Word Games (again)

I’ve challenged myself to create some long pallindromic sentences. These are the best so far:
(you might have to make up stories to justify these sentences, but I still think I’ve done well)

Get any aps - spay Nate G!

May E rid foo of dire yam?

Keep bus as Tom MOTs a sub. Peek!

See you in December…….

RC 30-11-14

Just when I thought it was safe to something-or-other

It turns out Mac may have been right after all. (see this blog, a few days ago)
There are indeed mutterings afoot at Head Office about finding ways to streamline management techniques, and the costcutting may include ‘a move toward interdepartmental multimanagement’ and therefore possible redundancies. The decision will be made in the New Year, they say, so that’s something nice to have hanging over us over Christmas. In the meantime, an external company is doing some kind of investigation into the best ways to move forward. So they’re spending loads of money to see whether sacking people would save a bit of money? You’ve got to love big business……

RC 28-11-14

Rory's Winter Collection

My internet loveboots arrived today. They are GORGEOUS. I stood before our full-length mirror wearing nothing but the boots and a scarf and I have never felt sexier. I’m going to have to start a serious walking habit now to justify the expenditure and to give them their proper use. 
Philippa has agreed to join me for a Sunday morning six-mile hike, as long as I agree to go Christmas shopping with her on Saturday. She has also insisted that I never again stand around the house in just walking boots and a scarf. Seems like an ok deal to me.

RC 27-11-14

Middle aged couple?

Philippa and I spent hours tonight doing a jigsaw!
We cleared the kitchen table after teatime, then we sat down with a pot of tea and tried to put together a 1000-piece recreation of ‘The Haywain’ by Constable.
What a perfectly lovely evening. 
Obviously I would rather have been out cycling and then making love on a blanket in the open air somewhere, but it’s November, so we can’t.
So it was PG Tips, a jigsaw, and an on-off conversation about Christmas plans, which was wonderful.
Next thing you know I’ll be buying a pair of slippers…

RC 26-11-14

Musings from the grapevine

Mac Dennis, the guy who did my training before I started at the garage, called me today for a ‘chat’ which turned out to be more scaremongering and gossip than you get in the Daily Express in a fortnight.
“Have you heard? Rumour from Head Office is they want to cut down on costs after a poor quarter financially, and filling station managers might be the first to go. They’re looking at ways of making garage responsibility part of the store manager’s workload” etc etc
I panicked for a minute or so, but then I thought ‘what would be the sense of taking me on in October if they were going to make my job obsolete in December?’ I know this company aren’t known for their sensible decisions, but I don’t think I have anything to worry about. I think it more likely that he heard a little something from someone and used it as an excuse to call other managers and talk about it rather than have to do some actual work for a change. 
Anyway, enough of that….
I bought my first Christmas present today. I think that’s a new record for me! I saw a little something online and thought “Sophie and Tamara would love that!” so I went ahead and ordered it. I’m not gonna tell you what it is, in case they’re reading this, but I’ll give you a little clue: It plugs in, and has an on switch. I can say no more…..

RC 25-11-14

Hangover Haiku

Pounding head at work
Having to sit down often
Unproductive day

RC 24-11-14

Drunken haiku

Lunchtime in the pub
Became an all day session
Now I am squiffy

Too much Kronenbourg
Not enough vegetables
Am I making sense?

I cannot see straight
Am I slurring my spelling?
Can you read my words?

I’ve had an idea:
I must stop blogging while pissed
It’s not a good thing.

RC 23-11-14

Glum, grim, grimy

Weather has turned a bit wintry today. Cool breeze and very, very damp. Lots of people coughing and spreading their germs across the counter of the garage, where it was my weekend to be working on-shift. I have earned huge popularity points with staff member Josie by asking her to show me how to use the till. It’s not in my contract that I actually have to serve people, but those above me have deemed it unnecessary for us to be staffed appropriately, so I may as well jump in and help out. After years of supermarket involvement, I shouldn’t be surprised that the people making the staffing decisions are completely clueless about staffing needs, but it still shocks me a bit that they think we need one member of staff on a Wednesday lunchtime (average number of customers an hour - approx. 36) and one member of staff on a Saturday morning (average number of customers an hour - approx. 200)
This company’s slogan should be “Never putting Customer Service ahead of Saving Money”
I’m quite proud of the management style and attitude that I have developed - I’m going to do what I think is best for me and my staff, and if my superiors don’t like it then I’ll go and work somewhere else.

The weather report says rain all day tomorrow, so I think we might postpone our hike until next week. My boots haven’t arrived yet anyway, and you can’t do a six-mile trek without appropriate footwear, right?
We’ll just have to drive to the pub instead.

RC 22-11-14

Rambling Rory

The good thing about having changed jobs is that I’ll get to have some really decent time off over Christmas. The bad news is I can’t ‘acquire’ loads of presents from the ‘damaged goods’ section. I’m still a supermarket employee though, so I’ll get a nice percentage off the cost of our Christmas groceries.
As usual I have no idea what to buy people as gifts, and as usual I’m tormenting myself with the dilemma of wanting to get the shopping over with as soon as possible, and not wanting to fall into the commercial trap of buying stuff when there’s still six weeks til Santa.
I hate myself for thinking about it in November, and I hate myself for talking about it in this blog, so let’s change the subject:

I’ve found a website that has reviews of some of the walks you can do along footpaths near us, and printable maps that you can follow so you don’t get lost. I’ve been neglecting my fitness recently and I don’t enjoy cycling in Winter, so I’ve decided that walking might be the way forward. I’ve persuaded Philippa to come with me this weekend on a six-mile hike that crosses two rivers and has a pub about two-thirds of the way round. That way we can enjoy each others company, get some fresh air, and get a little bit jolly with a couple of drinks as well. I may even time it so we have lunch there, then we can walk off the calories on the way home. 
Marvellous.
Obviously, you can’t tackle footpaths without appropriate footwear so I’ve been online and ordered an eighty pound pair of hiking boots.
I may not know what to get other people as gifts but I sure know how to treat myself.

RC 20-11-14

Part of the furniture

I really do feel like I’ve settled in well at work.
All these years of doubting myself and being scared to make a change, and not believing I could do this kind of thing, and it looks like I may have been cut out for management all along.
The staff all seem to have taken to me as well. I think they’ve been so fed up with temporary managers and fending for themselves for the last few months that they’re just glad to have someone here they can turn to.
I am making a real effort to get to know them all and find out how they like to work and my intention is to make things as easy as possible as everyone. I’m not sure how long that will last and how well that will work but so far it seems to be going okay.

RC 19-11-14

Word Games

As a fan of Scrabble and anagrams, I decided to see if I could make an appropriate sentence out of the letters in the title of this blog - “The Chesworth Chronicles”
I didn’t manage it, but I did realise that you can make these words:
Testicles
Growth
Worthless
Chronic
Cheese
…and then I decided to do something else.

RC 18-11-14

Proud of my scientist brothers

I still can’t believe there’s a man-made object sitting on a comet half-a-billion kilometres away. 
The achievement of the Rosetta team in getting a probe to land safely and send back information must be one of the most remarkable human achievements ever. The media gloss may have worn off and the 24-hour news channels may have gone back to making everyone panic about Ebola, but the amazing events of the past seven days far out in our Solar System continue to astonish and astound me. The experts will be analysing data for months and years to come, and we barely have the faintest clue yet as to what this project may lead to. The knock-on effects and advancements in all things scientific will only be known in retrospect, and it could be a decade before everyday life is improved in some way by these endeavours, but I honestly believe they will be.
It makes me proud to be a scientist. Who is currently working at a filling station….

RC 17-11-14

November-aiku

Achievement this week:
Probe landing on a comet.
Unbelievable!

An alias for 
BBC Children In Need:
Wankers telethon

Saturday evening:
A gorgeous Suffolk sunset
and a glass of wine

November sixteeneth
Soon be pantomime season
“Oh yes/shit it will”

And my personal favourite:

Bonfire night, fireworks,
Darker evenings, colder days
Racing to Christmas

RC 16-11-14 

2100

Planned

Philippa is back in Norfolk visiting friends today, so I have set myself two Sunday challenges:

1. Watch all these films:

Red Dragon
The Polar Express
Ted
Bram Stoker's Dracula

2. Spend all day in my underpants.

I'm confident I can achieve both.

RC 16-11-14

A strange world, no?

I’ve been very lazy with this blog.
You’ll have to forgive me. Having to throw my energies into learning a new job and getting used to a new routine has distracted me somewhat.
One good thing about the old job was that I had loads of spare time where I’d be sitting on my own in the office with access to a computer, and that’s not happening so much now. 
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not snowed under with work and struggling to find five minutes for the internet every day, but it is having an effect.
I shall get back into it soon, I promise.

RC 12-11-14

I'm glad I was so patient..

Philippa came up trumps with some facebook research and found us an early evening fireworks display!
My delight turned to disappointment somewhat when we arrived at the Village Hall. You HAD to park on their car park and you HAD to pay £6 each to get access. 
My suggestion was we park around the corner and watch the rockets from a field, but Philippa slapped me for being so cheap and made me join the queue.  
It was worth it!
There was a live band, and soup, and hot dogs, and a tombola, and a bar, and it was great! And all the money they make goes into an account to buy the fireworks for next year, so I don‘t suppose I should moan about the entry fee. It’s certainly a damn sight cheaper than buying our own box of fireworks. 
The best part of the night was a parade of lanterns made and held by local schoolchildren. They marched around the playing field with buckets, collecting money for their school funds, and then all the lanterns were used to light the big fire. Philippa watched them with an expression that stank of ‘broody’ so I distracted her with a kiss and then dragged her off to the barbecue.
We stayed til the end and drove home with a faint smell of smoke on our clothes and hair.
Bonfire Night is rapidly becoming my favourite night of the year.

RC 8-11-14

Wet and windy

We found a nice fireworks display being advertised in a local village…. then it was cancelled due to the weather.
Bloody Hell.
I said to Philippa “I guess we’ll just have to make our own fireworks - in the bedroom!”
But she didn’t agree.
Now I am confined to an evening of Wii Sports while she chats to her mother on the phone for hours.
Not an ideal Friday evening.

Sophie and Tamara are coming over on Sunday though, so that should be nice. I’m going to make some spicy vegetable soup as a starter and Philippa has downloaded a recipe for a Beef Wellington or something so there’ll be rumbling tummies a-plenty. I’ll pop out tomorrow and find some decent red wine to go with it and we’ll be all set. 

Should I just start kissing Philippa’s neck while she’s on the phone and see if I can spark some interest?
No, that’s a terrible idea. I’ll just try my hand at bowling instead.

RC 7-11-14

damp squib

Last night was quite disappointing.
I’d got so excited during the day that I’d even written a haiku:

Bonfire Night is here
Time to dust off the fireworks
And burn, baby, burn!

But I’d forgotten to look up where there might be a decent Bonfire Night do, so I ended up looking out of the bedroom window forlornly hoping for something to happen. We’ve been to some great events in recent years, but obviously they were all back in Norfolk and we didn’t fancy a 90-minute drive just to see some cheap fireworks. When I still lived back at home with Hannah we had some rough neighbours so there were bangers and rockets going off constantly for a fortnight in early November, but last night we didn’t see a thing. A little downside to living in the middle of nowhere, I guess. Maybe next year we’ll plan a little get-together ourselves and involve all the neighbours. We can do that, because we know we’ll still be living here next year, and that is something I am still finding hard to get used to!
I’ll have a look in the local paper at work tomorrow, I’m sure there’ll be some belated Bonfire parties at the weekend. 

RC 6-11-14

Into November

Life is good.
I thought I’d shit myself when I was flying solo as a manager, but so far so good. The forecourt hasn’t exploded and no-one has punched me or quit, so I must be doing something right. 
I have Mac available on speed-dial, and whenever I feel a bit nervous or pressured I just think “I’ll be home by 7pm at the latest, and I never have to work a late night or a weekend again…” and it doesn’t seem so bad.

Philippa is noticeably happier as well. It’s quite overwhelming to realise most of her ‘mood swings’ of the past few years were just her reacting to me and my mood swings. I never even realised that I had moods and that they could swing until I got myself out of the situation that was making them swing in the first place. Now I feel more content, I feel more consistent; and Philippa is blossoming as a result. It can’t have been easy for her to live me with over the past couple of years, and maybe I need to let her know that I realise that now, and I’m sorry for it all.
Yes, I think I’ll pop back into the lounge and tell her that right now..

RC 4-11-14