Soft Hand Beauty Tip, Avoiding the Chair and Half Price Chocolate

Cloudy day at St Ives

Entered the A14 networking meeting to meet old friends and new - and have some toast as breakfast. Discovered a new benefit of desktop working when my hands inadvertently touched those of the manageress. She reacted surprised and stroked my palms, exclaiming 'Ooh! you have soft hands' much to general hilarity and ribald comments. Afterwards, Natasha conducted another surreptitious and independent verification. Secret beauty tip - inadvertently get a bit of butter on your fingers from your toast, wipe it away and - you are left with soft hands!

Popped by the Norris to temporarily fill in at the reception desk and catch up on how we were gradually reverting to a normal routing with research and volunteering before dashing off to Huntingdon for the HBN AGM.

At the AGM, the old committee was retiring and we had the perennial problem of any organisation - who was going to take the Chair. Having successfully pared my chairing and organisational roles down to three, I was well aware of the hazards, responsibilities and time involved and managed to keep out of adopting this one (again, having been HBN chair in past for 2 years). Fortunately, at the last minute, two succumbed to the stark realities of needing leadership and volunteered. Congratulations to Graham and Nick!

Best tip of the day - the factory outlet of Hotel Chocolat in Huntingdon. Jane and I resisted most temptation and only came out with 300 g of chocolates at a reduced price.