I have the distinct feeling I’m cracking up. I just saw the same old woman with purple hair twice. First time, walking same direction as me but behind me. Second time, walking towards me from the opposite direction. And there was no time/way for her to get past me… Ack! Glitch in the Matrix perhaps?

People have asked me if I had fun the other weekend, going to visit the Crazy Canalman. The short answer is “Yes, I had fun”.

Now for the long answer…

We’ve always done DIY in my family – you only call in the professionals as a last resort. Like the time Granddad put a drill through the cold water pipes one May Bank Holiday, and Farv had to frantically bribe the plumber to visit whilst Mum (pregnant with me) dealt with a screaming infant (my brother, a horrible child by all accounts), the cat having a heart attack downstairs, and my step-Gran being… my step-Gran. Granddad, so family legend goes, just sat there till the plumber came, with his finger in the hole like the little Dutch boy.

This love of DIY has stood the Crazy Canalman in good stead on the boat. As soon as one thing is mended, another three seem to break, but we’ve only had to call in the professionals for fitting of the boiler and actually installing the cooker, though admittedly my uncle (engineer-turned-brain surgeon/army medic. Truly.) has helped a fair bit.

One of the reasons I went up to the boat last weekend was to give a hand with some of the ongoing works – somewhere along the line tiling the bathroom morphed into putting up shelves, but hey, it’s all fun!

I would like you to ponder something for a moment: how do you put up shelves when there isn’t a straight line on the boat, and when the entire centre of gravity is constantly shifting due to movement on the water?

The answer is not easily. It can be done. We proved it, as evidenced by this picture, but the entire thing was judged by eye and bodged together out of some Ikea units that weren’t really designed to work together. I think it turned out pretty damn good.

Anyway, to make more room, Farv had to say goodbye to his “captain’s chair”, a wonderfully comfortable black leather swivel arm chair I’ve coveted since the moment he bought it four/five years ago. The first time I sat in the thing I had this mental image of the Bond villain, swivelling round, stroking that fluffy cat, and we needed another chair in the living room at Meadow Towers, so…

(And please note my shiny boots – the bargain boots).

I’ve lost my groove. All this week I have been an image cropping and data entry queen. Easily the fastest in the office (Occupational Health be damned – I’m good at this job!). But today I just can’t get into it. I think the fact that it took me three attempts to get a computer that works (bloody hot-desking) should have clued me in to the fact today might be troublesome. Definitely a “Friday” and all that entails.

Even Enrique isn’t helping!

I think part of the trouble might be that I gave blood last night, something which has been known to throw me for a loop. Normally I can give with no problems, but this time was a bit harder. I have deep veins – once you’ve found them, they gush like Old Faithful – but they are hard to find, and I had a nurse who wasn’t experienced at the trickier sticks. She did find it, but after a fair degree of poking around, and I’ve been left with a bruise for the first time ever. Then they tried to poison me with squash (I’m allergic) as they had failed to provide any glasses for water or cups of tea. Grump. Still, I’ve got to have racked up a fair amount of karma from the ordeal, so that’s good.

Despite being bone-tired though, I do still have this irrational desire to dance around the office. This might have something to do with listening to Enrique and drinking insane quantities of tea. Then again, it might just have something to do with the fact that I am, let’s face it, really rather odd.

In the spirit of rounding up the week, the following are some of the things I’ve learnt lately:

• Shift+tab moves to the previous field in a form. I was already aware that tab moved to the next field in a form, but I discovered shit+tab by accident this week. Very handy!
• An office of ten people gets through a surprising amount of milk in a day in umpteen cups of tea.
• A tray of ten mugs of tea weighs quite a lot.
• Some parents should have been locked up for the names they bestowed on their children.
• Never tell Occupational Health about:
  1. RSI (Repetitive Strain/Stress Injuries)
  2. CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)
  3. Lower back pain
• Get nine women together in one room and much hilarity will ensue.
• Add the token boy-temp (we have to have one, for diversities sake you understand) to the mix and you have a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen.
• Turns out I still have a thing for tall red-heads. For my sins, I have no idea why – my brain is clearly just kinked that way.
• Not having those last three days in February has really screwed up my mental calendar!
• I want to start playing the piano again. I had a chance to tinkle the old ivories at one of the Courts we went to this week, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed playing. I was had also forgotten the degree of strength you need in your fingers to play properly. I haven’t played much since I gave up lessons in protest at an evil teacher when I was 16. My fingers are still limber from all the typing I do, but the pressure they can exert is woefully inadequate. I’ve been able to do an octave-plus stretch since I was about five, but right now my ring and little fingers are pathetic. Time, I think, to find me a cheap (but good) teacher in Southampton.

Now if you will excuse me, it’s taken me longer than ten minutes to type this post, so I have to take a break for 50 minutes now.
(Yes, Occy-Health wanted to limit me to one hour’s computing a day, only typing for ten minutes at a time. How that is even possible in a modern office environment I have no idea. I told them to take a running jump).

I’ve got a mild problem with Askimet. Not a big one, but it bugs me. It doesn’t tell me which post has garnered the spam – not that I need this information, you understand, I’m just curious.

But it has collected me some gems in the time I’ve been away – some are remarkably zen-like and rather complimentary for something spawned by a spam-bot. Some of my favourites so far have to be:

• Collective Gnome is always Central Girl Give Mistery is very good Circle.
• I must say i got here by mistake, but now i know it’s destiny. Great site! Double Fetch Kill – … Red Soldier becomes Tremendous
• Cool site! I’ll be back. when Pair is Pair it will Expect Opponents: url – which when I read it just now without my
  glasses looked like ‘penis wire. com’ Um, no, I’m not obsessed , Give Chips is very good Girl Win Do Hope – that is all that Cosmos is capable of , Slot can Expect Soldier TV can Increase Opponents.
• A very friendly site. Have a nice day! to Expect Chair you should be very Greedy …

Aren’t spam bots getting all friendly now? Especially that last one. I almost didn’t want to delete it, it was so nice. I did delete it, but only after I had preserved it in this post.

Yes, I am sad. And yes, the observant among you will notice that this post isn’t exactly up to my usual standards, but -…. No, no excuses. Just tired and currently uninspired. Didn’t want to leave you with nothing to read. Aren’t I nice?

I’m going to be taking a short blog-break for the next few days – I’m going up to the boat to visit the Crazy Canalman. Don’t expect any posts till Sunday afternoon at the earliest 🙂

Talk amongst yourselves and no breaking the furniture whilst I’m gone!

Oh, and those of you that haven’t yet, my Johari Window could do with some cleaning.

I’m a bit frazzelled after drawing roadshow duty again today, so I am going to forgo a proper blog-post and leave you with the following little task –
Visit my Johari Window and mark which words you associate with me.

We can then all learn together about what sort of person I am/I think I am/you think I am.

A Johari window is a metaphorical tool intended to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. A bit more can be found in the Wikipedia entry.

Yes, silly, but did you honestly think I could manage serious all the time?

This year I am at a loss with what to do about Valentines day. Most every other year I can get together with my single mates and loudly denounce the event as the Hallmark-holiday that it is.

This time around, I find myself in somewhat of a quandary. I still feel that Valentines day has no real meaning, nor do I understand why we are only permitted to show our feelings for that significant person in our life on just one day of the year. Surely every day should be Valentines day? Or rather, surely you should never need an excuse to demonstrate your emotions.

At the same time, there’s this tiny traitorous girly part of me that will not die, no matter how much I hit her over the head with mallets and feminist literature. I, in my infinite wisdom, have decided that, seeing as how it’s the first time in a long time I’ve had the opportunity, I’m going to celebrate Valentines day. I am aware that this desire has lost me much credibility in the eyes of my friends and, much to his consternation, the CC was forced to do some quick re-evaluation. But, I am adamant that this year, and this year only, I will celebrate Valentines day.

(If only so I know what I am so loudly slagging off every other year).

So what if the SO is over 3000 miles away digging in the frozen wastes of Ontario. (He is so hot that just by standing there he melts away the tundra and the permafrost…)

You make the best of the situation you’ve been given, so that is what I am doing.

The problems started though, when I went looking for a card. Yes, I am female, and yes, I am looking for a Valentines day card, but no, this does not mean that I have had all taste and common sense surgically removed. If you are a man giving your girlfriend a card, you can (more or less) get away with the cute and fluffys. The deep and meaningfulls are also not bad. When you are a girl giving your chap a card, on the hand, you have the option of cards so saccharine sweet Tate & Lyle are calling because they want their stock back. That’s it. Nothing else.

NO female who has any self respect would ever give such a card to a man she didn’t want to scare away very, VERY quickly.

In some of the bigger card stores you are given an option of the crude and “funny”. I say funny in quotes because, really, when was the last time you laughed at a card you got given that was designed to be funny? Yes, you laugh AT such cards, but you don’t laugh with them.

I’m sorry, but there was just no way I could give any of the cards billed as “valentines cards” to the CC. I wouldn’t have been able to face myself in the mirror in the morning, let alone him.

No, I’m not going to tell you what I did get for Valentine’s day in the end. I messed up the posting dates (oops) so even the CC isn’t going to know for a few days. Figure he deserves to find out first 😉

Where do you lot all stand on the Valentines day issue? I know Moose is disappointed in me. Anyone got any big plans?

Oh, before I forget,
Happy Valentines Day all my lovely readers 🙂