Back to nature

Well, it seems that my landlady has applied for that job in Cardiff and is waiting to hear if she gets an interview. She hasn’t actually said this to me, I heard her saying it to someone on the phone. So, I’d better wait and see what happens really. I am not entirely thrilled by this news though.

I went for a walk yesterday afternoon, as it was sunny out and I didn’t want to be stuck at home all afternoon. There are some woods nearby and I went for a wander there. I wanted to sit somewhere and just listen to my radio and take in some nice views, but it was only when I set off that I realised the batteries were running out in my radio so that knocked that plan on the head. I went for a wander anyway and saw a stoat. I don’t actually know how big stoats are but this one was very small, so I think maybe it was a baby stoat. I am actually impressed that I know what a stoat looks like and wanted to take a photo of it on my phone but it ran off. Very cute though. I didn’t even know you could get stoats in London.

My boss was on leave last week but is back today which should be ok but usually means more hassle about stuff. He can be a bit of a control freak at times, although not as much as my head of unit. Apparently my head of unit has now indicated that she wants to take early retirement, so that’s sounding hopeful. I am off to Glasgow at the end of the week so at least it is only a short week in the office. In the next couple of days I have to get round to writing a talk for when I am in Glasgow as I don’t think any of the ones that I have at the moment are up to the job. Better get thinking...

Passing Notes

The chap I sit next to at work really makes me laugh. Think Roy Cropper from Coronation Street and you’ll have an idea of the kind of chap he seems to be, but underneath that meek exterior is a really wicked sense of humour and he makes me chuckle a lot. I was meant to arrange for him to move desks a while ago due to some staff changes, but I dragged my feet on it in the hope that it wouldn’t have to happen and my procrastination proved successful.

Anyway a couple of days ago he said to me and a colleague, C, that he needed some advice. We were both intrigued and asked him what it was about. He was slightly embarrassed and just said he wasn’t really sure what to do. It seems that a woman who works in another unit had been sitting by his desk talking to him and when she left there was this small blue card, maybe 4cm by 3 cm, left there on the desk. He picked it up thinking that she’d forgotten it but when he looked at what it was, he wasn’t so sure. On the outside it said “In case you haven’t guessed…” and then when he opened it said “of all the friends in the world, you’re the very best”.

What do you do in that circumstance? Do you phone and ask if they have forgotten something or say thank you or just ignore it? C said he should phone her and see if she had forgotten it but we decided that this could get very awkward- what if this was like in the playground and she was saying that she wanted to be his best friend? He was so bashful and just didn’t quite know what to do with himself. In the end we decided that burying his head in the sand and ignoring it was by far the best way to deal with it, always the best approach in such circumstances I think. But he’s kind of embarrassed about the prospect of seeing her again. Maybe we’re wrong though, perhaps we should go back to those days where you went up to someone at school and asked them to be your best friend. Much simpler days.

I have a new issue to stick my own head in the sand about. It seems that my landlady is looking to apply for a job in Cardiff. One of her children lives there and she’d vaguely talked before about moving there but now seems to be making approaches to organisations to see if there are any suitable jobs on offer. I think my brain is set to implode if I have to move again before I finally buy somewhere. Maybe it will all come to nothing but there’s a huge part of me that doesn’t want to think about it and just wants it all to go away. *sigh*

Planes, trains and automobiles

I think I have probably said before that I am going to Scotland on holiday at the end of May. I was hoping to catch the sleeper train but a friend phoned me this morning to say that all the seats had already been booked, even though booking had only just opened. They only release one date at a time, so if you want to book a return ticket you have to wait until the second date has been released or else go to the expense of buying two singles.

I am kind of disappointed. When do you normally get the chance to sleep on a train? Actually, technically I do that every morning on the way into work but that’s not the point. It would have been really interesting to get the train up through the Scottish countryside, particularly as last year I stayed at Bridge of Orchy in a hostel which is literally on the station platform. Before you went to bed at night and when you woke up in the morning, the sleeper train would stop at the platform. You are slightly taking your life in your hands by staying there as there are triple bunks and if you’re in the top bunk, as I was, it is a bit precarious as there isn’t even a safety bar to keep you in.

When I was about 7 or 8 we were on holiday in Denmark and I fell out of the top bunk of a bunk bed on to the hard concrete floor below and injured my arm. Since then I have never been very keen to sleep in bunk beds, although admittedly I do seem to recall with that incident in Denmark that I was actually experimenting with how easy it might be to fall out of the top bunk. Erm, no, I’m not entirely sure why I needed to know the answer to that one, but I did find out... I therefore, of course, ended up in the top bunk at Bridge of Orchy last year, due to some German blokes (they are mixed dorms) being most ungentlemanly and taking the lower bunks.

Anyway, I now need to sort out some flights instead now. I should really fly to Inverness but it is probably much cheaper to fly to Aberdeen so I might do that and then get a hire car from there. *starts to count down to going away on holiday*

No Hablo Espanol

Although it was good to be in Madrid, one of my frustrations about being there was my inability to speak Spanish. I was in Barcelona a few years ago and did give it a go but people just kept looking at me, as… well, as though I was speaking a foreign language, which was what I was meant to be doing, but it obviously wasn’t Spanish. I assume that something got lost in translation. I am actually quite tempted to learn Spanish, so might look into that at some point. Of course had I followed these pointers I would probably have got people’s attention, but probably not in the way that I might have hoped.

I always feel there is something slightly patronising about assuming people can speak English. Often that is true but if I am in another country, why should I expect them to speak to me in my language? Fortunately most people were very gracious and we found some way to communicate reasonably effectively.

My talk was simultaneously translated and I assume it was reasonably accurate, although to be honest I have no idea. I also met up with someone who, although British, is fluent in Spanish and was kind enough to do lots of translation for me.

I had to get a few taxis while I was away and at least my lack of Spanish meant that I didn’t have to engage in the usual taxi driver banter. I did think the taxi drivers were a bit cheeky though as they started their meters even before I got into the cab. Yesterday morning I had ordered a taxi for 9am, I went to wait for the taxi before 9am and he was already there and had started the meter as soon as he arrived even though he was early. Of course, I couldn’t complain, what with not being able to speak the lingo.

Driving in Madrid was also kind of hazardous. Cars would edge past each other coming within centimetres of coming into contact. I’m a London driver so am used to impolite and aggressive driving but we are amateurs by comparison. There are also hardly any signposts so if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to struggle there. Mind you none of the taxi drivers seemed to know where they were going either and relied on their satellite navigation to find anywhere. Now you wouldn’t get that with a London cabbie, now would you? But, somehow I’d still rather be in sunny Madrid right now.

Oh and today is the Ides of March and apparently you’re meant to beware of that, so er, well, be careful out there.

Sun, Spain and stars

I survived Madrid and have made it home in one piece. Lovely weather, being wined and dined, given gifts for speaking... It’s a hard life, but I endured it.

If I were a more seasoned traveller I would obviously have to look with disdain at those who find flying business class worthy of comment. But I think it would generally be fair to describe me as ‘cheap’, so when someone else is paying for me to get free stuff, it’s like all my Christmases come at once.

I arrived in plenty of time to get my flight yesterday, which was a good thing as the queues to get through security were massive. Well, I’m not trying to make you jealous here but while I was waiting to check in, I stood within about two feet of both Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen and Peter Andre. I know! How could one could one person be that lucky?! Don’t shake your head in despair quite so much...

When I finally made it through all the security checks and into the British Airways lounge, I was pleasantly surprised by their facilities. I do usually fly business class with work but I usually fly with airlines like Lufthansa. The most you get with them is free liquorice allsorts, some pretzels and as many beverages as you can drink, which to be honest isn’t the most appealing. So free access to the internet and so on was dead exciting. *Note to self: must get a life*

So, what can I tell you, seeing celebrities (I use that term loosely) and free stuff even before I left the UK, what more could a girl want?

Madrid itself seemed like a beautiful city, although to be honest I didn’t get to see much of it. However, wandering round sunny streets in temperatures of about twenty degrees having just left a rather gloomy and chilly London was really rather lovely. Suddenly I could understand why some people have to escape the UK winter and spend some time in the sunshine. It was a bit like having a cloud lifted – which promptly, literally, descended again when I returned to the UK earlier!

The survey says...

I went shopping yesterday afternoon to buy my nephew a birthday present as it is his first birthday party today. As I was walking through the town centre this chap asked me whether I would take part in a survey. I wasn’t very keen but asked what the survey was about and he just gave a vague answer and said it was about lots of things and it would become clear as the survey went on.

He started to ask me questions, which began with “How often do you buy household products?” I asked him what he meant by a household product e.g. did he mean a fridge-freezer or a bottle of bleach? He replied “Just anything for the household” and then he asked me a couple more questions but he wasn’t making a note of any of the answers.

It seems I got all the answers right as he then said “Now to continue with the survey follow me into this building” and I just looked at him and said “Why would I want to follow you into a building?” He looked surprised by this and said “well the survey is on my laptop and so we have to go inside to fill it out”. I looked at him kind of incredulously and told him I wasn’t following him anywhere. Again he seemed surprised, at which I point I decided that was the end of the conversation and walked off. Is it just me or was that all totally weird?

Anyway, it is my nephew’s birthday party today (it isn’t actually his birthday until later in the week), so I stayed at my sister’s last night. We watched The Island on DVD, which was quite a good film, but I have never seen a film that has so many product placements in it. Close ups on Puma trainers, bottles of beer, MSN products and so on. Really, really blatant stuff and we spent a lot of the film watching for the next product placement rather than following the plot. Interesting film though, despite the distraction.

I’ve got to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight as I am off to Madrid first thing tomorrow morning. I’ve got to dig out my passport and have now realised that I have done nothing about getting any foreign currency etc, so am perhaps not the best organised for this trip. The people running the conference I am speaking at are paying for my flights and originally they said I had to fly economy *blood runs cold*. However, I managed to convince them that I should fly business class - one has a certain standard to maintain. I have to be at the airport just gone 7 tomorrow morning so at least I will have a slightly more comfortable seat to fall asleep in while I am waiting for the flight. Then a busy afternoon in meetings, speaking at 7pm, some more meetings on Tuesday morning and then I fly back to the UK at lunchtime. At which point I will go home to collapse- and may get round to posting something new here.

On other matters, tomorrow (Monday) the results to the Bloggies are due out, so you may wish to take a wander over to see who the winners are.

Strange behaviour

I went home via Sainsbury’s last night to pick up a pint of milk and a few bits. A really drunk bloke was in the store and as he went down the aisle where all the alcohol was, he decided to smash as many of the bottles as he could. He created chaos until the security guards managed to restrain him. People are weird though, as loads of shoppers just stood there and watched while the security guards restrained the bloke like it was their Friday night entertainment. It made me feel quite uncomfortable that people were quite so voyeuristic and just stood there staring and pointing and commenting.

Anyway, I’m back on call for the next week and this morning my head of unit phoned to ask me to check something. I was actually in rather a state of undress at the time as I had just got out of the shower. Is it wrong to speak to someone on the phone when you basically have nothing on? I then had to make a few phone calls, although I did get dressed before I did that. I’m hoping I won’t get any more calls this weekend and when I am in Madrid I won’t be on call, as our pagers don’t work abroad. It would have been slightly embarrassing for my pager to go off part way through my talk, so that’s probably a good thing.

Well, here’s something that really annoys me. Geoff has been told by Transport for London to remove all TfL maps/ fake maps, images etc from his website. He is a really good chap and holds the world record for visiting all the London Underground stations in the shortest amount of time and raised money for the victims of the 7 July bombings and so on. Do TfL lawyers really have nothing better to do than browse the web looking for supposed infringements? Morons!

Lightning strikes

We had a major power outage at work yesterday. There was some kind of power failure caused by lightning and all the lights and computers went off. Fortunately I didn’t lose anything very important on my computer. Sadly the power was restored after a bit and we could carry on with our work.

I was flying back from Dallas a few years ago and the plane I was about to board was struck by lightning. They did initially say that we would have to get another flight but in the end managed to restore the instrument panel and the flight left. I usually work on the philosophy that the pilot would refuse to fly the plane if he thought there was a problem with it, because if I am going to die then so is he. I am hoping that this continues to be the case when I fly to Madrid on Monday - the bit about the pilot refusing to fly a duff plane, rather than that both the pilot and I are going to die.

I do actually love thunder and lightning but didn’t get to see any of the storms yesterday.

Anyway, on other matters, here is a strange thing lurking about on the weird wide web. Take a look. Although if you are a big fan of George Bush then it’s probably best avoided.

Neighbourhood Watch

I was very naughty last night. I decided I wasn’t going to have any dinner, so I had a bowl of cereal and some toast, which is remarkably like what most people would have for breakfast but it was just the easiest thing to eat. I also had a Tunnock’s Caramel biscuit and a cup of tea. However then I decided that I did actually want some dinner, so then proceeded to cook and eat a normal dinner. I did, however, restrain myself from eating a yogurt for dessert.

Anyway, I am coming to the conclusion that I have got very nosey neighbours. When I was moving in my landlady told me that everyone who lived nearby was really nice and it was a really friendly community. Well, it seems that what this actually means is that they like to twitch their net curtains to ensure they know exactly what is going on.

I have never spoken to any of the neighbours – I’m such a friendly sort – but they seem to like to watch exactly what is going on. Once I drove into the road to park my car just as another car was leaving and they came back and watched what I was doing, drove off, then reversed back up the road and had another look. All I was doing was carrying some cardboard boxes into the house.

Then a couple of days ago I parked my car as a bloke was getting into his car and he just sat there and watched which house I went in to. I did try and give him a look as though I was suspicious of what he was doing, but somehow I suspect this was lost on him.

It makes me want to move about under cover of darkness or from shadow to shadow to try and slip through their surveillance procedures. There’s Neighbourhood Watch and there’s being totally nosey and kind of big brotherish in your behaviour.

And back again

So, I’ve made it back from Lincoln in one piece. The talk went quite well but I need to rewrite it at some point because I usually get half way through it and think “I’m bored”, so I dread to think what other people are thinking.

Anyway, I managed to head home nice and early, got drenched in torrential rain and arrived home looking slightly bedraggled. Nothing new there then.

When I arrived home there was a catalogue waiting for me so that I can choose the colour of my new car *rubs hands with glee*. I’m thinking blue but I might be daring and go for silver. I can be very impulsive at times.

Somewhere Else

I’m off to Lincoln this afternoon, as I have to be there for work tomorrow. I have to give yet another talk. Hopefully I’ll be able to set off for home tomorrow at a reasonable time and maybe even get home a bit earlier than normal. How will I survive without access to the internet for over 24 hours??

Anyway, talking of being somewhere else reminds me of a song (painfully tenuous link there, sorry...) – ‘Somewhere Else’ by Razorlight. I haven’t commented on a song for a bit so maybe it’s time that I did.

I think this is a really great song. The kind that makes me turn the radio up whenever I hear it.

You're an emotional wreck
You don't know who you are
You never say what you mean
And you keep your mouth shut
And your nights stay still
And then you come and call on me

I can do ‘emotional wreck’ well sometimes. I can look at things and see all my faults, question who I am, wish that I was somewhere else or at least hope that things could be different.

And I met a girl
she asked me my name
I told her what it was
She looked at me
I tried to explain
Exactly what I lost
But now I just can't help myself
I really, really wish I could be somewhere else
Than here
You give me everything I need
but I really, really wish I could be somewhere else
Than here

Although sometimes I can explain myself reasonably well, at others I just don’t quite know how to put things into words and silence seems easier. Sometimes you can’t quite describe someone or something you have lost and instead it just seems a bit easier to want to make it all go away. Just to be somewhere else.

Sometimes when I look at life and feel frustrated or disappointed by it, I can hear this song and it picks me up a bit. You can sing at the top of your lungs how much you want to be somewhere else and somehow it gets some of it out of your system and things look maybe just a bit better.

Dig out a copy of this song, put it on and feel better…

You're an emotional wreck
You don't know who you are
You never say what you mean
And you keep your mouth shut
And your nights stay still
And then you come and call on me

You say I just can't help myself
I really, really wish I could be somewhere else
than here

And I met a girl
she asked me my name
I told her what it was
She looked at me
I tried to explain
Exactly what I lost
But now I just can't help myself
I really, really wish I could be somewhere else
Than here
You give me everything I need
but I really, really wish I could be somewhere else
Than here

Just anywhere else
Just anywhere else than here

And I won’t forget
No I won’t forget
No I won’t forget

And when I saw you there it was the first time
And you just walked on by
I was catching the sparks that flew from your heels
And trying to catch your eye

But that was
somewhere else
somewhere else
somewhere else
I really, really wish I could be
somewhere else
somewhere else
somewhere else
I really, really wish I could be
Cos I just can't help myself
I really, really wish I could be somewhere else
than here

And no I just can't help myself
I really, really wish I could
I've got everything I need
I really, really wish I could be
somewhere else
somewhere else
somewhere else
I really, really wish I could be

Back to reality

I had a really good weekend and feel as though I got loads done.

Yesterday a friend came over for lunch. She’s the person I might be buying a house with. However, she said to me that she might be applying for a job in Bristol, which would obviously rather scupper these plans. Hopefully in the next month or so we’ll have more of an idea of what is going on.

Anyway, we had lunch (roast gammon – yum) and then went for a walk in some nearby woods. I knew she was scared of dogs but had no idea quite how scared. She seems to have this radar that picks them up at a thousand paces. Dogs just seemed to emerge from everywhere and she actually climbed a tree at one point because she saw a dog, even though it was actually nowhere nearby. At that point we abandoned the walk and went back to my house.

My exciting news is that I should be the proud owner of a new car next week. Not brand new but rather newer than the one I have now. The electrics are starting to go a bit dodgy on my car. There seem to be a few strange things going on with the central locking. I was driving my car yesterday morning and the central locking operated unaided and locked all the doors, which obviously isn’t ideal if you happen to be outside the car when that happens. I know absolutely nothing about cars but figure this is probably the start of things going wrong. Once I’ve bought a house buying a new car might be harder, so I’m going to bite the bullet.

I have bought my last three cars via the same car dealer (who is actually female). She has always got me really good cars at a decent price and so I know she’ll come up with exactly what I want. The first time I saw the last car I bought was when I went to pick it up, but it was exactly what I had asked for. She does, however, live about 200 miles away so to get the car and give her my current one in part exchange we might have to meet at a motorway service station. Slightly bizarre but there you go. She’s sending me a colour chart in the post because that is, of course, the most important factor when choosing a car.

Anyway, after a really good weekend, now it’s back to work. But, a very happy birthday to What Would Dana Do. Hope you have a good day.

I don't care what the weather man says

Since defrosting from Friday evening, it’s been a busy weekend. Starting with me getting up at 8.30am yesterday to switch on the heating.

Anyway, by noon yesterday I’d been to the supermarket, washed my car and put some washing on. Supermarkets do my head in, but even so I seem to spend a large amount of time in them each week. Yesterday I went earlier than I would normally and Tesco was filled with lots of slow old people. No offence to old people but could they not go at some other point during the week? They just seemed to walk slowly along every aisle and cause lots of traffic jams.

The supermarkets near me are rubbish anyway. The main criterion for judging this is if they sell soda farls. If the answer is no, then they are rubbish. I realise it is a limited test, but I find it effective. If I want to go to a decent supermarket that stocks everything I want then I have to go to the Tesco Extra which is about 15 miles away. I tried Morrisons recently but didn’t really like it. I have been to other of their stores and they’ve been fine but the one near where I live is horrible. They do also seem to sell dodgy looking cuts of meat. The nearest Asda to me is quite a trek and is a bit like going to a jumble sale and Sainsbury’s just never stocks what I want. Life can be such a disappointment…

My sister and nephew came over for lunch and it was truly a miracle that I was willing to be anywhere near my nephew as he has some kind of eye infection at the moment. We went for a walk round the nearby reservoir and my sister then went over to see mum for a bit and I looked after my nephew (because mum is ill my nephew couldn’t really go). He snuggled up on my shoulder and was very cute and so I might even forgive him the gunk from his eye that he must have wiped on me. However, he was probably being cute to get me to give him some white chocolate buttons. He already drools at the sight of chocolate. An addict in the making.

Then I went out for dinner with a friend and we went to see the film The Weather Man at the cinema. I think it would be fair to say that you shouldn’t go and see that film if the person you are going with has major depression. It isn’t the most uplifting film and unfortunately the friend I went with is going through a really bad time at the moment. I did actually enjoy the film and found it engaging but if you like your films to be a light-hearted and a diversion from every day life then this isn’t the one for you. It didn’t aid my friend’s depression who hardly said a word on the way home. I’m not selling this film to you am I?

Baby, it's cold inside

I don’t suppose you’ll need much convincing that it is cold at the moment in the UK. Really, really cold. The thing is that you would think that when you went indoors it would be warm. But nope. On the tube in the mornings it is really cold as the drivers don’t seem to think there is any need to put the heating on. I bet they’re lovely and warm in the driver’s cab. My feet are like blocks of ice when I get to work and not only do I sit there and drink a cup of tea whilst perusing the wonderful world of blogging but I also now have to wait for the circulation to return to my feet.

But you might think that getting cold feet on the tube isn’t all that unlikely, but what about when you get home from work? Don’t you expect your home to be nice and warm so you can thaw out from trekking home? Well, you’ve guessed it, with me the answer’s nope. The house I am living in at the moment is cold, cold, cold. A few weeks ago I was sitting in the living room fully dressed, with a towelling dressing gown on over the top of my clothes and sitting under my duvet and I was still cold.

A friend came round on Thursday night and he hadn’t realised how cold my house is and was only wearing a t-shirt (and a pair of trousers), so was more than a touch chilly. I gave him lots of cups of tea to warm him up.

My bedroom is generally really nice and warm, but isn’t necessarily the ideal place to be entertaining people. Although I guess it would depend what type of ‘entertaining’ I was doing of course. Anyway, as we all know, I sleep with my feet in a wardrobe so there isn’t much space in my bedroom for anything other than sleeping. Moving on…

By the way, did you know yesterday was National Doodle Day? I realise this is a day late to acknowledge it but you might be interested to follow the link anyway. For the next few days they are running an auction through e-bay of various famous people’s doodles, so if you want to raise money for charity and/ or buy a doodle drawn by someone famous then go take a look.

Take a break

I was standing in the supermarket last night trying to decide what to buy, as a friend was coming over for dinner. A fairly old bloke came up to me and said "I saw you looking at the chicken. When bird flu gets here, you should stop buying it. They'll inject all the chickens with antibiotics." His embarrassed looking wife wandered over and said to him "Look now you've found someone else to tell. Let's go" and he said "But I have racing pigeons. I've been through all this before. When they got the injections it turned their heads round the wrong way." I thanked him for his advice and he wandered off. So there you go, if you go to buy a chicken for Sunday lunch and it's got its head on the wrong way, I'd advise against eating it. I think we can safely say I am quickly becoming the definitive source on all things bird flu related.

On other matters, I have finally been daring enough to submit my leave card to book some time off work. Our new leave year started on Wednesday and I was actually wrong about the amount of leave I am carrying forward. It is in fact 33 days, which gives me a grand total of 58 days leave to take this year. 58 days... isn’t that about three months worth of working days?

Anyway, I plan to take a week off at the beginning of April. I have one thing planned but have to think of things to fill up the other days. I have also booked a week off at the end of May, as I am off to Scotland for a week to go walking.

I must try and get some more ‘exotic’ travel in though. I am actually going to Madrid with work in just over a week’s time. But there is no way to extend the visit as I have to be back in the office.

I am flying out on the Monday and had considered going there for the preceding weekend but realised it is my nephew’s first birthday party on the Sunday. I did kind of raise the subject with my sister but was met with a stony silence. That’ll be a “no” to missing his party then.

I might go to The Gambia to visit a friend, but we’ll see. Anyway, ten and a half days booked off so far, only another forty seven and a half days to go...

A cure for bird flu

I don’t really know what to make of all the stuff on bird flu. I think the bulk of any panic will be because if/ when it reaches the UK, people will think that they can catch it. My understanding is that unless they are in regular contact with birds it isn’t possible to get it and that at the moment human to human transmission is not possible. I suspect some people will panic though and will start to report to doctors if they get anything vaguely cold or flu-like. Of course the Daily Mail really got to the heart of the issue when bird flu reached Turkey (the country rather than the bird) and their front page headline was about whether it was still safe to go there on holiday. Yep because that is what was important. Words fail me...

The other day I read that bird flu has now been transmitted to a cat in Germany, which made me wonder if it is possible to predict the future pattern of transmission based on the nursery rhyme “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly”. Obviously this is based on my vast scientific knowledge gained from my Biology and Chemistry GCSEs that I took over a dozen years ago.

The woman ate various things, including a spider (eek!), but she then ate a live bird, which I would think in the current climate would be unwise and would greatly increase your chances of getting bird flu. Then she ate a cat, a dog, and a goat, followed by a cow and a horse. All live, and therefore presumably whole, so it must have been quite a task. Anyway, if we follow this pattern I think we can clearly predict that dogs will be the next creature to fall prey to bird flu, followed by a goat, cow and then a horse.

However, as you may recall it was the horse that finally killed the old woman. So if you decide to follow this eating pattern, then it seems like a potential way to avoid bird flu, what with it killing you by eating all the animals. I suspect you would probably not make it to the horse anyway - if the dog doesn’t get you, I reckon a whole live goat would.

So in fact not only are we now potentially able to predict the future onward transmission of bird flu but we also have a cure - because the least of your worries will be bird flu following this diet. If this turns out to be the future transmission pattern of bird flu, you heard it here first...

Disclaimer: the above diet is not recommended and should not be attempted without full consultation with a medical professional. Might I suggest a psychiatrist?

Considering a life of crime

Perhaps it’s just me, but isn’t Sky news actually being unhelpful by broadcasting every aspect of the search going on for the missing millions in Kent at the moment? Isn’t it kind of tipping off the people who carried out the raid how close the police are to finding anything significant? In itself surely it isn’t even that interesting showing lots of police vans and policemen standing in fields etc - but I guess with 24 hour news they need to broadcast something.

I was, however, grateful for the details in the press the day after the raid about how the robbers pretended to be police officers and pulled the bank manager over and then kidnapped him. That’s a very useful tip should I decide to go down the route of a life of crime.

Giving things up

I have caught up on some sleep, vaguely regained some sanity and hopefully have a less busy week ahead of me at work now. Without meaning to sound like an old person, how can it be the beginning of March today? This year seems to be flying by.

So, it’s the beginning of Lent. I didn’t have any pancakes last night. In fact I am not even sure I know how to make them. No home economics lessons when I was at school. I have never given up anything for Lent and this year is unlikely to be any different – unless I happen to stop doing something by coincidence. Last year my old housemate gave up TV or watching EastEnders or something like that. I can’t quite remember, but she certainly got her mum to record EastEnders for the entire length of Lent. So there was probably some cheating going on there.

Mind you, what would I actually give up? I don’t drink, smoke, take drugs or any other such ‘vices’ and I haven’t even come up with a guilty pleasure yet. I probably do eat too much stuff like chocolate and biscuits but I’ve got have some excitement in my life and the sugar rush is probably about it at the moment. Hmm, so maybe I need to take up something new in the run up to Easter. Which rather defeats the point of it all of course but I am obviously in rebel mode again.

A sigh of relief

I woke up during the night feeling very nervous about the talk I had to give this morning. I dreamt that my director walked in and said my talk was totally wrong. Anyway, as it turned out, it was totally fine and my Head of Unit was pleased with it. Praise indeed...

It involved getting up really early (for me) and as I was at work until quite late last night I am hoping to escape at a reasonable time tonight

Anyway, it was a busy day yesterday and I didn’t stop all day at work, dealing with one thing and then another, including running round after my Head of Unit. This did prompt be to send an e-mail to someone I used to work with to express my frustration. It was just one sentence, but believe me it said it all! She phoned me later to see if I was still alive and said that often when my e-mails turned up they were already marked as read. That’s kind of bizarre. Obviously my e-mails are fascinating but I wasn’t planning on them having a wider readership. Particularly the e-mail I sent yesterday. Maybe it’s just some quirk in the system. I hope *thinks about the content of some of the e-mails sent from work account- gulp…*

It’s my sister’s birthday today. I have posted her card but will give her a present next time I see. She wanted Pride and Prejudice on DVD, so that’s what I got her. Probably talking to her about it on the phone and saying what a great deal Tesco were running a few weeks ago so I got a really good deal on it, wasn’t the most heart-warming message. Must work on that.

My professional opinion

Another week begins and a busy one at that, I think. Lunch was cancelled yesterday but I went over to see mum to find out how she was doing. She has a really bad cough and was coughing so much on Saturday that she was sick. You probably don’t need too much convincing that I was glad I wasn’t there for that. I only got about six hours sleep Saturday night and so really just wanted to go and see mum and curl up next to her on her bed and go to sleep, but she was just getting up when I arrived and I probably wouldn’t have got much sleep with her incessant coughing anyway. So selfish.

Like most people, I have the ability to become a major expert on someone else’s ill-health. Despite not really knowing what the source of mum’s cough was, there I was giving various remedies and solutions. If it weren’t for the fact that I would instantly pass out at the sight of any patients and that I have absolutely no medical knowledge, I would make a fantastic doctor- maybe that could be my next career move. Anyway it seems mum will be off work for a few more days yet, based on my professional opinion obviously.

I suspect my day ahead is going to be hectic. What with running around after my Head of Unit, actually making sure that I know what I am talking about tomorrow morning, finishing the slides to go with the talk and doing all of my normal work, with various meetings interspersed throughout the day. I also have to leave work at a reasonable time to find a post office to get a tax disc, due to my failure on Saturday. Thank goodness for the Post Office at Trafalgar Square which stays open late. Then I have to get up extra early tomorrow morning, as I probably need to be in by about 7.30am. *sigh* Better get on...

Some buffoonery

So, it has been a good weekend so far. I haven’t had the chance to sleep in but I’m hoping that somehow I will cope with less than the required eight hours. Although I do feel a bit like death at the moment because I went to bed really late last night so it is not looking entirely hopeful.

Part of the reason I didn’t sleep in yesterday morning was because I had to run some errands first thing, which included getting a new tax disc for my car. My organisation skills had worked a treat and I turned up at the post office to get the disc only to discover that I had not brought my insurance certificate but a different policy document that couldn’t be used to get a new tax disc. So I wandered off downhearted at my incompetence and am now somehow going to have to find the time to buy it before it runs out on Tuesday. Buffoon!

Anyway, I then met up with a friend and had a wander round an exhibition. I was greatly heartened by being able to whip out my Oyster card which entitled us to a two for the price of one discount. Like music to my ears. I can’t resist a bargain.

I really can talk the hind leg off a donkey though and just rambled on in my usual way over lunch afterwards. Fortunately this didn’t have the same effect as it did on my nephew last week, as she didn’t fall asleep midway through eating her lunch. The caffeine probably helped. Must try that on my nephew. 11 month olds can drink caffeine, right?

I then went shoe shopping. I have to say I find any kind of shopping boring. I go out with a firm idea in my mind of what I want and buy it and go home. That’s it. So visiting every shoe shop on Oxford Street was not my idea of a good time. But I was on a mission and was not going to be defeated. Just as I was losing hope, I finally came across a pair that passed muster and am now the proud owner of a pair of black non-descript shoes. I tell you it takes effort to find something that bland.

Incidentally, I went into a couple of department stores during my trek and you usually have to walk in through the perfume bit (I’m sure there is a more technical term for it). Anyway, they’re often looking for people to tout their wares to - but they never ask me. It’s not that I actually want their products, but I do wonder if they look at me and either think “now she wouldn’t be a good advert for our product” and glance away in case I approach, or just think I look really tight and would be happy to make use of their product for free but would never actually pay for it. They’re probably right on both counts.

Anyway, I finished just in time to meet up with another friend and when we met up she said “what do you want to do?” and I replied “well, we could get something to eat”. I’m surprised she even bothered to ask, as that is what I say every time. We went to My Old Dutch and ate pancakes, which was good and filled me up. We were a bit early for Shrove Tuesday but I like to think of myself as a bit of a rebel, working to my own calendar.

We then wandered down by the Thames for a bit and had a cuppa in the crypt under St Martin’s in the Field church in Trafalgar Square. There is actually a café there rather than us just hanging about amongst some dead bodies. I thought it was really nice there and a good place to have a chat out of the cold. All very civilised and I must go back.

The hopeful news for today is that lunch out might be cancelled as my mum might be ill. Apparently she has been off sick all week and has a really bad cough. I’m thinking I am probably not the most attentive daughter, as I had no idea… I had spoken to my sister yesterday anyway and explained my dilemma and she just said “well, I’ll phone mum and ask her not to suggest going to your house” and I instantly felt better and then I wondered why I hadn’t thought to say it to my sister before. You see, I told you I’m a buffoon.

Dilemmas

I am off into London in a bit. It always feels so much more like I have had time off work if I have done something constructive with my weekend, rather than just messing about at home.

I have a bit of a dilemma about tomorrow though. My sister e-mailed me earlier in the week to say that she is going to the restaurant that is literally about twenty seconds from my front door with my parents for lunch. She asked me if I wanted to go as well and I sent back a rather non-committal e-mail saying “could do...”

The thing is that I feel distinctly uncomfortable with my father potentially getting to see where I live. I can just imagine that if we had lunch the suggestion would come up that they have a look at where I live and it would be difficult to decline without being offensive.

There is a suspicious part of my mind that wonders if this is some deliberate ploy with exactly that plan in mind. It must have been years since any of my family have been to that restaurant and suddenly when I live almost next door, they plan to eat there.

Since I left home my father has never been inside any of the places that I have lived. He has seen a couple from the outside due to mum dropping stuff off to me on occasion etc and even that I have felt uncomfortable with (dad being there, not mum dropping stuff off). He has never had my home or work phone number and he was only given my mobile number because mum was ill in hospital a couple of years ago and there was no way of getting out of it really.

Part of it is probably a power thing, I have the opportunity to be in control of this situation and so I exercise that power by not letting him see where I live. But it’s not just that, it’s that it is my space, where I want to feel comfortable and at ease and somehow it would feel kind of tainted if he were to be there. I don’t want to hear what he thinks about where I live or for him to have some understanding of things that go on in my life.

All of this because of Sunday lunch. I haven’t even said if I am going yet, hoping that it all just goes away. Speaking of which, it’s time for me to go away as I have to go into London...

Honoured

I’m glad it’s Friday. It’s been a busy week and I need the weekend to finally catch up on some sleep. Not least because I went to a quiz at work last night (at which we did well thanks to my friend K’s bizarre and broad knowledge, but didn’t win) and I got home about midnight. Well past my bedtime.

Of course, it has also been a somewhat depressing week, what with the loss of Gripes (or her blog to be more precise). For which there should really be a national day of mourning – or at least people should sit down with a decent cup of tea and a slice of cake. Whilst there is more to life than blogging (apparently) it’s always a shame when we suffer major casualties. Fuzzy also seems to have disappeared into the ether. It might just be a technical glitch but it looks more terminal. Let’s hope it is only a glitch, as the loss of two great bloggers in the same week would be a crying shame. *sigh*

Anyway… earlier this week we finally wrote to the people we interviewed recently to offer them the jobs we had advertised. One of them accepted, then declined, then my boss spoke to her again and thought he had persuaded her, and then she declined. Then my boss spoke to her again and she accepted. She had also been offered another job but I think she is now joining us...

My boss said “This has never happened to me before. I have never had anyone turn me down for a job”. So it was his mission to keep up his track record. He is a nice enough chap but I suspect came across as either desperate or slightly obsessive. She’ll probably sue us for harassment!

Taking of being obsessive reminds me of my Head of Unit. I have been preparing a briefing pack for a meeting taking place next week. It is a complete waste of my time to do it and I even have to write her response to each of the speakers because she is obviously unable to do spontaneous. I am actually one of the speakers, which she seemed to think I would be terribly honoured to do. It seems that part of that honour includes preparing the briefing pack and sorting out all the admin, which doesn’t sound like the best deal to me. Oh and having to be in work at about 7.30am on Tuesday. I'm truly, truly honoured I tell you...

Note: some blood and gore content

Let me be clear, I am very squeamish. I cannot stand blood, broken bones or anything that alludes to medical related issues.

On Saturday night I watched The Bone Collector. I should have known from the title that this was not the wisest choice but like a moth drawn to a flame there I was watching a film where people get tortured to death and bits of bloody bone get left as a clue. When Denzel Washington slams that chaps hand in the bed mechanism, I was almost beyond hope.

Anyway, there I was leaving work a couple of days ago and having a quick check to see if there was any blog reading material for the tube journey home and I see that WWDD had just put up a new post. “Great” I think “and it’s a really long post too so that will eat up some of my journey.” So, let's move forward twenty minutes and there I am on the tube reading this post . Now the fact that it involves a graphic accident involving public transport might be seen as ironic given where I was when I was reading it, but the effect on me was rather telling. Descriptions of gashes in legs, including the fact that the bone was visible was too much for me. I could feel myself beginning to feel a little grey, but I kept on reading because I did actually want to know what happened. Let me tell you, there were a couple of occasions where I wasn’t quite sure whether I was going to make it to the end – of either the post or my journey. Do you ever get a kind of tingling feeling in your hands when you see something that disturbs you? It’s the feeling you get sometimes before fainting (not that I can think of an occasion where I have actually fainted). Well, I was getting that feeling.

When I did get to the end of the post, I was tempted to sit there with my head in my hands in the hope that somehow getting the blood flow back to my head might help, but my brain kept going back to the thought of being able to see the bone in someone’s leg. You know you shouldn’t think about it, but your mind wanders back anyway...

So then I decided to look at the newspaper I had with me to try and put my mind on something else and the story I turn to is about some bloke who suddenly coughs up a nail that he was accidentally shot with about thirty years ago. What is going on?? Suffice to say that did not help and I returned to trying to blank my mind of all medical related images. Fortunately I did finally get myself back to sanity in time to walk home but that was definitely a night to need to clear my head on the walk home...

Once I was on the train going into work and a bloke had a nose bleed in front of me. I was standing up and he was sitting down and I could just about cope with the sight of the blood, until, he started to swallow it… At that point I could feel myself start to feel ill. I broke out into a cold sweat and had to grip the pole I was standing next to really tightly because I knew I would just be on the floor if I didn’t. I really wanted to sit down but he was the most obvious person to ask and it just didn’t seem right it ask him - and I wasn’t sure I could speak anyway. When I got to my stop I managed to get off the train and then had to take a bit of time to recover my composure. In the grand scheme of things it was nothing, but that tell you how pathetic I am about such things.

I just cannot stand blood and gore. At work I do various fire warden type things but just cannot train to be a first aider because I know that I would pass out if I actually had to deal with anyone. It’s just not the job for me...

So some level of warning - perhaps rating the blood and gore factor of a post - would be appreciated. You wouldn’t want me to pass out on the tube, now would you?

Stay You

Time to come up with another song and I was trying to think of a more cheery song than the ones I have mentioned of late. It is actually far easier for me to come up with songs that have a sad tinge to them though and so while I will try and put in some that are a bit more upbeat, I can’t promise. Having said that I have thought of a song I like that for me is a bit more cheerful, but it is also a song that most people will never have heard of.

I really like the song ‘Stay You’ by Wood. It’s a song that is about being yourself and somebody thinking it’s really great that you are exactly who you are. I like that it’s a song that recognises that everything isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t matter because that is what makes the person who they are. It’s a song that says “just be yourself” and I really like that about it.

The song kind of exudes a confidence that I really like and the combination of the words and the music can lift my mood - and I can have a good sing-along to it too.

I love the way you speak
And I love the way you swear
I love the way you walk around with your head held in the air
I love the way your words move
And I love the way you drive
I love the way you're scared of people, scared to be alive

Stay - stay you that's the toughest thing to do
Stay - stay you that's the toughest thing to do

I love the way you dress up on a Saturday night
I love the way you never speak until it feels just right
I love the way you're spending all your money on yourself
I love the way you answer the phone and pretend you're somebody else

Stay - stay you that's the toughest thing to do

And now I don't want to talk about the things you overcame
By dragging up the past I'll put you through it all again
I've got the greatest admiration for the way that you got through it
Couldn't ask nobody else to do it better than you do it

Stay - stay you .......

Telling Secrets

I like the blog PostSecret. If you don’t know what it is then basically people send in postcards and reveal some secret about their life, confess something, say something naughty they did once and so on. Then over the course of the following week people e-mail in comments about them and some of the comments are posted on the site as well. Last week very much had a Valentine’s theme and lots of people seemed to send in postcards that were of the human organ rather than the more artistic impression that normally appears on the front of cards declaring undying love. I am very squeamish so that wasn’t ideal for me!

Maybe I am just really nosy and so it appeals from that point of view. But, I like that people send things in and are sometimes really creative or choose great pictures. I really liked this postcard this week. I liked the picture and the caption that went with it “My wildest dream is to find happiness in my every day life”.

Given my very unexciting life, if I ever sent something in it would probably be along the lines of “I had an extra chocolate digestive with my cup of tea today” (if that postcard ever does appear there, I’m going to be your prime suspect now…) but you never know, they might get a whole flurry of e-mails in response saying “I was so relieved to see that postcard. I too had an extra biscuit today. I’m so glad that I’m not the only one.” I like to feel that I am in touch with where people are at...

Losing my marbles

I think I am beginning to lose my marbles. I went to give someone a hand with some stuff yesterday, except as it turned I was a month early. A whole month! Oops. It was useful for me to be there anyway, but I could have got up a bit later had I realised.

I still seem to not be getting as much sleep as I need and I am back on call again this week so that doesn’t help. I really need at least eight hours and can cope for a couple of days on less than that, but that fuzzy feeling you get in your head when you haven’t got enough sleep is horrible. I have a friend who gets one to two hours of sleep a night and constantly feels like that. I don’t know how she copes.

I also am not really up to speaking when I get up in the morning. I don’t normally have any caffeine until I get into the office and don’t find it very easy to be coherent. To be honest just don’t really want to say anything at all until I have drunk a cup of tea (and caught up on some blog reading). My landlady is really chatty in the morning and often attempts conversation while I am in the kitchen eating my breakfast. I think it would be too rude to ask her to stop talking to me, but I just want to operate on auto-pilot until I get on the tube and then doze until I get into the office.

A couple of years ago I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I wanted to go to the loo. The next thing I knew I was lying face down on my bedroom floor in a lot of pain. I think I must have got out of bed to go to the loo and fallen back to sleep while I was walking to my bedroom door. I ended up with a massive bruise on one of my legs and did something really painful to all the muscles in my neck. Because I hadn’t realised I was falling, I didn’t put my hands out to break my fall and the consequences were particularly painful. I still managed to go into work but every evening could hardly move my head and lay on the sofa and took painkillers. So it seems I can’t always stay awake long enough to go to the toilet. I think that is probably very weird, particularly as I was entirely sober…

Travelling on the underground

I spent most of yesterday at my sister’s house apart from me going into London briefly. At one point I was at London Bridge station which is on the Jubilee line extension, so it has permanent barriers along the edge of the platform with doors that slide open when the train has come to a stop. While I was standing waiting for a train, a child was asking his dad why there were barriers and his dad replied, in all seriousness “It’s to stop people with mental illnesses from pushing people under trains”. Erm, right because that happens all the time on the tube.

Admittedly I can think of one instance, a few years ago, where someone who was mentally disordered deliberately pushed someone under a train. But did this man really think that London Underground went to all that expense just to stop people being pushed under trains? Also, what does it tell this child about people who are mentally ill? Probably most people wouldn’t think anything much of what he said but I have done quite a lot of work on mental disorder and unravelling the myths from the reality was quite some task and I did think it was a bit of an unhelpful answer for the man to give.

Anyway, don’t be paranoid about travelling on the tube, there aren’t loads of people waiting to push you under trains - unless you fail to queue properly or try to board before people have got off the train. But to be honest you deserve what you get if you are foolhardy enough to attempt either of those. The other instance where some instant punishment should be given happened on the way home last night. There was a chap who was sitting in the same carriage as me who was busily clipping his fingernails. I could just hear a constant clipping sound and had to turn up the volume on my radio to try and drown it out. Most unpleasant.

It has been a pretty good weekend so far. I am feeling remarkably mellow and relaxed, despite being really tired because my sister’s cats kept waking me up on Friday night. It’s always nice to see my sister, and we get on well even though we are incredibly different. That probably helps in some ways though, as we have never been in competition with each other. We don’t even look alike. Most people can’t believe we are even related. After my sister got married, I was there when the photographer came round to show the photo proofs and she asked if we actually had the same parents. We assured her that we did, I am sure our parents would have mentioned it if they had some legitimate way to disown me!

Oh and I have a new song that keeps going through my head. It’s “Love is in the Air” (which it isn’t). Fortunately I like the song but I blame 30-Something for this current earworm. Or maybe my brain knows something that I don’t...

The Man from the Ministry

It seems that my power over young children may have waned. I have previously mentioned that young children seem to find me fascinating and often end up watching me when I am speaking. Well it seems this may no longer be the case. I was looking after my nephew last night and half way through eating his dinner he fell asleep right there in his high chair. There I was chatting away to him (he is only 11 months old, so is kind of a captive audience. You have to make the most of them not being able to speak) and he fell asleep. Admittedly he was sitting there staring at me immediately before lapsing into unconsciousness but I suspect that he was willing me to stop talking so that he could doze off undisturbed.

I think I may just generally be a bad aunt. I had to change his nappy and put him to bed and managed to somehow remove his dirty nappy and get it stuck to his foot. I think maybe I need to go back to aunt training school.

Anyway, this isn’t going to turn into one of those blogs which gives a blow by blow account of some child’s life. I think we can safely conclude that I am a bit of a rubbish aunt and highlighting this on a regular basis is not going to do much for my street cred. Not that I actually have any street cred…

On other matters, on one of my wanders through the weird wide web, I realised the BBC news website is doing a tribute to Public Information Films, which is kind of strange as last Saturday I mentioned one of those films that really scared. Anyway, if you used to watch those films then it might bring back a few horrifying memories. Do you remember the one on the dangers of electricity sub-stations?

I had totally forgotten that there used to be one on the dangers of rabies. After watching that film, I was worried that if I went anywhere near an animal in another country that I was probably going to get rabies and die. I remember going to Italy when I was quite young and there was a small dog at the hotel we were staying at. I really wanted to stroke it but thought it might be fatal to do so - and when it actually licked my hand I’m surprised I didn’t draw up my last will and testament.

It might not be entirely unreasonable to question how accurate the films were if they just seemed to fill most children with absolute horror, but I never have caught rabies or been electrocuted whilst playing Frisbee and maybe that is entirely thanks to watching those films. Thank you Man from the Ministry

Compliments

The office I work in is a friendly place, I think a lot of it probably comes from the ‘blitz mentality’ we have formed by having to cope with our Head of Unit. We often end up chatting about various things and this week was no exception.

I am not a huge fan of EastEnders but my landlady likes it and so if I am in the room I will watch it. In the office we were talking about a couple of bits that had been going on (Gripes says it all about one of the story lines *shudder*) and mentioned about Pauline Fowler getting married. I said “If even Pauline Fowler can pull, then at least it gives me hope”.

One of the people in my team turned round and in a rather furious tone said “Don’t you dare compare yourself to Pauline Fowler, she’s really awful”. I was slightly taken aback by the vehemence of this comment but laughed and said that I thought in there was perhaps hidden a slight compliment to me. However, we decided that we were starting from such a low standard that it didn’t really prove very much at all. But there you have it folks, I am maybe marginally more appealing than Pauline Fowler. Now I just need to see if I can get the script to my own life to come up trumps.

I might actually have to do some work...

I am now the owner of a shiny new laptop. Well, possibly not entirely new but work has now given me some technology that is slightly more compact than the laptop I had previously and not entirely steam driven.

I had to go on a course this morning to work out how to use it. It is *much* more complicated than just switching it on and being able to play on the internet. Erm, I mean doing some very important work – and given that I have now lost all of my favourites in IE, I might actually have to do some work. *Grumble*

We were not a very good group of students. The trainer kept saying in a slightly exasperated tone “Is that *actually* what I asked you to do?” and we would all sheepishly reply in chorus “No, miss”. We had to learn about synchronising wiht our desktop computers, doing stuff offline and so on. Things that I already know how to do, but they have managed to set it up totally differently on the new laptops and I just know that I am going to keep losing my work somewhere, as there are so many different ways to dial in which means you have to press a totally different combination of keys to get it to work as you might expect.

There are also lots more logins and passwords to learn. One login and password to get it to even switch on properly, another login and password to log in and yet another password (this time a number - four digits of which you have to memorise and the remaining six digits regenerate every 60 seconds) and then you can finally get into it.

So the conclusion is that it is far better to use it only for the purpose of looking on the internet. If I don’t do any work on it then I can’t possibly lose the work then can I? Sounds perfectly logical to me.

Taking the long route home

I live about a 20 minute walk from the station, but there is also a bus route that goes from almost outside my front door to the station. In the morning I would pretty much always get the bus because I am not generally awake enough to want to even think about walking it.

But on the way home this week, even if the bus has been there I have been walking home. It’s not some health kick, there’s just something in my head that needs a bit of space and time, and getting home quickly on the bus just doesn’t appeal. It’s not that I don’t want to go home, I just need some time to myself and that walk home seems about the only time that can be guaranteed. No interruptions, no hearing other people’s conversations just time inside my own head, maybe often not really thinking about anything at all.

I do feel as though I have stuff on my mind though, stuff that needs a bit of time to form into proper thoughts. I’m not depressed (although I can do that big time), more pensive. I am kind of wondering where my thinking is going to take me. Time will tell I guess.

Heaven and Hell

I left for work before the post this morning so obviously I can’t comment on the stack of Valentine’s cards that will be waiting for me when I get home.

I did actually have a very amusing conversation on the phone yesterday about Valentine’s Day when I was changing my house insurance details. The woman at the call centre said “Have any of your other details changed? Are you still single?” and we then started a really funny conversation about how I would have been cut to the quick had she asked me that the following day (i.e. today) and we were both complaining that we thought it unlikely we would get any cards. We ended the conversation by saying we hoped each other would get many cards and bunches of flowers. It was a most bizarre conversation and I just hope she did also remember to change my address...

Actually I also had another really funny conversation yesterday evening. I was talking to my friend S on the phone and I was asking if he was sending his girlfriend a card. He said he was but thought he might have made a slight error in judgement.

He’d seen one card he liked but thought it might not be suitable and then another card he really liked and for some reason decided to buy them both. He did get a strange look from the woman in the shop. Anyway, for a reason he can no longer fathom he then sent one to her anonymously in the post, even disguising his handwriting, and will give the other one to her in person today. I tried to be reassuring but we did conclude that this was a somewhat dubious plan as there are so many ways it could go wrong. What if she doesn’t mention it or thinks it is from someone else? He was feeling a little apprehensive about today. Must find out what happened,

Anyway, I could write a suitably cynical post about the commercialism of the day or bemoan my singleness, but to be honest, to me it is just another day of the year and if I was with someone I would acknowledge the day, but it really is just another day.

However, I feel a few words on the matter may be in order and I shall therefore hand over to CS Lewis

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries... lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell.

I am not a cynic about love and relationships or the highs or the lows that go with them. I think relationships are a mighty fine thing (if you're with the right person) and are worth going through the tough stuff for. If you have cause to share the day with someone even vaguely significant, enjoy.

Guilty pleasures

I was talking to someone at work about the huge amount of money she must spend each week on driving into work. Not only is there the petrol costs of sitting in queues for ages but also the £8 per day congestion charge. That quickly mounts up. But she said to me that it’s her little luxury in life and then said that surely I must have one. I thought about it and couldn’t really think of one. I don’t really have some guilty pleasure that I spend my money on - buying a flat screen television doesn’t count. That was a necessity...

I did used to spend quite a lot of money on books but have tried to cut right back as I just don’t have any space for them. I don’t really like shopping generally and have no particular interest in browsing for clothes and so on. It is a good job that I am not a shopaholic, as I don't have space for anything much at all where I live now.

But I do think I need to find a ‘guilty pleasure’ something that is a bit of a reward to myself, or a pick me up on a bad day. I think maybe it would have to be something food related, partly because I just really like food and any excuse to eat is good. But on a practical level, it is consumed so hopefully wouldn’t take up too much space – although if I consume too much of it, I might end up taking up more space of course. Or maybe some kind of tea type drink. You definitely cannot beat a really good cup of tea (none of those ‘fruit teas’ though which to me is just not tea, but some weird flavoured hot water).

Is that completely uninspired though? Should a guilty pleasure be something more than a cup of tea? Somehow I suspect it should be... I would sometimes have a biscuit with it, when I was feeling particularly daring. Maybe even a chocolate one. I know how to live on the edge.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss

I am now the proud owner of a flat screen TV. Marvellous – and means that when I am freezing in the living room, I can actually go to my bedroom to warm up and watch a bit if TV.

I met up with my friend, L, for dinner last night. I realised I hadn’t seen her for a few months which is surprising as we normally meet up every few weeks. L was my first boss when I started work and we stayed in touch for a bit after we stopped working together, lost contact for a couple of years and then got in touch again about two years ago.

Last night we were chatting through some stuff that has been going round my head of late, trying to work out what it means. We even talked about blogging but fortunately she didn’t ask for the details. I am not sure how I would feel about someone I knew reading it.

Anyway, we talked through various bits of what’s been going on in my head which helped to bring some clarity and made me realise that it has been a bit of a weight on my shoulders. I am not angst ridden about it all, I just know that I have to work some stuff out because I don’t deal well with being in some sort of limbo. The problem is that in knowing chances are that I would never be able to do anything about it all. That I would think it all through so that I am no longer in this dilemma, but instead would be in a place where I will never get what I really want. Surely we are meant to work things out to find a bit of peace and yet by doing so I run a real risk of not finding that at all.

So I shall plod on through it all in my usual way and see where my brain ends up. They say that knowledge is power but in my case I think I would be better off deciding ignorance is bliss.

There's nothing to fear...

I seem to have come across dogs on public transport a few times this week. Twice on the tube and once on a bus. I don’t think it is particularly common for animals to be on public transport, or certainly not at the peak hours I normally travel at.

Anyway, on the bus on the way home last night a woman got on with a really big dog and walked to the back of the bus. The woman sitting behind me leapt out of her seat and told the woman that she was really scared of dogs. The woman totally ignored her and the now very scared woman sat back down but then moved further forward in the bus to get away from the dog and kept glancing back to see where the dog was. She really was terrified.

I can’t say that I can relate to a fear of dogs or animals generally for that matter, although if someone got on the bus with a lion then I would probably be quite scared of that. However, I do seem to have a few fears/ phobias of my own.

The only animal type one I can think of is spiders. I really hate spiders although I can tolerate them a bit more than in the past. When I was really little I woke up during the night once and there was a spider on my pillow and ever since then I have had this real fear of spiders. There is some statistic that says we eat something like three spiders each year while we are asleep, so I am right to be scared.

I can put up with money spiders but the bigger and darker spiders are the more scared I am. Once when I lived with evil landlady I found the biggest spider in the bath I have ever seen. I was that scared that I could feel myself starting to shake. I did just want to shut the door and hope it would go away but the problem with that plan was that a) the only toilet in the house was in the bathroom and b) if it disappeared, where had it gone? It might have been lurking in the shadows waiting to jump out on me. Evil landlady had just gone away for two weeks so I was kind of stuck for options.

I do actually think this is not a nice thing to have done but in the end all I could think to do was kill it with boiling water. So that’s what I did and was then left with this huge dead spider in the bath and had to try and wash it down the plug hole because I still couldn’t stand the thought of coming into contact with it. However because it had such long legs they got wrapped round the plug hole and in the end I just had to put one of those hair catcher things over the top and try and ignore it. Every time I had a shower I just kept thinking about how there was a dead spider very near my feet. I just can’t stand spiders dead or alive. Ick!

Another phobia is gold cutlery. I just really struggle to use it to eat. Sometimes they have gold cutlery in restaurants and it kind of freaks me out. I think it’s because it is quite hard to keep it really shiny and when it looks tarnished it feels like I am using dirty cutlery. In fact cutlery that it is slightly damaged or that has very short tines on the fork I also have to force myself to use and have to focus on the food instead of the implements.

I also hate walking across manhole covers. Partly that is just practical because if it is wet then they are easy to slip on. But when I was about eight, I was playing in a field and trod on a manhole cover that I didn’t realise was broken and I fell and one of my legs disappeared down the hole. Since then I have never been too keen on stepping on them.

Another phobia is of people cracking their knuckles or that thing people sometimes do when they crack each of their fingers. It makes me want to leave the room. When a friend was doing it once and I had to ask him to stop. It made me feel really uncomfortable and slightly faint.

I have a phobia about walking across railway tracks as well. I realise in many ways that is sensible. In a contest between me and a train I think it’s safe to conclude I would come off second best, but I think the root of it lies elsewhere... When I was at primary school we used to have to watch public information films like Superman teaching us the evils of smoking and learning about the Green Cross Code. One of the films we watched was about the dangers of playing on the railway tracks. My memory of it is that there were these teenagers taking a short cut along the railway tracks and they hear a train coming and go to move off the tracks and one of them drops the trainers he is carrying and the laces get stuck in the tracks. He is trying to free his football boots and the train hits him and cuts his legs off and his sister screams so much that she is unable to speak again and other really, really bad things happen. The film ends with the legless boy lying in bed and his now defunct football boots hanging on the door. Can you see why I would have this fear and have never been tempted to go on the railway tracks and think it is just plain dangerous to go anywhere near them??

Anyway, if you have various phobias you might take comfort that, hopefully, they are not as extreme as the ones here or that you are not this person. The oddest phobias have been highlighted here, although to be honest most of the ones on the site are pretty odd. I would also like to point out how brave I was linking to this site because there is actually a picture of a spider on the homepage and I had to quickly scroll back up whenever I scrolled too far down.

I had never realised there are quite so many things to fear until I looked at that site. I was particularly concerned by the person whose fear is of being shot by a spider during the night. Now I have a whole new level of things to be afraid of...

Tedium and ravings

I read an article on the BBC today about blogging and have to say I was slightly perplexed by it. It just didn’t match with my perception of a lot of the blogs out there – not that I somehow have an amazing insight into the world of blogging.

Maybe I am completely off beam and just operate in a very limited world of blogging, but I read a fair few, a number of which don’t appear on the side menu (not sure why…) and just generally keep an eye on what is out there, and this article just seemed to be at odds with what I have seen.

Anyway, I sent the author a brief e-mail, saying that I thought his article didn’t match with my, admittedly limited, perception. He replied and said that he was just picking out what was relevant to his in the mainstream media, which is fair enough, but to me the article doesn’t differentiate between the types of blogs that are out there and instead suggests that the purpose of pretty much all of them is to keep the media and big business in check.

I think part of the appeal of blogging to many people is that it can be whatever the author wants it to be and criticising big business or appraising the accuracy of items in the news doesn’t necessarily feature all that high on a lot of people’s agendas.

However, I will leave you with some words from the article.

“[Blogs] are seen as the rantings and ravings either of the unbalanced or the tedious”.

This is probably difficult to argue with for my blog, but if you are also a blogger it is, of course, entirely untrue in your case...

Time keeping

I have to say that I found writing yesterday’s post strangely cathartic. Maybe it was a way to empty my head a bit instead of letting myself get weighed down by the winter blues. Anyway, it helped, whatever the reason. So we’ll see what other songs I can dig up from the recesses of my mind in due course.

Anyway on other matters, my Head of Unit gets more annoying - please let it be true that she is leaving! Yesterday morning she said to me that the section I work in needs to be staffed from 8am. We already have people on call out of hours and I have no idea what on earth cannot wait until 9am anyway. My personal thoughts are that it is actually that she wants to be able to ask whoever is in to do things for her. As she cannot use a computer or switch on her own TV, I think it is an excuse to get someone running round after her until her secretary gets in. Someone in my team usually gets in at 7.30am (out of choice and then goes home really early) but is on leave for a month and I think this is my Head of Unit’s way of getting someone else to be her dogsbody.

However the thing that really made my jaw drop this week was when someone in my section was summoned from the toilet because our Head of Unit wanted to speak to her. C was in the toilet and someone was sent in to knock on the cubicle door and ask her to go back to the office. Unbelievable! Now we can’t even have a wee without being disturbed. Instead of going straight back to the office C went and made a cup of tea and then wandered back in. Good on her, I say.

My landlady is actually away this weekend so I have the place to myself. That’s quite handy as it gives me the chance to turn the heating up. I live in a really old house and whilst my bedroom is generally nice and warm the living room is extremely cold. It’s not that my landlady is tight with the heating I think she is just used to the temperature, although she does often have an open fire at the weekend. However, the cat seems to keep stalking me, which might be because I cooked some fish for dinner last night. In fact I found the cat licking the plate I had defrosted the fish on. It’s a good job I spotted this because I was going to eat my dinner off the same plate.

I actually have no idea what I am doing this weekend at the moment. I had invited a friend over for lunch on Sunday but he hasn’t replied and beyond that I hadn’t really thought about what to do. I have a few bits in mind though, including maybe going out to buy a nice flat screen TV...

It's the thought that counts

Someone in my team sent round a birthday card for us all to sign, as a reminder in her calendar had told her it was H’s birthday. So we all signed the card and someone got her a box of chocolates. When H opened the card this morning she was somewhat surprised, as her birthday is actually in May. It seems that the reminder was in fact about someone totally different. She appreciated the thought anyway and I guess it’s better to be early than late. We got to eat the chocolates so it was a bit of a result really.

I had to give a talk this morning, only I was reliant on someone else’s slides that I didn’t even have a copy of, so there was a certain amount of ‘winging it’ involved. I ended up talking the hind legs off a donkey and more than filled my time slot. I have no idea what I was talking about for all that time, but I have to back shortly to give the same talk again and I’ll see if the donkey manages to lose its other two legs.

Happy Days

For some unknown reason I was in a remarkably good mood yesterday. When I was walking into work yesterday I stopped and offered directions to someone who looked decidedly lost. That’s right, a Londoner being friendly and offering directions and not just begrudgingly giving them when asked! One of my colleagues even commented on how happy I looked. I have no idea where that really good mood came from but it was nice to feel quite jolly, particularly as it was a bit of a miserable day weather-wise. Perhaps it was a sugar rush from thinking about Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Today I have returned to a tired and subdued state more suited to the time of year.

We interviewed three more people yesterday and that went ok. One of them was very good and so I imagine we will offer her one of the jobs. One of the other candidates didn’t really do herself justice but really desperately wanted the job. I feel rather mean that we are just not going to be able to offer it to her and would like to give her extra marks for just being incredibly enthusiastic. We would have beaten that out of her very quickly though. I am glad that I can just write to her to break the bad news.

The good news though is that someone said to me that apparently our Head of Unit has indicated she plans to leave. It seems she has decided that it is time to move on, as her time is done here. I e-mailed my friend K to tell her and she e-mailed me back and said “when are you going to accept that the universe always has a way of putting these things right”, which made me smile. Let's hope this is the light at the end of the tunnel...

You don't have to tell me I need to get a life...

Well, should you have ever wondered if I have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on my hands, let me officially give you proof that indeed I do.

A while ago I mentioned Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and that one of the things I like about them is that they are only available for a certain part of the year. Someone commented that they are available all year, which then kind of confused me. This piece of information sat at the back of my mind and the other day I finally remembered to e-mail Cadbury to ask them. I know, I know... it’s unbelievably sad to do that but I have always been a curious little creature who likes to acquire useless pieces of information and I just needed to know the answer. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, I got an e-mail back from them yesterday, which I assume was from some Oompa Loompa type creature and this said:

“Cadbury’s Creme Egg is produced for the Easter period only and hopefully you should be able to find stocks in the shops and stores from Christmas right through to Easter. Some retailers buy sufficient stocks to extend their sales into the spring, but as with traditional Easter Eggs they are only intended to be on sale for the first few months of the year"

So there you have it. Quite how the Easter period seems to start at Christmas is a bit beyond me but I won’t dwell on that point. I hope you feel well and truly educated. Don’t all rush out and buy one at once.

Interviews

I am about ready to give up on IT altogether and go back to the simpler days of using a quill. Yesterday Blogger was doing strange things and today our computers are very ill at work. Someone accidentally loaded a patch on and it has meant that lots of people are unable to use most of the functions on our computers. Even the internet isn’t working very well. What was the point of coming into work today? Apparently today is the most common day in the whole year for someone to take a sicky. Maybe that is what has happened to our computers. I am not even entirely convinced this post will publish but we’ll find out.

Anyway, the house viewings went ok yesterday. The first house was quite nice and not dissimilar to the house we got gazumped on, apart from being two bedrooms instead of three. The only thing that I wasn’t entirely keen on was the location. There was just something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on that didn’t sit well with me. The second house was very nothingy. We looked round it and felt that there was nothing that really appealed to us about it. It was just very bland. We went for a drink afterwards and chatted about it and we will put the first house on a backburner and see if it grows on us and go back for a second viewing if it does.

The weekend seemed to go by so quickly and I can’t believe it is now the start of another week of work. For once I am meant to be in the office all five days, which is never a good week. Particularly if my Head of Unit is about, and I believe she is this week. However, I have the added fun of interviewing this week. There is one interview today, some more tomorrow and one on Friday. I am interviewing with my boss and I suspect we have very different interviewing techniques and we haven’t even discussed what questions we are going to ask yet. We’ll see if I manage to reduce any of them to tears – or them me.

Oh, and that song is still going round my head...

Blogger is a curious creature

Hmm... not sure what is going on with Blogger at the moment. All of its own accord it reverted yesterday's post back to a draft and promptly removed it from my blog. Are the Blogging police introducing censorship? Anyway I have republished it and we'll see what happens.

House viewings went ok. More on that tomorrow though, as the roast chicken is calling. Not literally of course, as I do like my Sunday lunch to be well and truly dead.

Contracts

That song is still going round in my head and I keep humming it or singing along.

The bridge evening was very civilised, although I am sure you will be disappointed to learn that I wore nothing smarter than a pair of jeans - and a top, obviously, as it wasn’t ‘strip bridge’. In fact it was contract bridge, which is basically whist but you start by placing bids about how many tricks you are going to win and then if you win the contract you then have to fulfil it. Or something like that... I had trouble remembering whose turn it was a lot of the time so anything else was a bit beyond me.

Anyway, today I am off to see a couple of houses. I don’t know any of the details of them as my friend C has arranged them and sent me a text to say where to turn up later. We have seen a lot of houses but they have been rather mixed. There was one we really liked but it was too expensive, which is surprising what with this being London... Most of the others have just not felt like the right place. We want a three bedroom house so that we can rent out the spare room if we want to, but a lot of houses round here have real box rooms as the third bedroom.

Some places we have looked at have been in a real state. One was a nice enough house but the owners had not tidied up at all and there was stuff everywhere. Plates of food, toys, clothes, papers – pretty much anything you can think of. Another house we looked at they hadn’t even bothered to flush the toilet – and they really should have.

We did actually put in an offer on a house back in September which was accepted but we were then gazumped. I remember when the estate agent phoned me to tell me and I just replied “But that’s totally unethical!” as though she was then going to promptly tell the vendor off and make her change her mind. It was a really nice house so we were rather gutted and we haven’t seen anything comparable since. Hopefully the houses today will inspire us.

Then I have to go over to my parents’ to try and return some order to their house, but mum is going to cook some roast chicken, which is my favourite, so that will be good.

Mum is also going to give me hand with moving my TV from the old place. I spoke to a friend last weekend who had agreed to take it and we’d sorted out a plan. I then texted her on Friday night to check it was all still ok and she replied saying she was not busy all weekend. I was decidedly miffed, as it is the final thing I have to move and this is the last weekend I have full access to the house. I couldn’t be bothered to make a fuss, so instead just asked mum if I could store it at their house temporarily.

It does really frustrate me when people back out of a plan. There is a part of me that is like a little kid that just wants to say “But, but you promised”. Obviously there might be circumstances where it cannot be avoided but to me if you agree to do something then you should do what you can to honour it. I suppose I just don’t like letting people down.

I guess that means that contract bridge is not really the game for me because every time I make a contract and don’t fulfil it, I am going to have a terrible sense of guilt at having not done as I had said I would. It’s serious stuff you know.

Fragile

The song ‘Fragile’ by Sting keeps going through my head. I don’t know why but I just keep finding myself humming it or the words going through my head. This has happened several times over the last few days.

Although I don’t think it is the reason it keeps coming to mind, it’s a song that sometimes makes me think back to a time at university. I went back to university one time after the holidays and was told that this chap I knew had killed someone. He had been infatuated with a girl and she had rebuffed him a few times. He then went round to her house to try and talk to her about it and ended up stabbing her to death in a ‘crime of passion’. All rather horrible and he was actually a nice chap (I didn’t know her at all).

I used to go and visit him in prison and he could never quite believe what he had done. We never really spoke about it in any depth, it never seemed quite right to ask him about the details of what had happened, and I knew as much as I needed to through the newspapers anyway. We would just sit there and chat. He was an international student and all his family lived abroad so he wouldn't have got many visitors if I hadn't gone.

They held a memorial service at the university for the girl and they played Fragile as part of the service, which just seemed to sum up what had happened.

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

Signs of Winter

It is freezing in London at the moment. We have even had a little bit of snow. So presumably the Groundhog went back into his burrow yesterday deciding that Spring is actually not just round the corner. Last night I spent most of the evening traipsing about in the cold because I was moving the last of my furniture. It took a very long time as I was moving it to a friend’s house who lives about 15 miles away. My friend C was helping and we did start later than planned as I was helping someone at work prepare for an interview and ended up not leaving work until 6pm and then felt it would be rude not to C a bite to eat before we started. I finally made it home gone 11pm, but at least I am pretty much there now.

My tiredness mixed with being really cold, could explain why I tripped and fell over while I was walking up the escalator at the tube station this morning. You would think that I would be reasonably well practiced at how to use steps, even if they are moving, but seemingly not as practiced as I had thought. I have a somewhat sore knee now. However, at least my effort was not on the same scale as a woman I saw fall over on an escalator a couple of months ago. She somehow managed to fall over backwards and ended up lying on her back with her head pointing toward the bottom of the escalator. She was rather a large lady and her friend was trying to help her up but it proved quite a challenge. I was actually on the escalator travelling in the opposite direction so couldn’t really help, but as far as I know she didn’t get sucked into the mechanism at the top.

I have a fairly busy weekend ahead. Not least because it seems I am going to learn to play bridge tomorrow night. My landlady has a few people coming round and one of them is going to teach people how to play. She invited me to join them so I figured I would give it a go. I don’t actually even know the principle behind bridge let alone a basic idea of what it involves, but hopefully I will pick it up. I seem to think it’s the kind of game where you are meant to sip sherry though. I’d better dig out the twin set and pearls.

Food glorious food

So I made it to Birmingham, gave a talk this morning, stayed on long enough to eat some free food and then headed home.

The last few days seem to have involved much consumption of food. On Monday I had lunch in a cafe. I had some gammon which was about the size of half a pig, accompanied by a fried egg, pineapple, chips, peas, mushrooms and tomatoes. I had forgotten quite how generous they were there. While I was eating that a friend called and invited me over for dinner that night and so I had another nice meal.

Yesterday I ate my lunch at work, then I got fed on the train (I can travel first class with work, so I have to get value for money), then had a three course meal in the evening. Today I had a cooked breakfast, then a reasonable sized lunch and then ate on the train again. It’s the free food - I just can’t turn it down.

Throughout my schooldays and when I was at university I was very overweight and it was only about 6 or 7 years ago that I turned into the fine figure of a woman that I am today (ok there might be a slight exaggeration somewhere in that sentence). The weird thing about getting slimmer was that it took no effort whatsoever. One day someone commented to me that I was looking slimmer and I realised that this was in fact correct. I had slightly changed what I was eating, for some reason I now can’t remember, and instantly began to lose weight. I never consciously went on a diet but because of the progress that I had made I began to eat more healthily but always insisted on eating really nice food. I know lots of people struggle to lose weight but somehow it just came very easily to me.

However, if the current trend continues I will be returning to my previous form. I do now have a far longer walk to the station, which is a good thing based on current evidence. I read somewhere once that our bodies remember the biggest they once were and are constantly trying to return to that. I think I may be trying to assist other people in their efforts by eating their share as well.