After last week's pumpkin cookies we had a cake at work.

It's a home made cake, and it's decorated by someone is a doing a course (with good results, clearly).

I like this tradition of people bringing baked goods into the office.

There were pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips at work yesterday -- a large plate of them and the first pumpkin dish I've had in a year.

A delicious way to start the Halloween season.

Yesterday I went to our office in the London City, the central area of town.

The weather was as it should be in London: gray and rainy. I left the hotel and quickly went inside again to pick up my jacket. A colleague told me later that the weather had been like this all summer.

I took a red double decker bus to work and got there in 25 minutes. The working day was very productive. I went for dinner with a colleague, and after I got back to the hotel I went for a run to the river, crossing the Thames over the Millennium bridge, very cool.

There's 'congestion charging' throughout London now. It takes between 7 and 10 pounds ($14 to $21) just to get into the city by car per day. Obviously, that excludes parking.

I bought an expensive bottle of water, $2.50 for a liter. It's Fiji, imported from the Fiji islands in the Pacific and it tastes just like the water we get from our water cooler.

I bought it because I like the bottle -- it's strong and has the right size. I used to drink from a huge glass at work in the Netherlands but I starting using these bottles in Arlington.

I should really get a plastic bottle that is not made of PET though; it's more healthy in the long run. Even better, I should get a big glass!

I now have a plant in my cubicle at work.

There's great story about "duck" that I'll share once later.

Tuesday evening we had the holiday party of my work.

The party was in a restaurant in Raleigh. It was a bit of an adventure to get there, but we made it on time for the happy hour. Later we had a dinner.

We had met some of my colleagues partners on my birthday but the group was larger this time and it was great to meet everybody. It's a very nice group of people.

Today I brought Sinterklaas candy and cookies to work.

I had ordered some Dutch items online, including these Sinterklaas items, and the package arrived yesterday. The thing is, these candies are only sold in large quantities and I just wanted to try a few bites and not eat a whole bag.

So we had taai and pepernoten at work today.

A note on the coffee machine:

This office is full of 'he' men.

1. We don't wear perfume.
2. We don't drink "flavored" coffee.

I agree with the author -- flavored coffee is a horrible (American?) idea.

Grande hazelnut vanilla skim latte, anyone?

We did some relocations at work and since a week I have a new desk.

This is the first time I actually have a cubicle -- in my previous jobs I've always sat on open desks.

Time of course for a little office humor by Scott Adams:

What do you call a sociopath in a cubicle? (answer, a coworker)

The holiday season has started here: Starbucks is using the winter cups again.

We ran out of coffee so for the last 2 days I visited a Starbucks before work. I now drink mild coffee in the morning, the Starbucks breakfast blend.

The cups are nice and red with snow flakes on them.