Encapsulate this in a few words ... I can't

I suspect that if I asked someone to picture the end of a race they would envisage an athlete, with their head held high, thrusting their chest forward in to the tape that marks the finish line. That is not exactly how my "race" finished today ...

... for the past couple of weeks I have been coordinating the completion of a set of third party contracts and documents of understanding that all needed to be in place such that the main Agreement with the client could be signed this morning. This job has been a Royal pain in the arse. The Specialist Procurement personnel have been out of the office more than they have been in it, both of them seem somewhat less than motivated and most definitely lacking in any project management ability. The signing of the main Agreement was deferred by a week so they even had more time but they still managed to make a complete and utter pig's ear of things and we arrived at our deadline with barely sufficient documentation to satisfy the Daemons that these sub-contracts were in place. The ink was still wet on some of them and, if I am honest, other associated documents remain to be agreed and signed.

So let us review our imaginary Olympian with hair streaming behind them and replace that image with a decrepit octogenarian collapsing ahead of the line and, with breath rattling from their failing lungs, pulling themselves by their finger tips to the finish.

It is fair to say that I like to take a pride in my work and I leave this assignment with a self assessment of adequate and when I say adequate it should probably be accompanied by the adverb barely.

Moving on to Life rather than Work, today's moment of humour came when I took Tyson back to the Vet as her torn claw is troubling her and has bled on a couple of occasions. The Vet suggested sedating her so that the claw could be removed and I agreed that this was the best course of action. He asked whether she had eaten anything this morning as the light anaesthetic could induce vomiting. I think he was expecting a yes or no so was taken aback when I looked at her and then back at him and replied that she had eaten a ham sandwich ...

... I reminded the Vet that her drugs needed to be taken with food and both T&M have food constantly available so I needed something tempting to ensure her pills sat on a full stomach; hence a ham sandwich. He laughed at this unconventional approach and we continued with the pre-op consents and confirmation of contact details. I left her there with instructions to call for a progress report at two o'clock.

Two o'clock came and I called to be informed that all had gone well and that I could collect her later in the afternoon. She is now curled up on the sofa as right as ninepence.

30% returned from work somewhat excited* by her new role and it fair to say that she needed to do a bit of shouting to get it out of her system ... eventually, reassured by the sight of Tyson virtually restored to normal levels of craziness, she was ready to start the weekend and we headed over to Littleton Auctons to view the lots.

Tomorrow could be expensive.

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* This is most definitely a euphemism