Today it is pouring with rain, prompting the usual litany of complaints from colleagues - we now have all the people from our company's second project on the bus with us in the mornings and evenings. All I can say is, if they think the weather is bad now, just wait a few weeks and it could get significantly worse, depending upon your point of view. Of course, if you don't mind staying inside and doing your sewing, knitting, reading etc, it could be perfect!

In fact, the weather at the weekend was not bad, and I went out walking a bit, although to nowhere new, just around one of the shopping centres and the Old Town. There was one of the new guys who went to Helsinki for the day on Saturday, and came back saying how much more exciting than Tallinn it was, and he would rather spend weekends there in future, but I do think that is a little unfair, Tallinn has quite a lot to do and it is a lot more economical than Helsinki as well. After all, why do all the Finns come here for the weekend and go to restaurants, clubs, spas etc? And the Old Town is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

I am still feeling a bit weak and am using this as an excuse not to do very much with the others at the weekends or in the evenings. I am so glad I dipped out on the Friday night "quick drink", apparently it turned out to be some extended session with the Snowflake consuming to excess. She evidently lay on her bed all day Saturday! Today she seems in fine form, in fact she is sitting next to me, which is a pain, as she makes quite a bit of noise, what with her computer noises, music noises, humming to music etc etc. She is actually not wearing the hairy thing today, maybe it doesn't like the rain, because she has a really ratty black acrylic cardigan jacket over a red jumper and an orange scarf, must be colour blind.

Ah well, better go and do some more testing, I have stacks to do this week!

I think everyone I know has the flu...... I had email from my lawyer, who is in Canada (don't ask, yes, our company is very weird sometimes), and evidently all her office is suffering. Our Project Director is at home with it, and he is so bad that everyone who speaks to him on the phone remarks upon how bad he sounds. I've got no idea how he actually got home, I felt bad enough on the plane on Thursday, he must have been much worse on Friday, and he has a longer journey.

Yesterday it was not too bad flying, I had the front seat to myself and dozed most of the way to Stockholm, where I ran around buying Swedish meatballs and a new purple Kipling bag for my computer. When I got to Tallinn, I managed to keep my eyes open for about half an hour, then I went to sleep until 9pm. Got up for a couple of hours, then slept until 8am. I arrived at work and checked in with our lead architect, who looked guilty when he saw me, he thought they must have been meant to wait for me to catch the team bus this morning! Actually he looked guilty and sick, he has been off work for two days this week as well.

Giulia is sitting in the room with me, wrapped up in goodness knows what, with a hacking cough also, and, get this, going out to smoke periodically. She keeps on about how cold it is, and I guess it is cooler than Rome, but it is not too bad, it is over 10 degrees, and the weather is fine, albeit with the usual nasty wind at times. The Snowflake is somewhere as well, I saw her briefly this morning, still wearing the black hairy thing, I wonder if she wears it to bed as well? I have a feeling we could get very very tired of seeing that thing this winter.

We are all supposed to be going out tonight - we have new colleagues, about seven of them, I think, because there is another project for another of our company's products that is starting this week - but I am not going, as I can't face sitting in the Italian cafe for hours on end while the door opens with people going in and out from smoking. I shall stay home with the Swedish meatballs ans the nearly finished Baktus scarf.

I'm afraid so, although it is ordinary flu, not pork flu, thank goodness. I had a horrible week, barely able to get up each day, and then Wednesday night I had to go out, to the apartment of someone who smokes, and that did for me. I had to travel on Thursday evening, back to Paris, as I had a Friday morning meeting, and I was not well on the plane. Friday and Saturday were a blur of horror, and it was only yesterday that I could feel the enormous pills the doctor gave me working.

The next time any of my colleagues brings back horrible illness from the airport, I am staying at home until it has gone away. I just checked with Giulia who is in the office in Tallinn, and it is only her and the guy whose cold started all of this. Everyone else is either travelling or sick, except Suzette who has gone to Manila for a week. We have begged her to bring back a small Philippine island with its own micro-climate, so we can put it in Tallinn Harbour and escape there from time to time!

I won't be travelling back until Wednesday, and I have upgraded myself with some FF points, so as to have a more comfortable journey most of the way - it is via Stockholm this time, and that is 2.5 hours, then only 1 hour to Tallinn, so I will get in before 5pm. I'm so thankful that the airport in Tallinn is so close to town, I can get off the plane and straight into a taxi and be home in twenty minutes.

Today I am going out to do the shopping and stuff I should have done on Friday and Saturday, then tomorrow I am going to the hairdresser and the office. I've mostly been dozing over the weekend, but every now and then I woke up and did a bit more of my Blackbird Designs Loose Feather needlebook, so I need to go and find some lining material for this.

Everyone on the team is or has been sick - apart from one person, who just had a giant hangover, it was some variation of cold, sore throat, flu. I have to wonder if it was that hairy vest that gave us all something! We saw it every day last week until Friday, when the Snowflake left for Paris at the crack of dawn - I heard that she was on the 6:40 plane and she had been out until about 3am, good luck to her, I could never do that, I am too old for such things.

Actually I was not at all well myself from Friday onwards, and went home early, to bed. Then I got up for about an hour on Saturday and went to the supermarket and back to bed. On Sunday, again it was up for an hour or so, and I managed to make it as far as the yarn supermarket at Rocca al Mare before I felt faint again and had to come back. To console myself for being sick, I bought six skeins of Novita Puro, a yarn with long colour changes like Noro Kureyon, but considerably softer and considerably cheaper - less than 2.50€ for a skein! The colours are just great. Then I went back to sleep, only waking up to watch Dalziel and Pascoe and Race to the Pole on BBC.

Yesterday I wasn't sure that I would make it to work today, I had the aches and pains so badly, but all the sleep must have done some good, because I managed to get up at 6:30am today and get myself to the Swissotel to catch our team bus to work - whether I will last until 6pm and the bus back is another matter. I have to go to Paris on Thursday evening, so I have to be well for that, as I have an appointment at the Estonian Embassy on Friday.

Oh my goodness, I wish I could post a photo of our Special Snowflake - she turned up to work today in the most hilarious outfit I have seen! It starts off semi-OK with the usual tight black trousers and a rather low cut lacy black top and high heeled strappy sandals, not perhaps ideal for the Tallinn weather, but pretty normal for SS.

It is without a doubt the funniest thing I have seen for ages......... I am not going to get one myself, that is for sure, I would look like a Yeti!

I did spend a really quiet weekend, going for a walk on Saturday and indoors all of Sunday until I went to the supermarket in the evening. I made some progress on various things, and completed a very warm cloche hat for deepest winter in Tallinn. I feel less tired now, for sure, let's hope this continues this week. I am on week two of the new medication as well, so I feel fairly cheerful, thank goodness.

I've been back in Tallinn this week - after having the dreaded appraisal in Paris on Monday. It was not too horrible, actually, although as usual I seem to have acquired an awful lot more work to do.

The weather here is not bad, although our Special Snowflake is already moaning about it, I wonder what she is going to do later on when we are leaving for work in the dark in the snow, and we can't really go for walks at the weekend because of the snow etc. Our Italian colleague is also already freezing, and has put in a request to buy a heavy winter coat on expenses, I am not sure whether this will be granted. I haven't decided yet whether I will buy a new coat, but, if so, I will pay for it myself - I'm not sure whether the company would impose some parameters that don't fit in with my idea of sartorial elegance!

In line with the weather, I intend to spend quite a bit of the weekend finishing various hats and so on............ and I'll be staying indoors stitching too, unless it really picks up and I can go out for an autumnal walk.