MEGA update (get a drink, this could take a while!)
2009-07-15, 10:40 p.m.
Monday 6thOur neighbour John was out in the street with his friend, making a hellova racket. Nobody but us is allowed to disturb the peace in our street � everyone has their own jobs: Brian and Jenny are the ones who know everyone's business, Belvinder and Avtar are the token "ethnics", Sue and Peter are the ones with the REALLY untidy garage, the Oxnams are the strange ones with a daily car-wash habit etc etc etc. And WE'RE the slightly odd ones who aren't very grown up and make a lot of inappropriate noise. Needless to say, hearing a load of racket in the street and realizing none of us were making it, caused us to all rush out and have a good old nose.
John got a new car. Well, I think it had previously maybe had one or two owners as it was made in 1899!!!!!!! Look! His friend took Treacle for a ride in it!
That's immeasurably cool, dear readers, isn�t it?
Thursday
You know that thing people do when they come out of an abusive relationship? They often meet someone else very very quickly and for a little while they�re just totally bowled over that someone could be taking an interest in them without all the abuse and the tears and the fighting and the misery? Then after really quite a short while, they start to look at this new partner and thinking �Actually, s/he's a bit of a loser.� Their habits start to grate, they aren�t as good looking as you first thought, the sort of attention that they are able to give isn�t quite what you need. In short, you start to feel a little bit short-changed? Eventually, you get strong enough to break up with that �rebound date� and are ready to find that proper partner that you know you deserve? Well�.*whispers* Im starting to feel like that about my job. I have a �rebound job�. And whilst I totally admire the excellent works that they do and support the principles that they are trying to achieve, Im really struggling with the inefficiency, lack of urgency and lack of business sense which are all conspiring to make my working days �well�just a bit �sigh-worthy� really.
Ive kind of decided to hang around until all the training courses and programmes are set up, all the facilitators are trained and in place and all the budgets are under control and the project�s basically running itself�and then I shall start looking for something just a teeny bit more dynamic. I don�t want to leave anyone in the lurch and I do believe in the project�.I just kind of wish I was working for the centralised office, rather than an offshoot provider. Don�t get me wrong, Ive got no desire to go back to the super high-pressure of Twat Inc; feeling panicky and sick on the way into work and living on my nerves (supplemented with chocolate and corned beef pasties). To be honest, Im quite enjoying working in the voluntary sector and could easily see myself moving to join another charitable concern � perhaps in a field which Im a bit more passionate about. There�s definitely something to be said about working in an environment where mammon isn�t the be all and end all.
Ive also found that, now that Im not so stressed and miserable and worried the whole time, Im finding it easier and easier to keep my hands out of the biscuit tin and have lost 5lbs in the last two weeks. Obviously I still suffer a bit from the Midnight Munchies but that�s generally due to �other influences� and not just the sheer misery of my crummy career making me crave cheese and onion crisps sandwiches (with salad cream if any can be found � strange, as its not something a I generally buy and we rarely have it in the house but, BOY, could I do with some of an evening once little green smokes have been had!). At this rate, I should be back down to my Wedding Day Weight within a month or so.
This week�s been something of a riot of activity � none of it very exciting � which has seen me down at the workies every flaming night doing some kind of committee-based activity. Monday and Wednesday were Facilities Committee nights, helping to chop down some overhanging trees in the car park. Im the only �girl� on the Facilities Committee, which does mean I get patronised quite a lot, including being told �Its good to have a woman on board, there�s always a lot of paperwork to do�. This by a 74 year old man who has yet to turn up for ANY of the tricky, dirty, back-breaking jobs.
I did kind of wish I was elsewhere at one point yesterday, though, as I was holding a three phase ladder for one of our �ummm�more �robustly proportioned� members. The end of the ladder was leant against one end of a branch (which I deemed rather too spindly to support the weight of ladder AND man AND chainsaw) whilst he merrily, and with a certain amount of reckless abandon, sawed off the other end of the branch. No amount of reasoning would convince him that this might be a rash enterprise. I was fairly certain that either the sawn branch would come crashing down on me or the ladder/man/chainsaw would! Either way it could have been very unpleasant. Oh, yeh, I forgot to mention the power line that was resting on the branch he was cutting. *shakes head*. Still, it was good fun shouting �TIMMMMMBERRRRRRRRR� every five minutes or so and we did get rid of an awful lot of extraneous branches. And nobody got hurt. Phew.
Friday
I went to Paki's funeral. There were so many people there that they wouldn�t all fit in the crematorium. About half of us crammed in, and the rest had to wait outside � they propped the doors open so everyone could hear. Shagnasty asked if, when he dies, I could try to arrange a joint funeral with someone else who'd died around the same kind of time as it was the only way he could guarantee such an impressive turnout. I said if all else failed I'd just wear a really big hat with huge black plumes and hope that it would be such a distraction that no-one would notice all the empty seats. We'd all been told to wear bright clothes � Paki had a penchant for outlandish golf wear; lemon checked slacks with a candy striped shirt, peach and maroon Mondrian block patterns, tshirts with poorly executed giant soaring eagles in multicoloured blues and greens never seen in nature emblazoned across the chest. Im sure sometimes he did it just to make us laugh � and most had complied. Shagnasty had a grey suit on, with a pale blue shirt but, as somebody pointed out "that IS bright, for him". I knew I'd have to go back to work afterwards so I had a dove grey sleeveless dress on but had brightened it up with a crochet coat in a deep clover and matching satin shoes with the obligatory vertiginous heels and giant diamante buckles. It was a short service, only one hymn (ironically, it was one that Shagnasty and I had at our wedding. I didn�t notice him singing along at all) and some readings from his daughter and his girlfriend. There were the usual funny little moments where people remember strange things about the deceased � in Paki's case it was how, when going to a restaurant he'd always say "I'm going to try something different tonight" before eventually ordering prawns (every time) and how he'd scavenge the golf course for other people's lost balls, ruining a �100 t-shirt to extricate a long-since abandoned �3 ball from some patch of thorny undergrowth. The committal music was Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. Everyone smiled. Shagnasty seemed to get something in his eye at that point and was doing a lot of blinking. I was looking at him sideways so he wouldn�t notice. I shoved a couple of tissues into his hand and he blew his nose. He didn�t say thank you. I was kind of OK until afterwards when I went to speak to his daughter. She recognized me, although it must be seven or eight years since I'd seen her. I tried to think of something good to say but the best I could come up with was "Your dad was lovely, and he was so kind when me and Shagnasty split up and��" and then my face went all scrunched up and I had to put my sunglasses back on and flap my hands about a bit because I couldn�t say anything else. She didn�t seem to mind but I felt crap about it afterwards.
Shagnasty went off to go to the wake with the other golf buddies but I went back to my office. I thought I was behaving normally but the office was very quiet for about ten minutes and then one of the mad old ladies sidled up and asked gently if I'd like a cup of tea.
In the evening, L and I walked the two or three miles to the village where we got married to see our friend P playing in his band. They were OK but the lead guitarist (who is also the band leader) loves himself so much that he was the only sound you could hear. That�s a bit of a shame as he's not the most talented person in the band by any measure. L used his digital mobile recorder to record the gig � you can just discretely prop it up on the bar and press the red button. We'll give P a CD of the gig so he can, at least, play it back to the rest of the band and say "SEEEEEE! I told you the bastard was too loud!"
Saturday/Sunday
As we knew that the band in the workies was going to be an inexorable shower of shit (being on committees occasionally has its privileges!) we opted to go with our friends Craig and Lina to some kind of beer festival type thingy out in the New Forest. It pissed down with rain and we stayed about half an hour before repairing to the Indian restaurant where enormous quantities of alcohol were consumed and much laughing was done. I was pissed off with L�..I cant even remember why now but Im sure it was UTTERLY justified at the time! We slept in Craig and Lina's log cabin pool house, as far away from each other as we could be whilst still being in the same bed, seething and rigid with irritation, listening to the rain bucketing down on the wooden roof. Next morning I tried to salvage the weekend situation by suggesting a drive to Lymington and perhaps a spot of lunch but L had already decided to work instead and we went home, me tight-lipped and driving like Ayrton Senna's slightly more reckless sister, L monosyllabic and glaring moodily out of the window.
Monday
My office building smells like charity shops. It doesn�t stink, as such, but there's an all pervading whiff of talcum powder, clothes that need washing, mildew and pissy knickers. I mentioned this to Sharon (the only other Manager of any description in the building. She's as short and fat as I am tall and slender (!) so we kind of look like a set of fairground mirrors if we stand next to each other.) and she said "Mmm. Yeh. It does a bit, doesn�t it." And we sprayed some deodorant about in the hope that would take the edge off it. Now the offices smell of charity shops�.and Soft n Gentle. *sigh*
In the evening, the dubious honour of taking the minutes at a disciplinary meeting in the workies. The secretary had left the office unlocked and gone to answer the door whilst he was counting the takings. A workman-type bloke had persuaded him to walk outside and around to the back of the building and�.well, Im sure you know the rest. An accomplice nipped into the unlocked office and Hey Presto, we're �2000 down on the deal. *shakes head*. Still, it was fun trying to find some middle ground between those committee members who considered that to hang, draw and quarter the secretary would be a bit lenient, and those who were insisting that he did nothing wrong and was the innocent victim of a dastardly crime baron (actually, it was just the secretary's wife who thought that. The Capital Punishment faction was much larger). Eventually we settled on a written warning. Bit of a cop-out, I know, but hey.
The bathroom fitter turned up to start work on the new bathroom. First job was to rip out the old bathroom so now we have no bathroom. We're carrying out all our ablutions in the tiny cloakroom sink in the downstairs lav. Those who have been to my house may now snigger. We'll be bathroomless for about a week.
Tuesday
Off to Southsea and Hayling Island. Not for a jolly by the seaside but a day with one of our Support Workers, trying to learn what she does. Bit of a waste of time as I do already know what "fuck all�.with added whining" is.
There was some kind of property programme on the telly about a couple who bought a Victorian station in Devon and were converting it into stupidly expensive holiday lets. I watched it for a bit with an uneasy feeling that I knew the dreadful bloke from somewhere. About halfway through I got a text from my ex-colleague and long time friend Skinny Karen. It said "OMFG Have you seen who's on telly?!". I was quite comforted to find I DID actually know the bloke � he'd been a client of ours about 20 years ago � and it was kind of nice to find that he was still a complete arrogant arsehole after all these years. The final text from Skinny Karen was something along the lines of "Nice to see him showing himself up to be a twat on national telly after ripping off so many poor sods over the years". Ha.
Today
My first training course as a Facilitator!!! I was so nervous. When I got to the office (TWO HOURS before the course was due to start), Sharon (who was co-facilitating) was already there and she was worse than I was! To say we were crapping ourselves does a terrible disservice to diahorrea sufferers the world over. Even rabbits caught in headlights were saying to each other "What's up with Sharon and Stepfie? They look well petrified!"
Needless to say, it all went kind of OK � most people have promised to come back next week for session 2 � and now I only have 41 sessions left to do before the end of October. *weep* Oh, no, hang on, my boss wants another two courses in place before Christmas. Make that 55 sessions.
The mirror tiles and the sparkly toilet seat have turned up for the new bathroom. The shower tray is still nowhere to be seen. I went to my mums and had a shower. So did Treacle. Jooj washed her hair in the kitchen sink and L is off to his sister's tomorrow for a shave. The bathroom fitter went to Travis Perkins and put a load of timber on our account. He also knocked a huge hole in the ceiling. Im not sure what for. It'll probably be the end of NEXT week before we have a bathroom again.
S.T.O.P. .P.R.E.S.S.
I just got up from typing this to take a bucketload more painkillers (my back! Oooh, my back!) and L put his arms around me, kissed me the nicest he's kissed me in AGES and said "I apologise for being such a fucking cunt to you over the last couple of weeks". I think a truce may have been declared�.particularly as he's actually only been being a cunt to me for a couple of days. Perhaps he'd been thinking evil thoughts in my direction before any actual words or deeds came into it. Either way Im quite happy to accept the apology. I do actually love him quite a lot (although I hide it quite well). Yay!
Later
S
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