A first ever!

Yesterday I experienced a 'first ever' moment in my life. I had my first ever real fire alarm!! That's right, yesterday at 4.58pm the familiar sound of a fire alarm went off in the offices at work. As normal, we thought it was a fire drill or a false alarm - although we soon realised that they wouldn't do a fire drill 2 mins before the live news bulletin, so it was obviously the latter conclusion - a false alarm. However, as we exited quietly using the fire escape we soon smelt the most pungent stench of smoke. As we walked outside we noticed that there was indeed smoke coming out of the roof of our offices.

The news presenters insisted that there couldn't be a worse time for a fire alarm - there was breaking news of an attack in Lebanon and they were determined to go to air at 5pm - we practically had to drag them kicking and screaming from the set, explaining that the building was in fact on fire, and if they didn't leave, soon they might be the very subject of a new 'breaking news'. Though you have to admire my colleagues dedication and commitment to informing the world.

So, after assembling on the footpath for a while, it became evident that as the fire was in the roof, no one had been injured - very good news! The French fire brigade was surprisingly efficient for a French organisation and quickly put the fire out which meant that within an hour we were back to work. I never thought I'd be annoyed by a fire alarm because I still had things to do in the office and it was interrupting my working day - my God I'm becoming a professional working woman - somebody help me!