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Is it just me or does the title of this blog posting really sound rather dirty?
Another month gone then.
I’ve been thinking lots about the passing of time this week. Do days really start to fly by quicker as the summer months approach? Increasingly so as we get older? Or is it just that our interpretation of them change?
On April 23rd, I thought “My God, there’s only another week until May. Spring is flying by..” Whereas on January 23rd I was thinking “Oh my God, we’ve got another week of January to get through yet”
Could it all be in my head, I wonder?
There are always 24 hours in a day; 7 days in a week, but my attitudes towards them change throughout the seasons. Could this be the answer to my Winter Blues problems? Simply learn to look at it differently and convince myself to think another way? Can it be done that way? Do I have the mental capacity and wherewithal? Is that the first time ever I’ve used the word ‘wherewithal’ in my Chronicles? Am I trying to set a record for the most number of question marks used in a blog posting? Do I dare to eat the peach? Etcetera, etcetera, etc.
Who was it who said “Man is a subtle beast, improved by learning patience”?
I can’t remember, but whoever he is, he never faced the Thursday rush of pensioners in a supermarket.
RC 30-4-13
Finally worked out why Philippa is off with me. She’s disappointed that I didn’t go ahead with the Teacher Training thing. Obviously she’d rather I commit myself to something that could easily make me miserable for years than upset her little Perfect Plan for the future. That tells me all I need to know about our relationship and I hope she knows she can forget any chats about weddings for a very long time.
RC 29-4-13
Quiet house today
Philippa gave me ’the stare’
and the cold shoulder
Moody fiancee
No-one else here to talk to
Thank God for the Wii
Spring is in the air
along with loads of pollen
and lots of insects
In yesterdays blog
I made a spelling mistake
Have you spotted it?
RC 28-4-13
Philippa just called me a “bollocksing bastard shitface”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before…
Apparently I promised to pick up some milk on the way back from Ted’s last night, and forgot. Now she can’t have her bran flakes with strawberries on. Grumpy cow. I told her to sod off down the shop herself and get some and she flew into a tizzy. She said ‘why couldn’t you bring some home from work. You were in a sodding supermarket for Christ’s sake’
I replied with “Well maybe when I finish a 10-hour shift in a shop I don’t want to stay there to do your ****ing shopping”
It could be another one of those days…
I’m not even sure ‘tizzy’ is a word so if it becomes part of the culture in the future, remember you heard it hear first!
RC 27-4-13
He doesn’t drink often nowadays, but Ted partook of some rather nice brandy this evening. It reddened his cheeks and loosened his tongue and he set sail on the S.S.Rant for a while, spouting his opinions on things that he would normally keep to himself. In those circumstances I find it is best to just sit back and enjoy, only occasionally opening my mouth to stoke his fire with a throwaway comment that he can react to. Then I just listen and laugh and write down any pearls of drunken wisdom. Among the gems that I jotted down tonight were:
“Men shouldn’t marry, they should give their fiancee all their money and then kill themselves”
“Nothing in this life is worse than someone else’s pubes on your facecloth”
“If baked beans have been baked how come they’re cold when you open them?”
“I’d rather have cancer than vote Conservative”
“If God had intended us to live in peace he wouldn’t have invented people you want to maim and kill”
“David Cameron looks like a man who’d burst into tears if you farted near him”
“I may be drunk but at least I’m not a Catholic”
“If you can’t handle our Winter you should sod off and live in a desert, but don’t come crying back to England when a scorpion stings you up the arsehole”
“If I was back in my twenties I’d be sowing my wild oats like a porridge farmer”
“Anyone with a beard is a bastard”
He’s also convinced that the voice on the BT Messaging Service is more hostile to him than to Beryl. I tried to convince him it was recorded and automated and the same for everyone but he wouldn‘t listen. He sat down to type an angry letter but he was so trashed on brandy that the first line just said “Dear Msf Haniot - dunging forfar bastrads”
He was asleep at the table when I let myself out..
RC 26-4-13
It’s been incredibly warm today, although windy.
I sat in the back garden with a book and a glass of wine, but the sodding wind couldn’t decide which way it wanted to blow from so I gave up and came inside.
I’ve managed to read ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and ‘The Great Glass Elevator’ in the past week. I was thinking about them at work the other day and recalling how I’d always thought that ‘Elevator’ was better than ‘Factory.’ I wondered whether I’d still feel the same way if I read them again at my age, so I ordered them both from the library and picked them up last Friday. I wish I hadn’t bothered now because they’re not as good as I remember. Granted, I’m probably 20 years older than their target audience, but even so…
On a not-unconnected matter - 9 months today will be Christmas Day….
RC 25-4-13
April is flying by like a planeload of tourists on its way to Ibiza.
Philippa is stomping round the house like a pregnant rhino on a sponsored walk so I’m going to take The Velociped for a spin in the gorgeous evening sunshine.
RC 24-4-13
I’ve got a bad headache, and Philippa is in a bad mood.
And now I have to go to work.
God I hate Mondays.
RC 22-4-13
The title of this blog has nothing to do with what I’m writing about, but I thought it sounded like a good title so I went with it. I also think it would be a good alternative name for the ‘Seasonal Specials’ aisle at work but management do not agree. Once again my creativity is stifled by the stiff-necked world of conformity.
At work now, pretending to type up departmental rotas for May. I somehow have to cover Bank Holiday Monday when 9/10ths of my staff have the day off. It’s not an easy task, so I’ve allowed myself to get distracted by blog stuff and websites about cheese.
I’m playing pitch and putt with Ted and Alan later. We had such fun last week that we’ve decided to make it more regular. If only my bowel movements could follow suit…
Alan over-did it with the hip flask last Sunday and ended up eight-putting the last hole, despite landing his tee shot two feet from the cup. I finished my usual 38 shots behind everyone else but still enjoyed myself immensely. There is something very pleasant about walking around in the Spring sunshine pausing only to whack a small ball a hundred yards or so with a bit of metal. Maybe it takes us back to our caveman days when we got all our food by clubbing it to death.
Beryl is worried that Alan might be drinking too much, too regularly. She asked me if I think he might be risking his life with his alcohol habits. I wanted to tell her he’s probably risking his life more with his filthy casual sex habits, but I don’t think that would have given her the reassurance she was looking for.
Anyway, back to the rota stuff. The quicker I get this finished, the quicker I’ll be on the fairways….
RC 21-4-13
A job has come up on the Home Delivery team at work. I’m seriously considering going for it. As far as I can see, so far, the positive aspects are endless: I’d still be within the company pay structure but I’d be spending most of my time driving; the hardest part of my day would be knocking on people‘s doors; I would only have to deal with one customer at a time, rather than hundreds of them scrabbling around the store together like vermin; I could enjoy the Summer sun rather than being locked indoors away from it; I would only be responsible for my own actions rather than for the actions of a gang of uncaring underlings; I couldn’t get called in at an hours notice on my day off because one of the other managers has a hangover.. Am I missing anything?
It’s become obvious to me that I’m not cut out to be a manager. I’ve been wanting to have a complete change of career but haven’t really found something to move onto. Maybe this can be a little stop-gap in-between job that gives me a new scene without cutting off my income.
Anyway, enough of this rambling - I’m supposed to be typing up Staff Appraisals right now….
RC 17-4-13
I’ve booked us a week in Tunisia at the end of November. Philippa doesn’t know about it yet, and God knows when I’ll pluck up the courage to tell her. She’ll love it when we get there but I’ll have to go through all the ‘can’t afford it’/’should be saving for a house deposit’/’what about house-sitting duties??’ bullshit when she first finds out. The holiday company will take the money at the end of the month and our bank statement won’t arrive until mid-May so I guess that gives me about four weeks or so to get the deed done. I’ll wait til she’s smiling or drunk.
Golf day tomorrow. I’m meeting various members of Ted’s family for some friendly pitch-and-putt at 2pm, then it’s all back to Ted’s to watch the last round of The Masters. I had to sort out the rota for on-duty managers at work this week and I accidentally put myself on the late shift on Monday, which is a nice coincidence. It means I can have the odd drop of alcohol or two tomorrow knowing I’ll have time to sleep it all off. Pinot noir and peanuts, I think, and several hits of whiskey from a hip flask while I’m armed with a nine iron and a putter.
For what is golf about if not companionship and drinking?
RC 13-3-13
Blogging has been hard this week. Actually - life has been hard this week; blogging has been something that hasn’t even entered my mind.
Things have been okay, it’s just been an incredibly busy few days and I’ve barely been able to keep up with events as they unfolded.
David and Becky have confirmed they’re taking the six extra months in Hong Kong, so they’ve asked us to stay in the house until November.. I’m pleased as it saves us moving but Philippa is worried it has put us ‘off-schedule’ and might see the new house-sitting agency refuse to take us on. She’s wrong, I assure you, but I’m the man and she’s the woman so anything I say and think is inherently wrong, even if it’s factually correct.
We’ve had to cancel our holiday but that’s fine by me. Five days in a shitty caravan in Clacton wasn’t filling me with excitement anyway, and we hadn’t even sent them a deposit so we don’t end up out of pocket. I’m going to go ahead and book us two weeks abroad in December now before Philippa comes home and has a chance to talk me out of it…
Work has been stressful, boring and frustrating. I can’t wait to hand my notice in, but the teacher idea doesn’t feel right. I’ve re-read everything and the more I read and the more I think about it, the more I realise it’s not really for me. I know supermarket management isn’t really for me either, but at least if I stay here there’s no risk of my apathy ruining any childrens’ futures.
Sophie and Tamara are thirty minutes drive away but we hardly seem to see them. They’re both working different shift patterns so they only have a few spare hours a week, which they’re trying to spend together. I guess I understand, but from a selfish point of view I’d like to see them a bit more now they’re in the same County. We’ll get there eventually, I’m sure.
And I think that’s you updated…..
RC 12-3-13
I met one of those complete f***-wits that life throws up at you today.
He was the kind of person that, unfortunately, people from other parts of the UK imagine when they think about Norfolk.
He was rude, stupid, incoherent, ignorant, prejudiced, smelly and vague.
To explain the background to our encounter - one of my favourite Spring/Summer activities besides cycling involves parking the car somewhere and just walking. Quite frankly, I don't care if I'm following designated footpaths or not. I don't deliberately trespass, but as long as I'm not trampling someones’ crops or walking through someones’ flowerbeds I don't see why anyone should have a problem. Mr F***-Wit did not agree.
He drove up to me in his dirty Land Rover, with his wellies and flat cap on, and with his four loudly barking dogs in the back, and proceeded to have a go at me. Now, in these confrontational circumstances (as anyone who has tried to make a complaint to me at work would know) I tend to go one of two ways.. Either I just laugh at you, or I start acting incredibly dense.
Today, I chose the latter part, and I'm so glad I did because he just got more and more angry, and tried harder and harder to make me engage him in a violent argument. After the fourth (I think it was the 4th - it might have been 5th or 6th) time of me pretending not to understand him, he said "The sign says PRIVATE. Then it says NO PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY, because that’s what PRIVATE means."
I said "Oh, right. And this was on a sign you say?"
We then had an amusing debate about where the footpath (that I claimed to be following) should go and he said "It runs parallel to the road. And there are 475 signs up telling you where it goes."
I said "Wow - 475? You'd think I might have spotted one of those.."
At this point he was gripping the steering wheel so tight that I thought his knuckles might explode. Through gritted teeth he said "It's clearly marked on the signs. A five-year-old could understand it"
So I said "Ah, that's an idea. I'll bring a five-year-old with me next time - I think I've got one at home somewhere."
This was the point at which he spent a few seconds wrestling with the idea of shooting me, before muttering "I'll leave that with you. I suggest you make your way back to the road"
I said "Yeah, you're probably right. Sorry about that." and then, just for good measure and a final act of defiance, I set off walking in the same 'trespassing' direction I had been going in the first place.
He wasn't happy, which cheered me up no end.
Rory 1 Farmers 0
RC 11-3-13
It’s been a lot brighter for the past few days, but the wind is still as cold as a polar bear’s fart. It’s deceptively sunny so you think it’s nice and warm, but then you walk around a corner and the Easterly wind cuts you in half like a machete.
Despite this, I’m enjoying the onset of British Summer Time, even though it means I am once again driving to work in the dark (I’m doing lots of earlies at the moment)
Simple things like being able to go for a walk after tea, and it still being light when EastEnders comes on have made big differences to my mood and attitude. (I don’t actually watch EastEnders, you understand, I’m just using it as a reference point)
I’ve been sent a load of information by the Teacher Training Hotline. I only called to ask if they had a website I could look at, and within three minutes they’d sent me an application pack. Maybe the Education Department is more desperate for teachers than I realised. I hope so - they’ll need to be bloody desperate to take me on…
I’ve spent the last few days reading through it all on my lunch breaks. I pretended to be working out rotas for next month so I could watch the DVD they sent in the managers office. I’ve talked to Philippa about it a lot and I even got in contact with a couple of my old tutors by e-mail. Everything I’ve read, heard and seen has got me really excited, although there is one tiny little aspect of the job that I’m not happy with:
I don’t really want to work with children.
RC 6-3-13
If you only recently starting reading this blog, you probably think I’m a near-suicidal depressive who obsesses about the weather. But I assure you that’s only part of my make-up. I admit I have been a bit on the glum side though. That’s what happens when the temperature is the same at the end of March as it was at the start of January. But as it’s a new month, and as we’re now in BST, I’m going to try to turn over a new leaf (even though there are no new leaves visible on the hedges yet.) I’m going to try not to mention the weather once throughout the whole of April. Or if I do, it has to be in a positive sense or I have to punish myself by drinking neat Campari.
So, to get things going - it’s been a lovely bright day today with lots of blue skies. There…
RC 1-4-13
