Three days off this week (plus the creativity on Monday) so just Friday to catch up with emails and everything else piling up just as rapidly as it ever did.

On one day off I went up to TheOldPlace and enjoyed eating out with former colleagues. (Hi there, if you're reading!). Also managed to catch the day they turned the Christmas lights on - I must have heard there'd be wine and mince pies. And took my formal leave of the VC (who happens to be stepping down next summer) so I could wish him well as well. Turns out our friendly PVC - ultimately responsible for libraryish matters and very positive about work that S and I did on our alternative library - is being promoted to VC. So I was glad I bumped into him and could say congratulations. I couldn't resist the opportunity to point out that a lot of my staff 'development' and helpful relationships came directly out of the annual staff conference that no longer runs. Whether that will prod any movement on having them return will remain to be seen.

Good chance to do some Christmas shopping as well. Though in an effort not to carry too much around I left a couple of items to buy later on Amazon - only to find that they don't seem to be available there much to my surprise. Should have picked them up while I saw them. One thing I did pick up was a book on excellence in drumming which I couldn't resist. Read it in two days flat as well it was so good.

What was bizarre was that this afternoon we had a demo of a database full of videos made specially for students of business, law, engineering, archictecture and so on. Some of them covered so-called 'soft skills' like leadership or time management etc. One of them caught my eye: 'Drumming our way to excellence!' What an odd piece of consilience. Anyway, we're having a trial so I can watch the video in a week or two.