Bank Holiday musings

It's Jubilee weekend and we are preparing for our street party - I had grand ideas of union flag icing on cup cakes but the cakes all sank (why do I never follow a recipe properly?) and I resorted to blue (and purple) smarties and glace cherries on some of co-op's best mini-cakes.

cake cheat

In the news they often talk about the economic cost of an extra bank holiday - the BBC give their take on it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18277486

Personally I'd always thought the extra leisure spend would make up for a day's work but my principal project - a £3million refurbishment/development in the centre of Cambridge - will struggle to make a meaningful start this week and as usual, every second counts.  We had a celebratory dinner with client, user, builder and consultants last week - 2 women, 16 men.  It was a good idea and I made a point of talking about development, the Olympics and procurement and NOT: my dilemma about what to wear, worries about the project and my garden.  It was good practise although I needn't have worried: a couple of the blokes had had a similar wardrobe dilemma, one had no clue what I meant when I talked about 'BIM' and there were plenty of personal anecdotes going round.

I took the opportunity of telling a few men they needed to employ more women too. Recent research into the advantages for companies of having more women in their management team is getting quoted a lot -  the pdf "Women on Boards" is available here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/business-law/docs/w/11-745-women-on-boards.pdf - even if that's the only thing you mention, give it a go.  The evidence that women are good for business is clear and the more it gets talked about the better the prospects for all of us.  Happy Bank Holiday!