Things that have made me ponder this week….

1 - I watched a mother and daughter (both able bodied and aged around 30 and 14) wait 10 mins for a bus to complete a journey of 2 stops (less than 2 minutes journey) and less than an 8 minute walk) and then proceed to walk back towards the first bus stop meaning that the 1/3 of a mile bus journey would have been even shorter if it had been walked! I had felt lazy taking the bus for the 4 stop journey (12 minute walk) but qualified it as it was 10.30 at night and it would have meant walking alone in heels down some quiet roads. If I had been with a friend, the question of getting a bus would be laughable.

2 – my quite sensible and proper (but quietly outrageous) mother has decided at the age of almost 60, that she would quite like a tattoo. I don’t even know what I should think about that but am quite amused at how much it would irritate my father.

3 – Whilst I have no time for racists and bigots, I do think the British public need to grow a new sense of humour and perspective. Also they should acquire some new ears in order to listen to the context of every comment rather than jump on the Daily Mail ‘Shock Horror’ bandwagon. Please note that if we are to adhere to this ridiculous state of Political Correctness, I no longer wish to hear the words ‘Yank’, ‘Pom’, ‘Aussie’ or ‘Kiwi’ on the BBC.

4 – I think I have an inappropriate crush on David Cameron. . So long as he doesn’t speak, I definitely would. Oh dear Lord, what have I said.

5 – My crush, however, is nowhere near as big as the one I have on Daniel Craig after catching the final hour of ‘Layer Cake’ on TV last night. Maybe that’s why I woke up in such a good mood this morning.

Cleaning out my closet

Boyf and I are having a clear-out...of everything. We need to get fitter and clean up our act health wise plus we have to stop being such chronic hoarders.

I started it a couple of weeks ago by emptying out the wardrobe whilst he was away for the weekend. 2 huge bags of rubbish went along with another bag for the charity shop. If that's what I can find in one wardrobe I dread to think what we can do with the rest of the flat!

After almost a year, we finally got round to putting up some new pictures this weekend. Last year we lovingly framed some prints and pictures and decided where they should go... and then left them propped against the spare room wall until this Sunday. Since then, I've added about a dozen items to ebay and have a pile of even more to go to the charity shop.

But the major cleaning up of our acts has to come in the smoking department. Yes, Boyf and I are part of that socially revolting group of smokers. Shock horror!! Ridiculous really. I like to think we're reasonably intelligent folk, we watch what we eat (to an extent but dear god I love food), we try to keep fit (albeit begrudgingly) and we don't drink to excess so why do we persist in shovelling this poison into our systems?!

I should have no problem giving up - I smoke less than 5 a day, often go two days without a cigarette but can happily polish off 20 a day if I'm in a social situation. Boyf, however, is a teensy bit more difficult. Since his 20's he has reduced his intake from 30 to 20 a day. Still not great. Every stop-gap he encounters requires a fag. Drive to work - fag, get to work - fag, morning coffee break - fag (maybe 2) and so this continues throughout the day. I must be honest, even as a smoker it drives me insane. I have no problem going 12hours without one but I know that most smokers cannot - particularly Boyf. Whenever we've travelled by plane the preparation of timing has been ridiculous - checking-in but not going airside until the last minute so a final ciggie can be smoked and then once we touch down the lighter is out of the pocket in readiness for the moment we walk outside of those airport doors. Grrrrrrr!

So, I must give the Boyf a huge round of applause. He's now been cigarette-free for 84 hours, that's 3 and half days to you and me. He's insistent that I don't have to give up - this is something he has to do for himself, particularly since he had notification of getting a place in the 2010 London Marathon. Something tells me that managing that with a 20 a day habit could be quite difficult... He may not 'need' me to give up too but I think I should. I have had 3 cigarettes in those 3 and a half days but I have none left and need not buy any more. If he can do it, so can I. My problem is now CHOCOLATE! His view is that if he can lose the cancer-sticks then I can cut down on the chocolate. Bugger. I wish I'd said I'll give up breathing. It would be easier....

Mental or just a bit 'creative'?

At first I smiled in amusement at the teenager on the station platform this morning on her way to work. Plugged into her ipod, and oblivious to the other commuters, she wailed away along to the music.

She was pretty bad too. I was being kind when I called it wailing. So I plugged myself in and drowned her out. It did me a favour really as 'my' part of the platform remained people-free so it meant less people could get on at 'my door' when the train arrived. My amusement turned to slight annoyance when The Wailer continued her vocal workout on a fairly busy train whilst standing about 4 inches from me. Turning up the volume and pushing the headphones further into my ears I tried to block her out whilst watching the bemused faces of the my fellow passengers.

I tried to work out her motivation for this. We've all heard of people being 'discovered' busking or singing to themselves but please believe me when i say that this girl had no hope of being signed by Simon Cowell (and he liked Susan Boyle and Paul Potts...) It took all the self-control I could muster to stop myself enquiring if she was in pain and required medical attention.

So, did she think she was fantastic and a little bit of an exhibitionist? Is she a teensy bit mental? Or is she simply the sort of person who (deep down) we'd all quite like to be: the person who just doesn't care what anyone else thinks and is happy in her own skin. It made me feel a little bit bad at judging her as a loon. Looking at her again, she actually looked no different to most of the people I knew at youth orchestra - not conventionally trendy, almost a tiny bit geeky and somewhat 'creative' . You know what I mean - back in the 80's it involved DMs, neck scarves, long skirts and huge jumpers - this girl was just the 'noughties' version.

So now I feel a bit like a bitch and also a bit old. As a teenager I never wanted to be one of those girls who conformed and who wore exactly what all the other cool and popular girls at her school did. No pringle jumpers and 'casual' skirts for me, no dodgy clubbing and listening to Radio 1. I was there going off on music courses and listening to Indie bands, dying my hair bright red and wearing leggings with DM's. Wailing girl could be doing far worse things - she could be in a gang, she could be getting knocked-up by a total loser but she's not. She's just doing her thing and singing on a train. Good for you.

Alternatively, she could just be a nutter.

So when did shoving gak up your nose become so socially acceptable? When did not wanting to shove gak up your nose make you part of the minority?

About a year ago I began to think that i had led an extremely sheltered life. I've never been exposed to drugs in a big way and have never had to make that 'do I? don't I?' decision. Aside from a little bit of the old waccy baccy at university I've never been offered anything or had any friends that were really into anything stronger. There were one or two people at college who enjoyed pills when they went clubbing but that was very much the minority. Someone let a 'dealer' into a big party in our final year and when caught lining up his wares on the kitchen counter with his Tesco Clubcard he was forcibly removed!

So I'm asking myself, am i really boring and do/did I have a terribly unadventurous bunch of friends growing up? NO! Is the resounding and truthful answer. We went clubbing, we got drunk, we did ridiculous things and we had a really good time doing it. I don't remember my student days regretting the things I didn't do or wishing I'd had a better time. I had a good time and aside from the Archers, Vodka and Marlboro Lights, I did it without the aid of artificial stimulant.

I've never really liked the idea of drugs much. Clearly I was that child whom Zammo's smack experience in Grange Hill really did scare enough to not bother going down that route! Seriously though, I've never really seen the attraction and if I'm really honest, I'm a bit of a control freak so being completely out of control in drugs doesn't really appeal.

Anyway, I digress (for a change...). On a very early outing with Boyf and his friends, I was shocked when one of his girlfriends told me that she was giving up coke. It took me a split second to realise she wasn't referring to something you consider during the Pepsi challenge. I won't deny it, I didn't even try to act cool. My eyes were like saucers - at 35 I'd never actually [knowingly] met anyone who took coke. I should have taken this conversation as a warning.

About 9 months later Boyf came home from a stag do and said there had been some white powder flying around. Clearly I wasn't impressed. I made it clear to him then that I didn't like it and I didn't want to be around anyone who did. I didn't know if he had participated in the action but I told him that I was not interested in a relationship with someone who took drugs.

It took well over a year of being with Boyf for me to realise that a significant proportion of his friends took a different view to me. Scoring gak was part of the preparation for an evening out. All of a sudden I was well outside my comfort zone. I chose to ignore it when the conversation went in that direction and never actually saw anything taking place so I could pretend that it hasn't happening.

That was until I became part of the group in my own right rather than just Boyf's girlfriend. Nothing was hidden and I began to get offered some. This was ridiculous! 35 and being offered drugs for the first time... by a similarly aged mum of two. Since then I've noticed that it's constant. There is no party or other social occasion when it doesn't make an appearance. I kid you not, some was brought to my house by friends coming for Sunday lunch with their 3 (yes you read that correctly - THREE) children. They had the manners to say that they knew I didn't partake but wondered if I minded if they did... what am I supposed to say??? I know, I know. It's my house and I should stand up for what I believe in but seriously, you put yourself in that situation. It's tough.

Boyf had the grace to look uncomfortable and politely decline when offered some and our guests retired to the bathroom to powder their noses.

Believe me when I say this is just the tip of the iceberg - your hair would curl if told you some of things I've seen. Last night we went to a really nice BBQ - quite a small affair but for some reason the conversation always came back to gak or pills or something of that description. There were one or two people I didn't know who were in the group and I was embarrassed that they might think this was my way of life too.

The problem I have is that, on the whole, I really like these people. I don't understand them, but I do like them. I keep wondering what they would think if their children were taking drugs or what they would do if they didn't clean up as thoroughly as they thought they had and the baby found some remnants and ingested it. The girls, in particular, I just can't identify with. It's as if they haven't got over the student way of life. The culture that involved far too much drinking, staying up all night and generally behaving badly. We're all hurtling towards 40 now and an awful lot of these guys have children. When will they get over it? Are their lives that boring that it needs pepping up with artificial stimulants? (perhaps somewhat rich from someone with a Marlboro Light habit)

Each time I sit on my hands and bite my lip I'm ashamed of myself for not standing up and saying what I think. Ashamed that they think I'm okay with this and it's normal behaviour. It's not normal, it's really not.

So, you probably think that I'm surrounded by wealthy city types (I mean, it is their kind of thing isn't it) or bored posh idiots. No, I'm not. These are all people who have ordinary jobs, ordinary lives and live in ordinary houses. The kind of people who don't go on flash holidays or run expensive cars. These people shop on the High Street and favour Primark and H&M over Prada and M&S.

My friends look at me in horror when I tell them these stories - which makes me feel better. They're not just doing it for that reason, they too don't move in those kind of social circles. And the irony of that is that some of them are wealthy city types, some of them do come from more privileged families and the best part is that a lot of them are musicians and arty types who traditionally are very much into that culture.

So, what do I do? Keep schtum and say nothing? One day I know I'll have just one or two glasses of vino blanco too many and it will all come out. I was close last night so I switched to soft drinks. When that day comes, my friend, there will be fireworks.

PMT vs Crap time at work

I've always considered PMT to be much over-hyped. Sure, we girls are a slave to our hormones - one day I will be cooing over a small baby and then next I really can't see the attraction and yes, I'll admit that I can be a little 'snippy' at certain times... But I've been tracking my weirdness over the last few months and I'm mortified to notice that I SUFFER WITH PMT!!!

Every time I have been at the end of my tether with work, every time I have been ready to throw things across the room and everytime some cheesey song or programme turns me into a sobbing gibbering wreck there appears to have been a hormone-related reason for it.

That said, I'm pretty sure that my long-standing desire to display 2 fingers to my boss and tell him to shove his job somewhere fairly dark isn't all hormone related.

I don't earn a fantastic salary but I'm doing okay - okay enough to pay my bills, afford nice holidays and not have to resort to Tesco Value bread - but I will never be able to retire to a second home in the country. Right now, though, I'd be pleased to chuck it all in and do nothing. Clearly this would only be possible if, for some bizarre reason, Boyf would be happy to slog his guts out at a job (which is equally as infuriating as mine) in order for me to 'keep house' and cut out coupons from newspapers for the afore-mentioned Tesco Value bread... Let's face it, why would he want to do that? Damn sure I wouldn't. Anyway, isn't this the very thing that women have been fighting against for years???

Anyway, I digress. My job....even before this country descended into the current economic quagmire of crap, our business was not doing particularly well, and so new owners and managers were brought in. And why not. They overhauled the place: redundancies; revision of rosta; rethinking of budgets and so on. There were promises of new hope, matrices (???I still don't really understand what that is all about???), extra support from savvy businessmen and outsourcing of crap tasks. Well, in a nutshell, we now have to run this circus of a show on a shoestring whilst jumping through hoops that most of the Cirque du Soliel cast would struggle with. Our little division of the business is definitely the poor relation of the family - you know what i mean, the one whose birthday is forgotten, the one who never gets the call about the family get together and the one most likely to get locked in an attic if they get too old/doddery/much of liability. Worst case scenario is that one day the rest of the family will find a way to justify euthanasia.

I won't bore you with the details of why my job is so crap as, frankly, right now i should be grateful to have one - there are thousands of people who would clamber for my seat and probably do it at a knock-down discount rate too. Suffice to say, the people running this embarrassing auntie who lives in a caravan, do not have a clue what to do. They continue to talk about strategies in a very serious voices and then undermine every piece of knowledge that the pretty intelligent worker-ants have built up over the last few years. They promise artists with over-inflated egos the moon-on-a-stick and then wonder why we look at them and can't find the words to express the damage they have done. They assure artist management that everything will be fine and that we will look after their precious cash-cows in fine fashion and then wonder why our budgets have been smashed into smithereens and we don't cut a profit ... again.

To top it all, we have a finance/accounts system that fails to acknowledge that in order to cut costs and keep to our budgets we will need to economise and choose our suppliers carefully. Gone are the big chain hotels and 'in' are the small family run B&Bs. Gone are fancy restaurants and 'in' are transport-caffs (okay perhaps that's a little bit of an exaggeration!). My point is though, these guys don't 'do' invoicing and waiting 90 day to be paid £150... these guys want cash on the day. These guys don't care if we take our business elsewhere because they have got enough work as it is. We, however, have no alternative in most cases and so really we should be dancing to their tune. Our system thinks we should just look elsewhere if our terms 'don't suit'. The reality is not that simple. We, the poor down-trodden and abused worker-ants, are struggling to muster up the motivation to turn up let alone to do our jobs all over again. We're tired of making arrangements to have to unpick them, we're tired of promising payments and then grovelling when they're not made and we're tired of begging. Life is too short for this. Why should we be the whipping boys for someone else's decisions. Just for one day I'd like them to sit at the end of my phone and take the abuse.

Wow, sorry, that was a real waffle. What was the point of this rant anyway? Oh yes. Clearly today is one of those hormone-powered days. After having a particularly testing morning i wanted to do nothing but cry. Not because I was hurt, not because someone had upset me, I just wanted to cry. Just a little career-pointer though, tears in the workplace do not enhance career development... and and crying in Marks & Spencer's foodhall does not make you big and clever. It makes everyone around you think you are a crazy lady. I'm not ready to be one of those yet. I'd like to be at least 75 first.

So if I am PMT'd right up, does this mean that I am over-reacting to the crapness of my job? I don't think so. There really is only so much crap that can be taken before the 'why bother' gene kicks in but getting the really bad days over PMT time really is a kick in the doodies (if we had any... which if we did would probably alleviate all our hormonal problems anyway... or at least change them a little).

In conclusion, ladies and jellyspoons, PMT is a real thing. I don't like it, I don't want to admit it but it is.

I think my new cleaner is trying to kill me...

yep really.

My wooden floor is like an ice rink and that's 10 days after it was cleaned. I have 'mopped it' twice since then in the hope I can avoid slipping and breaking my neck any time soon.

We have a new cleaner. Since the perfect Sandra left we have had 2 others who re-invented the job description of 'cleaner' to be 'not really any cleaner than before we arrived' ... so I changed agencies. Now we have a lovely girl called Mihaela. Or so I thought... She came for the first time last week and once again as I opened the front door the lovely clean smell hit me. Then as I kicked off my shoes I had to scramble to catch hold of the bookshelf before I fell arse over tit onto the floor.

'Blimey', I thought, 'she's done a good job' and was very impressed until I worked out that she'd cleaned both halls, lounge and kitchen floor with PLEDGE!! Don't misunderstand me, it smelled beautiful but it was bloody deathtrap.

Boyf was out (in the pub) for the evening so I thought i should warn him about the hall (even though my inner child was chuckling at the thought of him coming in slightly inebriated and falling flat on his backside). At exactly 20 past midnight I heard a very loud 'WOOOOAAAHHHHH' and a scramble and a shoe hitting the floor. Yes, despite my text warning and him taking extra care, he too succumbed to the slippy floor dance.

At first it was quite fun and we skated round in our socks however it never seemed to get any less slippery and after almost breaking my neck again as i left the bedroom for a 4am loo trip I decided that we had to give it a good clean.

I've tried and it's not really worked. This, combined with the fact our new cleaner was sick this week, leads me to believe she is trying to kill us. Maybe she thinks we have a secret stash of cash somewhere? Well, she'll be very disappointed.


Watch this space to see if I die before she comes back next week...

Forgive me Blogspot for I have sinned....

...it's been, erm, over 3 months since my last blog.

What does this mean? That I am so dull that I have nothing to talk about? That I am so vacant that I have had no thoughts for 3 months? That I am such a busy person that I couldn't possibly have time to waste time on such fanciful things as blogging?

Nope. None of the above. I think, if I'm honest, it's that I've had so much on my mind I just haven't had the time to compose them into something meaningful and also something that i feel comfortable blogging. Not that anyone generally reads this but one can never be too careful.

How do you decide what you blog about? What makes a good blog? And what makes a blog interesting? Just how personal should you get? And if your thoughts will perhaps upset someone close to you, should you still share them with all and sundry? This I have thought a lot about and I'm still not sure if I've come to a good conclusion yet but what I do know is that as long as you're being honest and so long as you're happy to share those thoughts with the person you're blogging about too then i guess it's okay.

I think I need to stop over analysing things and just be honest. That is something I have learned over the last few months. The more you just keep it all in and dwell on your troubles then the worse these things will get. They just grow inside you out of all proportion until you start inventing problems and scenarios in your head that will probably never happen. I should know -I am the queen of reading too much into things. People that know me tend to think that I'm pretty up-front and will always stand up for myself and most of the time I will...except when it's really important! I've managed to successfully stay trapped in crap relationships because I'm too scared to speak up and equally I've managed to screw up some pretty good ones by not voicing certain concerns.

My unofficial New Years resolution was to sort myself out and I'm halfway there. Had a good 'cards on the table' chat with The Boyfriend in January. Well, I say 'good' ... it almost ended the relationship but in the end it didn't and we managed to be honest with each other. It has meant compromise and a certain amount of tolerance but we're getting there. All I need to do now is have a good talk to myself about my job and then I'll be golden!

Okay, it's late and I'm still slightly emotional about watching Notting Hill for the umpteenth time (see fairy tales can come true... well, if you are fairly wealthy and live in a pretty posh part of London with middle class friends anyway...) so I'll sign off for now with another [very late] New Years resolution to pay more attention to my terribly neglected blog.