God, that was a lovely dinner I had last Tuesday! It wasn't just the food, but the company as well -- although originally my friend and I had agreed to have a cosy little bite to eat just the two of us, seeing as how we hadn't seen each other in months and desperately needed to catch up on what was new for either of us, people just kept joining us at the bar and in the end we decided to all have dinner together, all seven of us. And so I became embroiled in a deep and meaningful discussion about Catholicism today on my right, the complete and utter fascism of the Italian traffic police on my left; all while simultaneously trying to find out more about the wonder diet the person opposite me was following successfully without having to give up chocolate as a food group. Wine and champagne flowed copiously and the evening ended in a bit of a blur...but hey! you've got to let your hair down every once in a while so why not on an ordinary Tuesday night?

I suppose it's going to be a late night again tonight -- Senior Management is treating me and some other high flyers within our organisation (don't ask me how I came to be on the list, because I haven't a clue) to an afternoon of go-karting followed by a lavish dinner in a top notch restaurant. We're leaving here in about half an hour so I'd better check if I have any outstanding business to attend to...or better yet, go to the bathroom and check my makeup.

Still, it's not all fun and games -- at the beginning of this week, the news reached us that one of our colleagues who'd gone on maternity leave a few weeks ago, had died during childbirth. She was only 40 years old. We were all shocked at the news. None of us had any idea that in this day and age, and in this part of the world, it was still possible to die like that.