Ooh, twice in one day. That's got to be a bit of a record I'm sure. Anyway, until I can suss out something a bit more technological, here's the link to my new blog:

http://carol.flopsy.org

See, told you everything around me is called Flopsy didn't I?
 

posted by Car01 @ Tuesday, May 18, 2004  :: 

Well, I seem to be going down the route of rather depressing myself by blogging about work in recent days, so I'll attempt to steer myself away from all of that nonsense and think happy thoughts.

Umm, yes. OK, so maybe not happy thoughts, just different ones. The Consecutive Number Plate Spotting thing has finally started with the sighting of P1 ADW on the way home tonight. I now feel I have closure on one thing which has been on my mind for the past several days, so that's good. Well, at least until I start thinking about looking for a '2'. Do I go down the strict road - ie none of these newfangled numberplates allowed, or should I be slightly more relaxed about such things, and allow myself a couple of easy ones until I get to 5? It's a bit of a dilemma and no mistake.

Oh, I actually managed to have a pleasurable time in a Tesco cafe this evening. Not eating their food - that would be just weird on account of it having sat there under those strange warming lamp things since the start of time - they have no need to change their menu because nobody ever actually buys the stuff. No, I was meeting an old friend to catch up on all the gossip and intrigue from ex-work - not that there really was any, but we had a good old chat and giggled loads about not very much at all, which was very wonderful while it lasted.

Shiny New Blog is becoming more imminent by the day. Just need to persuade Himself that he really wants to do some magical jiggery-pokery to import all my old comments, and I think we'll be ready to rumble. Um, or blog really I suppose. If we're being pedantic. Which we are. 

posted by Car01 @ Tuesday, May 18, 2004  :: 

Gosh, I hope this all works. I've been buggering about a bit with me blog to try and export all my previous witterings to Shiny New Blog. I do apologise if anyone who is mad enough to subscribe to my blog via Maurice the Imp's service has been inundated with vast swathes of my inane drivel. Serves you right anyway; who in their right mind would want to be reading this?

Work was marginally entertaining, at least for the duration of a phone conversation from some old dear:

Her: You got any special offers on this week?
Me: No
Her: Oh. None at all?
Me: Not unless you count the remarkable cheapness of our assays for TSH receptor autoantibodies
Her: Say what?
Me: I think you've got the wrong number
Her: No, I rang Safeways
Me: We're not Safeway
Her: Yes you are - it says so in the phonebook. So, no special offers then? I think I'll go to Sainsbury's
Me: Yes, you do that. Goodbye.

That must've lasted, ooh, all of 30 seconds? The rest of the day passed rather slowly, and to be honest I wouldn't put it past my boss to have invented some kind of time-slowing-down-device just to get more work out of us.

What was particularly depressing about today was that I was preparing all the documentation for the upcoming annual staff appraisals. Whilst looking through my appraisal from last year, it saddened me to see that my boss didn't think I needed any specific training over the previous year - not that I did either, and I don't really think there's any likelihood of any being required again this year. Dead end doesn't even begin to describe the situation in which I find myself.

Thing is, I can think of loads of ways of improving the way things operate, but because of the paranoia about anything vaguely cutting edge (ie that which management don't understand - pretty much anything beyond the use of computers for typing letters), there's no way on this earth anything would ever happen if I suggested it. I know this because it's taken me 3 years for us to get broadband; other things I've mentioned - converting some of our documents to PDFs for easy distribution to customers is something fairly basic I'd've thought - have been met with much shaking of heads and muttering about the fax machine being just fine enough for all that sort of stuff. Still, pays well enough, so mustn't grumble*.

*Do you reckon if I keep saying it often enough, I'll begin to believe it one of these days? No, me neither 

posted by Car01 @ Monday, May 17, 2004  :: 

Oh joyous day! It's all been so perfect and lovely today that I think I'll have to attempt to package the memories up into small bundles for private release later in the week when things become dire again.

Because the weather was so perfect, we decided to go Geocaching. A suitably easy looking cache was located, mostly because we enjoy caching for the location rather than the adventure in getting there. Having said that, we're puffed out old flubba-wubbas at the best of times, and don't really do outdoor pursuits.

Because we live in Wales, most of the local caches are of the 'climb to the top of the highest hill you can see, then walk for 5 miles and scramble into a quarry to locate the cache' - these usually have terrain ratings of 2.5, so we tend to avoid caches placed by these kinds of freaky outdoorsy people, and go for ones which sound fairly easy.

Gower-wards we headed, stopping at Sainsbo's for a rubbish picnic (mostly on account of them not having any interesting (for me), or boring (for him) sandwiches). Our trusty friend Tom-Tom navigated us down some little twisty country roads, which it seems to delight in doing, even though there's a perfectly adequate A-road just over the fence and through the field. Himself wasn't best pleased; he's stoical about having to drive everywhere because I'm too scaredy, but draws the line at enjoying tracks which seem to lead nowhere. Anyway, we found somewhere suitable to park, and set off cache-wards. A local tried to send us off on a very nice walk (but in the wrong direction), because the footpath we were trying to find was 'impassable'. Whilst it wasn't quite impassable, a machete might have helped; and shorts definitely weren't appropriate attire as Himself soon found out when the nettles started biting.

Cache locations on the Gower have never fail to disappoint us, and this one lived up to our expectations beautifully. A deserted hilltop was ours for the afternoon with stunning views over the Bristol channel towards Devon, and a gorgeous sea breeze to cool us after our endeavours with the path through the jungle. Altogether a most superb day. Too bad it's back to school tomorrow, eh? 

posted by Car01 @ Sunday, May 16, 2004  :: 

Early bloggage today on account of what passes for excitement in this household at least: it's Eurovision Song Contest night tonight. Sad I know, but you have to find some sort of entertainment value out of such things - we are paying rather handsomely for it after all.

In other news, the launch of PuzzleDonkey 3 doesn't seem to have sparked the phenomenal interest that we might have hoped for. 1 post on the forum in the first 4 hours hardly taxed my moderating skills, so I just mooched about for a bit today and actually did a bit of gardening (chopping things down a bit), and managed to get my washing hung out to dry. Gosh, what a thrilling life I lead. 

posted by Car01 @ Saturday, May 15, 2004  :: 

Hurrah! The week is finally at an end, the weather is forecast to be moderately clement, and almost everything is joyous with the world. Well, perhaps not everything, but then we can't expect miracles I suppose.

Poor old postie-in-work seems to have been rather confused all week though. He normally cheerily steps onto the premises at about 8.40am, thrusting sacks of mail in my direction and commenting on the weather; the man has an absolute knack for talking the most complete load of tosh about how things might turn out later. Most amusing the first 10 times you see him - not so after 5 years.

Monday morning saw postie arrive at just after 9am; he said he was later than normal because he thought I wasn't in - no car. I explained that my lovely husband had the car, but here I was. On Tuesday morning I had to go somewhere before work, so I didn't see him. On Tuesday he arrived just after 9am, and looked rather surprised to see me. I explained that I had a new car, so that helped clear his confusion. I decided to play a little trick on him yesterday and parked my car somewhere that he can't see it from the road. He arrived at about 9am again, and looked awfully puzzled, but fortunately no mention of the weather. This morning, I reckoned I should probably just do the honourable thing and park my car in its usual spot, which meant postie called at 8.40am, and remarked on how he rather thought it might rain later. It didn't. 

posted by Car01 @ Friday, May 14, 2004  :: 

Today I:
-answered the phone 38 times - that's about average actually. Just thought I'd share.
-discovered that I really don't like tahini, even though domestic goddess Nigella Lawson swears by it.
-worked out that there are now 4 speed cameras on my way to work, and none on the way back home
-sussed out that whilst isopropanol may well be an ideal solvent for cleaning gack off your keyboard, it's not best suited for cleaning behind your ears. Ow!
-managed to make 6 phone calls to Dell* - 4 of which ended with me being plunged into a silent telephonic abyss
-realised that life isn't so bad after all - it's almost the weekend. I know I shouldn't wish my life away, but unfortunately, I always have done. I spent 7 years incarcerated in Scotland doing just that. Time seems to fly past ever so much faster now than it did then - maybe life is better now.
-received yet another missed call on my mobile. The number is 'witheld', which alarms me somewhat because I'm pretty sure I haven't given my number to anyone with whom I'm not intimate. That's 9 so far this week. One of yesterday's was an outer London number (020 8 something), but when I tried calling it back, I got a number unobtainable noise. Most odd.
-made the first step towards being sucked back into Scouting. Or at least that's what they think. Little do they know that I'm just going to eat their cheese and drink their wine.

*Which now I'm re-reading it looks rather like Delhi. Same difference anyway 

posted by Car01 @ Thursday, May 13, 2004  :: 

This week seems to be rather dragging on a bit, and to be honest I'm sick of it. Here I am with a good job, plenty of money, and not too many major health worries. I have a wonderful husband, lots of lovely friends, am part of a huge internet phenomenon, and yet I feel strangely dissatisfied with life.

Part of the problem, I think, is work. There was a time in my life when I used to live to work; almost everything I did revolved in some way around work, and although it was a bit of a shitty job which paid far less than is acceptable, I was doing what I'd trained to do. Sure, I complained about it, but then I suspect that's just the nature of being human.

Because I have a fairly severe allergy, my career changed radically about 5 years ago, and whilst I still use some of the knowledge and skills from my previous career, I'm really nothing more than a glorified typist. The work is pretty varied, but more often than not involves some fairly tedious task which allows my mind to wander. This is never a very good thing because my mind isn't quite ready to be let out on its own. Daydreaming in work is all very well and good, but it leaves me feeling unsatisfied with my lot, which is generally not so good. Life feels like a treadmill at the moment - get up, go to work, sit there all day doing things and daydreaming, come home, eat, sit here for ages, go to bed. Repeat for 5 days, escape for 2, restart.

Perhaps I'm just tired, but I don't think so. I went to bed especially early last night just to see if that would help. I managed to sleep alright, but I couldn't shake the feeling of dejection I've been suffering from more often than not. Reading other people's blogs makes me realise how very little I have to complain about. I guess I should count my blessings, get a grip and stop with the navel-gazing. 

posted by Car01 @ Wednesday, May 12, 2004  :: 

Ducks swimming on a pond present a serene and calm exterior view, but as everyone knows, they're paddling like crazy under the water. That's how it was for me today - but there was no water.

Because of my strange behaviour in the mornings, I usually have loads of time for just staring into space and generally awakening myself to such an extent that everyone believes me to be awake when I get to work. Part of the routine involves having a short rest back in bed after my shower - purely for medicinal reasons of course, and it rarely lasts longer than 15 minutes or so. Unfortunately, I rather seemed to forget to open my eyes this morning during my little sojourn back in bed, which meant that I was running behind schedule from the moment I reopened my eyes. Himself wasn't pleased that there was no cup of tea this morning.

The whole day seemed then to fall into such chaos. Today's rather exciting task in work was to entertain our guest. I didn't have to do any tricks or juggling, which was a bit of a relief because I can't do either. No, I was doing the Happy Hostess bit, which involves buying sandwiches and other exciting foodstuffs to arrange on a plate. Oh, and I get to make the tea and coffee as well as doing the washing up. Trouble is, I still have to answer the phone, the door and the pointless bleating. Hence the paddling furiously like a duck - nothing much seemed to get done. I was also rather caught out by my lack of having done any filing for the last 4 or so months when Big Boss asked me for some information about something. I knew exactly what he was after, just not exactly where it might be. These things happen to me so infrequently that it really disturbs me. I'm so disturbed in fact, that I've not eaten since then and I'm not even hungry. 

posted by Car01 @ Tuesday, May 11, 2004  :: 

Jolly good day today - at least as good as it gets when you've got to be in work for a full week for the first time in ages. I spent £14,000 today. Not, I hasten to add, that any of it was mine. I just love spending other people's money; it's all so frantically easy to do as well. I admit that a gamma-counter isn't exactly something you'd be wanting at home, but fortunately, I managed to spend some money on a PC and printer, admittedly a dot-matrix one, but you can't have everything I don't suppose. Later in the day, I managed to purchase another PC - this time for Polish boss, using her credit card! The chap in Bangalore who was taking the order seemed quite intent on persuading me that I needed to spend a bit more of her money, so I figured she probably wouldn't notice if I added a few extras. At least I hope not.

I'm beginning to think that Polish boss is a bit of a meanie though. Another of my (many) tasks in work is to do the annual fire safety training. I've done the 'talking for 30 minutes' malarkey, which quite frankly, I'm not too keen on repeating. Last year we had a quiz with teams and really exciting prizes. Unfortunately, my suggestion for this year's training that we set fire to some stuff and practice putting it out with old fire extinguishers, was met with a rather stern "No". Looks like I'll have to do the talky bit again after all. 

posted by Car01 @ Monday, May 10, 2004  ::