2005! My, doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself!

I wasn't going to do any New Years revolutions, but three just instantly sprang to mind:

1. Give up smoking again because, frankly, I can’t bloody afford it.
2. I refuse to wait (and wait and wait) for my chronically late sister ever again. Life’s too short!
3. I don’t like wine. I will never like wine. It’s diesel in a bottle. So I’m not drinking it any more.

I’m looking forward to the New Year (though I’d like it to be a different year, perhaps 1976 all over again, that would be good). A fresh start. All the crap is (hopefully) over and done with … the divorce and ‘financial settlement’ (hoick spit) are sorted, I HAVE A BATH AND RUNNING HOT WATER, a newly decorated living room, and Small Son shows definite signs of Growing Up into a normal human bean.

2005 is going to be brilliant, I can feel it in my bones.

So, on your marks, get set, GO! ………

A dilemma.  Do I copy other blogs and put the newest posts first, at the top, or do I (as is my preference) add new posts at the end so it reads like proper text?

Hmmm, decisions, decisions ...

Due to illness and sheer slobbiness we've been housebound for days, but blue skies drew us out into the real world today - bit of a culture shock, and bloody freezing!  Went for an hour's walk 'around the block', chatting about what we'd do if we won the lottery (i.e. how much we'd need to give up work sigh).  Certainly got the blood flowing and the brain cells working again.  Muscles are still in shock, I don't expect them to be working tomorrow, but at least there's no work as its Bank Holiday Monday.

It's also THE LAST DAY OF OUR HOLS (WAH!).

Oh God.

Monday 3

Today: lots of wailing.  Lots of throwing of body across furniture and frantic beating of breast.  Lots of fist waving at the ceiling and cries of "Why?  WHY?"

Yep, last day of holiday. 

Working weeks drag by as if you're hauling a giant ball and chain behind you across a well oiled floor.  Holidays, on the other hand, are like Roadrunner in a marathon ... whooooooosh, over.  Gone.  No more.

[More wailing and fist waving here].

I left my 'work clobber' ironing until the last possible moment.  In my haste to get it done (and ignoring the steam that could have driven a locomotive up a mountain hissing out of the iron), I started on my best trousers (the newest, the most expensive, the ones that fit me the nicest and didn't look as if they came from an Oxfam shop).  Promptly scorched them.  More screaming and wailing ensued.  Tried colouring the brown iron shape in with a black marker pen, but it didn't work.

Damn.

Bed early.  Wide awake.  Tossed.  Turned.  Tossed some more.  Drifted off into what can only be described as a light nap while the brain worked overtime muttering "Gotta get up early gotta get up early gotta ... "

Sniff.

Tuesday 4

So, this is it.  Early morning.  6.30am.  Pitch black.  Freezing cold.  Blowing a gale outside.  Brain lying in a knackered puddle at the bottom of my skull, body shaking like Ozzie Osborne on a bad day.

Work!

The joy.  The bliss.  The sheer misery of the hamster wheel cranking up again.

Somehow got to work without becoming catatonic (or hysterical) on the bus.  As I reached my desk, something dropped on the floor.  I peered at the black blob, wondering if it was the remnants of my brain.  It was the pully up bit of a zip.  A trouser zip.  Even as I looked at it, I could feel my trouser zip springing open.

Grrrrrrrrrrrreat!  That's two pairs from an already miniscule wardrobe!  Spent the rest of the day walking round like I Really Needed the Toilet to conceal the gap.

At least I get to see all mates again.  Except half of them were still on holiday (the swines).  One had gotten engaged, one had nearly froze to death in Majorca, one was still recovering from an onslaught of festive visitors.  They all had that hollow eyed, vacant, oh-my-God look.  No shrieks of delight and group hugs then.

Lunch plans - shop for mom's birthday card, mom's birthday present, cigarettes and shampoo.  Got to card shop.  It was closed.  Not only closed, but empty, bereft of cards, no more.  This threw me.  Wasn't sure what to do next.  Needed birthday card. Where?  Can't cope.  It's all too much.  Confused, headed back to office and came across a tiny shop that sold cards.  Bought one.  Went back to desk.  Realised I hadn't bought mom's present, cigarettes or shampoo.

Bugger.

Phonecall late afternoon.  "Hello?"  This is me.  "Hello?"  Silence on other end.  "Hello!"  Obviously a hoax caller, a nutter.  Finally, a voice, calling my name.  So the nutter knew me.  "It's your mom," she said.  Mom was in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre, couldn't hear a word I said but blathered on for 10 minutes regardless - interaction isn't always necessary with mom.  She couldn't meet me from work because she had to get batteries for her new mobile phone - she said this like she needed a new kidney.
 
5pm, call from reception.  My mother.  Complete with batteries and look of immense relief.  Yakked at me all the way home on the bus, but at least it saved me a trip to her house to deliver card and cash (at last, a break!). 

Bed 9pm.

Slept like a coma victim.

Thursday 6

I have a virus on my computer at work, despite the stringent firewall preventing pretty much every email attachment getting through. A popup bugs me every hour or so, insisting I download some cw gaming software. It’s a persistent little bugger, and the IT department didn’t seem to know how to get rid of it. So I looked it up on the internet and emailed them the details! See here and here.

IT eventually decided to rebuild my computer. "How long will that take?" I asked. "About an hour," they said, "We’ll come and do it now." "You won’t," I told them, looking at the small mountain of work I had to plough through, "Come at 5 o’clock when I go home."

They agreed.

Turned on my work’s computer. It was a shell! And they’d gone and lost all my ultra-important desktop items when I’d specifically asked them save them. Spent most of the morning reinstalling all printers and software. IT had to help with the network stuff and I had a whinge about the lost files. A short while later my computer was ‘remotely’ taken over by somebody else – no warning, just my cursor suddenly whizzing across the screen of its own accord. Someone had obviously got a bollocking for losing all my files and was now frantically looking for them. Like I hadn’t looked already (enough computer savvy to reinstall software but apparently not enough to search drives for my missing files!). Plonks.

After than initial excitement (!), I had the MOST BORING day at work. Having gotten through the list of work my part-time boss always leaves me, I suddenly found I had Absolutely Nothing to do, which hardly ever happens. And my other boss wasn’t giving me any work either, even though I begged for some ("Gimme that tape," I said to him. He looked stunned, "But I haven’t finished it yet!" "Here," I told him, giving him a blank tape, "Use this one and I’ll start on that one." Took me all of two minutes … sigh).

Boredom is a terrible thing, especially in an open plan office. I even asked other secretaries if they needed help (since they clearly didn’t have enough time to talk to me), but there was nothing out there. 

Time stood still. Went for a fag, went t’loo, filled up printer, filled up fax machine and both photocopiers, tidied the stationery cupboard, got back to desk, three whole minutes had passed.

After what seemed like a week and a half, 5 o’clock finally arrived and I was outta there.

I love Friday nights.

We've devised a new domestic regime (which probably won't last) – do what we can during the week so we have the weekends free (hence the washing machine is on every night and we shopped after work on Thursday - joy!). Consequently, we had a whole hour this morning to sit in the kitchen watching the wildlife on our bird table. I know, exciting life. A whole family of long-tailed tits gorged their way through the fat balls.

Spot the tit! (there's 6)

And look what Sam the squirrel can do!

You can almost hear the Mission Impossible music playing, can't you!

The ex-husband came. He took Middle Son away! Back to university. Most upset. I shall miss the sound of the fridge door opening every five minutes and him beating on his legs like a drum kit.

Jerry Springer The Opera was on tv last night. Because of all the controversy surrounding its showing, I thought I’d have a quick look to see what it was like. Got totally hooked! Thought it was absolutely brilliant – the music, the singers, the jokes ("Talk to the stigmata," says Jesus, which had me on the floor). It was irreverent and it may have been blasphemous (as an atheist I can’t really comment on this), but the people complaining so fervently about JSTO were the same people who heaped praise upon Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ.

My Partner watched The Passion a couple of weeks ago. I wandered in half way through and watched a full five minutes of it, and that was five minutes too long (the bit where Jesus is being whipped by Romans, who were portrayed like skinheads from some rough council estate). It was pure, unmitigated sadism. It was a bloodbath! Even Mel Gibson admits, "It's a rendering that for me is very realistic [bit too bloody realistic, mate] and as close as possible to what I perceive the truth to be."  But the Christians liked it.

Go figure!

"So the alarm's still ringing then?"

"Yes."

Deep breath and "Go ... home ... right now ... and turn ... the flipping ... alarm ... off ... before it ... burns out ... and  sets ... the house ... on fire ... do ... you ... understand?" 

"Yes."

He did.


 

Here's some interesting links to amuse you (because I'm too knackered to blog properly - doesn't working life take up a lot of time!):

Beware - bloke loses job because of his blog! (read up from January 6)

Create a corporate labyrinth (a must have for every office!)

Microscopic World (fascinating)

Through a rapist's eyes (from West Midlands police)

I finally mustered up the courage to check my bank statement online.  It was just as I feared ... January is a terrible, terrible month!

We're totally broke, almost two weeks before we get paid again (nothing new there then).  I emailed my Partner:

"For shopping next week, we can either:

1.  Do without and starve.
2.  Use our bag of loose change (there's about £3.47 in there).
3.  Go on a shoplifting spree (will they notice us walking out with a trolley under our
     jacket do you think?).
4.  Visit lots of people at mealtimes.
5.  Go dig up spuds from some farmer's field and live off chips, mash and baked
     potatoes.
6.  Stand on street corner with cardboard sign reading "Starving, please give 
     food/money"
7.  Ask Middle Son to send us a food parcel (he can probably afford it better than we
     can)."

He replied:

1.  There's enough food in the house to last several people several weeks ... stop
     panicking.
2.  I spent that last week!
3.  Let's try and keep our jobs.
4.  No.
5.  You dig, I'll cook.
6.  My sign would read, "Handsome Yorkshireman, please show your appreciation."
7.  Stop his allowance!


 

The great Saturday morning lie-in (sigh).  Except not.  Woken at 8am by the neighbours screaming at the top of their voices for no apparent reason other than to wake everyone up (these are the neighbours we've had trouble with before - see here).  When Small Son came round (from next door), the same neighbours, two lager louts, yelled (excluding expletives), "I won't be robbing your car next time, I'll be doing your house."

What?!

My Partner had to be restrained (as in "Put that baseball bat down!").  The lager louts continue to shout on and off to anyone and everyone all day whilst standing outside 'the girls' house drinking beer.  Late in the afternoon one of them, wearing a girl's leopard spotted dressing gown (!) started pounding on a parked car.  There was a woman inside the car and my Partner was poised like a cat ready to to rescue a damsel in distress.  The woman got out, said something.  The lager lout turned round and yelled, "They've only called the police on us!"

They quickly went indoors.  The woman (not sure who she was, but she was definitely watching their house), stayed for at least another hour.  Then she drove off.   Five minutes later, the lager louts were out again.

I have to say that, after the events of last summer, tolerance towards my fellow neighbours isn't my strongest trait at the moment.  And, judging by the baseball bat leaning against the front door, its not my Partner's either.

I've updated my Neighbours from Hell site .

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who's suffering with their neighbours.  Email me.

Monday's should be banned, abolished, 'done away with'.  Instead, we should be given a three day weekend and call Monday "Sunday Part II" or maybe "Sunday The Sequel".  Same salary, of course.  Might suggest this at the next departmental meeting.

I may start a petition to send to the Prime Minister, and maybe the Queen - its obviously something they've not considered before and I'm sure it would benefit the whole country.

All those in favour say 'Yay'.

A very, very strange thing happened tonight. Something that has never happened to me before and probably never will again. It was creepy. I thought I’d entered The Twilight Zone or something.

I waited at the bus stop after work. The bus came almost straight away (amazing in itself, but that wasn’t the strange thing). I got on, showed the driver my pass, turned and thought to myself, "Oh, look at that, all the downstairs seats are empty." Staggered upstairs and discovered there was no-one upstairs either.

I was on a Completely Empty Bus! In Birmingham city centre! In rush hour!

I have to admit, this freaked me out a little. I’m used to jostling with fellow passenger, rugby tackling total strangers for the One Available Seat. I’m used to breathing in hot, stale air and getting elbowed in the ribs by the person next to me reading a broadsheet newspaper. I’m used to the head of an exhausted nine-to-fiver flopping onto my shoulder, and listening to a cacophony of people shrieking "I’m on the bus" into their mobile phones.

I am not used to Empty Buses.

I sat at the front, where I figured I could at least be seen by the outside world should anything happen to me on my lone journey. The bus approached the next stop. It didn’t look as if it was going to stop. My heart swelled to 15 times its normal size. I snatched my mobile out of my bag.

"I’m on an empty bus," I told my Partner, "It could be a kidnapping."

"You’re being kidnapped in a bus?"

"Its possible. There’s no-one else on it. I mean no-one."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

I had the urge to stand up and start singing Rescue Me down the empty aisle, but resisted. "I just wanted to tell someone," I said. "So if I don’t come home, you’ll know what happened to me."

I could see the news headlines now: "Knackered secretary disappears on empty bus." Or, in the Fortean Times "Brummie abducted by alien bus driver - Brummie heard to cry, ‘Oi, mayte, watcha doing loike?’"

The traffic crawled forward. The bus wasn’t even aimed at the people jumping up and down and waving their arms at it. I considered panicking - but really, I didn’t have the energy. I considered leaping off the top deck to safety - but the windows are too narrow and, besides, my knees have been giving me gip lately.

And then it happened. The bus suddenly stopped. In the middle of the road. And opened its doors. And the crowd of people at the bus stop raced onto the bus.

And suddenly I was surrounded by people yelling into their mobile phones and shaking their newspapers out in front of my face.

And all was well with the world again.

Wednesday night is pub night. My Partner meets me at a gorgeous, warm, inviting, friendly pub after work and we indulge in one single pint of Stella each before continuing our merry way home. It breaks up the week.

But its January. And we’re broke. We couldn't even scrape together enough dosh for a pint each. It’s a sad state of affairs.

So we did the next best thing. As has become my mantra of late, "If in doubt, take a bath." So I luxuriated in Yet Another Bubblebath From Crimbo whilst my Partner defrosted one of his Special Curries.

Sometimes everything you need is right there at home.

A company meeting at work - one of those where they gather random groups of employees together and earnestly ask, "And what do you think we can do to improve the company?"

To be honest, as a secretary, I don’t have any opinions on that score - I turn up, do my job to the best of my ability, they pay me and that’s it as far as I’m concerned. And my fellow secretaries seemed to be of the same frame of mind as they admitted they’d only turned up for the free smoothies. We all gossiped and giggled as we decided which flavour drink to have, but as soon as we sat down all was silent. None of us wanted to speak. Well, a few did - perhaps we could do this, perhaps we could try that, and we all nodded our heads in mute agreement - but basically, once the smoothies had gone, we were outta there.

In fact, the most interesting thing about the meeting was the smoothies themselves, especially the labels. "Contents may separate*" one read, "* but mommy still loves daddy." What? Can you imagine some little kid going up to its now-single mother and saying, "I know you hit daddy with a frying pan last night and daddy called you some names I didn’t really understand, but according to this plastic bottle of squashed fruit, you still love him." Hmmm. Anyway, see for yourself.

Oh, and whilst you’re looking at links, if you’re a blogger you’ll love this hee hee.

Last night my Partner and I were tired. I mean middle-of-winter-too-much-work-and-not-enough-time-dog-tired. So we crawled up the stairs to bed at 9.30pm and fell straight to sleep.

4am, my Partner is awake again. And because he’s awake, he somehow thinks that I should be too. But he’s subtle about it. Doesn’t shake me by the shoulder and hiss, "Are you awake? I SAID, ARE YOU AWAKE?" No, he fidgets. He twitches. He rolls over. Sighs. Rolls over again.

Meanwhile I’m bouncing around like a piece of flotsam on a stormy sea.

I give a warning growl. He rolls over. Sighs. Twitches a little. I mutter, "If you don’t keep still I’m going to have to kill you."

I’m just dozing off again when he bounces again, sighs again, and I’m catapulted out of semi conscious like a bullet from a gun. I open my eyes. He notes the murderous glint in them and gets up.

This morning I rang him at work. "Is that Mr Fidget?" I say.

"It was you who woke me up SNORING!" he cried.

"You’ve had all morning to think up that excuse, and its not good enough," I tell him. "I categorically do not snore."

"You were snoring that loud I’m surprised the neighbours didn’t come round to complain!"

"I don’t believe you."

"Right," he said indignantly, "I’m going to record you with my Dictaphone."

So now I’m going to have to frisk him down every night before bed to make sure he doesn’t have any recording equipment on him - I’m really looking forward to it! :-)

EXTRA BIT

I raced over to the other side of town (city centre) at lunch time today because I refused to pay the extortionate amount they were charging at Beatties for sewing cottons (apparently the only place in the whole city that sells it). So I legged it to the Rag Market (fabulous fabulous place). Piece of cake getting there as its all downhill. Coming back I thought I’d be clever and use the escalator up to the Pallasades Shopping Centre. Except the escalator wasn’t working. It rose up above me like the north face of the Eiger. A moment’s indecision, and then I started climbing.

And climbing.

Escalator stairs are higher than ordinary stairs because you don’t normally have to walk up them. I’d also forgotten that, at the top of this steep staircase was a landing. And then another mountain of stairs.

There were people behind me so I couldn’t give up or start crying. So I valiantly kept going. My leg muscles were screaming and I was breathing hard enough to blow up a Zeppelin balloon single handed. By the time I finally got to the top I honestly thought I was going to die. Because there were people around I couldn’t collapse against a wall and slither to the floor, so I stumbled forward, looking for a seat.

Like policemen and buses, there's never a seat when you want one. I trudged up to New Street before I found one. As I fell onto it, a friend appeared. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone - at least I wasn’t going to have a heart attack and die on my own, which was a relief.

Winter (i.e. slobbing indoors using bad weather as an excuse not to go out) has obviously stripped me of the miniscule amount of fitness I once possessed. Last summer I was cycling 20 miles without breaking into a sweat. So I guess its time to get the pushbikes out again.

And give up smoking!

Saturday 22

Today my Partner and I have been together for five whole years. The first two years were spent apart, he in Yorkshire, me in Birmingham, with my Partner zipping up and down the motorway every single weekend to see me (a 260 mile round trip - he was certainly determined).

"Shall we celebrate?" I asked him, as casually as I could (well, five years is a long period of time and should be signified in some way).

He was quiet for a while, then said, "If you like." Which, roughly translated, means, ‘Er, like we’re broke.’

"We’ll do something next week then," I said - see how reasonable I am?

We nipped out. My Partner stopped at a cashpoint to see if the £20 check I put into his building society account five days ago had cleared so we could actually buy some food. Lo and behold, he’d been paid early.

"Right, how do you want to celebrate?" he asked.

Hmmmm. Meal? Pub crawl down New Street? Cinema?

None of the above. Instead, we had a drink, a takeaway and a good film.

God we’re boring.

Sunday 23

Celebration Part II. Now that we’re ‘in the money’, we went to our favourite pub for Sunday lunch. This pub, on Wednesday evening after work, is pretty quiet. On Sunday it’s a madhouse! Thousands of people jostling for seats and waiting for tables in the carvery. I’ve seen rugby scrums less frantic.

We sat next to a young family whose three year old ran wild, throwing tantrums and screaming like a horror movie victim - it pierced our brains like a hot knife and made our eyeballs bulge. The adults response was to scream back. Our conversation consisted entirely of, "Sorry, what? I can’t hear you!" My kingdom for a sock and a tranquiliser gun.

We moved to a table in the carvery. On the next table sat an adolescent of the puppy fat variety. She stared at us open-mouthed as we sat down - understandable since we’re such a tall, good looking couple lol. She continued staring throughout the meal. I glanced at her a couple of times but she zipped her eyes up to the ceiling (I almost expected her to start whistling nonchalantly). Eating, the new spectator sport! Apparently.

Pudding? Nah, we ain’t that greedy - or that extravagant. Instead, back at the ranch, my Partner made a rice pudding. Which, because he’d had two pints of Stella and two cans at home, eventually came out of the oven looking very very solid … not a case of standing a spoon up in it solid, more a case of can’t get spoon in at all.

We ate it anyway. When you’ve had a few bevvies you’ll eat anything!

Monday 24

Another Monday! Why do there seem to be so many of them, more than any other day of the week!

One of my bosses was out of the office for the day. You’d assume it would be quiet, but its not, it’s the complete opposite. So many phonecalls - clients asking me questions I didn’t know the answer to, people calling asking for my boss, my boss calling asking me to do stuff. Oh, and I had to arrange meetings that positively refused to be arranged. Plus the normal secretarial stuff (like typing and worrying when the filing pile is going to topple over and kill someone).  Plus my other boss's work.

By the end of the day I was Absolutely Bloody Knackered.

Tuesday 25

A thought occurred to me tonight on the bus (along with other deep and meaningful thoughts like "What is the meaning of life?" … "Why am I here?"and "Why am I doing this?"). You know religious types - of which I am not one - say that God created the world? Well, exactly which bit did God create?

Think about it. At what point did he create Adam and Eve - when apes were in the process of evolving into humans? Did he take one look at the furry creatures and think, "Hmmm, I can do better than that … tum te tum te tum … there ya go, Adam! What? Too much testosterone? Hang on a sec … tum te tum te tum … voila, Eve!" In which case, who created the apes (God’s dad?)

Or did God’s creative period occur further back than that, in the primeval ooze - did he create the first spark of life itself (thus creating Adam and Eve in a roundabout and incredibly slow way). Or further back still, did he create the big bang that started it all off?

Is God a physicist? Or was it all some kind of fluke accident … like God left the gas on and the oven exploded, inadvertently creating a universe in which life began to grow. Was it a laboratory experiment that went horribly wrong? Are we an abandoned project that God grew bored with and forgot - which would account for the massive exodus away from churches … well, not many miracles happen these days, do they, there just aren’t the special effects to lure people any more.

And, the biggest question of all … if God exists, who created Him?

Does your head in, doesn’t it.

I took over the stationery ordering at the end of last year - not a momentous event in itself, but it's something I hope will sway my bosses into giving me a major pay rise (pause here for hysterical laughter).  Certain people seem to think that, because I order stationery, I'm responsible for everything paper-related, including office machines.  Today's hollered conversation across the silent office to me consisted of:

"Is the photocopier fixed yet?"

"I don't know?"

"Is the man coming to fix it today?"

"I don't know."

"When do you think it will be fixed?"

"I don't know."

"Well, do you know if it will be fixed today?"

"No!  I don't!"

"Okay, okay, keep your hair on, I'm just asking."

Later, the same person comes up to me and says, very loudly, "Tell me when the colour printer has finished." 

I glance across to the colour printer, which is at least 50 yards away from my desk.  "Why?" I ask. 

"Because I need to print something."

"And I have nothing better to do than to sit here staring at the colour printer, waiting for it to finish?"

"Suit yourself," they said, and huffed off.

I'm thinking of ordering a box those industrial strength rubber bands so I can flick them at people without them knowing where they're coming from.

A pictoral blog.

I'm thinking of having my keyboard shattered nails done:

I also need more exercise, and this seems like a good way to get to work:

Something has happened.  Something big.  Something ... unbelievably enormous.

I've been wrangling with my ex-husband for the last 5 years, 3 months and 17 days; first over the divorce and then quite spectacularly over the financial settlement (for the full story see here).

Today, I received a letter from my solicitor.  It said, "This brings this matter to an end."

It's over!  Finito!  No more legal fees, no more stress or frustration or having to deal with a stubborn, unreasonable ex-husband any more.

Fan-tas-tic!   

Still celebrating The End of the legal stuff.  Bloody great!