Odd afternoon...

Last week, during my break from working, I thought I'd do a PRINCE2 Project Management qualification to pad out my CV (as I am a product/project manager, it's a bit of an omission, frankly). So I hied me hence to QA-IQ in Holborn for the 5 days, including two exams. All very straightforward, no problems there. Good trainer, and generally nice fellow participants. The odd bit came at the end when, having finished the final exam by lunchtime, a good number of us decamped to the Yorkshire Grey pub round the corner for some valedictory refreshment.

We were, I think, on about pint number 2 or perhaps 3, when there was a "bang" outside, and a general commotion. It turned out a cement lorry had come round the corner, and essentially picked up a motorcycle courier who was on his inside, and run over his bike, and a bit of his foot. Nasty business, but in fact the courier seemed pretty ok, but his foot was bleeding. The fool was only wearing trainers, for some unknowable reason. Hard to say where the majority of the fault lay, but there was a chap who had apparently been there to see it happen and had waded in to pull the courier off his bike and out of harm's way, or he could have been in serious bother, not just nursing a bruised/broken foot. This chap was, he said, on the way to his bank manager of all things, so in the fullness of time, off he went. Ambulance and police turned up shortly after, and everyone got back on with their business.

Time, and another pint, went by inside the pub, when this chap returned. It transpired that he was somewhat shaken by the whole encounter (not the bank manager discussion, the accident), and seizing on me as someone he recognised from earlier, prevailed on me to have a drink with him. I admit I was not overly keen on swapping my flirtatious conversation with my two female classmates (in their early twenties), for a possibly tortuous dialogue with Patrick, 61, but felt it my duty as he had a) allegedly saved a man's life, or at least prevented his maiming and b) was evidently in a bit of shock. And so, I spent the next 45 minutes swapping stories with this pleasant, albeit erratic chap over several whiskies. Patrick is ex-navy, a plumber, and was seeing the bank manager about selling up in London to move out to Kent. He had boxed with the navy, and hence had the fast reactions needed to get involved with the fracas with the cement lorry.

A very interesting experience, and Patrick and I swapped details - who knows what will happen in future? I might need a plumber with quick hands in Kent....