May day!  May day!  My life is passing too quickly.  Send help immediately.

In the whoosh that is my life, something has irritated me.  Not a lot, just a bit, but its annoying all the same.

The Nutrisse hair shampoo adverts on TV.  Yes, it gets this exciting.  Davina McCall and Penelope Cruz swirling their glossy hair across our screens, extolling the virtues of this fabulous shampoo that will make your hair all shiny and fabulous, just like theirs.

And while Davina and Penelope swirl their glossy manes in wild abandonment, the words “Davina/Penelope is styled with some natural hair extensions” appear at the bottom of the screen.

So, not their real hair then.  Isn’t that a bit like Jordan advertising a bra that promises to make your boobs look bigger, when her boobs aren’t real to begin with?  Isn’t that a bit like saying that you too could look like a super-model in these clothes, when those super-models only look like that because they’ve given up food and taken up drugs instead?  [DISCLAIMER: Brummie Blogs is not suggesting that all super-models do drugs]. 

Wouldn’t it be more honest to just come right out and say if you get extensions your hair will look like this, regardless of what shampoo you use? 

It strikes me as being a bit… well, deceptive really?  (Yes, breathes Davina/Penelope, I have this lovely, long flowing, shining hair… but its not real).

Its just one of those little niggles (she says, flicking her non-extension hair and doing a Davina pout – because my self esteem is so worth it).

Friday 2

A long bank holiday weekend tends to bring out the procrastinator in me.  I mean, the procrastinator in me is always trying to escape its restraining shackles and fight its way out of its rusty cage, and I often have to beat it back with a big stick, but impending bank holiday weekends seem to give it free rein.  I have no control.

I tried doing some work but got bored because the procrastinator in me kept telling me to go and do something more interesting.  I thought I should tackle the ironing mountain before it exploded like Vesuvius through the entire house, but the procrastinator in me said I was getting dull in my old age and I should go and do something more interesting instead. 

I thought maybe I should try and cook something, but that just brought on a fit of hysterics.

So, today, Friday, end of week, start of long weekend, I did nothing except read and surf the web.

And I looked exactly like this while I was doing it - yeah, right, sure I did.

And life – as fast as it may be – was good.

[Does anyone else feel guilt about relaxing and chilling out?  I always think I should be doing something constructive, despite the fact that I am at heart 100% slob with a bit of laziness thrown in for good measure.  But I was brought up with a strong work ethic that makes me want to fill my time with stuff, any stuff as long as I’m doing something.  So slobbing doesn’t come naturally to me, although I certainly try and incorporate it into my life as much as possible.  Basically, I’m a hard working fraud.  Just me, or is this something I (finally) share with the rest of the world?  Answers on a postcard to the usual address.]

Saturday 3

Looks like its going to be a quiet week on the work front next week.  One transcription company has just upped and gone on holiday (tsk), another is having computer problems and can’t get any work out, and the third… well, I’m not very happy with the third.  I’ve been working for them for 13 months, and naturally I asked for a bit of a pay rise a while back. 

And asked. 

And asked.

They said they’d ‘announce it’ on 1^st May.

O-kay.

1^st May came and went.  “Can I have a pay rise?” I asked, for the millionth time.

The answer came back.

No.

Berluddy meanies.

Bear in mind that this company already pays 3p per audio minute less than all the other transcription agencies.  3p is no big deal, you might think.  Except both of the other transcription companies I work for have just given me a rise of an extra 6p per audio minute.  Which means the difference between the Mean Bad Company and the Nice Generous Companies is 9p.  Per audio minute.  Which adds up to quite a lot if you get through as much work as I do.

I was a bit cheesed actually.  I’m one of the fastest typists they’ve got, I always get work back to them super fast, and I’ve helped out several times when they’ve been ‘low’ on typists.

But no pay rise.

Hmm.  I quite like their work, but its not as simple or straightforward as the Generous Companies.  It takes time.  And as a homeworker, time is of the essence when crunching up those numbers at the end of the month.

Should I quit?  I normally have more than enough work from the other two companies (although not this week – hopefully it’s the ‘calm before the storm’ and not the’ beginning of the end’). 

But I do like working with the Meanies templates and stuff, because I’m odd like that. 

But then they don’t pay well. 

But then I quite like working with templates and stuff. 

But then they’re quite time consuming. 

But then…

I can’t decide.

You decide.

Sunday 4

The plan was to take granddaughter out for the day, maybe drive to the coast to see the sea.  Or perhaps amble on down to the Cotswolds to look at how the other half live and take in a nice Sunday lunch somewhere.

But of course, it being a bank holiday and all, it rained.  Persistently.  Like really persistently.  We had ducks in a puddle in the middle of the road, that’s how rainy it was.

So what do you do in monsoon weather with a two year old child?

You take her to the biggest garden centre known to mankind of course.

We initially went to get a Magnolia tree, because every now and again a thought occurs to me and refuses to go away unless I act on it – this time it was Get A Magnolia Tree (not quite sure why, but I try not to question these things or I get all confused and squinty, which causes wrinkles). 

They didn’t have any Magnolia trees – maybe there’d been a rush on or something.    What they did have, however, was an enormous pet section.  It was like a zoo.  Fish, hamsters, chipmunks, rabbits, guinea pigs.  Granddaughter loved it.  “Baby fish!” she kept saying.  “Wabbits!” 

It was great just wandering around, crashing into everything with the pushchair and regularly discovering a huge pile of teddy bears on the Small One’s lap. 

Hubs disappeared into the Hobbycraft shop.  After I’d maneuvered the pushchair through the ornament displays (dodgy), the card displays (leaving the bottom rows dishevelled), the kitchen equipment (crash) and the fresh food section (sure no-one will notice those tiny finger holes), I went back to seek him out.  He’d been pondering tubes of white oil paints for half an hour!  How is that even possible?

Bored by tubes, I was showing a dolls house to the Small One when Hubs rushed over and gushed, “Come and look at this!”  As I’m used to Hubs’ inexplicable bursts of gushing, and as I was holding a two year old at a precarious angle in order for her to get a look at the staircase inside the dolls house, I said, “Have I got to move?”

Two customers next to me started laughing.  Yeah, you can laugh, but gushing can get a bit wearisome after seven or eight years, unless its about me of course.

Hubs frantic cry was to show me… yep, white oil paints, this time in tins instead of tubes.  I could barely contain my excitement.  No, really, awe-inspiring.

We bought plant food.  Three hours of wandering around, billions of ‘shall we?’, a lot of touching and feeling (the plants… mostly), and we end up with plant food.  Two boxes of.  We know how to live life on the edge, oh yeah.

Dashing through the rain back to the car we first had to navigate the Mensa test that is the child car seat, and then try and figure out, whilst drenched and getting drencheder by the second, how to fold up the pushchair.  We couldn’t. 

I considered phoning Small Son to ask how it was done (admitting if I had to that we were old and senile).  Hubs said he could do it. 

He couldn’t. 

I considered finding a family with a pushchair, any pushchair, and asking them how it was done (admitting that I was thick and slightly unstable if necessary).  Hubs said he could do it. 

He couldn’t.

And then he did.

“How did you do that?” I gasped, trying to appear impressed with his manly ability to dismantle a pushchair.

“Dunno,” he shrugged, “It just collapsed of its own free will.”  No doubt having lost the strength to fight back.

We’d walked miles, spoken baby-talk for four solid hours, driven home, fed the small one, entertained visiting Middle Son, and then handed the Small One back to her parents.

And then, late afternoon, we went to bed.

And slept.

Because we’re old.  And senile.  And easily knackered.

And because we can.

Monday 5

Last Sunday I ordered two leather reclining sofas from the Tesco Direct website.  I put the wrong credit card number (or name) on the payment page, and it was rejected.  As I’d already spent all day organising our American holiday, I didn’t have the strength to do it again.

Last Monday, I thought I’d just ring them and order it.  Done.  Then another email saying the payment had been rejected.  I rang to ask why.

“There’s a stop on your credit card,” they said.

So I rang my bank.  “Unusual activity on your credit card,” the bank told me – meaning there was actual activity and that was unusual, so they’d stopped all transactions after the thousand pound plane tickets, the hundreds of pounds of hotel fees, and car hire for two weeks had gone through.

“Don’t you normally inform people when you’ve put a stop on their credit card?” I asked.  I am but a naďve customer, what do I know.  Apparently they don’t.  Why should they?  Why on earth would customers want to know that their purchases aren’t going through?

So last Tuesday I again rang Tesco Direct and pretty much begged them – promising offspring, house and all internal organs as collateral – to send me a leather suite.

Who knew choosing, ordering and paying for a three piece suite – just a simple, straightforward, comfortable suite – could be so difficult, so stressful, so virtually impossible!

Payment finally went through.  Oh the relief.  If it hadn’t, I would have gone hunting in rubbish skips for orange crates.

Today, a mere six days (six days!) after ordering, our new suite arrived.

Comfort.  Luxury.  Reclining seats.

I’ll never see narcoleptic Hubs fully conscious again.

[Land of Leather – ya sucks boo hoo to you!]

Tuesday 6

Joy of joys, my first day working out in the garden.  Oh bliss.  Oh heaven.

Oh thank god for a bit of sunshine.

It was great.  I was cautious at first, working in the study for a while, convinced it was about to rain/blow a gale/snow/hail.  But by midday I could resist no longer, and decamped to the family heirloom of a rocking chair in the garden.

I was working on a deadline at the time.  I had to sit in the blistering sun because I didn’t have the time to get the giant table umbrella out of the locked shed.  I had to sit in the wooden rocker without the comfort of its full length cushion because I didn’t have the time to rush upstairs to find it.  I had to tie the dog up on a long lead because he was clearly Houdini in a previous life and can’t be trusted to wander round Stalag 49 on his own without eliciting screams of horror from the neighbours, and he kept tying my legs up.

I typed and listened to the birds in the trees.  I typed and listened to my granddaughter playing in the garden next door.  I typed and listened to a heated argument between two male dog walkers on the field at the back of my house (which I stopped work for, tsk).  I typed and soaked up the sun and the fresh air and the general ambience of rabid dog owners.

And then, when I’d finished 38 minutes of the most boring building survey (well, they’re all boring actually), I rearranged the patio area.  Took me ages positioning the rocker so I got the best view of the garden, the two wooden tables on either side for ultimate convenience, and the big table with the umbrella at just the right angle so I wouldn’t crisp.

And then I was ready.  Ready to work in the great outdoors on my trusty laptop.

You watch it pour down with rain for the rest of the year.

[Land of Leather actually rang me today – two weeks after I’d faxed them a cancellation letter (speed clearly isn’t their top priority).  It was the salesman who’d sold us the suite in the first place.  “I didn’t know anything about it,” he said, “I’ve just been landed with it.”

“Lucky you,” I said.

“Have you found another suite yet?”

“Found it, ordered it, sitting on it,” I told him, and all enthusiasm immediately drained from his voice.

“Oh,” he said, “Only I’ve been authorised to offer you a 10% discount on the original price.”

There was a long pause.  I broke it by saying, “Six months is a long time to wait for a suite, don’t you think?”

He did think.  He sounded just like a man who’d been told by his inept boss to soothe a disgruntled customer, and had failed miserably.  I couldn’t resist the urge to dig the knife in and say, “Tesco’s delivered in seven days.”

“We can deliver some of ours in that time,” he said.

“But not ours.”

“No.”

“Ours isn’t even in the country yet, is it.”

“No.”

“But thanks for calling anyway.”

“Yes. Okay.  Bye.”

The credit company, however, have already sent me a letter saying they’re ‘looking into my complaint’, except I didn’t complain, I just cancelled and said why. 

I’m sure neither communication has anything to do with the fact that I copied the cancellation letter to Watchdog, but the phrase ‘covering their backs’ springs to mind.]

EXTRA BIT: Someone sent me this, which is apparently a home-owner who got fed up of cars speeding down the road outside his house and decided to do something about it - brilliant!

Wednesday 7

I’d been mostly working in the garden, but then a breeze arrived and I was a lizard in a previous life and can’t survive in temperatures below 90, so decamped to the living room (since going up stairs to the study just seemed like too much effort).

So I’m sitting there on our new reclining sofa, reclined and typing away, and the window cleaner comes.  “Its alright for some, isn’t it,” he yells through the window.

I’m working!

Then a bloke comes to the door looking for a neighbour.  He came down the driveway and peered through the window at me ‘lounging’ on the sofa, and “Kor, look at ‘er, life o’ bleeding Riley some people, tsk,” was written all over his face.

People, I work!  I may look like I’m relaxed on my new leather sofa playing Mahjong all day (honestly, not all day), but I am actually working.

Anyway, window cleaner comes for his money.  He’s so covered in tattoos he looks like a children’s colouring book.  He catches me glancing at them, and begins a conversation about his tattoos and tattooing in general. 

“Oh don’t go to that one,” he says, when I conversationally mention that I quite fancied another tattoo, “He buys his inks off the internet.”  Sharp intake of breath.  “You want to go to Joe Bloggs in Blahblah, he’s dead good, did all of mine.” 

He proceeds to show me all of his, including the epic masterpiece on his back that Picasso would have been proud of (god only knows what my neighbours thought of this multi-coloured bloke on my doorstep taking his top off and perking his pecs).

“Yeah,” he says, “Go to Joe Bloggs.”  In the next breath he adds, “He’s got Aids now though, so he doesn’t do it himself, his son does it.”

Riiiiiight.

“He mixes his own inks, does Joe.  Renown throughout the world.  He did this one down here.”  Shows me multi-coloured leg.  “It should be brighter than that, but it came up in a big rash afterwards and a lot of it fell off.”

I was digging my fingernails in the palms of my hands trying not to snort with laughter.  Nice bloke, the window cleaner.  Not altogether with it though, but he does windows well.

EXTRA BIT: I apologise for the following (which someone sent me).  Well actually I’m not apologetic at all, I think its a brilliant idea and the government should implement it immediately before our little island sinks under the weight.

Brown wants us to cut the amount of petrol we use and travel less. The best way to stop using so much petrol is to deport 3 million illegal immigrants!   That would be 3 million less people using our petrol and the price of petrol would come down.

Then bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the Channel.   When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the Channel, hand him a canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq … tell him if he wants to come to  Britain then he must serve a tour in the military. 

Give him a soldier's pay while he's there and tax him on it.   After his tour, he will be allowed to become a citizen since he defended this country.  He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal resident.  

This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a solution for the troops in Iraq and the aliens trying to make a better life for themselves.  

If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway, without the canteen, rifle or ammo … Problem solved.

And There's More!  When having Yet Another Serious Procrastination Day I came across this on the net, which I thought this was pretty cool - I'll be joining Facebook next (what the hell is that all about?!)  My Top Fave Music of All Time, the first one for Hubs (sick bags available upon request).  You'll need sound of course - if you don't have sound (a) just hum along to the spikes in Media Player, and (b) question why you're working for a company that won't allow you sound on your computer. 

So technology-challenged moi has come up with an idea that I might actually be able to cope with - EMAILS!  Send me an email with the heading TELL ME WHEN YOU'VE UPDATED and every time I update the blog I'll email y'all with a lil link.  Neat, eh?

DISCLAIMER: This is a personal weblog.  The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer(s), work colleagues or family.  My experiences are written purely from my point of view and are intended to be a humorous depiction of my somewhat chaotic life.  No malice is intended in any way, it's not in my nature. The names of real people and companies have not been used (for which I'm sure they're eternally grateful).

This page and all of its contents are copyrighted (c) Brummie Blogs 2008.  All rights reserved - that's all of 'em so don't even think about nicking anything unless you ask first, y'hear?