You're Having A Giraffe

Seaside was wonderful. Fab. Relaxing, and what we both needed. Pics will appear, when I get my rear in gear.

Work has completely taken over my life… I wake up and get to work around 7.30 in the morning, usually not leaving until 5pm. Lunch is but a distant memory. I am promised that the promotion to the grade that I’m working at may become a reality (“may”) in June when the job I’m doing can finally be advertised. We’ll see.

A Govt dept came sniffing last week to ask me if I would like to go and work for them. Given the option of the job that they gave me, the answer is ‘no’, but the current workplace do not need to know that yet.

For now, more work ensues (including an entire weekend’s worth, culminating in me not being at home tonight)…

Oh, and S is slowly improving. Another 3 weeks away from work and there are moments where the anxiety kicks back in, but on the whole huge improvements have been seen. I have every faith in her.

As the mist outside descends, it’s rather appropriate that life is one rather large misty ‘fug’ at the moment.

The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster to say the least.  I am emotionally and physically drained thanks to work and home, or home and work; I’m not sure.

I’m busy at work, and busy saying ‘no’ to people who won’t listen.  In July last year I started taking on duties at a higher grade than my current grade, given the chance by my boss to work alongside another staff member.  She then ditched her role, leaving me to take up the mantle.

I’ve not minded the additional work; it’s given me the chance to develop skills in a different area; moving away from IT, and moving away from pigeonholing myself into a role I wasn’t really enjoying.  However, when other staff start to relax and project their workload onto me, it becomes quite farcical.  Work is becoming a long, hard slog at the moment and ‘fug’ is the only word to describe my brain right now…

On the home side of things, S  has been signed off of work and is on fluoxetine.  She too has been in the same position as me, deputising for her manager who’s been signed off in a similar vein to how she is now.  The problem is that her manager – despite suffering – is not aware of how to manage others’ stress and anxiety levels and therefore projects work and her stress onto S (who is next-in-the-chain).  This would’ve been eased somewhat by the arrival of a new officer on the same grade as S, but the officer is 21, fresh-out-of-uni and has absolutely no idea what she’s doing.  S is spending her time cross training new girl and fending off management.

I must admit that I have mixed feelings about S being off; or rather, I did have.  To start with I was somewhat disappointed in the fact that things had got so far down the line that the medication was prescribed.  I don’t know if it’s the stigma attached to the medication that I was reticent about,  or the fact that I was angry at the doc for seeing her and immediately signing  the prescription (ie not considering any other options, nor offering them to S), but something really upset  me about it all.  Anyway, fears are waning somewhat due to the sheer determination that I’ve seen S putting in since last week; she doesn’t want the medication and is determined to do what she can to negate the need for them; including approaching work for a reference for further counselling and reading my offering, “CBT for Dummies” (don’t laugh!  It’s actually a really useful book…).

I’ve always said that I see things in black and white, and to a degree this is right; there are very few shades of grey with me.  Somewhat embarrassingly, I will admit that I do not have any real experience of coping with depression from a ‘third party’ point.  That sounds very cold, I must say, as I know that I’m not in this from a third party point of view: it very much affects me and how I’m feeling at the moment too.  However I haven’t, and don’t, suffer.. and never have – I cannot reconcile the feelings that S has with any I have ever experienced.  If anyone can recommend any reading materials to help me understand things (I know that reading won’t clarify things for me but it might be a starting point), I’d be grateful.

Onto other things, such as the Dubai killing that’s been in the news this week (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8520227.stm).  For a change, something news-y has caught my eye.  I’m not normally one to comment on news articles but I have a theory behind this one and how the passport details were obtained.  I do not believe that the UK system was compromised – it’s very dificult to see how these people would’ve obtained the details from a UK system.  The passports belonged to dual nationalities, and the detail of the dual nationals would not have been held on UK systems, but on the Israeli systems where details of the settlement Visas and subsequent dual nationality gained.  Therefore, I suspect that the people had somehow  managed to obtain data from the Israeli system, where copies of passports, etc would’ve been held and made up from there.  Just my twopenneth (any Govt official reading this should be aware that this is an opinion, not fact, and mere speculation.  Caveat over!).

Onwards now… for this weekend we are off to the seaside for some RnR, I have a rather nice looking contemporary B&B booked for a couple of nights, and a half day on Friday to drive to the coast.  The order of the weekend is to eat fish & chips on the seafront, wander in and out of amusement arcades, up and down the harbour and in the little quaint seasidey shops.  Pics to follow, possibly…

… just have very little to say.

(rather like us all at the moment, it seems).

Off to drink tea and other beverages.

Good grief, who’d have thunked it, here I am, blogging from my phone thanks to a nifty Android app.

It’s taken me a fair while to catch up, but thanks to S I now have one of those all-singing, all-dancing phones that allow me to do so much more than talk to someone. In fact, if you looked at my monthly O2 bill you’d realise that I actually don’t talk to anyone very often, it seems.

However, now I’ve been dragged into the 21st century with this technology lark, I might as well use it. Unlike some I could mention…

Fellow Facebookers will know of the random occurrence that happened this weekend. I opened my Gmail account to find an account open notification from Apple. Seeing as I have a hotmail account (same naming convention) which is used for all site registrations & purchases, etc (including my own Apple ID), it puzzled me somewhat.

Moreso, the email. addressed me as ‘dear Hannah’ and gave me the name of someone I have never heard of (Hannah Lopez), and an address in Belmont, MA, before confirming my account setup.

As I am wont to do, I decided to go to the itunes store and try logging in. I decided to have a bit of fun and used the reset password option (which sends the details to your registered account) and set my own up. I noticed that her ’security question’ was ‘which came first, weed or gin?’ (which in itself is odd and tickled me), so I reset that to something I know she won’t get.

Once logged in, I noted that there was no credit card on file which made me think she must be young. I did, however, have her telephone number, which upon Googling gave me a Diana Lopez but at a different street address, but still in Belmont.

Another testament to her stupidity/naiveity was that her road is called Fairview Avenue, but she’d typed it in as ‘farivew’. Weird…

The account has $29.30 in it and has been used to buy songs, but I’m just absolutely baffled as to why she’s used my email address. Even if she has a friend with the same name as me, why is she using that person’s email for her own itunes account? It doesn’t make sense.

I have done the honest thing and have emailed Apple, I’ve actually emailed their privacy department because I’m concerned that she was able to set up an account and give me access to her details without confirming the email address before setting up the account; I’ve suggested to Apple that they should implement an email address check. (If they do, you can blame me).

I can’t get over the randomness of it all. I’d quite like to meet my counterpart in Massachusetts & see if she knows her own email addresses. I suspect not .

S has my cold. I know this because I’ve finally got rid of the damn thing, but she’s home in bed this afternoon.

Not wanting to miss out on the chance to escape home early, I’ve exercised the hours of flexible working time I’ve built up and have taken the afternoon off.

I have two things to do today:
1. Migrate my parents’ broadband to O2 (joy)
2. Find a card and ’something’ for my uncle for his birthday.

My uncle is older than S’s grandfather. That in itself is really not something to boast about. I regularly forget my uncle’s birthday and yesterday was no exception.

It was his 80th. Eeek. What do you buy a reclusive old man for his 80th that’s also an apology for forgetting, yet again?

(and no, Mr Lobster, I’m not buying him treacle)

.. but I haven’t taken a photo and it’s (hopefully) being replaced tomorrow.

My windscreen (dear oh dear, what were you thinking?) was gifted a wonderful stone rock chip on the way to work in the dark last week.  Didn’t see the thing coming, heard it well enough.

When I looked, the laminate had been chipped and two small splits either side had formed.  I went to Autoglass, who checked it and said they’d probably be able to repair it.  We arranged for a resin glue thingy on Monday to happen.

Upon arrival, the girl said she’d had problems in extreme weather before and due to the style of the chip and the cold temperatures, it might split when the compressor was applied.  Split it did: from a chip to a 2ft split in less than 10seconds, and I’ve been driving around, watching it grow and move towards the edge of the windscreen since.

They were due to come out to work today and replace it, but called me this morning to check if it was under cover.  Given that it’s an icerink of a carpark, the obvious answer was ‘no’; and apparently that could stop the edges from bonding properly or something, so we’ve arranged for them to attend my home tomorrow and to try and fit it then.

If the forecast snow appears, and they do not, I’ll even take a picture for you, you lucky things.

__________

Snow is funny stuff.  What is it that rules the topic of conversation so?  Wednesday we made it into work (I’m not trying to sound martyr-ish here, but where we work is in the back of beyond and barely sees the appearance of a gritter at the best of times, let alone when it snows), and all I heard was people’s stories of their journey to work and the idiots on the road around them (funny how we’re never idiots, but everyone else is).   I encountered my own few; the ‘I want to drive at the fastest speed possible and I couldn’t care less if it’s 2cm from your bumper’, and the ‘I can’t be arsed to clear my car of snow, so I’ll drive along with a tiny space to peer out of whilst the rest of the snow covers my lights (front and rear) and then falls into your path just to annoy you’; amongst a few.  We were all sent home at 13.00, as the snow had been falling heavily for a few hours.  My usual 7-10mins journey to work took me 45 to get home.  25 of that was queuing to get out of the car park…

It does make me chuckle, in an insane-slightly-angry-way, watching people make unnecessary journeys.  Remote working is not strictly possible in our office, but on Thursday I didn’t want to risk the ice (had a conference call with my management at 8am and the only person in was one in a 4×4, who said they’d only managed 20mph all the way), so I stayed at home.  The first thing we did, given that we hadn’t actually been food shopping since Christmas, was to walk to our nearest Tesco (I hate Tesco, but as it’s the nearest it had to do).  My trusty rucksack came with me, and I lost count of how many single women in cars and old people there were risking it out on the roads: what is it about people that they suddenly fail to comprehend: “only make necessary journeys”??  One old boy in Tesco stopped me, thinking I worked there (I was wearing jeans, a GAP hoody and stood looking puzzled at the tinned tomatoes [as one does]) and asked me if I knew where the tins of treacle were.  Tins of sodding treacle?  Did he think the world was going to end if he didn’t have a tin of at least every substance possible?

I didn’t even think people bought tins of treacle any more.  What’s wrong with a bit of Golden Syrup for baking, I ask ye?

__________

I’m on a ramble tonight, but that’s because my sinuses are slowly closing in on themselves, and what is in them is being squeezed out through my left nostril.  I feel like popping a tampon up there to soak it all up.  I haven’t had a cold for, ooh – must be about 11 months at least, and I didn’t think I was going to get one any time soon.  Clearly, my body has had other ideas, and I’m laid up in bed having been here for a while.  I made the mistake earlier of thinking that I could get away with disguising echinacea in my tea; so having made a cuppa of my Tetley’s strong, I opened a couple of eccy capsules and tipped them in.  Vile does not do it justice, I tell you.  I didn’t like Tetleys very much before, but now I’m off of it for life…

Time for some cold capsules and sleep…

Whilst wandering past Jones the Bootmaker in the Centre:MK earlier today, I couldn’t resist wandering in.  Mum promised me some new boots for Christmas, and as I couldn’t find any (worrying mostly about my large calves: my sister and I blame dad’s side for those), we agreed that I’d look in the sales for a pair.

I’ve been searching for the past week; including on Duo Boots (going for an exact measurement for my calves), but couldn’t find anything within a reasonable price.

Jones didn’t appear too promising either, mind.  Lots and lots of pigmy foot sizes: tonnes of 3s and 4s (who has feet that size anyway?) and a few smatterings of 5s and 6s.  7s and 8s were, as usual, shoved in the corner and I trudged over there not expecting to find anything.

Suddenly, I spotted it.  Like a little shining beacon in the corner, it was calling to me.  I checked the size first, and nearly fell over.  If I had to be exact in my measurements, I think I’m a 7.5 to a 7.75, but usually wear 8s in trainers and most shoes.  Occasionally, a 7 and a half will fit.

This was a 7.5 – very rare these days in stores.  I grabbed the right boot and tried it on (ignoring my legs: why is it when I haven’t shaved my legs for a day or two I stumble across these things?); and zipped it up… expecting to get to the top and the zip not to budge.  Wrong; a little coaxing required, but up the zip went.  Blimey, my big calves in a normal pair of boots, who’d have thought it?

I got the second one and it too zipped up a treat; flouncing around the shop I decided that I’d have to have these, and when I checked the price tag it swung it for me – £62.50 (half price).  Super…

So they’re home, and I’m wearing them.  I need a pair of skinnier jeans to go into them (I’m wearing my Next boyfit scruffs today), but I present to you my first knee high pair of Gabor boots:

This could be the start of a love affair…

Or rather, you’d think so if you were in my house on Christmas day (along with the 9 other people who converged on us).

I have learned several things this christmas:

1. When you set a budget with your girlfriend for Christmas presents, expect her to stretch it beyond all reasonable realm.
2. Inviting 8 other people to dinner on Christmas day will mean that you will spend the day running around like a headless chicken, drink hardly anything, get very stressed when dishing up dinner and wish that people would help themselves.
3. No matter what I do to try and warm my cloakroom up in the outer porch part of our house, it would be warmer peeing outside in a bucket.
4. Alcohol and food and me does not mix.  Even food and I don’t mix very well after a few days of overindulgence.
5. Do not have tins of sweets in your house if you don’t want my sister’s boyfriend to eat 75% of them in one sitting.
6. Sister’s boyfriend’s rudeness towards my mother is more apparent to my outlaws than to my family.  Sadly, we appear to have absorbed his ways and now no longer recognise them.

However, my ‘I have been very good’ was demonstrated by the ridiculous haul of presents I appear to have at home now that all those who converged on us have left.  Highlights of said presents include:

An HTC Hero.  I got my LG Renoir in January and thought it would be the best phone ever.  I soon realised that I was grossly fooled.  It was terrible (froze frequently and would unlock itself with a gentle press on the screen.  I knew it had to go when it accidently rang my friend from a family party at 23.30 one evening whilst still in my bag).  S got me the HTC Hero and I can quite confidently say it kicks an iPhone’s arse all the way back to California, and it could possibly be the best phone I’ve ever used.

An Indian Cookery experience – from S’s mum and dad; we have a day in London to learn the techniques, and then get to eat the produce of our trials and tribulations later in the day.  That could be interesting…

Lots of socks.  Lots and lots of socks.

The Bumper Book of Marmite.  It’s the most random book I’ve ever read.  Tis fantastic.

A rather large S&Z wooden decoration from my sister from Bombay Duck.  I love that site, I do.

A slow cooker.  Sadly, I actually asked for this; as I quite fancy coming home to the warming aroma of lovely soups or casseroles.  In reality it’ll be in the cupboard by the end of January because I won’t be bothered to clean it.

The biggest tub of Pretzels you could ever see. (yes, all 1.5kg of them)

Lots of clothes (mostly for work, seeing as I am ambling around in items 1 or 2 sizes too big), some pyjamas.  Oh, and did I mention socks?

Mark Haddon books (Curious Incident… and Boom).  Apparently the woman  in the bookstore local to S’s parents’ looked aghast when S’s mum asked for it for a 29-and-a-bit year old.  “It is a children’s book you know” she said.  OK then, I’ll read Frankie Boyle instead.

… and, judging by the amount of time it took me to pack everything away, a lot more that I am unable to recollect right now.

I sent S on a treasure hunt around the house to find her present from me.  I don’t think I’ve seen her put it down yet, even though I was scolded for also stretching the budget somewhat.  However, in my defence, I did win the lottery bingo at work in November, which covered more than half of the cost…

I have work tomorrow (boo), which I’m not particularly looking forward to; mostly because I’m the only one there from the ‘management team’.  For my stress levels, I hope nothing goes wrong…

As is wont at this time of year, it’s rather typical to compile a review of the year. However, as most are doing so, I shall jump on the review-bandwagon and shall impart upon you all my own decadial (if that’s not a word it should be) review…

2000.
20 and naiive and taking an increasing dislike to my university course, my place of residence and my then relationship, I started the decade feeling rather trapped… something that I wasn’t going to change quickly.  I managed to somehow sweet talk my way into the bank for a graduate job.  I turned 21 and graduated in the space of 4 days, before moving into possibly the coldest house I’ve ever stepped foot in.  The boyf moved in too, and promptly took to spending the majority of my salary in the pub.  I was driving over 70 miles a day, taking an hour each way thanks to the M1, and put on weight like you couldn’t imagine.

2001.
The year I changed things.  I ditched the boyf a month before his finals (harsh, moi?) due to the fact that I had rekindled my friendship with an old friend who then later came out to me.  She make me re-question my thoughts and my whole shape in life; and from that I somehow took the strength to explore something I thought I never would: my sexuality.
I moved into my own place in Sheffield, nearer to work, and discovered the online world of Xanga.  Through Xanga I met M, and then M met K and we had a horrible triangular moment.  I discovered the likes of GaydarGirls and onlne chatrooms.  I then met V and had another horrible triangular moment (neither of these were my fault, I should add…), before finishing the year chatting online to random people located nearer me in Sheffield.

2002.
In the first month I met up with S.  We’d been chatting for months but finally braved the transition from scary internet-world to real life.  My first present to her was a bag of frozen peas (don’t ask).  One weekend in January she came to stay at my flat and didn’t leave for 2 days; her housemates ended up texting and ringing her, thinking I’d abducted her.  I should add that I spent the time in the spare room.

The rest of 2002 passed by in a blur, I remember lots of pub visits, lots of football, and lots of studying.  Oh, until Christmas when my mother outed me, to me, in the pub at Christmas.  Hmmm.

2003.
S graduated, and moved back to Bristol to start her first job.  Through madness or love (I like to think the former), I followed, and left the bank to start life anew in Bristol.  I switched from geeky UNIXy stuff to Windows and to working in a solicitors, which I fast learned was a rather ‘unique’ environment, shall we say.

S’s grandparents were killed by a drugged/drunken driver racing his friend on the A38 in Gloucestershire, on S’s dad’s birthday in November.  2003 had a bit of a shitty end to the year, all told.

2004.
I grew increasingly bored of my job at the solicitors, unbeknown to me that they too were also becoming bored of me.  By October I’d been walked into the office – with no prior warning – and marched offsite.  I shall never forget the humiliation.  Still, all’s well that ends well – by the end of the year we’d moved to MK and I had a job on more money less than 2 weeks after leaving Bristol.

2005.
I was headhunted by a friend in a local school and enticed over with the lure of more money.  I was settling down and into the working ways of schools, and I suited it, and more importantly, it suited me.  I’d gone from having my confidence shattered into a million pieces to slowly rebuilding it.

By the end of 2005, S and I agreed to buy our first home together.

2006.
We completed on our flat in early 2006, and experienced all the thrills of owning a brand new place – for the first few months it was blissfully quiet.  During these first few months, March, in fact; we both spotted a couple of newspaper adverts in the local press for the local govt offices nearby.  The salary alone was a lure – and both adverts had something that enticed us; so we gave it a punt.  One horrendous day of interviews, tests, and various other scenarios later; I had a migraine but within a week was offered a job.  It couldn’t have been more perfect, as 3 days later so was S.

By the middle of the year we had the chavs from hell move into the house behind our flat, and all hell broke loose.  We vowed that as soon as our first year’s ownership was up, we’d look at the possibility of moving home.

2007.
We both commenced our new jobs, and with our enhanced salaries took the opportunity to investigate houses and mortgages and all those horrible financial things… and managed to tart the flat up well enough for some poor soul to actually want to buy it.  We then found a house which fitted our wants, with a few compromises; and put in an offer (or rather, S did!) which was eventually accepted.  After the sale from hell (including incorrect deeds which were changed at the final hour), we completed on the 31st August and took residence in our own home (owning, or paying towards, all of it at least).  Things were shaping up.

Work sent me to India just before Christmas, which was amazing and awful all at once.  I got very, very ill and spent Christmas with an upset stomach, which would later turn into post-infective IBS and plagued me aplenty.

2008.
I remember nothing particularly interesting happening in 2008… until October when S proposed on a very wet and manky night in Sheffield, with me refusing until I counter-proposed.

2009.
I travelled to the US for the first time in my life, and then the second.   The biggest achievement of 2009 has been the astonishing amount of weightloss that S and I have shed between us; in February we decided that enough was enough and tipping the scales at over 30 stone between us, something had to give.  At the largest loss point, we had shed 6.5 stone together (me 3.5,  her 3), which has balanced itself out to 3 stone and a few lbs each (I don’t diet when there’s a D in the month).  We also put into place the plans for our Civil Partnership in 2010… the year I will be hitched.  Eeek.

2009 also saw me finally meet Meester Feesh and Max in Lahndahn town, which was long overdue.  There’s more meetups to come, I hope.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

So, what now for 2010 and the next decade?  Civil Partnering, another trip to Vegas, hopefully seeing the Arsenal win a trophy at long last, more meetups with internet pals, a new car, finish refurbishing the house, perhaps towards the middle of the decade a house sale and purchase… hopefully more (and maintained) weightloss and maybe a promotion.  (on the back of that, more money would be good but cannot be guaranteed).  The commencement of qualifications (and hopefully the completion), and to finally establish myself a career path.  It’ll have only taken 10 years, after all…