Monday 5

So, its all over and the year 2004 is here and I’m wondering what on earth I’m doing with my life for it to be passing this quickly.  New Year Resolutions?  Forget it, I’m old enough and wise enough to know that the beginning of the year - cold, grey, horrible, depressing - is not the time to give up anything you like, such as cigarettes or alcohol (and I never think to give up those things at any other time during the year, so it’s a Catch 22 situation really). 

The Christmas holidays were absolute bliss … all that time to pither and potter and chat and think.  The hardest thing I had to do for almost two weeks was get out of bed.  My brain became not so much a vegetable as a puree: I had trouble remembering my own name!  I’m now doing the lottery every week in the hope of winning enough money to give up work completely. 

My tiny house was absolutely bursting at the rafters with bodies over the festive season.  All three sons were home, middle son’s girlfriend stayed for a few days, and small son’s girlfriend wandered in and out a lot.  There was barely space to breathe let alone move (there was always some long body strewn across the floor or draped over furniture like abandoned pieces of string). 

I thought it would be a good idea to cram five people into the car and take them up the Clent hills for a ‘good walk’.  We trudged through knee-deep mud across the top to the pub (yeah! incentive!)  Walking back was like climbing the face of Everest, I actually thought I was going to die at one point (while the rest of my super-fit family practically jogged up).  My body was as rigid as a concrete column the next day, I could barely move.  I had to roll myself out of bed and walk downstairs using only my toes.

Then it all ended and it was time to get back on the big hamster wheel of life again (wah!).  Monday morning arrived and the alarm clock went off at 6.30am.  My brain was in denial (no! it can’t be! argh!), my body just vibrated uncontrollably at the earliness of it all (“What time?  What flipping time?”).  Like a zombie I got ready for work, staggered to the bus stop with my eyes still shut, and struggled to stay awake on my journey into the city - the only thing that kept me awake was the thought of my head touching the dirt encrusted shoulder of the builder-type sitting next to me.

I had an email waiting for me on my work computer: “WELCOME BACK!  Well, its back to work.  Hope you had a nice Christmas : )  Its not so bad, this will be a Good Year.  Cheer self up with January sales.  And (hopefully) probation period is over.  Happy New Year (2004 ... jeez, what am I doing with my life!!!!!)  Typed 27 October 2003!!!!”  It was from me, to me, on time delay from October - I’d completely forgotten all about it.

Yes, my probationary period at the company I work for is now at an end.  Six long months, a lifetime!  I get on well with my two bosses, share the odd joke and chat, but my final assessment was formally conducted in a meeting room.  I just recall saying “Great” a lot (well, what else can you say when people are heaping praise upon you!).  I much preferred how it was done at my last job when I said to my boss, “So, about this probation period being over?” and he said, “Ah, yes.  Do you want the job?” and I replied, “Yeah, go on then,” and we both went back to work.  I’m not good with formality - I’m queen of the quick quip - but I get to keep my job, which is nice.

Tuesday 6

Us girl-types (aka secretaries) were talking about our experience of noisy neighbours (see Neighbours for mine).  One of them said that a van used to regularly park outside their house and the driver revving it at 5 o’clock every morning woke them up.  So one morning her bleary eyed husband rang the mobile number painted on the side of the van and found himself speaking not to the driver but to the owner of the company the driver worked for.  “I’m just ringing you to say that your employee is now on his way to work, having woken the entire street,” he said.  “I shall be ringing you at this time every morning until the driver stops revving the bloody van at 5am.”  He gave the registration number of the van, and it was never seen or heard of again!

Wednesday 7

My partner (a thick-brogued Yorkshireman) and I (a thick-brogued Brummie) occasionally like to check that my teenagers are still alive and paying attention by mentioning babies, as in having one.  Whilst trying to keep a straight face I say things like, “Hmmm, I think I’m broody,” and the teenagers gasp, “What!”  Well, it passes the time. 

In the midst of one of these sessions we were idly imaging what said babies would have looked like.  “Never mind their appearance,” said middle son, “Just imagine what they’d sound like.  It’d be all t’mam, t’dad and t’bostin loike."

Thursday 8

My dad’s father was in the army, in the war, which is probably why my dad obsessed with everything to do with WW2.  My childhood was filled with war films, remote controlled tanks rolling across the living room carpet and The World At War on tv every Sunday afternoon (the theme tune to which still fills me with utter misery whenever I hear it). 

I had an agreement with my ex-husband that if he didn’t watch war films on tv, I wouldn’t subject him to soaps like Eastenders or Coronation Street.  I have no such agreement with my partner, and every single day my arrival home is heralded by the sound of exploding bombs and Hitler’s rants as my partner avidly watches war documentaries on the History Channel.   It’s like being 10 years old again.  I’m just waiting for the remote control tanks to appear.

Friday 9

One of my bosses was in a videoconference meeting when an important call came in for him.  I rushed down to the meeting room, handed him the note and quickly scuttled out again.  As this was the first time I’d seen a videoconference in action, I peered through the glass in the door watching for a few minutes.  Six people from three different offices were up on the massive video screen, each with a card in front of them reading MANCHESTER, LEEDS, LONDON. 

Just as I turned to return to my desk, the meeting room door opened and my boss came out.  He looked most surprised to find me still there.  “Oh I was having a bit of a nose,” I blurted, embarrassed.  “Its just like University Challenge, innit.” 

Impressed him no end being likened to a student quiz show.

Saturday 10

I think it was because Barry off Eastenders died that put it in his mind.  Today my partner and I were listening to classical music whilst reading/laptopping and, almost at the end of of Peer Gynt, my partner said, “I think I’d like this played at my funeral.”  While my brain was digesting this piece of information, Peer Gynt finished and the next track came on.  Hallelujah! “Or maybe this one,” I giggled. 

One flying cushion in the face for me.

Monday 12

We had the whole weekend to ourselves without any ‘commitments’ or visitors for the first time in weeks.  And what did we do?  Go out? (nah, my idea of the perfect night is a takeaway, a video and a bottle of whisky).  Did we clean the house from top to bottom? (please! only boring women have immaculate houses - or at least that’s what it says on my fridge magnet).  We did Absolutely Nothing.  It was great.  Sunday we barely moved - we weren’t ill, we were just being incredibly lazy.

Tuesday 13

Last Thursday I practiced the fine art of changing my life in one short lunch hour.  My building society gave me figures for a loan to pay off my ex-husband (finally, at vast cost) and changing my mortgage from endowment (which ex is keeping) to repayment (which has trebled the monthly payments!).  Oh, and I had to extend the term from 8 years to 13.  All fun stuff.  (For the full story, see Divorce Fiasco).

On Friday I told small son that his ‘housekeeping’ will have to be more regular in future to ‘help out’.  Last night he came home and informed me that he’d managed to lose his job!  His workplace is 5 minutes walk from the house - and he goes in the car, which takes about 1.5 minutes - yet he still can’t make it there on time every morning, so they sacked him. 

Talk about bad timing!

Thursday 15

The Birmingham Post - “GETTING OLDER - AND HAPPIER”

“The West  Midlands may be seen by some as a place where people speak in dreary tones and go to work in gloomy cities under cloudy skies.  But the region has something that keeps a smile on the faces of those of us who live here, for it has been deemed as one of the happiest areas in Britain. Happiness was identified as the main goal in life by 80 per cent of West Midlanders and, perhaps more significantly, 60 per cent claimed to have achieved it.

The many contented people of the region believe happiness to be more achievable with age, according to the survey for Parker Pens.  They say the pressure to forge a successful career lessens as each year passes, leaving them free to concentrate on areas of life that bring them happiness.”

Just what I always suspected - the Midlands is, clearly, THE place to be if you wanna be happy.

Monday 19

January weather is fun, isn't it.  Hypothermia, chillblains and cracked lips.  And is there anything more ‘fun’ than waiting for a bus in the dead of winter?  Its pitch black, blowing a gale, the street you’re on is acting like a wind tunnel so you have to cling onto the side of the nearest building by your fingertips to avoid being blasted into the path of oncoming traffic, and its raining (of course it is!). 

Not only that, but they appear to have missed out a few buses so you’re in this horizontal, wind-swept, utterly soaked predicament for at least 25 minutes.  And then, when the bus does finally dare to show its decks, its has at least three busloads of people on it because its three buses late and is absolutely packed to the rafters. 

Seat?  Forget it, they’re standing up the stairway and crammed right up to the door.  So you slip into a small 3” x 3” space in the aisle and have to squirm into the tightly packed crowd and cripple people’s toes to get out of the way every time the bus stops.  And why, exactly, is the driver stopping at all when it’s patently obvious the bus is full?  To let more people on, that’s why.  Amazing!

I’ve never seen so many people crammed together in such a small space before - oxygen was thin, all the windows steamed up so you couldn’t see where you were, and there was much muttering of ‘sorry’ as people come into close and far too intimate contact with each other.  Nightmare!  And still the bus keeps stopping and letting people on, and there’s patently no where for them to go but they get on anyway.

Perfect way to end a day.

Wednesday 20

I lost my security pass for my office this morning.  I went to the loo, then for a ciggie, and then discovered I couldn’t get back into my office.  I retraced my steps (down and up three flights of stairs - nearly died!) and practically dismantled the toilets looking for it.  I immediately informed the Head Secretary, who procured a temporary pass for me. 

Hours passed.  I went to the loo.  My original security pass fell out of my trousers, where it had been tucked the whole time.  The moral of this story seems to be I should try harder to lose the excess weight I put on over Christmas if my body is capable of hiding a pass the size of a credit card - the Head Secretary thought it highly amusing anyway.

Thursday 21

Yet another bus journey.  I have noticed, on the rare occasions when I leave work a few minutes early, that all the buses seem to bomb it out of the city centre before 5pm so they won’t have to deal with the ‘rush hour’ (why do they call it the ‘rush’ hour when hardly anything moves?). 

So, by 5 o’clock the buses are long gone and the city centre is bereft of public transport.  But, if you leave early enough, you can catch the mass desertion.  It happened last night.  This bus came bombing up the road and I rushed to the stop, threw out my arm, decided the bus wasn’t stopping voluntarily and so stepped into the road.  The bus skidded to a halt, violent throwing all the passengers forward (their faces were like splattered pink chewing gum on the top windows).  I got on, sat down, started reading my book. 

Slowly, I became vaguely aware that something was not right.  In fact, something was most definitely wrong.  I looked up from my book.  The bus was doing at least 90mph and not slowing down for junctions, traffic lights or hairpin bends.  I put down my book, prepared to be a witness when (not if) the bus was involved in some terrible accident (“Yes, officer, he was driving like a bat out of hell, but then they all do.  Who’s to say which ones are the homicidal maniacs intent on causing as much mayhem as possible?”).

I was literally clinging onto my seat, letting out gasps of absolute terror.  After what seemed like a lifetime and a half had passed, we approached my stop.  Using the handrails like a pole-dancer or a chimpanzee swinging from branch to branch, I made my way to the doors.  My stop neared.  The bus didn’t slow.  But the doors opened in front of me, and for one whole second I wondered if the driver actually wanted me to jump for it.

I turned my head, glancing back at the driver for mercy, and saw that he wasn’t some young chap who didn’t know better, it was a man of at least 50, wearing an earphone, attached to a mobile phone, into which he was conducting a furious argument with his wife/girlfriend/mother.  And then he slammed the brakes on and I was thrown against the windscreen and out the door.  How I didn’t fall to my knees and kiss the ground as the bus roared off down the road I don’t know.

Our life in their hands.  God help us!

Saturday 23

The Yorkshire Run!  No chance of a serious lie in as we have to leave before 10am in order to get oop North for midday (sob).  So we got there at midday and guess what, there's no kids, no ex-wife, the house is completely empty.  My partner tries ringing the home phone (no answer), little son's mobile (switched off), little girl's phone (switched off), the ex-wife's mobile (yep, switched off) and even her boyfriends mobile (guess!).  This is a new development - the ex is usually absent when we take the kids back, but now she's trying a new one, not being there when we arrive.  We're amused.  We drop a note through the door and head off to Asda (in my constant quest for cheap bus books).  Just as we pull into the car park and I'm getting really excited about the books, my partners mobile rings.  His ex asks where he is, tells him to come back for the kids, tells him to hurry up because she's waiting to go out.  Do you know how difficult it is not to stash a baseball bat in the boot for moments such as these?

Despite this we have a nice time with the small ones, buying the son a mobile for his birthday from The White Rose Shopping Centre  (don't ask me where that is, it was down a motorway somewhere).  As we stood at the counter paying for it, this frantic looking woman thrusts her head between little son and a display of mobile parts, physically head butts him out of the way then rears up with mobile part in hand yelling, "This is it, this is what I want!" to no-one in particular.  Very odd.

Visit Big Ones and have a good yak.  And then the moment I always dread arrives.  Time to take the kids back.  But yo, we have a cunning plan.  Partner has insisted that little son bring his house key with him (he's 12), despite the ex saying he doesn't need it, she'll definitely be in at the allotted time (yeah, yawn, right).  It kind of gives the ex the incentive to be there when we arrive as she won't let the kids stay in the house on their own.  So behold, for the first time ever, she's there when we take them back.  Sorted.

I'm not saying we were heartily sick of the inside of the car by this point, but we made it back to Birmingham in just under two hours - our best time without a speeding ticket..

Sunday 24

After the Yorkshire Run, Sunday is a riot of washing, ironing and acute exhaustion.

Wednesday 27

I booked today off work in order to catch up on some long awaited paperwork.  While gale force winds blew outside I'm lounged on the sofa in front of the fire, madly laptopping.  In the middle of the afternoon it began to snow with flakes the size of dinner plates - it was glorious to watch from the comfort of a warm home, a veritable winter wonderland.  It snowed again later that afternoon, and caused absolute bedlam over most of the country and the whole of the West Midlands. 

Apparently, gritters spreading salt on the roads melted the first flurry of snow, then the temperature dropped, the salt-slush turned to solid ice, and then it snowed again.  Result: absolute chaos.  My partner's 20 minute journey from work too him over an hour as he searched for a clear route home - all roads home from the Black Country are uphill, and all the hills were blocked by skidding cars.  Small Son went out in his car to pick up his girlfriend's mom from work (a couple of miles down the road) and got stuck in solid nose-to-tail traffic for almost four hours. 

Others didn't even do that well.  At work the next day I heard tales of people who didn't make it home at all but either slept in their cars in the company car park (underneath the building), booked into hotels (which rapidly became full) or bunked down in the Town Hall or Council House which had opened especially for the stranded.  One secretary I know didn't get home until midnight (and still came into work on time the following day!), a few other secretaries banded together and spent (by all accounts an hysterical) five hours walking home together.

On the bus to work the following morning, there were no screaming kids (all schools were closed) and the roads were strangely deserted except for abandoned cars parked all along the kerbs.  And do you know what they did with these cars abandoned by people desperate to get home before dawn - they put parking tickets on them!  Un-bloody-believable!

Thursday 28

Small came to work with me on the bus this morning because he had a job interview in town.  Because of the complete lack of traffic, we arrived in the city early, so I took him into my reception area.  I introduced him to a few secretaries, who all looked up to him (all 6 foot 5 inches) and oohed a lot.  "This is the monster," I said, introducing him and practically bursting with pride (my son that, isn't he tall, isn't he handsome, my son oooooze).  Later he came back to tell me how he got on and we sat in reception.  Afterwards I strutted past the receptionists afterwards with my son that, isn't he tall, isn't he handsome ... plastered all over my face.

Ah, some days you just realise what all the hard work is all about.

Friday 29

WHO sends kids back to school on a FRIDAY????  Anticipated empty roads again - I was wrong.  Arrived at work late.

I've been hassled over the last couple of months by a holiday company in Bromsgrove who say I've been chosen to receive £600 worth of holiday vouchers (oh yes), would I like to come and collect them.  After about the fourth phonecall asking when I was collecting, I hastily said, "Oh Saturday," and a time was duly arranged. 

I didn't think much about it again until tonight, when I got home from work.  The phone rang.  I answered.  A woman with an incredibly high-pitched, extremely excited voice again told me about the holiday vouchers. 

"I'm not interested," I said wearily. 

"But they're yours!" she cried.  "£600 worth of free holiday vouchers." 

"You don't get anything for nothing," I droned.

"No!  Really!  There's no catch."

"I don't think so."

"But they're yours!" she said again (like I'd just won the lottery and was refusing to claim my prize).

"If they're mine and they're free, no strings attached, why don't you just post them to me?"

I had her there and we both knew it.  She suddenly got hugely indignant, said it was a promotion for the company, cheap advertising blah blah blah.

"I don't consider £600 worth of vouchers per 'participant', however many there are, is particularly cheap advertising," I said, getting equally indignant.

This high-pitched, highly excited woman then started quoting figures at me to prove that this kind of advertising really worked (yawn), insisting all I had to do was collect my tickets, hear about the company (oh yes) and recommend them to family, friends and work colleagues.  I don't know what they were paying her to promote the company, but it definitely wasn't enough.

"So," she finally snapped, "Do you want to come and collect the vouchers?"

"No," I said, and put the phone down.