Strike

I had a lovely evening with Daniel last night.  He stayed at my place and we sat watching TV and drank a bit. nothing special, just company.

I went to bed sober (ish) because i was working in the morning.

At about midnight an ambulance pulled up outside next doors house. Two paramedics climbed out and were met at the door by one of my neighbours. The nosey side of me went out to see what was happening but they all went inside and shut the door behind them. How frustrating is that?.

It's like someone turning the telly over just when it gets to the best bit.

Real life is never like TV. You don't get to see the interesting stuff. God owns the remote and he's forever flicking channels.

I've still no idea what happened. There hasn't been a hearse parked up so i assume it was just an illness thing.

Today, half the country has been on strike as public sector workers shout about their pensions being raided. Even though all us private sector workers are in the same boat and our pensions are fucked up as well. But hey, as long as it doesn't effect them who cares about the rest of us. After all it's us that would be paying for it and i'm struggling to pay my own bills. I find it difficult to fell sympathy. Hang a banker if you have to but don't expect me to cough up extra for other people mistakes (a little bit of politics..goodnight).

Anyway there has been an upside to all this. The horrible woman i usually work with has been away for a few days to visit relatives in the US for thanksgiving.

And she's had to extend her stay by a day to avoid Heathrow.

So i'd like to take this opportunity to thanks all those people on the picket lines.

Well done. Can i suggest you extend it for a couple of weeks. Especially in the Heathrow area.

Busy

Daniel is coming over tonight.

He's got a day off work tomorrow and fancied doing something different. So tonight he's with me and then tomorrow he's seeing a mate in Leeds. It's ok for him but i have to be up for work in the morning. I just know that drink will be involved in tonight's meeting.

Anyway i don't have time to blog so here's a picture instead ;-)

Friends & Family

Had a bit of a different weekend.

I Traveled to Northampton to a surprise Birthday Party for a relative who is 65 today. He had no idea we were coming and it had all been arranged like some sort of military operation with precision choreography to boot.

It was at an Aunties home (rich side of the family, it was a bloody huge house)

We arrived at the right time to surprise him and what i thought was gonna be a laugh turned into everyone being in tears. He started it by blubbing with the shock of us coming so far to see him, which made my mother and Auntie joined in. Before long there was hardly a dry eye in the house.

It was actually a bit of a magic moment but i was glad when all of the hellos were over and done with, so we could crack open the booze and settle down to a good laugh. I then spent most of the night trying to avoid any conversation that referred to my dad. I couldn't do it. I don't want to wipe him from history but it's too soon for me. My way of dealing with it is to avoid it at any cost. A party didn't seem like the right place to be getting all droll. My Mum was talking about him constantly so i even avoided her most of the night as well.

Dad wouldn't have liked it either, it's what he would have done. I'm probably more like him that i like to think

I didn't really know most of the people that were there. They may have been family but they moved away years ago and i've never spoken to most of them since i was a kid.

One cousin who is now 15 or 16 was practically a baby when i saw him last. He's grown to be a really good looking lad, but was probably the shyest person i have ever met. He could hardly look at people in the face as they spoke to him and was nervous as hell. I chatted to him for a while but it was all very awkward and one sided.  He kept disappearing off to his bedroom to get away from the festivities. You could tell he was hating every minute of it and just wanted us all to fuck off home. LOL.

My auntie got absolutely smashed out of here head, which brings out the Lancashire in her. She starts losing her southern accent and acts as common as muck. Very funny to see.

By midnight we had all had enough . 5pm to midnight is enough for a party for oldies so we rang for a taxi. I wasn't drunk really, I knew i needed to be careful as i was driving us back home again the next morning. We stayed in a local Travelodge that my mum kept referring to as "the hotel". I slept in a big double bed....alone.

All in all i enjoyed it, but hated all the tears. It happened again when we were leaving to come home this morning.

We called for a coffee before leaving which gave us the opportunity to have a proper look around the garden now that it was light enough to see and we had another guided tour of the rest of the house that we hadn't seen the night before.

At one point we were all standing in the bathroom discussing her new toilet and how she had this one fitted because the one that was there before seemed to be a bit too low, which was bad for her back.

It was at this point i realised i should probably bring up the subject of going home 'before the traffic gets bad'.

Women can talk forever about any old bollocks. The colour of the wallpaper the view from the window, the shade of wood that the bathroom cabinet is made out of. Bloody hell i was getting bored.

We did all the hugging and kissing you do when leaving people you love and then just before we drove off we all agreed we should do this sort of thing more often.

As we drove away i knew that we probably wouldn't. You never do, do you ?.

Basic

Room for the night, cold and very basic, but it'll do for what I need it for ;-)))

Alarming times

Had a major panic on tonight.

The house that i live in has a burglar alarm fitted to it but has never worked. I don't even know the combination number to turn it on or off, the previous owner didn't leave it and in any case it looks like it was fitted in the 80s. I searched to find out who installed it but the company name on the front panel seems to belong to to someone who went to business heaven years ago.

So i ignored it.

Imagine my panic then when i returned home tonight to find it flashing and screaming like an air raid siren warning of a bombing raid to everyone down the street.

It hadn't been set off by burglars, there had been a power cut. But....How the fuck do i turn it off ???.

Whats the code ?. Where are the buttons ?. Who do i ring for help ?.

I tried every combination of numbers from 1234 to 09876. I didn't even know how many numbers i was supposed to press. Maybe there should have been three numbers not 4.

AAAAAAArRRRGGGh.

All the time this was happening i was getting a piercing screeching in my ears from the main control panel that was so loud and hurting so much  that i even tried sticking a dish cloth in one lughole and a teatowel in the other to dampen the sound down enough for me to get close to it.

I must have looked like Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, I was trying to rip the bloody box off the friggin wall to stop it ringing. I tried turning the electricity off at the mains, but they go to battery power don't they? and any way i can't sit in the dark until the battery runs out can i?.

Next solution, Unplug the battery. NO , it's still friggin wailing.

The whole bloody street must have been getting as pissed off as i was because there is nothing worse than an alarm constantly ringing for no reason.

In the end i found a little box at the side of the panel and pulled out a tiny 3amp fuse. Joy ! it's fallen silent.

I'd never make a very good burglar would it ? The whole of the kitchen now looks like a bomb has hit it. I've ripped half the wall away and the alarm box  looks like a 1980 Apple computer pre assembly. With wires, a scraggy box and a couple of broken elements dangling all over the place.

My ears are still ringing though and if i'm honest, they actually hurt.

God i need a drink. get me out of here.

Sausages Mmmmm

I've noticed that most of my twitter followings are of accounts with the name 'gay' in it. I've obviously just clicked and followed anything to do with gaydom, which in turn has got me followers who are gay and suggested other tweeters who are gay and so on.

My facebook account on the other hand is private and i reject and block anyone i don't know personally.

It's interesting how some people see tweeting as broadcasting and facebook as following friends and family.

On the other hand i know someone who has Asda amongst his many facebook friends and i've just seen an advert that says you can follow Jimmy Dean Sausages on facebook.

How sad would you have to be to have Jimmy Dean Sausages as a facebook friend?.

I've got one of those old apple I-Phones. You know the ones, they look nice and are great for the internet, email, games, music etc. But they seemed to have forgotten to add the Phone facility to this particular version of the  I-PHONE and it is forever cutting out.

I was talking to my mother today and as usual the bugger just cut off in the middle of our conversation.

Sadly my mother never noticed and apparently kept on chatting happily at the other end for ages. It just went silent to her and she had no idea i had gone.

Gym Tonight.....I think.....I don't know yet.

It's always a bad idea to come home first. Once i'm here i can't be arsed to go back out again. You should just go straight from work and get it over with. But that's what everyone else does and it's packed to the rafters with people fighting over machines.

By half 7 it's dying down and if i went at 9.30pm i could get on anything i liked.

Saying that, the changing rooms are much more interesting places when it's full than when they're empty.

I saw a guy in there with the hairiest back i have ever seen last week. You could have shaved it off and made a wig for a 80s rock star out of it.

How pissed off must he feel though that he can grow hair like that on his shoulders and back but the top of his head was like a bowling ball. God was definitely taking the piss on that day of creation.

How often do you see hairy bald men? All the bloody time. Taking the piss, definitely.

Hellllooooooooooooo

Shiver me timbers, I'm back blogging.

I almost deleted you, but thought better of it. Not that i have anything to say, but hey, it fills a few moments i have spare. 

So lets get back to talking bollocks shall we?. Diary or diarrhea ?

Things are settling down at work (touch wood). I neither hate it or love it. I'm treading water and i know it.

If you asked me how the business was doing a couple of months ago i would say it was struggling. We were holding cheques back and not paying our suppliers unless they rang and asked for it. I couldn't understand why because the bank account (that i have access to) showed at least £150,000 in credit.

But i have learned today that the boss is trying to dump his overdraft facility so that he can go tell his bank manager to fuck off. How satisfying would that be?. Apparently he's renegotiating terms and they want to charge us more as well as getting more collateral to cover.

It explains why this bank manager has been visiting so often recently. I met him a couple of times. He looked like a spiv. about 27, smart suite, shiny shoes and a gob that oozed double glazing salesman. Just as you imagine they all are.

Went for a walk with Daniel the other day. I know that may sound a shocking statement. And i'll be honest it's not something i do ofter with him. But it's the middle of November, the weather has been fairly nice, we both need to keep fit and someone told us that there is a cruising/dogging area not far away from where i live.LOL.

Not that we were going to do anything, but we thought we'd have a look for a laugh. 

It started raining and there was bugger all going on . But we passed a couple of hikers so pretended we were out for a nice healthy walk as well. I asked them how long it would take to walk round the lake and the fella said 'probably about an hour'.

Daniel (the nob) replied "we don't have that much time, we'll just walk half way and then come back"

This weekend i'm supposed to be driving the family to a surprise birthday party for a relative. He's 65 and lives in Northampton somewhere

How the hell did i get roped into that?