Return

Cornwall was great. We had a really good time and the weather was much better than in London. It was nice to spend time with my sister and nephew. We ate lots of ice cream and pasties and various other unhealthy things. We saw various sights that I had been to previously (Land’s End, The Lizard etc) but I enjoyed going back to them and we also went to some places I hadn’t been to before, such as an owl sanctuary. This was a baby owl we saw.



The highlight for my nephew was when we spent time on the beach running away from the waves. We weren’t always very successful at getting away from them fast enough though.

G was there for the first couple of days but had to be back in time for work on Tuesday. My mum had invited G over for dinner one night, but had to cancel, which I was sort of relieved about because there is something slightly freaky about G spending time with my family when I’m not about!

It was our second anniversary on Wednesday, so when I got back on Saturday we went out for a really nice meal. I had scallops and black pudding to start and wild boar as my main course followed by orange bread and butter pudding. It was a really nice restaurant and a very nice meal. I think G had missed me and seemed to have lived on take away while I was away, so a good meal was probably very welcome.

Anyway, back to work now and I don’t have quite such a “back to work” feeling this time, as I only have about three weeks left in my current job.

Jaunts

My phone line has been out of order (hence no blogging yesterday) and I still don’t seem to be able to receive incoming calls. Grr…

On Wednesday morning I was sitting at my desk and was rubbing my temples due to having a headache. A colleague saw me doing this and said I looked as though I was having a bad day and I explained I was feeling a bit off colour. He asked if I had been near any Mexicans recently and I told him I didn’t think I had, but I had recently eaten some fajitas. He backed away to err on the side of caution.

I found out who my team is going to be and four of them are definitely really good, one is fairly good but might need a bit of a steer and one is going to have to seriously up her productivity. Apparently that last person really wants to do this work though and put together some arguments to show why she should be allowed to do it, so I am hoping her enthusiasm will mean that she will have a new energy to put into her work because we have a tough task ahead. There is also a big team incentive to get the job done and so that might mean they will encourage each other to persevere if any of them start to flag. I’m looking forward to the challenge and those in the team I have spoken to seem to be raring to go, so that’s good. I really need to do something new and I’m hoping that this is what is going to make me enjoy work again.

Last night we went out for a friends birthday and walked to Kings Cross station to get a train home. When we walked into the station a man had collapsed on the steps and there seemed to be a lot of panic going on. We walked on and G had run out of top-up so couldn’t get through the ticket barrier. One of the station staff had a go at G about this and then he apologised and said he was feeling stressed because they thought the man who had collapsed was probably going to die. An unpleasant end to a very nice evening.

So I am off to Cornwall for the week tomorrow. G is coming down for the long weekend but has to head back for a course so can’t stay the week. On 6 May we will have been together for two years but I shall be sunning myself and eating cream teas while G will be hard at work in London. Such is life.

Anyway, have a good week all...

Food for thought

The plans seem to be coming together for my new job. I did have a slightly sobering moment when it seemed that I was going to be on some kind of fixed term contract, which would in effect have meant that when the work came to an end I would have been jobless. I looked into it and they are going to do it as a loan instead, which means that I revert to my current employer at the end. Phew… I think today I will find out who the people in my team will be (they are putting the team together for a particular project) and I know at least three of them are meant to be “really, really good”.

I saw these cards yesterday. I don’t know what it is about them, but I really like them. The images on the website don’t quite do them justice (click on them to enlarge them), as the cards themselves look much better, but they really made me smile. I really like this one and also this one. They sell them in a shop round the corner from my work and I might have to buy a few. I’m not sure if I would want to send them though or just keep them.

Cold

I seem to have the beginnings of a cold at the moment. I am slightly paranoid about sneezing in public in case people think it is swine fever and then send a lynch mob after me. As far as I am aware I have neither been to Mexico or come into contact with any Mexicans, but travelling on packed tube trains with lots of strangers could have had an undesired effect. Somehow, I suspect it is just a bit of a cold though.

I do actually think this outbreak could be very serious. As soon as I first saw it reported on the news, I said to G that I found the initial reports very concerning and that it has been predicted for a while now that we are due a flu pandemic and thought this could be it. The 1918 flu pandemic killed millions of people worldwide and I think it would be a mistake to underestimate the potential seriousness of this flu outbreak. Not that I am trying to be all doom or gloom... or paranoid...

Remember though, coughs and sneezes spread diseases.

Plans

I seemed to spend the majority of the weekend sorting out our trip to Canada. We are staying in six different places and I have not booked three of them and have made enquiries at a few places to stay at each of the others. It will be a relief to get this done. It is a major holiday which involves a 1200 mile round trip (so I must remember to hire a car as well...) and so the logistics of it have been quite difficult.

My life seems to be about holidays at the moment, as I am off to Cornwall with my sister next week. Until last year I had never been there before and now I am going twice in 10 months. This is rather an impromptu holiday for me so I need to get my act together and work out what I need to take with me. G is coming down for the first couple of days and then I am staying on for the rest of the week.

Anyway, five days of work to get through before then...

Dodgy

It’s been a really busy week at work and not only have I been doing my own job but also various things connected with my new one. I did get some very nice e-mails connected with the new job which did a lot to massage my ego, so that put me in a good mood. That helped in that later in the day I was waiting to cross the road and was looking to the right, the road cleared and I stepped into the road to walk across to a traffic island and collided very hard with a guy who had decided that instead of walking along on the pavement he would cut into the road right in front of me. He apologised and I didn’t say anything because it was one of those moments where you need a few moments to work out what actually happened. It rather hurt though!

While I was out for a wander on my lunch break a woman asked me for some directions so I pointed out where she needed me to go. Then about thirty seconds later another woman came up to me, who it has to be said looked a bit more dubious than the previous woman I had spoken to, but I stopped anyway and right from the beginning I could see the way the conversation was going to go and so I asked her (with a smile) if this was going to involve her asking for money and she said it was. She told me she was homeless and was just feeling so miserable in London and just needed some money to get away from the heat and get a coach to Eastbourne. I asked her how much she needed and she told me and for some reason that is still beyond me, I gave her the majority of the money she needed. She said she would pay me back and wanted to give me her mobile number and I told her it was fine and not to worry about it. I am just not the sort of person who gives money to homeless people, I also have that natural Londoner suspicion of anyone who looks slightly dodgy and normally steer clear of them. I also didn’t know if her story was genuine and if she would really spend it on the coach fare, but there was a part of me that felt inclined to believe her and thought that even if she was lying did it really matter if it lifted some of her gloom by a stranger speaking to her for a couple of minutes and giving her some money. I just told her that I hoped she had a nice time in Eastbourne, gave her a smile and a wave and walked off. Was it the right thing to do? I don’t know, but I like to think she made it to Eastbourne.

Touched

I have been out of the office at various meetings and on various courses lately. I also seem to have been really busy since I have arranged to go on a secondment. It also now looks as though I will be on leave the first week of May, which I hadn’t planned to do, but for family reasons I need to try and take off work, so I can go away with my sister. I mentioned that I would probably not be in that week to the woman who works for me and she said “But that means we’ll get to spend less time with you before you leave. I don’t think you understand how distraught we are at you going”. I was a bit taken aback, but my secretary was there nodding away as well and saying that she didn’t want me to leave. I didn’t know what to say really (apart from that I really needed to take the leave!) and we joked about it a bit, but I was rather touched that they are so upset by it and one of them has only worked for me for about 7 months.

Leeds University are carrying out a survey into “flashbulb memories”. They describe this as “Flashbulb memories are slightly unusual as they are memories of our personal circumstances when we first learned of an item of public news. In other words we remember who we were with, what we were doing, where we were, and usually some other distinctive detail(s), when we first learned of a particular item of public news”. If you want to contribute to their project, then you can do so here.

Oh and today is post 1000. I really do need to get a life...

Heat

When I was coming home on the tube last night I bumped into G, which is actually a fairly rare occurrence even though we finish about the same time and take fairly similar routes home. This meant that we both got to enjoy the heating being on full blast on the train. This was not a pleasant experience.

If you were going away on holiday, would you want to be on board this flight, even after it had been repaired. A plane fails to take off three times and they then get it repaired and people get back on board and go off on their hols… I’m not sure I would have been keen. I am also slightly suspicious of people who give quotes and are described as “a 48-year-old retired customs officer”. Retired at 48 years old?? Previously a customs officer??? A connection? I shall leave you to make up your mind. Of course I could just be bitter that someone is able to retire by the time they are 48.

Unimpressed

On Friday I went to someone’s leaving drinks and only intended to be there about half an hour. Three hours later I finally left. It was actually quite useful to talk to a few people because I had been on a course the previous day and we got feedback afterwards and whilst it was mainly positive they seemed to pick up on a few other things as well. The course was about performance under pressure and we basically had this made up scenario and they assessed us. One of the things they said, which was general feedback rather than about me particularly was that everyone I work with seems to be very polite, but we never say thank you. I raised an eyebrow at this and said I couldn’t speak for the organisation I work for as a whole, but where I work I think people do say thank you. He disagreed. I then disagreed with him and then dropped the subject as he clearly wasn’t going to change his view. I have listened to my colleagues since and have heard them thank people several times. I think this guy just had a chip on his shoulder. Anyone, a couple of my colleagues said they felt miserable after the course, as they just found it very critical and made them feel a bit incompetent. These were people who I know are really capable and yet they went home doubting their ability. I don’t think you can truly judge people’s abilities based on a made up scenario and a couple of hours’ observation. Not impressed.

When I finally got home from the leaving do, G had made a really nice prawn and mushroom curry, which was ready to be served the moment I walked through the door. This living together thing does have its advantages.

After work yesterday I met up with someone I used to work with for a coffee. She wanted to update me on her news, which was primarily that she and her partner are emigrating to New Zealand in the next few months. This wasn’t news as such, given that I signed off part of her application a few months ago, but things now seem to be coming together for her actually to go. I guess that means I have a new holiday destination. *sigh*

Conversations

I had a very good weekend. On Saturday we went with my nephew, sister and mum to see The Lion King. It was a really good production and my nephew really enjoyed it. We then all went for dinner and it turned into a very long day. G asked my nephew what the highlights of his day had been. They were as follows (I don’t think they were in order of priority):

The Lion King
Doing a big poo
Seeing the man blow bubbles
Being in a cage.

Hmm... interesting...

On the tube on the way home I heard brief snippets of a conversation. I still have not decided whether the brevity was for the best or if it would have been better to hear it all.

Girl to her friend:

“I tried stroking it to see if that helped, but it didn’t make any difference”

A couple of minutes later, the same girl then said:

“I tried licking it to see if that would get it clean but it didn’t work”

Bizarrely, G thinks they were actually talking about an iPod.

Delay

How can a short week at work seem so long? I am glad it is Friday. I am hoping to catch up on some sleep. I normally fall asleep pretty much as my head hits the pillow but since being in Madrid I have taken ages to fall asleep each night. I really need at least eight hours a night, so I am suffering.

Yesterday on the way home the train I was on was majorly delayed due to a passenger on a train a couple of stations ahead activating the alarm. The journey that normally takes about 15 minutes took about 40 minutes and for the majority of that time the driver gave us a blow by blow account of the latest information, which was normally that nothing had changed and so he was just repeating the same long-winded load of information he had already given. He did this about every thirty seconds. I wanted to kill him by the time I got off the train. It was like he was downloading his every thought to us and we were there as unwitting therapists. Even after we started to continue our journey he lectured passengers who got on at the next stop about not standing beyond the yellow line on the platform, as someone had been guilty of this at that station, and then did this again at the next station. He just kept talking and talking. And talking. I guess it must get lonely in the driver’s cab.

Medical

My sister told me yesterday that my nephew had fallen over as he was running up some steps at nursery and had cut his nose and had lots of nosebleeds etc. My brother in law went to pick him up and got him checked by a nurse etc and he is ok. My sister sent me a photo and he’s got a massive cut under his nose and looked a bit swollen. I’d post the very painful looking photo, but I don’t really want to put a photo of a child on here. Trust me it looked really painful. I phoned my nephew last night to ask how he was and he didn’t seem to be too badly damaged. At the end of the call he said “Thank you for phoning to speak to me” which made me laugh, as I was very amused by how polite he was.

Last night I watched Embarrassing Bodies, which is where people seek out medical help for medical conditions that they have been putting off getting dealt with because they didn’t want it show it to anyone. So they do on national television to get it sorted instead. I still find that slightly confusing.

On Tuesday night I came home from work and said to G that I had a weird sort of headache and that I thought it meant a thunderstorm was coming. G looked at me oddly and I explained that I sometimes get these weird sort of pressure headaches when a storm is coming. I don’t think this is particularly uncommon (I hope…). Anyway we were watching the weather later on and the forecaster said that overnight we would have heavy rain and thunder and I looked at G and said “There you go. I told you”. G just looked at me even more oddly.

Lines

So I was brave and spoke to my boss and he has agreed to the secondment. I think this was in part because he had just returned from leave and was feeling a bit down about being back and so, in a moment of weakness, granted me my freedom. I haven’t 100% agreed a leaving date but have said when I want to go and now need to plug away at getting him to agree. I have also been trying to come up with options for ways to fill my post and even if that doesn’t result in anything, at least it might make my boss feel I am not leaving him in the lurch.

My overfriendly colleague, R, came round with a box of chocolates yesterday morning and offered me and the woman I sit next to one. My colleague declined and R said “yes I can see that you’re probably worried you’re a bit overweight after Easter”. I told him that he had overstepped the line again and suggested that he go away. He did. The chocolate I had was nice though.

Good

A nice long weekend over. G is actually off work another two days, so I am even more bitter.

Easter eggs were eaten (I feel they may not last as long this year as in previous years), nice walks were had in the sunshine and countryside. Good books were read. Nice food was eaten. Family was seen and no-one ended up dead Although I am still waiting for an Easter egg from my parents). A successful weekend (last point excepted).

I started to read Kim by Rudyard Kipling, but am not really finding that very readable. I think I might listen to it as a talking book and see if I can get through it that way instead. I am now reading “The Reader”, which I previously read maybe 10 years ago, but am doing so again because G just read it and liked it; it has some thoughts on reading out loud to someone, which as I am doing that at the moment I would like to read what it says; and we will get round to seeing the film at some point and so want to read it again before that. I am now on book 25 this year. It is so nice to be enthusiastic about reading again. Long may it continue.

Now to pluck up the courage to have a difficult conversation with my boss...

Photos

I am on leave now until Tuesday. Hooray! The burglar alarm was serviced this morning and the man turned up about an hour early. I answered the door in my nightclothes and G was still in bed, so we had to get our act together pretty quickly!

Yesterday I got an e-mail offering me a secondment. I was somewhat surprised to get the e-mail, as I hadn’t approached them about it. I am interested, but need to chat to my boss about it next week (potentially having to do a big persuasion job on him as well) and work out all the questions I need to go back with to find out more details of the secondment. But I am really pleased about it.

Anyway, here are a few photos of Madrid. I actually didn’t take many photos so this is the best of them...

The Royal Palace



And again...



A nice park



Plaza Mayor



A slightly bizarre statue of Pope John Paul II who looked like he was about to take to flight.

Wonder

I was thinking about Paul Auster’s books that I have read and wondering why I like them so much. His books seem to pick up on a number of themes - such things as elusive fathers, identity, storytelling, stories within stories, fairytales, alienation, loneliness, coincidence, failure. Many human themes.



If I was to base my decisions on whether to read his books on the descriptions on the back of the books I don’t think I would be tempted to read any of them though. The descriptions always seem to make the books sounds very elitist and inaccessible, but they are actually very readable and engaging.

The description on the back of Moon Palace says:

“"I was the summer that man first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, but I did not believe there would ever be a future."

Spanning three generations, Moon Palace is the story of Marco Stanley Fogg and his quest for identity in the modern world. Moving from the concrete canyons of Manhattan to the cruelly beautiful landscape of the American West, it is a meditation on and re-examination of America, art and the self, by one of America's foremost authors.”

The description on the back of The Music of Chance says:

“'By the time Nashe understood what was happening to him, he was past the point of wanting it to end...'

Paul Auster fuses Samuel Beckett and The Brothers Grimm in this brilliant and unsettling parable.

Following the death of his father, Jim Nashe takes to the open road. But there he picks up Pozzi, a hitchhiking gambler, and soon after is drawn into a dangerous game of high-stakes poker with two eccentric and reclusive millionaires...”

Are those the types of book I like to read? Nope. But the books are really good.

In Moon Palace, which I read while I was on holiday last week, I was struck by a passage in it. A passage that to me seems to be infused with hope and wonder and uplifts me just by reading it and so I share it with you.

"That was how I finally came to be rescued: because the two of them went out and looked for me. I was not aware of it at the time, of course, but knowing what I know now, it is impossible for me to look back on those days without feeling a surge of nostalgia for my friends. In some sense, it alters the reality of what I experienced. I had jumped off the edge of a cliff, and then, just as I was about to hit bottom, an extraordinary event took place: I learned that there were people who loved me. To be loved like that makes all the difference. It does not lessen the terror of the fall, but it gives a new perspective on what that terror means. I had jumped off the edge, and then, at the very last moment, something reached out and caught me in midair. That something is what I define as love. It is the one thing that can stop a man from falling, the one thing powerful enough to negate the laws of gravity."

Bargain

Right, so I still haven’t uploaded my pictures from Madrid. I will... soon...

Anyway I went to the library and I confessed to the guidebook having been stolen and the man looked at me over his glasses in a stern sort of way... and then marked the book as lost, deleted it from my record and I didn’t have to pay anything because they don’t charge people for stolen items. I did look somewhat surprised at not having to pay and there is a bit of me that thinks I should have paid them, but I just gave them a very enthusiastic thank you and wandered off.

In other news, I went to the supermarket last night. I went to Sainsbury’s and there Easter Egg selection is rubbish. They didn’t even sell Dairy Milk eggs. So I did my main shopping there and then went to Tesco, which I drive past to get to Sainsbury’s anyway and bought the eggs there instead. They had better deals on Easter Eggs at Tesco anyway, but the best of the deals is that you can buy two Cadbury’s Creme Eggs for 50p (or one for 44p). You know you want to...

Returns

Right, so I’m back from a very good time in Madrid. It’s a much smaller city than I had expected and was easy to get around. The weather was a bit mixed at the beginning of the week, but by the end of the week it was lovely. I’ll post some photos at some point but haven’t got round to loading them on to my computer yet.

The slight black marks on the holiday were that on the flight on the way out, a small child in the row in front was very sick, which included vomiting on my rucksack. Lovely! G’s bag was also stolen, which fortunately had no money or valuables in it, but did have our guide book and phrase book etc in it, so we bought a new phrase book and then just winged it for what we would do for the rest of the week. The guide book was from the library so I shall have to go and throw myself on their mercy and hope that they don’t cancel my membership (I suspect for a sum of money they can be bought off…).

Madrid is a nice city and we had a somewhat lazy week mooching about, eating food, reading books and seeing the sights. The last few days we were there, we sat in the park each day and I would read to G from the book I was reading – Moon Palace by Paul Auster – which was so pleasant. I would read for maybe 30 minutes to an hour while we sat there in the sunshine and we would chat about the book as we walked around Madrid. I have said it before, but Paul Auster is such a fantastic author (I might say some more about him in the next few days) and G is also now a convert. Hooray! I also found a few Spanish books that I would like to read (in English) and will add them on to my phenomenally long list of books to read.

Anyway, a good place to visit (despite a few problems). Photos will follow at some point. It’s back to work now and G is away for the next couple of nights at a conference. Only three days of work and then I am on leave again. Hooray.

Gone Fishing

We went put for dinner last night. I booked it via Toptable, my first ever booking via them (we normally use G’s account). We arrived to discover that Toptable hadn’t actually told the restaurant. They were very nice about it and we had dinner etc, but I was decidedly unimpressed and will speak to Toptable about it at some point. I’d better get my points. Grr…

Anyway, we’re off to Madrid tomorrow. We have started to sort some stuff out, which has highlighted that G’s travel insurance documents have gone astray and the lack of an EHIC card (the way we get reciprocal health cover in other EU countries). I may have to sort G out a new policy today… Well, hopefully we’re off to some decent sunshine and will be back in a week.

Have a good week and don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend.

Directions

On the way to work this morning I was standing up for part of the journey and a seat became available. I went to sit down and then saw a man get on with crutches, so I indicated the seat to him but he said he was fine and I sat down instead. I think he was actually just carrying the crutches (for what reason I have no idea) and didn’t actually need them himself. This makes me think that it is a) a whole new dilemma that is the equivalent of “is that woman pregnant or just a bit overweight” and b) a potentially excellent way to try and get a seat in future.

I was somewhat perplexed by the story about the man who followed his Sat Nav so intently that he only finally stopped as he was about to go over a cliff edge… At what point do you begin to think that maybe there could be something wrong? When you go off-road? When you end up on a track? When you end up on a footpath? When you end up hanging off the edge of a cliff?? When are thinking that the view no longer seems familiar and you realise you have reached the gates of heaven (or hell)??? Perhaps he could use it to go to a petrol station and buy a map.

Checks

The news on TV last night was so depressing. Dead police officers, pirates killing people and people dying under the care of the NHS. I really must give up watching the news. Fortunately next week I will be in Madrid and so won’t be able to understand a word of the news, so this may mean that I can exist in a bubble safe from any bad news stories.

I ordered some Euros via the internet on Sunday and need to go and pick it up from a Post Office. They phoned and wanted to speak to me and when I called them back. They asked for my postcode and first line of my address, my date of birth and then we discussed the branch from which I was going to collect the money. All of this information was what I had given them so I wasn’t really sure how this was a security procedure. I couldn’t work out how any of this showed that I hadn’t made it up or was any more legit – and in fact I had used my parents address because I have never got round to changing my bank account details. Maybe I have missed the point somehow...

Dark and light

So... G’s niece, N, did not go missing again. However, at the end of last week she threatened one of her foster carers with a knife and smashed up their car. She was moved to a children’s home about 50 miles away. On Saturday she went out in the little town she was now based in and got drunk, got caught shoplifting alcohol and then kicked a heavily pregnant care worker at the children’s home. Yesterday she was moved to secure accommodation. She didn’t get there until quite late yesterday so we don’t know how she is settling in. Maybe living in a more controlled regime will have a positive effect...

On a lighter note, I was doing some colouring in with my nephew on Sunday and we were talking about when he normally colours in e.g. at nursery and that I don’t really get to colour in any more. He started to question me about this (he is in the “why” phase) and I said I didn’t really know but would ask my boss. Yesterday morning I asked my boss and he didn’t really have a good answer to this question. I may ask for “colouring in” to be one of my objectives in the next reporting year.

Would not like to meet

I have come to the conclusion that I just do not like people. Not people in particular, but people in the general sense of *all* people. I was driving home from my parents’ house yesterday morning and someone pulled out in front of me on a roundabout. I pressed my horn and the children in the back of the car just started using various aggressive and rude gestures and I was now driving along behind them they continued to do this for several minutes until I turned off at another roundabout. The adults in the front of the car did precisely nothing to stop them and there is no way that they did not know what the children were doing. Sometimes I really dislike people. All people.

Last weekend I was in a library in the centre of London and I wanted to look up a book on the database, but someone was using it. I stayed out of the way and looked at other books until he went up to the counter to speak to one of the staff and then I went over and started to search for a few things. He then came back over and was standing very close to me and obviously wanted to use the database again. I turned to him and said I felt uncomfortable with how close he was standing to me and him watching what I was doing. He said that he just wanted to look up a book as well, which rather showed he had been looking at what I was doing as there are lots of things I could have been doing on that computer. He declined to step further away and so I finished what I was doing and walked off. Sometimes I really dislike people. All people.

After I left the library I went and had some lunch. I went to Eat and got some soup and sat in to eat it. Then the shop filled up lots and all the empty seats were filled except the one next to me and a single chair somewhere else. So someone sat in the chair next to me and her boyfriend positioned his chaired directly behind mine, blocking me in and proceeded to reach past me every time he wanted to pick up an item of his lunch. I just wanted a bit of peace and quiet, which I know is not always easy to achieve in the centre of London and twice in the space of about 30 minutes people were invading my personal space. Sometimes I really dislike people. All people.

Normal

I thought the news of Natasha Richardson’s death was very sad. Not because she was famous but because something so simple, like falling over could end someone’s life and that despite being medically checked and everything seeming fine, she still died. It made me remember one of my uncle’s who as a teenager was struck on the head by a hurling stick (he was Irish) and I think briefly lost consciousness. For whatever reason he didn’t seek medical help – and nor did the teachers – and he bled into his brain and ended up with brain damage and severe epilepsy and had to live in a home for the rest of his life. That was home was actually in the UK not far from where we lived, so I did seem him a reasonable amount. He died when I was about 17 because he got pneumonia. A sad life caused by a simple blow to the head.

Anyway, on a somewhat lighter note. There seem to be a lot of government related adverts on the TV at the moment, which I wonder if it is because of the economic downturn – companies are advertising less, so the government is doing it instead because it is cheaper but also is helping the TV stations. I have no idea if that is true, but there do seem to be a lot of official adverts. One I saw a couple of days ago was to do with the Countryside Code and I was struck by the sheep in the background of the advert. If G were a sheep then the sheep putting on a bit of a performance is the one that G would be. I have actually shown the ad to G who could see what I mean...



You can also see the video here.

*Is it normal to see sheep like attributes to your partner? Probably best that I don't know the answer to that one...

Errors

I was on a very packed tube train last night and it was a bit difficult to read a book, so I just stood there staring into space and occasionally glancing at the tube ads. I was reading one for a Nivea for Men product and noticed a glaring error in it. This is not the identical ad, the one I saw was a shorter version, rather than full size poster, but this one has exactly the same error:




“Who would of thought”????

"Who would OF thought”??????

What is the world coming to????

It is “Who would have thought”.

That is such a basic error. Nivea needs to have a serious word with their proof-readers - or start to employ some.

Mis-advised

I got a letter from the freeholder yesterday. She wants to carry out lots of maintenance to the property, which is fine, but she seems to want to charge us for various things that to my mind are for each individual owner to pay for rather than us all contribute. So things like the painting of people’s back doors or window frame. We are responsible for sorting out and paying for double glazing etc for ourselves, but people who haven’t done this and have let their windows deteriorate appear only to have to pay a sixth of the charge of maintaining their own windows, as we then seem to all be required to pay for their laxness. This doesn’t make sense to me...

I read this story on the BBC. Basically there is a woman who knits jackets for battery hens. I actually know someone who does that. The woman I know takes in battery hens that would be destroyed and she makes little fleecy jackets for them because they don’t have many feathers and to help them build up their calcium levels she feeds them freshly prepared porridge each morning and puts raisins in it as well for a bit of extra sustenance. She also has two ancient tortoises and lots of guinea pigs – the latter being due to the guinea pigs sharing a cage for a while because she had been assured that they were both male. It seems she was mis-advised.

Heat

Tonight G and I are going for dinner at some friends’ house and we are meeting their new dog. Their new not necessarily very house trained dog. This could be challenging. But if it comes to a fight between me and the dog to get to the food first, I reckon I’d win.

Yesterday at work it was so hot sitting at my desk. It was a pleasantly sunny day but the heat seemed to get magnified as it reflected off the glass behind where I sit and it just got hotter and hotter. I think it reached something like 17 degrees (outside) so I dread to think what it will be like in the summer when temperatures get higher. I may have to start wearing a bikini to work. This is not because it would make me cooler, but because it would make my colleagues run away screaming and I could then sit at one of their desks instead.

Returns

G’s niece turned up yesterday. She phoned her foster carer and asked her to come and pick her up, which the foster carer did. Apparently she was rather filthy and she had a bath and something to eat and then a couple of hours later went out again and disappeared again. There was always the risk of that, but the foster carer can do nothing to restrain her and she can’t lock the doors etc so she has no choice but to let her go off if she wants to do that. I think if this carries on then G’s niece will end up in secure accommodation.

I suppose in some ways the dilemma is that obviously we want to know she is ok, but we don’t want to give her lots of attention for doing something bad. She would be much better off with the foster carers who are very nice, tolerant and patient people and would give her much better life chances, but she would rather live in somewhat more precarious circumstances. But if people seem to take more of an interest in her when she is being bad then that might actually encourage her to be naughty, which doesn’t seem right. But then it also doesn’t seem right to ignore her when she is being bad, particularly if she might be in some form of danger. I’m not really sure what the best thing to do is, but we are just trying to be consistent and to be positive when we deal with her, rather than giving her a hard time for not going home etc. Does it help? I’m not really sure...

Anyway, it was my nephew’s birthday this weekend and so we went to his birthday party and ate lots of cake and had a nice time. My father was there, who drove me mad as ever. Now it seems that he is suddenly a life long Celtic support football, despite not actually liking football and also never having showed any interest in Celtic before. G is a big Celtic fan and so now my father talks about how “their” team has been doing recently, which I find odd (and so does G I think). I also spent about an hour and a half trying to fix my father’s new DVD player, which he bought this week to replace the broken one. Every single part of setting it up had been done wrong, including plugging the TV aerial directly into the TV (missing out the DVD player), which might explain why it wasn’t possible to get any form of picture through it. If I had set it up from scratch I think it would have taken me about 10 minutes, but I had to undo all the things that were wrong and then reset it all up and it took absolutely ages. It meant we didn’t get home until quite late last night and so that was not the best end to the weekend. Grr...

Cares

G’s niece is still missing. The police have been looking for her and have spoken to her as well (as G said she is never likely to be a master criminal if she makes such a schoolgirl error), but they haven’t located her as yet. G has spoken to her each day to try and persuade her to go home but she insists that she is “fine” and “sound”. Oh to be 14 years old and seemingly not have a care in the world...

Anyway... with thanks to the Vicious Chicken, here is a video in honour of Red Nose Day.

How to save a life

On Tuesday night I watched the Horizon programme on How to Survive a Disaster, which I thought was pretty interesting. I think I am unlikely to walk the emergency route out of a hotel whenever I stay in one, but the programme had some interesting points about human nature and are worth pondering.

- Some people died in a fire in Manchester in the 1970s because they were in the cafeteria at Woolworths and basically didn’t want to leave their uneaten food.
- When the World Trade Center was struck by the planes, some people sat at their desks and finished e-mails etc and waited 30 or 40 minutes before they considered evacuating.
- One firm, Morgan Stanley, lost very few employees on 11 September 2001 because they had practiced evacuating regularly so people know what to do and how to get out of the building.
- Peer pressure is a big factor. Even if people see smoke etc, if no-one else reacts people will often stay in dangerous situations because they might be embarrassed if they “make a fuss”.

Sometimes when the fire alarm goes off at work, I see my colleagues look about confused and I will just tell people to evacuate and as soon as someone had confirmed it is ok to go they get on with it and head for the fire exits, but they need that confirmation to go.

There is a summary of the key points here. It could save your life...

Care

I got home to a rather stressed G last night. G’s niece is in care and has been living with a foster family. Things were looking as though they were going ok, but G got a phone call yesterday to say that N had run away. G did manage to speak to N last night and she just kept saying she was “fine”, but did ask G to put credit on her mobile phone. G agreed to do this as long as N went home. We’ll find out today if she did.

G is really stressed about it all. N is in Scotland and so distance is a problem anyway, but G phones every week to keep up contact, but it can be quite difficult talking to a rather surly teenager. I won’t even go into how G’s family deals with it all, which is best described as somewhat unhelpful.

We were hoping to arrange for N to come down and stay at Easter and are actually in the middle of going though criminal record checks etc so that we could get permission for her to come and stay. But that is all looking very unlikely now and so we are going to have to work out what to say to N because we don’t want to let her down, but don’t think the social workers would give permission for her to come and visit regardless of anything else.

So we’ll see how it goes. Things had been looking more positive but now seem to have descended to a new low. Hopefully we’ll find out today that she at least went home last night because that would be progress. *sigh*

Service

I had a busy evening yesterday sorting out various things. I needed to sort out my car insurance, as it is due for renewal soon. I had found a policy that was about £20 cheaper. So I phoned my insurance company and asked if they would match it. The woman said “I’ve put it into our database and we can’t match it”. She may as well have said “computer says ‘no’”. I queried that for the sake of £20 they weren’t interested in considering this and she said no. I took out a policy with another company instead. Annoyed customer.

I also phoned my mobile phone company. For several years I have renewed my contract and they have given me a big reduction on my line rental as I haven’t had a phone upgrade (I just buy a new phone if I need one). The man sorted it out straight away and, without me even asking, said he’d credit back to my account the discount I could have had this month if I’d renewed the contract earlier. Happy customer.

Today I am off to the Midlands, so I have a nice leisurely start to the day, as my train isn’t for a while yet. I really like late mornings. I think I am a bit like a teenager who needs to sleep in. I wish I could have done that when I was at school…

Fixes

Another weekend over. We didn’t actually have much planned but when it came to it we seemed to do quite a lot. On Saturday we went for a walk. We were going to go to a park a few miles away but on the way there saw a sign for another park so went here instead. While we were walking we saw a bag thrown in the bushes and its contents scattered about so we picked it all up and then left it there until we were on our way back and then carried it back to my car. We then went to drop it off at a police station, but the one we went to was closed. So we spoke to a police operator, who was very nice and helpful, and ended up driving quite a long way to a police station that was open and dropped it off. They said they would try and find the owner and return it. I think there had been a lap top in it but there was no sign of that when we found it.

I then went over to my parents’ house yesterday morning and tried to fix my dad’s DVD player. I had no success at all and just ended up disconnecting it all so that mum wouldn’t have to sort it all out if it needed to be taken somewhere to be repaired. My dad, as ever, did nothing towards fixing it and just wanted me to tell him what to do (meaning what mum should do) to get someone to look at it. Anyway, mum gave me some home made cake (she seems to be in a baking phase at the moment) and so that was very nice. It was a Victoria sponge, which is probably my favourite cake (although I am not generally known to turn down any cake).

We also did a major tidy up and thought of lots of things that we need to buy and sort out over the next few weeks. Fortunately G is off over Eater for longer than I am so it should mean that there is time to get people out to do various things.

At least it’s only about three weeks until I go on holiday now.

Possibilities

G and I were having a conversation last night about what I guess you could describe as “life chances”. G dropped out of school at 15 with no qualifications and worked for a few years in very low grade, poor paying jobs and then realised that this was not going to present many opportunities. So G went to college and got some Scottish Highers and then decided to go to university and got an undergraduate degree and then moved to London and did a Masters and then went on to study for a PhD. This was despite such support from G’s family such as comments like “why would you want to go to university? Don’t you want to get a job?”. I find it quite remarkable that G through a series of small decisions made what ultimately turned out to be significant life changes – and which also ultimately culminated in meeting me, which surely in and of itself proves that it was all worthwhile. But does also show that it is all downhill from here on in, as the high point of G’s life has now been reached.

Anyway, I digress… that does often make me think that I need to make more choices about what I want to do and achieve with my life instead of letting it just drift along. We also do have the ability to change and to start afresh and to do things that we might never have thought possible. But we also can let inertia overtake us and do nothing.

Every so often I quiz G about what made the difference and how it was possible to make such different choices about your life without any support or anyone really helping you to find the way and not really knowing what it will involve.

I am a fairly risk averse person and so do tend to shy away from things that feel somewhat unknown or that might have a negative side – even if they also have a very positive side as well. As William Shakespeare once wrote:

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”

I still need to take that to heart.

Criticism

I sent an e-mail to someone at work yesterday because I was trying to track down someone’s payslip. We have a new system by which we no longer get paper payslips and have to look them up online, but if you are on maternity leave, a secondment etc then you still get a paper one. So I was trying to find one for someone who used to work for me who is on a secondment. The people who deal with these things for where I work are not always the most receptive to requests and this was certainly no exception. Not only was I trying to track down this one payslip but also flag up that perhaps others needed to be accounted for as well. I was trying to be constructive, but after sending a couple of e-mails clarifying the situation I got one back telling me that I “was accusing them of failure” and that the reason this problem had arisen was because both me and my head of unit had failed in our line management responsibilities and they can’t account for people who fail to carry out their duties properly. I was so unimpressed, I hadn’t been accusing them of anything. All I wanted to know was whether they had the payslip and pointing out that given this problem had arisen, perhaps it was a problem for others too. Clearly raising potential problems is not welcome though and is taken as a personal criticism. I did say that I would pass on their concerns about line management skills to my head of unit…

G was coming home a couple of nights ago and got on a train that was at the terminus and was going to be departing in about five minutes time. It was raining so G used the connecting doors between two carriages to avoid going out in the rain at which point this voice said “what do you think you are doing?”. It was the driver who was walking past and basically seemed to think that this was a big problem – walking between two carriages on a train through the connecting door, which didn’t even have a driver on it so was unlikely to be moving any time soon. Anyway, the driver made G read the notice stuck to the door. G read out the one that said “Do not use when the train is moving”. To which the driver said “no the one that says, only for use in an emergency. Two people were killed last year using the doors between carriages”. G replied “were they on trains that were sitting in the station and not even moving?”. The driver didn’t really reply but told G not to do it again. “You’re the boss” said G. “Yes I am” replied the driver and walked off. It has to be admitted that G had been on the cheeky water that evening, but the driver was still an idiot.

Priorities

I was talking to my friend whose wedding I went to a couple of weeks ago. They had just got back from their honeymoon in Scotland and he was telling me what a great time they’d had. They’d stayed in a cottage which sounded fantastic and I asked how they’d found the place they stayed and he said “well we basically did a search on the internet for ‘cottage’ ‘Scotland’ and ‘hot tub’”. I now understand their priorities. Although before they got married they did discuss what they were going to have to focus on once the wedding was over and his (now) wife assured him that she would have plenty to do, as she would have more time to work on the new vegetable patch. Romance is not dead.

I seem to have fixed my irritating internet problem and no longer have to switch off my virus checker in order to access the internet. I am now using “Super anti spyware” and it does indeed seem to be super – or at least better than the alternatives I had tried.

Tomorrow

Perhaps I should be following G’s lead and listening to the Paul McKenna CD, as I felt really tired yesterday. Perhaps it was just because it was a Monday, but in part I think it may have been that I seem to be worried about various things at the moment. Nothing big, not even anything important or imminent, just small and insignificant things that really aren’t worth worrying about. If you were to see me you wouldn’t think I was any different to normal, but somewhere below the surface things are whirring away.

I think it’s a family trait and, unconnected to my current frame of mind, my sister commented says that she sometimes worries about things and that she thinks she got that from dad. I just wonder how much you can do to unlearn certain types of behaviour. I do believe that people have the ability to change, but I’m not sure if that means that you learn to cope or you actually deal with the underlying issue. Perhaps it depends on what it is.

I think part of the problem is that I have let my world get smaller and smaller over the last few months. The less you have going on in your life, the more the things that you do have going on become the focus of your life. So I need to get some more interests and do things that are more outward looking. I have a few things in mind and am also trying to arrange to meet up with a couple of friends, but regardless I need to change my perspective a bit. As somebody wise once said “who of you can add an hour to his life by worrying about tomorrow”.

Or perhaps I just need to get more sleep.

Remarkable

I had quite a busy weekend. It was my sister’s birthday on Saturday so we went over their yesterday and had lunch and ate cake and so on. It was all very pleasant, apart from spending time with my father, who I managed to argue with. This time over the rather pathetic issue of whether some food should be covered up while it was cooling. He tried to get G involved to decide the issue and then I got annoyed about that because he always tries to make people take sides and also the argument was nothing to do with G and dragging other people in was not helpful. My sister, surprisingly, didn’t get annoyed with me for having an argument with dad, but instead in a constructive way just told me not to let him get to me because he isn’t worth it.

G has been sleeping so much better over the last week or so. I think the reason for this is… Paul McKenna. G has been feeling desperate about not sleeping properly because it has got so bad. I gave G a copy (by request) of Paul McKenna’s book “I can make you sleep” which also comes with a CD and within a day or so G’s sleep improved really noticeably. G now has much more energy and is feeling so much less tired. This is primarily due to listening to the CD rather then reading the book. I have no idea if it is the CD or just the psychological effect of thinking that this could make a difference, even if it is just a kind of placebo effect. The downside is that G has been a bit like Tigger in the morning, when I am not always at my most enthusiastic, and I have had to ask G to stop being quite to excited and enthusiastic a couple of times, but the difference is remarkable. I hope it is a long term change because sleep makes such a difference to quality of life. Anyway, if you have trouble with sleep, maybe it is worth a go…

Distance

The trip to Madrid is booked! At the end of March we jet off for a week of (hopefully) sunshine and such things. I have also been trying to turn my mind to the Canada trip. So far we seem to be working on the dead of doing a massive road trip that takes in four provinces – Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. If you don’t know your Canadian geography that is a *long* way (and a *long* way back too…). We may have to revise this plan, particularly if I am the only one doing the driving.

Anyway, it’s an early start today, so I’d better get going. Have a good weekend all.

Blocked

I, yet again, came so close to booking a trip to Madrid last night. The hotel and flights were selected and I was going through the process to book it, but the website couldn’t process my card details. I spoke to the company and they said it must be because they operate via the US and so my card company blocked my card due to it thinking it was a dodgy transaction. Apparently they get this problem all the time – which makes me wonder why they don’t just fix it. I tried to phone my credit card company but they had closed for the night. I have no idea if that really was the problem anyway, but hopefully I will be able to book it at some point today.

My over friendly colleague stood up from his desk yesterday and due to a knee problem nearly passed out in pain. We got a first aider to come and see him and he was then sent home in a taxi. Two of my colleagues went with him, as they though he possibly wouldn’t be able to get out of the taxi at the other end. Fortunately I did not have to offer my services for that particular job.

I foolishly agreed to meet up with someone first thing this morning to help them prepare for an interview. So I have to try and sound reasonably articulate very early today. Not an easy task at the best of times.

Delicate

I was soooooooo tired last night. I got home from work quite late and was really hungry and thirsty and had a headache. G had made up some batter mix, so we had some pancakes and then a bit of dinner and sat down to watch some TV. One of the things we watched was Horizon, which was about how our body clock works. That was really interesting, but clearly my body clock was not wanting me to fully understand its intricacies, as I fell asleep on the sofa before the end of the programme. I managed to drag myself up from the sofa and get into bed and then slept through until this morning.

My computer is still doing very odd things. The main problem is that the only way I can access the internet via IE or Firefox is by switching off my virus scanner. I can’t access any websites that way whilst it is running and yet switching it off seems to defeat the object of having it. I have tried a couple of virus scanners and the problem is the same. My ISP can’t help and when they gave me a new firewall to download it made my computer crash. I will have to dig about and see what I can come up with.

Relaxing

Having the day off work was a good start to the week. I got my TV repaired, despite John Lewis giving the repairman the address of somewhere I haven’t lived for over 3 years and almost booked a trip to Madrid. We were trying to go by train, but after various problems trying to book on RailEurope’s website I phoned them and they tried to book it on the phone instead but the prices were getting extortionate so we decided it would be better to fly, but we definitely plan to go on a long train trip sometime soon.

Afternoon tea was very nice and we sat and ate sandwiches and cakes and scones and sipped tea for about two hours (and G also drank champagne). We both decided that this was definitely much nicer than being in work.

Today it’s back to work though and what I think will be a very busy day. At least it is only a four day week.

Repairs

It’s a Monday and I’m not in work. What bliss. G and I are going for afternoon tea today, so we have taken the day off work. I am glad we did anyway, as it was a very busy weekend and we didn’t get back very early last night.

I went to a wedding in Sheffield on Saturday and dropped G at the Leicester Service station on the M1 and G was collected by a friend and went to Nottingham. The wedding was really nice and the couple looked so happy, despite the bride practically sobbing her way down the aisle. There was no wedding cake and instead there were scones, jam and clotted cream.

My friend’s parents were very disappointed that it wasn’t a church wedding and the next morning I was having breakfast with them and they said they had enjoyed the day “despite the parts that were missing” (meaning God). Given that they were not impressed by him living with his girlfriend I did think that perhaps they should just focus on the fact that he is now married and not be too concerned about the circumstances of it.

Yesterday I then drove to Nottingham to meet up with G and we spent a while there and went for a walk and did various nice things. It had been a bit of a traumatic weekend for G’s friends, as they were all visiting the sister of one of them and she has just had a baby, but her husband is not about, as a couple of days before the birth he fell off the wagon (he’s an alcoholic who is sober a lot of the time but when he starts drinking again it happens quickly and with big consequences). She has had to have all the locks changed etc but he turned up on Saturday night and was trying to get in and was being very abusive. It all got quite nasty and upset everyone. Fortunately people managed to try and life the mood and enjoy the party they were holding for the arrival of the new baby.

I was really tired by the time we got back last night, so it has been a leisurely morning and the TV repairman is about to arrive…

Breaks

A group of us went out for dinner for G’s birthday last night, which was nice. The food was good, but this did include G finding a bone in the vegetable mousakka. Admittedly it didn’t claim to be vegetarian, but I still think you wouldn’t expect to find an animal product of that sort in it. At the end of the meal we ordered coffee and I wanted a decaffeinated coffee. I saw the waiter go over to the waitress who was holding the tray of coffees for our table and ask which was the decaffeinated coffee and she looked at him blankly and said she didn’t know. He then confidently picked one up and gave it to me. A minute later she told the waiter she had the decaffeinated one in her hand and he just shooed her away… Thanks for that.

Anyway the big news for yesterday was that I have booked flights to Montreal. We are going in July for two weeks. I used my United air miles and so all we are paying is about £85 each in tax. The flights should have cost £690 each. We are flying Air Canada which someone has described to me as “the Ryanair of the long haul carriers”, which I didn’t take to be a big endorsement, but if you’re only paying £85 for the flight then I guess you can’t complain too much. Now we just need to decide on where we are going after we land (I think east from Montreal), hotels, transport and things to do. Fortunately we have a bit of time to work this out. More pressing actually is to try and book a week in Madrid at the end of March, for which we have not sorted out anything as yet. I love planning holidays!

Painful

My computer and internet connection are somewhat unwell at the moment. I spent about two hours on the phone to my ISP last night to try and fix the problem that they then made much much worse through various things they made me try, which led to me entirely losing my internet connection for a while. Four technical support people later, the problem was sort of fixed but now keeps giving me the blue screen of death due to some software they told me to load. I am so unimpressed.

My day was, however, better than a woman I saw on my lunch break. She was walking along with one of those shopping bags on wheels and fell forward and seemingly did not put her hands out to break her fall at all and when she got up blood was streaming down her face from where she had hit her nose off the road very hard. It looked so painful. Poor lady.

Questions

G and I were watching Supersize v Superskinny last night and at the end of the programme they said to log on to the Channel 4 website if you want to sign up for the next series. I asked G if I should sign up for it to which G replied all innocently “So which would you be?”. I looked at G intently who then realised the grave error, an equivalent of not instantly giving the correct answer to the question “does my bum look big in this?”, and said “superskinny?”. Still the wrong answer because as we all know the response should have been “you’re perfect the way you are”.

It’s G’s birthday on Saturday, which has had me breaking out in a sweat because I have been rather short of present ideas. I think I have come up with a few suitable gifts now though, which is a relief, but also might make up for me not actually being about on Saturday because I have to go to Sheffield until Sunday. G is meeting up with some friends and going to Nottingham instead. We are passing G across at a service station on the M1, the ultimate birthday treat I am sure you will agree… G does seem quite excited by this prospect having never been to Nottingham before. It’s a simple life.

Aid

I tried to be a good citizen yesterday. As I was walking to the station last night, a woman cycled passed and something fell off her bike with a load clunk. It turned out it was her bike lock. So I walked out into the road and retrieved it for her. She thanked me for getting it for her (she’d stopped at the side of the road a bit further up) and I then walked off while she was sorting her bike out. I was then waiting to cross the road and she cycled by and rang her bell and waved. How very civilised for London.

Then when I was on the tube, a woman stood up and something fell to the ground. As I looked over I saw it was her hat and she was about to walk off having not noticed she had dropped it, so I asked her if it was her hat and it was. So she was pleased and said thank you. I feel these two instances are my quota for the year. I am not normally that helpful.

I have made two food discoveries in recent days. First the New Covent Garden Risotto is very nice. Second is anything that is sort of nut roast like is not for me. That whole graininess of it is way too much like haggis and therefore cannot pass my lips without making me feel very nauseous. G did get some extra dinner a result though. Perhaps a bit of bacon would have helped.

You might also wish to investigate this website, if you have ever felt unloved.

Ignorance

I have found an author that I really like, Paul Auster. He isn’t a new author, but I have only recently discovered his books. I have just finished reading The Music of Chance and have previously read The Book of Illusions, both of which I thought were really good books. I am not sure I can quite describe what sort of person would like his books, but I would recommend giving him a go if you are looking for a new author to try.

Another book I have just read is Ignorance by Milan Kundera (the chap who wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being). It’s a book about going back to the past and trying to possibly remake old connections etc. I was struck by a few of the passages in the book:

During the twenty years of Odysseus' absence, the people of Ithaca retained many recollections of him but never felt nostalgia for him. Whereas Odysseus did suffer nostalgia, and remembered almost nothing.

We can comprehend this curious contradiction if we realize that for memory to function well, it needs constant practice: if recollections are not evoked again and again, in conversations with friends, they go. Émigrés gathered together in compatriot colonies keep retelling to the point of nausea the same stories, which thereby become unforgettable. But people who do not spend time with their compatriots, like Irena and Odysseus, are inevitably stricken with amnesia. The stronger their nostalgia, the emptier of recollections it becomes. The more Odysseus languished, the more he forgot. For nostalgia does not heighten memory's activity, it does not awaken recollections; it suffices unto itself, unto its own feelings, so fully absorbed is it by its suffering and nothing else.

After killing off the brazen fellows who hoped to marry Penelope and rule Ithaca, Odysseus was obliged to live with people he knew nothing about. To flatter him they would go over and over everything they could recall about him before he left for the war. And because they believed that all he was interested in was his Ithaca (how could they think otherwise, since he had journeyed over the immensity of the seas to get back to the place?), they nattered on about things that had happened during his absence, eager to answer any question he might have. Nothing bored him more. He was waiting for just one thing: for them finally to say “Tell us!” And that is the one thing they never said.

For twenty years he had thought about nothing but his return. But once he was back, he was amazed to realise that his life, they very essence of his life, its centre, its treasure, lay outside Ithaca, in the twenty years of his wanderings. And this treasure he had lost, and retrieve only be telling about it.

After leaving Calypso, during his return journey, he was shipwrecked in Phaeacia, whose king welcomed him to his court. There he was a foreigner, a mysterious stranger. A stranger gets asked "Who are you? Where do you come from? Tell us!" and he told. For four long books of the Odyssey he had retraced in detail his adventures before the dazzled Phaeacians. But in Ithaca he was not a stranger, he was one of their own, so it never occurred to anyone to say, "Tell us!" P33-35

We don't understand a thing about human life if we persist in avoiding the most obvious fact: that a reality no longer is what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstructed. P 124

I imagine the feelings of two people meeting again after many years. In the past they spent some time together, and therefore they think they are linked by the same experience, the same recollections. The same recollections? That's where the misunderstanding starts: they don't have the same recollections; each of them retains two or three small scenes from the past, but each has his own; their recollections are not similar; they don't intersect; and even in terms of quantity they are not comparable: one person remembers the other more than he is remembered; first because memory capacity varies among individuals, but also because they don't hold the same importance for each other. P126

Change

I was out for a walk on my lunch break yesterday and a young woman came up to me and asked for 40p to make a phone call and I declined to give her anything. It was only as I walked away that I wondered why I had done that. She might well have genuinely wanted money for a phone call but my instant reaction was to say “no”. Even if she had wanted it for nefarious purposes, what could she have done with 40p – even if she managed to get a few lots of 40p? I just found my instant reaction to turn down a request for help, and only 40p of help at that, a bit concerning.

I read this somewhat horrifying story yesterday. It’s really not a pleasant thought to wonder quite whether the man was dead before he got caught under that car and quite what a state his body was on by the time the driver stopped. Probably best not to dwell on that too much.

Anyway it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, so I hope you have a good one - whether in a relationship or otherwise.

Lost

I was on a course yesterday and it was made up of three lectures, the first lecturer was late and the third lecturer did not turn up at all. I found it quite interesting though, but guessing by the body language of some of my colleagues they did not agree and one of them looked like a surely 12 year old being all stroppy about having to be there. Watching various colleagues reactions to the course was in some ways as interesting as the course itself and I certainly learned a lot about how some of them deal with things they don’t like.

I am a big fan of public libraries and would be a lot poorer if I bought all the books that I read. I have read 10 books so far this year… Anyway, if you borrow a book from the library, if the author is signed up to the Public Lending Right, they get 5.98p every time you borrow a book. G and I were talking about this on Tuesday night. I belong to the library service where I work, which is a different borough to where I live and therefore pay my council tax. I get to borrow a book for free and the library then pay out 5.98p to the author on my behalf. I find this a strange concept… I then read this post last night and thought that I would encourage people to maybe venture to their local library and get some books out. It helps to keep them open, you get to borrow a book for free and the author still gets money. Everyone’s a winner. I would also add that if I really like a book I then do actually buy a copy and so the author might also get money from two sources from me sometimes. I think the scheme only applies to British and EU authors who have signed up to the scheme and it is capped at something like £6500 a year, but that would mean an awful lot of book loans to hit that amount. Get borrowing!

In these financial times you might want to use this free service to track down any bank accounts you have lost along the way. There i.e. meant to be something like £1 billion of unclaimed money, but unless you have a really bad memory, it is unlikely to uncover any accounts that you don’t have a vague memory of having a few years ago. It might help you to uncover some old account you hadn’t though of in years though...

Warm

I seem to be getting more and more like my grandparents. We have now put an electric blanket on the bed. I don’t know anyone who does that these days, but have strong memories of my grandparents putting the electric blanket on for me and my sister whenever we stayed there. They also had a “teasmade”, which we were fascinated by and we used to get a Trio to eat in the car on the way home. Those were the days… It does now mean that G doesn’t have to warm up my side of the bed before I get in, which is what we had been doing until we dug out the electric blanket. Each night when I get into bed it does put a big smile on my face to get into a toasty warm bed though.

I don’t know what you will have made of the recent campaign by the Atheist Society to advertise their lack of belief in the existence of God, but now is your chance to create your own campaign for whatever you like. Go here and come up with your own slogan.

Change

Last week I was really rubbish at going out for a walk on my lunch breaks. But yesterday I dragged myself out in the cold and the rain (and walked to a library a bit of a distance away so that I at least had somewhere nice and warm to go, if only for a few minutes). Part of the reason I am trying not to let the weather put me off is that since I have been trying to make sure I do my 10,000 steps each day I think I have lost about half a stone. So, no dieting or anything like that, just making sure that I get up from my desk at lunch time and get some exercise – and as I like walking anyway that isn’t really a hardship. Although I do destroy many pairs of shoes by walking in them too much. I was really surprised when I weighed myself at the weekend and realised that I had lost that much weight. So now I just need to keep it up. Although today I have a meeting at lunch time, so I’m not going to do all that well today.

The other thing that is happening today is that I have an appointment for a check up with a brand new dentist. The second dentist I have ever seen in my life (and I do have regular check ups), so this could be traumatic seeing someone else after all these years. I figure if I don’t like my new dentist I can just find another one. What’s the worst that can happen? Probably best not to come up with too many answers to that question... *gulp*

Timing

I had a nice weekend. One of my housemates from university and her husband came to stay on Saturday night. G did all the cooking on Saturday night and for Sunday lunch and I just had to wander round looking pretty. It’s difficult being me sometimes. We did also finally exchange Christmas presents, as we haven’t seen each other for a few months, so that was good.

I have to say that I am getting rather bored with the BBC constantly acting as the nation’s moral guardian at the moment. First there was the Russell Brand/ Jonathan Ross incident and now Carol Thatcher has been sacked from The One Show and most recently, Jeremy Clarkson was censured for insulting the Prime Minister.

I am no fan of Carol Thatcher or Jeremy Clarkson, but think the BBC has not handled wither situation well. Carol Thatcher described someone as looking like a golliwog. I don’t really know quite what I think about what action the BBC should or shouldn’t have done about that as such, but what annoyed me about the BBC was that when Carol Thatcher apologised they said that her apology wasn’t sincere enough. So now the BBC is the expert on whether an apology is ‘up to the grade’. You can see the video of the BBC commenting on it here.

The BBC then also spent a lot of time reporting on Jeremy Clarkson calling the Prime Minister a “one eyed Scottish idiot”. I don’t like Clarkson at all, but found it somehow bizarre of the BBC to then spend most of Friday constantly repeating his slur of the Prime Minister because they were reporting it as “news”. Apparently you can talk about the Prime Minister as a “one eyed Scottish idiot” as many time as you like when it is part of a news story.

No-one would have known about Carol Thatcher’s comment and most people in the UK would not have been aware of Clarkson’s either, but because the BBC kept repeating the stories via their news channel, things that could have been dealt with in a rather more low key way instead have now been lodges as stories in the minds of most of the country’s population. I just find it somewhat hypocritical that the BBC acts all outraged and yet constantly repeats the stories so that people hear about it.

Anyway, in other news, be safe out their people, there’s a storm on its way.

Smashing

My mum phoned last night to say that someone had driven into the back of her car yesterday afternoon. She’d just stopped and was indicating right to turn into her driveway and this van smashed into the back of her car. She thinks he wrote his van off. Mum doesn’t have too much sympathy for him though, as he got out of his van and immediately started shouting at her and said that she had braked abruptly and hadn’t been indicating and had only put her indicator on after he had hit her. None of that was true and a neighbour came out and said he had seen what had happened and then went and called the police because this man wouldn’t stop shouting. The man who had hit her had managed to smack his head off his windscreen and smashed the glass and set his air bag off, which presumably means he either wasn’t wearing a seat belt or was driving very fast to have had that sort if impact. Anyway the police turned up and dealt with it all and told mum not to speak to the man because he was so horrible. The police did the exchange of details etc and waited until mum had gone in the house before they drove off.

Mum wasn’t too happy about it all, but she did then manage to rather put her foot in it by going over to speak to the neighbour who had seen what happened to get some details from him. Mum thanked him for his help and then also said how helpful his daughter had been previously when dad had fallen over on the drive last year, to which the man said “That’s not my daughter, that’s my wife…”. Fortunately he had a good sense of humour and thought his wife would be particularly pleased by that comment!

I have a friend from university and her husband staying on Saturday night, which is the perfect excuse to have an arctic roll. I realise that isn’t perhaps an obvious connection, but when I see my friend S, we normally end up having things like Angel Delight and other desserts that you would perhaps only have as a child. I have been looking for an Arctic Roll for ages and Birds Eye have just started making them again and now I have the ideal reason t o go out and buy one. My latest discovery was that G had no idea what an Arctic Roll is. It will be an education.

Finally, is it just me or is the new Google service that means people can track your location rather sinister? I can see it would be useful for parents to know where their children are – but also for abusive or suspicious partners to track their ‘loved ones’ whereabouts. Really, really not impressed.

Figures

One of the things that really winds me up is the bad use of statistics. I have pretty much given up reading newspapers, and in particular the free ones because they so often use statistics that are based on supposition and some weird calculation of averages, with those averages often based on surveys that had a somewhat dubious range of questions. For example “which month is your least favourite?” Answer: January. If you were to take a day off sick, which is the most likely day of the week? (You must provide an answer, even if you haven’t been off sick for years). Answer: Er… Monday. By what day of the month have you normally gone into the red? You must give an answer, even if you are always in credit. Answer: Er… 21st. That is then followed by lots of stories based on very ‘scientific’ evidence that Monday 21 January (or whatever date the ‘statistics’ conjure up that year) is the most depressing day of the year.

So the bad weather is the latest thing to have brought out some ‘statistics’. The main one being cited is that the UK economy lost £1.2 billion due to people not turning up to work on Monday. Shall we just consider how they came up with that figure.

First it is based on the belief that one in five people did not go to work. How did they know that? I think even now most organisations couldn’t tell you what percentage of people were in work – and where I work there were far less than four in five people in. In fact I think less than one in five actually made it in. I realise it is meant to be an average, but where did they get the data from – did they phone round all the HR departments who then wandered round their organisations and took a register.

Second, not going to work does not necessarily mean not working. Plenty of people have the ability to work from home. Perhaps they had intended to go into work that day, but that they then didn’t might have partly been because they didn’t need to in order to do some work or people ‘made do’ with what they had.

Third, where does the figure of £1.2 billion come from? Well according to The Telegraph “The Federation of Small Businesses' estimate is based on studies which show that every Bank Holiday costs the UK economy about £6 billion in potential business”. Right so an estimate of how much money is lost on a bank holiday is divided by a total guess of how many people might have not turned up for work. So you divide £6 billion by 5 and you get £1.2 billion. Of course!

Fourth, it makes the assumption that money not spent on Monday will also not be spent another day. Admittedly if you didn’t buy Monday’s newspaper that money is forever ‘lost’, but if you couldn’t buy a sofa or a car or you weekly supermarket shop you would actually presumably just buy it another day. That’s no lost revenue, it’s just deferred.

But now the media keep quoting the £1.2 billion figure and pile the doom and gloom on to the already depressing news they are peddling about the country’s dire financial situation.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics, as they say.

Trauma

There was a pretty low turn out at work today. My boss couldn’t get in. He told me he would have had to walk 3 miles to the nearest open station. I reminded him that our policy is that you have to walk for 4 miles or an hour if transport isn’t working. He ignored me. Regardless, I am not sure a) how many people actually walk four miles per hour because that is actually pretty quick going and even less achievable in bad weather and b) what if you walk 4 miles/ for an hour and haven’t actually got anywhere useful. Do you then have to wait there until the end of the working day before you can then walk 4 miles/ for an hour home?

I had a traumatic experience yesterday. I phoned to get a dental appointment to be told that my dentist is about to retire. I have been seeing the same dentist for 33 years (or since I first had teeth, which is a bit less than 33 years ago. I have only ever seen one dentist in my whole entire life. One. And he’s retiring. And he didn’t tell me. Or ask my permission, more importantly. The receptionist didn’t even break it to me gently. She offered me a range of other dentists. I said I’d have to call back. I hung up and phoned my mother. I told her the dentist is retiring and asked why she hadn’t told me. Apparently this was news to her too. We have the same dentist and he is actually a friend of the family. She’s going to phone him at home and quiz him about his retirement. Perhaps he will now do home visits. My parents have a power drill in the garage, so he could travel light. Actually I phoned another dentist and have an appointment on Tuesday. The first time I will have seen another dentist in all my 33 years of life. I have less than a week to prepare. *gulp*

Drift

I didn’t make it into work yesterday. I checked and the tube service I needed was running so I went to the station, but a few minutes after I got there they suspended the service. My neighbour works for London Underground and she was actually working at the ticket office at my local station, as she couldn’t get to the one she normally works at. So I had a chat with her and she wasn’t very hopeful that the service would be restored any time soon.

I went home and couldn’t get my laptop to work. I spoke to my boss and he couldn’t get his laptop to work either and he told me to “work from home in inverted commas”. I therefore spent lots of time reading very important and intellectual things and watching daytime TV.

I will see how I do at getting into work today and if I do make it in will hope that I can head home nice and early.

I did get a bit annoyed with various people on the news saying how incompetent we are as a country because parts of it ground to a halt due to the snow. It was SEVERE weather. The clue is in the name. I am assuming that each of those people who complained have now installed snow tyres on their cars, as they were clearly totally prepared to deal with over a foot of snow. Sometimes we have really adverse weather and it means that we can’t do all the things we would normally. That’s life. Stop complaining about it. Don’t even get me started me on the man on the BBC news who described the UK as “like a third world country” because he couldn’t see any grit on the road.

I leave you with the obligatory photo of yesterday’s snow. This was my back garden about 7.50am yesterday.

Projects

I finally met my freeholder yesterday – and it turned out to be a remarkably pleasant experience. When G was off sick on Friday a man came round who wanted to read the gas meter at the empty flat. He tried to put the card through the door but he said the letterbox had been sealed, so he insisted on G taking the card, despite protests. I saw the freeholder was about yesterday morning so I went round to give her the meter reading card – to which she told me that, as far as she was aware, there was no gas to the property so it would be quite hard to read the meter anyway! We then had a bit of a chat and she apologised for where the skip was and that she had been rather lax about getting things done, but said that this was now going to change. She then took me through all the things they were planning on doing to the property as a whole (rather than the flat she owns) and it sounds as though they have lots of helpful things planned.

She also told me that the other flat she owns (she owns two of the six flats where I live) is a big problem because the people who live there will not answer their door, pay rent or respond to letters. It means they can’t carry out any of their legal obligations as landlords etc and so will have to take legal advice to see what to do. She also said that the man who lives there had left her a message saying he no longer lived there. Except he does and the freeholder knows full well that he does – as does his wife, who presumably he wants to take all the responsibility for dealing with the problems, as he didn’t say she had moved out. Charming.

An old boss contacted me on Friday. We haven’t spoken in several years, although we do exchange Christmas cards. She is actually retired, but does special projects sometimes. She wants me to help her with a major project she is taking on. I would be really interested in doing it, but it involves persuading my manager to let me do less hours in my normal job, so that I can do this other work. It probably isn’t a great time to be asking to do this, for a whole variety of reasons, but I’ll see what he makes of it. I did mention it to him briefly on Friday, and he was open to the idea, but the timings on it are now rather different having gone through all the details on Saturday and he might not be quite so keen now. I would really like to work for my old boss again, even if on a short term project. She was the best boss I have had (even though my current boss is really good) and it would be a same to miss out. But there would be lots of logistics to work out, so we’ll see what happens. So today I have to put a case to my boss, as tonight I need to be able to give a good indication of if I am going to be able to do this. Time to be brave.