2G2BT?

I hope my blogs have been making sense this week.
My head has been a mangled mush so it’s been hard to stick four words together coherently, much less try and think about grammar, structure and writing in an accurate and entertaining way.
Thankfully, the state of near-panic I’ve been existing in for what feels like months has now given way to a much more welcome emotion - EXCITEMENT!
David and Becky think we’re great. Well, they think Philippa is great, I’m just being accepted by proxy. They’ve asked us to get CRB checks, and they’d like a couple of references for each of us. Tom and the captain of the sports club have already agreed to do them for Philippa; I’m going to ask Ted and Ginger Graham if they’ll do mine.
The deal is we get the house rent-free, but we pay all the bills and we’re not allowed to leave the house empty, so we can’t take a holiday til next Spring.
David tells us that his company are always sending people abroad to install and manage systems, so there are always people looking for house-sitters. Apparently there’s plans to set up a ‘recommended’ list, so Philippa and I may be able to make a habit of this if it all goes well.
Existing as professional hermits, never having roots but never having to worry about a mortgage? Sounds good to me…

RC 31-3-12

Dark places and dirty faces

I caught some of the warehouse guys playing poker today when they should have been processing some orders. It was really funny, actually. There’s a dark corner of the attic above the warehouse where out-of-date stock gets put before it’s transported back to the depot. I’d gone up there to help myself to some salted peanuts that I shouldn’t have been helping myself to, and found them cowering around an over-turned crate that they were using as a card table.
There was a stunned silence from all of us. They looked up at me like a family of rats caught in a kitchen by a chef, while I stood there like a cheating husband who has just been caught with his pants down.
In the end I just smiled and said “Look, guys, you know you shouldn’t be here, doing this in work hours. If you want to gamble on your lunch break I’m not going to say anything, but you’re putting me in a tough position when I catch you in an off-limits area, skipping work and breaking several codes of conduct. Maybe this is something you should do away from work from now on? Now I’m going back to the shop floor. I suggest you do the same, and maybe we can all forget this happened, what do you say?”
They looked at each other in shock and said “Ok. Thanks.”
I have a feeling they might be quite helpful towards me if I need them for anything in the future.
I’m just glad they didn’t ask themselves what the Hell I was doing up there myself.

RC 29-3-12

Postcode lottery

So the situation with the house is this:
David and Becky are really nice. They’re also really clever, and really wealthy. The house is a three-bedroomed detached place in the suburbs which they bought when planning a family, but then they decided to go on making lots of money instead of halving their income by getting one of them pregnant.
Hannah has not wasted time planning for the possibility of me moving out. She’s already had two definite ‘yes’s from girls on her course, saying they want to move into our house with her while I’m gone. I’m a bit miffed about that, but if all goes well with me and Philippa co-habiting the last thing I’d want to do is come back to this shit-hole, so I may as well let her get on with it.
Nothing definite has been said either way, but we’re going to see them at the house again on Friday for a bit more of a ‘get to know you session.’ For some reason I think they’d like to learn more about the people they might be leaving in possession of their house for twelve months. I can’t imagine why….

RC 28-3-12

Poem about Fear

Sweaty back.
Heart attack?
Why can’t I breathe?
I wish I could leave.
Panic rains down.
My pants have turned brown.
I need a big drink.
I can’t even think.
Shaking hands.
Hyperactive glands.
A twitching arse.
When will it pass?
Why am I scared?
I came here prepared.
But now I feel nude
My senses are screwed.

RC 27-3-12

Burn some more coal, baby..

My drumming lesson was cancelled. My tutor was unwell. Everyone connected to me seems to be going down with a sickness bug at the moment. Rather than waste the afternoon, I went for a cycle and then did some ironing in the garden in shorts and a T-shirt. Man I love global warming!

Philippa is hobbling again after physio. The guy she saw reckons she should go back to the doctor and ask for a scan as he thinks there might be ligament damage. Mind you, he’d been pulling her about for thirty minutes before he said that. I really hope she gets it sorted soon because she’s a moody cow when she can’t play sport.

I’ll fill you in on ‘the house’ tomorrow. I’m a bit overwhelmed by what happened when we went so I need a few hours sleep to help process it.

I believe in the publishing trade that’s called a ‘tease’……

RC 26-3-12

Clocks have changed (but not much else has)

We had a darts afternoon at Ted and Beryl’s. What a scream.
Simon was making us laugh with tails of his workplace. Apparently, on Friday, he and some colleagues formed an ‘anti-charity’ committee whose task was to avoid any of the Sport Relief silliness that was going on. So four of them had a long lunch by the river, drinking Cockburn’s Port and singing a capella Abba songs with a collection hat beside them. They called it ‘Port Relief’. Apparently they made thirty-six pounds for charity, two of them threw up in the river and all four got a warning for going back to work half-cut.

Our ‘house visit’ on Friday was cancelled, by the way. David had a stomach bug and didn’t want to pass the infection on. So now we’re seeing them tomorrow night (I hope the smell of diarrhoea has faded by then)
It’ll be a busy day tomorrow, then. I have a drumming lesson and Philippa is having some physio on her ankle.
Wouldn’t it be great if the house was big enough to fit a drum kit in?

RC 25-3-12

Red hair; red mist; red-undant

Someone got sacked at work yesterday, but it wasn’t the guy you might be thinking of. We had a fancy dress day for Sport Relief. Each department were given a different theme. On dairy, for example, we had to be dressed as James Bond characters. For some reason, the category for warehouse staff was ‘evil people from history.’ So we had Lucretia Borge checking in deliveries, and Adolf Hitler driving a fork-lift truck.
Rob, one of the younger pallet-truck handlers, turned up dressed in a smart suit. He was also wearing a ginger wig, and a name badge that said “GRAHAM - MANAGER” on it…
Now Graham is not lacking in sense of humour, but even he found it a bit harsh to be categorized as evil. So he had a quiet word with Rob, which turned into a loud word, which ended with Rob trying to smash him over the head with a clipboard. Apparently they ‘have previous.’ Something to do with a holiday form Graham refused to sign, which resulted in Rob splitting up with his girlfriend, they tell me. So now he has no girlfriend, and now he has no job either, which seems silly.
I didn’t dress up myself, by the way. I decided to maintain an air of lofty professionalism, but I did stick a fiver in the collection tin. I need all the karma I can get…

RC 24-3-12

Reflective Rory

It’s amazing how quickly things can move along in life.
One day you’re just spending all your time in your bedroom, and the next thing you know you’re employed and engaged and thinking about living somewhere different.
Sometimes the pace of life just seems to quicken, and suddenly the crashing waves of reality are sweeping you up in their powerful grasp and rushing you headlong into an uncertain future and all you can do is hang on and hope to land safely.
On Friday Philippa and I are meeting a couple called David and Becky, to talk about the possibility of us living in their house for a year while they make lots of money in Hong Kong.
There’s no obligations or expectations, but I am finding the whole thing daunting and unsettling.
I tried to use Hannah as an excuse not to proceed. I said I was worried about dropping her in it as she wouldn’t be able to afford our place on her own, and she might not be happy about leaving the house she was born in. But when we spoke to her about it she said “Go for it. This place is full of horrible memories for both of us, so why stay? Don’t worry about me - a couple of girls on my course are talking about renting together so I might end up joining them. Or maybe I’ll persuade Nathan that we can live together before marriage? Who knows?”
Who, indeed, knows?
I am trying to approach the rest of this week the way I have approached most of the past year - just get on with what I can get on with, and try to make it through with my sanity intact.
It seems to have worked well so far.

RC 21-3-12

March hair

I had to threaten someone with the sack today for being unhygienic. He has shoulder-length hair which he hasn’t washed since High School and the grease on it is starting to drip down his back. That may be a slight exaggeration, but believe me he ain’t the guy you want handling your food on the deli counter.
I asked why it had to be me that spoke to him, bearing in mind he doesn’t work in my department, and Ginger Graham said “New company policy. Dispersal of negativity-based inter-staff confrontations through a meta-management responsibility sharing scheme.”
By the time he’d finished reading that I’d lost the will to argue and just got on with it.
Danny (the guy with the grease) took it well. He promised to wash his hair tonight if I let him have a free bottle of Vosene and I said ‘yes’
I’m not sure that complies with company policy, but stuff ‘em.

RC 18-3-12

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I can’t believe we’re halfway through March already.
Since we got back from holiday the days have just flown by. Maybe it’s because I was so stressed by planning the trip that my whole life was just building up to that week, and I couldn’t see beyond it, and now I am beyond it I’m more relaxed.
Or maybe it’s because so much has happened since we got back that I’ve just been dealing with it all as it happened and not realising that the days are ticking past apace.
Either way it feels bloody good to be nearer April than February.

I told Philippa about the house last night. She surprised me by reacting in quite a calm and measured way. I’d expected her to flip out with excitement and call the estate agent immediately. Gav (the guy who mentioned the house) doesn’t work weekends so there’s no pressure on us to make a decision. Philippa and I can have a couple of days to think about it and talk about it and think about it some more and then maybe, if we agree something, I can ask him for more details on Monday.

RC 17-3-12

How do I get myself into these things?

We were looking through my DVD collection at the weekend- bought ones, and stuff I’d recorded off telly - and Philippa asked why I have 40 episodes of ‘CountDown’ saved on disc.
I don’t like to lie to my beloved but I can’t say “I tape it everyday to see what Rachel is wearing and if I like what she’s wearing, I keep it” can I?
So I said I’m a fanatic for anagrams and I tape it so I can do the conundrum. (In my defence, most of the episodes date from before Philippa and I got together, when I needed them for personal reasons that I won’t go into here.)
But now she thinks that on top of all my other obsessions I’m also into anagrams. So I’ve had to start doing anagrams so it looks like I am obsessed, and through that I’ve found that I really do like them and now I am becoming a bit obsessed with them!!!
I keep noticing words that are anagrams of other words and in bored moments at work I’ve started re-arranging product names in my head, purely for my own amusement. While I search online for a relevant therapist, here’s a few that I came up with today:

SHREDDED WHEAT becomes DR. H. DEATHWEEDS
TOMATO KETCHUP becomes PACKET TO MOUTH
FAIRY WASHING POWDER becomes HAIR WISP? GAY FROWNED

RC 15-3-12

(it's all in the...) Timing

A guy at work spoke to me today.
That’s not unusual in itself, but what we talked about has left me feeling a bit scared.
His name’s Gav and he’s one of the ‘pickers and drivers’ for our home delivery service. We’ve spoken a couple of times before, but only exchanging pleasantries. Today he sat with me right through my lunch break. He was moaning about the new hand-held computers they have to use, mainly because they have a GPS chip fitted, so Head Office always knows where he is. He said “I stopped for a shit between deliveries last week. My manager phoned me to find out why the van wasn’t moving.”
We chatted a bit about the never-ceasing onset of technological advances, and how amazing it is that everything he needs to do his job can be fitted onto something the size of a wallet. He knew a fair bit about the software involved and I asked how come?
“My sister’s boyfriend works as a programmer. Bastard is earning a mint. He’s now off on a one-year placement to Hong Kong, all expenses paid, and she gets to go with him.”
And this is the bit that’s a bit scary:
“They need someone to look after their house while they’re gone. The rent’ll be quite cheap. They don’t want to advertise as they’d rather the sitters were people known to the family.”
I don’t believe in things happening through divine providence, but the timing is a bit amazing.
I daren’t mention it to Philippa because she’ll have us moving in by Friday..

RC 14-3-12

Undercover

I spent a few hours today looking around rival supermarkets in the area. Ginger Graham likes us to keep abreast of any special offers on that we might be able to copy, and he likes managers to go incognito to do the research.
I’ve never done it before, and it got me out of the usual mundane tasks I have to lower myself to on the day-shift, so I readily volunteered.
I got to spend 90minutes in a café drinking coffee while pretending to check out ‘premium stock rotation policies’ which was nice.
In one of the major supermarkets - and I would never stoop so low as to mention which - they actually have someone employed now whose job it is to stand near a till with a sign saying “Space here” and an arrow on it. At busy times, she has to walk up and down near the tills, and stand by the till with the smallest queue so that Mr & Mrs Public-Shopper can be directed.
The poor girl looked as demoralised as it is possible to look, and when I asked her how long she’s worked there she said “I started last Monday”
Has there ever been a worse job invented for a human being?
I met a guy once who spent a summer clearing up dog shit for a living, but at least he got to work outside…..

RC 13-3-12

Red whine

Why can’t hangover sick taste as nice as the alcoholic drink that caused it?????

RC 10-3-12

Drunken thunking

I had the girls ganging up on me tonight. Hannah and Philippa were hassling me about last week and saying it was all my fault and eventually Hannah said ‘Man, have you ever apologised to a woman?’
I do remember one case. At college. There was this unstable tattooed goth girl who dyed her hair purple and I said she looked like the slutty daughter of Alice Cooper or something and she took offence. So a bit later I apologised to her, and meant it. Mind you, she did have me pinned against the wall at the time and was threatening to scar me for life with nail clippers, but I still think it counts..

RC 9-3-12

The sweet taste of distraction

I went to see Ted today, which is almost as good as having therapy, and much cheaper.
His son Simon has got tickets to the Mens 100metres Sprint final at the Olympics. Apparently he’s already been offered two thousand pounds for them. Ideally, he says, he wants to swap them for tickets to the Champions League final in May, as he thinks it’ll be an all-Spanish affair and he wants to see the two best players alive go at it head-to-head. All of this information, by the way, is lost on me entirely.
Beryl says she may have to change her cooking habits as ‘Ted’s sugar levels are off the charts’ and the doctors are concerned about diabetes and something else that I’ve now forgotten. Ted has reacted in his usual sanguine fashion by saying “What the hell do doctors know? You might as well pay attention to the budgie”
Everyone else in the room pointed out that if it wasn’t for doctors he’d have died last year and he said “Pah! That’s just a coincidence”
Beryl says she’s going to stop making sauces with butter and opt for a healthier low-fat diet instead. No more cakes or biscuits, either. Ted has already asked me to buy him a stash of Drifters and keep them at ours. He has a long list of excuses to pop over, apparently. Knowing Ted, he’d compiled that list before he even left the doctors….

RC 8-3-12

Discombobulated, of Norfolk

Hot on the heels of the chat about engagement came the next conversation - the one about moving in together.
Part of me thinks I’m not ready to live with someone, but then another part of me remembers that I already have been living with someone - my sister. And before that, I lived with my sister and my mum. And before that, I shared a three-bedroomed student house with four other people, three of whom were women. And before that I lived with my mum and my sister, and before that I lived with my mum and both my sisters. So would I really be in a different kind of situation? It’s not as if I could complain about losing my independence is it?
Maybe it’s too much change, too soon. Maybe it feels like the final, biggest step in our relationship; the one that would be hardest to reverse if it didn’t work out. I’m not sure. But as much as I love Philippa, and as happy as I am that we’re engaged, I am increasingly thinking I need some sort of therapy to help me deal with my feelings.

RC 7-3-12

Gotta buy a ring now..

So I’m engaged…
It’s all a bit weird, to say the least. I’m still processing it all internally (as a faulty printer in an office might say)
My life with Philippa, and with work, has felt so settled and sane for such a long time, but then we had that weird few days that hit me completely sideways and I didn’t know for sure what was up or down, or left or right.
But I know that it feels good, and I know that it feels right, so when she asked I said ‘Yes!’
And that’s it.
Done.
We just have the Hell of organising a wedding to contend with now, but believe me we’re putting that off for a long, long time.
But I accept your congratulations, and I thank you for them.
And here’s a quick haiku about it:

Rory is engaged.
And so is the girl I love
(Thank God it’s to me)

RC 6-3-12