Bolshy

It’s Friday. Yay! G and I are going out for dinner tonight. Yay! We should get 50% off the meal. Yay!

This new found excitement does not reflect me having returned to ‘normal’ more that I am just glad to have made it to the end of the week! Yesterday went ok though. I was talking to my boss and C, the woman who works for me, yesterday morning and we were discussing how the meeting had gone and all concluded that it had not gone well. I think all of us were kind of subdued about it. I do a lot of work with another organisation and that other organisation had suggested that maybe the way to make progress was for me and C to go and work with them on a semi-permanent basis. I said that I didn’t think this was a good idea. We were down enough about it already without being punished by having to go and work over on the dark side. I think it will be discussed again next week but I think my boss is not keen on it happening either so hopefully it won’t. I actually do a range of work that has nothing to do with that particular project so just practically it isn’t the right way to deal with it. I just hope we have a choice in this. C seemed very subdued yesterday though and I asked her if she was ok and she said she was but had just got quite a lot on her mind. She’s actually on leave for a week now so hopefully she’ll feel a bit more positive by the time she gets back.

I also got summoned (in a nice way) to go and speak to someone who had been at the meeting and he wanted to make sure that I hadn’t been upset or offended by what he had said at the meeting. I assured him I wasn’t. He is very nice and I didn’t disagree with what he had said at all, it was just one of those things. I did also achieve some things at work yesterday too which was a good sign.

I haven't turned into sweetness and light though. Yesterday I touched my oyster card on the reader at the barrier and went into the station and some bloke came through the barrier right behind me. I turned to him and said “Did you just come through on my ticket?” and he replied with a somewhat aggressive “Yes” and basically asked what my problem was. I then stood there and told him in no uncertain terms (!) that I had paid my fare but I hadn’t done that so he could travel for free and that I didn’t appreciate him going through on my ticket. We then both proceeded to walk down the same escalator and he must have thought I was following him (which I wasn’t, I always walk down the escalators) and he then said “what do you want? 50p? £1” and I just replied that I wasn’t following him and was just walking down an escalator. I think in many ways I was actually more bothered that he had to walk through right up behind me and that was what I disliked more than the actual fare evasion side of it, although I didn’t see what he should get away with not paying. I was talking to G about it later and did say that one day I may well get stabbed to death for being a bit bolshy. As I said to G, always assume that each time is the last time we’ll be in touch, just in case.

Thoughts

I went for a walk on my lunch break yesterday. It was very chilly.

I went to a short meeting yesterday afternoon. It lasted three hours.

At the meeting my colleagues and I were given rather a hard time. This was not fun.

Think we may get a talking to at work today about how we are going to turn things around.

Sometimes I wonder why I do my job because it doesn’t seem to have much purpose to it.

Last night I was reminded of the phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants”#. I like it.

I was meant to go out last night. I forgot.

I was talking to G on the phone last night. For some reason I just couldn’t say I don’t feel very cheerful at the moment.

G has lost almost half a stone by walking ten thousand steps a day for the last few weeks. Impressive.

Time to head off for another day at work. *sigh*




#It basically means building on the wisdom of others who have gone before. It is the inscription on the edge of (some) £2 coins.

Changes

G pointed out last night that yesterday was three months to Christmas Day. How is that possible?? Mind you the weather has taken a turn for the worst. I looked out the window before I set off fro work on Monday because I could hear how windy it was. Not only windy, but also pouring with rain. There has definitely been sunshine over the last couple of days, but also rain… I know it’s almost October but I still feel hard done by and am refusing to put my heating on until we have had a proper summer (I suspect I will relent on this in the next day or so…).

This change in the weather is also not great for my new fitness regime, which basically consists of trying to go for a walk on my lunch breaks. Maybe 30 minutes or so, as many times as I can a week. I think if I only do this in good weather then I won’t be able to continue with this until next year, by which time I may have become a beached whale. For a few years I used to go for a walk every lunch time and then when things went wrong with A I stopped, but now is the time to try and reinstitute it (but with routes that avoid possibly bumping into each other, as much as is possible). I’m not sure I’ll be able to go for a walk every day, but every little helps, as they say and doing something when I can is better than doing nothing at all.

I think some of the reason I have been feeling a bit down this week is that sometimes I think deep down I am just not a very nice person. When I am tired and worn out, I am just a bit of a grumpy old git and it makes me wonder if the rest of the time I am just able to keep it in check because I have the energy to do so! I know it must be a shock to you to realise that I am not sweetness and light all the time, but it’s better that you know the truth now. I’m sure you’ll get over it and if not well, do you want to have an argument about it? Well do you?

Guidance

I went and sat on the interview panel yesterday afternoon. It went fine, despite having to hang about in reception for a few minutes until someone came to take me to the right room. I was there as the independent person and it turned out that they were expecting me to be an expert on the interview process. Fortunately I had actually read the guidance and therefore was able to sound reasonably knowledgeable, but that is only because I have recently advertised a job and so had looked at it for myself. Otherwise I could have looked like I knew nothing… *cough*

I then had real trouble following the interview because the other two interviewers were a bit all over the place with their questions. One of them obviously didn’t know the process at all though and after the candidate had left complained that he hadn’t been able to ask things like what qualifications she had (which to a large degree is irrelevant where I work). Anyway, I survived and that task is now done and dusted.

I’m still not feeling my most chipper, but hopefully it will pass soon. In the meantime (I might have posted this before) if you are look for a relaxing moment in your busy day then you might want to go here and maybe spent a bit for time looking at a lake (you need Flash to make it work – and there is a bit of background music, but it’s very soothing). Maybe put your feet up for a few minutes and relax.

Flat

Yet another weekend over, and it was somewhat of a mixed one. I don’t think it is worth explaining the bad stuff that happened but there were a few somewhat unpleasant and tense moments over the weekend. But I shall pass over them…

Anyway, some of the good things were that G and I had a very nice lunch at Wagamamas on Saturday and I had a 2 for 1 voucher for it so we got it at a bargain price. We then spent a bit of time mooching about in London which included going to Fortnum and Masons. G had never been there before and was somewhat shocked at the price of everything. We both decided that touching anything they sold might prove to be very costly so we just looked on in awe from afar.

Last night I then went to the theatre with my mum and sister to see Jenny Eclair’s stand up show. That was quite good and it was actually the first night so probably by the end of the tour it will have evolved quite a lot and some of the lines that fell a bit flat will have gone by the wayside, but it was an amusing evening and worth going to.

Having said that I do feel a bit subdued at the moment. Some of it is possibly because I have to go and conduct that interview today (which incidentally I have done little to prepare for so had better get on with doing that when I get into work today) and in some ways that feels a bit like stepping back into the past. I think I just feel a bit subdued anyway though. Over the last few weeks I have felt a bit of a failure at various things. In the grand scheme of things, nothing major and also this has certainly not been a continuous feeling, but still it has cropped up on occasion. I am sure it will pass but even so I am not feeling my most cheerful. Anyway, another week begins and so I had better get on with it.

Avast me hearties*

My talk yesterday went very well. Fortunately someone else came along to do the second half of the talk (which was the stuff I was really unfamiliar with, but had spent time revising just in case I had to give the whole talk). Anyway, at the end of the talk someone came up to me and said “I can tell you’re a really experienced public speaker, you’re really good” and then someone else came up to me and asked if I could give her some advice some time on public speaking. Yesterday’s post was not an instance of me trying to sound really rubbish so that I could then act all surprised when I got a couple of compliments. That talk could have been really dire had I had to give it all, fortunately someone took over from me at the crucial moment. I know that I can do public speaking really well, I just need to know what I’m talking about! I suspect the previous speaker (who I did not hear) was somewhat dry, so by comparison that made me look even better…

For several days when I have logged into my blogger account part of the text has been displayed in German, even though my language is listed as English (and I cannot read German). It seems I am not alone in this (that’s a very useful website, by the way), but I shall have to soldier on because I don’t think Blogger is in any hurry to fix it. I may have to take a crash course in German…

I don’t have a Facebook profile. I’m not into this whole poking people thing (surely it’s just not British!) and I spend enough time on the internet already without getting distracted by that. There has been a bit of backlash from employers, and some have banned their staff from accessing the site. You should perhaps keep this tale in mind next time you switch on your work computer. Be warned.

On another note, a song has been going round my head of late. It’s “Over My Head” by The Fray. I’m not sure why it has been on my mind (apart from that I like the song), but I offer it to you and perhaps it will get stuck in your head instead…





*Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. You can also do this in German, which might come in handy given my current Blogger problem

Pain

I spent some of last night practicing a talk I have to give this afternoon. I think it is safe to say that I feel very unconfident about this talk. What is the golden rule of public speaking? Know your material. There is no substitute for it. The problem is that this is such a wide ranging talk that I have had to ask several people for contributions and don’t really know the material well enough myself to talk about it really confidently. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll give it a good go, but talks are always much better if you really relate to the material and understand the context of what you are talking about and I just don’t. let’s hope they don’t ask too many questions…

I also seem to have a pain in my back at the moment. If I do anything that stretches my back including hiccupping it really hurts. I think I must have strained myself over the weekend, but I have no idea how. Sitting on the sofa is obviously the only cure for this though.

Last night I watched the programme on the McCanns that was on ITV. As the programme unfolded I was just struck by how inappropriate it seemed for them to be showing that programme at this time. They can get away with it because Madeleine McCann didn’t go missing in the UK, but to all intents and purposes they are commenting on a live investigation. Personally I don’t think they did it, but even so I just think it was really inappropriate to show that programme, they are attempting to try the case before the Portuguese have even made a decision on what to do next – and it did still have that feeling about it of the “stupid Portuguese police” and how differently we would have done it. I really do hope that the truth comes out soon in this investigation and they find out what happened to that little girl but programmes like that are unhelpful, particularly as none of the people involved were actually involved directly in the investigation. Trial by media indeed, but it is the Portuguese police that are being scrutinised more than anyone else. For some reason this case seems to have captured so many people and everything seems to be fair game.

Scary

Another weekend over. In some ways it feels like it was bit of a tragic weekend, not for me personally you understand but what with Colin McRae being killed and that plane crash in Thailand, plus all the stuff going on with the McCanns and so on. The news just seems to be filled with sad things. I watched a programme last night, which was a bit sad and then went to do something on my computer and I think I just felt as though bursting into tears would be a good option - but I resisted the urge.

Anyway, it was a fairly busy weekend which started with me meeting up with a friend from university for dinner. We had a really nice evening but a couple of times I had to tell her that she was scaring the waiter (as his face clearly showed). Admittedly he did fail to bring the olives despite being asked twice and was generally a bit dopey, but my friend was dead scary! We had a good catch up though and exchanged news and had a good time.

I wasn’t meant to be seeing G until Saturday but due to a change in plans G phoned me and came over on Friday night instead, which was fine and meant that less of the day was wasted on Saturday meeting up. We tried to do our normal Saturday walk but due to various factors, had trouble finding somewhere suitable to go, but in the end went for a stroll by the Thames in glorious sunshine and then ate ice cream. Very healthy…

G then prepared some dinner and I continued to paint the front door. The front door has turned out reasonably well. It’s not fantastic but it is much better that it was. I was talking to my neighbour on Saturday morning while I was the painting on the door and he made a reference to earlier in the week when my door was “multi-coloured”. Quite… This is why people in London don’t talk to their neighbours.

Now the door is passable and the plan is to replace the fire place in the living room (technically there is no fireplace there at the moment, it is actually a very badly fitted surround with very fake looking marble insert but no actual fire) and then get someone to redecorate the living room. I could redo it myself but I don’t want to repaint the ceiling myself and that really needs doing, so I could get the same person to do the front door. This is not an imminent plan so it is not that all my hard work is going to disappear in the next few weeks, but I would just like it to have amore professional finish. I don’t know why I have struggles with it so much because all the other decorating I have has been totally fine and I’m really pleased with my hall, but for some reason, I just could not get the front door quite right. Anyway, now I just have to tidy the glass in the door up a bit and that is about it. At last.

Direction

Yesterday’s work away day was very good and the people who organised it had obviously put in a lot of effort. We basically had to follow clues that took us all across London and then make it to a particular place for lunch. The team I was in were doing really well and managed to workout the answers to the clues pretty easily. However, on the last clue we just totally messed it up and so lost our lead. Still, it’s the taking part that counts…

It meant that I got home nice and early though and so I finished stripping the door and put on some primer. I was hoping to be able to paint the door tonight but the primer is not as even as I would have hoped so I think I will even it up tonight instead. Having gone to all this effort, it seems worth trying to get the base even before painting on it. It means I won’t be able to paint the door until Saturday though as I am out on Friday night. There is a part of me that is really nervous about trying to paint the door again, as it turned out so badly the first time that I think it might happen again, but unless I intend to just leave it with primer on forever, I haven’t got much choice. So Saturday morning I will try and give it a go… Of course I had to shut the door last night before it was totally dry so there is every chance that I am now trapped inside forever and can just avoid the issue altogether.

My broadband also failed again last night and so I had to phone my ISP and ask them to fix it for me again. Whilst, once again, they were very quick and efficient at fixing it, I am not actually very impressed that for the second time in a week my connection has failed. Hopefully this is not going to be a recurring problem…

Back to basics

So the decorating saga continues. There were parts of my front door that were just so poor that I would have had to strip them back anyway, so I figured I should bite the bullet and get on with it. I have taken most of the paint off, but I have one of those 1930s doors that is mainly wood but also has small glass panels in it – and getting the paint off those bits is going to be a bit of a task in itself. Hopefully I will pretty much have finished stripping the door by the end of tonight. Maybe…

I went to Robert Dyas to get some supplies for last night’s task and the chap put my purchases in a bag and then asked me if I’d like it to be double bagged. Now that’s service for you and one of the reasons why I love Mr Dyas. I may have to make a return visit there today to come up with some ideas for getting rid of all the paint on my door.

I need to set off for work early today because I have to be in for an 8.30 meeting. Someone has ordered breakfast for it and their boss said “Breakfast? I’m already half way through my day.” Comments like that really irritate me because a) I don’t suppose he really does get in at 4.30am and b) I think it is a bit arrogant to assume that just because you work anti-social hours that others should as well. I know 8.30am isn’t actually all that early, but every moment I get to stay in bed in the morning is a moment of pure joy for me. This morning is a real sacrifice.

Disturbed

I could just scream. I repainted my front door yesterday. Or I at least tried to, but it just ended up looking utterly appalling. To me it looks like when someone has really badly varnished something (except I’ve painted it which makes it even worse that it looks as though it is badly varnished. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!). Anyway… tonight I will put another coat of paint on in the hope that it will miraculously look much better. I just cannot work out why it has ended up looking so bad, but if I can’t fix it be putting on another coat I guess I’ll just have to try and paint it darker in the hope that this will cover up the bad finish.

Despite all that, I did actually have a nice weekend. G and I went to the New Piccadilly Café for dinner on Friday night, which was really nice. It’s not exactly the most exotic food, but it really is stepping back in time to go there. You can have the standard fry up or an omelette or various items with an Italian influence (I think the owner is Italian) . However… you will need to be quick because I think it is closing forever on 22 September so if you want to experience a small piece of history you need to get on with it. It’s on Denman Street which is just off Piccadilly Circus, in case you are interested.

On Saturday G and I went for another walk and did our 10,000 steps again. I had actually gone out in the morning and bought G a pedometer, so this time we actually had proof that we had walked that far. It wasn’t as nice a walk as the precious time but it was fine anyway. In the evening we watched ‘Hide and Seek’ which is the Robert De Niro film and it has to be said that I found the film really creepy. There were bits of it that didn’t quite make sense, but it was quiet disturbing nonetheless. In the film Robert De Niro’s character kept having bad dreams that were flashbacks to various things that had happened. Then he would suddenly wake up and when he looked at the clock, each time it was 2.06am. I woke up in the early hours of Sunday morning and when I looked at the clock it was 2.06am… Disturbing indeed…

Of course this weekend’s news was dominated by the McCann family. First them being names as suspects in their daughters disappearance and then them returning to the UK. Not that it matters, but personally I haven’t heard anything that suggests that they are responsible for her disappearance. I also think that it is so difficult to compare our legal system with that in Portugal that it seems very difficult to see what the moves by the Portuguese authorities actually mean. I just get more of a feeling of the Portuguese clutching at straws in order to try and solve the case, rather than them necessarily having any actual evidence. To lose your child must be hard enough without then being accused of being the guilty party (assuming you are innocent). I can see that they would want to come back to the UK, even if just briefly and lets hope that what ever the truth is about what happened to Madeleine McCann that the truth comes out soon.

Connected

Yesterday’s journey into work was long but much better than the previous day. I did feel there was a certain irony when the tube train I was on stopped at a station for several minutes because it was running ahead of schedule though… I couldn’t be bothered to cram on to a packed tube for the final bit of my journey to work so I walked the last 20 minutes and strolled into work all refreshed and revived. No chocolate supplies needed – although someone did give me a really delicious chocolate caramel slice. I ate it. Just to be polite.

I seemed to spend quite a bit of time last night sorting out my computer. Yesterday morning it stopped connecting to the internet and I was hoping it was a temporary glitch but it was still the same when I got home from work. I tried various things and in the end I had to phone my ISP and ask them to look into it. They were actually really good – no hanging on a phone line waiting for them to answer, they picked up the phone and I explained the problem and then they ran through various things and monitored my modem remotely and within about five minutes it was all fixed. I was really impressed.

I went out on my lunch break yesterday and while I was wandering about G phoned me on my mobile.

Me: Hello
G: Hello. Where are you?
Me: Just having a wander at the shops near where I work… *voice trails off*
G: *slightly suspicious* Where exactly are you?
Me: Erm, well, I just visited a particular shop, but I know what you’ll say if I tell you where…
G: *sound of thinking* Are you at John Lewis?
Me: *slightly ashamed* No, it’s the other one…
G: *exasperated* You’re at Robert Dyas! You really are having an affair with Robert Dyas aren’t you! If it’s not John Lewis then it’s Robert Dyas.
Me: They mean nothing to me and no money even changed hands between us. It was just a quickie.
G: That really helps.

Some people browse shops for nice clothes or go for a coffee on their lunch break. I hang out with John Lewis and Robert Dyas. Worrying.

Sifting

What a day yesterday… My journey to work consisted of a bus, a bus, an over ground train, an underground train, an underground train, a walk. It took me two hours to get to work (but I did get a seat for 99% of it, unlike most people who were crammed in like sardines – although, having said that, the Northern Line was half empty which felt very weird at that time of day).

My journey home consisted of a bus, an underground train, an over ground train, an over ground train, a bus, a bus. It took me just under two hours to get home. I got home feeling really hungry so immediately ate my dinner and then… cracked open an Easter Egg. Desperate times people, desperate times. Anyway it seems the striek has now been called off, it's just that the trains still aren't running. Jolly good...

I’m meeting up with someone at wok today to go through some applications for a job and choose the people we will interview. Two of the forms were utterly appalling. I am sort of tempted to put in their feedback that they need to go on a course to learn how to fill out an application form (meaning that in a constructive way). We’re actually going through this process to try and sort out someone’s job so that they are formally promoted, so it all feels a bit of a farce in some ways - but without the outcome actually being a foregone conclusion, as she does actually have to prove that she is up to the job, pass some exams etc. Anyway, her application was so much better than everyone else’s so that was a relief.

One of the really bad candidates phoned yesterday to find out what was going on, as she hadn’t heard anything. Except she didn’t phone me, she ended up speaking to my boss because she hadn’t kept a copy of the job description which had my contact details on, so had no idea who to contact and instead had to phone and try and find out who she needed to speak to based on the little information she could remember. I was totally unimpressed by her application (and had I been her line manager I would have strongly recommended that she consider rewriting it) and even less impressed that she didn’t even bother to keep a copy of the job description or a note of who to contact. She will not be making it through the sift.

The truth hurts

So, it’s a tube strike day. Woo hoo and also Grrr…. Yesterday I left work early so that I managed to get one of the last trains home. The chap at the station kept announcing that the train service was “dying out”, which sounded a bit more fatal than he perhaps had meant it to, but we’ll see if it does end up being revived by the end of the week. So leaving work early was good - and I think we can safely say that I will be in work late today, which I don’t mind as it means less time at work. However, it also means potentially much longer journeys. But it also means tube refunds – and potentially three days worth, so six journeys, which is a lot of money back. Hooray!

Things like this do appeal to my geeky side though. I *hangs head in shame* e-mailed the BBC yesterday because I thought they should clarify exactly which tube liens would be on strike. They were listing three lines as not running, when Transport for London were listing about nine or ten. I sent the BBC the link to the relevant page on TfL’s website. They amended the story. I am a geek. I sent a confessional e-mail to G admitting this. G e-mailed me back and confirmed that I am a complete geek.

I then spent some time last night working out with routes into work that involve using national rail. I came up with two routes that I hadn’t even considered but might just do the trick (unless the trains are totally packed). I noted the train departure times down for the journey to work and home again, so that I could choose the best route both to work and home again (which as it turned out are actually totally different routes *tries not to sound too excited at having worked this out*). I am a geek. Again.

Because I got home from work early I had more spare time in the evening than normal. So I went to B&Q to try and find a basin waste to try and fix something that is broken in my bathroom. B&Q is useless. I went to Homebase. Homebase was closed. Homebase is useless. I had a whole evening ahead of me. I went to a DIY shop. I am a geek.