Cheering

To counteract yesterday’s slightly negatively-charged posting, here’s a list of the kinds of people I LOVE to spend time with:

Anyone who has travelled.

Polite people.

Physicists who are happy to explain the unexplainable, rather than look down on you for your lack of quantum knowledge.

Anyone who has lost a limb and is happy to talk about how it happened.

People who read a lot.

People who appreciate The Beatles.

Old people who still have a sense of wonder.

Young people who have a sense of adventure. 

Anyone who can stand me for more than 10 minutes….

RC 31-3-18

Moaning

A list of types of people I find it very difficult to have a conversation with:

Anyone who prefers social media to movies and music.

Biologists who think their branch of science is the only worthwhile one.

Anyone who thinks ‘having a bike’ is the same as ‘having a hobby’

Anyone who enjoyed watching ‘Batman vs Superman’

Anyone who leaves comments below YouTube clips.

Anyone who thinks laying in the bath for two hours is a good way to spend an evening.

Anyone who supports a football team.

People who drive convertibles.

Anyone who thinks Roger Moore was the best James Bond.

Anyone who prefers a Kindle to a book.

Anyone who thinks it’s okay to drive to a destination you can walk to in under ten minutes.

People who have no reason to speak except to spread gossip.

Comedians who steal other peoples’ jokes and pass them off as their own.

Managers who steal their employees’ ideas and pass them off as their own.

People who have never cried to a song.

People who believe in astrology.

Americans.

Anyone who has a better bike than mine, but leaves it sitting in a shed.

RC 30-3-18

Good Friday Eve

Hasn’t this been a weird month? We’ve had all sorts of different weather. I long for the good old days of set seasons happening at set times, although I imagine that’s yet another false memory, like any of the ones that involve the phrase ‘the good old days.’

A quarter of 2018 has gone already, isn’t that scary?  Not as scary as the thought of being covered in chocolate and then locked in a small room with a group of hormonal, heartbroken women in their early 20s, but still – scary. Before you know it, it’ll be Christmas and I’ll be moaning about how much pressure I’m under to sell extra produce during December, as if ten pounds worth of diesel can be marketed as a romantic Christmas gift.

I have a ‘senior manager’ visit coming very soon. If my recent illness was down to work stress then this is just the news I would NOT want to receive while still recovering. So if I plummet into a world of pain again you’ll know you can blame Head Office. My suspicion is that the rumours about ‘cross-departmental workforce amalgamation’ are true and they’re coming to tell me I’m three months away from redundancy.

I must stop writing these blog entries piecemeal at work. I do fifty words, then get distracted, then come back again with a different viewpoint. It’s very unprofessional and probably difficult to read coherently.

If I correctly judge this sentence length, this posting will be exactly 250 words.

RC 29-3-18

Random writings from various parts of Wednesday

I stopped yesterdays blog when I did because my little helpful word counter on my word processing programme of choice told me it was exactly 250 words in length. I had a little nostalgic flashback to a time when OCD was running rife and I thought it would be nice to leave it how it was.

I had plenty more stuff to type but I’ve forgotten it all now. Isn’t that typical? Certainly is when you get to my age. God knows how many mould-breaking, awe-inspiring wonderful ideas I’ve lost by not writing them down as soon as I had them…

I’m feeling a bit weird about Easter Eggs. Normally I treat myself to something nice, but with the recent stomach upheaval and unspecified-immune-system-weirdness I don’t really fancy sweet stuff at all. I’m thinking I might get myself a non-chocolatey Easter gift of some kind. Maybe a new Wii game and a nice bottle of wine to drink while playing it.

Should I get Philippa an Easter present? And if the answer is ‘yes’ then my follow-up question is ‘what should it be?’

My YouTube clips of choice at the moment (normally used as a distraction while doing orders or staff rotas in my office at work) involve Frankie Boyle performing comedy, 1970s live music from the ‘Whistle Test’ archives, and fat women sledging in the recent snow. There’s something I find hypnotic about the sight of an overweight red-cheeked lady screaming as she plummets down a small icy slope on a cheap plastic sledge. Maybe it’s a weird new fetish. If it is, I’ll just add it to the list with all my others.

Damn it, I’ve gone over 250 now….. (words, I mean, not fetishes)

RC 28-3-18

Eggs ahoy!

A dull day of dullness today.

We had our two nice days of Spring, now it’s back to the traditional British cover-all climate – grey, cloudy, dull, repetitive, drizzly, damp, dire.

I’m looking forward to Easter. I still get a little rush of excitement when I know the Easter Holidays are starting. I’m not sure why – I left school two decades ago. I guess it’s a reminder of times when those two weeks off tended to coincide with an upturn in the weather. I remember a number of Good Fridays spent playing outside til late evening. It probably only happened once, but that’s the beauty of a good imagination combined with a sketchy memory – I can create a fantasy past without having to remind myself it didn’t really happen.

Philippa is super-extra-excited too. Now she works at a doctor’s surgery she’ll actually get a 4-day weekend! She’s only ever known the world of decorating retail so she’s always had to work most days over Easter. Bank Holidays, after all, mean bugger all to a money-loving business-owning father-of-six or his employees. It’s just an opportunity to sell stuff to the other people who do have time off but a complete lack of idea about how to spend it. We’re trained to be so work-obsessed that we struggle to fill extra leisure time, and end up just copying what everyone else does – be it gardening on May Day, barbecuing on the first hot weekend in July or, in this case, decorating over Easter.

RC 27-3-18

Lose an hour; gain an evening

I sort of feel almost-somewhere-close-to-normality today. I have a bit of energy and my appetite has returned a tad. Maybe I just needed a rest. I slept very well last night, and for a long time.  Today we are taking it easy and looking forward to the joys of British Summer Time starting overnight tonight!
Is it just me that feels like we’ve had a long, drawn-out, ultra-cold, extra-aching Winter? It must be psychological as I’m sure we had a pretty mild November and December, so it’s not like it’s been six months of Frozen Hell. I guess that heavy snow in mid-March has skewed my perception of the whole season. That might also explain why March 24th seems to have arrived before I’d even realised that February was over. Where the Hell have the past three weeks gone? If you were to ask me - and for the purposes of this sentence I’m pretending you have - ‘what have you done in March?’ I would struggle to answer you. The entire month has drifted by in a blink of snow and a period of discomfort. 
I feel I may have been swimming in Lake SAD without necessarily realising it. Five months since we started GMT, so it’s nearly half a year since we’ve had a nice long evening of light. That shit catches up with you. Well, it catches up with me anyway. In years gone by I’ve been aware of it, but now I only seem to be realising what’s been going on retrospectively. It’s hard to deal with something ‘in the moment’ when you’re not even certain what hour it is. Hopefully now we’ve passed the equinox I can start to recharge and the extended days will bring me back to something approaching Rory.

I hope some of this has made sense. Physically I’m improving but my mind, and typing skills, still seem a wee bit depleted.
SEE YOU IN BRITISH SUMMER TIME!!!!!

RC 24-3-18

Needles, and needling

I had a blood test done at the doctors this afternoon. I’d put up with all the nagging from Philippa, and the promptings from my staff members, without giving in, but when your immediate superior insists on a GP appointment because he’s found you asleep in your office, then maybe it’s time to see sense.
I was dealt with by a rather unhealthy looking, overweight ‘nurse practitioner’ who treated my arm like it was a rabid dog that needed putting down. Not the most gentle of needle entries my veins have ever experienced. I asked her what she was testing for and she mumbled ‘thyroid stuff, liver count, and some stuff you’d rather not know about.’
I don’t expect them to find anything interesting, but the simple act of me trotting along to the doctors has had an amazing affect on my home life. Philippa is fussing around me like a relieved parent and insisting I relax and let her do things for me. This time yesterday I was an insensitive, selfish bastard who deserved every painful second of the death that was almost certainly imminent. Bloody women. 

In other news - only 2 more nights of GMT, and only 7 days til Good Friday!!!

RC 23-3-18

(Still) Under the (still cold) weather

I’m still not feeling right, but I’m still resisting all urges and suggestions to see the doctor. I’m doing this because I’m scared, basically. I’m not one for looking up symptoms online or for worrying myself silly or for self-diagnosing with the worst possible scenario, but this does seem to be dragging on a bit. I’m feeling tired all the time, but then I’m not able to sleep at night. How cruel is that? I know there have been lots of bugs around this Winter, but most of them have been a kind of flu, or a bad cough and cold, or a sickness bug, and none of those are descriptive of whatever it is I’ve got. 
Maybe I’ll try ignoring it for another 48 hours and see how I am then….

RC 22-3-18

A potpourri of midweek musingness

Philippa is a bit huffy with me at the moment. Not sure if it’s ‘lady things’ or whether she’s annoyed with me for the fact that I’m avoiding the doctors, even though I keep falling asleep early every evening and waking in the night with cramp and an overactive bladder.
  
There are rumours, yet again, of amalgamation within the ‘area-wide filling station management structure’ which basically means some consultant has persuaded Head Office they could save a few quid by making some poor sap run three of four garages instead of one. Yet another example of customer service and staff morale being jeopardised for the sake of wage cuts. Of course, it may just be rumours…

This has almost crept up on me, but British Summer Time is back in a few days!! Yeah baby! Normally, I’m counting this one down on the calendar, but with the Beast From The East and the Pain From Within distracting me recently it’s caught me out. Three more nights of Greenwich sodding Mean Time and then we can kick it out for 7 months and actually DO THINGS AFTER TEA!! I think it’s called MEAN time, by the way, because that’s what it is - mean. Nasty. Annoying. Pain-inducing. Tormenting. MEAN.

RC 21-3-18

I see green again!

All our snow has gone, but there’s still a breeze that’s so cold it could have come from Santa’s butt. According to the BBC weather website it should get into double figures tomorrow. Ten degrees Celsius!! Not sure that under normal circumstances that would get us excited in March, but these are unusual times so forgive me for getting a bit enthused. My bicycle is calling me from the corner of the garage at home, but I’m resisting the urge to ride it because a). I’m still worried about hitting a stray patch of ice, and b). I can’t get up a flight of stairs without exhausting myself at the moment, so I’m not sure a 10-mile ride round a bridle path would be a good idea. 

RC 20-3-18

Just what we needed... more snow

It pissed me off when it snowed on Saturday. Don’t get me wrong - I love a Wintry snowscape as much as anyone, but when it gets to the middle of March I don’t want two inches of compacted ice on the roads, I want blossoming flowers, buds on the trees and the beautiful sound of returning songbirds. 
I spent most of the weekend dozing, if I’m honest. I feel better for it, too. I’m not completely back to normal, but I’m getting there. Had a good breakfast today, which settled nicely instead of making me feel like I’d been kicked in the stomach. My head isn’t throbbing or spinning anymore, but I have to say that the short walk from my car to my office managed to expend all my energy, and it’s only a couple of hundred yards. So who knows what’s going on?
Philippa spoke to one of the nurses at her surgery, who of course can’t comment but said it sounded like I should probably get a blood test to check for something I can’t pronounce. I’m not sure how my doctor would take it if I burst in demanding a test that had been recommended by someone at a different doctors that my wife happens to work in, so I don’t think I’ll bother with that. I’ll be a typical British man and chalk it up to experience and hope it doesn’t happen again. 
Now I need to try and put some weight back on… A tough challenge, but one I assure you I’ll be taking on with relish! (and several other high-fat condiments as well)

RC 19-3-18

Craic and cash

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, friends.
I’ve been thinking a lot about money today. Mostly about peoples obsession with it and how we’re all programmed and conditioned to constantly chase it. The people I know who have lots of it seem to talk about it more than the people I know without it. Seems like the more you acquire the more you desire.
I like that old adage about money and evil. It gets misquoted a lot. It’s not “Money is the root of all evil,” it’s “The love of money is the root of all evil.” A subtle difference in wording but a huge difference in concept. 
Money is an illusion anyway. We’re all paid into a bank account without even getting printed wageslips and If it doesn’t exist, it’s not yours to waste. It’s easy to buy stuff you don’t need when you haven’t got to part with cash from your pocket to get it. When we got our pay in a packet each week and had to budget accordingly we all took it easy and made do with what we had. When it all becomes numbers in a big monthly go-around of shifting virtual currency the lines between credit and debt become blurred and you splurge and spend instead of saving and you meander beyond your means like an obedient materialistic moron. That’s how they maintain control over us and keep us continuing on down this Conservative, capitalist, consumerist shit-slope that is dragging us into oblivion.
Christ, what am I going on about?
Maybe I’m delirious.

RC 17-3-18

Ailing

I came home early from work today. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before, certainly not since I’ve been a manager. I was just losing it, to be honest. Lack of food does weird things to your head. I couldn’t concentrate, or focus, I kept spacing out for 30 seconds at a time and I’m not sure but I think I may have actually passed out at one point. At lunchtime I wandered over to the store to get some Berocca or Lucozade or something and the three different people I spoke to all told me I looked awful. I kept sipping water but I was just feeling hotter, weaker and dizzier as the day went on. So I gave in just after 3pm and called the duty manager at the supermarket to send someone over to cover for me and I (riskily) drove home.
I don’t know what’s going on. I haven’t been sick, or had the squits; I don’t have a cold or a cough or any major aches and pains. I just feel like someone’s unplugged me from the power grid and I’m slowly being drained.
Philippa came in from work and instantly had a go at me for not arranging to see a doctor, or at least speak to a nurse at the surgery. I said I’d call in the morning if I felt worse and she said “It’s the weekend, you twat, they won’t be there.” Then she melodramatically threw her hands in the air before storming off for a shower. I’m not sure if she was being supportive, concerned or annoyed so I just gave up and thought I’d lay on the sofa and sweat it out for a bit….

RC 16-3-18

WARNING - May contain exaggeration

My stomach has settled down a bit, but I have an ulcer in my throat the size of a frigging golf ball. It hurts to swallow so I’m still not eating properly. I like soup, but you get a bit fed up with it after having it twelve times in a week. And the soggy Weetabix I’m having for breakfast (because it’s nice and easy to get down) is getting boring, and isn’t helping with whatever my digestive system weirdness is. 
Philippa says she is getting worried as I seem to have more than one thing going on and none of them are clearing up and my skin is starting to look a bit odd. I told her that all my symptoms are probably down to a lack of sex, and she told me she gives up and ‘on my own head be it’ and  that I deserve everything I get. 
She wants me to see the doctor, because that’s her answer to everything. I don’t see the point of waiting five weeks for an appointment only to be told ‘you’re probably stressed’ and ‘it’s probably IBS.’ I’d rather let nature take its course, let my body heal itself and distract myself by playing Fortnite online. 

RC 15-3-18

Imminent end?

I’ve had horrendous gut pain today. I spent the first few hours at work waiting for an explosion that never came. I thought I was going to have to run off to the toilet at any moment and let my bum cheeks and the seat become good friends for a while, but it never happened. Now I don’t know whether it was trapped wind, something I ate yesterday or a weird pulled muscle. I feel better this evening, but I’m scared to eat anything in case it comes roaring back in the night. It was bloody horrible. Not just a gentle ‘hello there’ indigestion, more like a screaming ‘PAY ATTENTION TO ME YOU F**KER’ tummy torcher. Philippa has helpfully looked it up online and thinks I might have a grumbling appendix, a twisted bowel, pancreatitis or prostate cancer. I told her to use her time more wisely by booking us a holiday or getting me a hot water bottle.
That was my nan’s answer to everything - a hot water bottle. Hangover? - hot water bottle on the neck. Period pains? - hot water bottle on the lower back. Broken nose? - hot water bottle on the feet (probably.) 
I haven’t thought about her for years. Maybe she’s popping into my mind now because Philippa’s right and this condition, whatever it is, is terminal. This could be my life flashing before my eyes…

RC 14-3-18

An early night beckons...

I’m incredibly tired today and I’m not sure why.
Yesterday was quite a relaxed day. Had a nice walk and a nice lunch. Got some drumming in and a bit of gaming. Watched the end of Crufts and some programme about twatty celebrities pretending they were in the Winter Olympics (Dancing on Ice I think it was called - Philippa’s choice, not mine.)
Squeezed quite a lot in, now I think about it, but none of it was particularly energetic. 
So why so sleepy?
On Saturday I had taken advantage of the nice weather to go for a long bike ride, then sat up til 2am watching all three ‘Captain America’ films.
Ah - yes - that may have something to do with it. 

RC 12-3-18

Monumental

Happy Anniversary, friends.
Ten years ago today I posted my very first blog.
TEN YEARS!!!
If you are a recent discoverer of this blogsite, I implore you to go back to the very start and play catch-up. You can watch the last decade of my life unfold before you. Those of you who have been with me since Day One, I thank you and look forward to keeping your company in the future. Those of you I have picked up along the way - welcome, and tell your friends.
I wish I had something more significant to say on this auspicious occasion, but I don’t, so I will leave you with a phrase that I have had written in my little notebook of ideas for years now. I had thought it would make a great title for a science book, but as it’s extremely unlikely I’ll ever write one, I may as well use it now as a closing sentence:

“The Edge of Everything is Nothing” 

RC 10-3-18

Celluloid Euphemism Immaturity

Childish, I know, but it passed some time:
Here is a list of ten movie titles that could also be used as code phrases for certain sexual practices. I’ll leave it to your imaginations to decide what those practices might be…..

Touching the Void
Ghost Rider
The Sting
Into the Forest
A Walk Among The Tombstones
In the Valley of Elah
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Around the World in 80 Days
6 Below
Sweet and Lowdown

RC 9-3-18

Grey

Windy today with heavy rain. I swear we have had every possible kind of weather in the last seven days, except for a sandstorm.
I had a haircut this evening as it’s late closing at the salon I like to frequent. When I looked down at the floor after my trim, someone had thrown down a load of greying hairs and mixed them in with mine! Bastards!
I also went through the experience of having my nostrils waxed. If you’ve never done it, it involves cotton buds soaked in hot wax being stuffed up your nose and left there. Once they’ve dried and effectively superglued themselves in position they are then ripped out, bringing those unsightly nasal hairs with them. It’s like being sunburnt and stung by a hornet at the same time as having a plaster yanked off an old scab. Nose looks great, but I’m not sure it was worth it….. 

RC 8-3-18

a long list of random sentences

In ten months time, Christmas will be over. 
I can’t remember the last time we had such a decent snowfall.
I do not believe it is possible for nettles and a God to co-exist.
If a colour-blind person looks at a rainbow, does it appear to have gaps in it?
How do you tune a drumstick?
Can eating cheese ever be seen as being good for you?
The more wheels a vehicle has, the less likely it is to be damaged in an accident.
You’ll find out if someone really loves you when you ask them to hold your pet  cockroach.
I’d rather be paralysed and chatty than able-bodied and mute.
The more passionate you are about football, the less likely I am to enjoy you. 
Alcohol should be banned from the bedroom.
Dating websites are worse than viruses.
My favourite colours of clothing, right now, are green and pink (but not together)
Best ways to cook eggs?: Soft-boiled for breakfast; omelette at all other times.
If the United Kingdom is a wedding cake, the Royal Family are the icing.
Two heads are better than one - but not in a polo-neck jumper.
And last but not least…
I have a strange mind.

RC 6-3-18

We'll always have the weekend...

Hard to believe how much the view from my office window has changed since the last time I was here. The deep snow has gone, replaced by a torrent of melt-water and rainfall. The sparsely-populated forecourt has given way to a multitude of grumpy drivers, and the beauty of a Winter sky has been cast aside by the overcast grey hue of a typical British workday. 
On a positive note - the weekend was good fun. The extra snow we had early on Saturday was of a ‘sticky’ variety rather than an ‘airy’ type so we got to build a snowman in the garden and I got to blat a snowball into the side of Philippa’s head. Don’t judge me harshly - there was extreme provocation, and as many a teenage boy will confirm, nothing says ‘I love you’ more than clattering something into a girl and then hugging her afterwards. 
It all feels like a long time ago now. Everything’s changed so quickly. At one point yesterday I went three hours without looking outside, and in that time we lost all the snow we could see from our house, and it was pissing down. It was a hell of a shock when I looked out of the window. The temperature had gone up about seven degrees since dawn and taken all the fun stuff with it. 
It’s all inspired me to do an impromptu, off-the-cuff haiku:

Children loved sledging
But it’s all taken away
And now I’m rambling

RC 5-3-18

A change is as good as a baby

Now she’s settled into it and got a bit of confidence, I have to say the job switch has had a wonderful effect on Philippa. She doesn’t have that tired, droopy, drawn-in look that has plagued her face for the last few years. She’s bouncier, smilier and more talkative and generally lovely to be around. And I get to see more of it as well, as she’s not wasting two hours every day driving to and from Norfolk. 
In the old days (three long months ago!) we would have spent Sunday lounging around the house or picking at unhealthy food, because she was already thinking about Monday morning and dreading being back in the office. Today we got loads done. Cleaned the house from top to bottom, planned some decorating ideas for Spring and helped each other in the kitchen making a delightful three-course meal. All good stuff and the day seemed to last forever. 
Love, eh?

RC 4-3-18

And so it goes on...

I know I’m re-treading old ground here, but someone needs to have a word with the UK National Storm Naming Department. I love the name Emma. I think it’s a strong, traditional British stalwart as well as being very pleasing to look at when written down (more on this in a later posting, perhaps, but I have a bit of a thing about the visual pleasure of casting a glance upon certain words.) There have been great ‘Emma’s  through the ages, from the fictional one in that book by a Bronte, to the Thompson one who is just a gem, to the Watson one who is impressively, if incomprehensibly, one of the most financially successful movie actresses of all time. 
Anyway - my point is - Emma is a suitable name for many people and many positions, but it is NOT the name of a storm. An ‘Emma’ should be a teaching assistant at a primary school, or a dental hygienist, or a clerk to a parish council; it should NOT be a havoc-causing, freeze-inducing blast of Arctic wind. 
There. 
In other news, it’s still treacherous outside but at least I was able to collect my car from the side of the road. Philippa dropped me off before she carted herself into the doctors surgery. (She works there now, don’t forget, she wasn’t rocking up for a blood test or anything.) I don’t envy her today. I get to sit in my office watching iPlayer while my staff deal with half the amount of customers we’d usually get on a Friday; she gets to sit at a reception desk surrounded by ill people and dealing with angry old folk who haven’t been able to leave the house for two days, and she has only six weeks experience of working there. Bless her. I shall buy some special ingredients today and cook her a special meal to cheer her up tonight. Assuming I can get home ok. ‘Emma’ may yet dump more snowdrifts on us and leave me stranded at the garage. 

RC 2-3-18

Heroes and Hypocrites

Yesterday Philippa said to me “If I was still working 45 minutes away, I wouldn’t be able to go to work today. That’d be nice.” Today she couldn’t get to work! Weird how we haven’t had any snow falling for over 24 hours and yet the snow caused more problems today than it did yesterday. It’s all to do with ‘drifting’ apparently. Wind whipping up the loose snow and causing it to pile up atop the ice on roads. All good fun. Hardly any schools open and very little traffic on the move. For my part I ended up walking almost all the way to work. Downside of living quite close and being the manager - no excuses for not getting in and a need to cover other people who can’t make it. So I dug out our car, drove as far as I could and then left it in a layby and crunched my way to the garage.
I’ll pause here to bask in your admiration for my heroism.
I was the only member of staff who could get there, too, so I was completely on my own for seven hours. Thankfully, very few people were stupid enough to be driving about so it was eerily quiet.
Just one more thought - isn’t it funny how everyone moans about their regular life and the day-to-day drudgery of working; then when something happens to break the routine they moan about the disruption…??

RC 1-3-18