Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

This morning two exciting things happened, one good, one bad. The first was that I saw a rat on my way to work. Andy wasn't there to mind me so I had to run away. Inconsiderately, he was on the tube so I had to leave him a hysterical voicemail (I don't hold with counting h's as vowels) instead of speaking to him hysterically. I googled fear of rats: turns out musophobia (as it is less commonly know) is one of the most common specific phobias, and is often a combination of the "reasonable concern about rats and mice contaminating food supplies, which has been universal to all times, places, and cultures where stored grain attracts rodents, which then consume or contaminate the human food supply" and the startle response. Sounds sensible.

So that was an unpleasant start to the day, but it was tempered by a lovely email from my boss when I got to work thanking me for all my work since Anfal left and praising me for not letting anything major slip despite doing two people's work. So she and my boss-boss have agreed to nominate me for a £150 instant reward, which is very nice indeed. Instant rewards are a nice thing the Department does as a way to recognise good work on a particular thing, like a sort of short-term bonus. So I feel pleased.

The rest of the day was quite dull in comparison.