Friday 5th January

I have a lot of work to do today. Was in our London office yesterday having my annual appraisal. And also doing reviews for 3 of my old team. What a farce! However I am entitled to a bonus payment for 2006 and so have to have an assessment so that they can rate me and decide how much bonus I'll get paid. So I can't really complain. I am tired today - not used to all this hard work, you see.

Garden leave started on 2nd Jan. My letter says:

You will be on paid leave from 2nd Jan 2007 to 26th March 2007. Although you are not required to attend the office on a day to day basis during your paid leave, you remain an employee of the company until your last agreed day of service. During this period you must be available to carry out specific duties as and when required by the company who will give you as much notice as possible.

I've agreed that I'll check emails once a day (easy as I have a blackberry) and also keep my phone on. Also easy as I'll be using it anyway! My boss has promised not to put me on any projects. I said I'm happy to chat to anybody who wants to pick my brains on any topic that they think I can help with. And that's all. Once these reviews are all done (12th Jan I think) then I'll be totally free

Well, our Bose came back yesterday. We sent it off as the radio was broken. They've fixed the radio but now the CD doesn't work. I'm seriously thinking of trying to get a refund and just buy the docking station. Although I did hear they've now developed a connector so you can plug your ipod into the normal Bose CD player. Must look into that.