Hallowe'en Haiku 2018

Thanks for buying sweets

You have treated your children

And upped my profits

RC 31-10-18

Monday morning musings

The Hallowe’en décor seems to be going down well with customers, and the charity bucket is jingling nicely to the sound of many added coins. A few people here and there are moaning about it all – e.g. “Why can’t you just be a ****ing garage?” but they’re probably the same sort of people who moan about Christmas, so **** ‘em.

It’s fair to say I’m enjoying life, really. Enjoying it to a very unexpected level. When I accepted the change of position I thought it might take me six months to settle in and work out whether I had made a mistake or not, but with just under two months gone I already feel like I know what I’m doing, and I’m pleased to be doing it. I like the variety, the new locations, the slightly-differing atmospheres and attitudes from each separate workforce. Even the added responsibility, so far, sits well. No doubt there will be days where I want to massacre all my staff and throw myself under the wheels of a tanker, but I haven’t had them yet, so who knows?

RC 29-10-18

Another Saturday, another poem

He was sat by the window, feeling morose

She was miles away, with a shrink

He was eating a lemon curd sandwich, with chopsticks

Trying, so hard, not to think.

He was walking along with his dog on the beach

She was sat in her office, alone

He kicked all the sand from his feet, blinking tears

While his Labrador nuzzled a bone

He was driving to work, elbow-deep in regret

She was laughing with mates, and with wine

He wiped his tears with a monogrammed hankie

Waiting for Summer to shine.

He was drinking a sherry, menu in hand

She was naked, enjoying a smoke

But I have to admit, that their paths never crossed

I’m talking of two separate folk.

RC 27-10-18

Getting Wood

I’ve decided that I need to have a Woody Allen film festival. I’m not talking about hiring a cinema somewhere and putting on a two-week retrospective, it’s just an at-home solo watch-a-thon for my own viewing pleasure. The clocks change tomorrow (God help us) so we’ve got months of shittily dark evenings stretching ahead of us, so I figure spending my time avoiding Winter by losing myself in the World of Woody is a damn fine idea. Obviously, being me, I’ve already stormed onto eBay and ordered as many DVDs as possible. I’ve secured ‘The Woody Allen Collection’ (20 movies) for £17.95, and a 6-movie boxset called ‘Woody Allen Collection’ (not the same as the other one) for £5.99 plus £3.50 postage. Some films are repeated in both sets but who cares – I’m getting the rush of buying them and that’s the important thing here! Yes, I’m obsessive and act compulsively and sometimes indulge myself in expenditure without pausing for forethought, but it’s a few second-hand DVDs man, I’m not getting another iPhone just coz it’s available or amassing a garage-full of 1960s Stratocasters that I’ll never play or look at, so give me a break.

RC 26-10-18

Sobering thought

This time next week, we’ll be in November. Jesus, this year has flown by like a lost Red Arrow flying by a lighthouse. I guess it’s because I’ve had so much going on, and so much to think about. I’ve been so concentrative on what’s happening right in front of me that I’ve been blissfully unaware of time passing. Maybe that’s a lesson you can learn from me – if you find your life dragging on, just get someone pregnant and then change jobs. Next thing you know it’ll be six months later and you’ll be wondering what happened to Summer.

With less than two months until parenthood (excuse me a moment while I try to stop my hands shaking from the panic and adrenalin…….) I’m thinking of stopping drinking. Philippa has been off alcohol since well before a missed period, and it’s not as much fun downing a bottle of wine alone. I want to start my career as a father as I mean to go on – by being there and being supportive, and by setting a good example – so being teetotal when little Sproglette appears feels like the right thing to do. Plus – let’s be honest here – there’s a little tradition called ‘wetting the baby’s head’ and I figure that if I haven’t had a drink for eight weeks or so, when I go out to celebrate the birth of Junior I’ll get pissed on less than a fiver.

RC 25-10-18

Weird film thought

In the midst of a boring management planning meeting, I spent some time this morning thinking about films that have numbers in the title. Sorry, employers, but if you’re going to waste my valuable hours on meaningless get-togethers I am going to distract myself by drifting off inside my own head.

I started compiling a mental list of movies that begin with numbers, to see how far I could get before finding a number with no corresponding film title. I won’t list them all here, but just so you get what I mean – One Fine Day , Two Days In The Valley, Three Days Of The Condor, etc. Then I decided to rate them all and work out which one I thought was the “Start-With-A-Number Cinematic Masterpiece.”

My conclusion – “12 Angry Men” and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” are pretty much inseparable.

God knows what was discussed in the meeting, but I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.

RC 24-10-18

25th and 20

Beryl floated the always-dreaded but always-necessary Christmas conversation on Sunday. It didn’t bother me too much because I’ve already been through the trauma of working out December work rotas for 4 different groups of employees, but I could see the ‘Oh, God’ look flit across the faces of both Philippa and Ted. I think Beryl’s determined to have a big one this year because she’s been so limpy for so long that she’s lost her place in the world as a woman who caters for everyone. Don’t have a go at me, feminists, this is all accepted fact by all those who know her, including herself. Nothing gives her greater pleasure than spending three weeks planning a big meal, three days preparing it, three hours cooking it and then three minutes serving it to as many people as she can cram into whichever given space she is serving it in. With a knackered knee, her ability to do all that has been limited. Now she is ‘fixed’ she’s ready to climb back on the catering horse and serve up a good’un for half the population of East Anglia.

It’s difficult for us to commit to anything, of course, because Philippa is due to give birth sometime around Christmas, but we’ve said we’ll go and see them on Boxing Day if we can. Bloody Hell – just typing ‘due to give birth’ has given me a shudder of panic. Every time I think I’ve cracked my lack of confidence about becoming a parent, something happens that makes me go all weak and useless all over again. I’ll be glad when this baby arrives because then I can stop worrying about what might happen when the baby arrives.

RC 23-10-18

4th and 1

We had Ted and Beryl over to ours yesterday. Beryl had her knee operation done a few weeks ago and is now starting to wander out and about a bit. I hope it makes a difference because she’s been struggling with it for a long time.

Ted got upset when I put the NFL Live from Wembley on the telly. He kept muttering ‘rugby for poofs’ under his breath and then pretended to be asleep.

He had a point about one thing – the anticlimactic nature of the ending. The last minute of the game took about 25 minutes to be played, and then it fizzled out into nothing. It had been very exciting up to that point, and the fact that it was a one-score game with thirty seconds left paled into insignificance under an avalanche of timeouts, injuries and clock resets.

I’ll shut up about it now. At least it was a good game and one of these days I will FINALLY go to Wembley and watch one of these things. Okay – NOW I’ll shut up about it.

RC 22-10-18

SATURDAY (a poem)

A quiet noise falls upon unwashed tiles

Rodents scurry

Plates spin in the air of discontentment

A hush descends

Discarded clothing hangs lifeless and grey

A tap drips

Leaves blown by a named wind accumulate by the window

A spider, waiting

Dry eyes ache behind crusted lids

Overworked, over-tired

A body rolls over; falls back into nightmares

Sleeps, sweats, suffers

Bread rises in a broken oven

Infants skip in colourless boots

Stains remain, remains stay

Unpumped tyres expectant

Promises lay scattered, shattered

Unfaithful minds flutter and fade

Heavy hearts quicken

The same, the same, the same.

RC 20-10-18

Irresponsible, or inspired?

With all the distraction of Hallowe’en, I’d completely forgotten that Bonfire Night is just around the corner! If you’ve been reading this blogsphere shitfest of mine for a while, you’ll probably know that I LOVE the first weekend of November, when we get to wander about in the darkness drinking soup from Styrofoam cups and watching fireworks annihilate the night sky.

Part of me is worried that taking a very-pregnant woman out into a muddy field and subjecting our unborn child to loud explosions might be a bad idea, but I’ve also read that as babies can ‘hear’ things from the outside world long before they leave the womb, it’s possible to get them used to certain kinds of music before you even meet them. So why not get little Philippa Jr, (or Rory Barack if it’s a boy) used to the delights of fireworks while he’s still coagulating into a human? It’s not as if I’ll be keeping him away from them once he’s with us – I’ll be dragging him to every bloody Bonfire party I can find online and using him as an excuse to be a child again!

RC 19-10-18

Mental

Sometimes dreams can be an amalgamation of your memories, fears and plans. Sometimes they can be a mishmash of bizarre randomness that leaves you scratching your in-dream head before waking up to spend a day thinking ‘what the f*** was THAT about?’

Other times though – certainly in my experience – it’s very easy to trace back the origin of a dream to a specific thing you might have done the day before.

Case in point – last night I was sitting on the sofa begging for tiredness. As a thirty-something man oft-racked by insomnia I recognised the signs and knew I would not be drifting off to ByeByeLand anytime soon. So I fired up the iPlayer and found a documentary called “Being Evel” – a 90-minute special all about the life, and general insanity, of the daredevil motorcyclist Evel Knievel. I’d heartily recommend watching it, but the point is it obviously nestled itself in my subconscious and then exploded out again when I DID eventually drop off to slumberness.

Leading to this dream:

I was in a huge sports stadium, but it was virtually empty. There were about 300 people sitting in an elaborate curving amphitheatre that could almost certainly house 100,000 spectators comfortably. I was at the top of a huge ramp, sitting on some weird three-wheeled contraption that seemed to be a combination of a Harley Davidson Goldwing and a Space Shuttle, and I was so high off the ground that I couldn’t even see the obstacles at the end of the ramp that I was presumably supposed to be jumping over. Someone handed me a bottle of Johnnie Walker Game of Thrones Whiskey (which I guess is a real thing that I must have seen an advert for) and a crash helmet that had a picture of Spongebob Squarepants on the side. I accepted the whiskey, declined the helmet, and then waved to the (small) crowd before sticking my foot on the accelerator and storming off down the ramp to face whatever was waiting for me. When I got to the bottom I realised that it wasn’t a ramp at all – it was just a curved bit of track that became flat at the bottom – and that the ‘obstacles’ were a row of children, dressed like Victorian urchins and ranging in age from 5 to 10, all of which I somehow knew were my own offspring. With no ramp to lift me over them and no idea of where the brakes were on my vehicle I ploughed straight into them, scattering them in all different directions with all manner of injuries while hearing them shout “Why, daddy, why?”

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to bed tonight.

RC 18-10-18

Random thoughts about impending parenthood

When your wife starts to swell in size, that’s when it all become real.

I have never doubted my abilities as much as I doubt my ability to be a father.

By the time of my next birthday, there will be three of us living in our house, one of whom will be reliant on the other two for survival; and one of those other two will be me….

What will cause me more worry: Having a daughter that will grow up to be pursued by uncaring, hormone-driven teenage boys? Or having a son that I will somehow have to teach to NOT get someone pregnant before they have a chance to finish education?

If I have a son, what can I do to make sure he doesn’t turn out just like me?

Why isn’t there a system in place that restricts the number of births? You should have to apply for approval, be forced to prove that you both have the intelligence and understanding to be a decent parent, and then be coached through the intricacies of child-rearing long before you’re even allowed to touch each other. It should be like getting planning permission from the local council before being able to add a new room to your home. Why is it easier to bring an unsupported child into the world than it is to build an extension?

I’m scared.

RC 17-10-18

Desk Drawer Publishing

Here are the latest scribbles from my notepad of Randomness:

I’d rather have a hornet suppository than ever watch ‘Strictly Come Dancing’

This great quote from a delivery driver while talking about wanting to improve his working conditions:

“trying to get through to my bosses is like trying to shag a jelly with a broken dick – you’re never going to get anywhere.”

And sort out this STRANGE DREAM for me, psychoanalysts:

I was playing drums for a band that was made up of Nobel Prize-winning physicists. We were called “Atom Atomic and the Superstring Quartet” and we were doing a live open-air gig at CERN in Switzerland. I had long hair and some very snazzy purple drumsticks, and Paul Dirac was playing a saxophone.

RC 16-10-18

Flipping Rory

It’s amazing how quickly two days of rain can sink my mood. On Saturday night I was sitting outside at 10pm and marvelling at how remarkably warm it was. It was like being abroad on holiday. Normally, if we are lucky enough to have unseasonably warm October daytimes, it still tends to be very cool at night. But Saturday I was sat outside with nothing more than a shirt on and felt comfortable enough to stay there long after the bats were bombing about. Everything felt optimistic, happy and generally damn good.

Now, after two days of rain, all I can think is “Six months of shitty weather to come before things start getting warmer.”

RC 15-10-18

Families are funny

Last night descended into a strange cocktail of girly giggling, melancholic moaning and rueful reminiscences. Sophie got tearful about Tamara, Hannah got niggly about Nathan and Philippa got militant about motherhood. I sat in the corner with a large glass of red wine and tried not to put myself in the firing line.

Women are odd, that’s the only conclusion I can draw from all this. I’ve tried, at different times of my life, to understand the fairer sex as best I can, but since the age of about 22 I’ve just given up and gone along with whatever gets thrown at me and hoped to come out of the other side unscathed.  I couldn’t go a day without seeing my wife, and yet each day hands me at least one example of why we’d be better off living on separate islands. It seems such a weird concept that two species – man and woman – seem determined to force ourselves upon each other (in a relationship sense) when we all see overwhelming evidence all around us that it’s a terrible idea that never goes well. Initial excitement and sexual frenzy gives way to bitter battles and constant conflict. Always. Maybe there are a handful of couples out there who survive long-term with their compatibility, friendship and marriage intact, but I bet they’re few and far between. The rest of us just slog through the daily grind of togetherness and hope not to kill or be killed.

I’d love to look at this further, but I feel more questions than answers would arise, and I would end up irritating a large portion of the people who read it. Who am I, after all, to try to unravel the mysteries and complexities of human intersexual interactions? Especially when I have a vested interest and could not consider the matter objectively? Wiser minds than mine have tried, and failed, and been scorned. Some of them made a shit load of money out of the process, but that’s beside the point, and that’s for their consciences to wrestle with.

Am I a cynical old twat just voicing his misogynist bullcrap?

No – I’m a still-slightly-pissed middle-aged twat recovering from a girlie sleepover.

RC 13-10-18

Another work week done; a family Friday beckons

Both my sisters are coming over for tea tonight. First time we’ve all been together for ages. Admittedly, they’re mostly popping round to be with Philippa and talk about girly stuff and babies, but that’s okay with me; it’ll still be nice to see them. I shall be spending an hour or so in the kitchen rustling up one of my legendary Chesworth chillies while they sit on the sofa sipping wine and swapping stories. I normally throw together some home-made garlic ciabatta but at this stage of her pregnancy the smell of garlic makes Philippa want to heave, so I’ll settle for a nice warmed baguette. Desserts are always hard to select when the main course is heavy on the spices, so I may just take home a selection of gelatos and sorbets and let them choose their own combos.

Do I almost sound like I know what I’m doing?

That’s the art of management, you see – make it all up as you go along, while giving the impression of careful planning and forethought. 

RC 12-10-18

20 days til Hallowe'en

We’re ‘scaring up’ the garages over the next couple of days. Going full-on with the fake cobwebs, witches hats and animatronic ghouls. I may have over-spent slightly on props and decorations but screw it. It’s only once a year and I’m new to the job so I’m sure I can find an ‘accidental economic oversight’ excuse that will wash over any unpleasantness from Head Office. I did get approval to do this, don’t forget, so I can plead my case that they were the ones who gave me permission and they were the ones who should have been clearer on a budget ceiling. Most of it is stuff that’s for sale in the supermarkets so I’m seeing what we’re doing as advertising, up-selling and merchandising, rather than just flagrant, flamboyant, frivolous misuse of company property. It may be hard to justify having a £90 flashing pumpkin that I found online in America, but I’ll give it a damn good go.

RC 11-10-18

Feeling like Summer

Today has been glorious, gorgeous, glaring and several other appropriate words beginning with the letter G. I love these modern Octobers, where climate change has messed up our seasons so much that the month that used to see a descent into Winter has instead become a welcome extension of the warm times. 22 degrees at work today. TWENTY-TWO DEGREES! CELSIUS! In previous years we’d have been delighted to experience that in August. I took advantage by finding reasons to walk over to the supermarket at several stages throughout the day. That lovely sensation of the Sun warming your shoulders at a time of year when you should be sheltering from the wind is a joyous thing. Like a stolen kiss from a married woman, or a taste of an apple that you’ve scrumped from a neighbour’s yard. The unexpected treats are always the most delightful.

RC 10-10-18

Schedules and sharing

Work has settled down into a nice kind of pattern now. There’s still loads going on, and loads I’m still trying to get my head around, but it’s challenging now rather than overwhelming. The weekly tasks (mostly admin shit) I am nailing down most mornings at designated times, before I get lethargic and unenthusiastic. That way, the bulk of the boring stuff is out of the way and not playing on my mind, so when ‘other things’ – you know, the unexpected minutiae of management – crop up I can deal with them calmly rather than having them land on top of an imagined pile of catastrophic catastrophes. All the staff are still being very supportive. I’m still getting next-to-no contact from Those Above Me, the people who assured me during the interview and negotiation phase that I would have my hand held for the first few months and not have to worry about moving forwards alone, but I’m past caring now. I say let them keep out of the way and mind their own business and if they start getting arsey with me about the way things are going I can slap them in the face with a detailed document of just how little interest they showed in the first few weeks when I needed them.

Rory’s First Rule Of Employment: NOTE DOWN EVERYTHING.

If the shit hits the fan and they’re looking for someone to blame, make sure your arse is covered from attack by being able to show them exactly what your involvement was and why you acted how you did and why they should therefore cast their gaze elsewhere.

RC 9-10-18

A food thought

There is no better flavour on Earth than coconut, and if you don’t agree with me, you’re just wrong.

RC 8-10-18

Scareover

It was hard to be at work today, worrying about Philippa at home. I called her every hour, on the hour, until 2pm, when she told me to piss off and leave her alone because she was trying to rest and every time she slipped into sleep the bloody phone would ring and wake her up. I could tell she was feeling herself again from the recognisable tone of contempt and despair she had in her voice while talking to me. So I’m kind for guessing that the little upset – whatever it was – is settling down and we can carry on with this pregnancy unconcerned.

In theory, anyway.

My anxiety levels are still at DefCon2 though, so I think I need a relaxing bath, followed by a good film to distract me from the worries in my head. “Molly’s Game” is a movie that tempted me greatly while at the cinema and I believe it is now free on Amazon Prime so I shall settle on the sofa for a Sorkin-fest.

RC 4-10-18

Cause for concern

Philippa had to be seen by one of the doctors she works with today. She kept feeling dizzy all morning and then felt really ill later in the day. Turned out to be a blood pressure issue, which is not a great thing to get involved in when you’re pregnant. Scary stuff, but they seem to think there’s nothing underlying to worry about. She’s gonna take the rest of week off work and has been loaned a BP machine to keep checking herself. She‘s asleep now, and was very chilled all evening. It doesn’t seem to have phased her in the slightest, while I, on the other hand, am beside myself with worry. I nearly threw up when she called me at work this afternoon. I went into an anxiety meltdown and missed the second half of what she was saying because my mind was already racing into emergency operations and baby deaths. I am now trying to stay calm and not spend the next few hours sneakily putting the blood pressure cuff on her arm, just to check, or reading loads of web info about things like pre-eclampsia. (which she doesn’t have, by the way, but turned up in an internet search I did as something that can cause hypertension during pregnancy)

Parenthood is giving me a heart attack already and the bloody baby hasn’t even been born yet.

RC 3-10-18

It's amazing what I can do when I've slept

Yesterday was such a productive day. Today hasn’t been quite so impressive, but that’s because I’ve been stuck in meetings, travelling between sites, and doing paperwork all day. Isn’t it cute that I still call it ‘paperwork’ even though it’s all done on laptops and handheld electronics?

To help pass the time in said meetings, I sat with a notepad and thought ‘Sod it – let’s compose some Initialoetry.’

I’m such a dedicated professional….

NB – INITIALOETRY (entry from The Dictionary Of Rory): “The act of writing a poem in which the first letter of each word, when taken in sequence, create a word or phrase that is the subject of the poem itself.”  Enjoy…

Righteous young dudes (European) regained championship, usurping Provincials.

Frivolous, overpaid oafs that berate anyone living ‘lower existences?’

Rude sods.

Onsetting cold.

Time oscillates backwards.

Early retiring.

An unhappy time.

Usually means nothing.

I navigate solemnly.

Overactive mentally

Now I’m awake.

Darkness.

Energy peters rapidly.

Everyone sees smiles.

Inwardly?

Overpowering negativity.

Perfectly rounded

Emotionally grounded

Nappies await

Newborns create

Yay!

RC 2-10-18

Into it

I’ve decided to file September away as a ‘lost month’ and give myself a reboot, starting this morning. Since arriving at work, I have managed to rip through my outstanding e-mails, complete a Christmas thingy that was well over-due, and get myself ahead of the game with preparations for Hallowe’en. I have decided to allow the staff at all four of my garages to decorate – even allowing them extra paid hours to complete the job, rather than expecting them to add it to their already heavy workload – and go big on the ‘trick or treat’ theme. Normally at this time of year I’d be dreading the arrival of October and trying to dissuade my superiors from overdoing it, but now I’m kind of my own superior, so I can do fun things without feeling like they’ve been forced on me. The bottom line is that my new job is all about the bottom line. If they’re seeing profits go up because of my actions, they’ll let me get on with things and leave me alone. I’m taking advantage of the goodwill I’m receiving from Area Management and Head Office while it’s still early days in the new role and getting them to agree to things they’d normally shy away from. So at ten minutes past eleven this morning I convinced Someone Above Me to allocate us a budget to ‘darken the mood’ of our garages. We fill the place with decorations that are readily (and expensively) available at the attached supermarkets, and hopefully persuade our fuel-buying customers to pop along to the store for supplies. We invite people to take photos and post them on social media, in return for a donation to a charity pot, and we give away prizes for the best-dressed person who turns up in costume between now and the 31^st. Generating free advertising, extra revenue and a bit of good customer interaction in one fell swoop, and that’s why my bosses said Yes.

This is so much more fun than spending all day fretting and waiting to be found out.

I’m feeling confident, buoyant and frivolous, and I may have drunk too much coffee.

RC 1-10-18