I hadn't imagined I would be literally doing so.
Being prone to doing things at the last minute (and not being paid till the last Thursday in the month, bizarrely), I rang up the Procurator Fiscal's office in D------- to find out if the trial was still in the list for this week and was I still required. They confirmed I was, so I asked how I went about claiming my travel back. A very shocked young woman informed me that oh no, I don't pay for my own ticket - they buy it and send me the rail ticket in the post.
I said oh, oh, right. So you sort it all out for me then?
Oh, said she. Ah. Well, you'd need to ring back tomorrow anyway cos the girl that does the travel warrants isn't working today, but it's ok because you'll be coming up Tuesday anyway...
No, I say, I figured if I am coming all that way I may as well spend some time with my family, and as Monday is a Bank Holiday and I need to take a day either side of the trial for travel, I may as well come up on Saturday or Sunday.
Oh, says she. Well, you'll need to fly then.
Fly? You'll pay for me to fly up?!
Och yes!
So I rang back the next day and spoke to Laura, who booked me on to a flight from my local airport up to Inversneckie. My brother commented that after I'd flown up the once I'd never want to get the train again. Let me put it to you like so - £96.20 for 6 and a half hours bored witless on a train (7 and a half to 8 if you have to change anywhere, and quite often there are rail replacement buses due to engineering works) or £99.60 if you book far enough in advance for 1 hour 25 in the air and a half hour drive to the airport from home? OK, so you have to be at the airport no later than half an hour before the flight leaves, but you literally arrive in Inversneckie, get into the terminal, the bags appear and off you go and it takes five minutes. Had we not gone to the supermarket on the way home, I would have been back indoors less than four hours after leaving our house in West Yorkshire. You can't whack it, you really can't. Specially as the train journey comes after an hour in the car to York from home, or two trains and again about an hour, hour and a quarter, if no lift is available.
So, I flew up. On an aeroplane the size of a postage stamp. A 29 seater Jetstream 41, courtesy of Eastern Airways.
I have rarely been so scared in all my puff, especially when we hit some pretty bad turbulence. I thought I might need to use the sickbag, but gladly had no need to recourse to it. It was nearly as bad as my brother's driving at over 100 mph over a set of bumps in the road near here. When your head is rebounding off the roof of the aeroplane/car, you know it's bumpy out there.
But I'm here!
Monday, May 29, 2006
Monday, May 22, 2006
Taking the High Road Again
Oh, frabjous joy.
(And, indeed, Calloo! Callay!)
The date for the trial has been brought forward to May 31. Wednesday of next week, in fact. So, another trip up home for me, and sooner than anticipated at that. I could wish it were for a nicer reason too. I don't mind admitting that I am losing sleep over it. Silly of me, really, but it is true unfortunately that it is much different a prospect to know that you will be the one being examined and cross-examined and not the one asking the questions.
Conducting my own advocacy at trial level always made me nervous anyway. I talk too much when I get nervous, which isn't good.
I'm tired and I want it all to be over. And we all think he is going to change his plea at the last minute anyway, possibly on the day of the trial itself. What a waste of time and effort that will be, travelling umpteen hundred miles for nothing.
Looking on the bright side, I get to spend some time with the family. And I think my brother could use a bit of sisterly support. The sister-in-law is not too bright either as she had a big operation last week. So all in all, not a bad time to be going back up necessarily. Just much sooner than anticipated.
(And, indeed, Calloo! Callay!)
The date for the trial has been brought forward to May 31. Wednesday of next week, in fact. So, another trip up home for me, and sooner than anticipated at that. I could wish it were for a nicer reason too. I don't mind admitting that I am losing sleep over it. Silly of me, really, but it is true unfortunately that it is much different a prospect to know that you will be the one being examined and cross-examined and not the one asking the questions.
Conducting my own advocacy at trial level always made me nervous anyway. I talk too much when I get nervous, which isn't good.
I'm tired and I want it all to be over. And we all think he is going to change his plea at the last minute anyway, possibly on the day of the trial itself. What a waste of time and effort that will be, travelling umpteen hundred miles for nothing.
Looking on the bright side, I get to spend some time with the family. And I think my brother could use a bit of sisterly support. The sister-in-law is not too bright either as she had a big operation last week. So all in all, not a bad time to be going back up necessarily. Just much sooner than anticipated.
Friday, May 19, 2006
And another thing!
Received a text from L this afternoon (checks clock) - yesterday afternoon now.
'MG has been fired! Praise the Lord!'
Karma is your friend.
We like Karma.
Karma Kicks Ass.
I must not gloat...a friend says it's simply Schadenfreude that I feel, not gloatingness.
I must NOT gloat. Gloating is bad. Gloating leads to Karma biting the gloater on the bum.
But oh, ME! I bet that stings!
'MG has been fired! Praise the Lord!'
Karma is your friend.
We like Karma.
Karma Kicks Ass.
I must not gloat...a friend says it's simply Schadenfreude that I feel, not gloatingness.
I must NOT gloat. Gloating is bad. Gloating leads to Karma biting the gloater on the bum.
But oh, ME! I bet that stings!
Thursday, May 18, 2006
What Happened Next
Let's put it this way.
I have to go back up home some time in the next couple of months, so far as we presently know, to appear as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of someone I used to consider a friend. This friend is accused of making threats to kill, of threatening behaviour, and of assault. One of the people he threatened was my brother.
I am not the only witness. Not by far.
Something else also came to light about this person. Ironic, given the job I used to do - it seems he has been for years involved in perpetrating sexual assaults of varying degrees of severity on young boys. I never had a clue, I just never imagined any of it. I am almost more upset by that fact than by anything else.
I don't really feel able to talk about it. Partly because you never know who's reading this. Partly because it is just too...raw. Too big to really take in all at once.
This is why I haven't updated this blog for so long.
I have to go back up home some time in the next couple of months, so far as we presently know, to appear as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of someone I used to consider a friend. This friend is accused of making threats to kill, of threatening behaviour, and of assault. One of the people he threatened was my brother.
I am not the only witness. Not by far.
Something else also came to light about this person. Ironic, given the job I used to do - it seems he has been for years involved in perpetrating sexual assaults of varying degrees of severity on young boys. I never had a clue, I just never imagined any of it. I am almost more upset by that fact than by anything else.
I don't really feel able to talk about it. Partly because you never know who's reading this. Partly because it is just too...raw. Too big to really take in all at once.
This is why I haven't updated this blog for so long.
Wedding Bells
Well, actually, there were no bells.
It was a register office do, you see.
My baby brother had arranged his wedding for October this year. The plan was always that they were going to run off to the nearest town to get married and they weren't going to tell anyone except their two witnesses - one of whom was me. (Initially they were going to grab two strangers off the street, but apparently nowadays you have to provide the names and addresses to the registrar well in advance).
He decided though that he couldn't wait. His business being predominantly seasonal, the other bookings he could have picked before October were all in midsummer, which is just not possible for him. So, he went for the nearest date available that was at a time of year he could manage.
Hence the phone call I received on April 11th to ask me what was I doing on April 28th? Well, basically I was due back at work on Monday 24th after a week and a half off for CtOR's operation, so I reckoned I would be at work. I was soon made aware this was not acceptable, and so found myself having to throw myself on the mercy of the office manager. When she heard the reason for my wanting a further two days' off, she was more than happy to say yes.
CtOR couldn't risk travelling so far from the specialist so soon after the operation, so I went up on my own. Thanks to the wonders of our railway system, or more particularly the lorry hitting a bridge on our local line and blocking it, I left at the ungodly hour of 4.45 am to be sure of getting a bus into town to get a train to Leeds on a different line and thence to York to make the train I was booked on. I think we got into the house at the other end some time around 8 pm, after a stagger round the shops, a further stagger round Tesco and a trip to the Chinese. I popped up to the nursing home to see dad for half an hour, as I'd not been up since August last year.
I ended up getting to bed far later than planned, having burnt a CD of two songs for the bride's arrival and the departure of the happy couple. (Two Shania Twain songs - From this Moment and Still the One).
The wedding day itself dawned overcast with us, but was sunny on the other side of the country as we hit Inverness. My brother drove the two of us in, the bride travelling with her witness. He wanted to hear the music the bride had chosen. I cried. We had a serious conversation about Important Things. I cried. I gave him the speech I think our Mum would have given him if she'd been with us. I cried.
He was so nervous - I cried. I pretty much cried all the way till the registrar pronounced them man and wife. Which meant my brother turning to me and hissing 'For goodness' sake, quit blubbering and give me the ring!' which made everyone laugh, including me. Although not as much as when the registrar instructed him to place the ring on my finger, resulting in us swapping a look of sheer and total panic till she corrected herself.
The rest of the day is a blur of champagne and good food. And more champagne. Much, much more champagne. I could quite fancy some more champagne now actually.
There was even a surprise party arranged by one of the bride's friends for after the evening meal. There were 6 other guests at the wedding in the end, but my brother had me take a photo of them on his mobile phone to text to their friends. One of whom was actually 32 miles offshore at the time on his fishing boat, having decided to go out for the first time that week at 5 am that day. He thought it was a wind-up at first and accused his partner of keeping secrets from him when he heard it was true.
All in all, a really fantastic day.
What came next was not so good, but has no place in this post.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Gambling
It was the Grand National Saturday before last.
I have a fairly good record where that particular race is concerned. I've picked every winner since 1992, maybe 1991 (Party Politics is the first one that stands out, that was in 92).
I don't follow the form guide, nor do I tend to look at the odds. I pick a name I like, or that resonates to me. It must have a meaning to me, ideally. Party Politics - there was an election the week after, connection there, bet on that one. Mister Frisk - loved the sound of the name, all fast and swishy and prancy like a highly-strung horse.
Minnehoma...was a last-minute pick, I heard the old boys on the street corner talking about it and had to dash back to the bookies to put a quid on it. My mum used to call me (among many things) Minnie Ha-ha, which I think might be something to do with Hiawatha, but may not be. Anyway, I thought Minnehoma sounded quite close to that, so on went my quid. I remember Michael the bookie laughing at me and telling me it was a total nag. *g*
So, this year's race. I was drawn to Numbersixvalverde, and put £3 on it to win. Which it did.
Why that horse, when it would appear at first glance to have no connection for me at all?
Well, this is mostly tenuous - CtOR laughed at me before the race.
'Come in number six, your time is up' is something my mother and I would often call to each other. (Don't ask me why the hell we would, we just did, and it always cracked us up).
My mother's name was Valerie, but mostly she was called Val.
And her favourite hymn of all was 'There is a Green Hill Far Away', and verde is I think Spanish, possibly Italian, for green.
It works for me, okay?!
I have a fairly good record where that particular race is concerned. I've picked every winner since 1992, maybe 1991 (Party Politics is the first one that stands out, that was in 92).
I don't follow the form guide, nor do I tend to look at the odds. I pick a name I like, or that resonates to me. It must have a meaning to me, ideally. Party Politics - there was an election the week after, connection there, bet on that one. Mister Frisk - loved the sound of the name, all fast and swishy and prancy like a highly-strung horse.
Minnehoma...was a last-minute pick, I heard the old boys on the street corner talking about it and had to dash back to the bookies to put a quid on it. My mum used to call me (among many things) Minnie Ha-ha, which I think might be something to do with Hiawatha, but may not be. Anyway, I thought Minnehoma sounded quite close to that, so on went my quid. I remember Michael the bookie laughing at me and telling me it was a total nag. *g*
So, this year's race. I was drawn to Numbersixvalverde, and put £3 on it to win. Which it did.
Why that horse, when it would appear at first glance to have no connection for me at all?
Well, this is mostly tenuous - CtOR laughed at me before the race.
'Come in number six, your time is up' is something my mother and I would often call to each other. (Don't ask me why the hell we would, we just did, and it always cracked us up).
My mother's name was Valerie, but mostly she was called Val.
And her favourite hymn of all was 'There is a Green Hill Far Away', and verde is I think Spanish, possibly Italian, for green.
It works for me, okay?!
The Marvels of Modern Medicine
Well.
After nine months of fretting, worrying, cancelled dates and various pre-operative tests, the Operation has been and gone.
What should have taken two to three hours took more like five and a half. There were various complications; deep layers of internal fat blocking access to the required area and oozing along the stitchlines being the worst of them. He came out of it all with an extra wound on most folk who have the same procedure, six wounds for the op and one drain wound. The extra wound was required to gain access to the aforementioned area. The Prof says it was a very good job he'd followed the liver-shrinking diet to the letter because if that had been enlarged, things would have been very black indeed.
Yet again, that man of mine excelled himself whilst on morphine. He had the medical and nursing staff in fits of giggles. He has a new catchphrase, courtesy of the anaesthetist, Dr Dearden, who talked him through the inserting of various lines and needles pre-op. 'We're just going to go for something a little more saucy now, so I'll give you a local anaesthetic first', has resulted in cries of 'Let's go for something a little more saucy!' from himself whilst indulging in a spot of PS2 gaming.
Much of the last couple of days since his release from hospital (in on Wednesday, op on Thursday, out on Saturday) has been spent playing Champion: Return to Arms, or as we like to call it, Fake Baldur's Gate. It's one of those very rare beasts, a computer game we both like playing that is also two player. Baldur's Gate as a 2-player PS2 game is just stonkingly good. Sadly, the PC version is duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll.
I want to play Tombraider: Legend quite badly, too.
Right now, I am just enjoying an extended break from work. Most of all, I am enjoying spending it at 'home', with the man and the cat, though I am missing the guys a little. We may drive over for a day visit later in the week, I don't know. Must ring the landlady and check she is okay to keep feeding them - if she isn't, then I will have to return!
We've both had tons of messages from friends online. I sometimes forget that one of the sites I frequent is also frequented by him, and that my friends there know him and tend to repeat stuff to him. Not so good when things get back to him that I'd prefer he not know! So he got quite annoyed with me when a particular friend mentioned the op to him months ago when it was all hush-hush. I think now he realises that I needed to talk about it because I was worrying about it and he is glad that I had some back-up.
Anyway, this has been and will continue to be a life-changing event for him, and in a way for me, too. Food has been a huge part of our relationship from the outset. You could describe us both as large. Certainly each of us has had a 'weight problem' for most of our life. My weight has spiralled mostly upwards over the last twenty years or so, and in the last two or three in particular, as has his. It is never a good idea to attempt to match one's partner in portion size when your partner is very large as opposed to just large. He could out-eat me by a very long way indeed. It was more the weekends that hampered me, as they tended to consist of at least one takeaway, a big Sunday roast and as much in the way of chocolate and crisps as could be consumed. Not forgetting the bacon and egg baguette from the local bakery on Saturday morning. I am hoping that eating more normal-sized portions (both in digs and at home) and not being able to eat junk around him (so not fair on him if I do) together with the increased exercise we will both be getting will lead to a normalising of my weight eventually.
I did do very well at WeightWatchers...I'm not sure I have the discipline to keep at it for months on end. What I am able to do is to eat fairly sensibly and get more exercise, which also works. He was bought a recipe book by someone which is no use to him at all, but I may borrow it and try the eating plans suggested in it.
I just don't want to be the fat bird waddling around after a slim young hunk!
After nine months of fretting, worrying, cancelled dates and various pre-operative tests, the Operation has been and gone.
What should have taken two to three hours took more like five and a half. There were various complications; deep layers of internal fat blocking access to the required area and oozing along the stitchlines being the worst of them. He came out of it all with an extra wound on most folk who have the same procedure, six wounds for the op and one drain wound. The extra wound was required to gain access to the aforementioned area. The Prof says it was a very good job he'd followed the liver-shrinking diet to the letter because if that had been enlarged, things would have been very black indeed.
Yet again, that man of mine excelled himself whilst on morphine. He had the medical and nursing staff in fits of giggles. He has a new catchphrase, courtesy of the anaesthetist, Dr Dearden, who talked him through the inserting of various lines and needles pre-op. 'We're just going to go for something a little more saucy now, so I'll give you a local anaesthetic first', has resulted in cries of 'Let's go for something a little more saucy!' from himself whilst indulging in a spot of PS2 gaming.
Much of the last couple of days since his release from hospital (in on Wednesday, op on Thursday, out on Saturday) has been spent playing Champion: Return to Arms, or as we like to call it, Fake Baldur's Gate. It's one of those very rare beasts, a computer game we both like playing that is also two player. Baldur's Gate as a 2-player PS2 game is just stonkingly good. Sadly, the PC version is duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll.
I want to play Tombraider: Legend quite badly, too.
Right now, I am just enjoying an extended break from work. Most of all, I am enjoying spending it at 'home', with the man and the cat, though I am missing the guys a little. We may drive over for a day visit later in the week, I don't know. Must ring the landlady and check she is okay to keep feeding them - if she isn't, then I will have to return!
We've both had tons of messages from friends online. I sometimes forget that one of the sites I frequent is also frequented by him, and that my friends there know him and tend to repeat stuff to him. Not so good when things get back to him that I'd prefer he not know! So he got quite annoyed with me when a particular friend mentioned the op to him months ago when it was all hush-hush. I think now he realises that I needed to talk about it because I was worrying about it and he is glad that I had some back-up.
Anyway, this has been and will continue to be a life-changing event for him, and in a way for me, too. Food has been a huge part of our relationship from the outset. You could describe us both as large. Certainly each of us has had a 'weight problem' for most of our life. My weight has spiralled mostly upwards over the last twenty years or so, and in the last two or three in particular, as has his. It is never a good idea to attempt to match one's partner in portion size when your partner is very large as opposed to just large. He could out-eat me by a very long way indeed. It was more the weekends that hampered me, as they tended to consist of at least one takeaway, a big Sunday roast and as much in the way of chocolate and crisps as could be consumed. Not forgetting the bacon and egg baguette from the local bakery on Saturday morning. I am hoping that eating more normal-sized portions (both in digs and at home) and not being able to eat junk around him (so not fair on him if I do) together with the increased exercise we will both be getting will lead to a normalising of my weight eventually.
I did do very well at WeightWatchers...I'm not sure I have the discipline to keep at it for months on end. What I am able to do is to eat fairly sensibly and get more exercise, which also works. He was bought a recipe book by someone which is no use to him at all, but I may borrow it and try the eating plans suggested in it.
I just don't want to be the fat bird waddling around after a slim young hunk!
Monday, April 03, 2006
They Don't Call Me Muppet for Nothing
True, is that.
Having moved out to the country, I have rediscovered my love of long walks. So far, I've been trying to get out for an hour or so most days that I'm here. In practice, that means there are four nights in which I can get out into the woods for a while and escape inside my head as I wander where the path may take me.
Last Thursday, that turned out to be a total dead end. I thought I was walking round in a rough square - I was, as it happens. Unfortunately, the third side of the square didn't actually reconnect with the top side of the square from whence I came...this was after a good two hours of walking, by which time I was pretty much worn out. Oh, it was also dark. I'm not fond of the dark, and this was rapidly veering from twilight to darkest night.
And I was desperate for a pee. Now, Sod's Law says quite clearly that anyone taking a leak in the woods is a) bound to be spotted by someone, and b) also bound to widdle all down one or possibly both legs, and probably all over one's trousers or shorts too. So, discretion having warred with valour for some little time, discretion won out.
Let me tell you now that the next three quarters of an hour seemed very, very long.
I realised that there was no need for me to walk back through the woods for an hour and a quarter just to get back to the top of the bridlepath some 45 minutes into my journey. This was because, while I did earlier indicate that this road was a dead end, it was in fact not. Where the top side should have been was a branch off to the left, leading down to the main road. As in, the A1. A nice dual carriageway, speed limit 70 mph (except in the Elkesley accident reduction area where it is 50, or cuurently 40 cos of the roadworks).
There are no footpaths beside the A1. Pedestrians aren't banned from walking alongside A roads, but they sure as hell are not encouraged. So. There I was. Hot, tired, feet killing me, staggering and stumbling along the grass verge, which I quickly discovered took a steep dive to the right into a nice drainage ditch. Not to mention all the ruts, rubbish, burst tyres and general roadside detritus. It amazes me, the kind of crap people happily fling out the window of a moving vehicle. Fortunately not at me, on this occasion.
I walked in alternate pitch darkness, intermittently pierced by headlights of cars, lorries and vans. I only got hooted the once, which I thought was quite good.
The scariest part was actually walking through a huge layby where lots of truck drivers pull up overnight on long haul journeys. All these giant, silent lorries, with mysterious trailerloads of who-knows-what going who-knows-where. And all these great big lorry drivers, ditto. Not the best place for a lone female late of an evening. Not at all.
Happily, the rain stayed off till I was at the top of the driveway and so a minute's stagger from the warm and dry.
On getting home, I may have had just about the most delicious wee I have ever enjoyed.
Having moved out to the country, I have rediscovered my love of long walks. So far, I've been trying to get out for an hour or so most days that I'm here. In practice, that means there are four nights in which I can get out into the woods for a while and escape inside my head as I wander where the path may take me.
Last Thursday, that turned out to be a total dead end. I thought I was walking round in a rough square - I was, as it happens. Unfortunately, the third side of the square didn't actually reconnect with the top side of the square from whence I came...this was after a good two hours of walking, by which time I was pretty much worn out. Oh, it was also dark. I'm not fond of the dark, and this was rapidly veering from twilight to darkest night.
And I was desperate for a pee. Now, Sod's Law says quite clearly that anyone taking a leak in the woods is a) bound to be spotted by someone, and b) also bound to widdle all down one or possibly both legs, and probably all over one's trousers or shorts too. So, discretion having warred with valour for some little time, discretion won out.
Let me tell you now that the next three quarters of an hour seemed very, very long.
I realised that there was no need for me to walk back through the woods for an hour and a quarter just to get back to the top of the bridlepath some 45 minutes into my journey. This was because, while I did earlier indicate that this road was a dead end, it was in fact not. Where the top side should have been was a branch off to the left, leading down to the main road. As in, the A1. A nice dual carriageway, speed limit 70 mph (except in the Elkesley accident reduction area where it is 50, or cuurently 40 cos of the roadworks).
There are no footpaths beside the A1. Pedestrians aren't banned from walking alongside A roads, but they sure as hell are not encouraged. So. There I was. Hot, tired, feet killing me, staggering and stumbling along the grass verge, which I quickly discovered took a steep dive to the right into a nice drainage ditch. Not to mention all the ruts, rubbish, burst tyres and general roadside detritus. It amazes me, the kind of crap people happily fling out the window of a moving vehicle. Fortunately not at me, on this occasion.
I walked in alternate pitch darkness, intermittently pierced by headlights of cars, lorries and vans. I only got hooted the once, which I thought was quite good.
The scariest part was actually walking through a huge layby where lots of truck drivers pull up overnight on long haul journeys. All these giant, silent lorries, with mysterious trailerloads of who-knows-what going who-knows-where. And all these great big lorry drivers, ditto. Not the best place for a lone female late of an evening. Not at all.
Happily, the rain stayed off till I was at the top of the driveway and so a minute's stagger from the warm and dry.
On getting home, I may have had just about the most delicious wee I have ever enjoyed.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
Being minus a mother, there are times when I feel the absence of said maternal being more keenly than others. Mothering Sunday (March 26 in the UK) is just one of those days.
Now, Chicken the Oven Ready is well aware of my feelings as regards this particular day. Even still, he announced to me on Friday night on arrivng home from the rugby (Wigan were not terribly good, he couldn't see much because of the fog, waste of bloody money etc), that he hadn't managed to get his Mother's Day present yet and so could I possibly source an orchid for him?
The reason for this request was that he was racing remote control cars in Wakefield the following day with our neighbour, TechyDave, and a bunch of other weirdos who despite being allegedly adults like to buy expensive bits of kit that require putting together, painting, covering in decals, radio gear and electrics and remote control purchasing separately and so on at great length. It's an expensive hobby, but they enjoy it and it gets them out in the fresh air. And if he ever finishes building the second-hand Super Sabre he bought off Ebay, I will have a car of my own to race.
So, Saturday morning dawned. I was kicked out of bed at 8 am (on a Saturday! Argh!) and sent off to Dave's Village Bakery (another Dave) to buy breakfast. He departed just after 9 am and I headed for the net to find a local florist to enquire about orchids. Three hours later, I remembered why I'd actually gone on line and located a florist locally who had orchids. I presumed he meant a spray orchid, so asked them to keep one for me and then rang him to confirm. No, he actually meant the whole growing plant. I knew they had some of those too, so no worries there.
His mum is now the proud owner of not one but two phaleonopsis plants, both displaying different shaded blooms. She is delighted with them. Buying them was something of a production though, involving me ringing himself trackside and describing flower colours to him over the sound of revving engines and excited squeals from TechyDave. Not the easiest thing to do, really. 'This one is sort of pale greenish with kind of yellow-pinky stripes on the bloom. Yeah, it looks very orchid-y. You like that one? It's 14.50. You want two? The same or different? Yeah, OK. Well, there's one that's like a white with dusky pink in the centre and then dark pink stripes? Or there's a dusky pink one with no stripes but stronger pink. The first one? You sure? Yeah, okay. Gift wrapped? Well, the one you already said is in a gift bag. Plastic. Sort of you know, thing. Hallucinogenic. No, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. That's what I said. Oh, didn't I? Well, it's what I meant'.
We had slow-roasted lamb shanks for tea, with melon and serrano ham to begin and meringue nest with raspberries and ice cream for pudding. Very lovely indeed.
Driving home, I had the radio tuned to Radio 2, which is usual for me. The tape deck packed in a few weeks ago, and given that the car is being junked soon there is no point in having it mended, even if that were to prove possible. So, I drove along listening to Canon Roger Royle. He has a half-hour programme on a Sunday evening from 8.30 in which he plays some of the nation's favourite hymns and psalms. The theme of the last few weeks has been connected to Lent and tonight was about the prophet Elijah who went off into the wilderness to try to escape the voice of God. Of course, he couldn't.
Elijah was indeed spoken to by God. There was in the wilderness an earthquake, a storm and a fire. These are all ways in which God was said to communicate. But it was not in the noise and tumult that Elijah heard God, but in the calm that followed. There was a lovely piece by I think Mozart, and this was followed by one of my favourite hymns, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, sung to the tune Repton. My absolute favourite. Now, the good Canon had already made reference in passing to it being Mothering Sunday. As drove along, the words of the hymn and the beautiful tune swelling around me, I had tears in my eyes and I couldn't at first think why.
It was then that I remembered. I chose that hymn in particular for my mother's first funeral service at the local church in Ullapool. Funnily enough, it isn't one of the hymns they especially like in the Church of Scotland - I'd never heard it till I was a student in England and began going to church on a fairly regular basis, after ten years or so of estrangement from the established Church. You'd have thought a congregation of some 400 souls would have been able to sing it, but no. Even the minister didn't know it. There was myself and maybe two or three others who sang it. That kind of fits in with the words towards the end.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Driving on through the night, my eyes filled with tears, I felt her presence so keenly I cold have stopped the car and sobbed on the roadside. Instead I dashed the tears away and drove on into the night.
Now, Chicken the Oven Ready is well aware of my feelings as regards this particular day. Even still, he announced to me on Friday night on arrivng home from the rugby (Wigan were not terribly good, he couldn't see much because of the fog, waste of bloody money etc), that he hadn't managed to get his Mother's Day present yet and so could I possibly source an orchid for him?
The reason for this request was that he was racing remote control cars in Wakefield the following day with our neighbour, TechyDave, and a bunch of other weirdos who despite being allegedly adults like to buy expensive bits of kit that require putting together, painting, covering in decals, radio gear and electrics and remote control purchasing separately and so on at great length. It's an expensive hobby, but they enjoy it and it gets them out in the fresh air. And if he ever finishes building the second-hand Super Sabre he bought off Ebay, I will have a car of my own to race.
So, Saturday morning dawned. I was kicked out of bed at 8 am (on a Saturday! Argh!) and sent off to Dave's Village Bakery (another Dave) to buy breakfast. He departed just after 9 am and I headed for the net to find a local florist to enquire about orchids. Three hours later, I remembered why I'd actually gone on line and located a florist locally who had orchids. I presumed he meant a spray orchid, so asked them to keep one for me and then rang him to confirm. No, he actually meant the whole growing plant. I knew they had some of those too, so no worries there.
His mum is now the proud owner of not one but two phaleonopsis plants, both displaying different shaded blooms. She is delighted with them. Buying them was something of a production though, involving me ringing himself trackside and describing flower colours to him over the sound of revving engines and excited squeals from TechyDave. Not the easiest thing to do, really. 'This one is sort of pale greenish with kind of yellow-pinky stripes on the bloom. Yeah, it looks very orchid-y. You like that one? It's 14.50. You want two? The same or different? Yeah, OK. Well, there's one that's like a white with dusky pink in the centre and then dark pink stripes? Or there's a dusky pink one with no stripes but stronger pink. The first one? You sure? Yeah, okay. Gift wrapped? Well, the one you already said is in a gift bag. Plastic. Sort of you know, thing. Hallucinogenic. No, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. That's what I said. Oh, didn't I? Well, it's what I meant'.
We had slow-roasted lamb shanks for tea, with melon and serrano ham to begin and meringue nest with raspberries and ice cream for pudding. Very lovely indeed.
Driving home, I had the radio tuned to Radio 2, which is usual for me. The tape deck packed in a few weeks ago, and given that the car is being junked soon there is no point in having it mended, even if that were to prove possible. So, I drove along listening to Canon Roger Royle. He has a half-hour programme on a Sunday evening from 8.30 in which he plays some of the nation's favourite hymns and psalms. The theme of the last few weeks has been connected to Lent and tonight was about the prophet Elijah who went off into the wilderness to try to escape the voice of God. Of course, he couldn't.
Elijah was indeed spoken to by God. There was in the wilderness an earthquake, a storm and a fire. These are all ways in which God was said to communicate. But it was not in the noise and tumult that Elijah heard God, but in the calm that followed. There was a lovely piece by I think Mozart, and this was followed by one of my favourite hymns, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, sung to the tune Repton. My absolute favourite. Now, the good Canon had already made reference in passing to it being Mothering Sunday. As drove along, the words of the hymn and the beautiful tune swelling around me, I had tears in my eyes and I couldn't at first think why.
It was then that I remembered. I chose that hymn in particular for my mother's first funeral service at the local church in Ullapool. Funnily enough, it isn't one of the hymns they especially like in the Church of Scotland - I'd never heard it till I was a student in England and began going to church on a fairly regular basis, after ten years or so of estrangement from the established Church. You'd have thought a congregation of some 400 souls would have been able to sing it, but no. Even the minister didn't know it. There was myself and maybe two or three others who sang it. That kind of fits in with the words towards the end.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.
Driving on through the night, my eyes filled with tears, I felt her presence so keenly I cold have stopped the car and sobbed on the roadside. Instead I dashed the tears away and drove on into the night.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Bugger still doesn't work right!
The bugger in question is two-fold:
the Crimson Brick is still not quite there, but as has already been said that is of little import. Providing always that I manage to safely negotiate the highways and byways as I potter about the North Midlands and West Yorkshire. And it is rather more there than it was - it only takes about ten seconds of embarrassed stick-it-into-neutral-turn-the-key-gun-the-throttle-and-swear-a-blue-streakness for it to pick up and scoot off again (albeit with the accompaniment of a degree of chuggery), and the fuel consumption appears a little better. So there is some improvement. But the outlaw still hasn't found his new car. And I still need Chicken the Oven Ready to have his car and the outlaw's old car at the same time for a while while he transfers the numberplate from one to the other.
The other bugger is of course my broadband connection, or rather lack of it. I ran a test on the outlaws' computer to see how long their telephone-line based cable (different ISP but same make of modem) takes to initialise the ADSL line. Answer: ten flashes of the right hand green light. Not, in any way shape or form or indeed by any stretch of the imagination does it take between four and five hours, nor depend on making a phone call out first to get it to pick up the connection.
Some nights it plays ball. I mean, on Wednesday night I was on for about five hours. Long enough to download iTunes (only to find that all the music in my account that was authorised on this computer is inaccessible from the other computer, even having authorised that computer, which I am bloody well annoyed about - I am NOT allowed to download iTunes back again onto this machine because CtOR has heard horror stories about the Bonjour gateway service). And also long enough to download the driver for my soundcard - hence the iTunes download. I have downloaded other essentials too, of course, such as AdawareSE and AVG (first thing I downloaded above all was ZoneAlarm, even when I was on dialup, and that took best part of four hours to load and install. And don't talk to me about Java!!!!).
Other nights, I can get on for 3 and a half minutes tops. But only after I make a phone call, which has to be answered so it means either ringing home to speak to himself or leaving gibberish on the answermachine, which he is really not happy about. But then as he has spent most of the last two weekends moaning at me about trivial little things I am in all honesty beyond caring. But let us not go there.
It hasn't been that bad so far, I suppose.
the Crimson Brick is still not quite there, but as has already been said that is of little import. Providing always that I manage to safely negotiate the highways and byways as I potter about the North Midlands and West Yorkshire. And it is rather more there than it was - it only takes about ten seconds of embarrassed stick-it-into-neutral-turn-the-key-gun-the-throttle-and-swear-a-blue-streakness for it to pick up and scoot off again (albeit with the accompaniment of a degree of chuggery), and the fuel consumption appears a little better. So there is some improvement. But the outlaw still hasn't found his new car. And I still need Chicken the Oven Ready to have his car and the outlaw's old car at the same time for a while while he transfers the numberplate from one to the other.
The other bugger is of course my broadband connection, or rather lack of it. I ran a test on the outlaws' computer to see how long their telephone-line based cable (different ISP but same make of modem) takes to initialise the ADSL line. Answer: ten flashes of the right hand green light. Not, in any way shape or form or indeed by any stretch of the imagination does it take between four and five hours, nor depend on making a phone call out first to get it to pick up the connection.
Some nights it plays ball. I mean, on Wednesday night I was on for about five hours. Long enough to download iTunes (only to find that all the music in my account that was authorised on this computer is inaccessible from the other computer, even having authorised that computer, which I am bloody well annoyed about - I am NOT allowed to download iTunes back again onto this machine because CtOR has heard horror stories about the Bonjour gateway service). And also long enough to download the driver for my soundcard - hence the iTunes download. I have downloaded other essentials too, of course, such as AdawareSE and AVG (first thing I downloaded above all was ZoneAlarm, even when I was on dialup, and that took best part of four hours to load and install. And don't talk to me about Java!!!!).
Other nights, I can get on for 3 and a half minutes tops. But only after I make a phone call, which has to be answered so it means either ringing home to speak to himself or leaving gibberish on the answermachine, which he is really not happy about. But then as he has spent most of the last two weekends moaning at me about trivial little things I am in all honesty beyond caring. But let us not go there.
It hasn't been that bad so far, I suppose.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Cold and Colder
That was me, last night.
Bad enough there were three or so inches of snow when I departed from home. Which had to be shovelled off the car before I moved it. There wasn't any snow once I got about ten miles away, but the Crimson Brick ground to a halt on me about a quarter of a mile before the last roundabout before my turning into the village.
This is where the A1(M) splits off to join the A1, the A614 and the A57. We are talking major, big roundabout (it's called Five Lane Ends - hint?) and there I was, stuck in an immobile car with an engine that refused to restart, half on the main road and half off it and able to think of nothing save sticking on the hazard lights and clambering over gear stick and handbrake and getting the ferk out of Dodge before a lorry slammed into the back of me.
You may well ask where cold comes into things. Well. It may not have snowing in North Notts, but it was colder than a witch's you-know-what. I waited well back from the road down a farm track (well away from the car - just in case that lorry did happen to slam into the back of it) for nearly three-quarters of an hour before my knight in yellow refletive overalls turned up in his AA van. He was far too cheerful. And the verdammtes car started first turn of the key.
So my nice AA man followed me the four miles home and gave it a quick check when we arrived. No rhyme or reason to it cutting it out - nothing to do with my firklings with carburretor cleaner which entailed cracking open the round flat thing with the air filter in that sits on top of the carburretor. (Look, I know how to dismantle bits of my car - that doesn't in my view necessitate knowing what they are called). Nothing to do with the missing bit of flexihose twixt manifold outlet and air intake. (Though my former apprentice mechanic brother muttered something about vacuums and powerloss and shocking fuel consumption).
The CB actually is running sweet as a nut today. Pulled out onto the A1 this morning and there was no power loss, no jerking and shuddering like a fitting bucking bronco. Most relaxing!
There will be a slight delay in getting the new old car. CtOR has the car I am going to have, you may recall. I'm sure I mentioned it...Anyway, this is his Dad's old car, which has the vanity plates on that his Dad bought him for his 18th (the car was always going to pass to him in a few years). He gets his Dad's current vehicle and passes the old one to me. But, to transfer the vanity plates, he has to own both vehicles at once, the old car gets a new registration number and I buy new plates for it with that number on. And then it gets transferred to me. Oh, I need to probably increase my insurance a bit cos it's a 2.0 litre SLX as opposed to a 1.3 litre Pony GXi or something like that. The blue car goes like a rocket. The Crimson Brick goes like - well, a brick, obviously.
Oh, well. Mustn't grumble!
Bad enough there were three or so inches of snow when I departed from home. Which had to be shovelled off the car before I moved it. There wasn't any snow once I got about ten miles away, but the Crimson Brick ground to a halt on me about a quarter of a mile before the last roundabout before my turning into the village.
This is where the A1(M) splits off to join the A1, the A614 and the A57. We are talking major, big roundabout (it's called Five Lane Ends - hint?) and there I was, stuck in an immobile car with an engine that refused to restart, half on the main road and half off it and able to think of nothing save sticking on the hazard lights and clambering over gear stick and handbrake and getting the ferk out of Dodge before a lorry slammed into the back of me.
You may well ask where cold comes into things. Well. It may not have snowing in North Notts, but it was colder than a witch's you-know-what. I waited well back from the road down a farm track (well away from the car - just in case that lorry did happen to slam into the back of it) for nearly three-quarters of an hour before my knight in yellow refletive overalls turned up in his AA van. He was far too cheerful. And the verdammtes car started first turn of the key.
So my nice AA man followed me the four miles home and gave it a quick check when we arrived. No rhyme or reason to it cutting it out - nothing to do with my firklings with carburretor cleaner which entailed cracking open the round flat thing with the air filter in that sits on top of the carburretor. (Look, I know how to dismantle bits of my car - that doesn't in my view necessitate knowing what they are called). Nothing to do with the missing bit of flexihose twixt manifold outlet and air intake. (Though my former apprentice mechanic brother muttered something about vacuums and powerloss and shocking fuel consumption).
The CB actually is running sweet as a nut today. Pulled out onto the A1 this morning and there was no power loss, no jerking and shuddering like a fitting bucking bronco. Most relaxing!
There will be a slight delay in getting the new old car. CtOR has the car I am going to have, you may recall. I'm sure I mentioned it...Anyway, this is his Dad's old car, which has the vanity plates on that his Dad bought him for his 18th (the car was always going to pass to him in a few years). He gets his Dad's current vehicle and passes the old one to me. But, to transfer the vanity plates, he has to own both vehicles at once, the old car gets a new registration number and I buy new plates for it with that number on. And then it gets transferred to me. Oh, I need to probably increase my insurance a bit cos it's a 2.0 litre SLX as opposed to a 1.3 litre Pony GXi or something like that. The blue car goes like a rocket. The Crimson Brick goes like - well, a brick, obviously.
Oh, well. Mustn't grumble!
Friday, March 10, 2006
Overtaking Manouevres
I would just love to know - having spent approximately one-third of a nearly 70 mile journey travelling at 50 mph or less on a road designed for 70 mph - who the hell felt the need to sit in the inside lane of the A1 and prevent anyone else from passing the slower-moving traffic in the other lane? Which eventually became the lane that people switched to to undertake the slow person at the front of a long, long jam of extremely frustrated people.
It's dangerous. It's also selfish, but the dangerous angle is the more worrying to my way of thinking. I know that road, I know it well. It is very easy to do 80, 90 mph and more (though you shouldn't) without causing a danger to anyone else for much of its length. And yet, being only a dual carriageway, you often find a convoy of lorries overtaking a slower-moving lorry. They usually all decide to go at once, more often than not at the bottom of a very steep hill, so that all the lorries struggle to keep above 40 mph. It can take five minutes and more to get them all past the slower object, and then usually no sooner have they all crawled back to the 'slow' lane than they all pull out again, normally after one or possibly very lucky two cars have managed to get past them.
I think that's one of the reasons the A1 is so dangerous!
Anyway. I am glad to be home. I am very, very tired. Wanda was too upset with me to run away when I came in. I just got this sort of feline glare and a 'harrrummmpppphhhhhh' from her as she curled up a little tighter on her cushion.
So nice to be loved!
Glad I didn't go to the match. I was also supposed to be going on a leaving do for someone I used to work with at the last place of employment. I quite frankly coudn't be bothered. Same old bitching about the same old faces, and L maundering on about the state of her marriage and how R won't leave her alone even though she dumped him.
To use a much-overused phrase of L'sL 'Whatever!'
Time for bed soon. Just waiting for the man to arrive home from the match. Cold and wet but happy because we won. Not by very much at all, but a win is a win.
It's dangerous. It's also selfish, but the dangerous angle is the more worrying to my way of thinking. I know that road, I know it well. It is very easy to do 80, 90 mph and more (though you shouldn't) without causing a danger to anyone else for much of its length. And yet, being only a dual carriageway, you often find a convoy of lorries overtaking a slower-moving lorry. They usually all decide to go at once, more often than not at the bottom of a very steep hill, so that all the lorries struggle to keep above 40 mph. It can take five minutes and more to get them all past the slower object, and then usually no sooner have they all crawled back to the 'slow' lane than they all pull out again, normally after one or possibly very lucky two cars have managed to get past them.
I think that's one of the reasons the A1 is so dangerous!
Anyway. I am glad to be home. I am very, very tired. Wanda was too upset with me to run away when I came in. I just got this sort of feline glare and a 'harrrummmpppphhhhhh' from her as she curled up a little tighter on her cushion.
So nice to be loved!
Glad I didn't go to the match. I was also supposed to be going on a leaving do for someone I used to work with at the last place of employment. I quite frankly coudn't be bothered. Same old bitching about the same old faces, and L maundering on about the state of her marriage and how R won't leave her alone even though she dumped him.
To use a much-overused phrase of L'sL 'Whatever!'
Time for bed soon. Just waiting for the man to arrive home from the match. Cold and wet but happy because we won. Not by very much at all, but a win is a win.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
On Grief
It is a funny thing, the grieving process.
Ever wonder why it's described as that? A Process?
Well. Maybe it IS something that you 'process' through, as it were, in respect of the fact that it has different stages that we have to pass through.
I'm at the stage now (four years, seven months and one day) after losing Mum, that I can go throughout probably most of a two or three day period without at some point having a twinge of the 'I wish I could tell Mum about X' or 'Mum would have loved to have seen/done/heard about Y'. Or just plain and simple missing her for no apparent reason, or thinking of her suddenly.
Thing is, when I am rudely jolted into remembering that I have no mother, it hits me like a slap round the face: my mother is dead.
I've just been over to the market place here, across from the office and up the hill a little way. I am such a magpie that things like handbags and jewellery captivate me and haul me in to peer at the glittering pretty things. And so it was that one poor man engaged me in conversation whilst I cogitated over what I might like to spend my (increasingly and alarmingly) dwindling funds upon.
He was doing so well until he chirped 'We've some lovely things for Mother's Day'. (Those of you who live outside the UK and may chance to read this should note that Mother's Day in the UK is celebrated on normally the last Sunday in March which this year is March 26th).
I find Mother's Day incredibly hard to deal with. I was almost hysterical the first year after she died when CtOR and I went to Asda to do our shopping in February and all the Mother's Day trappings were out. It physically hurt me. I always saw that day as being even more special than Christmas and birthdays because it was all about her in total - all about thanking her for being my Mum, and being quite simply the best Mum in the whole world ever. Mum was my best friend. She was the first person I thought of whenever good things or bad things happened, the one person I ran to when it all went wrong. The one person who really knew me and would never judge me. I absolutely loved her to pieces. I always will. She made me laugh like no-one else could. Or can. Roll out the clichés, because she was like a sister to me. I count myself lucky beyond words and rich beyond the dreams of avarice to have had such a fantastic mother, and find it heartbreaking and puzzling - baffling - that other people aren't as close to their mums as I was to mine.
I am ashamed to say that I smiled at the poor chap on the stall and chirruped blithely: 'I'm afraid that that isn't something I need to worry about any more, unfortunately'. Well. He felt dreadful, poor chap, and was desperately trying to apologise. I fled. I was on the edge of tears, and I don't want to be tipped over the edge. Not now, not when I have to go to work and put on the happy face for the clients and sit and listen to them without losing my temper.
By the time I was almost back at the office, it had occurred to me that I really had behaved rather rudely and shouldn't have said what I did. I was idly programming the microwave to finish heating my lunch when it dawned on me that today is March 8th. Which means yesterday was the 7th. Which means that it was not just 4 years and 7 months since Mum died yesterday. It was also 4 years since my Nan died, my mum's mother.
I was more upset about forgetting that than anything else. My relationship with my Nan was a complex thing. As a child, I adored my grandparents, though I was always my Grandad's little girl. He died when I was 7 and that broke my heart. It broke all our hearts. Nan spent the rest of her life wishing she was dead, too, and became increasingly difficult and reliant on Mum. Mum, in turn, was not a well woman in some ways. She was also overworked, an insomniac so always overtired, had two children in my brother and I who took her for granted even while loving her to bits, and a husband who spent months at a time not talking to her and could be - and was - extremely violent in every possible way. The added burden of being a round-the-clock carer to her own mother as well was simply too much for her, and so Mum died at 61, two and a half weeks short of her birthday.
Nan blamed herself. She was no longer a senile, cantankerous, demanding, nasty, sly old woman, but briefly alert, clear-minded and filled with the sort of self-realisation that I can only imagine was excoriating in its awfulness. She turned to me after the funeral, when we were going through some old photos together, and said to me 'I killed her. It's my fault'.
I told her that that was rubbish and she mustn't think that way. I'm not sure that I wholly meant it. Worse, I think she knew that.
Outside, the rain lashes down as it has for the last two days. It matches my mood and envervates me. I think I would really like to go home. I'm not sure where I mean by home. I think that ideally I would like to be standing in my mother's kitchen, me leaning against the sink while she leant against the worktop to the side of me and we just talked about everything and nothing and made each other laugh. Or maybe that means clowning around behind the counter in the shop and making the customers laugh almost as hard as we were.
Ever wonder why it's described as that? A Process?
Well. Maybe it IS something that you 'process' through, as it were, in respect of the fact that it has different stages that we have to pass through.
I'm at the stage now (four years, seven months and one day) after losing Mum, that I can go throughout probably most of a two or three day period without at some point having a twinge of the 'I wish I could tell Mum about X' or 'Mum would have loved to have seen/done/heard about Y'. Or just plain and simple missing her for no apparent reason, or thinking of her suddenly.
Thing is, when I am rudely jolted into remembering that I have no mother, it hits me like a slap round the face: my mother is dead.
I've just been over to the market place here, across from the office and up the hill a little way. I am such a magpie that things like handbags and jewellery captivate me and haul me in to peer at the glittering pretty things. And so it was that one poor man engaged me in conversation whilst I cogitated over what I might like to spend my (increasingly and alarmingly) dwindling funds upon.
He was doing so well until he chirped 'We've some lovely things for Mother's Day'. (Those of you who live outside the UK and may chance to read this should note that Mother's Day in the UK is celebrated on normally the last Sunday in March which this year is March 26th).
I find Mother's Day incredibly hard to deal with. I was almost hysterical the first year after she died when CtOR and I went to Asda to do our shopping in February and all the Mother's Day trappings were out. It physically hurt me. I always saw that day as being even more special than Christmas and birthdays because it was all about her in total - all about thanking her for being my Mum, and being quite simply the best Mum in the whole world ever. Mum was my best friend. She was the first person I thought of whenever good things or bad things happened, the one person I ran to when it all went wrong. The one person who really knew me and would never judge me. I absolutely loved her to pieces. I always will. She made me laugh like no-one else could. Or can. Roll out the clichés, because she was like a sister to me. I count myself lucky beyond words and rich beyond the dreams of avarice to have had such a fantastic mother, and find it heartbreaking and puzzling - baffling - that other people aren't as close to their mums as I was to mine.
I am ashamed to say that I smiled at the poor chap on the stall and chirruped blithely: 'I'm afraid that that isn't something I need to worry about any more, unfortunately'. Well. He felt dreadful, poor chap, and was desperately trying to apologise. I fled. I was on the edge of tears, and I don't want to be tipped over the edge. Not now, not when I have to go to work and put on the happy face for the clients and sit and listen to them without losing my temper.
By the time I was almost back at the office, it had occurred to me that I really had behaved rather rudely and shouldn't have said what I did. I was idly programming the microwave to finish heating my lunch when it dawned on me that today is March 8th. Which means yesterday was the 7th. Which means that it was not just 4 years and 7 months since Mum died yesterday. It was also 4 years since my Nan died, my mum's mother.
I was more upset about forgetting that than anything else. My relationship with my Nan was a complex thing. As a child, I adored my grandparents, though I was always my Grandad's little girl. He died when I was 7 and that broke my heart. It broke all our hearts. Nan spent the rest of her life wishing she was dead, too, and became increasingly difficult and reliant on Mum. Mum, in turn, was not a well woman in some ways. She was also overworked, an insomniac so always overtired, had two children in my brother and I who took her for granted even while loving her to bits, and a husband who spent months at a time not talking to her and could be - and was - extremely violent in every possible way. The added burden of being a round-the-clock carer to her own mother as well was simply too much for her, and so Mum died at 61, two and a half weeks short of her birthday.
Nan blamed herself. She was no longer a senile, cantankerous, demanding, nasty, sly old woman, but briefly alert, clear-minded and filled with the sort of self-realisation that I can only imagine was excoriating in its awfulness. She turned to me after the funeral, when we were going through some old photos together, and said to me 'I killed her. It's my fault'.
I told her that that was rubbish and she mustn't think that way. I'm not sure that I wholly meant it. Worse, I think she knew that.
Outside, the rain lashes down as it has for the last two days. It matches my mood and envervates me. I think I would really like to go home. I'm not sure where I mean by home. I think that ideally I would like to be standing in my mother's kitchen, me leaning against the sink while she leant against the worktop to the side of me and we just talked about everything and nothing and made each other laugh. Or maybe that means clowning around behind the counter in the shop and making the customers laugh almost as hard as we were.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Where Do I Begin?
Well, it has been a while, hasn't it?
Where to start?
The cats are blossoming in my care. Both were riddled with fleas, Loki had earmites, a long-standing eye infection and a dreadful stomach upset that had left him with permanent diarrhoea. All of those are cleared up with the exception of a few stray fleas that I keep finding on combing out of both cats' fur.
Neither of them had ever had any of their vaccinations whatsoever, and of course the previous owner has not shown up with the money for them as promised. She also left a load of debts behind her, which caused me to have to change my phone number so I could get online at home - she'd had the same ISP I wanted to sign up with and the debt attached to the phone number.
Dialup truly sucks - I'd forgotten how frustrating it can be. So, I have broadband coming on Friday courtesy of Mr Branson's fine company.
Work seems to be okay. It is very quiet compared to how I'm used to things though. I get the impression the previous incumbent had been running things down prior to leaving quite horrendously. There are maybe 50 live files. Not the 188 alleged on the file list! Some of those are care cases, but they're mostly being run by a guy in a different office. I got to go to court today for the first time in this post! It was much better than the last time I'd had a lay off - but then it's been five or six weeks as opposed to 8 months!
On the bad side, my secretary's husband had a heart attack on Sunday morning, about 8ish. He had a further, massive attack in the back of the ambulance as they went to the local community hospital and had to be resuscitated at the roadside before they could continue the journey. He's now in the City Hospital in Nottingham. It seems he had a blockage in an artery so they have him on warfarin. Hopefully he will make a full recovery and not need surgery.
He's a truly larger-than-life man, with a huge laugh and a pirate beard - he's referred to as 'the Pirate' by us all. He's one of the friendliest, easiest men I think I've ever met. A lovely man.
Everyone is great, really, at work. No problems with anyone as yet, though there is clearly a lot of office politics. I am keeping well clear! Not wanting to get involved at all. NO way - not this time! Once bitten very definitely twice shy.
Landlady still a nutter but not being anywhere near so obtrusive as she was. I don't see her for a couple of days or more at a time now! The youngest child has discovered me now though, although more to the point she has discovered CtOR and thinks he is the bees knees! A four year old fan club. Good, eh?
I think I will update further later cos I am tired now and it is nearly time for the steampowered dialup two hourly boot.
*snarls*
Where to start?
The cats are blossoming in my care. Both were riddled with fleas, Loki had earmites, a long-standing eye infection and a dreadful stomach upset that had left him with permanent diarrhoea. All of those are cleared up with the exception of a few stray fleas that I keep finding on combing out of both cats' fur.
Neither of them had ever had any of their vaccinations whatsoever, and of course the previous owner has not shown up with the money for them as promised. She also left a load of debts behind her, which caused me to have to change my phone number so I could get online at home - she'd had the same ISP I wanted to sign up with and the debt attached to the phone number.
Dialup truly sucks - I'd forgotten how frustrating it can be. So, I have broadband coming on Friday courtesy of Mr Branson's fine company.
Work seems to be okay. It is very quiet compared to how I'm used to things though. I get the impression the previous incumbent had been running things down prior to leaving quite horrendously. There are maybe 50 live files. Not the 188 alleged on the file list! Some of those are care cases, but they're mostly being run by a guy in a different office. I got to go to court today for the first time in this post! It was much better than the last time I'd had a lay off - but then it's been five or six weeks as opposed to 8 months!
On the bad side, my secretary's husband had a heart attack on Sunday morning, about 8ish. He had a further, massive attack in the back of the ambulance as they went to the local community hospital and had to be resuscitated at the roadside before they could continue the journey. He's now in the City Hospital in Nottingham. It seems he had a blockage in an artery so they have him on warfarin. Hopefully he will make a full recovery and not need surgery.
He's a truly larger-than-life man, with a huge laugh and a pirate beard - he's referred to as 'the Pirate' by us all. He's one of the friendliest, easiest men I think I've ever met. A lovely man.
Everyone is great, really, at work. No problems with anyone as yet, though there is clearly a lot of office politics. I am keeping well clear! Not wanting to get involved at all. NO way - not this time! Once bitten very definitely twice shy.
Landlady still a nutter but not being anywhere near so obtrusive as she was. I don't see her for a couple of days or more at a time now! The youngest child has discovered me now though, although more to the point she has discovered CtOR and thinks he is the bees knees! A four year old fan club. Good, eh?
I think I will update further later cos I am tired now and it is nearly time for the steampowered dialup two hourly boot.
*snarls*
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Lost Cats
I lost the cats last night. Both of them. The little furry rascals disappeared. Vanished into thin air. No amount of yelling, whistling and tongue-clicking on the back step could bring them home. Not even the ceremonial opening of the cat food tin brought them galloping through the catflap.
I assumed that all the upheaval of Nicky moving out and me moving in had sent them off for a couple of days to sulk somewhere.
I was wrong.
I left the back door open for quite a large chunk of the evening while I ferried stuff in from the car. I left the boot lid up for quite a long time, too. A cursory examination of the back of the car revealed nothing remaining in there, and I didn't think to look in the front as there was nothing in there.
So, this morning I trotted out to the car to drive off to work and flung open the door to find:
two small, furry, feline faces looking at me as if to say 'Well! What kept you?'
Along with a pool of diarrhoea, courtesy of Loki who is not feeling at his best it would seem (a trip to the vet is already arranged for Thursday).
So, another late start for me. But I did manage to find Sainsbury's this morning, having taken an exit too early at the last roundabout!
I assumed that all the upheaval of Nicky moving out and me moving in had sent them off for a couple of days to sulk somewhere.
I was wrong.
I left the back door open for quite a large chunk of the evening while I ferried stuff in from the car. I left the boot lid up for quite a long time, too. A cursory examination of the back of the car revealed nothing remaining in there, and I didn't think to look in the front as there was nothing in there.
So, this morning I trotted out to the car to drive off to work and flung open the door to find:
two small, furry, feline faces looking at me as if to say 'Well! What kept you?'
Along with a pool of diarrhoea, courtesy of Loki who is not feeling at his best it would seem (a trip to the vet is already arranged for Thursday).
So, another late start for me. But I did manage to find Sainsbury's this morning, having taken an exit too early at the last roundabout!
Friday, February 17, 2006
Can You Hear Me, Mother?
*Waving frantically to anyone from SOI who may be checking blogs for daily updates*
Hello there!
Well. I've made it to Friday lunchtime of my first week. Monday morning was a complete and total disaster. Motto: never trust the AA's Route planner to get you to where you want to be. I arrived forty minutes late, thanks to the fact that the directions were complete and utter codswallop. Fortunately they were all very nice about it, and it gave them a good giggle. I soon discovered the correct route and can now complete the journey in fifteen minutes, as opposed to an hour and fifteen minutes.
The one cat looks set to become two. I have in fact agreed to take Loki (ginger tabby long-haired tomcat) as well as Kit (tortoiseshell female). Went round to see the present incumbent last night and the flat absolutely stank due to the practically overflowing litter tray. I have already purchased a new tray, tray liners, and a huge bag of Catsan odour control litter. I've never had any odour problems with Wanda using this system, but then I do change her every couple of days and remove solid waste as soon as it is discovered in the tray.
I am going to have to keep on top of the grooming regime for Loki, obviously. I don't think the flat has been cleaned at all regularly - if ever. I began to itch within about five minutes which is very unusual for me. I don't suffer from cat allergies particularly but it got to the point where my eyes were swelling up and my nose was running. Hopefully the promised deep-clean by the landlady will be forthcoming before I move in on Sunday. I am equipped with my own cleaning materials anyway.
I seem to be spending money like water, what with having to buy pots and pans and knives and dish towels and linens. Ah...we unloaded my car on Saturday morning as we decided not to drive over and drop a load of stuff off before Sunday after all. One of the bags was in the way where I'd left it so was moved, and this of course was the bag with the bedding, the dish and bath towels, and my comfy work shoes in. So I had to go out and buy linens, and have been tottering about in dolly-bird strappy heels all week. Except for yesterday when I rebelled and wore my blue suede trainers all day. No-one appeared to give a damn. I bought a new pair of shoes yesterday evening and while they are very nice, they aren't my comfy flatties!
Last Sunday I arrived at the flat around 10:20 in the evening, having got lost twice (not the fault of the AA this time but entirely down to me being a muppet). Himself was bouncing on the spot with worry as I was nearly 45 minutes behind him, though partly this was due to the detour and partly the fact that the crimson brick at present is battling to reach 70. Ray the electrician was still working away, and to make matters worse he'd managed to put a jigsaw through a water pipe so I had a flood too.
Ray eventually had to be ejected at around midnight - forcibly. He was told to come back the next day. Which he did. Not long after everyone had gone, I made a visit to the powder room as it were, and discovered on flushing that there was more water jetting out either side of the pipe leading from the cistern to the bowl.
Ray had to be forcibly removed again on Monday, having promised to do only two small jobs. I had dinner at the local pub (I need a third and fourth mortgage to do that, I tell you) and got back at half past nine, having spent half an hour hanging around outside talking to himself on the phone. Phil the landlord eventually came to my rescue just after ten. Ray has since been barred from the flat. Hooray! And Mark the plasterer fixed the loo for me. Appears Ray must have moved it to do some wiring and put it back wrongly. Silly sod.
The job seems fine. The town is a typical small to medium market town with a small range of shops and - as for anywhere during the day - the usual motley assortment of passers-by. It's quite busy at the moment as the schools are out for half-term, so there are lots of young folk around. The people at work are all lovely and so far I have no problems to report!
Expecting to be home either very late on tonight or tomorrow morning. Himself's car now has an oil leak so is off the road so I will be moving from one flat to another on my own. Hopefully I can persuade some of the lads who seem to be permanently hanging around the landlady's house to give me a hand with the heavy items.
Hello there!
Well. I've made it to Friday lunchtime of my first week. Monday morning was a complete and total disaster. Motto: never trust the AA's Route planner to get you to where you want to be. I arrived forty minutes late, thanks to the fact that the directions were complete and utter codswallop. Fortunately they were all very nice about it, and it gave them a good giggle. I soon discovered the correct route and can now complete the journey in fifteen minutes, as opposed to an hour and fifteen minutes.
The one cat looks set to become two. I have in fact agreed to take Loki (ginger tabby long-haired tomcat) as well as Kit (tortoiseshell female). Went round to see the present incumbent last night and the flat absolutely stank due to the practically overflowing litter tray. I have already purchased a new tray, tray liners, and a huge bag of Catsan odour control litter. I've never had any odour problems with Wanda using this system, but then I do change her every couple of days and remove solid waste as soon as it is discovered in the tray.
I am going to have to keep on top of the grooming regime for Loki, obviously. I don't think the flat has been cleaned at all regularly - if ever. I began to itch within about five minutes which is very unusual for me. I don't suffer from cat allergies particularly but it got to the point where my eyes were swelling up and my nose was running. Hopefully the promised deep-clean by the landlady will be forthcoming before I move in on Sunday. I am equipped with my own cleaning materials anyway.
I seem to be spending money like water, what with having to buy pots and pans and knives and dish towels and linens. Ah...we unloaded my car on Saturday morning as we decided not to drive over and drop a load of stuff off before Sunday after all. One of the bags was in the way where I'd left it so was moved, and this of course was the bag with the bedding, the dish and bath towels, and my comfy work shoes in. So I had to go out and buy linens, and have been tottering about in dolly-bird strappy heels all week. Except for yesterday when I rebelled and wore my blue suede trainers all day. No-one appeared to give a damn. I bought a new pair of shoes yesterday evening and while they are very nice, they aren't my comfy flatties!
Last Sunday I arrived at the flat around 10:20 in the evening, having got lost twice (not the fault of the AA this time but entirely down to me being a muppet). Himself was bouncing on the spot with worry as I was nearly 45 minutes behind him, though partly this was due to the detour and partly the fact that the crimson brick at present is battling to reach 70. Ray the electrician was still working away, and to make matters worse he'd managed to put a jigsaw through a water pipe so I had a flood too.
Ray eventually had to be ejected at around midnight - forcibly. He was told to come back the next day. Which he did. Not long after everyone had gone, I made a visit to the powder room as it were, and discovered on flushing that there was more water jetting out either side of the pipe leading from the cistern to the bowl.
Ray had to be forcibly removed again on Monday, having promised to do only two small jobs. I had dinner at the local pub (I need a third and fourth mortgage to do that, I tell you) and got back at half past nine, having spent half an hour hanging around outside talking to himself on the phone. Phil the landlord eventually came to my rescue just after ten. Ray has since been barred from the flat. Hooray! And Mark the plasterer fixed the loo for me. Appears Ray must have moved it to do some wiring and put it back wrongly. Silly sod.
The job seems fine. The town is a typical small to medium market town with a small range of shops and - as for anywhere during the day - the usual motley assortment of passers-by. It's quite busy at the moment as the schools are out for half-term, so there are lots of young folk around. The people at work are all lovely and so far I have no problems to report!
Expecting to be home either very late on tonight or tomorrow morning. Himself's car now has an oil leak so is off the road so I will be moving from one flat to another on my own. Hopefully I can persuade some of the lads who seem to be permanently hanging around the landlady's house to give me a hand with the heavy items.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Acquisitiveness
In readiness for the move, I went out shopping yesterday. Ooops...Monday now.
I bought: a 20" screen TV; a toaster and kettle pack and a cordless digital phone (I always wanted one of those and it was reduced from £30 to £14.99, so another bargain. And you must know by now that I do love my bargains!
I am going to persuade J to let me borrow the video recorder or something so I can watch movies. There's no point in getting a computer for next week as I will only be in that flat for 1 week and getting involved in dialup will be just too complicated to have to move numbers for the account after 1 week. Besides, I need to get settled so I can get broadband access organised. And as I am lodging in one flat for a week before moving to the proper flat, I don't want to have too much stuff to move.
Worryingly, I still haven't had a letter making the offer official. I know my reference has been sent over, and I am told it is good, but I can't help but worry. I did receive my P45 and last payslip from the old place this morning.
And L texted me to say that the doziest, laziest secretary from the personal injury department has taken my place in the family department as a fee earner! She heard that directly from uberboss this evening and is spitting feathers.
She keeps telling me she's bored with him now, she's had her bit of fun and isn't interested any more. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
I bought: a 20" screen TV; a toaster and kettle pack and a cordless digital phone (I always wanted one of those and it was reduced from £30 to £14.99, so another bargain. And you must know by now that I do love my bargains!
I am going to persuade J to let me borrow the video recorder or something so I can watch movies. There's no point in getting a computer for next week as I will only be in that flat for 1 week and getting involved in dialup will be just too complicated to have to move numbers for the account after 1 week. Besides, I need to get settled so I can get broadband access organised. And as I am lodging in one flat for a week before moving to the proper flat, I don't want to have too much stuff to move.
Worryingly, I still haven't had a letter making the offer official. I know my reference has been sent over, and I am told it is good, but I can't help but worry. I did receive my P45 and last payslip from the old place this morning.
And L texted me to say that the doziest, laziest secretary from the personal injury department has taken my place in the family department as a fee earner! She heard that directly from uberboss this evening and is spitting feathers.
She keeps telling me she's bored with him now, she's had her bit of fun and isn't interested any more. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
I think I lost a post too, Johnny Bravo
I know I updated after we bought the new washing machine last weekend, I know I did. Hotpoint Aquarius 1600 spin, 6kg washload, fantastic little performer, reduced by about £180. Bargain! (I like my bargains).
But I don't see any post about it...
But I don't see any post about it...
What a difference a week makes
Well. OK. Eight days, between you and I. But never mind...a week sounds rather snappier somehow.
I have a new job. Fingers crossed I do. L wrote my reference for uberboss to sign and she promised she would make me sound brilliant. But...but...what if she didn't? What if they get my reference and change their mind about offering me the job?
See? See? I am ever the pessimist when it comes to good things happening to me!
I also - and you may say this is pre-empting things rather - have found myself a flat. I won't be able to move in to the actual flat for a week, so I will be camping out in one of the other flats for a week first. We went down to look at flats and houses yesterday and this was the very first place we looked at.
It was quite funny really, because we drove off the A1 into the village itself and J just yelped 'You are living here! No arguments!'. We drove on to the sound of: 'Ooooh! Oooooh! Look at that quaint little church!' (Car stopped in lane, exchange of meaningful looks). 'Oh my God! The post office is in someone's front room!' 'Argh! Would you look at the local pub! How quaint is that?!' (It really is all very quaint).
Now. The directions were kind of 'turn off the A1, go along the High Street, turn right at the pub, drive down Low Lane, take the left fork in the road, drive up to the security gates and press the buzzer and I'll come down and let you in.'
The main house is a former vicarage, set in five acres of parkland with trees some three hundred years old. A river runs through the middle of it all. There were sodding real bulrushes in the damn river! I mean! I never saw a bulrush in my life outside of Odsal (r. league injoke there, sorry). The lady of the house inherited it from her father, who bought it at auction from the Church of England in 1980.
The main house is where her family live, in part of the building at any rate. They also have a licence for civil weddings and can hold services in a suite in the house. They can arrange the whole package, including marquees in the grounds for the reception, caterers, bars, mobile disco, bands, whatever you want. We just kind of looked at each other at that point and went 'Ug'. It's like some kind of conspiracy!
Anyway, there is the Gatehouse (which is much more modern inside), living room downstairs and bathroom, kitchen and bedroom upstairs. Very nice, in a bit of upheaval because it is being rewired - they only recently bought this building from an investor. Then there is the Coach House.
Now. I have a cat, and I know if I don't keep right on top of the litter tray situation it can begin to get a little fragrant. The lady who presently has the ground floor flat in the Coach House has two cats with an overflowing litter tray. One tray between two cats. Never a good idea. Cat owners may know the slightly chocolatey smell of desiccated cat poo that's sat in the litter for a good few hours. Not too pleasant. That was right in the doorway - sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!
However. Bear with me on this. OK. Kitchen is less modern. Long and narrow with slightly cobbled-together units but nice black granite effect worktops. Serviceable. A mix of wall units, not matching but quite appealing in their own way. Cooker...bit of an ancient electric with eyelevel grill but it will scrub up OK I reckon. It all looks as though it really hasn't been taken too much care of, but it will be cleaned before I move in. There is a fridge-freezer that belongs to the present incumbent that I will buy off her for £30 as she doesn't need it where she's moving to.
The bathroom is a decent size. No bath, but a really nice modern electric shower in a new glass cubicle of a decent size, basin in one corner and loo in the third corner. The bathroom is at the end of the kitchen.
The living/dining room is massive. There are huge black beams in the ceiling and two three-lamp overhead lights as it is quite a dark room - the window is quite small and looks out on to the Jurassic Kueper Marl rock that used to form part of the river bed. It looks like a huge multi-coloured sandstone, full of holes and riddled with caves. The soft rock of the area is honeycombed with tunnels, apparently, from the old Abbey nearby. Prosaically, they keep the lawnmower in one cave and logs in another. It is furnished with a huge green sofa, three seater easily with big soggy cushions, a matching armchair, a gorgeous dresser, shelving units, brassbound coffee table, tv stand, dining table and chairs.
The bedroom is quite small - room for a double bed, wardrobe and a dressing table and that's about it, but who needs a massive bedroom?
It is painted white throughout, with the beams painted black. The doors are black. The carpet is a darkish blue, beige in the bathroom.
It has masses of potential to be a really comfy, cosy, homey place to live. Once it's had a damn good clean and been aired out a little! *lol* I am already planning all the things I can add to make it 'mine'. I have pictures that aren't up here at the moment for lack of room, family photographs that are framed but not on display as they creep J out, soft furnishings that I can take over that he won't miss (I've had them since university days for the most part). Then there are the silly things like the food processor, the hand blender, my paints, sewing stuff, that sort of thing.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had two interviews, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. The Tuesday place loved me but wouldn't offer me till I'd had Wednesday's interview and come back to them on what I thought to that. They thought I'd be snapped up. Well, I was. Or would have been. The Tuesday job required relocation on my part as it is too far a drive to commute daily. Another reason why they were fairly pessimistic that I would say yes to any offer they made. The Wednesday job was local to me, and they were very dismissive of the Tuesday firm due to the fact that it would mean relocating and would take me away from my home here.
The points to consider are these:
1) Which position offers long-term security, the chance to develop my work skills and obtain further qualifications and accreditation?
2) Which position offers the better salary and more chance of a bonus and a review of salary annually?
3) Which employer is larger?
4) Who did I prefer at interview?
From my perspective, on Tuesday I firstly met with the senior partner in my area of law. We had a good long chat, he was upfront with me and said he liked me, he could honestly say he would recommend to his partners that they make me an offer but he wanted to wait and see what happened at my next interview in case I liked them more. Then I met the managing partner and his wife (always a good sign). Then I got to have a long chat with the people I'd be working with in our office on a daily basis. In all, I was there an hour and three quarters, and my future colleague drove me to the station to catch my train and left me with the words 'I really, really hope to see you again very soon' ringing in my ears.
Wednesday...well, I knew both my interviewers already. I'd temped at this firm in York after I did my post-grad year. I knew the lady who owned the firm by reputation also. They have four offices, the other firm 5. However: she is the sole principal. It is her firm, take it or leave it. The main offices are in two different cities. The branch or satellite offices are tiny, the Leeds office - where I would be based - being a fee earner and two job-sharing secretaries.
They were quite cold at interview. It wasn't what you'd call a cosy chat, just straight down the line business. Contrast that with the day before, when we'd talked about people we each know (my favourite District Judge only used to be a partner in the firm, and is a regular Saturday golfing partner of the senior partner who interviewed me, so when I said he was a lovely man and one of my favourite DJ's, and told a little anecdote about him, it went down a storm), we'd talked about where I come from (my schooling is on my CV) and he turns out to be a keen hillwalker and knows my village well from many a holiday - in fact knows the family business well too. It was a real investigation not just of my work experience and background but a chance for him to suss out my personality - such as it is - and to see how I fit in to the firm's ethos.
I had a call on the Thursday from Wednesday's interviewer. She made an offer immediately and proceeded to go through the diary entries for the next month. Consider I might have been in my last post in court twice or three times a day, and seen two or more clients in the office as well. Certainly I never had fewer than two appointments in my diary each day regardless of other engagements. Contrast that with one or two hearings a week if I'm lucky, two or three clients a week and three days in succession with nothing in the diary at all. The post incumbent was taking work off people in other offices for something to do. Does this sound like a job with prospects? I thought not.
So, at the end of the day, there was very little choice.
Back to the accommodation. I mentioned the litter tray and that there were two cats. Well, it seems that the cats can't move with the present occupier and only one has a new home. So, I find myself - or will shortly find myself - the proud new 'owner' of a little, affectionate, slightly deranged tortoiseshell love-addicted feline who demands to be loved and fussed over by any human present in the room.
I think a larger litter tray, better cat litter and a regular change routine will soon deal with the odour problem. As will a damn good clean as already said.
Yes. What a difference a week makes.
I have a new job. Fingers crossed I do. L wrote my reference for uberboss to sign and she promised she would make me sound brilliant. But...but...what if she didn't? What if they get my reference and change their mind about offering me the job?
See? See? I am ever the pessimist when it comes to good things happening to me!
I also - and you may say this is pre-empting things rather - have found myself a flat. I won't be able to move in to the actual flat for a week, so I will be camping out in one of the other flats for a week first. We went down to look at flats and houses yesterday and this was the very first place we looked at.
It was quite funny really, because we drove off the A1 into the village itself and J just yelped 'You are living here! No arguments!'. We drove on to the sound of: 'Ooooh! Oooooh! Look at that quaint little church!' (Car stopped in lane, exchange of meaningful looks). 'Oh my God! The post office is in someone's front room!' 'Argh! Would you look at the local pub! How quaint is that?!' (It really is all very quaint).
Now. The directions were kind of 'turn off the A1, go along the High Street, turn right at the pub, drive down Low Lane, take the left fork in the road, drive up to the security gates and press the buzzer and I'll come down and let you in.'
The main house is a former vicarage, set in five acres of parkland with trees some three hundred years old. A river runs through the middle of it all. There were sodding real bulrushes in the damn river! I mean! I never saw a bulrush in my life outside of Odsal (r. league injoke there, sorry). The lady of the house inherited it from her father, who bought it at auction from the Church of England in 1980.
The main house is where her family live, in part of the building at any rate. They also have a licence for civil weddings and can hold services in a suite in the house. They can arrange the whole package, including marquees in the grounds for the reception, caterers, bars, mobile disco, bands, whatever you want. We just kind of looked at each other at that point and went 'Ug'. It's like some kind of conspiracy!
Anyway, there is the Gatehouse (which is much more modern inside), living room downstairs and bathroom, kitchen and bedroom upstairs. Very nice, in a bit of upheaval because it is being rewired - they only recently bought this building from an investor. Then there is the Coach House.
Now. I have a cat, and I know if I don't keep right on top of the litter tray situation it can begin to get a little fragrant. The lady who presently has the ground floor flat in the Coach House has two cats with an overflowing litter tray. One tray between two cats. Never a good idea. Cat owners may know the slightly chocolatey smell of desiccated cat poo that's sat in the litter for a good few hours. Not too pleasant. That was right in the doorway - sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!
However. Bear with me on this. OK. Kitchen is less modern. Long and narrow with slightly cobbled-together units but nice black granite effect worktops. Serviceable. A mix of wall units, not matching but quite appealing in their own way. Cooker...bit of an ancient electric with eyelevel grill but it will scrub up OK I reckon. It all looks as though it really hasn't been taken too much care of, but it will be cleaned before I move in. There is a fridge-freezer that belongs to the present incumbent that I will buy off her for £30 as she doesn't need it where she's moving to.
The bathroom is a decent size. No bath, but a really nice modern electric shower in a new glass cubicle of a decent size, basin in one corner and loo in the third corner. The bathroom is at the end of the kitchen.
The living/dining room is massive. There are huge black beams in the ceiling and two three-lamp overhead lights as it is quite a dark room - the window is quite small and looks out on to the Jurassic Kueper Marl rock that used to form part of the river bed. It looks like a huge multi-coloured sandstone, full of holes and riddled with caves. The soft rock of the area is honeycombed with tunnels, apparently, from the old Abbey nearby. Prosaically, they keep the lawnmower in one cave and logs in another. It is furnished with a huge green sofa, three seater easily with big soggy cushions, a matching armchair, a gorgeous dresser, shelving units, brassbound coffee table, tv stand, dining table and chairs.
The bedroom is quite small - room for a double bed, wardrobe and a dressing table and that's about it, but who needs a massive bedroom?
It is painted white throughout, with the beams painted black. The doors are black. The carpet is a darkish blue, beige in the bathroom.
It has masses of potential to be a really comfy, cosy, homey place to live. Once it's had a damn good clean and been aired out a little! *lol* I am already planning all the things I can add to make it 'mine'. I have pictures that aren't up here at the moment for lack of room, family photographs that are framed but not on display as they creep J out, soft furnishings that I can take over that he won't miss (I've had them since university days for the most part). Then there are the silly things like the food processor, the hand blender, my paints, sewing stuff, that sort of thing.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had two interviews, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. The Tuesday place loved me but wouldn't offer me till I'd had Wednesday's interview and come back to them on what I thought to that. They thought I'd be snapped up. Well, I was. Or would have been. The Tuesday job required relocation on my part as it is too far a drive to commute daily. Another reason why they were fairly pessimistic that I would say yes to any offer they made. The Wednesday job was local to me, and they were very dismissive of the Tuesday firm due to the fact that it would mean relocating and would take me away from my home here.
The points to consider are these:
1) Which position offers long-term security, the chance to develop my work skills and obtain further qualifications and accreditation?
2) Which position offers the better salary and more chance of a bonus and a review of salary annually?
3) Which employer is larger?
4) Who did I prefer at interview?
From my perspective, on Tuesday I firstly met with the senior partner in my area of law. We had a good long chat, he was upfront with me and said he liked me, he could honestly say he would recommend to his partners that they make me an offer but he wanted to wait and see what happened at my next interview in case I liked them more. Then I met the managing partner and his wife (always a good sign). Then I got to have a long chat with the people I'd be working with in our office on a daily basis. In all, I was there an hour and three quarters, and my future colleague drove me to the station to catch my train and left me with the words 'I really, really hope to see you again very soon' ringing in my ears.
Wednesday...well, I knew both my interviewers already. I'd temped at this firm in York after I did my post-grad year. I knew the lady who owned the firm by reputation also. They have four offices, the other firm 5. However: she is the sole principal. It is her firm, take it or leave it. The main offices are in two different cities. The branch or satellite offices are tiny, the Leeds office - where I would be based - being a fee earner and two job-sharing secretaries.
They were quite cold at interview. It wasn't what you'd call a cosy chat, just straight down the line business. Contrast that with the day before, when we'd talked about people we each know (my favourite District Judge only used to be a partner in the firm, and is a regular Saturday golfing partner of the senior partner who interviewed me, so when I said he was a lovely man and one of my favourite DJ's, and told a little anecdote about him, it went down a storm), we'd talked about where I come from (my schooling is on my CV) and he turns out to be a keen hillwalker and knows my village well from many a holiday - in fact knows the family business well too. It was a real investigation not just of my work experience and background but a chance for him to suss out my personality - such as it is - and to see how I fit in to the firm's ethos.
I had a call on the Thursday from Wednesday's interviewer. She made an offer immediately and proceeded to go through the diary entries for the next month. Consider I might have been in my last post in court twice or three times a day, and seen two or more clients in the office as well. Certainly I never had fewer than two appointments in my diary each day regardless of other engagements. Contrast that with one or two hearings a week if I'm lucky, two or three clients a week and three days in succession with nothing in the diary at all. The post incumbent was taking work off people in other offices for something to do. Does this sound like a job with prospects? I thought not.
So, at the end of the day, there was very little choice.
Back to the accommodation. I mentioned the litter tray and that there were two cats. Well, it seems that the cats can't move with the present occupier and only one has a new home. So, I find myself - or will shortly find myself - the proud new 'owner' of a little, affectionate, slightly deranged tortoiseshell love-addicted feline who demands to be loved and fussed over by any human present in the room.
I think a larger litter tray, better cat litter and a regular change routine will soon deal with the odour problem. As will a damn good clean as already said.
Yes. What a difference a week makes.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
I've (not) Got a Washing Machine
So. Four years or so ago - maybe even as many as five - we bought a new washing machine, the one my parents having donated to us when we moved in together having expired very suddenly.
We bought one that was advertised as a manager's special. Someone had bought it before, taken it home and had returned it after one use to the store, so it was a very good machine reduced in price by about £120. I had £50 worth of vouchers from my then job too, we used to get a bonus twice a year and would get little gifts now and again if the company share price was high or if they wanted to ensure a little more worker co-operation. So, this machine cost us I think around the £200 mark, which meant we got a really very tasty machine.
Thing about its having been returned once already (for aesthetic reasons, apparently) was that it couldn't be returned again by us once bought.
We took it home, filled it up, switched it on. And discovered that unless you set it to do a 30 degree c mixed coloureds wash, it wouldn't work. At all. So for four and a half years or so, I have been unable to do a whites wash, a boil wash, a quick wash, wash a half-load...any of the less ordinary washes you might wish to do. For a girl raised to believe that dish towels and hankies and underwear all got blasted at 60 degrees minimum, this has been pure torture. Certain things just don't seem properly clean, and I hate that.
Anyway, the buggering thing has been misbehaving itself for the last year or so. It arbitrarily would fill with water, turn the drum a few times and then would just go 'click...click...click' as the knob clicked aimlessly round the programme dial and the washing stayed locked in the creature's guts. I used to be blamed for overloading it. Load of rubbish, but if you switched it off and emptied half the load out and switched it on again, it would work.
Last Sunday, it ate one of my bras. I mean, it ripped one half of the back fastener off (the hook side) and ripped another part of the side arrangements off too. A whole piece of bra has vanished into the subterranean, stygian depths, never to be seen again. On Thursday night, himself filled it with his clothes, switched it on, and it filled with water. Then he went to the pub, yelling over his shoulder as he walked out the door for me to go and put the washing in the tumble dryer in an hour or so.
I forgot.
When he came home, the machine was full of water. It was still going. The drum would go 'swoosh, swoosh swoosh...*grrrrnkkk* swish, swish, swish *grrrrrrnk* swoosh, swoosh, swoosh' but would do nothing more than that. It never did play ball if you moved the programme dial to the rinse cycle or any trick like that, and it didn't on Thursday night either. The only thing we could do was switch it off so we could eventually open the door. It stayed full of water which it kept heated to the right temperature, but it would do nothing else.
It is now upside down in the back yard, with the door broken off and the drum detached from its mountings.
We've been looking at new ones but came home to consider the plumbing situation and to eat KFC *guilty shrug*. The new machines all seem to have cold water fill only, whereas the old one was both hot and cold, so we need to see if the little tap arrangement on the side of the pipe by the connector will actually serve to cut off the flow in the hot pipe, or whether we need to get some kind of stop piece or something.
Right now, the man is zonkoed on the sofa, fast asleep with a belly full of chicken. I am injuncted to awake him at half past three, no later. Yeah right. I know how hard he is to waken. I'll be lucky if I can get his arse off the chair in three or four hours. In the meantime, I have no water.
I don't much feel like talking about the W situation right now. Maybe I will do an update on that, maybe I won't. Right now, the world is alternately full of golden opportunity and very scary and black and with very little money. I hate change. Always have.
We bought one that was advertised as a manager's special. Someone had bought it before, taken it home and had returned it after one use to the store, so it was a very good machine reduced in price by about £120. I had £50 worth of vouchers from my then job too, we used to get a bonus twice a year and would get little gifts now and again if the company share price was high or if they wanted to ensure a little more worker co-operation. So, this machine cost us I think around the £200 mark, which meant we got a really very tasty machine.
Thing about its having been returned once already (for aesthetic reasons, apparently) was that it couldn't be returned again by us once bought.
We took it home, filled it up, switched it on. And discovered that unless you set it to do a 30 degree c mixed coloureds wash, it wouldn't work. At all. So for four and a half years or so, I have been unable to do a whites wash, a boil wash, a quick wash, wash a half-load...any of the less ordinary washes you might wish to do. For a girl raised to believe that dish towels and hankies and underwear all got blasted at 60 degrees minimum, this has been pure torture. Certain things just don't seem properly clean, and I hate that.
Anyway, the buggering thing has been misbehaving itself for the last year or so. It arbitrarily would fill with water, turn the drum a few times and then would just go 'click...click...click' as the knob clicked aimlessly round the programme dial and the washing stayed locked in the creature's guts. I used to be blamed for overloading it. Load of rubbish, but if you switched it off and emptied half the load out and switched it on again, it would work.
Last Sunday, it ate one of my bras. I mean, it ripped one half of the back fastener off (the hook side) and ripped another part of the side arrangements off too. A whole piece of bra has vanished into the subterranean, stygian depths, never to be seen again. On Thursday night, himself filled it with his clothes, switched it on, and it filled with water. Then he went to the pub, yelling over his shoulder as he walked out the door for me to go and put the washing in the tumble dryer in an hour or so.
I forgot.
When he came home, the machine was full of water. It was still going. The drum would go 'swoosh, swoosh swoosh...*grrrrnkkk* swish, swish, swish *grrrrrrnk* swoosh, swoosh, swoosh' but would do nothing more than that. It never did play ball if you moved the programme dial to the rinse cycle or any trick like that, and it didn't on Thursday night either. The only thing we could do was switch it off so we could eventually open the door. It stayed full of water which it kept heated to the right temperature, but it would do nothing else.
It is now upside down in the back yard, with the door broken off and the drum detached from its mountings.
We've been looking at new ones but came home to consider the plumbing situation and to eat KFC *guilty shrug*. The new machines all seem to have cold water fill only, whereas the old one was both hot and cold, so we need to see if the little tap arrangement on the side of the pipe by the connector will actually serve to cut off the flow in the hot pipe, or whether we need to get some kind of stop piece or something.
Right now, the man is zonkoed on the sofa, fast asleep with a belly full of chicken. I am injuncted to awake him at half past three, no later. Yeah right. I know how hard he is to waken. I'll be lucky if I can get his arse off the chair in three or four hours. In the meantime, I have no water.
I don't much feel like talking about the W situation right now. Maybe I will do an update on that, maybe I won't. Right now, the world is alternately full of golden opportunity and very scary and black and with very little money. I hate change. Always have.
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