258 COMICS, CUT OUTS AND GLOW UPS...

The rally has finished; it is now back to reality and back to work. It hasn't been so bad going back to work, as our Communications Manager was covering our trip and promoting it heavily via our intranet and our digital magazine - thank you, Kristen!

I also sent my 'Dear Diary' messages to my colleague Alan, who brought them up at each morning's huddle (a quick meeting where a member of each team gave an update of any work that the rest of the organisation needed to be made aware of).

On the back of this, another colleague, Mike, got the transcripts of the updates I sent over and asked Co-Pilot to use them to create a comic. The results are fantastic! I asked Mike to send the images over, but he started ghosting me, which was unusual as he is one of the good guys.

The reason for the cold shoulder became apparent the other day when I attended our Wider Leaders meeting (heads of departments and teams get together to discuss future strategy for the company). I was asked to do a brief run-through of our trip.

Spoiler alert: it wasn't brief, but it was funny, according to people who watched it.

At the end, I received a round of applause, and then Sarah, Ellis's wife, who we did the trip for, came over with a couple of envelopes. She presented me with a desktop cut out of Lisa and me in our little Abarth as a keepsake for the trip. Lisa loves it; the image they used is from a little while ago, so she has had a cracking glow-up (her words, not mine!)

Sarah also presented me with a printed-out comic of all the strips that Mike had created. It was brilliant to see the images in a physical medium. This explains why he didn't send the pictures over; they had planned to get them printed for us! Oh, and who did the printing? Yup, those heroes at Colour Create who did the stripes and JPS for the two cars.

I was blown away by the support I received from the guys in work, and the amazing gifts they gave us. I also snagged a few more donations for the pot, which pushed the total up even further. I'm truly blessed.