Wednesday 15th November 2017

This day is one that will be remembered for many reasons, but one in particular, as you will see.

I was in Denmark this week, mainly because of the kick off meeting of the new project. A chance to get to know new colleagues and renew friendships with old ones. And it was due to take place all day Wednesday.

After the night before, six hours sleep was never going to be good enough, and looking in the mirror after the alarm had gone off at six I could see two red eyes blinking back at me. Oh dear.

I have a shower, out some clean clothes on and am ready for seven to meet the new HSE guy, Jan, at breakfast and then get a taxi to take us to the hotel I usually stay at, but not this time, as it was full, for the meeting, which had been arranged there so those of us traveling could stay there and get to it easily. Only, not how things turned out.

There had been a major accident on the motorway, which meant the usual jams in town had not happened as out of town traffic was backed up, so we made it to the Radisson by quarter to eight, and as usual there was coffee and breakfast waiting for us. I had coffee. Lots of coffee.

The others arrived in dribs and drabs, until at half eight we were ready; the morning for the serious stuff, and the afternoon for the more fun things. I won't lie to you, the morning was hard, I felt like crap, and several times nearly fell asleep, but got second wind in the afternoon as the fun stuff began, where we each had to do a quarter hour presentation about ourselves. It was fun and we found out aboout each other, things we like and don't like.

There was a hour's beer break. It might be said that I maybe had had enough beer the night before, but hey, it was on the company's ticket, so I accepted another Christmas beer.

We went back into the conference room, to find a lady in loose fitting clothes and no shoes, putting drawing boards, papers and pencils on our chairs. Hmmmmmm.

It was going to be a life drawing class, and we would be drawing the lady. She mentioned life drawing, contours and so on. First effort was going to be our best effort without instruction: she took her cardigan off, went to put some music on, and as the music started, she took her shirt off then unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. She was nekkid.

I think it is fair to say we were all stunned. But went along with it, and after 5 minutes she put her clothes back on as she reviewed what we had done, and what to do next. We would be given a minute or less to draw, and whilst only looking down at what we were doing briefly. And each time she took off her clothes, struck a pose, and we scribbled.

Over and over we did this, most of us trying not to laugh as we were told to roar before we started one drawing, or imagine letting your pencil run over her outline. I kid ye not.

But after 90 minutes, it was over; we gathered our stuff up, packed our bag and scuttled outta there as fast as we could. From there it was a ten minute walk to the Mikkeler bar, where Jesper was going to treat us all whether we wanted him to or not. The bar is tiny, and the 11 of us filled it up. We had a half each, laughed about what had just happened, I mean, what else could we do?

At seven we were booked into a restaurant two doors down, where there would be steak.

We had half the small restaurant, and orders were taken, Jan being a pizza or burger man, being presented with proper food made him accept he would join the rest of us in peppered steak. I say peppered steak, it was steak with a much reduced port gravy, the last of which was prepared next to our table. I should point out at this point, I was sitting next to our newest team member, Rachel, a beautiful Nigerian lady, who was quite shy about meeting us all, most of which have worked together for four years.

Anyway, the sauce cook poured in the best part of a bottle of port, and set it simmering, then added a healthy dash of brandy, allowed the gas burner to ignite the fumes, and the pan went up woosh! Rachel jumped next to me and grabbed my leg. Not what I was expecting from the evening. Indeed, each time a new batch of sauce was made, she jumped in her seat next to me. It was all rather unexpected if I'm honest.

The food came and it was good, the sauce a triumph. But it was already nine, and I had to be up at five to drive to the airport. So I said farewell to the team, made my way to the nearby railway station where I guessed the nearest taxi rank would be.

I was right, and another non-English speaker too me back to the hotel, along deserted streets and through rows of darkened houses. Back in the room, I call Jools and we catch up, before I head to bed, not before taking a huge mouthful of indigestion medicine, because otherwise it would be an acid filled night.

I was so, so tired.