staring-out-to-sea-from-a-bus-shelter

Oh yeah, hey! All that hard work and hot tempers working on that projects paid up trumps. The other day, in my one-to-one with the boss she told me I was to get an honourarium or something like that, wuss that I asked, well, it’s thank-you from the council for service above and beyond the call, and it’s basically what we used to call a bonus in the private sector, people probably still do call it that, dunno, but I was happy enough with the extra dosh that’ll go into my empty account next month.
I got to move into my very own office too the other day, not such a lovely view across Peckham road, but it’ all mine.
Defo getting old; today I was burning with a desire for a pacamac of all things, so I sent the missus out to Matalan for an XL brown affaire, should keep the rain off next week and for the cold, I’ll be mostly wearing a nice cardie underneath. Sigh….looking forward to the staring-out-to-sea-from-a-bus-shelter moments.

It's all in the wrist

Now, I won’t begrudge a man flirting with my missus, anyone brave enough to have a go is welcome in my book, but all’s I ask is that it isn’t done right under my nose, makes me a little uncomfortable, y'know?
The other night for example, we found ourselves at a curious 40th birthday party, that seemed to be 90% for the kids, 10% for the adults. It started at 5pm and finished at 8pm, so there you go, proof if proof were needed (not my idea of how to celebrate hitting 40, but, horses for courses in my book. At this party was a kiddie magician to keep the smashers entertained while the feckless parents got smashed and yes, flirted with one another. This guy, watching the missus join in with some wind-the-bobbin-up game said to her afterwards,

“that’s some wrist action you got there!”

and probably winked at her for good measure, but I can’t be sure…Now, the missus, well, what she should have done was either slapped the cunt in the chops and walked away in a marked manner, or ignored him altogether and asked for more wine or something, but no, she said (while probably winking back at him)

“thanks, yes, well, I get a lot of practice!”

Great! Now it looks as if my wife spends all her spare time working me over because I’m a lazy/crap lover and all she gets out of it is a beefed up wrist, which is very close to the truth as it happens, but HE doesn’t need to know that, jesus!
And then, guess what, half an hour later, he’s working on me:
Him:

“Oh, your wife and my wife are such good friends”

Me: Uh-huh
Him:

Your kids and our kids love playing with each other…

Me: Yes..
Him:

I hear you and yir missus like camping…we love camping too…

Me: Hmmm, well, I wouldn’t say tha…
Him:

“Hey! Great idea, why don’t we like, go camping together one long weekend!”

Me: (cough)..well…
But, you know, I’m all the while looking at his missus and thinking…her wrists look pretty sinewy as it goes, think I might be able to help her out in that department…
Me: Great idea, let’s let the wives sort something out..

I tell ya, small two life, cracks even best of us in the end, it’s the boredom I think, the endless treadmill of toddler groups, tupperware parties and 40th birthday parties, something’s gotta give in the end and it usually snaps under canvas.

Speaking of which, off to Isle of Wight this weekend, camping and looking at the long range weather forecast, I predict spending a lot of time in the resort bar, playing bingo and eyeing up the other mums and dads…right sis?!

Make it so

Not a great deal to add really but I’ll go through the motions because, one day, in the future I’ll be like, whoa! What happened in May?
Lemme see…so, yeah well, anyway, the nasty project I’ve been buried under finally ended and some of it can be seen at www.thecounciliworkfor/members - that’s just the tip like, but it’s over and for the rest of the week I’ve been writing a lessons learnt report and doing some tidying up stuff. On the Monday, we had the induction day, 9am-8pm! And by the end I was shagged and felt weak with an oncoming cold…Sure enough, that terrible night, I tossed and turned - horrible, gooey liquid leaked out from me nose and I woke the wife to show her what I’d done and she recommended I have the following day off, she wasnae best pleased I can tell ya, Which I did. I only just got rid of the last bloody cold n’all. Went in Wednesday though like the trooper I am, but wished I’d stayed off another day. The rest of the week went by quick enough, even managed 2 pints Friday lunchtime, but couldnae taste my mini pizza or stella mind...
Signed up for the entire back catalogue of Star Trek – generations, thought, I missed Voyager so much, I know it’s not the same like, it’ll never be the same, but it’ll do me, it’ll get me through the evenings and at the weekend, great! 2 discs arrived or 8 eposodes from series one..missus not best pleased...

Weekend just gone, still on save money for holiday mode, so on Saturday we went to Hertford park, then into town to look at designer wallpaper in a design shop. Fuck me, £60 a roll they wanted! Fuck that, made our excuses and left, went to homebase instead…ahaha…nooo…we can get the same designer shit for half the price on the internet, so when I get paid, we’ll splash out and buy a roll and paper one wall in the bedroom and possibly buy another, different roll, and create a framed wallpaper hanging for the living room…I know, but trust me, it’ll look fine.
Sunday, walk in local woods, painting the bedroom, taking out one wall that’s been purple for the last 4 years or so, always hated it, making it ready for a nice cream colour for laters.
This week, more agro at work, and I blew me top a little, but something had to be said…5 mintues later I get an email asking me to attend an anger management…no…asking me to attend a one to one with the boss later this week..
Make it so number one!

Here's the fellah close up 

Amazing day, went to see the Sultans Elephant in London with the smashers; this thing was incredible, huge!  

Being boiled

Hottest day of the year yesterday, I sweating myself untucked so that by the time I met up with my so-called mate at Holborn I was a fat sweaty dishevelled mess of blubber just crying out to be laid into and teased all night by me mates and I have to say, my so-called northern mate didn’t disappoint. I think it’s because he cares so much about me that he feels he needs to pull me up about my weight…my hair…the way I look now without my specs…oh, all sorts of things that get up his nose and I have to say I’m incredibly grateful to him for taking the time to take the piss the cunt. That said, we enjoyed a wonderful evening, standing outside a boozah, listening to my other so-called mate slurring all his words all night, until, he literally fell down drunk. I got home about 11pm, had some toast, a shower, which looked a bit suspect I have to admit but the missus didn’t bat an eye, not because she trusts me necessarily but because she thinks I could never pull a sort at my age and weight…and she’d be quite right…
I bet she and me northern mate could spend a very nice evening discussing all my failings and short comings, maybe I’ll set that up, let them get it all off their chests eh?

Wizz, Bang...fizzle...pop

Spent the day at a taxonomy event today, which was fine, except that it must be the hottest day so far this year, so I was very warm in my wooly suit. Scived off early and was home by 4pm to enjoy the last of the rays. I even avoided the boozah on the way home, No, I thought, why undo all that good work over the weekend, spending only a tennah, by blowing £6 now on a coupla pints…Oh, the mundane, routine and downright depressing things that go through my mind....
Actually, I’m a little bothered by what I learnt today from a software supplier who’s been courting me over the phone for the last couple of months. So, I say to him today at the vendor exhibit section, show me your software then, inside and out, I wanna see it’s guts, I wanna see the workings, I wanna get my hands dirty! I can take it, I’m no fool, I know the score and he said, OK then, and two minutes later said…and that concludes the tour of our software….fuck me I thought, that it? I thought they’d be more to it, more functionality, more wiz, damnit, more for me to do to justify my position and salary at the council…Oh no, he said, it sort of does it all in the background, nothing for you or anyone else to do….to it….ever….

Plan B then, go buy more expensive software that, at least to a layman, looks like it’s the flight control deck of an airplane and I is the only bloody pilot in the council.

My day out

I had a glimpse into the future this weekend, one where I’m old and poor and have nothing to do and nothing to think about either.
It all started brightly enough on Saturday morning, when quite by chance I logged into the joint bank account to check our balance, confident in the discovery that there was plenty in there to pay for a nice lunch out somewhere…Imagine the missus’ horror then when I told her that we only had £200 left for the rest of the month and that we had over £300 going out in direct debits to come!…We worked out that, if we were really really bloody careful, with her money going in mid-month we might, just might, break even IF we stopped spending money NOW!.
Ever made a tenna last an entire weekend, a long weekend at that?…No, neither had we until this one, I tell ya, it ain’t easy.

So, Saturday morning, instead of a nice lunch somewhere, we take the smashers to Hertford park for a kick-a-bout, a bike ride and play in the sandpit. After I had taught the elder smasher everything I knew about football, i.e. goal hanging, giggling with yir mates, feigning injuring and hoofing the ball from one end of the pitch to another, he was bored and went back to the sandpit, leaving me alone, on a park bench, minding the bikes and the ball while the missus took over inside the “safe” kiddie play area.
So, I’m sitting there, thinking this is a nice park as it goes, quite big really, lots of people seem to be here…and I began counting the ones I could see, must be easy two hundred people here…but then I thought of the missus crazy uncle who counts everything, when he enters my house, he stands there, in silence for a while, letting the talk drift around him before, 10 minutes in he’ll say Steve! 244!! And I’d be like, eh? Wossat?..244 books Steve, on your bookshelf, I’ve just counted them!…Oh, er, yeah right..244 you say, hmm…So, I stopped counting people and became fascinated by the colours of the leaves on the trees in the distance, so many different shades of green at this time of the year, late this year because of the cold spring and the sounds around me, kids shrieking, balls being kicked, planes flying into Stanstead overhead and I’m now looking at the birds in the park, swooping about and hovering in the breeze and thinking of bird flu and how safe are the kids? And then the missus came and took my hand and led me back to the car and drove me home and gave me my chicken soup lunch.