An Unusual State of Affairs

This feels weird to me. It’s the night before Advent starts and normally I’d be ringing with excitement and singing with enthusiasm, but I just feel flat. It’s surreal. I’m not depressed or anything, I think I’m just finding it terribly hard to believe that tomorrow we’ll actually be in December. It’s only a couple of weeks ago that it barely felt like Autumn. Leaves were still clinging to trees, gardeners were still wearing their short sleeves and the looming arrival of Christmas felt like a fantasy. Now we’re suddenly about to dive headfirst into the final month of the year and part of me is not really sure it’s happening.

Have you ever had a dream in the middle of Summer where in the dream it’s Christmas Eve and you’ve realised that you’ve forgotten to buy presents then you wake up in 25 degrees Celsius and think ‘that was odd’?

That’s what this feels like to me. Like I’m about to wake up in June.

I suppose it’s a bit of a weird one because so much has changed. Decembers have had a bit of a pattern for the past few years but this is The First Of A New Paradigm. Different jobs for both of us. The small matter of an impeding birth looming over the whole planning process!

Maybe that’s it – I can’t really lock into the idea of Christmas when a far more important event is likely to rear its head first!

Whatever it is, I’m trying really hard not to be one of those people who pisses on everyone else’s enthusiasm by saying “I’m just not feeling it this year.”

Because they’re tossers.

RC 30-11-18

To drum or to telescope, that is the question

I have an abundance of hobbies calling for my attention, and precious little time in which to pleasure them all. I think tonight may be a sitting-in-the-garage-with-drumsticks-in-hand kind of evening. At work today I ended up accidentally watching a YouTube video about great solo performances by well-known drummers, so I’m feeling a little inspired. I am also hoping to avoid another full evening of ‘what else can we decorate before the baby arrives?’ with Philippa.

I have managed to avoid any early-onset Christmas trimmings at work, but there is an insistence from Those Above that we have a whole stack of advent calendars on the counter for the little ones to pester their parents for when they come in to pay for their petrol. Why we can’t just send them over the road to the superstore is beyond me, but there you go. It’s company policy, after all, to notice every possible merchandising opportunity and ram it as far down the customers throats as can be achieved without losing your fingers or choking them. Who am I to rise above and go against?

I’m quite excited by it all this year, to be honest. Having the chance to drive around between the locations and see the different approaches to December is nicer than being stuck in my office or out on one forecourt.

Little changes please little minds, you see.

And if anyone from Head Office is reading this – I was watching the video in my lunch break.

RC 29-11-18

Starry-eyed dreamer

This evening, I have set up my new telescope!

It arrived yesterday but was in a few bits and looked incredibly complicated to get working, and I was too busy massaging my pregnant wife’s tired feet to get into it. Tonight, however, I have been able to commit some time and take a few giant steps towards stargazing. It’s very exciting. Even Philippa’s rolling-of-the-eyes-into-the-top-of-the-head at what she perceives to be just another faddy short-lived hobby couldn’t dampen my enthusiasm on this one. I have managed to put the various components in the places where they need to be and I am now reading the hastily-downloaded-and-printed online manual, which is teaching me all about Equatorial Mounting and Right Ascension axis tilting. I am giddy with excitement at the thought of being able to work out the exact latitude of my viewing location and then adjusting my Declination Indicator Barrel accordingly.

But it’s really cold outside tonight, so I might do that tomorrow.

RC 28-11-18

Challenging Challenges

Supposed to be planning ahead with staffing schedules. Finding that boring, so planning ahead with blog-based challenges instead:

2018: Post 250 separate blog writings by end of year.

2019: For the first time, write at least 20 blogposts each month

2020: Finally achieve the long-dreamed-of ‘blog every day in a month’ goal.

RC 27-11-18

on my mind

Following on from my impromptu and unexpected meeting with Area Management the other week, I have now been asked to give a presentation at Head Office. They want to show me off as a shining example of how the new layout they’re doing in East Anglia is working well. Part of me (my ego) loves it, but the other part of me thinks ‘Several people lost their jobs in this change around. If I prove it works, doesn’t that mean MORE people will lose their jobs as well when this scheme is rolled out? Wouldn’t I be responsible for loads of redundancies???”

So, yeah – that’s given me something to ponder on the nights when I ain’t sleeping so well.

The good news is that it’s not until the New Year. Those Above are too busy micromanaging December sales opportunities and looking for ways to wring an extra penny or two out of our already impoverished customers to squeeze it in before Christmas. There is also then the possibility that, like so many of their previous ideas and intentions, the whole thing will get lost in its own bureaucracy and they’ll never find an aligned gap in the schedules of everyone they’d want to be there. So I’m trying to ignore it until early January, when all I’ll have to think about will be the upcoming onslaught of Easter Egg promotions and the small matter of a newborn baby at home.

RC 26-11-18

Weirdness multiplies as weeks progress

It’s funny how lack-of-sleep works. You go a few nights in a row with not-enough, so you’re a bit spaced out, but then when you get a good, proper session with the pillow you wake up feeling absolutely brilliant, but then the day afterwards you feel like shit. It’s as if the insomnia takes a few days to catch up with you. Maybe we have a ‘Snooze Bank’ inside, where we can store a few hours that we’ve had when we didn’t need them, so that when you have sleepless nights, you’re drawing on the sleep energy from the Snooze Bank to keep you going, but if it carries on for a few nights you get overdrawn and it takes a few nights of full sleeping before it’s all replenished again.

Not a theory that’s going to win me any Nobel prizes, I’m sure, but it’s a roundabout way of telling you I’ve been exhausted today. Bad timing, too, as I came home to find Philippa on one of her mad nesting sprees and wanting to re-arrange the living room for the third time this month. The two-seat sofa, it turns out, should be under the window, which is odd because ten days ago it was perfectly placed where it was, close to the kitchen door. I have learned, through this happy journey of pregnancy, to just go with it all and let her do what she needs to do, rather than try and point out that her change of mind is simply hormonal. The last thing a heavily-pregnant woman needs, especially in her first pregnancy, is the guy who impregnated her getting hacked off by her mood swings and letting her know that she’s being a bit wishy-washy, flippy-floppy, or grumpy. Learned that one the hard way, and I’ve shared it with you now so that hopefully you never have to go through it yourself.

RC 21-11-18

Blowing my own trumpet

I’m feeling less tired, less stressed and more relaxed than yesterday, thank God, so I’m going to take this opportunity to give myself a lift by mentioning a few positives.

Friday’s blog was number 2200! If I stopped writing today, it would still be nearly 200 years before the calendar year overtakes the number of blogs I’ve posted. That’s a pretty meaningless statistic, admittedly, but this is about me feeling better about myself, so go with it.

On a similar theme – one more blog after this one and I will break my record for the most blogs posted in one calendar year, and I STILL have the whole of December to go! It may yet be that my little target of banging out 250 in a year is reached by the end of ’18.

I hope so. I doubt I’ll ever get anywhere near this amount again, so I might as well push on through for another 6 weeks and try to achieve something that might have been considered impossible in my darker days. That would certainly be better than resting on my laurels and convincing myself that I can take my foot off the gas from here on in, having swamped the internet with my shit enough already this year.

Next year (stop me if I’ve mentioned this before at any point) we’ll have a baby in the house, so I don’t know how regularly I’ll be able to commit to blogging. Unless I become one of those dads that updates the Web every time their kid has a shit or gargles something that sounds like a word.

Which I assure you I will not.

RC 20-11-18

My God it's been dark today

Insomnia hit me like a Cuban boxer this weekend.

I think I’ve had a grand total of 5 hours sleep in the past three nights. Not sure why it happened. I never am sure, am I? It just lets me go along unbothered and then decides to land on me and give me a nasty surprise every now and then.

I didn’t feel particularly worried about anything before the weekend started, but obviously by 1.30am this morning I’d found a multitude of things to fret on while laying there wide awake – impending parenthood, work worries, possible Christmas-related traumas. None of that is any more of a threat than it was a few days ago, they’ve just built up in my sleep-lacked brain and become a troubling issue.

I know what I need to do – meditate a bit so the thoughts just waft away from me, then replace them with something fun and distracting like drumming or gaming, then get to bed at a sensible time and catch up on some shuteye. That’s my plan for the evening, but we’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

RC 19-11-18

Head in the Heavens

I’ve just ordered myself a new telescope. Yes, I know I’m doing what I often do – have a little idea and then get obsessed about it and then spend money on it even though I know it will probably only be a passing fad – but I’ve done it. Less than a hundred quid so it’s not as if I’ve broken the bank or bankrupted Junior’s college fund. I’ve just treated myself to something that will, hopefully, give me peace and pleasure over the Winter months while I wait for it to be light enough to cycle again.

RC 16-11-18

3 LITTLE SNIPPETS:

Halfway through November. Can you believe that? Hope this time-flying-by continues so it’s March before I know it…

We went for a meal at a restaurant this week where the food was lovely, but the tables were too close together. I understand the need to maximise use of space and thereby maximise profits, but it’s taking it a bit far when you’re chewing someone else’s elbow while trying to eat your meal.

We’ve had some absolutely gorgeous skies over the past few evenings. Bright oranges and reds. Lots of wispy clouds accentuating the sunset hues. Then some bright, sparkling, clear starlit nights. It’s making me wish I was a better photographer and it’s giving me the urge to buy a telescope and get back into stargazing. I had a simple one several years ago that had been a present when I was a child. I hung onto it into adulthood, but I think it got lost (or damaged beyond repair, can’t remember exactly) in one of the many moves that I had before I met Philippa (or one of the many moves we’ve had together) So it may be time to get myself a new one…

RC 15-11-18

Feet on the ground

I had an unexpected visit from area management today. They do this from time to time – descend upon you unannounced just to have a catch-up and a chinwag. It’s never about a bad thing or a bollocking – believe me, if they’re coming down to lay into you about something, they damn well let you know about it in advance so you can stew and fret and consider suicide – but that doesn’t stop you expecting it to be so. I was in the middle of typing up a proposal for staffing next Easter (yes, I know, but if I don’t get ahead of these things they’ll catch up with me and leave me under-manned) when I got a warning phone call from Teresa in the supermarket office. “Tom and Sofia are here and they’re on their way over to see you.”

Even though I knew it wouldn’t be anything unpleasant, my instincts kicked me instantly into PANIC MODE. My blood pressure shot through the roof and my heart rate doubled and I started to sweat and my hands shook so much I couldn’t press Ctrl+S to save my document. In the ninety seconds it took them to reach me I had run through 7000 possible conversations in my head and then started writing my resignation. It took every ounce of sense I had in me to be able to tell myself “You haven’t done anything wrong. They do this. It’s what they do. They just happened to be passing and decided to drop in. They just happened to be passing….”

Frighteningly though, they had done this deliberately to have a chance to speak to me directly. They’ve been watching me very closely, it turns out, and are pretty damn happy. “The change-around has worked much better than we expected” is the first phrase that I remember. After that it all blurs a bit into a mixture of relief, embarrassment, and ego. I’ve never been one who handles praise particularly well and, to be honest, with this company it’s bloody unusual to get it, so I need to keep myself in check now and not consider myself a genius! They were SO complimentary. They even admitted that they had had doubts about me taking over the position at all (not that I want to go over all that again – you can read my blog postings from earlier this year if you’d like to hear that story) but now they can’t believe they hadn’t noticed my abilities sooner.

Anyway, I mustn’t go on or my head will expand yet further. It’s just nice to know I’m doing okay, bearing in mind how often I can kick myself down the stairs about the things I think I’m doing wrong. This should help me give myself a bit of a break for a while.

Plus – more importantly – them being here today probably means I won’t have to see them again for another three months or so, and that would be bloody brilliant.

RC 14-11-18

Imminent MMCC

Remember when I seriously considered the idea of killing this blog off after 1000 posts? Well I’m just a few days, and a few more words, from hitting 2200 postings.

Madness.

What’s madder – me still churning this stuff out, or you still taking time from your day to read it? I know my own conclusion, but I wouldn’t want to insult you.

So I shall segue into a poem that I have belatedly written for November 5^th, called

“My Love of Fawkes Night (an ode)”:

Fireworks flash across the sky

Hearts are lifted; spirits soar with the rockets

Sparklers brighten faces

A fire roars its happy song

All ages rejoice

Primal needs satisfied

Subconscious and misunderstood

But powerful

RC 13-11-18

Humble?

Someone had a go at me today over the fact that we didn’t have poppies for sale in the garage last week. I pointed out that we had representatives of the British Legion on hand in the main supermarket foyer most days in November and she said ‘yeah, but what about the people just calling in for fuel and not going to the store itself?’ I patiently explained that we couldn’t get involved in every campaign that goes on for every anniversary for every charity, and that the Poppy Appeal has expanded now so that you can buy them from schools and a whole multitude of different locations, so we didn’t feel the need to be yet another point of sale for them. She then said “Hmmm, yes, but that is also true of Hallowe’en decorations and you couldn’t get those on display quick enough. It is also true of Christmas cards and advent calendars, and I’ll bet you a pound to a penny that you’ll have those all over this ‘point of sale’ in the next few days. So I guess your ‘involvement’ in these ‘campaigns’ is based on whether you’ll make any money out of them, right?’

She had backed me into a corner, and I salute her for it!

I threw off my cloak of corporate Wankspeak and admitted that she had a point. It was so nice to have a chat with her as myself, not hiding behind my Shield of Management, and she turned out to be a really nice lady – a volunteer dinner lady at a primary school and a passionate supporter of the Armed Forces, for whom several members of her family are employees. The outcome was that I promised her I would approach the British Legion with regards to hosting poppies next year and invited her to e-mail me with her arguments and I would forward them onto Head Office. I meant it too. Normally the good-old ‘put it in an e-mail’ quote is a way to get them out of your face and out of the building and your intention is only ever to hit ‘delete’ when the invited missive arrives. But this is different. I admired her passion and her intellect and I agree with her now – we SHOULD all play our part in remembrance, rather than just going ‘Poppies are everywhere, so we don’t need to hold them.’

Also made me think a bit about the way I deal with unhappy customers. I normally put up my ‘here we go again’ screens and treat them all as if their complaints are nothing more than unjustified ‘poor me’ moanings, but maybe if I took the time to listen to them properly and see them all as individuals with their own senses of what’s important I may find them all to be as convincing as this lady was today. So my plan from now on is to give people a proper ear and see if I can brighten their day a bit, rather than switch myself off while they give their frustrations an airing and then deflect them away with bullshit. If I’m calm and friendly, maybe I’ll get a calm and friendly response, rather than meeting hostility with hostility and making it worse for both of us.

I can’t guarantee that’ll happen next time some twat of a truck driver unloads on me about the price of vape liquid, but I promise I’ll do my best.

RC 12-11-18

Parenting Plans

Sod changing nappies and all that malarkey, I’ve decided my most important role as a father is to be the cultural advisor for my offspring. So I’ve given this some serious thought, and here are the THREE THINGS (from each medium) I will be introducing my child to:

BOOKS

HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pullman (yeah, I know, a trilogy)

COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (yeah, I know, a collection)

ALL THE ASTERIX BOOKS (yeah, I know, etc…)

FILMS

The Wizard Of Oz

Citizen Kane

Some Like it Hot

ALBUMS

The White Album by The Beatles

Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan

Back In Black by AC/DC

TV

The Flintstones

The Simpsons

Everything David Attenborough has ever done.

That TV section should take him about 40 years to get through, so as far as I’m concerned that’s my bit over and done with! Over to Philippa for the rest of it…….

RC 9-11-18

Blame the Midweek Blues

Sorry for rambling on about a load of old nonsense yesterday. I have no idea why that fellow bothered me so much, nor why I spent the rest of the day simmering my hatred for him in an internalised cauldron of resentment, nor why I felt the need to poison your eyes with my bitterness. I can only put it down to tiredness, irritability and middle-aged, soon-to-be-a-parent grumpiness.

Today I’ve been much calmer, humbler and more forgiving, and I hope that will be reflected in this blog posting.

The supermarket is now full of Christmas. Credit to them for waiting until after Bonfire Night, but my God they’ve made up for lost time, and then some. We have a Christmas tree the size of Belgium in the foyer, a mountain of chocolate fingers near the entrance and three aisles packed full of FESTIVE SPECIALS. (mostly things they have in the shop all the time, just re-packaged to incorporate snowflakes and costing double the price.) The tills all look like they’ve been blocked in behind walls of £2 advent calendars and there’s so much tinsel around it’s like Santa himself has vomited over the shelves.

Not sure why I think Santa’s vomit would be tinselly, but there you go….

We have less than 7 weeks until Christmas and the BUY STUFF NOW onslaught has begun. Have you noticed that approximately 70% of all adverts in TV breaks are already acting like it’s December 23^rd?  Bastards. No wonder ‘The Magic’ is fading. No wonder kids get loopy and leery. Can we really expect them to behave and not have breakdowns when they’re forced to think about something exciting that is still a good two months away?

I’m boycotting Channel 4 until the end of the year, by the way. I was already of the opinion that, The Simpsons aside, everything on that poxy channel is a bottom-of-the-barrel, lowest-denominator, unchallenging, bringing-back-the-concept-of-the-Victorian-freak-show shitemare, but the straw that broke the Chesworth back was this:

Since November 1st each of their programmes has been preceded by an advert that states “Festive entertainment, brought to you by (insert current sponsor name here)”

FESTIVE ENTERTAINMENT…. On November 1^st!!!!!!!

It makes me want to walk naked to their offices and annihilate them all with a chainsaw, but legally I can’t do that, so instead I’m refusing to watch their on-screen outpourings of effluence.

See – that was a much less moany blog post than yesterday!!!!!

RC 8-11-18

These can't all be brilliant

I really do meet some interesting people in my line of work. And by ‘interesting’ I probably mean ‘ignorant.’ Today’s Wally-Walking-Round-In-Human-Form was a chain-smoking gas boiler maintenance engineer from Peterborough, on his way through to Felixstowe for some reason or other. He walked into a conversation we were having about heating in our homes. Someone in the queue had turned theirs off again as the weather is supposed to stay mild for the next ten days or so. I commended them, but said I was leaving ours on a low setting, as my wife (not sure if I’ve mentioned this before) is really rather pregnant, and our storage heaters take ages to warm the house up again if you turn them off and let everything get cold.

Our visitor – one of those guys who lets a conversation run before stepping into it and telling everyone else why they’re wrong – decided to wax lyrical about his own preferred method of homelife which he insists is ‘the only way to be.’ Part of it involved him adjusting the thermostat settings in each individual room, depending on what he might be doing in there at any given part of the day, which kind of makes economical sense in a way. But the bit that got under my skin and picked away at my psyche was this – he says he has a plug-in heater going full-bore in his bedroom every night, while also sleeping with the window open. When we pressed him as to the logic behind this, he said “I like cool air to breathe but I hate having cold feet. This way I achieve perfection.”

What a tool.

I was overwhelmed by the urge to point out the nonsensical thinking behind his ‘foolproof scheme’, and to mention the environmental catastrophe he was adding to by ploughing through fossil fuel-based electric running one of the most energy-inefficient products ever created by Man. But really – what would be the point? People like him say things like that precisely because they want to get a reaction of some kind from people like me. So I quietly bit my lip while waiting for him to head back to his extremely lonely life of driving around on his own, fixing boilers for other people, and then going home alone to his lonely hot-and-cold bed.

I’m not sure I’ve accurately recounted the whole encounter, and I imagine it was a boring, jumbled mess to read, but typing it all out in this posting has got it all out of my head and lessened the likelihood of me pushing his head through a window the next time I see him.

I thank God I have this blog to moan in or I’d have been sacked from my job a year ago…

RC 7-11-18

Considerations, not Commandments

A 10-point Guide To Life, for future reading by my son/daughter.

A few things I’ve picked up along the path, Junior. It’s up to you if you follow them….

Never test a battery with your tongue.

Only wash your tea mug once a day – and do it last thing at night. Brews taste better when you use the same mug repeatedly.

Keep your mind clear and your fingernails clean.

Share all your wisdom but keep your disappointments to yourself.

Fall in love with film but don’t be tempted by television.

Don’t live your life on the internet.

Don’t live your life through other people.

Be true to your beliefs, and be truthful to your parents.

Try not to vomit while kissing.

Never eat anything that smells like it’s been through a Walrus.

RC 6-11-18

GMT and PMS

I’m having to use my headlights when I’m driving home from work now. It’s depressing and it’s probably at least five months to pass before I can stop doing it. Bloody Winter with its bloody cold days and its bloody dark nights. But why moan? I can either lump it or leave the country, and I have to admit I’m too lazy to go through the hassle of transporting a heavily-pregnant wife further South. All is not well in the world of Philippa, by the way. She’s having one of those spells where impending motherhood feels like a burden and an inconvenience rather than a beautiful, natural state to be celebrated. She feels fat and unattractive and uncomfortable and her mood is reflected in her movements and manner. I thought all this up-and-down, topsy-turvy, moods-swinging-like-a-horse’s-cock way of life would change now she’s pregnant and not having periods, but no. She continues to be an interesting lottery of a woman – you buy a ticket and hope for the best, not knowing whether you’ll become a millionaire or simply have wasted your money. (or in this case – you go to bed not knowing if you’ll wake up with a loving marshmallow or a rabid panther.)

Not sure that was my best-ever description of my relationship, but I think I have a cold coming, so my creative wordsmith’s mind is befuddled by the fog of phlegm.

RC 5-11-18

Bang

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Fireworks are Mankind’s greatest invention, bar none.

RC 3-11-18

Don't mention the tooth

I noticed today that I’m on course to smash my record for the most number of blog postings in a calendar year. Anyone would think I’ve had lots of extra things going on to write about or something…..

I think it would be great if I could top 250. That would be a nice sense of achievement, and is easily do-able based on my output thus far. All being well, and assuming I don’t have a catastrophic stroke or accidentally cut my hands off with a pencil, I should have broken last year’s total later this month. That’s amazing really – beating my previous best with more than a month to spare!

(Yes, I know, I’m brilliant)

I’m not saying I’m a modern-day Shakespeare (although you may call me that if you wish) but after previously getting hassled by a High School teacher for constantly handing in homework late, it’s nice to feel a little bit prolific in my own way (so screw you, Mr Robertson.)

In other news, we have de-scared all the garages and packed away the Hallowe’en stuff ready for next October. I’ve left out most of the unsold confectioneries with a ‘Perfect for Bonfire Night’ label on them and 50% off. People have already complained about the drop in price happening the day after Trick-or-Treating, but stuff ‘em. If they’ve reached adulthood without sussing out the way consumerism works that’s their fault. Hey, guess what Nimrods? Almost everything you buy in December will be double the price that it will be in January! What a shocker. It’s the same everywhere, every year. The only way to beat the system is to accept it and plan around it. If I was them I’d be stocking up on cheap chocolates now before the prices ramp up nearer Christmas. (and preferably from one of my garages!)

Have a good weekend.

RC 2-11-18

Full, and fillings

Holy shit on stick – another month has gone.

I’ve landed inside November with a toothache. I must admit that I’ve used the presence of Hallowe’en as an excuse for indulging in sweeties and cakes. Everywhere I’ve been this week, members of staff have brought in home-made brownies, toffee apples and bags of fun-size choccies. My way of thinking is that it’s bad management if I don’t try at least one of everything. If my employees have gone to the effort of providing sugary sustenance then it would be rude of me not to partake. My favourite sample of the week so far has to be an Eccles cake made by a lady called Janina who works part-time at the garage furthest away from my home. Made with puff pastry, packed full of fruit and with a delicious unidentified glaze on the top that I suspect may have been a combination of rum and honey. Yum, yum and yum.

Anyway the down side is that I now have a molar that feels like it’s been turned inside-out and is basically an open nerve that throbs if I do so much as brush my tongue against it. So now I’m deciding whether to take my fear by the throat and book to see a dentist, or just buy some Sensodyne to rub on it and hope it’ll go away by Sunday. That’s sound medical practice, right? Ignore the shit out of it and wait to see what happens? I believe it’s called ‘The Ostrich Method.’ Recommended by almost all trained professionals, I’m sure.

RC 1-11-18