Bearing in mind the town where the guitar show was, is about 135 miles away � most of it motorway driving, how come it took a mind-numbing four hours to get there? I lost the signal for the radio station I was listening to after about 30 miles so I sat, in traffic, in silence for 90% of the journey. Once I got to Oxford, I hit the mother of all traffic jams and didn�t move AT ALLL for forty minutes. Needless to say, by the time I got to the hotel I was seriously pissed off, desperate for a pee and even more desperate for a drink.
BF was in the bar chatting to another guitar bloke and was suitably pleased to see me but I was just too grumpy to appreciate him for a good hour or so. Our hotel room was, Horrors! Non-smoking so we rolled a joint and went to smoke it in the car after the bar shut. Call me old-fashioned, but it kind of takes the shine off the thing when two middle-agedish rock n rollers are sat in a Ford Mondeo at midnight freezing our parts off in minus 5 frostiness, smoking a big fat spliff out of the window so the inevitable �plink/sizzle� doesn�t fall on the upholstery.
We hadnt had the foresight to get any chocolate either so the post smoke munchies could only be sated by one of those teeny little packs of hotel Bourbons which we had to share (one and a half each!). Not a good start to the weekend.
The Show was fab tho. The promoters looked us after in fine style and BF played a blinder both days and sold a fair few CDs too. Hoorah for us. I got to snog all kind s of musician chappies and did a bumper shopping bonanza on the Saturday, courtesy of the nicest taxi driver EVER who knew exactly where all the best shops were. Couldn�t understand a word he said (told you there was a pretty high immigrant population) but he was top anyway. Bought humungous amounts of clothes for Jooj and a few little delights for myself.
Got a top tip on where to get the perspex porn shoes (from a big fat shop assistant in Anne Summers � oh, please don�t let her have utilised her staff discount on the red nylon babydoll thingy in he window) and trudged the length and breadth of town going in ever more seedy shops until I opened the door to one only to find a middle aged Indian lady behind the counter with the lowest cut top I have ever seen (outside a topless bar, of course). She knew exactly what I was after and produced her last pair with a theatrical flourish. They were two sizes too small. Despite three calls to her suppliers she wasn�t able to conjure up a pair by close of business. Meh. Back to the interweb thingy then.
Top purchase of the day was a net bodystocking for 9.99 � was a big concerned that I don�t have the necessary top-bollocks for showing it off to its full advantage, and it�s a bit of a bugger to get into - especially when half-cut - but BF did seem to appreciate the effort (for AGES actually. Big Time!). Eschewed the joint on Saturday as it was even COLDER � minus 7, so Im told. BF was a bit grumpy about that but once I started on the "Oh, so you have to be wasted to fuck me, do you?" tack, he kind of came round to my way of thinking. Slight panic when we got home as we couldn�t remember re-packing the toy box and were a bit concerned that our scale model of Easter Island on the bedside table might have disconcerted the maids somewhat, but all was well, the toys had indeed been packed (although neither of us can remember doing it!).
Took an unbelievable four and a HALF hours to get home � so that�s 273 miles in EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS. There�s just no need is there? We could have flown half way round the bloody world in 8 and a half hours. It was really foggy too, so even when we weren�t stuck in jams (half a mile apart, as we�d had to take two cars � remember?) we couldn�t go above about 40mph. The fog cleared after Oxford and it was foot to the floor all the rest of the way.
Monday at work I was DEAD. Couldn�t wait to get home but then, when I did, I had to start doing all the prep for Jooj�s party. By 11.30 I was starting to feel ever so slightly tearful.
Big fat Management Meeting on Tuesday, at which BBBM swept into the room, informed us that he had instructed his wife to start work as the new HR manager and swept out again, which kind of fucked everybody up as we�d found a really top-hole candidate and were just waiting for the opportunity to interview her. BBBM�s wife knows jack-shit about HR and is the worst kind of corporate wife. She comes from a housing estate not far from Chigley but you�d think she was born with a whole silver service cutlery set in her mouth � as my grandma used to say "She thinks �er shit don�t stink". She swanned into my office in the afternoon and grilled me about the Job Descriptions she was trying to write. Job Descriptions arent difficult to write if you are even slightly aware of the job function of the employee. But she isnt. I am already doing her job for her. Dark looks were exchanged (behind her back. Im not a total idiot).
Left work early for Jooj�s party. Mater had been sent as an advance party to The Palace of Many Sins to make a start on the food. Id left a comprehensive list of instructions and there was a comforting smell of baking wafting up the hallway when I went in. Unfortunately it all went downhill from there:
Me: Everything alright?
Mater: *sighing arsily* No. There�s no room for the garlic bread
Me: Really? Are you sure? (Looks in oven)
The first instruction on my list was to get frozen food out of the freezer (top shelf) and put it in the oven. As far as I am aware, Mater knew that there would be 7 wee girlies at the party, plus BF and me. Can anyone explain then, why she felt it necessary to try to cook ALL the frozen food on the top shelf? 72 sausage rolls and an entire bag of potato wedges. No wonder there was no room for the fucking garlic bread. She had used an entire roll of foil to line my baking trays, despite the fact that the drawer containing the foil also contains the silicon baking paper which SHE BOUGHT FOR ME last time she did a �big shop� as they don�t sell it in Paupers R Us. I started to stiffen slightly with the effort of not yelling, "ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE, WOMAN? How much do you think 7 children can EAT ferchristsake?" but mercifully thought better of it as Pater was there as well and he would have borne the brunt of the giant hissy-fit she would have thrown. Decided to rise above it � how grown-up am I!!! Kids turned up, food got eaten, BF played "Happy Birthday to You" on the v expensive new guitar in 10 different musical styles � the thrash-metal one seemed to go down particularly well and off we went to the cinema.
Just a word to the unwise. Films classified 12A are done so for a reason. The reason is that they scare the living shit out of 9 and 10 year olds. Jooj has already read Goblet of Fire so was pretty much unfazed. Treacle knew the story too and was kind of OK although she did sit on my lap for some of it. At the other end of the row were Jooj�s new cool friends from her new school. During a particularly gory bit I scooted along to make sure they were OK. All three were bolt upright on their little booster seats, ashen-faced and not looking nearly so cool as they did when they were giving me a load of back-chat before we went in. "Are you OK?" says Stepfie, brightly. "We�re a bit freaked out,� says super-cool backchat madam. Stepfie runs along the line to tell Jooj to keep an eye on Treacle and squeezes in between the cool kids for a distinctly uncool cuddle and hand-holding session which I bet they wont be telling their mates about in the playground. Kept up a running commentary for a bit "Don�t worry, he escapes � you know its not real don�t you � Oh look, Hermione�s got a coat like yours � blah blah blah" until they got a bit of colour back in their cheeks.
When we got outside the mummies were waiting (including MiniMe � see previous entry) so I did a blanket apology for the impending nightmares and made a dash for it, just in case there was pointing and crying and "She MADE us watch it, mummy"- type stuff.
Back home for a tidy up and well-earned glass of sherry (actually its �fortified British wine�. How broke am I!). When BF got in we had a big debate on the state of acting talent. BF likes a good rant and got off to a cracking start when he said there were only two great actors currently working; Meryl Streep and Al Pacino and then challenged me to come up with another. He was striding up and down the kitchen wagging his finger and being all pontificatey and once he got to the bit that went "Hmmm? Hmmm? I bet you cant think of a single ONE!"��.oh, I couldn�t stop myself. I opened my mouth and it just popped out. I don�t know where it came from or what made me say it�..
BURT REYNOLDS!
Bugger me backwards with a rusty rasp, he ACTUALLY STOPPED TALKING! He was mid-finger-wag and his mouth just kind of plopped open and he did that funny slow blinky thing. Then we started laughing. Then we laughed some more. Then we laughed even more until our faces were aching and then we ate a huge dish of Pringles as Mater had thrown the box away and we couldn�t find anything to put them in to stop them going soft.
Normal service resumed at work today. Capt Skiver was an hour on the phone to his girlfriend, which will earn him a nice fat disciplinary tomorrow if he thinks he�s going to make it a regular thing. This afternoon�s debate covered two main topics: Why Capt Oates and Scott and all that lot didn�t eat the horses they�d taken with them once they�d all died of the cold. As we understand it, lots of food supplies were found at their camp, including Bovril, stuff in tins and Custard Cream biscuits. We came to the conclusion that nobody had taken the trouble to pack a suitable sauce for the horsy steaks and, being British, they werent able to cope with the impending social faux pas�
Good God man, do you mean to tell me there are NO condiments?
We have apple sauce, sir
Apple sauce! Egads, its not a stuffed pork loin man, its prime Dobbin
I know sir. There was a little Cumberland Sauce but we had it with the chipolatas yesterday.
Hmm, Im going outside, I may be some time (gone to look for a OneStop, presumably)
The second debate was what we would do once we�d shot and disabled Capt Skiver for being a racist, misogynistic, homophobic old fucker (following a diatribe of his on how every gay person has Aids and blacks are even worse). We concluded that the only thing for it would be to hire a black, gay carer to take him to the toilet and wipe his bum for him. Im used to his extreme points of view and generally ignore him or counter with a reasoned argument if I can be bothered (as he doesn�t listen and wont be swayed). Slave is new to the office and hasnt got the full measure of him yet. The conclusion of the debate was Capt Skiver arguing that we had got him all wrong and that he was.....�
Him: "Umm, Oh, I cant think of the word."
Slave (getting up from desk and leaving the room) "a Cocksucker?"
I laughed so much I nearly pissed my pants.