Roll on the weekend

I am so not in the mood for work today.

I think some alcohol will be consumed tonight.

Bunged

I don’t often get sick, but today I’m feeling a little sorry for myself.

I woke up feeling like I’d been run over, aching everywhere and with the sensation that someone had filled my head with sludge.

I would have taken the day off sick, but I have a meeting this afternoon about the propsed restructure, so I didn’t want to miss that.

I can’t be too bad in all honesty, as I managed to spot a major error this morning. Now I just need to track down the culprits and sort them out!

Desperate times

clearly call for desperate measures.

I was working at the football stadium again last night. It made it a very long day, as I didn’t get home until just before 10pm.

I noticed a trend in the betting last night, people were making bets based on the odds. I could hear them saying, I’ll get £250 back from that.

Hmmm, yes, you would, if that actually happens. The odds are 250/1 for a reason – because it’s not likely to happen!

I still haven’t paid much cash out on successful bets, although I’m sure the majority of winners don’t wait until the next match to get paid, and visit a local shop sooner.

Ring of steel

the Labour Party conference has been taking place in town for the last few days, so all the high ranking government officials have been around.

I was quite shocked by the level of security in place, even though I realise we live in a time of terrorists.

The conference has been held at the G-Mex centre, an old disused railway station. The party official must be staying at the Midland Hotel, just over the road from it. I say “must” because there is a literal ring of steel around teh buildings.

They are fenced off from the general public, with high fences, the roads around them are closed, with all junctions blocked off with huge steel barriers, presumably to stop any car bombs.

Ironically though, the trams I go to and from work on pass right by both buildings, and it has crossed my mind that if I was a terrorist I’d be palnting my bomb on one of them!

It’s been quite a good distraction on the way to work, looking at where they’ve placed police sentries, in every little nook and cranny. I saw one this morning with his own little sentry box to stand in. 

Some obviously got the short straws: stood by themselves, whilst others are in little laughing groups, manning the road blocks.

Another game I’ve come up with is “spot the secret service agent”. Although, to be fair, this is pretty easy: they’re the furtive looking men in dark suits and sunglasses! Not that secret after all!

I noticed something else this morning, after I got off the tram – all the manholes and drains in the area have little rubber seals over them, to enable a check that there’s not been any explosives secreted I guess, another little uncomfortable moment of realisation.

Simple pleasures

Saturday was our flying visit up to Grandma Zilla’s.

We set off around 8.30am, so it was going to be a long day.

The benefits are quiet roads, which coupled with a sunny day made for a pleasant trip, even if the air-con was required for one of the few days this year!

The youngest two Godzookies hadn’t seen their Grandma for a few months, and they soon displayed bucket loads of love and affection for her. I think it was a boost she needed.

The highlight for me was a trip along the coast road: a twisting road with high hills, giving fantastic views of the sea and the surrounding countryside.

A stop at the sea front was rewarded with shimmering views across the bay, watching hundreds of seagulls bobbing up and down on the tide, a taste of delicious ice cream, leaving mustaches on small faces underlined with beaming smiles.

The trip back was quieter with the day taking it’s toll and leaving small sleeping bodies to dream a while…

The weekend beckons

with a visit to Grandma Zilla’s. Just a day trip, as she still doesn’t feel up to a full weekend.

She’s got her dates for radiotherapy now, it starts on the 10 October, for three weeks, although she does get weekends off.

Worldwide meltdown

It appears that not only financial institutions are sliding into insanity, in a very real and public sense this happened on my way to work, this morning.

Not me, but someone who I must have seen each day for the last six or so weeks. It was someone who gets the tram in the opposite direction to me, so is stationed (no pun intended) on the opposite platform.

She, for it was a woman, looks to be in her late 20s or early 30s, quite attractive (which may be why I’ve noticed her!) and very smartly dressed.

Normally she’s sat on a bench waiting for her tram to arrive. This morning, something happened to her world which caused slightly disturbing behaviour.

A tram arrived, travelling in her direction, but as it pulled out of the station, an unwordly, disturbing, wailing sound began. It was loud enough for me to hear above my mp3 player.

Peopel around me began to look for the source of the noise, giving those half afraid stares, that people get when things aren’t normal, to their near neighbours on the platform.

As the tram cleared the station it became very clear that the sound was coming from the aforementioned young lady. It was like a banshee wail combined with a poor Pop Idol auditionee’s rendition of My Heart Will Go On.

My first thought was that something terrible must have happened to her. Then she began to march along the platform in the direction the tram had appeared from.

Slowly the sound changed from a wail into more of a recognisable note and she turned to face me and the other travellers on the opposite platform.

Then she began to, what I can only describe as, preach. She began by saying something about everyone needing to accept Jesus into their lives, and how he is our one true saviour.

The reaction on my side of the platform perhaps displays the current state of our society. Most people were studiously ignoring her, some had wry smiles as they shook their heads, one man gave a sarcastic round of applause, one guy was heckling her back.

I was just wondering what had happened to cause this sudden and dramatic shift in her behaviour. This sort of thing was clearly out of the norm, and from a character you wouldn’t have earmarked for such actions.

Now I may be making huge assumptions, based on my own reaction, but I think I felt the same wave of trepidation around me, as the next tram came into view.

My first thought was, Oh my god, I hope she isn’t going to do anything stupid. The wry smiles seemed to disappear around me, as if everyone was thinking exactly the same.

Thankfully nothing happened, and the tram pulled into and left the stop without incident, leaving her rambling on in the same vein.

My tram approached the station then, and as I boarded it I could see everyone craning for one last look at the woman.

I wonder if she’ll be there tomorrow morning….

Jigsaw Philosophy

Something struck me at the weekend, something other than the building block hurled by Godzooky 3.

I was doing a jigsaw with Godzooky 2, a big 1000 piece Doctor Who one. She was keen to start it, but clearly didn’t have the patience or concentration span to achieve much herself.

She wandered off to play dressing up, but I persevered and kept plugging away with the jigsaw. It was really intricate and quite tricky, matching small swirling patterns.

Godzoky 2 returned, attired as Cinderella (apparently) and after twirling around for a few minutes came back to look at the jigsaw. She said “haven’t you done really well daddy!?”

I then took a look thrugh “her eyes”, and it struck me that my focusing on the detail meant that I hadn’t seen the “bigger picture” of how much I was actually getting completed.

Perhaps I need to stop focusing on the details and appreciate the wider picture in all aspects of my life for a while? I may not be completing that much, but I’m not getting to enjoy the journey there either…

Venting time

Prepare for a moaning post!

How is it that people are incapable of doing their jobs properly and show no consideration for their impact on other people?

I’m fuming over a legal issue at work. One of the companies I am responsible for paying has asked for a contract to be reassigned to another company. Fair enough, it’s all been agreed between the two companies.

Except they’ve asked for this to be actioned retrospectively to the start of this month.

This was requested on the 3rd of the month, and our legal department reassigned it on the 8th. Why then wasn’t I informed of it until this morning, a couple of hours after I’d confirmed the payment run for Monday?

OK, I can reallocate the payment and ensure that the correct company gets the cash, but what about the cash the original company owes us?

If ANYONE had bothered to tell me that the companies were seeking a reassignment I could have prepared a financial statement BEFORE the legal letter reassigning the contract was sent out.

A little bit of communication and joined up thinking could have saved me a LOT of hassle.

Bah, roll on the weekend.

Farcical

is my only word for this latest restructure.

It would appear that certain managers have been selected for demotion and others have been selected for promotion. I fall somewhere inbetween, but I’m still not exactly sure where, as my role profile has not been updated, despite me having my “one to one” on the restructure an hour ago!

So I’m pretty much in limbo at the moment….

One thing to lighten the mood – although it does sort of involve swearing: Godzooky 3 has been obsessed with a remote control fork lift truck in a local shop. Every time we went in the shop he would dash straight over to it and try to play with it.

I cracked on Saturday and bought him one, and he is totally over the moon with it. Frankly I’m glad to get him away from his bloody toy hoover, although this makes just about as much noise!

The funny part relates to when we visited nana and grandad: he could wait to tell them about his new toy. However, he couldn’t quite pronounce fork lift truck, and it came out sounding like “fuck with suck”!!!

Their faces were a picture, and everyone fell about laughing, which only encouraged him to say it all the more. Eventually he got the word lift right, but the others are still a problem…