Wednesday, 19 September 2007

Long Time No Blog

I rarely write in here these days, usually preferring to keep things to myself and deal with them in my own way, but perhaps that’s the wrong way to go about it.

It’s no secret to people I know that I’m not in the best of health but I thought, perhaps wrongly, that I dealt with it ok. The days where I am in total despair I prefer to sit in my corner, get my head down and not bring any attention to myself. I work in a big open plan office where privacy can only be gained through sitting in a toilet cubicle; but there you’re limited to eight minutes as the motion activated lights switch off after this time. The sensors only react to movement from the main entrance to the cubicle area so you have to use your time wisely.

Maybe I just need to vent in a massive way. Hold on to your seats.

The 3rd of August was my last proper meal, so that makes seven weeks living on yoghurt, rice, cous cous, chicken soup and tuna. I’ve lost over 2 stone in weight and, perhaps, my sanity. I haven’t been able to even think about eating most days as I feel constantly sick and every time I do try to eat something I’m overcome with horrendous pain. Not a drop of food, liquid or otherwise, was consumed in the first 2 weeks.

I don’t know what to put it down to. I’m taking some medication which was prescribed for my arthritis but also is used in my particular type of bowel disease; although it’s only used to maintain remission. If you haven’t reached remission it’s not going to be of much help. It has, however, been good for my arthritis. I’m less stiff and have less pain in my hip than before I started on these tablets so that has to be a plus. I’m still in constant pain with my back and have developed a couple of lumps in my side.

I have regular blood tests run as these tablets can have a negative effect on the liver but, surprisingly, the results for the set that I had done a couple of weeks after this all kicked off where fine. My inflammation levels were still up but were a lot lower than they have been in the last 3 years. An achievement in itself.

I really don’t know where this is going to bear with me.

I think the biggest problem I have at the moment is with work. My boss has taken it upon himself in the last month or so to be the biggest arse on the planet. Last week he sent me an email that basically blamed ME for someone else’s sheer incompetence. I won’t go into it now because I’ll just end up even more wound up, but today he actually said to me that I wallow in self pity.

Should I be feeling that I have to apologise for being ill? I hadn’t even said anything to him that was in any way shape or form health related.

I give up. I can’t keep having this battle on a daily basis as I have enough to put up with.

Thursday, 5 July 2007

Thank Goodness It’s Finished

Yesterday was a bit of a disastrous day. I was due to re-take my CSCS exam in the afternoon, so all day I had been getting myself mentally prepared for it. That didn’t include revision I hasten to add! I left work at 2.30 so I’d make it back into town in plenty of time. Giving that I’d read about how an earlier power cut was still causing grief around the surrounding roads and car parks I needed to give myself plenty of time.

I needn’t have worried. The roads were relatively clear, normality had been restored in the town centre and the car parks were fully functioning. So I found myself with half an hour to spare. I headed into Superdrug to get some water so I could top up on the painkillers before I went it. After a wander round I decided I’d head down to the test centre. I half expected to wait till my allotted time as I was still 15 minutes early, but they had enough space to let me sit the exam there and then.

The questions started off reasonably easy; they were mostly common sense situations about preventing accidents happening and wearing the right protective clothing. Forty multiple choice questions later I emerged from the room very numb of brain and had totally lost the will to live. The woman responsible for handing out the results pulled mine off the printer and handed it to me with a curt “here are your results”.

Ahhhhh, failure again!

Honestly though, I’m a Document Controller, why the heck should I care about which wire is which in a plug! And I wasn’t particularly bothered about which fire extinguisher puts out an oil fire either.

So I left the test centre and rang my friend who I was meeting up with. She was still at home so I drove over to pick her up and we headed to the cinema.

We went to see Shrek the Third. I thought I’d treat myself to some ice cream; possibly the worst thing I could have eaten really. I think I’m developing a dairy intolerance as I sat through the first half of the film in complete agony with my guts. I was lucky nothing else happened. When the adverts were still rolling some little sh!t a few rows back decided it would be hilarious to throw chocolate at me. It always seems to be me that gets picked on. I’m 26 years old and yet I’m still getting bullied by kids. What the heck is that all about please?

Anyway, after the film ended I cleaned the chocolate out of my hair as best I could before we headed to get something to eat. Another mistake.

We ended up in TGI Fridays, which leads me to explain the title of this rambling. If you take all the initial letters you end up with Thank Goodness It's Finished. I rest my case.

The starter was overly spicy and covered in a disgusting thick sickly sauce. It was so bad I had to leave the vast majority of it. Now, if you know me you’ll know I love my food, so it must have been bad for me not to have finished it. All the edges of the plate were dotted with bits of sauce, so zero points are awarded for presentation.

We both ordered a burger for the main course. You can’t usually go far wrong with one. Ahhh, so very wrong! The bun was burnt to a cinder underneath where they’d tried to toast it. Perhaps they should look up the meaning of “toast”. It’s far from “cremate”.

Perhaps they should give this site a try.

Whinge not over!

The chips were dry, tasteless and cold.

Don’t even get me started on the level of “service”. I use the term loosely because perhaps it should be “disservice”. Rude, unhelpful and awfully presented.

I wasn’t holding out much hope as we sat at the bar after eating what we could salvage. I was pleasantly surprised. The bartender obviously loved his job as he was lively, polite and very well presented. It was a massive contrast to what we’d just come from. He invented a new cocktail for my friend; it had a lot of strawberry vodka and rum in it as well as fresh strawberries and a load of mint. Probably sounds disgusting but it tasted lovely!

So there ends my whinge……for now! Not that anyone’s going to read it, but it was something to do whilst at work!!!

Friday, 15 June 2007

Karma, and one too many kormas

I’ve always been a light believer in karma; until this morning.

After spending the best part of 3 months being sexually harassed by a contract worker in this office (they don’t call them contract scum for nothing!) I believed he’d never get any punishment for it. I had deleted all the emails and the IT systems are a bit pants in here so nothing was saved, so ultimately there was no evidence. But today proved me wrong! Bear in mind that he’s not the slimmest of people; think dawn French on steroids after eating the Super-Size me diet for a year.

I’m not one for listening to the conversations in here as they mostly revolve around scantily clad women, motorbikes, food, beer and “oh man, I was so hammered last night.” *** I tend to spend the days with both earphones plugged firmly in and the volume at an indecent level. Although that’s often not enough to drown out a certain persons singing and humming, not to mention the whistling. Anyway, I was just sitting back down from having a bit of a stretch (a procedure which requires the removal of all plugs) and I happened to hear the end of the harasser’s conversation on the phone. It went along the lines of “I was in there for 10 minutes and the communication systems didn’t work. I didn’t know what to do, then the lift dropped and I just panicked.”

I honestly did try to not wet myself laughing; obviously I didn’t try hard enough because it escaped in a very loud snort! To quote a colleague “Yes it is amusing. He walked to his desk first thing like he'd had a stroke, high knee action, limp foot stylee.”

Ahhhh, laughter truly is the best medicine!

*** There’s always a downside for working in a male dominated environment

Tuesday, 12 June 2007

A Rush of E Numbers to the Head




That would have made a better album title I think!

Sunday saw me reach the grand old age of 26 and after a pretty much disastrous Saturday I was welcoming a rest. Well, it could have been worse I spose; worse than a lunch where someone ended up paying 3 times more than they should have, then an evening spent having the house vandalised by some ignoramus and finally a bit of a health scare. Well, I say a bit; a heart rate of 160, breathlessness and chest pains isn’t just a bit. But in all fairness I’ve had it before so I just lay flat and think of England……..so to speak! Get your mind out of the gutter young man!

So to commiserate I brought in cakes today. Least I brought in a selection of chocolate rolls, doughnuts, apple pies and Heros. Fifteen minutes after sending round the obligatory email I’m not the proud owner of one pat on the head, one attempted birthday kiss and numerous emails from people pretending they cared it was my birthday. Ahhh office politics, don’t you just love them!

That brings me to my trip to Tesco this morning. I can never stomach the main superstore first thing in the morning so I head to the smaller Tesco which is just round the corner from work. The staff are much more pleasant and cheery and this morning was no different. I had already decided that with some of my birthday money I was going to treat myself to the DVD of Hot Fuzz. Heading over to the stand I was pleased to see that they had a few copies left. I noticed some mammoth Yorkie bars next to them, so thinking they probably cost a couple of quid and it was just a promotional thing I ignored the yearning I was experiencing, picked up my DVD, dumped it in the basket and headed to the till. Turns out that the mammoth Yorkie bars were free with the DVD I was purchasing so the check out assistant scuttled off to get me one. Feeling quite pleased I headed out to the car with my shopping and took a closer look at the Yorkie bar. This thing is seriously huge. I would estimate about 12 inches and each piece felt about the size of a small lama. Ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but it has to be seen to be believed! As much as I feel sick at the thought, I can well imagine that the whole bar will disappear during the course of the film…….purely because of the gremlins that’ll come and steal it you understand!


Thursday, 7 June 2007

Oh Crumbs!

9am; my regular time for heading down to the canteen to make breakfast. If anyone tries to beat me to the toaster they’re toast themselves, so imagine my total displeasure this morning when I arrive at the canteen to find the toaster and the counter it sits on occupied by not one, but TWO invaders! Eventually one vacated a space so I used the opportunity to jump right in and claim my stake in the toaster.

I think I probably scared the bloke who was still standing there buttering his toast as he started to move his plate closer to the end of the counter. I felt I should say something to assure him I wasn’t about to karate chop him with my crutch* so I came out with “sorry, I’m not trying to push you out of the way, I’m just hungry.” I was trying to push him out of the way but that’s beside the point! He then commented on how impressed he was as I cleaned the bread board down and the surrounding area. I had to correct him, “I’m not domesticated, I’m just anal.” If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s other peoples crumbs on my toast. I have no idea why……oh wait…..yes I do……I’m anal!

Thankfully I don’t come across this man often, but at least now he’ll know to steer clear when I’m hungry!!



*not an eastern pornographic move

Wednesday, 30 May 2007

What next?

I’ve trawled through the G4 forum, the Michael BublĂ© forum, all the job websites I know of, harassed all harrassable people on msn and email, so what do I do now?! I blog…..that’s what I do!

Not that I have anything to say mind you. I guess I could tell you about my weekend seeing as I haven’t done that already.

Friday night was its usual wildness of Eastenders, My Family, Have I Got News for You and Ugly Betty, followed by a timely sleep. Not sure I can take this pace much longer ;-) But at least I was half refreshed for Saturday. I had plans to meet up with a friend who currently lives in Leicester due to being at university up there. She was home for the long weekend so we used the opportunity to catch up and seeing as I’d been desperate to see Spiderman 3 for a while it was lucky for me that my friend also wanted to see it. Somehow though, we always manage to get some freak or other near us. Last time we went out it was “Little-Mr-Not-Enough-Seats”, but this time is was the damn kid who kept saying to it’s father “I don’t get that”, to the point where you wanted to ram your empty ice cream container sideways into his mouth to shut him up. The father did have some decency though and kept shushing the kid. Oh and I called the kid “it” because at first I just couldn’t tell if the voice was male or female. Half way through the film the kid finally graced us with some peace and went to pee, and on its return I discovered it was male, only really evident from the choice of clothing he was wearing as the haircut did nothing for his gender confirmation. Hmmm, maybe I’m just not “down with the times”.

Despite the above I did enjoy the film, although I know others who didn’t. Afterwards we decided that we needed something else to do. My plan was to head down to Whippendell Woods for a short walk, but from not paying attention I missed my turning and ended up near our local park. Luckily for us we spotted that there was a fun fair on over the bank holiday so we parked up, walked up to the stalls…….and the heavens opened! I think they call that Sod’s Law. After ducking from stall to stall in a poor attempt to stay half dry we ended up in the casino bit, which was a waste of 10ps, but we spotted those machines which have the claw inside and you move the claw to grab a cuddly toy. Well I’m thinking I should have complained, because quite frankly the claw was duff! Be fair here, Barney has a reasonable sized head, which should make it easier for the claw to grasp right?! Wrong! It grasped over his body and just slid over his head! I was outraged!!! Barney should be mine!

So after that debacle we headed home, in time to catch the bulk of Dr Who and Any Dream Will Do. My parents had gone to visit my granddad in hospital so it was nice and quiet at home.

Talking of my granddad, he’s still in hospital after two weeks; he’s having a pacemaker fitted today so we’re all hoping that’ll help him. He’s been collapsing too many times and since he’s been in hospital he’s not feeling them come on anymore, resulting in him bruising himself quite badly. Luckily he’s not managed to break anything when he’s fallen.

Back to the weekend…….

Not much else to add really. The rest was all spent relaxing at home watching films and playing computer games. I managed to watch a film I’ve had for a few months called The Lake House, with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in. It’s a very touching film if you ever get the chance to watch it.

Tuesday, 22 May 2007

Friends? Think again!

This morning saw me wake up in yet another bad mood; despite my excitement at potentially attending the opening night of Joseph at the Adelphi Theatre in July (which reminds me to book the tickets!). I scowled my way into work whilst hurling expletives at anyone who dared to try and cut me up. Don’t try and blame it on tiredness either! I had a wonderful eleven hours of sleep last night. Bliss.

So I’m sat at my desk, pretending to work, and Fatty* came over to talk to the bloke that sits in front of me. Now, I thought I got on ok with the bloke opposite but I was to be proved oh so wrong. Yesterday he pretty much had the last straw with me by calling me “Sticky” for the umpteenth time. I don’t particularly like people drawing attention to my obvious disability let alone then calling me names relating to it. Once or twice maybe it’s remotely amusing, but when it gets to the stage where he doesn’t use my name at all anymore I start to get piddled. If you know me then you’ll know I’m not one for confrontation. I’d rather just not say anything and walk away from a situation and fester than actually say anything. So this week I can’t really be bothered to say anything at all to the bloke. This morning when Fatty came over to talk to him they embarked on a bitch fest. And I thought women were bad. I was sat quietly with both earphones in, Michael BublĂ© crooning in my ears, minding my own business, when they started whispering. So I decided I was going to listen. Discreetly I hit the pause button and Michael obediently stopped serenading me. Even though at the time he was singing that he was my man I had to stop him briefly!

So I’m listening, and I see a nod out of the corner of my eye aimed in my direction and I hear “she does my head in”. Hmmm, charmed. Intrigued, I was determined to hear some more. The tirade of abuse had only just started. After branding one of the guys in the team “useless” they then moved onto the engineers. He was targeted as a “useless c**t with an over inflated opinion of himself.” Well, it’s always good to know where you stand with people. Not altogether sure what to do with any of the above information.

Here’s a sobering thought though that puts everything into perspective. A friend of mine witnessed a friend die this week. My friend was in her car with her boyfriend, and her friend was travelling with her boyfriend in his car when they decided to overtake my friend’s car. For some reason he thought it was a good idea to overtake near a bend and ended up smashing into a Galaxy. The boyfriend of the girl who died escaped with broken ribs, wrist, arm and bruising in every conceivable place. "Luckily" for him he also doesn’t remember a thing about what happened. But sadly, it took a trip to the morgue for him to believe that he’d killed his girlfriend of four years. He’s now sedated in hospital and keeps checking his phone for messages from him girlfriend. She was only 16.

All in the blink of an eye.

*unfortunately not his real name. I just cannot stand this excuse for a human being, for reasons I cannot post on here.