Improvement

I have decided that I really need to improve my handwriting. I often have to handwrite notes for my team and sometimes have to then translate my handwriting for them. I would have made a great doctor, if it wasn’t for the blood and gore involved in that.

I was looking at this website and that seems to suggest that a problem for a lot of people is that they “write with their fingers” rather than with their arm and shoulder. I am certainly someone who does that because when I write it is my hand that does all the work and my arm and shoulder remain pretty still. I have also sometimes wondered if I am actually left handed, despite using my right had to write. I am very ambidextrous and do a lot of things with my left hand and have always just assumed that I am right handed. I am not proposing learning to write with my left hand, but it could explain a lot if I have been using the wrong hand. Or perhaps I am just clutching at straws!

Anyway, I think I am going to make some effort to improve my handwriting and see if it makes it more legible.

I am not going to be about here tomorrow. I am away with work on some managers thing that none of us want to go on. I shall return on Thursday.

Sweet

We spent this weekend doing various things for G’s birthday. On Saturday, we went for a walk on Hampstead Heath, which was not ideal as the tube wasn’t running properly so it was quite a trek to get there and the walk in the book we have seemed to keep taking us close to very busy roads, but it was pleasant enough. We were aching by the end because we covered several miles. It was a nice day though and it was good to go for a walk in the sunshine.

The day had actually started very early because the freeholder turned up at 7.30am and started doing various very loud things, like putting various together with a noisy electric screwdriver and digging very loudly in the garden. I don’t think either of those things seem as though they would be very loud, but believe me they were. I bumped into the freeholder when we got back from the walk and he said that new tenants are moving in next week, so we’ll see how that goes. He also said that he would miss all the work that had been going on. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from, in no uncertain terms, telling him that we certainly wouldn’t.

Anyway, yesterday we went to my parents’ for lunch and my sister and nephew were there as well. My dad was in such a bad mood all day, and it seems he has been for several days, so we just ignored him. Mum had made a really nice lunch and had got some champagne and had baked G a cake, so that was all good. My nephew thinks G is absolutely great and had written a very sweet birthday card saying that G is his best friend. Awwwww...

Slow

If I am tired, I am grumpy. If I am hungry, I am grumpy. Therefore if I am tired and hungry, I am very grumpy. We went out for dinner last night with my family and we had quite possibly the worst service ever. We got there at 7pm, they didn’t take our order until 7.40pm, starters turned up just before 8pm, the main course at 8.30pm (my four year old nephew getting his rather later than anyone else), desserts about an hour later. The waitress walked off before taking the menus when we first ordered, so we had to collect them up ourselves. We had to point to exactly what we wanted on the menu and explain to her any additional details she needed to note down e.g. if there was a choice of accompaniments. We finally left the restaurant at 10pm. We were lucky to escape. Fortunately we were using Tesco vouchers to pay for the majority of the meal or else it would have been even more galling to have to pay for the evening.

We did get a free bottle of wine and lots of profuse apologies, but I think we can safely say we will never go back again – and this was Prezzo which is a reputable chain. Even G, who s is normally very placid and polite (well relatively polite!) got very annoyed and had a word with the manager. That tells you it was a bad night.

Anger

I have started a new book. It is non-fiction – The Angry Island by AA Gill. So far, it spears that he was born in Scotland lived there for the first year of his life and then moved to England. His book is about the English, and it seems he is not really a fan.

Whilst I am English, I was born and raised in England, if someone asked me what nationality I am, I would say I was British and am not a massive fan of knocking the various parts of the Union. I am not sure how I will get on with this book and might have to abandon it if it makes me angry, which would be an ironic turn of events given the subject of the book.

Pace

Yesterday the bad weather was just what I needed. For a variety of reasons, I just needed to step away from my desk and go and clear my head. It was pouring with rain at lunch time, but I went out anyway. I walked in the wind and the rain and walked at a pretty fast pace, not because of the weather but because the pace and the rhythm were what I needed. After 40 minutes of walking in the rain, the world seemed a better place and I went back to my desk and saw things from a new perspective.

I bumped into G on the tube on the way home. We are both reading books of almost identical length – about 560 pages each. We therefore were in a race to the finish, despite there being no real purpose to this at all. Although, having said that I am not a fan of the book I have been reading so it has been a good incentive to get it over and done with. Who won the “race”? Well, I shall leave you to work that out for yourself.

Timing

It is G’s birthday at the weekend. I have already sorted out some tickets for a concert, so to that degree I have sorted out a birthday present. However, the concert isn’t until November, so I feel it is a little ungenerous to not give something that will be for now. Delayed gratification is not always a bad thing, but this might be taking it to an extreme. The only problem is that G is seriously lacking in present ideas. The main one at the moment is an egg timer… although I have suggested a couple of DVDs that might be suitable.

Anyway, I went to see if I could find an egg timer at the House of Fraser yesterday and was wandering around the home wares department and there was this man who was wondering around with a woman and it seemed that he had just bought a one bedroom flat. I couldn’t quite tell what their relationship was. At one point, before studying them at all, I thought they might be mother and son, but then when I looked at them properly they seemed to be much nearer in age than that, but I wasn’t convinced that they were a couple – or at least I hope they weren’t. The woman would suggest items for his flat and the man would just reply and make some really jokey, but rude in that it was always putting her down or a dig at her taste, comment in response. In the end I wanted to ask the woman why she put up with someone talking to her like that. What he said was way beyond a joke and it was like she could say nothing without her belittling her in some way. But she seemed oblivious to it. Nobody needs someone like that man in their life constantly running them down in the name of humour. I was so unimpressed. I also didn’t manage to find an egg timer.

Change

For once, I cooked this weekend. I made a very nice lasagne (with meat!) on Saturday, which we also ate yesterday. It was very good, even though I do say so myself. I also made breakfast on Sunday (bacon on soda bread. Nice…). Seeing as I don’t normally do any of the cooking, I rather exerted myself this weekend.

On Friday the big boss told us that he is leaving. This was rather sad news and I will be sorry to see him go. He has been very good to me over the years, including helping to arrange for me to go back on a secondment last year, which, all things considered, has been very good. So there are changes ahead and it will be interesting to see who the new big boss turns out to be.

You'll Do

We had a very nice dinner last night and it was a really good evening. The food was excellent and the staff were such pleasant people to deal with, and they really helped to make it a nice evening.

We have a fairly quiet weekend planned. I might actually do the cooking for once this weekend, which I think is what I have agreed to do instead of going out for a meal for Valentine’s Day (only because we have been eating out so much recently and might explode). I think that might be about as romantic as I get, as it is not really my forte! If Valentine’s Day really isn’t your thing then this is the perfect place for you. I did ask G if it would be ok to send the one that says “You’ll do”. It seems it would not.

Due

There seems to be yet more cold weather on the way. I did manage to find a way of making myself going out at lunch time yesterday. I might up with someone I used to work with and we went for a walk for an hour. I hadn’t seen him for ages, so it was good to catch up. But today, more forecast is (maybe) due, but it all depends on when you catch the weather forecast as to what is likely to happen, of course.

Tonight we are going out for a nice dinner. I think it must be quite a posh restaurant as they phoned me yesterday morning to confirm the reservation. I can’t think of a time when I have had to do that before. I am not that keen on places that are very posh, so I am hoping that this is going to be a pleasant experience. We are using Toptable points, so aren’t actually paying for the meal, so I guess that will help to ease any “pain”.

Amused

G phoned me somewhat red faced (or as red faced as it is possible to be on the phone). G had been in meetings at work all day and spending time with various people doing work related things. It was only at 4pm that G’s jumper was identified as being inside out, having been so all day, including in front of some very senior person from work. I am not sure that G would have been able to get away with it as a fashion statement. I was very supportive and at one point was crying with laughter while G told me.

Organisation

We seem to be eating out a lot at the moment. We have Toptable points to use up and Tesco restaurant vouchers and G’s birthday in a couple of weeks (for which I am actually hoping that my mum will do the cooking and bake a cake...). Given that the weather has not been great of late and this seems to be taking a turn for the worse, this is not an ideal combination. I need to get more exercise!

Tonight I am doing some more volunteering. I wasn’t actually certain that it was going ahead because I hadn’t been sent any paperwork for it. Scary man finally sent it to me at 8pm yesterday. I don’t think I will be challenging him about his organisational skills though. I’m not that brave.

Uncharitable

Yesterday I spoke to my friend who had the rather large baby and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was rather a traumatic birth and what has followed hasn’t been that great either. She is normally a very positive person, so it was rather strange to hear her sound rather low. Anyway, I’ll give her a call later in the week to see how things are going.

I was feeling a bit bugged about something at work last week. All of the managers had put in some money to buy drinks for people at the work Christmas meal. There was money left over at the end and our boss sent us an e-mail to say that there was quite a sizeable amount of money for each of us to reclaim. One of the other managers replied and said to give hers to charity. Then another manager replied and said to do the same with his and the next day another manager said to do the same with hers. Each person copying everyone else in. There are some who have not replied at all, one of whom is me. I was rather miffed by this though. I feel that it has created a certain social pressure for everyone to say that the money should be given to this particular charity, and I don’t feel that my giving to a particular charity (or not) is anyone else’s business. But I also don’t like public shows of ‘generosity’ like that (not that I am doubting the sincerity of the gesture). For myself, I rather believe in a “giving in secret” philosophy because if you do otherwise it can call into doubt whether you are giving for the sake of the giving itself or for some other form of ‘reward’ e.g. recognition from others. So it rather irks me to see it being done in this way. I gave the money for the purpose of being used for drinks for colleagues and now find that I will have to ‘break ranks’ to reclaim the money that was not used. So sometime this week I shall attempt to get the money back, but without looking like some complete miser. Bah humbug.

Pain

Yesterday was an interesting day.

When I got to work there was an e-mail from a friend’s husband to say that their baby had been born. He weighed just under 11lbs. I’m not sure that I want to hear the story of that birth…

I then phoned to ask for an update on my pension, as I don’t think I have had an update in years. This was both a good thing and a bad thing. It highlighted that they had managed to ‘mislay’ 13 years of my pension contributions. But they are now going to look for them – and hopefully find them.

After lunch I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and this woman that I hardly know (I might have said hello to her once or twice) started to tell me about how a couple of days ago she got a small insect bite when she was in the garden and it had turned into a massive infection. THEN, she undid her trousers and pulled them down a bit and proceeded to show me the infection. It did indeed look very, very nasty and I would never have understood how bad it was without seeing it, but there was nothing right about that scenario! I really need to stop asking people how they are.

Score

Recently a contestant* on Mastermind got the lowest score ever. He got four points on his specialist subject (Ataturk) and one point on general knowledge. All things being equal (i.e. not being recorded for TV or sitting in the back chair under the glare of the lights), I would have scored more on the general knowledge (but probably nothing on his specialist subject!), but he has my sympathies nonetheless and I don’t think I would have put in a particularly stunning performance either.

Anyway here were his questions:

Q: Which insects got their name from the ancient superstition that they crawl into the ears of sleeping people?

Q: One of the taglines of which 2001 blockbuster film was "December 7th 1941, it was a Sunday morning"?

Q: In Greek mythology what did Prometheus steal from the gods? He was punished for this by being chained to a rock where an eagle ate his constantly replenished liver.

Q: Pierre is the capital of which American state?

Q: What do people suffering from trichotillomania have a compulsion to do?

Q: The American ambassador's London residence Winfield House was sold to the United States for $1 by which chain store heiress?

Q: The "Heroic" in a Flat Major Opus 53 is one of 16 of Chopin's works in the form of which dance?

Q: In women's gymnastics, the uneven bars on which swinging routines are performed are also known by what name?

Q: Whose 1770 poem The Deserted Village describes the appalling effects of the enclosure acts on the rural poor?

Q: Ursus Maritimus is the scientific name for which bear?

Q: Le Maillon Faible is the French television version of which British quiz show?

Q: The Halle Orchestra is based in which venue in Manchester?

Q: A device capable of storing electricity consisting of conducting plates separated by a layer of insulating material is given what name?

Q: Which Warwickshire town granted its royal prefix by Queen Victoria in 1838 claims to be the home of England's first lawn tennis club?

Q: What word can mean a joint of pork, to pawn, or a German white wine?

You can get the answers here.


*I say “contestant”, but apparently they are always referred to as “contenders”.

Contrite

The tube on the way home last night was very busy. All the seats were taken and then a man stood up right next to where I was standing to get off the train. I moved the very small distance to sit down in the seat and this arm reached round the (admittedly quite large) man who was disembarking and put a rucksack on the chair. Then the owner of the bag “appeared” and I said a somewhat dry “thanks for that”. He looked at me and somewhat contritely and humbly said “Sorry, I didn’t see you there. I’m not that mean.” Then he moved his bag and let me have the seat. I then felt somewhat rude, but being a typical Londoner, just took the moral high ground and sat down in silence. I did rather feel that the man was probably a very nice chap and thought that he was somehow going to end up in a confrontation over a seat (which he wouldn’t have with me). I think he had been rather cheeky, but I did feel rather bad that he had been so sheepish.

Judgment

I went out at lunch time yesterday to sort a few things out. One of those things was to try and find a book on Jersey. It appears I have found a gap in the market. There are very few books about Jersey and any that do exist tend to be rather slated by the people who have used them. Perhaps I should now turn our trip away into a book writing tour and write a guide to Jersey. I could make my fortune.

On the way back from lunch I was walking along an alley that is by a school and got whacked in the head with a football. The first time I was aware of it was when it hit me in the head. I didn’t chuck it back over the wall, but neither did I stab it or pick it up and march up to the school door and demand an explanation. I think I was *very* restrained.

I am currently reading the book Lolita at the moment. When I am reading it on the tube, I wonder if people look at me and think that I am reading a dirty book. It isn’t – it was never even banned when it was published in the 1950s, how bad can it be? But there is a part of me that thinks people will be judging me by my reading material. At times it is a good job that people don’t speak to each other on the tube.

Bookings

Yesterday we booked a holiday for Easter. We are going to Jersey for a week. Neither of us has been to the Channel Islands before, so it is somewhere new to try. So we’ve booked flights, a place to stay and car hire, which means it is pretty much sorted. It means we will be away for Easter itself, which I don’t think I have ever done before. Hopefully this won’t mean that I don’t get any Easter eggs though.

We’re thinking of going to Austria in the summer, and possibly by train. So that is going to take quite a lot of planning because I imagine we will be moving about a fair bit. Fortunately I like planning holidays, as they do all seem to take a lot of logistics that need to be worked out and costed and finding nice places to stay etc. I should offer myself for hire. Satisfaction guaranteed. Probably.

Despair

I was meant to do some volunteering last night, but it was cancelled because scary man was off sick. I think this is an incredibly rare event (in fact on Saturday he told us that he had only been off sick for three days in the last 20 years), but we may finally have found some ‘weakness’ in him.

I read an article yesterday about how one branch of Tesco has banned people from shopping in their pyjamas. I am not a big fan of Tesco, but hooray for them! What are people doing going shopping in their pyjamas? Pyjamas are nightclothes and should be reserved for that purpose. Personally, I wouldn’t even go into my own back garden in my night clothes, let alone somewhere more public than that. When I get up, I get dressed and the day starts, I’m not a fan of sitting about in my nightclothes. If people stop shopping at Tesco as a result of this, somehow I don’t think it will be that great a loss. I think it is fair enough to require people to get dressed before they go out. I despair.

Vague

My phone was indeed at work, so I got it connected again last night. So that was relief to get it all sorted so easily.

I am someone who likes their sleep and needs a lot of it. I felt rather chastened at feeling hard done by if I get less than eight hours a night, when one of my colleagues told me that she has not slept for more than two hours at a time since the birth of her daughter nearly two years ago. I just cannot comprehend going for such a long period of time without a decent night’s sleep. The very thought of it is hard enough, let alone the reality.

On the way home tonight there were these two men talking to each other on the tube. One of them worked in banking and his friend asked him how old he was when he left home. He replied “27, 28 when I got married”. He said this a couple of times and I thought it was very oddly imprecise. He wasn’t correcting himself, “27, 28” was the actual answer. Surely people would remember how old they were when they got married. Then he was saying that shortly after he got married he went to work in Hong Kong for a few months. His friend asked how long he had been there for and he said “Three to six months”. Three to six months? What kind of an answer is that? Given that he worked in baking, I think we now have an understanding of where our current financial woes stem from.

Home

I seem to have mislaid my mobile phone somewhere. It might be on my desk at work. Or it might not. On the way home I did wonder if I knew where it was. I had a search through my bag and pockets, but it didn’t show up. I know I had it at work, but beyond that I have no recollection. Although, if I knew where it was, I guess it wouldn’t be lost. So I phoned my mobile phone company when I got home and asked them to block the phone, just in case I wasn’t just incompetent and left it on my desk (although I guess a cleaner or some such might pilfer it. More fool them…). When I get to work today, I’ll see if I am reunited with it.

I read the article about the hostage Peter Moore’s account of his captivity and I could just imagine the moment he described when he was met by someone from the Foreign Office and the sense of relief he must have felt to be told he was finally going home.

"The first time I really believed I was being released was when I stepped out of the vehicle and somebody from the Foreign Office walked up to me and said they were from the Foreign Office and they were there to take me home."

Deficient

For once, I arranged to meet up with G after work so we could travel home together. This was for no other reason that that I looked at my watch as I was leaving work and realised we would be travelling home at about the same time. So we agreed to rendezvous part way through our journey and I was waiting for G to arrive at which point I realised there was some engineering work going on and this meant the trains were not running as normal. This did not make for a pleasant journey home (in that the train was very crowded, we had a nice chat though). Having never arranged to meet G like that on the way home before, I felt as though I had picked quite the wrong opportunity to be inspired to do so. Timing is everything.

I have really got out of the habit of going for lunch time walks. Yesterday I had to really force myself to go out. I actually had a couple of things in mind to do if I went out, but decided only to do one of them so that I could pace myself in order to have a reason to force me to go out tomorrow. I really do not think that 2010 has been good for me so far in terms of exercise and I need to get back into the habit of it or I will end up ten stone over weight and with a vitamin D deficiency.

Updated

My training is finished. Hooray! Now it is just the real thing to contend with. As part of the training, we have had to do role plays pretty much every week. Two people had never done the main part of it, so they had to do it this time. It is hard (and more difficult than the real thing in some ways) and you are being watched by other people in the group, who give you feedback at the end. The thing is that it did not go well… at all… and in the end the role play was stopped and we weren’t allowed to give feedback (which was a good thing because I was desperately looking for some positive things to say). One of the people looked entirely traumatised by it all and went very sullen and silent. She was one of the strongest characters in the group and it was difficult to see things go so badly for her and her reaction to it all. She had to have a word with the trainer at the end of the day anyway and I did wonder if she might say that she didn’t think it was for her any more, which would be a shame. It did go really badly though...

I have finally updated my book blog. I have done it without reviewing one of the books I have read, which is a shame because it was a good book and Sarah (at her newly renamed blog), in particular, would have wanted to know what I thought it, but to avoid being tracked down, I decided that silence was the best option! This blogging thing can be overly complicated at times or perhaps that is just me making it so!

Feedback

I did some more volunteering last night. It was meant to be easy, but actually the person we were dealing with was very cocky and it was not quite the simple process it was meant to be. At the end of the evening the trainer gave me and the other person I was doing it with some feedback and it was all pretty positive. I’ve noticed though that perhaps one of the things I have got from doing the training is the ability to take feedback, whether good or bad, and accept it and look for how to learn from it and not to take it personally as such. One of the things I need to do in the volunteering is leave my ego out of it all and perhaps I am learning to do that a bit. I don’t think that is the case for the rest of my life, but somehow when I deal with the very scary trainer I have learned to take the rough with the smooth and perhaps to get a bit of backbone!

Hopefully tomorrow is the last day of training and then I can get my Saturday’s back. I realised I am basically working a six day week at the moment and could do with having a two day weekend again. Volunteering is hard work.

Sorted

I suffered my first work “defeat” yesterday. Not my first ever you understand, but I think it is the first since I started working where I do now. My team had come up with a proposal to change how some of our work is dealt with, and, as far as I knew, the other managers were in favour of this change and it was just a matter of agreeing the details of it. What actually happened was that they all just flat refused to do introduce the change, so in the end I said my team would do it for our own work and they could carry on as they were. The thing is that I am very hopeful that my team will reap some real benefits from this (relatively minor) change and I suspect other teams will complain that they were not allowed to do it too. I shall have to bite my tongue and not say that they had the chance but their managers said no. It’s times like this that I am very grateful for having such an enthusiastic and willing team.

Yesterday on the way into work I concluded that I really need to get my eyes tested. I have been feeling rather tired and have not been working as fast as normal as a result and have been wondering if it had been eyesight related. So when I got to work I phoned an optician to make an appointment. They fitted me in at lunchtime. I got my eyes tested. I found my eyesight had actually improved a bit meaning one of lenses was now too strong. I picked some new glasses. I went back after work and picked up the glasses. Sorted.

Predictions

We are due “heavy snow” for most of the day where I live and “light snow” for most of the day where I work. I have had enough of snow for this year, so am not thrilled by this prospect. The Met Office seem to be quite slow at confirming the snow (can you “confirm” something you are forecasting. I suspect not) this time around and I have heard rumour that they are nervous about forecasting the weather because they have got it wrong several times. I had noticed previously that the weather forecast has often seemed inaccurate, but this did not seem to have put off the weather forecasters from giving the actual forecast.

I can’t decide if this is a sign of humility from the forecasters, perhaps showing that we are less able to predict, let alone control, the elements or that, given their job is to predict the weather with a fair degree of accuracy and reasonably far ahead, it is a failure to do what they are paid to do. I think I would find it somewhat refreshing to hear them say “we simply don’t know”. The ability and willingness of someone to admit when they don’t know is something that I admire. But I do still come back to the rather difficult point: their job is to predict the weather. Somehow I think that if I kept saying that I didn’t know or couldn’t possibly comment as part of my job that in the end someone might think that I was probably not quite doing what I was paid to do. So, I think, for the sake of the forecasters, that I hope for snow, but also that it will soon pass.

Smell

Feeling better healthwise unfortunately means having to catch up on the chores. I spend an hour and a half last night doing various household jobs. Perhaps it was better being unwell. G helped with some of the chores and also cooked the dinner. I went into the kitchen while G was serving up the food and politely enquired why the side of the toaster had somehow got cooked. We now have a somewhat burnt looking patch on one side of the toaster. G had noticed a slightly odd smell, but somehow didn’t notice the source of it. Dinner was nice though.

“Smells” reminded me that yesterday morning there was a homeless man on the tube. He seemed liked a nice chap, but was very, very smelly. I felt quite bad for him though because he kept moving his bags in case they were in the way of anyone who wanted to sit down in the seat next to him, but everyone who approached the seat would suddenly clock him with his various bottles and cans of alcohol and also smell him and would then walk off. He even spilt his beer at one point and then he got out a tissue and mopped it all up. I thought that maybe it was quite hurtful to him that people were seemingly so repulsed by him, but I was no better than anyone else because I didn’t get too close.

Fine

I feel much better healthwise, but still haven’t shaken off the tiredness that came from being unwell last week. However, the training on Saturday went well and I have foolishly agreed to do some more volunteering on Thursday night this week – foolish because it means very probably taking the ‘lead’ on it, which given that I have incredibly limited experience and what I do has potentially legal implications, might prove to be unwise, but there you go…

On Saturday I was watching a programme and there was just a fairly insignificant comment in it that made me think of the friend I made on the first day of high school. We stayed friends after leaving school (many years ago now…) but over the last couple of years have not been in touch very much for a whole variety of reasons. The moment in the programme just made me feel very sad about our lack of contact and so I sent her a text apologising for being such a rubbish friend and telling her how important she is to me etc. She texted back and said she had been an equally rubbish friend and other such things. I miss my friend and we need to get back in touch properly.

In exciting news (for me rather than you, admittedly), we have just booked to go for a day trip on the Orient Express. It’s not until May, but we have a nice bit of luxury ahead and will go to the coast and back on the British Pullman. Incidentally, should you ever want to do this, you need to check whether you are going both ways on the Orient Express or one way by coach and the other on the train. We are going both ways by train and I think I would be a bit disappointed if we’d book one and had to go by coach one way. Anyway, this trip should help to satisfy our desire for a bit of luxury and some fine dining.

Teams

My team got assigned its new batch of work yesterday (we get a new batch of work on roughly a weekly basis now) and two people offered to take all of it on. Then when I was having a one to one with one of those two people she offered to take on the entire next allocation of work, which is a generous offer that I shall take her up on. It is interesting seeing how different people perceive ‘teamliness’. Some seem to think that if they aren’t being given as much work as everyone else that their colleagues will interpret that as them “not pulling their weight”, whereas others see that the work that has to be done is everybody’s “problem” so sometimes they will get more work than others and at other times less. I am really glad that the two people from my previous team came with me to the new one because they are really good at being good team players and just rolling their sleeves up and getting on with it.

This weekend I have more training for my volunteering. I could really do without it because I could just do with catching up on some sleep, whereas I have to get up at about 7.30am for the training. Anyway, hopefully the worst of my cold is gone and I will return to normal function levels.

Have a good weekend all.

Soon

Yesterday I felt really rubbish for the first half of the day. I’d been moaning to one of my colleagues about how bad I felt and at lunch time she disappeared off and when she came back she presented me with some cold and flu remedy that she absolutely swears by. I thought it was very kind of her, particularly as I don’t know her all that well. I work with some very nice people.

Productivity at work must be practically going through the floor. A lot of people have been working from home or working very short days. One person in my team took ages to get in and was then concerned she’d struggle to get home, so she just collected some files and went straight back home again. I am bored of the snow now (and in fact was bored of it by about day 2). I want my cold to go away and the snowy and cold weather is not what I need to be getting fighting fit. It hasn’t even been kind enough to make it impossible to get into work. I do seem to have a relatively positive outlook to my current ill-health and often I find myself thinking “I’m going to feel really great when this cold has gone away”. I’m hoping to feel better soon…

Productive

I did my first ‘proper’ bit of volunteering last night. It went well (not that I did anything other than sit there), but I did have to try and stop myself laughing at a few points, which was quite an achievement on a couple of occasions.

Yesterday I also started to have one to ones with my new team (although a couple of them are actually from my previous team). I think I managed to earn some brownie points with one of them by telling her I don’t plan to give her any more work for a bit and instead she should spend the time dealing with the work she already had. I think she was a bit shocked by this (in a good way) and then was concerned that the others would think she wasn’t pulling her weight, but I assured her that I really didn’t think that would be the case and it would all even out in the end. She has twice as much work as some of the others in the team so it is just daft to keep giving her more work to do. Hopefully this will also buy some goodwill from her for the future. I am hoping a happy workforce is also a productive one.

Amusing

G is not in my good books. I have a cold and I got it from G, who was off sick from work for two days last week. I can’t be sick! My new team has just started its work and I am doing my first bit of proper volunteering tonight (as opposed to the training for it). I can’t possibly tell the man who runs it that I’m not well, as I think any condition I have might become somewhat fatal.

Anyway... I found a very amusing website and I feel the need to share it. Do you ever have those occasions when someone asks you a question and you wonder why they couldn’t just find out the answer for themselves? My neighbour asks me all sorts of things, so perhaps I should refer her here. So, nest time someone asks you one of *those* questions. Here’s your answer. So… next time someone says to you “The other day I was trying to remember when the Battle of Hastings was. Do you remember when that was?” Then here’s how you can respond. Brilliant. And somewhat passive aggressive... But very amusing.

Battles

Recently, I read an article in the Independent on Sunday. It was an opinion piece by the author Tim Lott about anger. Given that my level of anger seemed to reach whole new levels at the end of last year (levels that have, fortunately, since decreased), I was interested to read his thoughts on the matter.

Tim Lott acknowledged that there are different types of anger and that there are a range of sources, but his view was the majority of the anger exhibited these days comes from a sense of “insult” or “negation”

But much anger in the modern experience is neither righteous nor artistic, nor does it arise from the threat of physical harm. The anger that occurs most commonly comes in reaction to a purely symbolic threat, in response to a sense of insult, or negation. This threads through every day, through every life.

Mr Lott basically sees the anger coming from people feeling as though their identity has been undermined or belittled, their sense of self being removed. Of course sometimes this is only in the person’s perception, rather than some overt (or actual) attempt to do this by others.

I thought this was a really interesting take on the matter and that if I were to look at those things that make me angry often I think it can be boiled down to that sense of being undermined or ignored or not seeming to be acknowledged in some way or my voice being ignored – think of that person who pushes in front of you on the tube as though you aren’t even there and the sense of anger that can swell up. Over the weekend there was another story of someone who died following a queue jumping incident. Of course, there are probably all sorts of things that we don’t know about what happened, but on the surface it looks like it fits with Tim Lott’s assessment.

So that’s the diagnosis, but it isn’t the solution, which I think is probably pretty hard to achieve. I guess the answer, at least in part, is about people trying to empathise more with others or letting it go when they are slighted or learning that what others think of us is not really all that important in many circumstance. It’s more about mutual respect than trying to make sure people show us “respect”. I think there are real things to reflect on about what Tim Lott said – around looking at situations that make us angry and asking what the source of that anger truly is. We can’t usually change other people, but we can change ourselves, and sometimes learning to deal with our own demons and sense of self in different, less destructive, ways could save many a battle.

Honest Scrap

Well, Sarah over at Sarah’s Books tagged me to do this meme. It didn’t start off as specifically book related, but Sarah changed it to a book one and wanted a book related response from me too, so here goes.

a. ‘The Honest Scrap Blogger Award’ must be shared.
b. The recipient has to tell 10 (true) things about themselves that no one else knows
c. The recipient has to pass on the award to 10 more bloggers.
d. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them

1. As a child, after I had been put to bed I would get up and sit on the landing and read. If I heard my parents come out of the living room I would dash back to bed. To this day, I have no idea if they know that is what I used to do.

2. I really, really dislike the defacing of books in any way. Be that bending the corner of the page, writing in it, highlighting words, underlining words or even damaging the spine through normal usage. Sometimes I want to tell people on the tube how badly they are treating their books.

3. However, once I did have a library book in my bag and a pen leaked on it. They asked if it was me who had done it and I said “no”…

4. I like to have a target number of pages in mind to read each day. It gives me a sense of achievement to reach or achieve the target. I find if I don’t have a target in mind I sometimes drift my way through a book and can take far longer to get to the end of it. There is no consequence for “failure” though.

5. For years and years and years I hated anything that could be described as “classic literature”. It reminded me too much of school and being forced to read books. I have started to overcome this aversion (I think this is illustrated by me reading War and Peace about a year ago), but I still take some persuading.

6. I have a printout of the books listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and can often been find wandering around various libraries looking for books on the list to read.

7. I find that the 1001 book list has really expanded by taste in books and has helped me to discover brilliant authors that I would never even have considered otherwise (Paul Auster and John Wyndham to name but two).

8. I often see people on the tube reading books and want to ask them what they think about it. But this isn’t allowed in London, so I have to restrain myself.

9. You are strongly advised never to lend me a book. I have a distinct aversion to returning them to their true owner. Once I have a book in my hands (apart from ones from the library) somehow I struggle to return them. If I really like a book I have borrowed from the library then I will go and buy a copy. Perhaps people who lend me books should threaten me with overdue fines to make sure that I return them.

10. My mum and I sometimes talk about writing a book. The plot often seems to revolve around killing my (fictional, of course) father and burying him under the patio. Perhaps we haven’t written it yet because we feel that we need to have more first hand knowledge before writing it…

I am rubbish at tagging people, but do give it a go if you would like to because I would really like to read your answers (if you don’t have a blog yourself feel free to leave it in the comments here).

Moved

So, I made it into work yesterday and I was only about 15 minutes later than normal. The desk move also took place – and it was a good job I went in given that there was no-one else there to sort it out from my team. I did go home early though as it was snowing a lot, and, as it happened, G left work at the same time so we met up and travelled home together.

I feel as though I haven’t quite caught up with the year as yet. What with having to sort out some of the logistic of moving desks and catching up on work from over Christmas and the snow, it has meant that things have not felt quite settled. I also have the scary training starting again on Saturday and I don’t really feel mentally prepared for that – not least because I have not constantly been memorising the ‘script’ we are meant to know. If I don’t know it properly I think I will get told off. This volunteering thing is rather hard work at times – and I haven’t even started it properly yet.

Anyway, it’s time to go back out in the snow again.

Ignorance

Wow, it is cold. And snowy. It’s cold and snowy. I am not sure if I will go to work or not. I really need to go in because we are moving desks today and I have a few things I need to do for that and it is also the first day of my new team. On the other hand, I have brought work home and having the time to sit down and get through it all would actually be very useful. We shall see.

My nephew is an inquisitive chap and he asked my sister two questions and she didn’t know how to answer them. The first was about why you can’t hear the food in your stomach when you jump up and down. He asked this because when he stayed with me he drank some Ribena and you could hear that in his stomach when he jumped. I feel the answer lies in some long explanation about digestion.

The second question was that he wanted to know how blood is made. I talked to G about this, who has lots of biochemistry knowledge, but we decided that words like haemoglobin were probably a bit advanced. So how to explain this to a child. I feel I need to find the answer to these questions. If I didn’t genuinely have some work to do, I could have devoted my day to coming up with the perfect answers. My poor nephew will have to continue wondering about these important life questions.

Oh and I will update my book blog, but I have had a dilemma over it because I accidentally mentioned it (in very vague terms to someone) and am now paranoid that if I update it they will find it and therefore this blog as well. I will find a solution to this (which I am hoping will not mean having to kill the person concerned. But no promises).

Superior

It’s been an exciting start to the year. One of the things that G and I have to do each evening is 30 minutes of housework (this is a not a permanent thing, it is merely to undo the chaos). Last night was the kitchen, which is looking pretty good now, and tonight is the bedroom. The bedroom will take more than an hour of collective work to sort out. I might also have to check the definition of exciting as well.

Over the weekend I watched the BBC adaptation of The Day of the Triffids. I imagine taking so long to comment on it (a week?) makes it old news in blog world, but I shall throw off convention. If I had never read the book I think I would have thought it was really good. Having read the book, it certainly strayed some way from the original, although was not entirely at odds with it. Bill Masen’s father does not appear in the book and the nun is puritanical rather than a bit deranged. I think ultimately what the TV adaptation lost was the sense of man’s weakness. Both a meteor shower and some plants get the upper hand in the book, but on TV you never got a sense of quite how many people were blind (about 95% of the population) or that it was truly a global phenomenon. The TV programme also implied that were it not for an error the Triffids might have been defeated – and they could actually be foxed by black magic – whereas the book shows the great toil that humans would have to face if they had to pretty much start all over again, whether that be in terms of building a population or laws or morality. Whilst the TV version gave food for thought, the book offered far greater things to ponder and was, in all ways, the superior.

Back

Christmas is officially over. We’ve opened all the presents, taken the tree down and it’s back to work today *sigh*.

Christmas was good and we had a nice time in Glasgow just after. We actually came back before New Year, as this seemed to be the best way to ensure that we got a peaceful New Year. Not that G’s family is argumentative, it just would have been the New Year they chose, not us.

Yesterday I set the alarm to go off just gone eight. I figured it was going to be hard to get going today if I hadn’t tried to get up fairly early yesterday. I then spent a lot of the day doing various chores that would mean that I could return to work feeling as though there wasn’t a massive list of things to do. This was pretty successful and the place was looking much better by the end of the day.

I should actually have a relatively interesting return to work. I have a new project starting on Wednesday and am losing four of my current team and getting three new people instead. The project should be really interesting and whilst we are likely to face some opposition (we are going to make various changes to the way the office works), the aim is to make people feel less burdened. The other managers described their teams as feeling as though they were “drowning” so we are going to try and come up with ways to help them to be productive but not as though they are constantly bailing out water. We have six months in which to achieve this…

Anyway, it is time to go to work. Life is very cruel.

Happy New Year, incidentally.

Away

We’re flying to Glasgow later for a few days, so I won’t be about for several days. We are flying with BA and this turns out to be a good thing given that, as there was the threat of strike action, they have given us 10,000 extra air miles to say thank you for flying with them. I already have my miles, G is still waiting but will hopefully get them after we have flown.

We are going to meet G’s new niece. She is two weeks old today. This is assuming we can land in Glasgow, as fog is expected tonight.

Christmas Day was nice. I got a Freeview Plus box, which has been put to good use already, and a new microwave.

The Day of the Triffids is on TV tomorrow and Tuesday night (BBC 1, 9pm). That is such a fantastic book and so hopefully the programme will be good too. If it is good then hopefully that will inspire you to read the book if you haven’t done so already. If it is rubbish then the book is much better and you need to read to read the book to undo the damage. Are you picking up on a message here?

Anyway... I will return here are sometime around the turn of the New Year. I hope you have a good few days.

Merry Christmas

We braved the supermarket last night. It wasn’t actually that busy, but it was busier than normal (there were *two* people in the queue in front of me at the till). I didn’t enjoy the experience though, but it was a bit of a bargain shop because Sainsbury’s had issued vouchers to be spent in Christmas week to get £14 off your shopping. So we used those and bought such exciting things as dishwasher tablets and other domestic items.

On the way home we were listening to the radio and the DJ made some comment about the weather being bad and for people to be careful “as everyone has somewhere to go for Christmas”. Except that not everyone does and so the comment rather annoyed me and made me think that the DJ was rather thoughtless.

Here are some recent things I have searched for on the internet:

I wanted to know how often it snows on Christmas Day in London. This was because when we were at the Royal Albert Hall, the programme had a list of trivia, one of which was said “On average snow falls on Christmas Day in London once every twelve years, while in Glasgow it happens every nine years”. My mum did not believe the statistic about London and said I had to find out whether it was true. The statistic is about snow fall rather than it being a snow covered Christmas. Anyway, I had a look about and this website says that there were seven snowy Christmases in the Twentieth Century (which works out at an average of about once every 14 years, although given that it is an average there could be significantly smaller and bigger gaps, as that is how averages work…). You can also see some slightly complicated statistics here (as they cover the Christmas period rather than Christmas Day specifically).

We were also debating the words to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and whether the line is “good tidings we bring to you and your king” or “good tidings we bring to you and your kin”. G and mum were saying that it was the former, but said it was the latter. I was, again, commissioned to find out the answer. As we all know, the internet is never wrong, so I am pleased to say that I was proved to be correct and it is “kin” not “king”. You can checkhere, here, here, here and here.

I am unlikely to be about tomorrow, so I hope you have a Happy Christmas – and don’t forget to track Santa, so that you can be sure that you are fast asleep when he comes to deliver your presents. Merry Christmas.

Sleep

It has been a busy few days. On Friday afternoon I went out for lunch with people from work and, whilst the meal was decidedly average, I was sat with some really nice people and we had a real laugh. I don’t normally work with any of them, but we just chatted away and it turned what could have been one of those awkward work-bases social events into something much more enjoyable.

We went to stay with some of G’s friends on Friday night and then had a bit meal with them and some other people on Saturday afternoon. I made a steamed pudding and that worked out pretty well. There was also a really nice trifle and a chocolate log that put my efforts at such things (a Swiss roll with a bit of butter icing on it) to shame.

On Sunday my nephew came to stay for a few days. While my sister was still about we went to my parents’ house and ate home baked cake and then went to a carol service. On Monday we watched some DVDs (Elf and a Wallace and Gromit one) and fed the ducks in the local park. Then on Tuesday we went into London, to the South Bank. On the way in we had to see who could do the best impression of Elf on an escalator and we (fairly quietly) sang carols on the tube and went on a merry-go-round. Then we took my nephew to my sister’s work and dropped him off.

Yesterday evening G and I met up with mum and we went to the Royal Albert Hall for a Christmas Concert, which was really good. I liked all of it, but I particularly like the version of “Sleep, Sleep, Sleep”. If I hadn’t been in a public place, I might have shed a tear at it. I can’t find a version that is quite like the one last night, but the version below is fairly similar (apart from the bits in German… and Aled Jones conducting an interview for the first 2 minutes 20 seconds (you might wish to fast forward through that…))




As we were walking to the station after the concert, mum fell over and hit the ground really hard. She wasn’t really sure what happened and she does have a bit of a history of falling over for no real reason (it’s a balance thing rather than anything else). G was pretty shocked having never seen this before, but we picked mum up and all made it home in one piece.

We are going to try and brave the supermarket later. Fortunately we don’t need anything very major, so hopefully we will leave unscathed.

Elements

I waved my neighbours off on their trip to Australia last night. They are flying out this morning but what with all the snow they decided they should stay in a hotel by the airport so that they can make sure they get their flight. They went about 9pm and they knocked on my door as they were going to give me some contact details and it was only then that I realised it had been snowing during the evening and it was starting to settle. I did tell my neighbour not to put her bikini on until she gets on the plane.

Normally I would hope that it might be an excuse not to make it into work, but we are going out for a Christmas work meal this afternoon and so I am hoping I will make it in, particularly given that we have all paid already. It is also my last day before I finish for Christmas so I should go in to try and finish a few bits off.

It’s a busy few days ahead. Tonight we are meant to be staying with some friends and then spending the day tomorrow preparing a Christmas feast with them (which we will then eat). Sunday my nephew and sister are coming over for lunch and then we are going to a carol service. My nephew is then staying until Tuesday and when I have deposited him back with my sister, G and I are meeting up with my mum and going to a Christmas concert. I will probably sleep the whole way through it, as I will be totally worn out from looking after my nephew.

Anyway, it’s time to face the elements.

Conversations

It was snowing in London yesterday. My team asked if they could go home. I told them that they couldn’t but we should go and play in the park (even though the snow wasn’t settling at all) but they didn’t want to build snowmen (with no-existent snow), so we just carried on and did our work.

I was talking to one of my team later in the day and I was saying that I don’t like books or films that are violent to which she said “I love things that are violent. I don’t even really notice how bad it is and I can’t be trusted to take children to see films because I can’t tell if they are unsuitable. Do you see why some people say I have serial killer tendencies?” I couldn’t decide whether it was polite to agree or disagree. In the end we just agreed never to make film recommendations to each other.

Believe

Given my nephew’s recent query about how many Father Christmases there are I have been asking people who have children what the ‘professional’ answer is to this question. The consensus seems to be to explain that Father Christmas is very busy at this time of year and sometimes he needs other people to help him. But, you always should assume it is the real Father Christmas because you never know when it will be him. My nephew is coming to stay on Sunday, so I feel a bit more prepared for his difficult questions now. I do actually have a book called “How Santa Really Works” and I think I am going to have to take him through this book in order to ensure that there are no doubts left in his mind.

Action

I was so tired yesterday. On Sunday night it took me many hours to fall asleep and so I knew Monday would not be good. I expected to wake up feeling absolutely terrible, but fortunately that did not prove to be the case, it was still a struggle though.

The potential strike action by British Airways is not good news because G and I are due to fly with them to Scotland just after Christmas. Apparently when there is strike action like that, it is the domestic flights that suffer the most. I don’t think we will go by alternative means if we can’t fly with BA because it will be too short notice and likely to be very expensive. G has a new niece as of Sunday and so it would be a shame not to be able to get there to meet her soon.

I have been diligently doing the Radio Christmas quiz, working out what all the programmes are. I have about two programmes to go (out of 50), but am really struggling now. I think I am going to have to watch a lot of television over the Christmas period so I can get some inspiration.

Insight

I never really know what to make of my freeholder, but I feel I built some bridges this weekend. Her husband cut the hedge outside where we live. It is a massive hedge and took hours to cut and he had to use scaffolding etc. He did it Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning and I went out and cleared up all the branches etc. None of my neighbours came out to help (I’m not sure all of them were about anyway), but I think it made it all the more noticeable to him that I did help as no-one else did. It looks so different outside now as it had been completely overgrown. Now the only problem is getting rid of all of the garden waste.

Anyway, I thought I would give you a small insight into the workings of my brain. Here are some things I have looked up on the internet recently. I am one of those people who often thinks “I wonder why…”

I wanted to know why Frank Gardner was able to stand up on the news recently. In case you aren’t familiar with who he is, he is the BBC journalist who was shot and left for dead whilst reporting from the Middle East. It seems that he uses callipers and this allows him to stand and move about a bit but in reality he is still largely wheelchair bound. I think he is a very impressive person for his determination.

I also wanted to know how you can heck that someone who claims to be a solicitor really is one. The way to do this (in the UK) is to check via The Law Society. You can check a firm by looking here.

Another thing I wanted to know was about Teletext shutting down. It seems that today is the last day it will broadcast. This is due to drop in demand and the switch to digital services. Ceefax on the BBC will continue for now though – and actually I prefer that, as it is now filled with adverts. It’s still the end of an era though.

Carols

I went to a Carol Concert last night. There were meant to be three of us going from work, but one person was unwell. So I went with a chap that I don’t really know very well, but he is a nice chap (and quite posh). It was only when we got there that I realised that it is probably quite weird to sing in front of someone that you work with and I think we both felt a bit self-conscious about it, despite both of us being willing singers. It was quite a good concert, but they were a bit ambitious expecting the audience to sing along to the Hallelujah Chorus. It is quite complicated with various parts repeated and different parts being sung at the same time etc. I suspect it didn’t quite go as they had planned. At the end there was going to be wine on offer so some girls were pouring it out as the concert was coming to a close with a rendition of the Lord’s Prayer being sung by the choir. The girls were clinking the bottle so loudly that someone had to go over to them and ask them to be quiet. This all rather broke the spell of the moment.

Anyway, after work today I am going to visit someone from work in hospital as she had a big operation this week. The rest of the weekend is a blank sheet at the moment.

Have a good weekend all.

Battles

My freeholder has been driving me mad for ages – due to her complete inability to communicate about the work she was having done on one of the flats she owns and on my request to extend my lease. She finally wrote back to me yesterday (after me pointing out to her that I had been waiting four months for a reply, despite chasing letters!) and she suggested a price. The price is fine, but her reason for suggesting it is “to be friendly”. To be friendly?? Whilst I accept the sentiment (and I am getting a reasonably good deal), I think she sums up the problem with her understanding of her role as a freeholder. It’s a business relationship and therefore taking four months to deal with things is not acceptable. We’re not mates (and haven’t even been friendly with each other of late given her complete inability to deal with things or follow through on the things she has agreed).

Of course, there was a sting in tail because she also explained that she will be writing shortly to ask for the building insurance plus £7000 to carry out works. Fortunately, I will have to speak to a solicitor anyway about the lease extension so will seek advice on what I should be asking her for to substantiate a demand for that amount of money – and given that there is a huge deficit due to her failure to collect maintenance money for a number of years, I am wondering whether it should be for us to make up that loss. Very possibly yes, but a lawyer might have another view. I feel that I need to get the lease extended before I go into battle though.

Three

Half of my team is still off sick and the ones who are not ill don’t seem to be doing much better in other ways. One of them has had rather a bad run of things. First she was involved in a car crash on the way into work. Then she was stopped at some traffic lights and a police officer in the car next to hers indicated that one of her children was not properly strapped in. He had undone his seatbelt a few moments before to pick up a car he had dropped on the floor –and the officer saw this. So my colleague pulled over to the side of the road to do his seat belt up and the officer then pulled over and issued her with a fixed penalty fine for driving while her child’s seatbelt was undone. My colleague asked what she should have done to do up the seatbelt other than pull over e.g. should she have got out of the car in the middle of traffic and done it, but the officer (who was female) wouldn’t answer the question and just continued to write out the fine. I was very unimpressed by this and have suggested that she speak to a solicitor (we can do this for free through work) and find out what would happen if she tried to contact the fine and that she also should put in a complaint to the police.

She then phoned me at home last night and said that her car had been broken into and she had left her handbag in the car so she had lost all her bank cards, money etc etc etc. She was also worried that she’d had her work passes stolen as she didn’t know how to report those as lost, so those were the only things that she hadn’t sorted. I didn’t know either, but will check at work today.

I did say to her that they say these things come in threes (not that I am superstitious, but it seemed the right thing to say) and so hopefully it was going to be better from here on in.

Chores

Three of my team were off sick yesterday. One had swine flu. One probably has swine flu and the other has a bad cold. Somebody else didn’t come in because her central heating broke. So there was a grand total of us three of us in. I think the rest of the office was grateful we work in another building, as clearly we need to be in quarantine.

We put the Christmas decorations up last night. That took quite a while and clearly should have been on the chores list (as an annual chore), as it took up a lot of time. We are now only willing to do things if we get full credit for it. We have possibly released a demon by drawing up the chores rota.

Tonight G and I are meeting on Oxford Street to try and finish the last bits of Christmas shopping. After tonight we should pretty much be done, although extra present requirements seem to keep appearing (I have now had to buy two different Secret Santa presents), but hopefully the Christmas shopping agony will soon be over. I am very short of Christmas present ideas though and a few people have asked me what I want and I have no suggestions at all. My normal suggestions of a house or world peace don’t seem to cut it.

Awkward

I am not sure if this shows that we have too much time on our hands or not enough, but yesterday afternoon G and I spent ages writing a list of all the chores that need doing, room by room, and then we turned it into an Excel spreadsheet and then we worked out how often each one needed to be done and then how long each job takes. It is now stuck on the fridge as a chart and we can tick when we have done each one. We are terrible at doing some chores and so are hoping that a new system will help, and perhaps show how long it has been since we have done certain tasks. I have no idea if it will work or just show how inadequate we are.

On Saturday we met up with my mum and nephew and went to see Father Christmas and then went to a puppet show. As we were waiting for the puppet show to start my nephew turned to me and said “so, are there two or three Father Christmases?” I asked what he meant and he said that the one he had seen that day looked different to the one he’d seen previously, as this one wore glasses. Mum warned me to answer very carefully and I after playing for a bit of time explained to him that a lot of people changed their appearances – so my mum sometimes wears glasses but sometimes doesn’t, but she was still the same person. Sometimes people just look a bit different. I think he took this on board was still a bit sceptical. I think all Santa representatives should have to sign up to a particular “appearance code” to avoid awkward questions like this.

Lonely

I am going to the dentist this morning, which means that I will be late into work. This is probably a good thing because I am the only person in my office today. Someone is coming over for a bit in the afternoon so we can talk through some of her ideas before she changes jobs in the New Year, but beyond that I think I will be on my lonesome.

There should have been a couple of other people in, but one of them has swine flu and the other has some symptoms of swine flu and her husband has full blown swine flu. This is despite swine flu apparently being on the decline. Another person in my team hasn’t been in this week because her children have got chickenpox so she needs to be at home to look after them. Hopefully there might be a slightly better turn out next week.

Revelations

My trip Up North went fine, despite a somewhat dodgy northbound journey. I felt a bit ropey by the time I got off the train and said this to the woman I was travelling with, and she said she felt the same. Then a woman who got off the train at the same stop said she had felt the same. I don’t know what was going on during that journey, but I was not a fan.

When I got back to London, I met up with G and some friends for a drink. One of them didn’t turn up though as she was unwell, and she had been unwell the last time we met up. I asked her partner if she was ok and he explained that she was mainly unwell in the morning. I think G and I took a few moments for the penny to drop and we then picked our jaws up off the table so that we could say congratulations. G was fairly quiet for the rest of the evening, I think due to the shock of this news! It’s good news, just totally unexpected and I think G thinks their friendship has changed so much over the last few years that this will just change it all the more. Not that G is a selfish person or isn’t pleased about their news, but it does mean quite big change. We were actually meeting to discuss the menu for a Christmas meal we are going to have, and we did manage to discuss that and come up with a truly delightful menu that appears to include my mum making s steam pudding. I am not sure how that happened…

I would also like to say that tube travel does make Londoners aggressive. I am not sure if that justifies me being a grumpy commuter or should make me try extra hard to break the norm.

Food for thought

Early mornings and late nights do not mix. So to get you in the Christmas spirit, I think it is time for you to start thinking about what you are going to have for Christmas dinner, so I am going to suggest some turkey and some sprouts.

Peak

It’s an early start today to head up North. I don’t like early starts. I am going with someone else and she is new to the office, so she is coming on the visit with me. I spoke to her briefly yesterday to explain a bit about the visit and I also thought it was a good opportunity to tell her the rules of train travel which are “you don’t have to pretend to do lots of work on the train. If you want to read a book, read a book. If you want to go to sleep, go to sleep” and so on. I thought it was best to avoid those “am I going to get into trouble if I’m not looking really busy the whole time” situations.

At work, I still don’t have a new contract. My only concern about that is that I need to make sure I am still on the payroll, as I really need to get paid at the end of December (as I do any month actually…). I can’t seem to get confirmation at the moment and the payroll cut off date must be fairly soon, so I need to get someone to confirm this for me asap.

Welcome to December, by the way. I hope you are starting to get into the festive spirit. I now have a Christmas meal to go to every week until Christmas. I hope I don’t peak too early.

Sorted

So I have now done the vast majority of my Christmas shopping, and the bits I haven’t done I pretty much know what I am going to get and where I am going to get it from. I also managed to convince G to get started as well – as you might recall, last year I had to do it a couple of days before Christmas because G was really ill and had been for most of December. We have even managed to get a present for a friend’s dog.

I think I have a busy day at work today. I foolishly offered to help another manager out as she was a bit snowed under. She gave me a really difficult piece of work to look at and it took me most of the day on Friday (and then my computer froze and I nearly lost it all. I phoned our IT people who said it was unrecoverable. I didn’t believe them and tinkered a bit more and got all my work back. I am in the wrong business…). I still have some stuff to write up to do with that as I need to give some feedback and an indication of areas that need further work. I also need to get myself organised as I am out of the office all day tomorrow, as I am heading to the North. I need to brief the person who is going with me and work out everything I need to cover while I am out of the office and train times etc. Life is much easier when I can spend the whole day at my desk.

I have a busy week ahead socially as well, so it could be a tiring few days. It’s hard work being sociable.

Commute

Yesterday was actually a calmer day. I know who my team will be as of January. Two of them are from my current team and three others are people I know, although not particularly well. Now we just need desks and other such minor things and we will be sorted.

Last night I was meeting G after work and I got on the bus and sat in one of two empty seats on the bottom deck. As I sat down a woman looked at me half in pity and half imploringly, at which point I realised the man I had sat next to wreaked of alcohol. He had been talking to the woman and she had been responding as she probably felt she had little option. The man then started to talk to me as well, and my heart sank, but then I realised as I was there and moving wasn’t really an option (or a polite option anyway). So I decided to engage in the conversation as it also gave the woman a bit of respite. So every time he asked a question, I would answer it but then ask him a question about himself and hope it was one that involved a bit of a story to answer it and if he said things that made the woman feel uncomfortable I would ask him a question to get him to talk about himself again. Other people on the bus were clearly amused by our conversation and when I got to my stop I said goodbye to him and told him to be nice to people and he assured me he would. Perhaps I should try and engage with my fellow commuters a bit more.

Power

I do feel much better now I have had some time off work, but I am coming to the conclusion that it has not really dealt with something more fundamental that seems to be going on at the moment. I just feel angry about so many things at the moment – and it rumbles below the surface and generally manifests itself in feeling very resentful of other commuters and other such pathetic things.

I don’t really know for certain why. I think some of it, maybe a lot of it, is down to feeling very out of control of a number of things in my life at the moment. Where I live the freeholder, who also owns the flat next door has been having worked carried out for 11 months. I repeat: 11 months. I find it very invasive and, whilst I have drawn issues to her attention in the past, she doesn’t really seem to care about the impact. So being at home can be trying and I often feel wary about what I will find when I get home when I just want to be left in peace and not to have my privacy invaded. But equally, I also need the freeholder to reply to various letters I have sent her to sort out my lease extension, but we have made no progress on this since August. As I type this, it does (literally) make me put my hands up in despair because I feel as though I can do nothing about these things. I get a certain sense of security out of where I live, but that seems to be slipping away.

Work is fine expect that people keep invading our work space, which probably wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t feel the same thing was happening at home, plus my contract runs out on Tuesday and, as yet, a new one has not been forthcoming. I also have to move offices at the beginning of the year and that has its own stresses, for reasons I can’t be bothered to explain.

A used to say that depression is anger turned inward. In some ways I would rather my response to these events manifested itself primarily (only) as depression. I am not suggesting that depression is preferable as such, rather that it is more insular rather than being something that is directed at other people. I have been feeling elements of this for ages and I had hoped that taking time off work would have made it a bit better, but I didn’t really think that it helped. I am just not really what the solution will be – if it mainly the result of feeling powerless about various things, I just don’t really know how to get that ‘power’ back so that I feel a bit more in control of my own life. If you were to bump into me, I don’t think you would think I was some seething ball of anger, on the whole I think I would appear to be rather placid, but I need to do something or my cover will be blown at some point.

Distractions

There is something a bit mesmerising about this video. Make of it what you will.



That is all.

Stretching

Going back to work went ok. I felt remarkably wide awake, which made me realise quite how tired I was before I had time off. My team have been working away in my absence and gave me lots of work to deal with on my return and it looks as though we could achieve the rather stretching target I set them to achieve by the end of this month (which was more stretching than the stretching target they had been set for the entire six months because they achieved that about six weeks early. They have often commented that I keep asking more and more of them...).

Today I should find out who from the office has applied to be part of the new project that I will be running in January. I know three of the names and they are all decent people and I think at least two people from my current team are going to apply, so hopefully it will be a good group of people – although I am hoping that I will get exactly the right number of people because I don’t really want to have to turn anyone down. I feel more enthused about the next project now that I feel more able to function, so hopefully that will be a good project too.

It is so nice not to fell totally worn out – and now I only have four weeks until I am off for Christmas.

Limits

We had a nice few days away. We were staying in Lymington, which is in the New forest (but on the coast). Despite the rather mixed weather, we had a good time. We went for a walk in the New Forest on Friday and we did have to change out route a bit due to a ford being flooded, but it was fine apart from that.

On Saturday we went to the Isle of Wight. I have never been there before. When I was at school we were meant to go there on a school trip, but it was when teachers were striking a lot and so they weren’t running school trips. So about 25 years later I finally got to go there. I am not good on water and so wanted to get some travel sickness tablets for the ferry journey. The lady in Boots was incredulous that I would want tablets for the trip and assured me that no-one had *ever* been sick on the ferry. I rather sheepishly asked if I could have the tablets anyway. She then pointed to a colleague and said that her husband worked on the ferry and there was no way I would be sick. I asked for the tablets again. She sold me them. I was relieved that I managed to get out of the shop without her making an announcement of the voice address system asking everyone to look at me, point and laugh.

In my defence, I was sick on the Great Barrier Reef once and the crew of the boat I was on described it as one of calmest crossings they’d had. Also, the ferry was cancelled last weekend due to bad weather and there was a risk of it happening again this weekend. I know my limits and sometimes begging for medication is the only answer.

Spent

Over the weekend, G and I were looking at how much we spend at the supermarket each month. By my calculations, we spend, on average, £163 per month. Last month was actually our cheapest month and the bill came to about £50, but there have been some very expensive months. So the plan now is to be have more of a budget for food – and it is to be set at £120 per month. We’re also going to keep accounts, so that we keep a proper track of what we spend.

We don’t buy very much meat, we don’t often buy any alcohol (and, technically, I never buy any, what with being a teetotaller), so that cuts out some of the more major items in a lot of food bills. We will be able to carry forward ‘credit’ from one to another, but we’re going to give it a go to see if we can bring out food bill down. It should also, hopefully mean less waste, not that we throw very much away - and we compost a lot of things anyway. We’ll see if we end up under-nourished and constantly hungry.

Tomorrow we are off to the south coast for a few days, so I will probably be back here on Monday, as I think it is unlikely I will have time to drop by here tomorrow. Have a good few days all.

Refreshing

Yesterday I started Christmas shopping. Despite doing a bit of wandering in London I actually did all of it online, but started is started. I am going back into the centre of London today to meet up with my mum and we are going to do a bit of shopping together – or perhaps shop separately and then meet up for refreshments at various points.

I think G is a bit traumatised that I am off work. Yesterday G said to me “when I got up in the morning and was wandering about and it was all quiet, I thought this is what it would be like if you were dead”. Right... which basically means no-one to make the tea, put out all the breakfast stuff (the night before no less) and to put the toast on. It’s nice to have my uses.

Over the last few days, I did also discover that G had a very sheltered upbringing. I found G buttering some cake - surely that is not normal? G has similar form in that earlier in the year I was given a hot cross bun that was not sliced, toasted or buttered. Surely a *very* sheltered upbringing. Every day is a school day.

Relieved

I saw Celia Imrie on Friday night. Hooray! Had I sat in a slightly different seat I would have been offered a piece of cake by her. I said that to my mum and she said that the problem then would have been that I wouldn’t have eaten the cake and would have needed some way to keep it forever. I am not sure it is quite appropriate to embalm a piece of cake though.

I went to my volunteer training on Saturday and that went quite well. We were practicing some things and the trainer said it had gone quite well “but this is the last time I will be so nice about what people are doing”. There was a collective gulp in the room. We always had this Saturday coming off and then had three more weeks to go, but the training has now been cancelled for the rest of the year and will start again in January. We were all quite disappointed by that as it takes some of the momentum out of what we are doing and we were also starting to gel as a group and now won’t get to see each other again until next year. I really need to practice some things before we meet again though, particularly “active listening”.

Yesterday we watched Mamma Mia. We felt that this film was at rather the opposite end of the scale to Slumdog Millionaire and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Brief

I was hoping to go into work late today and finish somewhat early, but as it turns out, I am the only manager in so I probably need to be about just to show willing. However, after today I am going to be off work for a week, so I can rest and recuperate then.

Tonight we are going to the theatre to see a play that has Celia Imrie in it, which hopefully will be quite good. I then need to try and get home at a reasonable hour because I have to be up early for another day training for my voluntary work.

Life feels quite busy at the moment. It is good timing to be off work for a few days.

Drains

I can’t remember if I said previously that I can stay on where I am working for longer. Yesterday ones of my bosses phoned me to say that they wanted me to run a new project for them, which I have said I will do. Although I am actually so tired at the moment that I would rather just sleep for the next six months. The project starts in January so hopefully the Christmas period will give me time to recover and then it will be tome for a new challenge.

On Wednesday night my upstairs neighbour was at home briefly and in the short time she was there managed to leave a tap dripping – and has now disappeared off again for who knows how long, as is her way. It was like Chinese water torture during the night. So yesterday morning I went outside to see if I could do something to deal with the problem but the noise is actually coming from the water hitting the inside of the drain pipe, so I had to put my thinking cap on.

As I left work today I said to one of my colleagues “I am off to put a sponge up a drain pipe” and then said “and that’s not even a euphemism” and she just turned to me and laughed and said “whatever turns you on!” and I decided it was best to go home.

It did work though...

Trauma

We watched Slumdog Millionaire last night. I was traumatised by the end of the film (and throughout). Why did no-one tell me what the film was like? I thought it would be some nice heart warming story instead there was murder and mayhem - and some Bollywood dancing at the end.

I tend not to watch 18 rated films anyway because I don’t like films that are violent. But now we might now only watch U rated films and I am not sure if that can include ones that “contain mild peril”.

Last night’s experience reminded me of an episode from Friends:

Answers

I think I have discovered the reason for the current rage that is gripping the UK. X Factor. Need I say more? Probably not. But I will anyway.

I know a number of people who are apoplectic with rage about the result on Sunday night’s X Factor. I know two people who didn’t sleep properly on Sunday night because they were so angry about it. G and I are actually not going to watch the programme anymore. We are actually starting an official boycott of X Factor. All those people who have said they are not going to watch it again: stick to your guns and boycott it.

It just isn’t British to do what Simon Cowell did. He had the chance to do the right thing, and to live up to what he had previously said, by evicting John and Edward. Instead he went for ratings and more money from votes. Don’t let Simon win! Don’t get me wrong, I actually quite like John and Edward, just not in a musical talent sense, and I thought that there reaction was Lucie was sent home showed that they are nice lads. But Simon Cowell is manipulating the British public and let me tell you that it’s not a good place to be in Simon Cowell’s hands *raises an eyebrow*

People are genuinely angry about X Factor and I see now that it is the root of all the anger going on in this country at the moment. Before the X Factor we were a peaceful, law-abiding nation – and now look where we are?

Do the right thing and watch another channel on Saturday night or read a book or go out to dinner or talk to someone. The safety of this nation depends on it.


I can’t believe that I have devoted a post to the X Factor. Doesn’t that tell you the depths to which this nation has sunk?

Rage

I don’t know whether this is true of other parts of the UK, but I feel as though London is a very angry place at the moment. I have noticed a fair few bad tempered people about and can’t say that I am always of the sweetest disposition at the moment. Even G, who is a very good natured person, has got from home from work a couple of times recently having nearly committed commuter rage.

Yesterday we went out for a walk in the local area and I was this man and woman walking along and they saw a car being driven by a woman with a man in the passenger seat parking in a disabled bay. He shouted over to them and said they didn’t look disabled. The man got out of the car and started to shout “are you disabled?”. He squared up to the pedestrian and then gave him a bit of a head butt. The other man then took off his jacket and glasses and punched the first chap. The two women then got involved and finally managed to separate them. The man got back in the car and he was bleeding and then had to be restrained by his wife from getting back out of the car and going back to deal with the other man. After a few minutes they drive off in the car.

G and I were sort of surprised by what happened, although interestingly G had missed everything before the punch was thrown and so thought the pedestrian was the bad guy in it, whereas from what I had seen I thought it was the man in the car. There used to be an advert for The Guardian (I think) which showed a yobbish looking man running along the street and you start to draw your conclusions about what was going on and then they show it from another angle and you see that what he was actually doing was running to push someone out of the way because something was about to fall on them from a building site. Sometimes it can all be about perspective.

Anyway, somehow neither G nor I were surprised by what we saw and thought that it just summed up how things seem to be in London at the moment. It makes you wonder if it is worth challenging other people and if relatively minor incidents might actually lead to entirely unintended consequences.

Tours

I have decided to take the whole week off work the week after next. So I only have one week to get through before I have some time off work. I am not entirely sure what I will do with all that time, but the plan is still to go away at the end of the week. I feel much better now I am going to have some time off work – and this week has gone remarkably quickly, so if next week goes as fast that will be marvellous.

Sometimes when I have been walking to and from work I have seen Hairy Goat being advertised. I rather like the sound of this (rather small) organisation. You get to go on photography tours of London for a mere £20 – it seems that you will see new things even in places that you might know very well. I am actually a rubbish photographer and can take over a year to finish even one film (a film! I know! I’m not even digital! I have only just bought an electric toothbrush as well… I am very twentieth century in a number of ways). Anyway, if you like London and you like photography going on one of those tours sounds the perfect combination - and judging by the accompanying blog, a bit more custom would be appreciated. So, if you’re tempted, then give it a go and report back!*



*I am not on commission and I don't know the person who runs the tours I think it is just a really nice idea and the woman who runs it sounds like she might need a bit of extra trade.

Words

I just finished reading The Death Of Grass by John Christopher. A most interesting read and I shall review it over at the other blog some time soon. When I finished reading the book I went back to the beginning and looked again at the first page or two and liked the opening words more than I had when I first read it. You can read the whole book here.

Going back to the beginning of the book also reminded of a quote that was on the first page and I shall leave you with that:

“It’s hard to know how these things happen. Quarrels begin, and neither person stops them, and they become silences, and nobody breaks them.”

Plans

When I got to work yesterday I sent G an e-mail saying I thought we should go away for a long weekend (primarily to save my sanity and the lives of anyone I happen to come into contact with on the way into work). G is up for this, so we now need to decide where to go – and pretty sharpish, as we might well go away the weekend of 21 November. I have looked at going somewhere like The Cotswolds, but we quite like going to the coast, so perhaps we should do that instead. I am also aware that my geography of the UK is appalling so I might need to consult a map before making any decisions.

Having made the decision to go away, this has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders and I feel much better. Apart from last Friday, I haven’t had any time off since July and I can really feel it. Someone said to me yesterday how tired I looked and I said I wasn’t surprised by that, as that is how I feel. I will be off for a couple of weeks at Christmas, but a long weekend before that would be really good. So it is time to make some proper plans.

Cheery

When I was on the course on Saturday, the guy giving the training had two rules. First was “be on time” and the second was… “no clicky pens”. He even gave us pens that it required no clicking to try and ensure this rule was enforced. Apparently he has stopped meetings in the past to tell someone they are clicking their pen. I feel I don’t want to get on the wrong side of this man.

My team have moved to a new part of the building. The move went fairly well, despite my computer having no network connection and having to get that fixed. I think I was not in the best mood yesterday and one of my team actually asked me if I was ok because I “wasn’t my normal cheery self”. I did concede that I was perhaps not in that great a mood, primarily due to a headache (and the IT guy not being able to speak without slurring all his words together). I think I should really take some leave from work and it is beginning to take its toll that I haven’t; had any proper time off work since July. It isn’t that long until Christmas now, but I should perhaps give some thought to taking some time off to rest and relax, except G wouldn’t be able to do so at the same time, so it wouldn’t be ideal. So at the moment I will try and get some more sleep and see if that does the trick instead.

Getting on

The training on Saturday went ok. I am still sort of wondering what I have signed up to do and I think it is going to be really difficult, but nothing ventured, nothing gained I guess. I did find that some of the people seemed to have quite set views about things and I felt that a bit uncomfortable with that at times. I’m not sure if that was because I thought their views were wrong or if I just thought they would talk me down if I tried to put across my view. But it disconcerted me a bit anyway. I have various bits of homework to do, which includes having to learn something off by heart. I am not sure I will have perfected that by next week though – and I think we might get tested on it. I’d better get on with it.

The two most memorable things from the day were not actually about the training, but other things. First was lunch (surely the thing people always remember from training?) which was home made Caribbean chicken and rice and peas. It was made by the mum of someone who works there and it rather better than the sandwiches I had been expecting. The other thing was that a woman in the group invited me to go to a book group and so I am thinking about doing that.

G is back tonight. Hooray.