The topic on everyone's lips

Today should have been Brexit Eve, but now it isn’t. We are mired instead in an ungodly mess of our own making, trapped in some unimaginable political limboland while people with no clue what they’re doing try and fight over the scraps of a meal that’s going rancid. Everyone is bored sick of it, and yet no-one can stop talking about it. The more I look into it, the more worried I become. I feel like I’m running headlong into a field full of landmines, being led by a blindfolded infant who doesn’t understand maps.

And I’ll stop talking about it now, because far from being cathartic, this is making me feel depressed.

RC 28-3-19

Hidden pleasures

Today was a more relaxed day for me, so maybe my chat with Miss Amateur Psychologist 2019 did me more good than I realised. Or maybe it was just the fact that I slept well last night. Or maybe it was the big bag of Midget Gems that I helped myself to from the supermarket, secreted away in my drawer, and picked at during the day while dispensing my necessary tasks.

It’s strange how a little rush of sugar can lift my mood. I feel better, even before my body has broken down the sweet into its component parts and released them into my bloodstream, so it must be mostly a mental thing. Does it go back to my childhood, I wonder? Does it bring back memories of a time when a simple treat could make life worth living and all cares and woes were someone else’s concern? Does it put me in a similar position to those school days, when confectionery was effectively banned and I used to have to sneak a Rolo into my mouth when the teacher wasn’t looking? It always felt so subversive, naughty and gratifying in a way that can only happen when you’re ten or eleven, and maybe we lose that feeling as adults, when it’s harder to fight against authority without consequences far more serious than a detention. So maybe recreating that scenario today was a subconscious ‘screw you’ to The Man, because I feel weighed down by responsibility and can see no way of escaping it, so reverted instead to behaviour that gave me a sense of freedom while younger.  Maybe The Me Inside was seeking release from the tedium of the modern by rooting himself in the relaxation of the past.

Maybe that’s why today has been better for me – I’ve distracted myself with all this bollocks instead of worrying about what I should be doing for work.

RC 27-3-19

Hidden pressures

Apparently, some people react to stress by exploding with emotions, while others hold everything deep inside and end up troubled internally. I mention this because I made the mistake of telling another manager that I’ve been feeling rundown physically and been questioning my own decisions, and she leapt on the opportunity to drown me in amateur psychology. ‘Wellbeing’ is the watchword of the moment, of course, and our company is no different to any others in clambering aboard this bandwagon and striving to grab its reins, so said manager has recently been on a course. It was called “Noticing the Signs of Potential Impending Breakdowns” or something equally nonsensical, and she was effervescent with excitement at being able to put some of it into practice. My pains of last week sound like a ‘stress-induced compound headache’ she says, and I should ‘reduce my daily stress factors’ and ‘schedule myself some daily respite for meditation and reflection.’ I sat quietly, half-listening while poking my uneaten pastry around my plate, and then thanked her for insight and concern. I was going to ask her how Those Above would react if I put aside the staffing, ordering, reporting, maintenance and planning that I have to do for four separate garages so I could sit in the corner with my eyes closed, but I suspected she wouldn’t have an answer. So I let her have the satisfaction of thinking she’d changed my life, and took myself back to my office.

I genuinely appreciate her interest, but I don’t need the handed-down wisdom of an unenlightened consultant hired by an ultimately uncaring company. I already have my own plan in place for ‘daily respite from stress.’

It’s called “Playing Plague Inc. in my lunch break”

RC 26-3-19

Morning mourning

Back to work today and I can’t remember ever feeling so unenthusiastic before setting off in the morning.

Why is it that I can sometimes stroll through life like an untouchable flame of optimistic energy, while other times I find it hard to put my socks on without doubting myself? Today feels like it might be a struggle, and I haven’t even left the house yet.

RC 25-3-19

Bad decisions

I still seem determined to blast my way through life without ever learning anything from my experiences. Less than 3 days after nearly collapsing with a headache that was literally blinding, I thought it might be a good idea to do something I haven’t done for months – sit up all night watching movies. Thankfully, my body took control of the situation and made me fall asleep before I’d even made it to the end of “Warcraft” (which started at 8pm on Channel 4.) So that little (imaginary) pile of films ended up unwatched.

It was quite disappointing to wake up at 4am slouched on the sofa, but I suppose I have to accept that things probably worked out for the best. Having a three-month old baby in a house where one parent has pulled an all-nighter can’t ever be a good idea, can it?

To make up for my perceived loss of ‘Rory Time’ I buggered off on my bike for a while today. It was gloriously beautiful and beautifully glorious and I managed to ignore my own lack of fitness long enough to enjoy Suffolk looking lovely in the bright Sunday sunshine. I returned home with burning thigh muscles and a dribbling nose, to be told “You’re cooking lunch today, remember?”

So that leisurely relax in the bath ended up unenjoyed.

RC 24-3-19

Don't tell her I said so...

I think Philippa may have been right about my ‘migraine.’ On the day it arrived, I had left the house without any breakfast, then drunk three strong mugs of coffee one after the other when I mistook my hunger for tiredness. Heavy caffeine intake on an empty stomach isn’t exactly a healthy way to start a Wednesday, is it? So I’m thinking that my ‘unexplained episode’ has been explained now, and I can stop worrying about having another day like it tomorrow, and stop looking into brain tumours or Parkinson’s disease or any of the other hundred reasons you might have a bad headache, and just get on with life as it was this time last week. But without quite so much coffee…

RC 23-3-19

Aftermath

My head feels strangely hollow today. I’m guessing it’s a bit of a hangover from yesterday’s mystery migraine. It actually feels like someone has drilled a hole through the middle of my skull and has sucked the innards out with a straw, then replaced the contents with some icy water. It’s a very odd sensation.

Philippa thinks it might all be diet related. She said she’s been looking it all up, and that most migraines are set off by something like coffee, or fruit juice, or spicy foods or chocolate. I said she should have re-worded it and said “coffee, citrus, curry and cocoa” as that would be nicely alliterative and therefore easier to remember. She said I should take these things seriously rather than risk my health, and I said she should get a hobby so she wasn’t wasting an afternoon researching stuff that wasn’t needed. Then we went our separate ways for a while, then I came to work, and we’ve texted each other and agreed it would be best not to discuss it further.

In other news, the contents of Mathew’s nappy this morning resembled a collection of melted frogs innards and smelt like a decaying walrus kidney. Every day as a parent is an adventure for the senses.

RC 22-3-19

Scintillating scotoma

I had a headache today that was so bad I had to lie down on the floor of my office as I thought I was going to throw up or pass out. It came on this morning, starting with a throbbing pain in the left side of my head. Before that, I’d been seeing weird flashes of light that made me think someone must be flashing a laser in my eyes from across the car park or something. I remembered this being mentioned as a symptom of migraines, so I started to look it up online but I couldn’t focus on the words on the screen so gave up and went outside for some air. Surprisingly, the smell of spilt fuel on the forecourt didn’t help – in fact it made me feel quite nauseous, so I went back indoors, but the change in light from harsh outside brightness to fake inside strip-lighting intensified the unpleasantness and that was when I ended up on the floor. Whatever I tried was making me feel worse, so I decided I should do something I haven’t done for a long, long time and came home early from work. I took lots of drugs, had a sleep, and now it’s dark I’m feeling a lot better, thanks.

I’m hoping this won’t be one of those things that repeats itself over a period of time. I know people who have regular migraines and their horribly debilitating and even when you’re not having them, you’re worrying that you might be about to have one, so your quality of life is affected even when you’re not susceptible. I don’t want any of that, thank you.

RC 21-3-19

Historic day

I have just completed my first ‘Victory!’ In a game of Plague, Inc.!

I’m so happy.

My disease was, childishly, called “BlisterCock” and it wiped out humanity in 611 days.

It was only on the games easiest setting, but I’m still immensely proud of myself.

Go me!

Go BlisterCock!!!

RC 19-3-19

At last

A glorious day of sunshine and stillness; so far removed from the hard winds and heavy rains of recent times.

I have started taking an extra long lunch on Mondays, so I can pop home to see the family. (Monday I am based at my original garage, so it’s only a short drive away. By having a 60-minute break instead of 30, I get to spend some time with Mathew, and it softens the blow of going back to work after the weekend. Having to stay on til 6pm to make up for it is barely an inconvenience, especially now the days are getting longer so I can still drive home in daylight!) Today I arrived home at 12.35 to find Philippa breastfeeding in the garden. As he was technically eating outside, I’m counting that as Mathew’s first ever picnic.

RC 18-3-19

Seven days of... stuff

A strange week, all told. I had a chance encounter with a former work colleague who is now running his own company. They do specialised, tailored touring holidays for people who want to explore the quieter areas of the countryside. You hand over loads of money and one of his guys will take you around in a minibus showing you the local sights and arranging interesting hotels and campsites. Not my idea of a fun vacation but he seems to have plenty of bookings. He even said he’d give me an interview if I ever fancied a change of career. Strange, because the last time we worked together he was asking me to lie about something so he could get out of trouble after skiving off a shift to visit a girl he fancied whose husband happened to be away that day. You just never know how people’s lives will evolve, do you? I’d never have believed he would mature and grow and retrain and end up with employees and a good review on TripAdvisor. But then, he’d probably never have believed that I’d end where I am. I certainly wouldn’t have. If you’d told me ten years ago that this would be my path I think I’d have been insulted and/or incredulous. Yet here I am.

I shall jump off that reflective, melancholic roundabout now and throw you a very quick Fri-ku.

Today I was asked:

“When will you have more children?”

I did not reply….

RC 15-3-19

Octet

I had another one of my mental, lurid, lucid, realistic dreams last night. It was sometime in our future and Philippa and I had eight children. EIGHT OF THEM! We were living in a small caravan somewhere on a cliff. Philippa’s Uncle Tom – jealous of the fact that we had beaten his in-family record of six offspring – had turned all our relatives against us and had somehow forced us out of our home. Philippa was trying to sew two old school uniforms together so we could send our youngest off into education without buying any new clothes, while I was trying to cook baked beans on toast for half-a-dozen-plus people on a cooker that only seemed to have one ring working. I had a beard and I was wearing flip-flops. Other details escape me……

RC 14-3-19

Spare a thought for the managers

You’d be amazed how many meetings and conference calls and e-mail exchanges I’ve had to be involved in with regards to the oncoming BREXIT mess. We’ve seen about 147 different ‘Possible Effects on Profitability’ reports; some of them worrying, some of them nonsensical. It all has the feel of a ‘Y2K’ scenario, where there are a number of people having fun scaremongering and a lot of other people making money by suddenly becoming ‘experts’ on something that no-one really has a clue about. It’s all so very tiresome. There was another vote in the Commons last night and I am proud to report I still have no idea what the outcome was. Maybe it was all agreed on 100% and the whole thing will run smoothly now. Maybe it was all rejected and Theresa May is now facing a leadership threat from within her own party and a vote of no-confidence from MPs and a General Election. Maybe Captain Marvel flew in on a hoverboard and slapped them all into non-existence. I really don’t know. And I’ve got to the stage where I really don’t care, either. We could be kicked out of Europe in a no-deal defeat and be forced to surround the British Isles with a wall and I don’t think I’d so much as frown.

But my personal views don’t match up with my professional situation, unfortunately. Those Above are trying to plan and plot for every possible outcome, which is ludicrous. It’s like a boxer trying to plan a defence for every possible combination of punches his opponent might throw at him. Why not just have a broad-reaching idea of how to proceed, then wait to see what happens? Chances are the final solution (poor choice of words, sorry) will be a bit of this and a bit of that, and not one of the 10,000 possibilities they’re trying to be ready for. And of course the result of their panicked projections is more work and worry for the likes of me. We’re supposed to be putting all these spreadsheets in place regarding workforce changes for each likely (or unlikely) ‘endgame’, so that ‘whichever way the cards fall’, we’ll be ‘ahead of the game’ when the pull-out occurs. These are actual phrases they’re using, by the way, not my own way of describing what’s happening.

I may have said this before, but it’s all so very tiresome.

So I’m ignoring it, as much as I can. My view is that neglecting current importances in favour of speculation and guesswork is short-sighted and bad for business health.

So there. Back to Plague, Inc.

RC 13-3-19

Rainy March (a poem)

The third month

Daylight spreading

You hope for the heat to return

But it doesn’t

Rain falls like a curtain

Wind howls relentless

Birds return but find confusion

Flowers are undecided

Is it Spring or late Winter?

Climate change or a freak week?

Human, natural or God-driven?

And when will it turn?

Greyness abundant

Low clouds, low moods

Spring pastimes are paused indefinitely

I hate our weather

RC 12-3-19

I'll sleep well tonight

Three weeks today we’ll be in BST, and it’s already light until after 6pm.

I celebrated by having my first decent cycle of 2019! When I got home from work, Mathew was down for an afternoon nap and Philippa wanted to catch up on some shitty celebrity bake-and-make show, or something, so I headed off for a guilt-free bit of Me Time!

Was good to be back on the trusty Velociped again, if only for 30 minutes. The wind was a bit gusty at times, and my thighs were burning like little bags of acid pretty quickly, but at least I’ve made a start.

RC 11-3-19

The Return of The Legend that is Fri-ku

Another weekend

I’ll spend time with family

and eating shitloads

Brexit is boring.

Like a smelly nappy change,

I just want it done.

Poor Theresa May

Fifty per cent voted ‘Leave’

But it’s all her fault

Wintry weather week

Wind like Poseidon farting

Rain like Satan’s tears

All drinks can appeal

With only two exceptions

Liebfraumilch and gin

RC 8-3-19

Painful Peristalsis

I’ve been struggling a bit with tiredness. I think it’s down to overdoing the desserts on Tuesday – when my body should have been resting overnight, it was too busy churning enough pancakes to feed an army through its digestive tract.

I really want to go on a big rant about something, but I’m trying really hard not to because I want to be a nice person. But we’ve been having problems with our computer set-up at home this week and it has got to the stage where I had to call the ‘Manufacturer’s Hardware Helpline’ for some support. Talk about throwing obstacles in the way of a clear path. There was a three-minute message before I even got to a Menu, then none of the options applied to our problem, then we had to hear another recorded message about, ironically, calls being recorded, then I was held in a queue, then I had to follow a ‘Call Centre Registration and ID check protocol’ because I’d never contacted them before. Then, when I finally got to explain our issues, I was given no help whatsoever, save for being asked to package it up and send it to their ‘Repair Centre’ which would cost me £60 with no guarantees that they could a} fix it without wiping the hard drive clean, or b} send it back without further damage.

So I guess, in this case, ‘Customer Service’ means ‘Token Conversation So We Can Say We’re Approachable, Even Though We Have No Intention Of Doing Anything.’

The world is going to pieces. I’m relatively young but even I remember the days when people that sold you products felt a duty of care to you and wanted to be proud of how you were dealt with. Nowadays we’re just seen as an open chequebook and piss all else.

But, as I said, I’m not going to go on a rant about it.

RC 7-3-19

Shroverindulgence

I have been a complete pig with pancakes this evening. I stopped eating at 7pm, but it’s taken me this long to be able to move enough to get to the computer to do some typing. Digestion has been making me lethargic. I love food and I love any excuse to eat something specific, so when there’s a wonderfully fabricated holiday with a certain kind of grub attached to it, I’m all in.

I tried all sorts of different toppings and fillings, as I do every year, and I think I may have found the perfect pancake partners.

And I’m really surprised, if I’m honest. After years of elaborate mixtures, my revelation this year is that simple can be superb.

The Winner Of The Rory Award For Best Pancake Topping Of 2019 goes to:

Honey and squirty cream.

RC 5-3-19

Mea culpa, maybe

I would like to apologise for my earlier blog today. It was shit. I’m embarrassed by the poor, lazy attempt at a joke that I made and feel as if I wasted my time in writing it, and your time in having to read it. I’d have been better off copying down the ingredients from the side of a bottle of ketchup, quite frankly. For possibly the first time since I launched this blogsite, I would dearly love to just go in and delete my efforts from this morning. But I’ve always adhered to this strict ‘no edits’ rule that I came up with at some point, so unfortunately that waffle will have to stay where it is. I can’t take it back, but I can at least move on from it, which hopefully I’m doing by posting this extra blog tonight.

So to try to redress the balance:

72% Concentrated Tomato Puree

Sugar

Spirit Vinegar

Salt

Spices

RC 4-3-19

Storm Freya Strikes!

Bit blowy about these parts today. Apparently, it’s another one of those unnecessarily-named storms that has tipped the miles-per-hour meter just enough to become meteorologically worthy of a moniker.

They’ve called it “Freya.”

I don’t know why they chose that name. I have wasted my lunch break looking the name up and it turns our Freya was a Norse goddess – possibly the most beautiful of them all – who owned an important necklace and was the designated Goddess of fertility.

So maybe the name does make sense for this storm – it’s basically f**king my garden up as we speak.

RC 4-3-19

Memory musings in March

I found an old schoolbook of mine in a box today. I was really surprised because my mum threw out or burnt most of the stuff we brought home from school days. But tucked inside a Spiderman Annual from 1985 I found a little notebook with some homework info in. Mostly boring stuff about algebra and tectonic plates, but I did find this little poem that I wrote as part of an assignment about World War 1. I guess I’d have been about 12:

“When the War is over

One side has lost

But both sides have paid

A terrible cost”

I can’t decide if that’s sweet or pathetic.

RC 2-3-19

Puny puns

After VEGANuary and then FebruDAIRY, thank God we’re into a month without some stupid ***ing play-on-words food challenge attached to it.

I have nothing against veganism, but I got so sick of having people ram it down my throat during January that I’ve decided to fight back – by eating as much meat this year as possible.

This will culminate in a little something I’m calling ‘OctoBeef’ when I plan to spend the tenth month of the year eating cow for every meal, and I mean literally every meal. Can’t wait for those minced-beef-on-toast breakfasts….

RC 1-3-19