Project

Life seems very hectic at the moment. It isn’t even the end of January and I already feel worn out. Work is busy. Life outside of work is busy. Things are just generally busy.

We’ve just booked to go to Devon for Easter though, so at least we can have a break then, if not before.

I read a blog sometimes called The School of Life. Recently one of the contributors wrote about a project to increase people’s happiness. But there is a part of me that wonders if that is not a strange ambition in itself. It’s not that I think there is anything wrong with being happy, but I am not sure I see it as a purpose in its own right, but more of a bi-product of the things that we do. Maybe I am just too cynical, but it seems very self-indulgent to aspire to happiness in that way. But perhaps that is why an initiative is needed.

Comments

Several years ago, I previously worked where I do now. Yesterday someone who still works there was talking to someone else (and sort of to me) and said “when [Random] worked here before she was slim”. I rather protested about the implications of that comment, and whilst it wouldn’t do any harm to lose a few pounds, I am not verging on the obese. Anyway, to truly register my horror at her comment I sat on her and killed her*.




*part of this story may not be true.

Late Again

Is it 2011 already? I feel I might be a bit behind the times… I went back to work on Tuesday after over two weeks off work. It was a shock to the system. I wish I was still on leave. I need to come up with a get quick rich scheme.

The return to work was “challenging”. There were various crises to deal with on my first day and by the time I had got to the end of Tuesday I was glad it is only a four day week. Things seemed to have calmed down a bit now, but life would be very much easier if I didn’t have to work with other people (despite the fact that I do actually work with some very nice people).

I read the story about birds falling out the sky in the US and Sweden and am now wondering if FlashForward is coming true. Prepare for the blackout. Make sure you are wearing clean underwear. You heard it here first.

Belated

Christmas was good, and I am off up to Scotland today (but back before the New Year).

Please feel free to visit Cornish Dreamer in my absence to offer some kind words.

A belated Happy Christmas and I hope you have a good New Year.

Christmas Spirit

On Wednesday night, we were due to have our annual Christmas gathering with some friends. Normally it would be a big Christmas meal but due to one couple now having a baby, they decided that this wouldn’t work this year.

So, instead, another person in the group invited us over to hers so that we didn’t end up going to a pub, which would mean that both of the couple with the baby, and the baby himself, could attend. The plan was agreed.

Then on Tuesday we got an e-mail from the couple with the baby to say that the baby hadn’t been very well so mum and baby probably wouldn’t attend, but dad would. Fine. It was a shame but everything else was all sorted, including that G and I had booked somewhere to stay overnight in Central London so we could stay out late without then having to trek home, and we’d bought wine and chocolates etc (as had others).

Wednesday morning, the day of the get together, the host’s partner sends a text to say that he has suddenly come down with major flu and therefore the get together was cancelled. G and I both raised an eyebrow about the coincidental timing of this bout of flu. The couple who have the baby are rather the cement of the group and the person who now wasn’t coming is the best friend of the host. The rest of us are rather lower down the pecking order (with me not even being ranked as a friend of the host – who is the person who a couple of years ago told G various untruths about stuff that happened with A back in the mists of time. Need I say more…).

G and I were committed to staying in London anyway, as we would have to pay for the accommodation regardless. G then sent an e-mail to the others to see if they were still on for meeting up regardless. To which come confused responses were sent because the others were still under the impression the original plan was going ahead. No-one else has got a text cancelling the get together. Much confusion then ensued and various e-mails were exchanged. The hosts were copied into all of the e-mails but maintained a silence throughout.

So, we didn’t know whether the plan was really cancelled (G even began to wonder if the text was from someone else of the same name, and that the original plan was still on. But nope, it was the right person). In the end we agreed to meet at a pub instead, and invited the hosts (those not suffering from ill-health of course) to join us. We had a pleasant evening, including discussing what had happened and how what was meant to have been a very simple plan had turned into a complete mess. The hosts didn’t come along and we have heard nothing from them since.

The cynical side of me says that because a key person couldn’t go, they didn’t want the rest of us to go round to their house, and so made up an excuse to get out of the plan. If that is the case, why invite people to your home if you are only willing to have them there under certain conditions? There is also the question of why only G got the text – were we the only ones who were uninvited? Even if there was a genuine illness, to treat people who are meant to be your friends in this way, especially when they have all gone to a lot of effort, is not the right way to treat people.

But maybe I should be more charitable. It is Christmas after all.

Lunch

I went for a team lunch on Tuesday. We ate so much food that I think we all just wanted to go for a nap afterwards. We went to a Spanish restaurant and the food just kept coming, and we just kept evening. I then had some training for my volunteering in the evening and I wasn’t desperately keen to go, but I decided I should. When I got there I found out that we weren’t going to do any training and instead we were going out for a meal – at a Spanish restaurant. It was a different one to earlier in the day fortunately, but I really did not need any more food. And yet, I managed to graze my way through a fair bit of tapas nonetheless. I am going to have to run a marathon to work all that food off.

Complaints

I seem to have sent a lot of complaints recently:

I complained to Tesco that when I was in one of their stores last week I saw staff reducing the price of sandwiches and salads and before they put the items back on the shelf they put them on the floor. That is so unhygienic and I just had to complain.

I complained to the National Trust that a gift membership I ordered for my sister was left on my doorstep (although one of my neighbours saw it later and took it in) and then when I opened it the packaging etc to the membership pack was all torn.

I complained to Amazon that a delivery turned up and one end of the box had totally collapsed and someone had stuck it back together with tape, and the top of the box wasn’t sealed properly so that anyone could have just put their hand in the box – although as the side was open, why bother with going in through a more traditional route??

I am hoping that this is the end of my complaints for 2010!

Reading

I have agreed with some people at work to read the Costa Award shortlist. We are only reading the “First Novel” and “Novel” shortlist, which totals eight books. We have until almost the end of January to read them and I am about half way through the second book.

I sourced all of the books for us. Both Amazon and Waterstones were remarkably unreliable for supplying the books- which I think in part was because the publishers were perhaps caught out by the nominations and so weren’t able to meet the demand at such short notice.

In the end, I managed to get the books from two different sources, and both sent the books really quickly. One was The Book Depository and the other was AbeBooks. The latter supplies quite a lot of second hand books, but they tell you what the condition is of the book.

So far, I have read “The Blasphemer”, which was pretty good, if a little unbelievable at times.

Five minutes

I have mentioned before about a BBC programme called Five Minutes With, which is an interview that lasts five minutes with a well-known person. This weekend, I was listening to an interview with Alain de Botton and he made some comments about reading and writing:

I think people become intellectual because of disturbance. My goal raising my own children is that they will never read a book or at least not be that dramatically inclined towards writing and reading ... because, I think, as I say, reading and writing is a response to anxiety often having a basis and childhood and, as I say, I hope to quench at least some of that need in my children.

I think there is some truth to what he says about intellectualism – that we can try and rationalise and to understand through expressing, or reading other people’s expression or understanding of, an issue or life in general. But a life without reading would seem a strange and alien one to me. Reading can be a great pleasure, a form of escapism, a way to challenge our own view or discover ideas that you would otherwise never have even considered. Sometimes there can be nothing more satisfying than sitting down with a good book, and not because it is intellectual or stretching, but because it is not. It is a pleasure in and of itself. What a shame it would be to miss out on the joy that can come from reading – and indeed in learning to express ourselves through the written word.

Inheritance

If you have ever watched the BBC programme Heir Hunters, you might already know that Treasury Solicitors (part of government) get people’s estate if no living relative can be identified to inherit. Professional organisations, like the one on Heir Hunters, charge a commission for reuniting you with the money (although as some connections are totally unknown etc the people would have ended up with nothing if it wasn’t for the firm getting in touch). However, if you can prove a connection, you can apply direct to Treasury Solicitors to claim the inheritance. The current list is here for England and Wales (you need to click on the PDF on the left hand side). For Scotland, the list is here. I do actually think there is something very sad about those lists. They are people who had no known relative and whilst that doesn’t mean they died a lonely death, it is no the most cheery thing to think what them featuring on this list might say about their lives. Anyway, it’s worth a look at the lists to see if there might be an inheritance that has unknowingly passed you by.

Bright

I bought some new bulbs for the kitchen last week. They are energy saving bulbs that are to replace some other energy saving bulbs that took a long time to warm up. Not only do these bulbs light up instantly, but they are so much brighter than the previous ones that we are concerned that an aircraft might accidentally come into land. I went into the kitchen one evening last week and G was in there wearing sunglasses.

I got my first Christmas card on Friday.

Breaks

We took Friday off work and headed to East Sussex for a couple of nights at a very posh B&B. I don’t think I have met many people who are posher than the woman who ran this place, we were a little nervous in case we didn’t quite meet her standards, but we appeared to pass muster. When we arrived we had tea and cake in the Drawing Room and sat in front of a roaring fire. It was lovely.

On Saturday we went into Lewes and then to Eastbourne, where we ate fish and chips – because clearly having a cooked breakfast and going for an evening meal at a pub was not enough food for us, so we had to top up with a big meal in the middle of the day. It was all very relaxing and it is only when I leave London, and I say this as a Londoner born and bred, that I realise that people outside of London are generally more friendly. Perhaps all Londoners need to spend lots of time outside of the Capital to remember what it is to speak to other people. But perhaps our attitude might rub off on others and we would lower the rest of the country to our standard. Anyway, it was a good break and we need to find more opportunities to go for nice weekends away.

Catching Up

The weekend was pretty busy. We finally managed to finish watching Flashforward, which finished in May this year. It was inconclusive, as everyone else presumably already knew, but we ploughed on with it anyway.

We went out for lunch with my family on Sunday and my nephew was playing twenty questions. He didn’t quite get how it worked having only heard of the game the first time that morning when he had seen it on friends. We were trying to explain to him that “is it a chair?” was a bit too specific and would make it a very long game. He didn’t seem to get that the game was meant to be limited to 20 questions. He did make us laugh a lot though when we were asking his questions and managed to narrow it down to it being some kind of train. In the end he told us the answer: The Pizza Express Train. He meant the Gatwick Express.

I also started the interview with mum and spent about an hour doing that. I have found out various things, including a strange story about mum’s adopted cousin, but I shall save that for another time.

Instead I shall leave you with a photo of a pumpkin that I carved for my nephew.

Questioning

I bought a digital recorder the other day. I decided that I want to interview my mum and find out more about her life. I asked my sister what she thought of the idea before I asked mum if she would do it and she said she thought it was a bit weird, but then I asked mum and she was fine with it. I’m going to record it and then upload it on to my computer etc.

When I was at school I once had to interview my granddad and great aunt for a history project. It was a really interesting interview and I found out loads of things that I hadn’t known before. But then, as teenagers do, I decided that I wanted the tape for something else and recorder over it.

I watch programmes like “Who Do You think You Are?” and always find them fascinating and yet I would imagine most of those people would never have sat down with various family members unless they were taking part on the programme, so I decided to be bold and ask mum if I could interview her. She wants me to ask her questions rather than her just give a monologue so I need to think of things to ask, but the more I think about it, the more things I can think of that I want to know about. So, in the next few weeks, we’ll sit down and I’ll interview mum. Should be good.

Sorts

It’s been an “interesting” week:

It started with getting stuck on the tube for two and a half hours on Monday.

On Wednesday I went to a lunch time do to mark the departure of my last boss. I felt really sad by the end of his speech. I had a chat with him and he clearly has mixed feelings about going, but being made voluntarily redundant worked out well for him. So now he has a whole new more relaxed life ahead.

After that lunch I went to a management meeting and one of the other managers ended up in tears, recovered a bit and then walked out of the meeting. We had a chat afterwards and she seemed a bit better by then, but was not looking very happy yesterday either. She did also tell me off for not telling her she was looking a bit rough and said that we needed to develop a relationship where I was more direct with her about things like that. I feel this might be a challenge, as it has never struck me as terribly polite to point such things out.

Then another manager spoke to me for a bit because she is also feeling really rubbish. So we chatted for a bit and she vented her frustrations. I don’t feel work is a very happy place at the moment.

I am actually feeling as though I have a bit more head space at work at the moment, so am feeling reasonably positive. I feel I am out of kilter with most of my colleagues.

Free at last

As normal, I set off for work at 8am yesterday. I arrived at work at 12.20pm. Just in time for lunch on the course that I was meant to be running.

I had the somewhat dubious pleasure of being on one of the five jubilee line trains that had to be “detrained” i.e. we had to walk along the tunnel to get to a station. I think the train I was on must have been the last to get the passengers off because according to news reports the last passenger on the five trains got to a station platform at 11.30am, which was about five minutes after I finally made it to the platform at St John’s Wood.

The tube train came to a standstill at about 8.50am and two and a half hours later (for all of which I was standing – and on a very packed tube train) we all finally got off the train by stepping down onto the tracks and walking through the dark tunnel to the nearest station. I was actually walking pretty close behind someone, and there was a whole trail of people in front of him, but it was very dark in the tunnel, so you can’t pick them out in the photo below.



There has been some criticism in the media of how TfL dealt with the problem – and two and a half hours in far too long to have left us on a train for – but a lot of it seemed to be down to the line controller not being able to decide whether we should get off the train or not. At about 9.30am we were told that we were going to have to walk through the tunnel to St John’s Wood. This plan then got shelved as we were told the train should be able to continue. At about 10am we were told that we would have to walk along the tunnel to Baker Street. About 20 minutes after that we were told that we would be walking through the tunnel to St John’s Wood and then a while later police officer and TfL staff arrived and walked through the packed train and eventually, gone 11am, things were finally in place for us to get off the tube.

At no point did I feel unsafe and actually our driver was really nice, and kept us as up to date as he could given the changing situation. A woman did have a panic attack where I was standing but passengers helped her and gave her an asthma inhaler and a doctor, who was also stuck on the train, came and helped her. For once, it was also fine to talk to your fellow passengers and compare awful travel stories form years gone by.

When we finally got to St John’s Wood, a girl of maybe six years old ran up and down the platform shouting “free at last”. Free at last indeed.



I have to say my colleagues were lovely as well. A few people had tried to contact me on my mobile as they were really concerned about where I was, and there were three messages on my home phone when I got back last night with people trying to track me down. It was nice to feel missed.

Changes

Last week I got an email from my boss at the organisation I am seconded from and he said he is taking a redundancy package that means he needs to go this week. I was really shocked to get the e-mail and it made me feel quite sad as he is a really nice chap. He is also my contact with my parent organisation and so I don’t really know who I will contact in future. So I had better see if I can find someone else to be my contact.

I talked to one of my neighbours and we are drawing up plans to oust the freeholder. Hopefully we can do so fairly soon, as I saw the letters the freeholder wrote to two of my neighbours, which were so unprofessional and also rather threatening. We need to get rid of her. Soon.

Labels

I don’t know what I think about The Finkler Question winning The Booker Prize. I liked it a lot more than some of the other books on the shortlist, but I think it is one of those books that will really divide people. Someone else in the group who was reading the shortlist absolutely hated this book and refused to finish it. She just found it so irritating and could not bring herself to read another word of it. Personally, I find it perfectly readable, but I am not sure it is the “comic novel” that it likes to think it is. Don’t let the author, Howard Jacobson, describing himself as "the Jewish Jane Austen". Jewish he may well be, but Jane Austen he is not.

I was wearing a new shirt yesterday. I was glad that G saw my rear view (so to speak...) before I left for work because a label showing the size was still stuck to the collar and would have told any passer-by throughout my day far my information than I wanted them to know.

Nights

We bought a wii on Friday night. I feel that this might take over our lives - and make it even harder to keep up with the number of programmes that we have recorded. We have also got wii fit plus, so we will both hopefully become well toned couch potatoes though. I might also buy shares in a battery company, as I think we will go through many batteries over the coming weeks.

Tonight I am meeting up with a few people from work to discuss who we think should win the Booker prize. I am not entirely qualified to do this, given that I have not read all of the books, but it should be an interesting discussion anyway. We have had a huge variety of views on some books so far, and I suspect we might find it hard to reach a consensus. As I have not read them all yet, I don’t know which one of the shortlist I think should win, but based on those I have read so far, I liked In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut the most – which was the first one I read and it was therefore downhill from there on.

Effort

I have been running a course at work for the past couple of days. The first day went pretty well, but the good was undone by the second day. One person on the course, who is always rather outspoken, just did not want to be on the course and made sure that everyone knew it. Others tried to ignore her, but she really brought down the mood of the course. Her feedback said something like it was “rude” to expect people with her experience to go on a course like this. It had taken many hours of work and refinement to get the course to where it is now at. It is aimed at people of differing abilities and everyone can get something out of it, however experienced they are – but only if they want to engage. We are running the course again in a couple of weeks and I am hoping that there is no-one else who is going to exhibit a similar attitude.

On a more positive note though, Nova Scotia is going up and up in my estimations. We went there last year and while we were there G bought a baseball cap. Unfortunately while we were in Sweden this year the cap got left on a bench and when we went back to get it, it had gone. So I contacted the Nova Scotia Tourist Board office where we had bought it to see if it was possible to replace it (G *really* liked it). The Tourist Board passed it on to the people who run their shop and I got an e-mail a few days ago saying that they didn’t have it in stock, but would see if it came in on another order, and even if it took quite a while they would keep my e-mail so they could let me know when they got new stock in.

Then yesterday I got an e-mail from another of their offices, this time in Halifax, Nova Scotia, saying that they thought they had what I was looking for, but they could send me a photo if that would help. It was such a nice e-mail and I was already very enthusiastic about Canada, and Nova Scotia, but now I want to go back there all the more. I know it is their job to sell things, but they have been willing to go to a lot of effort to get this to me. So, next time you are looking for a great holiday destination, go to Nova Scotia and make sure you go to the tourist office shop at Amherst (on the border with New Brunswick) and Halifax because they are very friendly and helpful people!