Long Time No Write

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything more than a sad sack Facebook status update. Over fifty days in fact. It isn’t as if we haven’t been doing anything, there has been lots going on, off over and under during that time. But, when it comes to putting pen to paper, or typing into Word, I just haven’t been able to do it, and the notepad has been closed unblemished, and Word has the X in the top right-hand corner clicked on firmly.

The last time I wrote anything was after going out (but not out out) for Helen’s birthday. We dropped the cat off for teeth cleaning and spent a day wandering around looking at old buildings in East Grinstead, Forest Row and Hartfield. I started a write up but didn’t get as far as lunchtime and hadn’t added any of the photos before it was closed to sit in My Documents. Possibly never to be finished.

During this time, I have managed to put two issues of Flanagan’s Running Club out, but with those it’s just collation of things I’ve borrowed or items I’ve written before. I had a good backlog of stuff this time last year, with writing group every fortnight it was getting added to on a regular basis, but the flow has dried up. If there isn’t some sort of normality resumed by the end of the year next year’s issues may be few and far between.

I’ve had a rubbish idea for a short story about a bloke called Justin Thyme, but that may never see the light of day either. I’ve had thoughts on a poem paraphrasing The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, along the lines of meet the new car, same as the old car, but that deserves not to see the light of day.

Blog posts is pretty much all I’ve written in the last year, the various works in progress for the novels haven’t been touched, and then over the last couple of months even the blog posts have dried up.

Besides the Sussex wanderings on Helen’s birthday (a far cry from previous years where we’ve been to Brussels, Toulouse, Barcelona, Berlin, and New Hampshire), there has been a few Crawley walks, finding old buildings and more street signs in Bewbush. An afternoon in Shoreham, which happily involved ice cream and a couple of mooches about looking for cars.

With the office closing I got a lump sum for excess travel for six years, with which we used to buy a new car, as the old Venga was becoming a bit of a repair pit, so it’s been given to Nathan. We looked at quite a lot of cars, all that had external measurements that suggested they were larger than the Venga. But whereas the Venga is a bit of a Tardis inside, most of the others we saw were the opposite. The Peugeot 2008 was laughable, I couldn’t even get in the thing properly without losing hair and skin. The Citroen C3 was uncomfortable and had a teeny tiny little toy steering wheel. There were others, but none of these bigger cars had the space we had already, or the adjustability we need when one of us is five foot nothing and the other six feet two. So, we got another Venga, a couple of years old, but with a whole host of mod con updates to the one we had. Sat-nav, panoramic sunroof, heated seats and steering wheel, reverse camera. It may be boring to get the same car again, but it is right for us.

Anyway, back to road sign,

With three roads in Broadfield named after cricketers, I was eight short of a team, so set out to find them in other parts of Crawley from other themes to come up with a team for the ages. I did so and was then left with trying to find the best batting order for them, as there were seven in the team that were opening batsmen at some point. I eventually came up with this order.

Jack Hobbs (all-time leader for runs and centuries)

Alastair Cook (Most runs and caps for England)

John Edrich (Just edged his cousin Bill out)

Ken Barrington (Best England batting average for a player scoring over 5,000 test runs)

W.G. Grace (Top five all time for runs, wickets, and catches)

Wally Hammond (Over 50k runs and 2nd most triple centuries)

Wilfred Rhodes (Most ever 1st class appearances and most wickets ever)

Fred Titmus (One of three in this team to score more than 20k runs and take 2,500 wickets)

Jack Russell (5th leading wicket keeping dismissals)

Derek Shackleton (Most post war wickets taken)

Jimmy Anderson (England’s leading wicket taker)

Looking in the A-Z I did find address for (Peter) May House and (Jim) Laker Court, but there were no road signs, just plaques on the wall of the building, so they missed out, as did (Ben) Stokes Close. I also found an appropriate team manager – (Keith) Fletcher Close.

I’ll mention work briefly. It’s fucking chaos. No other words for it. It’s difficult to explain just how busy it is. I need to be back in the office, anything to break up doing twelve-hour days and still not getting everything done. If it’s not all getting done there’s no point in doing so much over normal hours. Even with three days weekends there doesn’t feel like there’s a break.

Plus working at home recently has been somewhat entertaining. We’ve had a new boiler. The company that were doing the fitting sent Laurel and Hardy the first day. After much scratching of heads and arses they said it would have to go in the loft and a couple of hundred miles of copper piping would need installing. And then on the way out they took some sun cream. They didn’t come back. When their boss did a few days later, the boiler was put in the kitchen, and there was very little new piping on display. And the electricians came and wired it in to the mains and it was job’s a good un.

Well until it was time to do the kitchen. We’d been and planned a new kitchen back in October. Yet it was after easter by the time it got fitted. The deliveries came in three parts, but the final bulk part came at half seven in the morning, and I wasn’t even dressed, and then they rushed all the stuff in, entombing the kitchen table in some kind of Ikea cardboard fort. This was over a week before it was due to be fitted. The table had to be moved out and squeezed into the living room. Not ideal for a nosy bastard when I’m looking out the front window at everything passing by.

The new boiler had caused another leak because all the water now comes from the mains, and the pressure was too much for the kitchen tap, which had to be capped off, so upstairs water for three weeks. Then the hot tap on the bath started leaking. A plumber came, said the taps needed replacing and left it in a worse state than it was before. We were resorting to turning the water off at the main tap in the hall. Only that hadn’t been used in decades, and so after steady use for a few days it sprung a leak of its own.

Normality was finally resumed on the water front as the kitchen was being fitted.

Of course, before you can fit a kitchen, you need to get rid of the old one. The actual ripping it out didn’t take that long. We had some help, and all the units were stripped out and dismantled in a couple of hours. However, the removal of tiles and wallpaper brought problems. Along with about half the plaster down. Part of which I missed to get my first AZ jab – something that would catch up with me later. We also found the electrician from the boiler install had done a quick and dirty (if not downright dangerous) fitting, putting wires between piping and drilling through the tile in part and sticking the junction box to another tile.

Now, it’s well known my DIY skills only fall under the category of destroy it yourself, so fortunately Simon was on hand to help with (well, do) the plastering. And it must be said, he could turn pro, he did an amazing job. Though it wasn’t dry enough to think about starting the wallpapering.

Which as it turned out was a blessing in disguise. The electrician for the kitchen fit came and drilled out troughs for wiring that would have been right through where the wallpaper would have been. The kitchen fitters were less than impressed by the new piping the boiler fitter had put in as it was all mid wall and meant they would have to cut holes around it all to install the units. Then when the units were fitted it also meant there was a lot less to wallpaper. The kitchen still isn’t fully fitted, there was a wrong door delivered, and we’ve had to resort to going to Ikea to get it ourselves as promises of delivery have been and gone for two weeks. Additionally, the shelf for the unit was missing. Only it wasn’t, I’d put it down the side of the fridge as a safe place to store it, only to find it after the fitters had finished for the week.

Then came wallpapering, which I wasn’t anywhere near as bad at as I had been in the past or expected to be this time. We nearly got it all done on one day, but invites to the bar next door brought an end to proceedings at about eight pm. It got finished on the Sunday, and over a week later it’s still all in place.

Anyway, next door’s bar. They’ve been working on it since the back end of last year, and it officially opened the weekend lockdown eased. We’d been elsewhere for a barbeque the day it did ease – anything to get out, but the bar opening will be remembered for how monumentally pissed I got. Stick any drink in front of me and I’ll drink it, which won’t help. What finishes it off is the kilo or so of vodka jelly that I was popping into my mouth in bite sized (well, not sure any biting was involved) chunks at five second intervals. The drinks after wallpapering were a lot less frantic.

When the pub gardens opened, we took the kitchen helpers to the Downsman for curry and drinks and then back to burn random pieces of wood in our garden. The winter covers had been taken off all the garden furniture and cushions retrieved from the loft, but the paddling pool masquerading as Baker Lake is still there and full of water, and no matter how much it is used to water plants and the garden in general, the level doesn’t seem to go down. It might just about be emptied in time for it to be used in anger.

It’s not getting used to its full potential though as we have another leak. This time the kitchen waste pipe has snapped outside the kitchen window and so fills a bucket on a regular basis as well as keeping half the patio damp.

Then there was the Tottenham debacle. I’ve been moaning since Mourinho was hired that they should sack him, but then they trump that and join the ESL. This prompted me to have a sweary rant denouncing the team as I’m sick of them, and football in general.

That’s it, I’m done.

I’ve been a Tottenham fan for over 40 years, but no more.

Being realistic, I know a lot of our fan base have delusions of adequacy. We have not been a big club for a long while. A top four place is the best to hope for. So being one of 6 English clubs said to be setting up a European super league (of only 12 clubs) is more than just a piss take. It’s a fucking disgrace.

But it’s typical of the cynical money first nature of Levy, who rides roughshod over decent fans (which, granted, there aren’t too many of). The man who hired two managers that publicly stated they hated the club, George Graham and the current incumbent fuckwit. I’ve been saying #MourinhoOut since day one, but with this latest development, keep the twat, you deserve each other.

In the 90s we regularly put out the worst back 4 in top flight history (Austin, Nethercott, Doherty, Edinburgh – find worse, I’ll wait), and now, with a new stadium, we’ve got things like arm sponsorship by Cinch, and Dulux as an official paint partner, and despite all this lunacy they still want more.

They want to destroy football, its history, its fans, and its soul for a few (granted millions) dollars more. I will not be a part of it. So, fuck you Levy, fuck you Tottenham, and fuck the other 5 mercenary English clubs.

Even if a super league doesn’t come to fruition, the fact Tottenham were willing to jump in means they deserve to be hoisted by their own petard, and deserve every criticism and punishment that comes their way.

Within an hour of me posting that, they sacked Mourinho. Then they withdrew from the ESL a couple of days later, but I’m not going back, and all my Tottenham gear went in the charity clothes bag that was collected Wednesday morning. At least I know it’s not been me jinxing them all this time. Even after disowning them, they still managed to lose a final.

The main source of entertainment is however the cat. He’s only just about gotten used to eating on the floor in the kitchen after years of being up on the counter to avoid the dog snaffling all his food. Yet over the last few months the landscape of the house and garden has been changing on an almost daily basis, and so each time he comes in there is a sense of bewilderment as he tries to orientate himself to furniture moves, deliveries, cardboard boxes everywhere, drips of water, workmen, noise dust, missing furniture, and his bowl in a different place every five minutes. He’s adapted by turning his volume up and being on for longer.

He’s been up on the table at the front window, watching people go by and doing a low purr / rumble / growl at them, he really is beginning to think he is the dog of the house. You look up and suddenly there he is licking your plate. Most of the time it is empty, but he also seems to like trying to lick the garlic and herb dip that turns up with pizza Friday.

And finally, he now thinks he’s part of mealtime.

You know the meme, the one with the screaming/crying woman being held back by her friend and the cat sat at the table in front of food making a sarcastic response. Well Sniffles can now be making his own. I’m fairly sure I’m the one shouting “get out of my seat you cheeky fucker”, and Sniffles responding, “It’s not yours anymore bitch.”

And we refurnished much of the dining room today, the table and chairs we’d got from the charity shop turned up, and against the odds and looks of disbelief we got a six-foot-long sideboard in the car (I had mentioned earlier it has a lot of space). The old sideboard and Welsh Dresser are out in the garden covered by tarpaulin, and the random shelves are emptied and in the garden for future firewood. The new (well for us, another charity shop buy) sturdy TV stand turned up as well, so there is a lot of furniture to sell / offload. So, if anyone needs a sturdy kitchen table with six chairs, a wobbly coffee table, a Welsh dresser, or an art deco-esque sideboard, let me know.

Unexpected Pet In The Working Area

Two days in to working from home (again) and I’m already losing the will to live. As I’ve changed to a compressed week it means an earlier start for me; so, it is probably a good thing that I’m working from home until I acclimatise to having to be working at a time when I’m usually only just getting out of bed. No one needs me having to drive to Portslade whilst still trying to wake up – it’s bad enough when I’m wide awake.

And as we are in lockdown three, I had an idea about naming lockdown three in the style of paraphrasing film titles of films from a series, whether they be a trilogy or longer. It was something to do whilst on boring calls, and I came up with the following list.

The Lord of the Lockdowns – The Return of the Restrictions

Lockdown with a Vengeance

The Lockdown and Furious: Wuhan Drift

Indiana Jones & The Last Lockdown

Star Wars: The Return of the Lockdown

Harry Lockdown and the Prisoner of Covid

Batman: The R Rate Rises

Back to the Lockdown III

Pirates of the Covid: At Lockdown’s End

Mad Max Beyond Lockdown

Beverly Hills Lockdown III

Lockdown 3: Europe’s Most Infected

The Bourne Lockdown

There is a drip in the kitchen somewhere. I suspect it is from the plughole in the sink down into the waste pipe, but in the silence of the kitchen it didn’t take long to drive me insane. I usually have my iPod plugged into a Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen table with me, but it was too close to drown the sound of the drip out, so I’ve had to resort to having the radio on at a louder volume than usual, as it’s near the sink and wipes the dripping sound out.

Anyway, I packed my work IT equipment away Thursday evening and retired to the living room. Only to get up Friday morning to find that my usual working space on the kitchen table had a large wooden box with a snake in its place. Plus, all my IT lit had been unplugged so they could plug in light and heat for the effing snake. I can’t see the snake because the glass side of the tank has an apron and tea towel draped over it. It belongs to Nathan’s girlfriend, so hopefully it will only be today that it is in my way, and that when I get around to returning to work on Tuesday it will have f#@&ed off.

Is it a coincidence that I’ve not seen Sniffles since the snake turned up? At least the snake isn’t in a cardboard box, as that would have been certain of investigation by the idiot cat. As it turned out the snake went, even before I got to the end of the working day. Back off to Portsmouth before it had the chance to eat any household members.

Sitting at the kitchen table as a desk in yet another lockdown does mean the mind wanders. Especially to the hope of being able to go out and do something or go somewhere. This impulse isn’t helped every time I look up and see the side of the fridge and all the magnets stuck to the side of it from out travels. It is somewhat distracting. Especially with it making me think of how many nice days out we’ve had.

Despite a big clear out before Christmas I can’t stop buying books. Another big box arrived on Thursday. Granted, this consignment did contain some future birthday / Christmas presents (how far ahead of the game?), and a couple that would be used for new items for Flanagan’s Running Club this year, but there are space considerations not that there is reduced shelving space available. It means I’ll have to pull my finger out and get through reading more of them so there is another consignment for the charity shop soon.

Helen got me a new proper fatbit for Christmas, to replace my cheapo version. I still haven’t got my head around everything it does, but it does buzz on my arm at regular intervals to try and get me to move; its own version of ‘move you fat b@st@rd’. it had a vibration celebration when I was putting the Christmas decorations away at the first time I’d climbed ten flights of stairs in a day. On our walk on Saturday

it went vibrating crazy. Going off and sending me e-mails as I broke ten thousand and fifteen thousand steps for the first time, and again as it reckoned I had done more than twenty-five flights of stairs. I’m not convinced my arm can survive this kind of thing for too long.

On the walk as we passed the Half Moon pub, I had a thought of how would you do a half moon? Would you pull your trousers down so only half of your backside would be showing; or would it require the use of stripper style velcro’d trousers, where you just ripped the one side open to show one ass cheek?

There was some looking at that you can do under lockdown on the government website, and apparently ‘for the purpose of picketing’ is a legal reason for leaving the house, as is ‘reasonably necessary to vote’. No woolly language there at all. But the best thing, is the fact that the government recognise we are a nation of alcoholics as they classify off licenses as being essential shops that need to be open.

It was a late night Sunday as it’s NFL playoff season and the last of six games over the weekend finished not long before some people would be getting up for work Monday morning. Not me anymore, Mondays are now a day off. I had a little trip out, nowhere exciting mind you, just a trip to the vet with Sniffles as he had a lot of bumps on his lower back. He had been snoozing on a bed all day, but it’s amazing how quickly he turned into a star shaped cat when faced with being put in the cat carrier. He escaped on the second attempt, only to get distracted by food in his bowl, and at the third attempt he was squeezed into the carrier. There’s nothing seriously wrong with him, just an allergy to flea bites, though where he’s getting fleas from in this weather without any other pets in the house is anyone’s guess.

This new working pattern is going well, it’s amazing how quickly the working week seems to go now. Wednesday night is here already, only two days to go before a three day weekend.

Hello 2021

It was back to work this morning, and it was a bit of a culture shock after twelve days off. Especially since I’ve moved to a four-day week and it means an 8am start. At least with the lockdown it did mean I didn’t have to travel to my new office location in Portslade (they can call the office Hove all they like, it’s next to Portslade train station ffs). It was a dull cold morning and not fully light as I was setting up, and it was dark by the time I logged off.

Since I last did a usual update, I’ve had my last day in Atlantic House, a day earlier than planned, a bit of a retrospective is below

The last working day for me before Christmas was worked from home, as Helen needed the car to take Charlie to the vets for a scan / blood test. It was a strange and sad day as Charlie didn’t make it home.

It didn’t take long for the local cheeky fox to work out there was no dog in residence, as when loading the car, the fox kept poking its nose in the house between my trips to the car.

We were travelling north to spend Christmas at my mum’s in Morecambe, but were looking to leave at a reasonable time to then stop at Stafford overnight on the way up. With the events of the day we were later than intended and ended up having dinner at home before setting off. It was ridiculously windy and rainy as we drove up, and it was after eleven by the time we got to the hotel for the night.

At least the weather Christmas Eve was better and brighter as we did the second part of the journey. We had left a tier 2 Crawley for a Christmas bubble in tier 3, but found out before going that we would be returning to tier 4 Crawley.

Christmas at my mum’s was a lot more relaxing than expected. We got out a couple of times for walks, once sneaking over the border into Cumbria to Arnside, and once to the end of the world at Sutherland Point.

The journey back started in bright sunshine, but it became overcast as we travelled south. From just after Lancaster down to Birmingham the whole of the surrounding countryside had at least a thin layer of snow on it, and in places the fast lane had a thick layer of dirty grey slush in it. Oxfordshire was a different matter, the whole county appeared to be an inland sea, there was no defining where the banks of the River Cherwell was the three times the motorway passed over it.

We got back to Crawley about the same time as the darkness. We’d no sooner parked up than Sniffles ran and hid under the car. The fox was back now unchecked by a local dog and had to be chased off twice before Sniffles could get into the house.

A house that was leaking, a slow steady drip in the kitchen ceiling. Inspecting the bathroom gave no indication where the water was coming from. It was a late night as we tried to figure out where the water was coming from while Helen rang the insurance company, and we tried to work out how to turn the water off. By the time the plumber turned up the next morning the leak had stopped. The plumber confidently told us it was coming from a gap in the sealant around the bath and shower.

Therefore after 36 hours of not using the shower it was a surprise to get up the following morning to find the drip had reappeared. Home Sense sent a second plumber out, who diagnosed the leak was actually coming from the toilet and running along boards to get to the point above the leak. He fixed that and its been drip free since then, and we’ve redone the sealant around the bath just in case.

New Year’s Eve saw us having a few quiet drinks and a takeaway curry, and then at a quarter to midnight we were out on the front to have a socially distanced gathering of neighbours. However, I suddenly had an urgent need for the toilet and was sat there as the new year came in and all the fireworks around the town started going off. It was quite literally a case of same s#&*, different year.

As a final insult from 2020, the vibrations of the very load Bluetooth speaker we’d acquired recently forced Helen’s iPad off its surface and onto a concrete step, smashing the screen.

Some fizz, some shots and a lot of chat saw it become a late night, and no sign of anyone surfacing until the afternoon of New Year’s Day. It also appeared that we had used every glass in the house, and most of the plates and cutlery as I washed up. We had takeaway pizza that night, which we ate from the box, so I was confused and dismayed as to how on earth so much washing up there was Saturday morning.

The decorations all came down and were boxed away, although as I type this and look up, I can see a remnant hung over a lamp that we missed.

The new year has come in and I’m not sure that I have any real resolutions. I had thought about trying to be a bit less miserable and more engaged at work, but that lasted about two minutes in to a half eight call this morning. I suppose I should try and do some more proper writing this year, go back and do the novels that are works in progress, rather than only ever writing blog posts.

Away from that, what I really want for 2021 is for Dave to finally get a new sponsor for their primetime programming and so we never have to see another of their three dreadfully repetitive Dacia adverts. They’ve changed their sponsor on all their other segments, but the ones for the main time we watch live TV are enough to drive anyone insane after at least two years of them. I can guarantee they have put me off of ever buying a Dacia car in my lifetime.

I’ve bought a month of Now TV’s Sky Sports pass, as it’s NFL playoff season, and there is no RedZone now. It does coincide with Spurs being in a cup semi-final tonight, so may brave watching a match under the footballing antichrist. However, despite playing opposition from the Championship, I fully expect us to do what we always do nowadays and lose a domestic cup semi-final. At least my mate Jimbo Up North would be happy.

Meanwhile, Sniffles is a confused cat. He doesn’t understand why there is no dog around, and he can’t quite get a grip on the fact his feeding bowl is now on the floor instead of up on the side. For the last two years he has looked up at the worktop mournfully pretending he can’t jump up there to get his food. Since the food has been on the floor he has on a daily basis managed to jump up to the side by himself. Today he managed it three times, each time to jump back down when he saw food going in his bowl on the floor. This is after I heard him whining outside. I opened to backdoor to let him in, but there was no sign of him, just a wail coming from under the cover of the garden furniture. He had gotten under it to keep himself dry, but hadn’t managed to work out how to get back out until I lifted a corner of it up and let some light in. He had been whining to come and sleep in our room, but now the dog has gone he’s always whining and pawing at Nathan’s door instead, despite the other two bedroom doors being open. Contrary little sod.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Bed

And then the rains started, slowly at first, but persistently. I could hear it sat at the kitchen table whilst working; I could hear it lying in bed, the constant pitter patter of raindrops hitting the garden furniture cover, the patio table, the green wheelie bin, the concrete, the grass, the trees, everything apart from the window. So, it’s bearable, as like Ann Peebles, I can’t stand the rain against my window (yes, I know, I’ll get my coat – I’ll need it with all this rain). If I was allowed outside that was.

Speaking of outside, Charlie keeps scratching at the door to go out, only for the door to be opened, him look at the rain and think sod that for a games of soldiers, and he’ll turn around without stepping paw over the threshold. Only to do the same thing two minutes later as if he’s got rain amnesia to go with his well-established food amnesia. On attempt thirty-something he will eventually go outside, pee or poo as quickly as possible and run back in. Not even the cat is as big a wuss as Charlie is about the rain.

Working at home isn’t ideal, but it hasn’t been too bad, mainly because I’ve been catching up from a week off and haven’t really had time to think about where I’m working. And as such it was good to get to half five on a Friday night and get around to logging off, knowing it was pizza night.

It was also film night, and the film was Total Recall, not the cr@ppy remake with Colin Farrell, but the mental trashy original with Arnie in it. It was out around the time when I first got a video player (the last family in Leicester to do so), and this was one of the tapes that got a lot of play.

It is totally OTT and being directed by Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct, Showgirls); it is violent and has more than its share of random nudity in it. I haven’t seen it for years, but I’ve seen it often enough that a lot of the dialogue had stayed with me.

There are four particular pieces that I use quite a lot in different contexts. The quotes “get your a55 to mars” on repeat on a broken video display; and “consider that a divorce”, as Arnie shoots ‘wife’ Sharon Stone in the head are two, then the exchange of “you make me wish I had three hands”, “you’re doing perfectly fine with two” as a character fondles a three breasted woman, and finally Kuato repeating the phrase “open your mind”, a line that was sampled as the base for Usura’s classic dance track of the same name some three years later on the great nineties dance label Deconstruction. A thoroughly enjoyable blast from the past.

With rain and self-isolation, Saturday saw some baking. Helen made cookies, and I made flapjack. They were both good, and I managed to resist the temptation to just scoff the whole tray of warm flapjack as soon as it came out of the oven. Three quarters managed to survive the day.

Crawley is flooded all over the place (well according to what I’ve seen on Facebook). The underpass at Broadfield Stadium, Hazelwick Avenue (opposite work), the railway bridge at Three Bridges, and others. If this carries on for another week, I’ll need a boat to go back to the office next Monday.

I gave up my Sky Sports subscription a while ago, as I wasn’t that bothered about it, and it’s overly expensive, plus NFL RedZone is on a non-sports subscription channel. If there is a game I particularly want to watch then there is always the watch it at the pub option. However, not when self-isolating; and so I missed it, the once in a lifetime opportunity to see my team beat United 6-1 at Old Trafford. That doesn’t really happen for any team. And then the results got even more mental as Villa whupped Liverpool 7-2, and then the Browns pounded in forty-odd points against the Cowboys. It was a great day, right up until it was tomorrow and the 49ers contrived to lose to the previously winless Eagles. You can’t have everything.

What I could do with is an old school desk phone so that I could bin Skype off and so prevent annoying sods pinging me messages. The next person to Skype me to say “I’ve just sent you an e-mail” is likely to die.

Sniffles was fascinated by the washing machine going round this morning. He sat there watching it as we would a TV for a few minutes. Right up until the moment I reached for my phone to film him doing it, at which point he got up and ran out of the kitchen.

I realise why I’ve never had pets, as I’ve no patience for their sh1te. Sniffles may well end up in the washing machine he was so fascinated by if he continues being such a fussy little b@st@rd. You get a clean bowl, put fresh food in it and he still won’t eat it, so you add biscuits and he turns around and jumps down. He’d lucky not to be swung around by the tail to end up flying off into the park somewhere. And to top it off the little tw@t followed me up the road as I went for a little walk for the first time, I only noticed him once I was at the shops and about to turn and go back home, he was there sat outside the chip shop.

Charlie meanwhile waited until I’d nipped to the toilet, and then clambered up onto the raised kitchen table, knocked my drink over and proceeded to eat my tissue. Then whined when shouted at to get down as he’s old and can’t jump down without human assistance. God they’re effing annoying. At least me shouting at Charlie inspired Sniffles to eat what was in his bowl.

When Covid hit back in March it was just before my writing peer group was about to do an open-mic night, which got postponed. It would have been tonight, but got cancelled whilst I was in Porto. However, there were two events set up for it and I got a reminder for it an hour before it was due to start. I hope no one is going to turn up to a shut Ifield Barn. Hopefully we’ll actually get to do it next year.

Apparently I’m working so hard at the moment that I’m causing our company’s SAP system to run out of memory, which is kicking other users out of what they are doing. I’ve actually been told not to work so hard (well not do a particular task) until support have fixed the issue. I might finish on time for a change then.

Only two days of self-isolation left now.

Ya Boo Sucks

Which sums up perfectly the feeling of coming back from holiday and having to go into self-isolation. It is especially galling to have to do so when the area of a country you have been in has a lower infection rate than where you live, so statistically I have been safer, with less chance of catching Covid whilst I have been abroad, only to be punished for that fact because the most ineffectual government in living memory has set an arbitrary threshold for who to pick on.

It does make things difficult when shopping is needed, and Charlie has an appointment for a haircut, as we are not supposed to leave the house at all, with dog walking one of the banned activities. Fortunately Charlie is more than happy to run off by himself whenever there is an open door. He is however still quite limpy, and hasn’t lost the habit of wandering off with his bowl at every opportunity. If we don’t put it on the side after he’s finished eating, it’s anyone’s guess where we might find it when it comes to time to feed him the next time.

To top it off, apart from threatening text messages ordering the downloading of the NHS track / test and trace app (not happening – Google already mines enough data illegally without giving them this kind of data as well); there has been nothing advising us to go into self-isolation. Nothing was said at the airport when we came back through passport control and customs, there were no scanners of any kind (unlike in Portugal), and no e-mail from EasyJet. It’s an utter farce and shambles.

On a more positive note, the holiday was great, and has been described in great detail with many pictures in a series of blogs on my Medium page. A summary with all the links in on my usual blog page at

The rest of the weekend, and Monday, which we also had off was spent with me sorting out the many photos and writing up all my scribblings, Sunday night was NFL RedZone time, and despite the ridiculous amount of injuries suffered the 49ers won their second game of the season, both away from home and in the same stadium in New Jersey that the Jets and Giants share. It’s called Met Life Field, but with the injury tally there it should be called Met Death, though it is probably appropriate the sponsor is an insurance company.

I got an e-mail from the National Lottery, it wasn’t the usual lucky dip, but I had three numbers on two lines, and with it being a roll down because no one won the jackpot after however many draws they allow it to go on accruing, it wasn’t £30, but £118 per line, which just about paid for the money spent whilst on holiday. But not quite enough to be able to not have to go back to work on Tuesday.

I did wonder if there is a bloke who wanders around aimlessly, bumping into people, just grunting at them, would it make him a Meanderthal?

Tuesday morning was a shock to the system as it was back to working at home for a couple of weeks. And the commute was horrendous, first there was a queue for the bathroom, then the recalcitrant dog was lying at the top of the stairs trying to trip you up. The cat was whining in the kitchen, and there was a queue for the fridge.

Once logged on it didn’t improve. Inconsiderate sociopaths had blocked out my diary with meetings through to mid-afternoon, and the Wednesday wasn’t looking much better. On the plus side, of the 200+ e-mails only about twenty actually needed me to do anything.

I mentioned farce and shambles earlier, which sums up the summary of the first US presidential debate, which descended into argument and name calling. Joe Biden needs to be a lot smarter about these. There is no point in arguing with an idiot – of which Trump is one of the biggest – as they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

I look up from the drudgery of dealing with fixing idiots’ system screw ups around sickness and glance at the fridge. For once it isn’t around what is inside it that I can transfer to being inside me, but rather, looking at the outside of it. And the volume of fridge magnets on it. There has been talk for a while of the magnetic North Pole shifting gradually. I think I may have found the reason why.

And here’s the rain, as if to make sure to wash away the last vestiges of holiday memories. But we have the last laugh, as we’re not allowed outside anyway.

Back To Work

Well, not immediately. We had got back home after ten days of travelling around, and it does feel like a bit of an anti-climax. Both pets were happy because their primary feeder was back, and judging by the amount of pet food left, they had been on starvation diets for the last week or so.

However, Charlie’s joy was short lived as he needed his next flea treatment. He saw Helen go into the middle drawer, and heard the packet being cracked, and so the little sod ran off and hid under Nathan’s bed.

I went for a mooch about in Crawley, trying to keep up a string of 10K step days, picking up various items required in the house, and to get some more maps having found out that the ones I had bought pre travels didn’t cover the whole of Leicestershire. It was reasonably calm until the homeward part of the walk where I got caught up in a bit of an altercation.

That evening we managed to get the flea stuff on Charlie, squirting him as he was distracted wolfing down his food. He was so unimpressed by this that he left his bowl half full and went back to hiding under Nathan’s bed.

Whilst we were out on the Friday at Kent castles (see separate blog about that here https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2020/07/25/more-castles/ ), Nathan took Charlie out for a walk, which the damn dog used as an opportunity to get rid of the flea treatment by jumping in Tilgate Lake. Normally when we open the middle drawer in the kitchen, Charlie gets excited because it usually means we are getting pooh bags out, and therefore he is going for a walk. Currently, when the middle drawer is opened he runs off and hides, as it also happens to be where we keep the flea treatments.

Saturday saw us out visiting more antiquities (separate blog post on that is here https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2020/07/25/let-me-guess-another-castle/ ), and as there was only us in that evening we decided to go to the Downsman for a curry. We were waiting to be seated when an older couple came stomping across (having come in a door that says no entry). The barmaid tried to stop them, but he was kicking off saying he sat at the table he was going to every day. The fact that there were already drinks on it was dissuading him. They refused to wait for a table and left, with the wife muttering that she’d knock the barmaid out if she stepped outside.

We got seated at the table next to the one that couple had tried to commandeer. The guys who were already at that table said they hadn’t seen the couple before, and that they were at that table every night. We got menus to peruse, but getting to be able to order took nearly an hour. But as always the food was good.

After confusing the hell out of my fat bit by racking up 10k steps every day for a week, I returned it to usual service by not really going anywhere on Sunday. Then the entries started popping up on Facebook. The Downsman had closed after three staff had tested positive for Covid-19, although apparently those affected hadn’t been on site since Wednesday.

Therefore come Monday morning, I wasn’t back in the office, I was working off the kitchen table, and going to the Gatwick drive through testing centre at lunch. Despite being given a post code that takes you to a completely different part of the airport we did find the test centre and poke the longest cotton buds into the back of our throats and far enough up our noses to collect brain tissue.

That evening, I’m about ready to log off when Nathan puts the lead on Charlie to take him out for a walk. Nathan then goes to get something out of the garden and Charlie follows him, lead trailing behind him. Sniffles is out on the patio and as he sees the end of the lead go past him he starts to chase it and tries to pounce on it, only to fail several times. I had visions of Sniffles getting a paw in the loop of the lead and then being dragged around the garden by a rampart Charlie.

They don’t mess around at the testing centre. The results of Monday’s lunchtime test were waiting for me on my phone when I get up Tuesday morning. The test comes back as negative, but says stay at home for 48 hours before going back to work to make sure you don’t have any symptoms. This means that it’s the kitchen table again for the next couple of days.

This includes the team Zoom meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Now, no one needs to see the carnage in our kitchen, or how bored looking I am during this kind of call, so the picture I’d taken with my head in the kitchen light shade was printed off and set up in front of the laptop camera. It was probably the most animated I had looked in any meeting ever.

A close up of a boy wearing a hat

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Not Working At Home

Another Thursday morning comes, and for once when kicking off the week’s blog, I’m not sat at the kitchen table as I’m back in the office, and they’ve sorted the power issue out so I’m at a raised desk. All good.

Another e-mail from the National Lottery this morning as well, but alas it’s the ‘You’ve won a Lotto lucky dip’ one. (I did initially type that incorrectly as licky dip – which is a whole different thing). They are without a doubt taunting me. Gits.

I heard Helen say that one of the plants bought at the weekend had suddenly grown. She meant that some flowers had come out on it. I glanced up and thought, no it hasn’t grown; it just looks bigger because it’s on the patio table now instead of the ground.

We took up the wooden decking from the patio last year some time, as they had become a slippery menace. Most were stacked up against the side fence near the back door. It was the favourite entrance and exit point for Willow when she was alive, and a good vantage point for her to peruse her Queendom, and to lie in the sun. Since she has gone, Sniffles has taken over using it for the same reasons. But this evening the pile is no more as a friend has taken them all away to use in their open fire. Sniffles arrived at the place where his little wooden ladder and vantage point was to find it replaced by two small clematis plants. He looked up at the fence in a state of puzzlement as to how the hell he would be able to get up it now; before wandering off looking less than amused. It has been an ever changing environment for the cat since the start of the year and he never really gets to the acceptance stage before it all changes again. He just seems to go from shock to depression and confusion and back.

It’s half one in the morning and the woofy tw@t is at it again; so, I head downstairs and open the back door and the wagging stops as he looks at the torrential rain and heads back to his sheepskin rug. I go back to bed only for the pest to start again. I go back downstairs and open the door, and he still doesn’t want to go out, so I shove him out of the door, he does a small circle on the patio and runs back in to his sheepskin rug. At least he was quiet for the rest of the night.

Friday at work plodded along nicely, no one felt the need to come past and do a dead at my desk check. The Bluetooth speaker journeyed in today as well, listening to music is something I’m interested in again, but wearing earphones all day is going to be painful, so whilst it’s only me on the floor a little music won’t interrupt anyone else. It was mainly Hip Hop Friday on the playlists. I left spot on five as well, so all good. Hip Hop Friday turned into the usual pizza Friday, and some social distancing drinks at a friend’s house.

Whilst I was at work there had been more garden improvements. The back fence is now fixed firmly in place and the gate has been replaced with fixed panels. Sturdy looking and with post in concrete and short concrete post firming it up it shouldn’t be falling over when someone breathes on it. In addition, the two decorative fence panels through to the neighbours that Charlie had been eating his way through have been replaced with heavy duty panels. He is looking a bit disappointed his escape routes have been removed.

Alas it is also a new change curve for Sniffles to deal with, only a couple of days after his little cat ladder disappeared, the low piece of the back fence has now been replaced with a proper sized fence. And with the Charlie created holes gone, the poor cat has been wandering around looking for an easy way out, only to find none. Unless he buys himself some climbing gear it looks like front door exit and entry only, controlled by us humans.

Football is back, and considering how much I used to love everything about it – predictor leagues, fantasy football leagues, stats, brain teasers, quizzes, everything – for forty years, I am amazingly underwhelmed at the fact football is back. Helen asked if I wanted to get the sports channels back for a couple of months, or to reactivate the NowTV dongle, but I don’t think it’s worth paying for. Not even Spurs vs United can tempt me. There are free games on BBC, Pick and Sky One, and I have seen parts of games, and the piped in crowd noise is terrible. Typically Spurs are one of seven sides who don’t appear in any of the free to air games.

Saturday saw Helen take her mum out, so there was more garden centre action. I was responsible for dog grooming duties. Whilst Charlie was getting the puppy look, I went and took more photos of road signs. With taking Charlie for a shaded walk home after his haircut I spent two hours and fifteen thousand steps wandering around in the midday sun. So I was glad the ice cream van turned up just after I got in.

So, pets can be groomed, but humans can’t as the hairdressers aren’t open. I’m not far off bringing back the mullet, and I’m in danger of not being able to see my ears. And then, because it is warm out, with running my hands through my hair it is sticking up all over the place, making Helen laugh, saying it looks like Einstein.

Sniffles is getting brave in his old age and has taken up lying curled up within the arms and legs of Charlie’s frustration bear. Now it may have been considered as an innocent action, curling up somewhere comfortable; but I caught the cat, head resting on one of the bear’s legs, staring at the dog – who was lying at the bottom of the stairs looking at the bear – with a look as if to say ‘ha ha, try getting it on with the bear now’. I do worry this may backfire spectacularly down the line when Charlie takes his frustrations out on the cat instead of the bear.

Another day, another garden centre for Helen; which led to more pot painting and then to planting as the transformation of the back garden continues apace. I’m not sure, but it may be the case it would have been cheaper and easier just to relocate to a garden centre and live there instead.

Meanwhile I’ve spent a lot of time making lists and dredging through memories. Some were easy and quick to do, others took far longer, and some were abandoned completely. They were all handwritten, so all need typing up, which may be difficult as there are still a load of The Wire episodes to get through as well. That and the fact I keep getting distracted by Jigsaw World and that pesky work thing.

I had the e-mail for day twenty two of Couch to 5K (writing), and to be honest I’m getting a bit hacked off with it. I understand it’s a free course, but it’s supposed to be encouraging people to write their own stuff. So, what do I find in the exercises again today? That’s right, they’ve gone back to fan fiction again. Have I mentioned how much I hate the idea of having to write fan fiction?

I have two ways of looking at it and neither are good. First is, I’ve spent a lot of time building my own worlds for my works in progress (slow progress that is), so why do I want to jump into someone else’s creation to writer. Secondly, I do think fan fiction is effing lazy, the world and characters have been built for you, just as if you were playing a video game.

Did you know of my apathy to most video games (granted some of that is due to me being useless at playing them)? The only things I can play are the build your own world type games like The Sims. Yes there are boundaries within that, but it is mainly my own creation. Perhaps that’s what it is; all this time and I never realised, I’m a control freak when it comes to my creativity.

Anyway, no fan fiction was written. I used the twenty five minutes I should have spent on today’s exercise to write this mini rant about why I’m not doing it. I suppose it is all word count in the end.

It’s hot out, too damn hot for me; the temperature is pushing the thirties, which is only acceptable if we are using Fahrenheit. As Mister Senor Love Daddy said, “Whoa, Y’all take a chill, you got to cool that sh1te off. And that’s the double truth Ruth.”

The heat is affecting minds all over the place; two separate pensioners thought it was Thursday on Wednesday morning, trying to contact me to wish me a happy birthday a day early.

Speaking of which, that’s a whole host of different blog posts to come.

New Improved Formula

Those words keep popping up on all sorts of products. Why do they do that? Especially as it always seems to be for products that are popular anyway. They’re selling millions of units, but the company decides what everyone buying it wants is a new improved version. Why? Are they getting thousands of messages? I always buy your product, for the quality, or the taste, because it’s useful etc., please eff around with the formula and update it cos I’m sure it would be better. It rarely is and the company slinks the old version back into use on the quiet. The new improved price always stays at the same increased level though.

The most famous was new improved Coke, back in the eighties; they had to revert back to “classic Coke” due to the backlash. They’d changed it because they were getting battered in taste tests against Pepsi, but they managed to make an already inferior product even worse. So, they moved onto plan b, which is much more successful for them. They bully retailers into not stocking PepsiCo items by bribing them with branded fridges and the threat of not supplying Coca-Cola if they do. This is why I often have to go into several shops before there is a drink worth buying. Not that I’m addicted or anything. Although one of my #VSS365 offerings from last week may suggest otherwise.

He was addicted, and he knew it. He had beaten the need to drink every night. He had given up smoking. He had never really been into drugs. He stayed away from casinos and bookies. Yet he was addicted to this. The #effervescent brown liquid couldn’t be kicked. Oh Pepsi.

Still the sesame seeds appear each evening, I don’t know how but at least it gave me more song lyrics to mess with.

Every day

No matter what I eat

Whether it’s bread or if it is meat

Can you tell me how my teeth

How they produce Sesame Seeds?

Rinse my mouth

And they seem to appear

Popping out from gaps

Suddenly there

Can you tell me why my teeth

Why they produce Sesame Seeds?

How can it be Friday already, it was Wednesday morning, and then I blinked and it was Friday afternoon, at least it means it’s home time soon, and I can leave the oppressive atmosphere of the kitchen table and move to the living room sofa, plus it’s Pizza Friday. I’ve been mainly distracted by the ghost trying to escape from the oven all day. I see the movement out of the corner of my eye, and it’s not pets for a change, but the oven door slowly swinging open. There is duct tape to keep it in place, but it doesn’t seem to be working today; or the ghost has got stronger and can push their way out now.

Saturday morning started promisingly with an “Important information about your ticket” e-mail from the National Lottery. £2.90 later, it meant I still had to go to work next week. I went out walking, the full transcript to which can be found here.

Whilst I was out walking, Helen was out with her mum at a garden centre. A bit carried away may be a slight understatement. It took four people four trips each to carry all the plants out of the car and through to the back garden.

With all this other activity going on, Charlie hadn’t been walked, and so his reward to us for this was to be an annoying woofy tw@t all night. I let him out before we went to bed, and even with the door closed I could hear the little sod trying to tear down one of the fence panels. From going to bed until half three he didn’t let up on the intermittent barking. It wasn’t even as if he needed the toilet, as at half three he went out and straight to the fence he was wrecking. After being shouted at, he slunk back into the house, and thankfully stopped barking.

On Sunday morning while Helen was out shopping I went and had a look at the fence and restacked all the wooden panels in front of the panel Charlie was trying to tear down, and went and got some additional ones, much to the obvious disappointment of the damn dog. Along with the food shopping, even more plants and garden accessories came back with her. I’m now wondering if we’re (well Helen) setting up a side line industry and starting a nursery.

Helen spent the afternoon spray and brush painting various pots in bright colours so they were ready to put the newly acquired jungle in (and yes, it is massive). I tried to keep Charlie inside to prevent him becoming a multi coloured springer. But being the idiot he is, the first thing he did when he went out was to drink out of the bucket with the water in that was being used to clean the paint brushes. And so he ended up with a blue tongue and whiskers. And then later on he managed to get orange paint on his body and tail brushing past one of the painted pots because he was being a nosy sod.

I have previously mentioned how he’d literally knocked all the stuffing out of his bear companion. Well, a neighbour brought an intact bear around, one that one of her children no longer wanted. He ignored it and tried to get at the wrung out husk of the old one we’d put on the side. Helen tied the old one to the new one and he was on it like a car bonnet.

Even going out for a walk in the encroaching dusk didn’t stop him from woofing as soon as the lights went out. Every time I was just about to drop off he’d start with another woofing chorus. So annoying. It says that most people fall asleep within seven minutes of closing their eyes; I’m normally around the seventy minute mark, so I don’t need a woofy fool making it worse. Just after one I’d had enough, I went to let him out, and he went straight to the painted pots to see if he could get some more paint on him. One expletive filled rant at him later, he was inside and quiet for the rest of the night.

I was a bit sluggish Monday morning, and not looking forward to the fact that some sociopath had arranged a 9am meeting. I was happy to find that after logging on they had moved it to a much more manageable 11am. And so the tedium continued.

During the weekend I levelled up on Jigsaw World, I’m now at level 17 and officially classified as a jigsaw fiend. And after posting more collections of themed street signs into the Memories of Crawley Facebook group, someone suggested I might try train spotting. Little did they know I’d been through that phase as a kid, but I had a whole host of other geek activities on the go. I had completed three sets of street sign collections, Londoners, period design styles, and dales.

Opening a new packet of toilet rolls, I noticed they were recycled. From there my mind jumped to the old list of things you wouldn’t want to be buying from second hand shops (toilet paper, nappies, underwear, condoms etc.). And then I realised we don’t really have second hand shops anymore. They seem to have disappeared, forced out of the market by charity shops and car boot sales; which to me is a bit of a shame; I miss the un-sanitised haphazardness that old second hand shops used to have.

Not quite able to get her words out in the right order, Helen was off to the garden to plant some pot. Now I know that there has been some relaxing of drug laws around the world, but I’m not convinced growing pot is legal in this country. Yet. Give it a few more years and it will probably be fine.

I see the reopening of shops went well, social distancing was in full effect, and nice patient orderly queues formed everywhere. Or not, as the case maybe. Being a country full of pea-brained halfwits it was a free for all, not just at the expected Primark, but the scenes at Niketown on Oxford Street and at the luxury outlets at Bicester Village just goes to show that we, as a country weren’t ready to come out of lockdown, and that wave two is coming, and despite what the media will try to tell you about who to blame, it will be nobody’s fault but our own.

Tuesday is Sussex Day, which if I’m honest until this year I’d never heard of, but I have seen a lot of it over social media this week. I automatically thought that it was an age old event, dating back to when the old Kingdom of the South Saxons was first formed back at the tail end of the fifth century. But no, it is a fairly recent thing, having only come into effect from 2007 after the idea was raised to the then head of West Sussex County Council and now Crawley MP – Henry Smith. It is celebrated on the 16th June because that is the saint’s feast day for St Richard of Chichester, the county’s Patron Saint (something else I wasn’t aware of).

The Sussex Martlets flag is flown in the original six towns that were the centres of their rapes in the Middle Ages (Chichester, Bramber, Arundel, Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings), and in other towns and villages, whilst other towns and villages read out the Sussex Charter (again branching into areas I had no idea about – mainly because Leicestershire doesn’t do or have anything of this ilk, they will probably get around to this sometime in the 2040’s); and sing the unofficial county anthem of “Sussex By The Sea” (all five verses, choruses and refrains!)

Just so all those who live in Sussex know, the charter is as below.

For all the people of the ancient kingdom of Sussex!

Let it be known: the 16 June of each and every year shall be known as Sussex Day.

Sussex day shall be celebrated according to the rites and traditions of Sussex.

Let it be known all the people of Sussex shall be responsible for the maintenance of those boundaries that join to those of our neighbours.

Let it be known all the people of Sussex shall be responsible for all the environs within those boundaries.

Let it be known, the people of Sussex shall recognise the inshore waters that lie inside a line drawn from Beachy Head, and extending to Selsey Bill as being, the Bay of Sussex.

Let it be known, the people of Sussex will undertake responsibility for the general well-being of our neighbours.

Let it be known the people of Sussex shall be guardians of our wildlife.

Let it be known the people of Sussex will, through custom support all local business.

Finally, let it be known, as guardians of Sussex, we all know Sussex is Sussex … and Sussex won’t be druv!

In God we trust.

God Save the Queen!

Charlie wasn’t impressed there was a blue tarpaulin sheet down on the grass to the left of the garden next to the patio. Well, to be fair, when I say grass, most of it is dead as it is Charlie’s favourite pee spot. After two days of the tarpaulin being down so Helen could paint the plant pots and not the ground, Charlie had had enough of having to go further down the garden and he just peed all over the tarpaulin, which needed to be rinsed and hung up to dry. I’m never quite sure whether the dog is a complete imbecile, or he’s actually a genius in getting what he wants.

Someone mentioned that cleanliness is next to godliness, so I checked it out in my dictionary and it turns out they were a liar, there are 78 pages between the two words.

I let the cat in before going to bed; he ran straight to the kitchen for food, ate a couple of mouthfuls and went back to the front door to be let out. I opened the door and he backed away as if frightened of the dark (that he’d just come in from), and so he turned tail and headed to the back door. I opened that, and he backed off even quicker, it’s a lot darker out the back because there are no street lights. So he went back to the front door, I opened it and after a slight hesitation he finally went out for the night.

Wednesday was a momentous event for me, it was all ready, and I was able to go back in and work in the office. No pesky pets to deal with during the day, and a clear and obvious break between home and work. Before I left the house I had another “Important information about your ticket” e-mail, perhaps I wouldn’t need to go back at all. Oh well I would, it was only £2.10 this time.

So I get into the office, get to the allocated desk and start to set up. Only to find that the bank of desks I’ve been allocated to is the only one in the whole building that don’t have any power to them, and that the desk in question seems to be the only one around without a docking station. So until they can fix that I’m on a different bank of desks on a lower desk than ideal. I’m the only non-facilities person in the building. Someone comes around every hour or so, just checking to make sure I’m not dead at my desk or anything, which is new, as they hadn’t used to check for brain deaths when the office was full.

I have to say, it feels great to be back in the office, I’ve got that home / work split back, with the added bonus of there being no morons to come and interrupt me at my desk. And time isn’t racing, I didn’t blink and it was suddenly half past three and the flapping about getting things done before the end of the day started. There just felt like there was more time to get things done. We’ll see how it is when anyone else comes back in.

Another Week Bites the Dust

They say that times flies when you are enjoying yourself. (And not when you throw a clock out of the window.) Well, in which case, all the misery I’m feeling about being in lockdown and having to work from home must be false. I must really be enjoying it, as the last ten weeks have gone quicker than any other time I can remember. I do something that I think is a quick follow up to another activity only to see that I did the original activity four weeks ago, and not four days as I thought I was.

Two more e-mails from the National Lottery Thursday morning, I’ve won two lucky dips. Stop taunting me you MFs.

Sniffles it would appear, has turned into a food snob, he now refuses to eat any of the supermarket brands, and only touches the Whiskas (and any butter he can get his tongue on). Well, the jelly from the Whiskas, he’s not too keen on the actual meaty lumps. If we could get pouches of just jelly then it would be a lot easier. Or perhaps dog food as he now checks the dog’s bowl to see if there is anything in there he can snaffle. Well good luck with that with Charlie around.

Charlie however has a new trick. Once we’ve had dinner and go to have some dessert, he follows Helen to the living room, and once we’ve sat on the sofa, he climbs onto the far end, ignoring shouts to get off, wriggles into the corner and then keeps knocking Helen’s elbow with his head to get at the dessert. The only way to get him off the sofa is to take a sock off and throw it across the room. He gets off the sofa to retrieve the sock, and unrolls the end before lying on it on the rug. Three nights on the trot now. At least they aren’t clean socks.

I think the work technology has had enough of this lockdown cr@p and working from home nonsense as well. Skype voice has given up the ghost, making it appear as if everyone is a Norman Collier impersonator. And I see the mad rush to put all our applications in the cloud is paying off. Just not in the intended way, it’s giving all employees extra time, as they can’t actually do anything when the vpn internet pipe keeps falling over.

Saturday was a nice day, so we had thought about going out, only for it to be too damn hot to go anywhere during the day. We had had dinner before finally going out, another nice trip that was covered by a previous blog.

Sunday was similar; it was too bright and too hot to venture out of the house after eventually managing to get out of bed. It was a complete unwind day, which was good.

The heat was obviously affecting everyone and everything by the time it got to Monday. One of the work e-mail servers gave up the ghost and so half of our team don’t have any access to e-mails. I was one of the unfortunate ones who were still receiving them. I spent a twelve hour day dealing with setting up a new business unit after integrations had failed and needed manually dealing with, which is what happens when the data for a planned change that has been nine months in the making turns up at half three on the Friday afternoon before go live. I really hate this job at times.

In my zombiefied state Monday evening I saw the hashtag #BLM was trending. But being in a bit of a brain fog my initial reaction was they were changing the tomato in a BLT. Not a bad thing until I tried to think of foods beginning with M. Mango, marshmallows, maple syrup, melon, mint, mushrooms, and then I thought of one that I could go with – mozzarella. Only to start reading the posts and realising I should stop being flippant. BLM is serious and is something we should all support.

The most WTF news headline I saw this week was the one “Monkeys escape with Covid-19 samples after attacking lab assistant.” They talk about life imitating art, but no one expects to see headlines straight out of a Planet of the Apes film. I suppose all we need to wait for now is for the aliens to land. Turns out the story wasn’t as bad as the headline, they were samples to be tested for Covid-19 and not phials of the disease itself. Well, not this time anyway.

Tuesday wasn’t any better; I still had access to e-mail as they tried to fix it for those that didn’t. If they could fix the others and break mine it would be a much better state of affairs. And if they could break skype permanently as well that would make my week.

And this sun can do one; nobody needs to have their retinas burnt out just putting the washing out. It’s says it is creeping up towards the thirties on the thermometer. This is not acceptable; the only thirties allowed on the thermometer are those that show in Fahrenheit. It is the one good thing about the lockdown is there is no need to go out into the nasty harsh environment.

There has been talk about being able to go back to the office, and an application form went out as a link to a HR comms mail a couple of weeks ago. It was on a single word at the bottom of a long rambling e-mail, so of course no one had noticed it until Katya pointed it out. I typed quicker than usual to fill the form in and send it off. Hopefully I will get accepted and I can go back and work in the (deserted) office.

The pets have been especially vocal about going in and out and so it prompted me to rewriting more song lyrics, this time b@st@rdising Elton John’s Passengers into Pesky Pets.

Damn the pesky pets, who want to come in

Damn the pesky pets, who want to go out

Damn the pesky pets, who want to annoy

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

To be really annoying

You need a mismatched pair

One whining little cat

And a dog that doesn’t care

They are rarely silent

When you’re trying to rest

They know it’s the best time

To act as a pest

Damn the pesky pets, who want to come in

Damn the pesky pets, who want to go out

Damn the pesky pets, who want to annoy

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

One eats a bowl of food

In twenty seconds flat

Then licks his little lips

While eyeing up the cat

The fussy little mog

Only eats the jelly

Then licks the butter dish

To fill up his belly

Damn the pesky pets, who want to come in

Damn the pesky pets, who want to go out

Damn the pesky pets, who want to annoy

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Be careful where you stand every time

Pesky pets never stand in line

Under your feet or lying on the stairs

They’ll trip you up without a care

Damn the pesky pets, who want to come in

Damn the pesky pets, who want to go out

Damn the pesky pets, who want to annoy

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Damn the pesky pets, who want to come in

Damn the pesky pets, who want to go out

Damn the pesky pets, who want to annoy

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Want to come in

Want to go out

They want to come in

They want to go out

Whereas in reality they need to make their bleeding minds up.

I’m about to start washing up, and one of the items was the fruit bowl, which had, over the last few weeks managed to get a layer of dry green mould in it from a satsuma skin. I’m thinking, that’s fine it’ll come off easily, and I go to rinse it first only to send up a small cloud of green dust. I’m sure I breathed some in, and so now, instead of worrying about contracting Covid-19, I’m worried that the inhaled mould will now grow inside of me and burst out Alien style the moment I get back to the office (just putting that image out there to dissuade any potential rivals for desk space in Atlantic House). Now I know that some of you will be struggling with the imagery above, I mean who would have thought I would live in a house with a fruit bowl.

Wednesday felt even more sluggish than normal, probably due to the fact that Charlie spent most of the night barking or making strange squeaking noises, despite being let out numerous times. He only shut up at 4am, just in time for the birds to start their dawn chorus. The cat spent forty five minutes miaowing at me to be fed when I was on a conference call, only to run off out of the open back door and out over the back gate as I took my headphones off at the end of the call.

Later in the day the People Development team call was taking place. They were doing a cookie baking master class, which was being broadcast live in the kitchen. The plus side being there is going to be warm cookies in the very near future. Now that’s something that could make me enthusiastic about going to work every day.

Another Four Day Weekend

Yes, we had managed to tag a day’s holiday to the Bank Holiday weekend again and to avoid confusion at least they had left this one as a Monday. But before four days off, Thursday had to be survived.

I started on Squirrel watch, one of my favourite, first thing in the morning as I come around, activities. I could see the squirrel on the end fence half a dozen gardens away to my left. Happily racing along the similar fence panels all the gardens share, only to come to an abrupt halt as it reaches our garden. It was already a foot lower than anyone else’s before the storms came. Now there is a gap where the gate was, as it lies on its side, only there to prevent Charlie from escaping, and the rest of the fence leans precariously against the shed. As the squirrel stops it turns its head and looks at our house as if to say “for crying out loud mend your bloody fence”. The pause is only temporary and the squirrel easily jumps the gap and carries on upon its journey. I laugh to myself, just wait until the little sod gets to the house three doors down to the right, the one with plastic orange netting as its fence. Let’s see how you go with that you judgemental little rodent.

I’m not sure what I was doing to be away from my screen for more than ten minutes, but the screensaver came up. One of the messages on it was about practising social distancing, and do you? Well I can say that I see plenty of people practising this social distancing malarkey, and I can state without a shadow of a doubt, that they need to practice it a hell of a lot more as none of them are any bleeding good at it.

I did the shopping Thursday evening, Sainsbury’s had a long queue, but it is so much saner in there than as Asda, a nice calm shopping trip all told, and only took an hour. However, when you buy a loaf of wholemeal bread, this isn’t exactly the kind of hole you are expecting in the bread.

Someone asked about the garden and whether I was green fingered. After stopping laughing I pointed out that the only way I was going to get green fingers was if I picked my nose.

Every time someone mentions the word “furlough” I can’t help but think of the word furlong instead. And then I think that wouldn’t be a bad thing to relate to social distancing. If everyone stayed a furlong away from everyone else it would be great. It would be amusing to try and watch people trying to work out exactly how far two hundred and twenty yards was though.

The back fence had been doing fine for a couple of months since the February storms. However with it being quite windy on Friday, they went again. In doing so it broke the restraining plank at the bottom, and then took to falling over every time someone breathed on it too heavily. After four times of propping it back up on Friday and Saturday morning it got to the point of sod it, just send Charlie out into the back garden with an armed guard to prevent him from escaping into the park.

Friday saw us take a picnic and get out of the parish for an afternoon. Full details are on the previous blog post

Saturday was a little bit changeable weather wise. The wind blew the fence over again, bright sunshine, thunder and lightning, rivers running down the street and ponds in the back garden, and then marble sized hailstones setting off car alarms up and down the street. All that in an hour as I welded myself to the sofa. We had a second attempt at one of these online quizzes hosted on zoom. But, as with the first attempt, we weren’t really impressed, and not sure we’ll be doing another one.

A nice relaxing start to Sunday was shattered; first by the neighbours hammering and sawing away at something (not our fence unfortunately), and then by a phone call from my mum. Not for anything important, only to ask for help with half a dozen crossword clues. Seriously, who rings someone up to ask them for answers to crossword clues at ten in the morning on a Sunday?

With it being a Bank Holiday weekend, what else is there to do apart from going to a garden centre, now that they’re open again. And not just one, not two, but three of the bloody places. The first had quite a queue snaking around the car park, which I waited in only to get into the shop to find they only had 8ft long arm thick poles, which weren’t really what I needed to prop the fence up. I came out to find Helen waiting in the car for me, which was a nice surprise, seeing as it was now turning ridiculously hot. We went to garden centre two, who had no wooden poles at all. Which meant it was off to location three, where we should have gone in the first place; Dove’s Barn always has what is needed in stock, and lots of random plants for Helen to pick up as well.

Despite the previous day’s flash floods the ground is still bulletproof, but there are six stakes hammered into the ground to prop the fence up, and it is now safe to let the dog back out unsupervised. We’ll see how long this lasts for.

Meanwhile the cat is being a P.I.T.A. Every time there needs to be a new pack of butter, the butter dish is washed up, and the new pack is placed by the side of the toaster still covered so we can use it until the butter dish is clean and dry. This is on the next part of work surface to where the cat has his bowl. But, he’s not interested in his cat food, oh no, as soon as our backs are turned, he’s there trying to open the wrapping to the butter to lick the hell out of it. Every single time. It wouldn’t be so bad if he ate the cat food, but he just eats the jelly and leaves the meat bits. We probably end up having to throw away more meat than he eats. We could give it to the doggy dustbin Charlie, but it doesn’t necessarily agree with his stomach.

Speaking of the doggy dustbin, although he was done at an early age, Charlie still likes to have a good session. To prevent him ripping carpets up, and destroying pillows and cushions, we got him a massive teddy bear from one of the charity shops. It works a treat; he takes out all his urges on the teddy bear. He is on bear two, and to be fair, we’re not sure how he keeps getting the stuffing out of the bear, but all that is left is this. When the charity shops reopen, bear number three is the first thing on the shopping list.

On Monday I was only nipping out to take a few photos of some road signs. I thought I would go out whilst it was still in the morning, which would leave the rest of the day for relaxation. Of course, I got carried away. I ended up taking photos of forty-seven road signs across five different themes, three pubs and five churches over the course of three hours and eight miles of walking. Even my fat-bit got excited, damn near shaking my arm off to celebrate me walking ten thousand steps in a day for the first time since returning from the US. But, as I sorted the pictures out the following night I found I’d managed to miss some streets, despite ticking them off on the list I had, so I only had one complete set – artists.

And it was hot, which meant that three hours in the sun lead to a lobster faced Kev. We didn’t need to use the grill to do the halloumi; just put them on my forehead for twenty seconds and they were done. Then they were able to slide down my face and straight into my mouth. The after effects of the sun exposure meant that there was a role reversal in the house on Tuesday. Helen is in shorts and t-shirt, and I’m shivering despite being in jeans, t-shirt and hoodie, with the hood up.

Tuesday – eeurgh. It doesn’t matter how many days you have off, whether it is a standard two day weekend, a four day weekend, or three weeks, when you come back to work it feels like running into a brick wall as fast as you can. You bounce back, fall on the floor and feel broken. I logged on at 8:30 only to find I’d missed a meeting at 8:00 that was only requested on Friday. I refer back to previous blogs – sociopaths. Everywhere. By 11:14 I had officially lost the will to live and I’m sure I could hear my bed calling from five feet above where I sat looking distraught in front of my monitor. I’d love to be able to go a single work day without having to deal with some kind of annual leave scheme / time account / quota drama. Just one day. Not much to ask for surely.

I’m not saying the day got to me, but, when I went to go to nip up to the shop, I went into the cupboard to get myself a bag. We have a bag of bags hanging on the back of the cupboard door. I put my hand in the bag and pulled something out and went to leave the house. Only to realise I was holding a coat hanger. I’d gone into the wrong bag hanging on the back of the door. Attempt two was more successful.

Wednesday morning I was rudely awakened at Jumbo Jet time (7:47) by the sound of a chainsaw in the park at the back of the house. I calmed down once I realised it was the council trimming the hedges around the kids play area, and not some random lunatic wrecking what is left of the fence.