In case you were wondering...

Update:

1. Got lots of really fabulous Christmas and birthday presents.

2. Christmas day / lunch was lovely.

3. The meeting of the in-laws was a big success.

4. Everyone had fun and there was lots of laughing.

5. Been for lots of muddy walks with the missus and the dog.

6. Really enjoying my holiday!

Off to Brighton tomorrow to visit my partner's grandparents and then off to a very remote country cottage in Kent to spend NY in spledid isolation with champagne and the dog!

Happy New Year - hope it brings everything you want!

A Christmas wish

In case I don't blog for a couple of days, have a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic New Year... x

LAST DAY IN THE OFFICE!

Another reasonable journey into work… probably helped by the spring in the step because this is my last day in the office for 12 days!

I have supervision today, and I have to bring up about my colleague and the problems she is causing, not least by not being terribly good at her job. I need to find a balance between being honest and being constructive because at the end of the day – she is a colleague, she is in my team and I am the senior staff member and there are such things as loyalty and tolerance. So I have to swallow my anger and look at ways that I can compromise as well, which might help her. Although I’m not prepared to compromise to pig ignorance! And ignoring people is, I’m afraid, not acceptable in the work place, nor is sulking. So you can see my problem. It’s not just work issues that I need to bring up which I can do dispassionately and I hope, professionally, its personality issues and that's quite a different bag of pixies altogether. Anyway, the nice thing is I do have my blog to let off steam and believe it or not, it does help!

There are work drinks in the office this afternoon, I don’t want to stay long but a glass of cheer won’t do any harm!

We have a friend coming for dinner tonight, which we’re both looking forward to. She’s a Kiwi (who lives in NZ) so dinner opportunities are few and far between!

I phoned my mum last night. I think she is looking forward to staying for Christmas (not that she would ever say that of course…). We have to pick up the turkey on Christmas Eve from Spitalfields and she is coming with us to look round the market. My partner’s parents have paid for a massive organic turkey for us and some organic sausages and bacon – the whole lot was £75! We’re popping to Waitrose tomorrow for the last bits and after that, it’s all drinking and making merry as far as I’m concerned. You see, being organised has its rewards!

Sixth sense?

Why do we stereotype? I was sat in the train this morning (and mercifully my journey to work was very good today) and a man was sat across from me and without any provocation I decided he was really creepy. Human beings deal with categories and clearly labelled boxes much better than abstractions I know, but it seemed quite a strong feeling to have over a complete stranger. He was a fairly ordinary looking man, clean and relatively well dressed and yet I got the distinct sense he was someone I would not trust. So what did I base this on, is it intuition or sixth sense? Maybe. Or sadly it may just indicate I am mean spirited and judge people unfairly.
There is some argument that women (not all women) have a much more developed sense of intuition – something to do with motherhood or some such. Sadly I have a much more prosaic explanation; you only have to look at the figures for rape, assault and violence against women to know that developing intuition and instinct is a sensible survival technique for any woman.
Anyway, it made me very curious and I like to challenge myself as to why and how I think about things. Of course, I’ll never know if this man really was sinister and up to no good, or just another ordinary commuter – like myself – trying to stay awake and get to work on time…

An interesting start to my day.

The Tao of Allison

The difference between being young and old is Christmas. Not the cliché that Christmas is for kids but that when I was a kid, Christmas took FOREVER to arrive… sometimes, time would actually go backwards. Now at the fragrant age of 32 and four fifths, Christmas has arrived with a speed normally reserved for professional athletes. Literally it was the start of December and now it isn’t. It’s the 19th. The problem is I don’t know what happened to those 19 days because they went by so damn quick. I put up a tree and bought a few presents. It’s all rather mystifying. Not that I am complaining but a bit of foreplay would have been nice…

... very, very accurate (and yes, I really am this bored!)

Your Kissing Technique Is: Perfect

Your kissing technique is amazing - and you know it. You have the confidence to make the first move. And you always seem to know what kissing style is going to work best. Sometimes you're passionate, sometimes you're a tease. And you're always amazing!

Are You a Good Kisser?

Seems fairly accurate to me...

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Time Lightning Your Superpower is Kissing Your Weakness is Body odors Your Weapon is Your Prototype Blowgun Your Mode of Transportation is Sleigh

What's your Superhero Name?

Freudian? Nothing that complicated!

If you read the previous posting you'll note that instead of saying the tulips are looking gorgeous on our kitchen table, I've written Christmas table! You see, I really am that excited! (I was going to edit it, but what the hell, Christmas table it is!)

More cheese Pluto?

LAST WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS!! Sorry, just a bit excited about the whole thing really…

Friday the missus and I drove out to Downe again (where we bought our Christmas tree) and had some tasty pub grub in the local. Not drinking alcohol – I was driving and my partner decided not to drink either – meant our bill for two main courses and two desserts was ridiculously cheap. She also bought me some birthday tulips (we both love tulips and indeed, they were the first flowers I ever bought her), which are looking absolutely gorgeous on our Christmas table.

Saturday we spent too much at the supermarket, did the recycling and listened to my new CD’s (Whitney Houston, Snow Patrol and Capercaillie – all very different, all very brilliant) and in the evening we went to a friend’s party. It was fun; again I drove so I was on the coke and frankly after three cans of the stuff was sugared off my tits. We caught up with some old friends, chatted to a few new ones and nibbled at the General’s ham…

(Actually I was rather taken with his mini crème brule’s.)

Sunday we worked up a hell of sweat doing the house work. Not even Whitney singing ‘love is a contact sport’ made cleaning our bloody carpet any more fun. Anyway, we were having friends over in the evening and so we pulled out all the stops and the house looked / looks lovely. We met our friends in the park – with their dogs – and then headed back to ours where we ate cheese and biscuits and cake (including home made cupcakes!) and drank lots and lots of wine. The dogs were generally very well behaved (as were the owners) except shock, horror, Pluto let us down badly… he went in the kitchen and raided all the cheese that was left including an extremely hot and spicy one called Mexicana with jalapeño peppers and a rather smelly one called Roquefort (not sure that is the correct spelling). I was pretty annoyed it has to be said, he doesn’t do that sort of thing normally but obviously he was showing off in front of his mates Charlie, Murphy and Caffrey. Anyway, he had a bit of a sore tum this morning! And I’m sorry but it serves him right!

And now after all that, it’s Monday again and I’m back in the office. Misery STILL isn’t talking to me. Something of a blessing it has to be said although her face is curdling my Christmas cheer.

I should crack on really… I have a massage booked tonight and so am leaving early. Hurrah!

'Ave it

Have a supercalifragilistic weekend ;0)

(And I'll see some of you at the General's party!)

Christmas (lunch) is cancelled

Just realised you can see the dog at the bottom of the picture of our indoor tree, and some presents! All presents I’ve bought for other people… I’ve gone a bit mad this year but I love buying presents. I love getting them, don’t get me wrong, but I honestly do think I derive as much pleasure from buying and giving as well.
Anyway, my misery guts colleague is still not speaking. Bothered. But sad news, we were having our Christmas lunch today (misery already said she wasn’t coming) but I’m now having to cancel it. My boss is ill – to put that in context she hasn’t had a day off sick in about 5 years. And the head of HR tragically lost his father last night. Puts everything into perspective really. Anyway, I’ve just spoken to everyone who was going and it was agreed we need to cancel.

On a slightly lighter note, I’ve just had to do a presentation for the executive and it went very well. It’s at times like that when you get reminded that actually, you’re pretty good at your job!

Our indoor and outdoor Christmas trees!

Chesty... cough

I work with a very strange individual who is fiercely private. I mean she actually pauses and thinks about answering ‘fine’ if you ask her how she is, in case it gives too much away…
Anyway, she’s not great at her job, can’t multi task and seeing as it’s just her and I in our team now, things can get pretty miserable. Well, they can and they have got pretty miserable! I currently have a bad cough – a lot of people have – but apparently my coughing “bothers her”. I’m not even sure what that means? How can someone who coughs every now and again be that much of a bother? It’s not like I’m coughing over her. Anyhoo, she said that yesterday and I fired up and replied that what she had said was ridiculous and unnecessary - why would you want to make someone feel bad for not being well? So today we aren’t talking. How school playground is that! Actually, for me, the issue goes a lot deeper – it’s about her moods, her inability to do her job, her poor timekeeping… I asked her for a telephone number the other day. All the telephone numbers are on two sheets of paper. She looked at the paper and swore this number wasn’t on there.

It was on the other page.

It hadn’t even occurred to her to turn the page over.

People walk into the office and she glares at them like they shouldn’t be there. I mean, I can be grumpy, but I at least give people a smile…

So, there you have it, a classic example of just how petty people can be. I could end this now by cracking a joke (except she doesn’t like noise in the office) but I’m fed up with someone being that bad at their job and never being challenged… so you see gentlefolk, this has fuck all to do with coughing!

Forgot to take a photo of the tree yesterday. I got into my PJs and the last thing I wanted to do was stand in the rain just to give you something to look at on my blog… selfish I know :0)

Anyway, tincture of propolis is all I’m saying. It could be the wonder cure for my cough. Watch this space…

The 8.22 Shetland Pony express

Why do people prefer cycle / walk / ride on the back of Shetland ponies rather than have to take the underground… discuss…

My commute yesterday was ‘orrible. I got to Victoria bright and early but then the District and Circle lines were up the spout (people falling ill on trains or some such) and after enduring the crush of people for as long as I could – when a tube did eventually turn up almost twenty minutes later, it was rammed, as was the one that followed eight minutes after that – I left the station and got a bus. I thought to myself I must be worth more than this: to put myself through the crush and the stress of getting on to a dirty and unreliable tube with my head in someone’s armpit and my knees aching because I can't move just seemed really unfair. I was so claustrophobic I was climbing the walls at one point. Anyway I got the bus in the end. Very pleasant way to travel the bus, but unfortunately, subject to the vagaries and whims of London traffic. So I was at Victoria for 8am but didn’t get to work in Hammersmith until 10.10am.

My weekend was much more of a success. Went out for a drink with my college friends on Friday evening and my partner came to join us. We handed in all our work, including our portfolio! Our lecturer said we should hear our results before Christmas.

Saturday I went to the match and enjoyed being pitch side after quite a long absence. There are many good things about the Steelers but the quality of the supporters is superb and I really enjoyed catching up with people again. My partner went to a fair trade fair (think she bought me some Christmas presents because she was being very cagey!) and we met back at home later on that afternoon. Then we went to a friend’s for dinner and then the midnight showing of The Holiday. Yes, it was pure cheese, but it was romantic and fun and gentle and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love Jack Black and Cameron Diaz… although for very different reasons!

On Sunday, we took the dog for a very long walk to some local woods and got covered in mud. Great fun and much needed exercise. I took lots of photos and will be doing a range of Christmas cards next year to sell – original, handmade cards and I’m even going to choose a charity to give a percentage of the profits too. You see, I’ve got it all worked out...

And then to my ghastly Monday morning commute… getting home there were delays as well but when I did get home, my partner and I opened a bottle of wine and soon I forgot all the nasty London underground...

PS. I will be taking a photo of the outside Christmas tree tonight and posting it on my blog tomorrow!

Hello baby!

We had some fantastic news this morning. Our friends have just had a baby boy. So Felix, although being only a day old it’s unlikely you’ll be reading my blog: welcome to the world, I hope you like the rugby gear and we’ll see you soon... X

Hello sailor

The word lanyard, apparently, originated in the navy. I’m only telling you this because the most interesting thing happened yesterday. I ordered new lanyards with our company name on them and when they arrived I emailed all our staff (approx. 400) to tell them that these lanyards had arrived and that they could pick one up from my office. I can honestly say nothing I’ve ever sent out to staff has ever had such a response! The first response was what the hell is a lanyard? Before you think that everyone I work for is a bit dim, I should point out that quite the cleverest people were emailing me as well. So I sent out a further missive explaining what a lanyard was. In the meantime, people poured into my office to find out what this freebie was (some slightly disappointed that it was just a bit of material – albeit very smart material – to hang round your neck. And I’m still getting emails today, and that is how I know that the word lanyard is an old navy word! So there you go… entertainment and education all in one blog…

My new MP3 player which I was so excited about is crap – already it has malfunctioned and I will be sending it back tonight, if I could with a Potteresque howler ranting about how rubbish this particular piece of kit is.

We bathed the dog on the weekend. He’s still smelling sweet and looking adorably fluffy although he did manage to get a muddy belly yesterday. It’s not his fault though, he is rather low slung. Unfortunately he gets very frightened when you put him in the bath and buries his head in your armpit with his heart hammering out of his chest, but with patience and lots of love he relaxed enough to lie down in the bath and allow himself to be washed using my hideously expensive organic shampoo. Then he ran about the house shaking himself all over our cream walls. My partner (and for this, she doesn’t just get brownie points she gets a full brownie uniform if she wants… which I don’t think she does, but you get the point) cleaned the bathroom which was a swamp of water, dog hair and globs of hideously expensive shampoo (I’m sorry to go on but it costs £5.99 for a very small bottle…)

Anyway, I have a pear I need to eat and I’m sure there’s work that my boss would like me to do so until the next time I have nothing very interesting to say…

Santa's brothel and the queen's train

I had a massage yesterday and I’m suffering a little today. Ok, a lot. But it’s all worth it I hope. My partner told me to book a massage because I suffer from tension in my back and shoulders, and she would pay for it! I finally got round to it and went last night. He was really good. It was an hour long and at times uncomfortable and sore but then if your muscles have been knotted for a long time, it’s going to take some elbow grease to get them relaxed and flexible again. I felt very comfortable and generally enjoyed the experience very much. I’m going back in a couple of weeks and then will try and book one every six weeks. Ideally I should try and go every couple of weeks initially, but it’s quite pricey and I’m just not sure I have the time. Although my appointment was at 5.30, by the time I got home it was almost 9 and to be honest, after sleepily making my way through dinner, I was only fit for bed.
I still, however, needed to flush! Apparently when the body is massaged it releases toxins. You then need to drink a lot to flush those toxins out so they don’t settle back down in the body. So I was peeing a lot last night. I’m not sure you either needed or wanted to know that, but I like to give you the whole story.
In some ways the whole experience was fascinating, like getting to know yourself a bit better. He suspects there’s some calcification in my left shoulder and I actually noticed and felt the little knots of muscle as they popped and moved under my skin.
Now here’s the weird bit: I swear my eyesight was better last night and this morning after the massage! My vision still feels sharp and clear but it was especially noticeable yesterday. How did that happen? Are the two things related? I wear contacts but was wearing the same pair yesterday as I am today and only took them out before I went to bed. Muchos strange.


We have a (real) Christmas tree in the pot outside the front door and one of the boys decorated it yesterday (with lights and baubles). Now we thought they were doing it with white LED lights, but as I approached yesterday evening I saw a red glow emanating from behind the bush. Curious, thought I. But then as I turned into our front garden, all became clear. The tree was absolutely covered in tiny red lights – less Santa’s grotto, more Santa’s brothel! Actually, I’m just kidding, it looks fabulous and very festive and despite my teasing, surprisingly tasteful.

My new MP3 player arrived yesterday (as did my new luxury feather pillows but that’s not as interesting as my new MP3). I did want to set it all up yesterday, but frankly I struggled with my jacket potato, can you imagine trying to decipher software and load music half asleep? So that’s my job tonight and finally I can go back to listening to music on my commute, not the snuffles and sniffles of the buggers that insist on sharing the same train as I do in the morning. Queen Liz has the right idea, have your own train with waiters in white jackets serving you fresh coffee in bone china cups. Plush armchairs that don’t have anyone else’s muddy shoe prints and / or gum on them, whisking through stations stopping for nothing and no one (looking – with not much sympathy – at all the people getting wet on the platform because their train has to wait until we pass through). A train that can also travel by road and which deposits me at my office where one of the waiters hands me a packed lunch, bids me good day and assures me they will be there at 5pm to take me all the way home again and give me a foot massage during the journey…

*Sigh*

Getting Downe

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the bloomin’ way! Christmas is coming and I’m v. excited…
We went to a Christmas tree farm this weekend! It was in the Kent countryside, a little village called Downe. The scenery on the drive was spectacular and there were still some lovely autumn colours on show. The farm was pretty cool. It had chickens, ducks and rheas. That’s not polari for a wig by the way, it’s actually birds from the ostrich family that look like, well, small ostriches. The one we saw tried to steal my tea.
There were (perhaps not surprisingly for a tree farm) Christmas trees everywhere and we choose quite a tall one with a fat bottom! It was green and lush and smelt lovely. They cover it in netting to make it a little easier to transport but the thing still weighed a ton and we had to put the seats down. We had wanted a live one (with roots) so we could replant it in the garden but the tree farmer told us that we would need to buy one quite small and keep it in a pot; because once uprooted, they struggle to survive.
On the way back through the village replete with a splendid tree, we stopped at the village hall because they were having a Christmas bazaar. We bought a chocolate cake and a few bits and pieces that we didn’t really need before heading back to the open road.
Sunday we pottered around, took the dog to a new park and in the evening, drank champagne and decorated the tree. It was our anniversary weekend – hence the champagne :0)

PS. Where are all the black cabs? After my course on Friday I went to join friends in Soho for some drinks. After which I looked around for a cab. There were none around Soho so I decided to walk down to Charing Cross and get the final train – it was cancelled. Thus ensued perhaps one of the most miserable evenings (in terms of trying to get home) that I have ever endured. I waited over an hour at Charing Cross in the taxi queue. There were NO cabs on the rank however; there were cabs around – they were just all pre-booked. I tried to call and book a cab, everyone was too busy. I decided to walk over to Waterloo. When I got to the station with my knees really, really sore by now, station staff were telling the very long taxi queue that they should try somewhere else; a taxi hadn’t been seen in ages and was unlikely to turn up now that the station was closed. I then had to walk down to Morley college (I’d seen taxis there earlier in the evening and figured there would be less competition) and eventually managed to flag down a taxi who REFUSED to take me all the way home because apparently the journey was too long and he “wanted to go home”. Eventually almost two and a half hours later I managed to get a black cab home. Were I a little less discerning I would have got into one of the three unmarked cars that stopped and offered me a lift. But obviously not being completely stupid I ignored them totally and thought even if I have to wait all bloody night, I’m getting into a licensed black cab.

Absolutely shocking though, a major world city cannot apparently deal with people wanting to go out and get home again on a Friday night. I was – and still am actually – incredibly angry about the whole thing.