenario. To be continued...

The unnecessary wall?

My neighbour is famous. He was on TV last night. Nothing new, it happens quite often. But last night I realised that my neighbour is not only famous, he is also a hunk. Only one wall away. When he is not in Thailand that is.

Getting ready

Rehearsal

Technology-check
Candles-check
Flow-check... Or when in doubt, get the group to downward facing dog and check the cheat-sheet!

Brunch and catch up with Little B

Afterwork

Escape to the TO DO list

I have a long list of things to do, including buying flowers to the balcony, repairing a suitcase (or rather find someone who can) and talking to the gym manager responsible for group training. But what I really should be doing is drafting a web site, writing a strawman for a brochure and design a seminar that is so splendid that the conference organiser can't resist it. That's what I should be doing.

A school example of modern procrastination where the threshold for the big, important tasks is so high that the need to rest before even starting is impossible to resist. To compensate for doing nothing, you fall in the trap of doing smaller, unrelated tasks to at least tick some things off the list. The old matrix on urgency and importance comes to mind. So... off to flower shop or not?

Being the IT manager

A letter from the bank arrived in today's mail. It was addressed to the IT manager of the company. For a short moment I wondered who that could be. Clearly in denial. I'm the involuntary IT manager who needs to make sure all employees in the company have the latest security programme installed on their computers by the end of May. There is only one employee to look after, but that's bad enough.

Rubbish or art?

Absolute beginner

Handover meeting, good byes and introductions. My predecessor was very sweet when she introduced me to the group at the end of the morning class and told them that next Tuesday the yoga session will be run by me. My time as incognito yoga student is up. Time to share what others have taught me. In a small, intimate environment where the number stays around fifteen and the rest of the gym is quietly waking up by the time we are all finished. Probably the best possible set up for a beginner instructor.

Recreation on a Monday

How do you make your first million? We are just about to find out. But the highlight of the seminar is still to get some time with Charming J! Worth more than a million.

Mr Pimple

Grounded with a pimple. Really. Can't go out. Have to stay in and take care of very attention seeking little Pimple. Correction: attention seeking considerable sized Pimple. So Pimple and I have practiced some yoga. Then Pimple decided we needed to bake a cake. Pimple would say that, wouldn't he? (It's a he.) So now we have had tea and cake. I managed to limit the amount of chocolate in the cake. Pimple was of course after the rich kind of chocolate cake, but I took charge and we agreed on a tiger sponge cake. Now we are thinking of watching a movie. I really should be doing something else, but Pimple is very stubborn...

Christening celebration number three

Baby F got his name, blessed by the pastor. Proud sister, brother and parents invited all the guests to the family's traditional Christening lunch where the buffet flooded with delicious salmon, pate, herring, chicken, omelette, cheese board and you have it. Not to forget the pancakes with jam and whipped cream to the children's delight. And mine! Who can resist melting cream mixed with jam on a hot pancake? Just too good to miss. So all the panna cottas, fresh fruits and chocolate cakes were lost on me when in competition with pancakes.

Comittment

I'm engaged!

In business terms that is. Next step is the prenup. What happens if we can't agree? Who gets custody of the brand, of the product of the clients? Don't know what the equivalent of shared custody is in business. May be an exit on friendly terms, where you can still bump in to each other on the street and smile.

Time to get solicitors involved.