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Tomorrow it’s June
Another month has flown by
And yet still its cold
Coldest Spring ever
We live under gloomy skies
Without any heat
I am still off work
Philippa stayed home as well
We had the day out
Amazona Zoo
Is my new best Norfolk place
I love the tapirs
Reincarnation?
If it’s true I’m coming back
as a zoo otter
RC 31-5-13
Don’t ask how this has happened, but I’m thinking of applying for a job with the Police. It’s working at their main Norfolk office, sorting out some of the call centre stuff. Very good money and normal office hours! Sounds perfect for me! Obviously I may just be saying that because I’m so desperately desperate to get out of the supermarket, but you never know, it could work out well. I’ve asked for further information and an application form to be sent. If my previous dealings with the Police are anything to go by, those forms will never arrive anyway, but we’ll see..
I do seem to be obsessed with changing career. I’m spending all day online looking at jobs and courses, and every time I sit down to write a blog it becomes about the supermarket, and not wanting to go back. Speaking of which, I called them today and said I’d return on Monday morning. They got extremely unhappy and said I should go in for the weekend but I politely refused. I imagine I shall walk straight into yet another disciplinary meeting but I don’t care anymore. I’m inwardly begging to get sacked.
RC 30-5-13
Physio is weird
It makes me feel much better
But it hurts so much
Ibuprofen rocks!
But the best back-pain relief
Is a Spanish nurse
Little uniforms
Always make women sexy
I need a cold bath
RC 27-5-13
I had a nice afternoon with Hannah today. She suggested I return to studying full-time. She said I’ve always been good academically and I’m obviously grossly unhappy at work, so why not go back to college and further my education? I have to say, she’s made me think. I’d considered teacher training, which would have been full-time for a year, so why not make that commitment with something else? Hannah is a changed woman thanks to her Performing Arts course. Maybe heading back into student life would have a similar effect on me? My Tuesday night business class has been very refreshing, after all. And let’s face it, if nothing else it would be nice to have another qualification to waste by doing mundane jobs for the rest of my life.
I’m seeing the lovely Spanish physio again tomorrow. I’ve been doing the stretches she recommended and I’ve really noticed a difference. Not enough to consider going back to work, but a difference none-the-less. Sophie isn’t coming with her this time, but she and I are going to meet up on Wednesday. I have a feeling that there may be trouble in paradise, and now the Norfolk novelty has worn off, she and Tamara are struggling to adapt to their new lives. They’ve been arguing more than me and Philippa recently, and that’s saying something. I’m not sure how bad things are, but I hope it’s just a blip, and I’m sure I’ll find out on Wednesday. And if I find out on Wednesday, then so too will you, dear reader….
RC 26-5-13
Work have stopped phoning me every day now - they’ve taken to calling me every hour instead. Maybe if I answered one of the calls they’d stop making them, but I really can’t be bothered. I think a rather large part of me is hoping they’ll sack me. But another large part of me is still very painful and stiff, and even if it’s not as bad as I first made it out to be, it’s certainly bad enough to keep me at home for a while.
RC 25-5-13
I’m getting accused of stringing things out with my time off. Work called me AGAIN today and asked for an update and an ‘estimated date of return’ and got quite unpleasant when I said I didn’t know. Every time they call me I seem to feel worse, so every time they call me they are pushing back the timescale of my recovery.
RC 23-5-13
Work are getting arsey. Apparently I should be phoning them everyday with an update. I have a severely pulled muscle in my shoulder, I’m not sure what they’re expecting to happen in 24 hours. Besides, what happened to “You can be off for five days without needing a doctors certificate”? What happened to the health of your workforce being more important than their location within your supermarket?
Bastards.
As I’m off work tomorrow and can’t get comfy in bed anymore, I’m going to have one of my all-night film sessions. Philippa says I am taking advantage of the situation but I think she’s just angry that she didn’t take advantage of the situation herself when her ankle was bad, so stuff her. I’m torn between a comedy cavalcade of ‘Airplane’ and its sequel and the three Naked Gun films, or a session of back-to-back James Bond films, culminating with ‘Skyfall’ which I treated myself to as a get-well present. Actually, I think laughing uncontrollably would be very painful in my present state, so 007 it is.
I may be too tired to blog tomorrow……
RC 22-5-13
God, I love my sister. After listening patiently to my moanings last night Sophie came over to see me today. She brought with her a friend of hers from work who is training to be a physiotherapist. Her name’s Maria and she has to treat a certain number of people as case studies before she can qualify, so she couldn’t wait to get her hands on me! She’s from Madrid originally, but has been in the UK for five years now. So after playing around with my shoulder a bit she said, in an incredibly sexy Spanish voice, “The muscle atop your shoulder has locked in one position to prevent further damage. All it needs is rest and gentle manipulation. We will ice it, then heat it, then massage it, and I think it will soon be looser.”
She then put me through tear-inducing agony for 20 minutes but IT ALREADY FEELS BETTER!!
Whisper this quietly if you’re standing near my boss, but I think I might be right as rain by the weekend!
RC 21-5-13
I got myself X-rayed last night. I was in agony all day so I called sister Sophie to ask for advice and she reminded me that there’s a Minor Injuries Unit I could go to, where I could get a once-over from a Nurse Practitioner without having to queue in A&E. So Philippa threw me in the back of her car and off we went to Cromer.
The journey there was horrendous. Every time Philippa changed gear or went over a bump it jolted my shoulder and I yelped like a girl.
When we arrived, it took me ten minutes to get out of the car. My neck was so twisted and stiff that my ear was nearly resting on my collar bone and it was so sore that I couldn’t do anything to move it.
Anyway, I saw a lovely lady called Mia and she was lovely. The good news is that the X-ray is clear, so there’s so structural damage and I don’t need to get referred to the hospital. She did suggest I see my GP as soon as possible, and take a few days off work while I recover. That’s the second medical professional in 24 hours that’s told me to stay off-work for a while so I’m going to do as they’ve told me! For as long as I possibly can!
Work called today to see how I was doing, which translates as “Are you going to sue us, and are you coming back to work soon?”
I layed it on a bit thick and then said “I think I need some more rest” which translates as “I have no intention of stepping within six miles of your supermarket you bastards”
RC 20-5-13
The pill-induced euphoria has died down this morning and the reality of my situation has hit me. I am in an extraordinary amount of pain and completely unable to move properly. TheLoveMachine is in the staff car park at work so I am totally reliant on Philippa for transport. She will have to take tomorrow off to get me to the hospital, and might even have to stay home to look after me indefinitely. I’m not sure how serious this is, but I feel like every part of my shoulder from the socket up to the nape of my neck is in spasm, on fire and disintegrating. I am facing the possibility that, at best, I need a long spell of physiotherapy and will be incapacitated for months. And I don’t even know how I did it!
The only saving grace I can find is that at least it’s not the shoulder with the tattoo, so no-one at the hospital will be looking at my back and going “Doesn’t PHILIPPA have two P’s??”
RC 19-3-13
I am, quite frankly, off my tits on painkillers.
I hardly slept last night because my shoulder was so bad. Like a good soldier, I struggled into work this morning but it was getting worse and worse, and stiffer and stiffer. Just after eleven, I bent down to pick up a purse that some old woman had dropped in the soup aisle, and when I stood up again a horrible pain shot up through my neck and the back of my head, and my vision went blurry. When I tried to hand the purse over to the customer I couldn’t move my arm properly. The stupid old woman shouted “Oh my God he’s having a stroke!” and then all Hell broke loose. They swept me into the managers office and wanted to call paramedics, but I talked them out of it. I asked to be sent home so I could lay down for a while but they refused to let me drive myself home, and they refused to let me leave the supermarket without seeking medical help. My GP surgery is closed at the weekend, so I ended up getting carted off to the walk-in centre in Norwich for an emergency appointment.
The doctor pulled me about and prodded me, then said ’you need to have an X-ray.’
I said ’Ok. How long will that take?’
He said ’Oh, we don’t do them here. You’ll have to go to A+E at the hospital.”
I said ’How long will that take?‘
He said ‘I can’t be sure, but it’s Saturday afternoon so the radiology department will be packed. Rough guess, I’d say six to eight hours’
I said ‘Can’t I just go home?’
He said ‘Well you can, but you’ll need to be seen as soon as possible, and I advise you to stay off work until you know what the problem is’
Music to my ears, I thought, music to my ears!
He said “See your GP on Monday and get referred to the hospital. I’ll write you a prescription for some pain relief. You can collect it from the pharmacy downstairs”
He said it’s some kind of acute mechanical dysfunction causing secondary physical symptoms. It could be a trapped nerve, or a problematic disc, or something else that I can’t remember because I’m as high as an alien’s kite. Whoever first decided to mix paracetamol with codeine deserves my thanks and an award of some kind.
The doctor said I can take ibuprofen as well ‘without any nasty side-effects’ but I’m not sure that’s correct. I took two of each an hour ago and now I can only see orange.
I’m going to spend the rest of the day dreamily scouring the internet and indulging in impulse purchases. If I end up bankrupt, I shall blame the NHS.
RC 18-5-13
The only way this week could have been worse is if I’d ended up with Ebola.
Arguments with Philippa, nothing but hassle at work, agony from my shoulder, and now TheLoveMachine may have to be condemned. My poor baby is making horrible noises in so many different places I’m worried she’s about to fall apart. I think she might be in even more pain than I am. Philippa has been pestering me for ages to get something more reliable so now she’s giving me the ‘told you so’ look. Why can’t cars just WORK? Why do we have to care for them, and clean them, and get them serviced, and keep them watered, and replace bits of them, only to have them screw up and die anyway? I’ve made some phone calls and looked around online and all the VW garages are ludicrously pricey. The phrase ‘good money after bad’ is finally making sense to me. I might have to admit defeat and look for something newer. I’m told that these camper vans are highly saught-after so maybe I can find some sucker with a love for 70s transport who can take her off my hands without listening to her.
Trouble is, I feel like such a traitor. TheLoveMachine is my first ever motor vehicle, how can I desert her when she needs supporting most? Doesn’t that make me as bad as a mother who abandons her children? Or a man who leaves his wife to move in with the girl from the Off-Licence? Will any car I buy in the future ever be able to trust me? Could I promise them this won’t happen again???
Sometimes I wonder what the Hell might be wrong with me. ….
RC 17-5-13
I was in a much better mood today, then I had to help move some pallets in the warehouse and my shoulder pain flared up again. Bloody thing. I’m not even 30 yet, why is my body acting like I’m 90?
I stumbled into the manager’s office grimacing and contorted and said “I’m in agony here, who’s the first-aider on duty?”
Secretary Shirley looked at her book and said “I think you are, Ches” and went back to eating her sandwich.
Bitch.
One of the ladies from the restaurant brought me some ice to put on it and said “If you stretch a bit before you pull a pallet truck you’ll find these things don’t happen”
I said “Great. Thanks. Where were you 10 minutes ago, oh great queen of hindsight?”
She said “Piss off then, I’m only trying to help” and tipped the ice over my head.
I swear I am never going to talk to a woman again.
RC 16-5-13
Well, I’m in a gloom again.
I’m fed up with work, I’m fed up with Philippa, I’m fed up with the cold weather. Basically, I’m fed up. My love for my fiancee is so deep I can barely believe it, and yet she pisses me off more than I can stand. Nothing I do or say seems to be right, and if she gets out of bed on the wrong side, my life becomes unbearable. I thought living with someone meant you were saying “I’m going to be on my best behaviour for you” but it doesn’t. It seems to mean saying “you HAVE to put up with me, however unpleasant I am”
I’m so glad we live in a big house at the moment as I’m finding it easy to avoid her.
We had a nice day with Hannah and Nathan on Saturday. She’s stressed as she finishes her performing arts course soon (has it really been two years already?) so he arranged for us to go out together. We had a nice meal, and went bowling. Philippa plied Hannah with lots of Bacardi and got her relaxed for the first time in weeks. She also gave Hannah some tips on breathing exercises to do when you get exam nerves, which I thought was incredibly nice of her.
Alright, maybe she’s not so bad after all…
RC 15-5-13
Another Friday;
Another batch of haiku
for you to enjoy!
Three days of sunshine
Helped shake off Winter at last
Now we’re back to rain
The flowers are out
The hedge-sparrows are nesting
With their nice, blue eggs
Today is windy
Good for drying your washing
But bad for cycling
Flying is stupid
Unnatural way to move
High up in the air
RC 10-5-13
Someone lost it at the tills today, and I mean LOST IT. He was a fat guy in his fifties, with a moustache like David Crosby in the 70s and wearing a pair of flip-flops. Not a good look… As it was quite busy, he allowed himself to be directed to our ‘self-serve’ tills and it went downhill from there. He kept putting items in the bagging area before they’d been registered by the barcode reader, so it kept beeping at him and asking him to ‘remove the items from the bag‘. He couldn’t get the hang of it and kept on doing it, so it kept on saying the same thing to him in that annoying automated voice it has. Each time he got more and more irate. Eventually, he started pleading with the screen as if it had a member of staff sitting behind it that he could convince to pop out and help him. The final straw came when he put his credit card in to try and pay, but pressed the ‘pay by cash’ button instead of the ‘pay by card’ button. The till responded by asking him to insert more cash every five seconds, with him muttering ‘I haven’t got any ****ing cash you **** bastard’ at it, before eventually it all timed out and reset itself and he was automatically asked to wait for an assistant to help. He threw his hands up in the air like Oliver Hardy, shouted “F**K OFF!” in a very loud voice, and punched the side of the screen as hard as he could; so hard in fact that he broke the skin on his knuckle and started bleeding over his own shopping. I was the nearest manager to the incident but I couldn’t stop laughing, so Derek from the restaurant had to come over and calm the bloke down. The last I saw of him he was sitting in Customer Services getting his hand patched up by a medic.
RC 9-5-13
It’s been like Summer this week!
I’ve cycled dozens of miles and come dangerously close to calling in sick!
People are smiling again and looking less suicidal!
Supermarket bosses are happy because we’ve shifted shitloads of barbecue stuff!
Even Philippa is acting like she loves me again!
HURRAH!
I’m not expecting it to last, but having a Bank Holiday weekend with temperatures in the twenties has been wonderful, and if (as I suspect) we have another wet summer that shatters our dreams like a dropped glass, at least we’ll have had the 6th of May.
RC 8-5-13
There’s a Great Tit in our garden somewhere who is driving me to despair.
He’s obviously desperate for a mate because he’s spending every waking hour screaming like a squeaky gate. Bloody Spring with it’s bloody natural urges and it’s bloody need for procreation. Ten past five he started this morning and he’s still going strong now at gone half past eight.
I love birds, but If he doesn’t get laid soon I’m going to go outside with a hammer and beat the noisy little shit to death.
RC 4-5-13
Now we are in May
And yet it still feels freezing
I might move to Spain
Pollen is pretty
But makes your mouth feel funny
Like peanut butter
I drink tap water
It tastes like a mixture of
Alcohol and bleach
This year is boring
No Jubilee or big Games
Let’s bring back last year!
Philippa smells sweet
A mixture of coconut
and Avon bath soap
RC 3-5-13
I’m not saying we’re a nation of exaggerators, but have you noticed how no-one seems to have a simple illness anymore? I’ve been going back over some staff sickness certificates from the past twelve months, and I’m amazed some members of the workforce are still alive with the different serious ailments they’ve had. I blame this ’crisis’ culture we have in the media, where stories are all blown out of proportion to ensure viewers, listeners or readers’ interest. Hyperbole is seen as more important than fact, as that is what will ultimately convince people to purchase. We don’t have a ’possibility of an increase in malignant melanomas’ we have an “IMPENDING CANCER CRISIS”
So here’s a little list of subtle differences I’ve noticed in the way that people describe their health. You might even call it a poem!:
No-one gets a cough, they get a chest infection
No-one gets a cold, they get flu
No-one gets a headache, they get a migraine
No-one has indigestion, they have an ulcer
No-one has diarrhoea, they have IBS
No-one has mood swings, they have manic-depression
No-one gets spots, they get infections
Mind you, who am I to complain? Last time I had a hangover I took two days off with ‘food poisoning’
RC 2-5-13
Here is a quote from someone at work today. His name is Terry. He‘s 55 and is trying to re-start his life after a spell in prison:
“Marriage is just doing things you don’t like with someone you used to love while ticking down the days to your divorce”
RC 1-5-13
