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It was a long, long journey...

To quote one of my old mates - Dr Smith from the Lost in Space TV show - oh the pain, the pain!

Now while you guys out there just think it may be my ancient bones giving me grief it isn't just them … it's just about every muscle, sinew and pore in my almost petrified carcass that is giving me hell.

Personally, I blame shifting our offices. What a project. What a task. What insanity!

Visitors to Melbourne were a little shocked it must be said at the sight of us moving burrows. There we were trudging into the city with our computers and personal belongings strapped to our backs. The Managing Director following behind in his Rolls Royce shouting words of encouragement from a cappuccino-frothed mouth and cracking a whip whenever we paused to conduct CPR on one of our fallen colleagues.

We lost two along the way.

First to go was Sciana Scatti who got waylaid by a hairy individual smelling of incense, illicit materials and waving a handful of dangling crystals who said she had seen the true light and it would only take 20 minutes and $5 to pass on her answers to life.

Then the lovely Sara Templeton, our fashion guru, took a breather outside a large department store window and while taking oxygen discovered that there was a parade of sensuous nightwear on show and so she tottered off to spend some time with the leggy gals.

Will Barker was a bit of a hoot. Being young he thought he could safely ride a seriously dinged mountain bike while tapping out his latest computer games review and downing a one-metre long ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce, steak, chick pea, chicken, salami and porridge roll.

Everyone warned him but he wouldn't listen and eventually found himself halfway up the tailpipe of a prime mover whose searchlight-like indicators hadn't quite been big enough for him to notice.

Petrolhead extraordinaire Feann Torr did the cool thing and motored up to the office in his latest test car. "I'm roadtesting it," he protested as he copped taunts from us all about his lead foot clearly being too heavy to allow him to go anywhere under his own steam. He still hasn't got to the office because he took a wrong turn up a narrow one-way street and the last we saw of him he was trying to tell some poor cabby that in Australia the arrow sign actually means go the opposite way to the direction its pointing.

And James Anthony did the noble thing and just trudged along without complaint. Mind you, we did hear him singing under his breath something along the lines of "Hi, ho, hi, ho, it's off to work we go …"

It has been agreed he's been watching too many DVDs and maybe he should do something like getting a life.

But, most pathetic of all was … yep, you guessed it - moi. I'll 'fess up I'm no longer built for Sherpa-like adventures along the highways and byways of a big city.

Everytime I passed a coffee shop I suggested taking a break and plonked down to get energy from a sugary short black.

Bookstores were another potential haven although turning about in the aisles is no easy matter with a monitor and PC tower strapped on to your body and after trashing two small shops the word quickly got out. Every bookstore after that had a sign on the door "No Old Coots Allowed".

Hah, I'll never shop here again, I shouted and waved my fist - to which the ingrates said good, among other four-letter words.

On and on we stumbled, feet bleeding, shoulders rubbed raw until we came to the Promised Land. And it is heaven. Cool, stylish and without all of our amenities, but things are coming together.

Hopefully we'll get email next week!

Anyway, have to go, it seems the MD has got stuck backing out of the lift door and only his posterior is showing so people are taking turns at a bit of pedestrian industrial action and are taking turns to sink the boot.

Can't miss this opportunity. Byeeeeeeee.

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com