One of the best bits about the grand new job with the Extremely Esteemed and Respected Institute of Edinburgh is the chance I get to go on lots of courses and seminars being run.
Like the one being held in the big Market Town just up the motorway from Cheesetown!

Yes accountants and interested bodies will be converging to discuss matters of Vital Importance in the reporting of Arcane Facts.
I get to go.
And since the Big Market Town is about 30 miles as the crow flies up the motorway I get a long lie in bed till at least 7am, before driving up the M9. CDs blaring loud enough for me to sing along to.

Yep. That was Plan A.

Time to meet my new boss. Penny. Penny is QUIET - and painfully shy. Why she recruited me from the other applicants God knows, but He isn't telling. Listen.... if everyone stops typing on their PCs long enough you can hear Penny speak....quietly...When she first showed me how to work the photocopier (no really it's password controlled) I thought she was whispering me a State Secret.
I'd make up a sentence with the words "Chalk" and "Cheese" in it to describe us, but I can't be bothered.

Today I found out that Penny is going to the conference too. Except Penny is scared to drive. Seriously scared. So we could share a car?

Oh Oka-ay.. that's a bit of a change in musical direction then.. Maybe no singalong to Primal Scream. At this point I'm still amazed that anyone is more scared of driving than they are of being a passenger in mine.....
But it gets better.

Can I pick her up from her house?
Oh...Oka-ay. Because obviously she is scared to drive, and so taking a bus or public transport to the far and distant Cheesetown is out of the question too.

And where does she live?
Sigh. Guess what. She's scared to drive and so yadda yadda yadda blah. She lives two minutes away from the office. Two minutes walking time from the office.

Yep. This is why I'm now going to be getting up half an hour earlier, so I can drive into Edinburgh in the rush hour, through Tramwork Diversions, then all the way back out again.
PFFFttt.

Obviously I have warned her about the car..
Obviously I have warned her about the great smell of NED wafting around the car.
Nothing can dissuade the woman.

Let's just see how slowly and quietly I can drive the Maz up the M9 huh?