Budgeting and a christmas lunch

Today was a relatively cheap day except for the fact that I didn't realise that I was sitting on empty last night and had to fill up on the way to work. I almost never fill up on a Friday cos it's usually insanely expensive but it couldn't be helped. Even with a shopper docket, it still cost me $40. Ouch.

But on the bright side, I finally got paid for the photography work I did last month so $255 went straight to the credit card. I figure I lived without it for so long, I might as well use it to swallow some of the bill.

On other news, we had our work christmas lunch today at a little Turkish restaurant that's just opened a few doors down from us. We'd booked a table for 12:30pm but when we walked in, the guy seemed surprised and started rushing around to get our table ready. True, we were the only people in the place, but he was the only waiter (and I think chef too) so it was pretty funny.

We'd had a "kris kringle" or "secret santa" thing going where we all bought a gift for approximately $20 for one other person. Most of us put a lot of effort into getting a good gift - I spent a little more ($28) on a camping chair and table for Judy, our travelling sales rep who spends most of her time in a caravan around country Victoria. Most people put that kind of effort into it except Viktor, who bought my gift - a Borders gift card. Yes, I will use it and yes, I love books but you can't get much for $20 - most books cost $22 or up, so I'll put it toward something else. To tell you the truth, I would have preferred a gift with some thought behind it and not a quick car trip to Borders. But hey, nice anyway. Then the bosses had bought gifts for everyone too - I got a lovely handmade necklace which I love.

The food was awesome even though we ended up nicknaming our waitier Manuel (from Fawlty Towers). His phone kept going off and he'd back off into the kitchen, as though we couldn't tell. Then he was so keen to help us that when we asked if they had halvah he was like "no, but I can go to the turkish shop in the next suburb and get some." It was hilarious. We found out later that they had put our booking in for 7:30pm not lunch and that was why they were short on desserts and so shocked when we walked in.

Still, excellent lunch, good company (although there are some people who laugh like a banshee) and we left work at 4:00pm. Good day.