teylaminh | Entries tagged with work: legal

This entry sat on my work PC for a bit because I kept forgetting to email it home, but as itâs mostly still relevant I have amended it somewhat and will post it anywayâ¦

As of last Monday, I have a line manager! On phased return for two weeks and only sorting out emails and PDR's, but nevertheless she is back, which should mean those few loose ends will finally get sorted (like a key for my pedestal so I can bring my two carrier bags of crap back to work).

I'm actually really enjoying this new job, despite the initial month or so of glitches and frustration and IT failure. I'd forgotten how much I actually enjoyed CP work when I was doing it before - Sandra-gate and all that aside - possibly because the final few months at Legal kicked any and all job satisfaction out of me. But yeah. I'm not waking up in the mornings with that sense of cold dread, having to drag myself out of bed and over to Woodcock Street for another seven-point-three hours of awful soul-destroying job-hating horribleness.

Don't get me wrong: I still hate mornings (all the more so as I'm actually getting up early, imagine that!) and would still much rather be in bed than on the bus (in the NEVERENDING FRIGGING RAIN) but it's definitely refreshing to not hate every single second of what I'm doing.

There is one vaguely work-related thing that I wish I could moan about, but despite my not even being involved in it I'm still sworn to secrecy until some point later in the year. Which sucks in itself because I really need to rant about it, and I can't. It has nothing to do with this job or even the Council, per se, but yeah. Cryptic sidenote is cryptic.

Also: the people here are awesome. As part of the Professional Support Services restructure we all had to state our preferences on which "hub" we wanted to work out of, so obviously we all put Lifford as first choice. Last week the confirmation came through of where we'd be based, using the phrasing, "You have been assimilated to Lifford House hub," and within five minutes people were making Borg jokes. In the Legal support pool that reference would have gone completely over their heads and my pointing out that "Resistance is Futile" would have dropped like a lead balloon.

On Friday I also received two (verbal) compliments on my minutes from two separate Chairs, one of whom subsequently emailed my line manager. They were both saying how nice it was that they barely had to make any amendments and one of them said my Legal background was obvious because of my language use. So that was nice. (I should also point out at this point that all of the Chairs so far seem like genuinely lovely people and are all that particular breed of insane that emerges from child protection-related work.)

So, right at the point where I'm settled and getting on with the people and thinking I could really do well in this job? That's the point where Legal Services decide to advertise the frelling Legal Assistant post on Internal Recruitment.

( Cut for moaning. )

In other news: I've been writing JC fic again after a brief dry patch (resulting mostly out of the new job making me exhausted and/or ambivalent for the first few weeks) - another episode tag done ("Time Waits for Norman") and its corresponding "X Times" version, plus another two stories currently on the go which are refusing to cooperate - a post-Easter Special angstfic and another post-ALTAF story (fluff/angst/all the good stuff). My JC/POTO crossover is also brewing away and I'm hoping when we get to series 3 the opening for it will become clearer; I know vaguely what I want to do but am waiting for inspiration to strike!

The Doomfic also has a title now, thanks to Snow Patrol's "Make This Go on Forever"- namely "The Final Word", which sums it up quite scarily well. As ever, I need to stop avoiding that story and start giving it more attention; at some point I am actually going to run out of episodes to tag and then I can no longer put it off. :P

Anyway, over and out for now. Hopefully I will not revert to form and change my mind about the Legal Assistant stuff at the very last second (heh) but I will update whatever happens!

Current Mood: thoughtful
Crossposts: http://teylaminh.livejournal.com/832943.html

Okay, Derby Gaol update will have to wait until this weekend / some point next week (I've got three days off for our anniversary) because I'm rubbish, but I'll do a brief Last Day at Legal (and two weeks off) update here. Thankfully I didn't find chance to do an LJ entry whilst at work today because it was gearing up to be an Epic Rant, but events of this afternoon superceded it somewhat. In any case, I'll update about New Job, too. :P

( Last Day at Legal )

Anyway. In the two weeks following that I slept a lot, didn't write any fic (OF COURSE), made a rainbow cake for Lisa (surprisingly successful and straightforward!), and invited Eni to Birmingham before she headed off to colder climates. I inflicted POTO on her (mwahaha), resulting in an idea for a JC/POTO crossover, stuffed her full of food (both home-cooked and a meal at the Kings Head), mocked her lack of skills playing Assassin's Creed, and latterly surprised her with a belated birthday present of a trip to Cabdury World - which was impressive mostly for the fact that I've managed to keep it completely secret for about four years. :P

I then ended up seeing her again about a week later in Derby because I was taking her Farscape DVD's off her hands.

( New Job )

If any of this is nonsensical, you can blame swim!brain. Gym yesterday and swimming today. Let's see if I can keep that momentum going for a bit.

PS: New work icon!

Current Mood: sleepy

I'm only doing a three-day week, y'see. My goal for my three-day week is to finally drag my flex into a sensible negative, and seeing as I got in at 8.25 this morning (because Paul had a meeting at 8.30 so we both left early) I should be able to gain an hour if I leave at 5.15 - assuming I have anything to do, that is. (David is out at a meeting all morning and there's barely anything in typing either.) I'll get my standard 7.18 hours for Thursday and Friday so anything over and above that for the next couple of days is a bonus, basically. :)

Yesterday was deathly boring, but thankfully I've got just enough writing energy left to see me through. ( Fandom Stuff, as ever. )

In other news, I've been thinking how to tackle Lisa's rainbow birthday cake and I have a pretty good idea how to achieve it. Probably the easiest thing is to make a double-batch of cake mix (so four eggs / 8oz ingredients), weigh it, divide it into seven and colour each bowlful separately, then essentially bake seven different cakes and stick them together. Works in theory, whether it works in practice remains to be seen...

The whole thing is going to get covered in chocolate fudge anyway, so as long as the layers look neat on the inside I'm not too worried about the outside - assuming it doesn't collapse under its own weight, obviously. That being said, not sure on filling - chocolate spread? Nutella? Marmelade for a chocolatey-orangey flavour? Answers on a postcard...

Right, this has killed the morning, at least. Hopefully I'll have something to do after lunch.

Current Mood: bored

Legal Assistant day yesterday was quite good (other than the hour or so in the afternoon where everyone in South went to a team meeting and I had nothing to do - although I was helping Lisa out with a few bits and pieces). I didn't do very much really but it seemed to take all day...

Also managed to go to the gym AND swimming this week, which is an achievement on last week (snow notwithstanding; I would have done both if the public transport was in any way reliable). The gym was rubbish though - still full of new-year-resolution-y types so I couldn't get near half of the equipment, and several of the treadmills were out of action, too. Meh.

Yesterday I finally got the phonecall (or, well, I called back) about organising a start date for the new job. Apparently the CRB isn't needed after all as the process has changed, but the medical check has come back clear, so today I'm just sorting out notice period and whatnot with Sue so I can hand my notice in (hopefully) as of Monday - so potentially a start date of 4th March. (February is a blissfully short month!)

Today I was intending on getting an eye test, as the world has become significantly blurrier lately, except it'll have to wait until Monday now. I was going to get my 'spare' pair done as my main pair - I've not been able to wear them for two years because the last time I got my eyes tested it cost so frelling much for one pair of lenses that I could only afford to get my main pair altered, then kept forgetting about the other pair. As this pair are now looking a bit scruffy I had decided to get my red frames done as my main pair, then get two more sets - another spare/second pair and some prescription sunglasses. Since I've run out of money again, the plan changed to just getting the one set done and then getting new frames when I've got the spare cash for it.

Except, obviously, I couldn't find the bloody spare pair last night. I thought I could picture where it was but apparently I was wrong, so this weekend we need to turn the house upside down. Thankfully that will mean emptying some more boxes so we can start rearranging the upstairs rooms, but yeah, annoying. I can't see properly, dammit. :P

This morning, it transpires my job hunting could not have come at a better time. The WPO's are going to become part of Professional Support Services, thus no longer under the umbrella of Legal Services, which basically means they'll be offering a typing service to everyone. There may even be potential job losses, though having already lost four staff through "natural wastage" and me going hopefully quite soon, that might be a saving grace.

I suspect they may lose several more staff before the financial year is out. :P

( Just a bit of fandom stuff )

Right, over and out. Let's see how much fail my colleagues can cram into my next month of working at Legal, eh?

Current Mood: exhausted

Yesterday was mildly ridiculous.

As a reminder, on Wednesdays I wear my Legal Assistant hat. Thankfully the network was up and running again (after being dead as a dodo on Tuesday), but we are still missing a laptop and Sukhwinder was due in, so I couldn't use her desktop. Naz said I could use Natasha's, as she wasn't coming in, and I'd no sooner got set up when Natasha arrived (heavily pregnant, in the snow), so I had to log out and give it back.

We then searched fruitlessly for the keys to someone else's pedestal so I could use theirs, to no avail. David happened to be sitting at that particular desk yesterday and suggested we should set up a base unit on one of the agile desks for me and Gaynor to use, and just label the desk accordingly as a non-agile agile desk. So I went to find Marvin to ask him - he agreed to find a base unit, but then there was no spare desk to use. He found me an old HP laptop (all of ours are Lenovo) and set me up on Lotus Notes, which subsequently took ages to load. Then the IKEN upgrade kicked in, threw a wobbly because Notes was still trying to load, so I restarted.

And then had to sit there for another half-hour whilst Windows updated. I finally got logged in around 11.15am, two hours after I got to work.

Aside from that it was a good day - Naz gave me plenty to do (though Jas was quite put out that she didn't get to "have a go" - her words!), including a police disclosure request, statement requests, creating a case plan and updating a bundle. Quite varied yesterday. Still don't think I could do it all the time, though. Notwithstanding the stressful morning (not being able to do anything is one thing, but when it's completely beyond your control it's horribly frustrating), I now finish work on Wednesdays absolutely shattered, presumably because my brain is working harder than usual.

I suspect this will be the case for a couple of months when I've started the new job, too, having said that. CRB stuff is sorted, now just waiting on both that and the medical checks to clear, then I can hand in my notice. THEN, I can let people know and start organising a leaving lunch / drinks.

Oh yeah, and for some reason my fingers have started peeling, so now I'm trying to work out when I was stressed enough to have caused it. There was that photocopying-related stress last week, but I can't imagine that being why. Most odd.

( Fandom / Writing Stuff. )

Of course, work is conspiring against me by being uncharacteristically busy. :P The day definitely passes quicker doing Legal Assistant work, that's for sure...

Current Mood: determined

Today is going to be great fun - thus far (9.30am) nothing networked actually works. No IKEN, no Lotus Notes, no Winscribe, and no printers. This is what happens when you're reliant on technology to do your day job.

Such being the case, as I have nothing better to do, this entry may be long. Also: more opportunity to work on fanfic, though doing so on the lower ground floor (I'm secretarying today - or trying to, in any event) is even more paranoia-making than upstairs. Still, it's better than twiddling my thumbs.

Thankfully, I have my CRB paperwork to sort out today at 2.30, after which I am fully intending on going home - it's a half-hour walk there and back again, so by the time I get back here it'll probably be around 3.15 anyway, and if the network doesn't come back up I'll be sitting here doig nothing for another two hours, and I can do that at home, thanks. :P (Except I've had to ask Paul to email on my behalf to double-check it's still happening, as I can't access my emails.)

( I warned about the fandom stuff, right? )

The other thing I was going to talk about was the timing of this period of fandom flail.

( Interesting... )

Okay, I shall post this and attempt to kill the next couple of hours somehow. If the network isn't back tomorrow I don't know what I'm going to do - we can't even photocopy or scan because you have to log into the MFD's in order to do so, and they're also dead!!

Current Mood: thoughtful

So, I've been shortlisted for the CPR Admin job, and have a minute-taking test on 30th November. If that's successful then I get an interview.

Paul's mate Jenny will be the umbrella manager for the entire of Children's Business Support when she returns from maternity leave and she reckons I'll wing it, but obviously I'm not going to go into it expecting miracles. I need to start applying for Gr3 posts outside of Legal Services, and I might as well start with one I know I'm more than capable of doing; if I don't get it or choose not to go for it, I'll at least have the relevant application/interview experience under my belt.

( Meanwhile, other things are occurring. )

So, things are getting interesting, if nothing else!!

Current Mood: optimistic

Right. It's been a while since I updated. I would do a holiday write-up, but I can't show you the pictures yet because Paul complained they always ended up on my Facebook and wanted to put them on his, but has yet to actually do so. (Actually, they're not even on the hard-drive yet.) At some point I might also post them to Flickr, but in any event, I'll link them here so people can see.

( A few work bits )

In other news: Paul and I are going to see The Killers on 1st November. :D Their new album is frelling awesome, so I'm quite excited about that. A week after that I'm seeing Evanescence with my mum, so I need to try and lose some weight (again) in order to fit into any of my goth stuff. We'll see how successful that is.

Two more weeks of work to get through before I'm on leave again, as I have the week of my birthday off, at the end of which I'm going to Alton Towers with Vicky. :)

So, there are things to look forward to even if work is still crap.

I'm in Ambivalent About Choir Mode again, as usual in September. The recording of our Christmas CD was last weekend, and even though I was fully committed to it at the start, I didn't go to the recording sessions because they ate an entire weekend. They asked us to commit to two Saturdays, and it turned out to be all day Saturday and half of Sunday. Erm, what? I simply couldn't be arsed in the end, which is a shame because I was looking forward to it. Meh. I hate the first season, it's always insanely busy and eating all my free time. At the moment I need to weigh up whether I have too many other things going on my life (gym, swimming, having time to myself) to commit to it fully, so... yeah. We'll see.

Anyway, that'll do for an update. I haven't forgotten about the Fandom for February meme, incidentally, even though it's now so long overdue as to be extinct. I really do want to finish it, especially in light of my latest brain-eating 'ship of Mac/Caroline from Green Wing. I am bloody determined to finish it. Eventually. :P

Over and out.

PS: New work icon!

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: The Killers - Battle Born

I sent off the job thingy this morning, after going through pros and cons this weekend of both my current job and the Legal Assistant one. I have nothing to lose by trying. Having an interview and then thinking about whether or not to accept it is not really an option because of the tight timescales (interviews will be tomorrow, with the person starting on Wednesday), but we'll see what happens.

If it hadn't been for having to email the expression of interest this morning, I wouldn't even be in today, as my back is in pieces. I have no idea why, seeing as I didn't do anything this weekend which might have aggravated it. Friday was spent on the sofa, as was Saturday, and all we did yesterday was hang some pictures to clear a shelf in the bedroom - and even then, Paul did most of the hammering and climbing on chairs. All I can think is that the decision to actually go for the job was a de-stress reaction, as my back does tend to flare up as a result of things like that. But yeah, it suddenly started hurting yesterday about 2.00pm, co-codamol is doing nothing, and I might well go home at lunchtime and lie on the sofa with my wheat-bag again. I was tempted to take Valerian last night... might try that tonight and see what happens. I can't afford to be off sick tomorrow either given there may be an interview happening - hopefully it won't clash with Caroline's maternity leaving lunch as that would be irritating... especially since, you know, if I get this job Tuesday will be my last day sitting with South Team.

Er, yeah, anyway, I will stop projecting possible outcomes. In other news, I had yet another POTO story idea this morning. I blame listening to the Crawford/Streisand "Music of the Night" duet on my MP3 player mostly for this, although frankly it could be the painkillers. :P

( Cut because you're not interested in any more of these insane concepts, I'm sure. )

It would have been nice if all these story ideas could have come in a slow trickle rather than hurling themselves into my brain like bloody lemmings. :P

In other other news, now that I've reached the end of my PDR year, GodSquad has taken back the job of tidying up the IKEN contacts. She's just sent an email saying she's going to try and get rid of the duplicated addresses. HAHAHAHA good luck with that. If I didn't have time to do that then I'd love to know why she does, considering the reason I took the job off her in the first place was because she didn't have time!!

In any case, her email is a stark reminder of why I was job-hunting in the first place. So, thanks for reassuring my decision, GodSquad. :P

Current Mood: sore

( Cut because it's long: job wibbling )

So yes. Quite possibly I should STFU whinging already, but when you're stuck in self-preservation mode and other people have no concept of that, it's kind of difficult to think straight and make coherent decisions, even when they could be for your own good. :(

HALP PLZ.

Current Mood: scared

This is not work moaning, more, erm... mockery? I dunno. :P My colleagues have caught Stupid Plague this week. It must be the heat.

( In no particular order... )

We have to laugh or we would ~~cry~~ go on a screaming rampage with bazookas.

Current Mood: bitchy

Right, since the transcription nonsense the other week, I've been trying to keep my head down, and other than a few minor irritations (the same old story of people not reading / paying attention to the emails I send for informative purposes) things haven't been too bad. On the Monday after the event, I emailed Senior with my observations of what occurred in respect of the transcription, including Demoted's refusal to undertake the work and my worry that it might be perceived that I was 'avoiding' the work in Winscribe, and she responded in fairly reasonable terms that indeed, it is not my place to sort out Demoted when she's being difficult, and thanking me for trying to sort things out in her absence.

( Boring work stuff - not moaning! )

So last week was rather uneventful other than the above, though nonetheless I only managed to spend one evening actually at home. Monday we went to the pub with Lloyd and Denise, Tuesday (obviously) I had choir, Wednesday was Noel's birthday so we went to Paul's mum's, Thursday GLORIOUS NOTHING (read: catching up with household chores like laundry) and Friday we went back to the flat for Lisa's birthday and enjoyed a very tasty curry. Graham (the new tenant) popped down to join us and it we got to know him a bit better; it transpires he's a complete lightweight when it comes to booze.

It just took me about ten minutes to remember what we did on Friday; this month is so insane that my short-term memory is frelled. I did, however, enjoy my quiet weekend, as this week is also going to be insanely busy. On Saturday we finally went through the freezer and filled out the whiteboard, realising the insane amount of food we had bought but not eaten. If we are actually organised we won't have to go shopping for at least another month. (Ah, it's so scintellating being a grown-up, innit?)

So, this week:-

Monday (yesterday) was meant to be a gym day but neither of us really fancied it, so instead we went to Bella Italia. Oops.

Tuesday (today) - last rehearsal before Equinox.

Wednesday - going to Spring Hill Tesco to pick up chicken livers and various other ingredients in advance of Mother's Day

Thursday - spare shopping day in case Tesco have no chicken livers, also getting cards/gifts.

Friday - leaving work at half-three to get home and bake cake.

Saturday - rehearsal at 11.00am, concert at 7.30pm, out of house all day, Paul going out to get meat and Guinness for main course and whatever else is left to buy.

Sunday - up early to make pate and whatever else needs making, tidy and clean lower floor of house, rest for a bit, family arriving at 6.00pm, eat, drink, sleep.

The week after that is mostly uneventful except for seeing Oliver! on Wednesday. :)

On Sunday we went out for a pub lunch at the Kings Head, walking to Bearwood and trying out the Abbey for a quick drink. Seemed okay on the Sunday but I wouldn't want to go there of a Friday evening.

Roll on April and our week off; even if we can't book anywhere to go it will be nice not to be at work. :P

Oh, and talking of which, we've finally booked our holiday for September. 11 nights in Corfu. :) I've booked off an extra two days (18th and 19th September) in addition to the two weeks I already had as we arrive back at 6.30am on the 16th and I'll need more than a day to recover. :P

Okay, that's more than long enough. Over and out.

Current Mood: busy

I haven't been able to update much this week because Paul and I are renewedly attending the gym, which is obviously eating a lot of time. We went on Monday and Thursday night, plus swimming on Sunday morning, which is our new regime.

The plan this time is to book a holiday for September in advance with the hope that it'll be an adequate incentive to lose the weight. Let's see how successful that is, eh?

( Bit of a work moan - well, it's been a while. :P )

( Boring Gym Bunny Stuff )

Embroidery-wise, I have two more pictures to post later on. They would have come sooner but I had to re-order the thread (again) because it ran out. I think this is a direct result of having lost the original thread list and the online pattern being very slightly different, but in any case, the ordered thread ended up being a different shade to that I'd already used, so I had to unpick what I'd already done and start again. Anyway, I got through two shades yesterday so will post those later.

I'm also going to do a Facebook album at some point of my various completed stuff, as I've been working through some of the half-finished bits in the footstool that my mum gave me and some are now done, in addition to what I already have framed, etc., and it would be nice to have a record somewhere. :)

Oh yeah, that was the other irritating thing. I ordered some apparently "wide calf" biker-style boots from eBay as in the picture they looked promisingly roomy. I couldn't pick them up from the depot until Saturday, and it transpires my definition of "wide calf" and that of the seller differs by about four inches. Also the boots weren't as good quality as they appeared in the picture (they were faux-leather anyway, but still) as they had no proper 'tongue' to speak of because it was all sewn together. Annoying because the foot part of the boot actually fit perfectly, for a change. So I'll be sending those back for a refund. I will keep searching, and actually measure my calves so I know what to go for. Some sellers are actually nice enough to specify the width measurement. (Although I am irrationally annoyed by them still being photographed on skinny models; clearly we can't be having fatties modelling them, can we? /bitter)

After the post depot we decided to get the shopping from Dudley rather than Bearwood for a change, and ended up spending £25 in Wilkinson. :P Some of it was stuff we actually needed, though (a hook for the bedroom door, a self-adhesive one for the bathroom, a new kitchen drainer, some tall glasses and a funky new bathroom set). We had a sharer in the Wetherspoon's which was actually really nice (either they're still using up the "Christmas chips" or they've changed them forever; I hope the latter. :D) I am tempted to try their other food now to see if it's as good.

Okay, I think this is quite long enough. Nearly lunchtime (chicken sandwiches om nom) so I'll post this and wait for the man to finish fixing the printer so I can collect my transcript. :P

Current Mood: bitchy

This entry might be a bit all over the place because I am SOTIREDOMG right now and basically functioning on caffeine and will-power.

I finished all of my wrapping last night except for two things (one I forgot about, and one I couldn't quite remember who it was for), so now all that's left to do is the food shop (tonight) and seeing various family / friends before the Day - or after, in the case of some, as we have now run out of time. :P On Christmas Eve I need to do a bit of cleaning and washing before we go out to the pub - in addition to picking up the goose from the butcher - and change the bed. I have a bit of a tradition of buying myself new pyjamas to enjoy on Christmas Eve so I have that to look forward to as well (I am so middle aged).

We had our South/Education/2nd floor Christmas lunch yesterday at Chez Jules, which was very reasonabl (£16.50 for three courses) and very nice indeed. I would definitely recommend it. I'd actually been meaning to go for ages as I'd heard really good things, so would definitely want to try it on an evening as well. (Admittedly I am a sucker for French food; my top choice for the meal venue was Cote Brasserie but that was twice the price. :P)

I was the only WPO in attendance at the meal, despite Kemi inviting them all. We didn't even have a Support Team lunch this year so whatevs; I shan't let Senior deprive me of my Christmas lunch with my ~~more preferable~~ colleagues. The other WPO's can at least not moan that they weren't invited, though doubtless my disappearing for 2.5 hours yesterday will be the cause of grumbling. I worked through until five pretty much non-stop once I got back anyway, so they can't complain that I didn't pull my weight. :P

Once again this year I bought loads of Christmas cards and failed to get them written in time to hand them out at work, although I did at least get them in the post on time. I think all but Katie's presents have arrived at their respective destinations now, too...

( Some ramblings about Xmas telly. )

I also have a load of Studio Ghibli films to watch as Film Four have been having a marathon and I've been recording them. I made a start last night with Latura: Castle in the Sky, which was equal parts beautiful and creepy. I think I have about 12 more to watch.

In case it wasn't obvious, I LOVE SKY PLUS. It is the awesomest invention in the history of ever. I never watch television in the week any more, I just catch up on everything at the weekend... although it does also result in backlogs where Paul and I don't have time to watch anything. We currently have two Misfits and four American Horror Story episodes to get through, and I'm a week behind on Glee... Gah, roll on our week off in January. We made a start on season 3 of Six Feet Under after finally finishing Firefly, but it's taken a backburner to Actual Television...

Anyway, that's enough rambling. Except to say that I'm enjoying my new sofa SO MUCH OMG. I've never had / bought a new sofa before and it's so squishy and comfy and amazing. (Oh, and I need to do another post at some point about some of the weird stuff that's been happening at my house / work, but that can wait until I'm a bit more coherent / succinct. *is mysterious*)

THREE DAYS TO GOOOO! *jingles bells*

Current Mood: NEARLY CHRISTMAS YAY!

There is literally nothing to do today. There's barely anyone in from South Team and no typing coming from anywhere else either.

I am semi-seriously job hunting lately, though unable to do so at work because our internet is failing to load 90% of pages these days (we're still stuck with IE6, for God's sake). ( Rambly ramble )

Oh, I'll do a health update whilst I'm here. It turns out I wasn't off with gastro-enteritis, but yer actual food poisoning - campyllobactyl or something like that. I had a letter off Sandwell Environmental Health over the weekend. I didn't actually ascertain how I would get my test results as the surgery didn't advise me, and I meant to go in to find out - so now I don't have to. Seeing as the chippy around the corner - where I had the somewhat dodgy chicken kebab that caused the said food poisoning - is normally really good, I'll let it slide as a one-off. I think the fact that I was already exhausted and run down probably made things worse than they should have been.

Now I just have to contend with the fact that my arse still hurts from when I fell. I'll give it a few more days and then probably go to the GP in case my tailbone is broken. I don't think there's anything they can do about it except give me a special cushion but sitting down all day at work is becoming quite painful. :( Especially when there's nothing to do and no chance to get out of my bloody chair...

Anyway, it's now lunchtime. Over and out.

Current Mood: bored

It's been a month since I posted the first chapter of "Whisper", and still no reviews. I've spent that long debating whether or not to remove the story in its entirety, but for the sake of completeness, I've posted the second chapter this evening. The stats seem to indicate that people are reading it, even if they're not giving feedback, so for the sake of anyone who might actually be interested, I figured it couldn't hurt to post the entire thing eventually. The second chapter is longer and (hopefully) more interesting, so we'll see what happens.

In other, work-related news, Chatty is actually retiring finally. She's been on long-term sick due to having a cataract operation and it was announced last week apparently that's she's made the decision to retire. I can pretty much guarantee that this will not have any detrimental effect on our workload, given that (a) we're horrendously quiet again lately, and (b) she never did any bloody work anyway. :P

( Work Stuff )

On a final note, I have just tried to do my first "remote record" from the internet to the Sky+ box, because I'm too lazy to go downstairs. :P

Current Mood: cynical

I meant to do this last night but had lots of photographs to post on Facebook so didn't have time. :P (If you're interested, there are pictures up now of our trip to Dudley Zoo and the four days in Paris.)

I have two other things to update about in the meantime; tonight I will attempt to get some of the Fandom for February backlog under my belt just to get it out of the way. :P

( Recipe: Turkey Roulade Tapenade )

Now a minor, petty work annoyance, briefly mentioned on Twitter, in the form of ( Cake Rivalry )

After the Farmers / Arts Market, Paul and I headed into Birmingham for

translucent's leaving drinks. We went to Las Iguanas first because I wanted Mexican food, where we made a headstart on cocktails before heading to Island Bar for the drinks in question.

Despite drinking about six or seven cocktails, I was actually surprisingly not drunk, just absolutely shattered. We left about ten-ish and managed to convince a taxi driver to cap the fare at £12.00 (bonus!). I think perhaps the highlight of the night was catching up with Clare as I haven't seen her since... wow, I was still at uni. Maybe about eight years? So that was lovely because she hasn't changed in the slightest. I tried to convince her to join CBC, also. ;)

On Sunday we mostly did nothing. I had a migraine kick in right as EastEnders started, which was a pain, but thankfully the Migraleve didn't mong me out so I was able to set the Wii up on our new wireless broadband (WOO!) without any fuss, then spent the evening after dinner catching up on overdue internet-related admin. :P I do still owe Eni some Thoughts, so I'll try and tackle those tonight. :)

I think that's about it. Hopefully updates will now be more forthcoming and regular, rather than every two weeks.

Current Mood: hungry

So, this morning was fun. Not.

( In which I am fast, but not that fast. )

Grr. I have since vented this at Sharn so feel a bit better. It doesn't help that I'm knackered from trying to juggle gym attending, cat-fostering until Saturday, and packing up the detritus of my life for the past five years (thus far I've done ornaments, Wii and DS games and our CD's - still everything else and furniture dismantling to go). I could do with the entire of next week off to get on top of it, but I have Thursday and Friday and the intervening weekend and evenings. Whoever stole the last month, kindly give it back!

~~With any luck Moany will stop talking enough to finish her police tape today and I can distract myself with the other one... :P~~ She did eventually finish and I did mine in just over an hour, as it was only 10 minutes long and the interviewee basically said "no comment" as every answer. Ah well.

PS: Here's some lulz for you, in the alternative form of colleague stupidity. The above-mentioned faulty printer has a broken fuser cartridge, as I mentioned. Marie is visiting and asked what was wrong with it. Moany said it had a broken "fuselage"...

Current Mood: irritated

Well, it's been a while...

( Once again that quote from Scar is oddly appropriate... )

I know it's petty. Thankfully Forgetful has been off this week so I've not had to contend with her moody-arsed attitude. The IKEN thing is seriously pissing me off, though. If anyone had actually said anything then perhaps it might be okay, but the sense of being forgotten about is disconcerting and worrying.

I wasn't really in the mood for the gym yesterday and was quite stroppy about silly things like not being able to find a pair of 2kg dumb-bells and the step for the step-ups being too high, but the good thing about weights machines is you can imagine, for example, that you're crushing someone's head between your legs. :P Subsequently I wanted comfort food for dinner so we went to the chippy and ruined all the effort. And this morning I felt a bit sick so that just made it an even worse decision.

To make matters worse, there was a spider on my desk earlier. Only a little one. I squashed it under a Pret napkin and scraped it into my bin, and then spent the next hour or so feeling paranoid, with over-sensitive and tingly skin. Stupid phobia. I'm getting better at dealing with the actual bugs, in retrospect (I didn't shriek or ask for help), but the after-effects are the same as ever. I'm guessing they're a delayed reaction...

I might get some lunch from the food festival today... Just wish BCC had put it on for longer than ten days, the skinflints...

Current Mood: uncomfortable

Today is ridiculous. We are a couple of days behind on work thanks to my doing police tapes on Friday (which I already mentioned) and obviously, as a result of that, everyone is making everything urgent so they'll get it back quicker, which is impacting on the non-urgent work, which is now not going anywhere. Considering I've done five urgents in a row this morning, I am now taking a bit of a break to see if anyone else will step in...

In other news: ( Possibly TMI )

Over the course of typing that I ended up doing a sixth urgent. Now it's nearly midday so I'll be trying to catch up on the backlog whilst everyone else goes to lunch. And Winscribe has just alerted me that there's another urgent in the system. Bloody hell.

Anyway, nothing much else to report...

Current Mood: busy

I think I told most people about this on Friday when I actually saw them, but since Forgetful has just managed to annoy me again (and it's only half-ten), I need to vent it...

( Friday onwards... )

That aside, on Friday we went to the Briar for Lloyd's birthday drinks, and did nothing all weekend except (as usual) play Super Mario Galaxy. IT IS INSANELY ADDICTIVE.

On Saturday I was in a baking mood for some reason, and after deciding that biscuits were too much of a hassle (my kitchen is too small for dough-rolling) ended up making a chocolate-orange cake with marmalade cream, as it was the only one in the book Paul would eat. As yet he has not eaten any of it. :P It turned out okay, though I might use pre-crushed almonds next time as my blender didn't do very well at those - but in the alternative, it whisked the egg whites in about 15 seconds. :) (I only discovered my blender had a whisking attachment about a month ago, after looking in the box for the slicing blade, finding a strange round attachment and looking in the manual to find out what it was...)

The marmalade cream was amazing, though. I will definitely make that again if not the cake. :) Here is a recipe for the cream if anyone wants it:-

( Recipe: Marmalade Cream )

I also made us a steak-and-ale pie, made with Guinness (belated St Patrick's Day celebration) which was AMAZING. The Guinness really seems to work well because it's so thick, and the gravy was lovely. Also I never buy supermarket braising steak any more because it's better quality from the butcher.

We also bought two pheasants from the butcher (for £9.99!) and had one for Sunday lunch - wrapped it in bacon and shoved apple wedges into the cavities before roasting - which was nice. Still a bit of meat left so I can have pheasant sandwiches later in the week. :)

Anyway, nothing much else to report. We're two days behind on typing today thanks to my doing police tapes on Friday (go figure) so today is going to be busy, and that's about it. Over and out.

Oh, I also need to do a bit of an update about our current house-hunting status and adventures thereof on Saturday, but I'll do that when I get in later.

Current Mood: okay

My life revolves around food and work. Sounds about right.

( Chicken Kiev )

And here's a work thing. ( Meh. )

SIGH.

At least it's nearly Friday. Paul and I had an impromptu pub lunch today as we had to get a birthday card for Andrea (she's 40 tomorrow), and we both had the Windsor's lovely roast beef BBQ sandwiches (perfectly-cooked tender roast beef with red onion and BBQ sauce, on granary bread, served with roasties and gravy). Quite stuffed now, though, so we're having a light dinner of tuna steak with broccoli and cauliflower and possibly celeriac mash if I can find one anywhere... I do find it strange that celeriac apaprently tastes "bland" compared to celery; personally I would have said it tastes "better". :P

Current Mood: sleepy

Last week was horribly stressful for no apparent reason, Friday especially so. I started writing a review of Black Swan, which we saw on Wednesday, but I couldn't finish it thanks to being busy and on reading it back it sounds horribly pretentious, so now I can't be bothered. In any case, it was a truly brilliant film and the highlight of my week.

( It can only get worse, unfortunately. )

The WPO's are meant to be moving to the 2nd floor this week. I am dreading this more than you can imagine, and still have seven weeks to get through before my leave in April. If things get exponentially worse I am seriously considering getting myself signed off with stress, if only to poke management into some kind of action - when the inevitable question is asked, I won't hesitate to say what's stressing me out.

On the plus side, we tried out the Wii Fit this weekend and it's knackering. Paul's Wii Fit Age came out as 51, mine was 31. ;) Also my centre of gravity is almost completely central, which was nice to know. We tried some of the balance games and some yoga stuff (half moon is painful!) and if the aches I am suffering today are any indication, it must be doing something. Also I weighed myself twice by moving the board to a different bit of carpet, and the weight came out the same both times, so at least I have some functional scales now - at least until I live somewhere with even floors.

On Sunday we went to my mum's for lunch - quail wrapped in Parma ham to start (mm, tastes like a slightly gamey chicken), followed by one of Jamie's 30-minute-meals, which took an hour. :P It was pork loin with catherine-wheel sausage, celeriac mash and a sauce made of smoked bacon, chicken livers, rosemary and cream. Amazing. I was a bit wary of the celeriac mash because my mum said it tasted like celery, but it was actually surprisingly nice... So that's something I can add to my list of potato alternatives, anyway.

(Oh, and on Saturday I decided to use up the muffins in the fridge by having eggs benedict - Paul poached the eggs and cooked the bacon and I made the Hollandaise sauce, which for a first attempt wasn't bad at all. Mmmm, lovely.)

We had a go on Wii Sports Resort (obviously) and demonstrated Mario Galaxy and Epic Mickey. In the morning we also swapped our duff second-hand controller for another one (which works this time), and also the duff DS game for another Wii game, which looks quite pretty. I will probably have a go at it tonight.

Anyway, that's about it. Work is poo and I'm trying to get through the day-to-day without killing anyone, and I don't think it's going to change... There is good stuff, but it's hard to focus on that when I'm constantly exhausted.

If I don't post for ages, that's why. The fandom meme will resume when I have the energy. It annoys me that I only lasted two weeks before giving up on it, and that's making me even less inclined to finish it, but yeah. We'll see.

Current Mood: apathetic

So much for my best laid plan for fandom post catch-up. Ah well. I'll just have to stay behind. I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to keep the momentum going - I'm actually surprised I lasted as long as I did. :P

I promised a work annoyance the last time I posted, in relation to the fact that I'd cleared the backlog on my return to work on Thursday. ( So here it is... )

Oh, and here's an extra, unrelated stupidity from Thursday... ( Communication fail )

ALSO ALSO, a while ago I mentioned a film I was trying to find from my childhood. Or rather, I could only remember the last five minutes because they were on the end of a video. I found it last night!

I had remembered it as being on the end of Mary Poppins. It turns out my intuition on that front was half-right. For some reason I'd got it into my head on Saturday to watch The Three Lives of Thomasina, an earlier Disney film, which stars the same two children as Mary Poppins. I think my mum must have taped this for herself (as her own childhood memory) because the film in question was actually after Thomasina, only to have Willy Wonka taped over it. The reason I remembered it so clearly was because I used to watch Willy Wonka a lot more as a child and thus would fast-forward the tape to that point, and the mysterious badly-dubbed film was thus on the end of it.

SUCH A MASSIVE RELIEF. Again, at least I'm not insane.

It was called Beyond the Dragon's Lair and was made in Romania in 1982. It does indeed involve a man and a woma on a rocky outcrop, though they are both fully clothed (not in loincloths as I remembered), and the man DOES spend the last 20 seconds of the film DRAWING WINGS on a big rock (though he doesn't make them - I think they do fly on them at some point, and I MUST have watched this film all the way through before it was taped over, because Willy Wonka was taped MUCH later than Thomasina.) The wings-drawing part was particularly vivid; also my music memory is much stronger, as I remembered it note for note!

So there you go. Thus far IMDB and Google have not been helpful but I'll investigate further tonight. I'M NOT MAD, HURRAH!

I very much doubt this will be the end of my quest to dig up childhood memories. I'm still waiting on a reliable torrent of A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur's Court, the Bugs Bunny cartoon no-one else but me remembers. Seriously, why is my childhood made up of bizarre televisual remembrances? Normal people remember songs. :P

Current Mood: okay

I have fallen quite far behind on my Fandom for February posts. I will do an update later incorporating days 13 and 14, as they're both quite small, and then attempt to catch up with the rest over the course of the week. I think days 17 and 19 are both going to be quite lengthy, but there are some less wordy pairings as well. To be honest, it's probably going to run over into March anyway.

For now, here's a general update.

( Thusly. )

So, back at work today. Due to some late nights this week (and late mornings), I had coffee this morning out of sheer habit, forgetting that in fact I've not had any in a week. I have fun jitters as a result (hence the icon). Just as well really as there is a backlog in the typing, and apparently whilst I was off the toilets were flooded, only to be back in service yesterday. Talk about good timing. :)

I think that'll do for now. Much work to do, can't waste time writing LJ entries. ;)

PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to

commoncomitatus. We will try and find time to come up and visit you, if the birthdays in March ever let up... at which point you will receive a belated card and some variety of present, as I am horribly disorganised.

Current Mood: rushed

This was going to form part of one big post, but since the other post is ridiculously huge, I've decided to post it separately...

I had one small work annoyance today that took the form of my being helpful (or trying to be, at least), only to have people either ignore me or not believe me. ( Under here. )

Just... ugh, I don't know why I bother. I might as well leave them to their own devices.

Current Mood: grumpy

Well, that was an interesting one.

On Friday night I was sociable. Kemi was having joint birthday drinks with two others (can't remember who now) so for the first couple of hours after work I joined that group at the Colmore Bar and Grill. At around 6.00pm Gaynor and I wandered down to the Irish Centre to partake in the big BCC pub quiz.

Our team also included John-The-Cleaner, Peter from Adults (as per emails already quoted - we managed to convince him), his wife, Rebecca (who is an alto in my choir), and his mate, Pat (I think).

The Irish Centre has been done up since we were last there and looks much more friendly now. There are carpets, for one, the bar has been refurbished and the interior generally looks less like a woe-begotten church hall. :)

Pat, it turned out, was our secret weapon, hoarding a vast plethora of random knowledge. Gaynor and I were first to arrive and filled out some of the 'blockbuster' round which was given out at the start, including some of those dingbat / say-what-you-see type puzzles, name-the-Carry-On-actor (and also film, though the quizmeister decided not to mark us on those in the end), name-the-balti, name-the-football-team, and name-the-song-from-the-lyrics. As to the balti round, that just goes to prove that Birmingham, in general, eats too much curry, when we can identify them by description alone. :D To my great pleasure, one of the name-the-songs was The Killers' "Human", though I then got paranoid I'd got it wrong and was incredibly pleased when I'd got it right. :)

Peter was taking things very seriously indeed. QUIZZIS R SRS BIZNIS, apparently. Still, it paid off. At half time we were, surprisingly, joint third. Paul's team apparently was second-to-bottom. :P

By the time we'd finished we somehow managed to come first!! Which is a great improvement on coming 17th last time. :D We won a 24-pack of Grolsch lager and a small trophy. This win was actually entirely down to Paul; his team had abandoned him so he came to sit with us towards the end and gave us two more correct answers - we won by one point, so all credit is to him for our win. :) I shall take a photograph of the trophy later.

We got home around midnight (shared a taxi with Gaynor as she lives in Acocks Green), and since all I'd had for tea was three pints of cider and three bags of salt-and-vinegar crisps, we stopped off at Chicken Hut so I could have something vaguely more substantial to eat.

This is when the oddness of Saturday begins...( Strangeness )

I probably shouldn't be that surprised by Saturday, given the week I'd had at work. My three late evenings did gain me just under 2.5 hours of flex, at least, even despite leaving early on Thursday and going in at 10.00am on Friday. So that's something.

I was also shattered last night as well. Not quite so bad today, though I attribute that to taking cocodamol before bed and using a wheat bag, the combination of which meant a pretty good night's sleep...

That's about it. Must update music meme at some point. I am playing good wifey again tomorrow for another games night for Paul and his mates; curry is on the menu this time so I need to check my new 1000-recipe book for something that doesn't involve too much grinding of stuff... I think I shall steal the DVD-player and put it in the bedroom and finally make a start on watching Damages, as I've had the DVDs off my mum for ages and not gotten around to them yet... I'm sure

commoncomitatus will be watching this space for a review. :P

Oh, on a final note, I'll be in London from 21st to 23rd October (Thursday to Saturday), as we're going to see Ghost Stories on the Thursday and spend the next day and a half wandering about. I know

jackiesjottings wanted to meet up in Camden, in which case, it'll be on the 23rd in the morning when we're likely to be there.

commoncomitatus is also welcome to meet us on the Friday at any point if she wants. :)

Over and out!

Current Mood: okay

So, today was annoying. I meant to leave at four; I left at six. That kind of annoying.

I was going to rant about it, but I don't have the energy any more. The only snark I can muster is the passive-aggressive message I left for Paul on the notice board in the kitchen* about the fact that he owes me three (underlined several times) rounds of washing up now. He had reduced it to two, but we have the gas man coming tomorrow and in my attempt to merely pile up the dirty dishes for Paul to do them tomorrow I was assaulted by a horrendous smell and decided to do it myself.

Anyway, the work annoying was the same annoying as it always is, revolving around Moany, Forgetful and Demanding, as per frigging usual. I might post about it tomorrow if I'm so inclined, but right now I just want CHIPS and SLEEP. Except CHIPS will entail actually having to move. Can someone email me some chips? Please?

* I bought this notice board back in July with the intention of writing upon it the contents of the freezer / fridge. I got as far as putting the fridge's contents on it but we never actually sat down to note what was in the freezer. The entire purpose of this was so we actually could get organised and get stuff out for tea in advance, like we used to when we first moved in and weren't so bone idle / tired, but then the freezer was empty again so we didn't bother, etc, etc. I wiped it clean the other day because most of the fridge stuff had also changed / gone and, well, at least I used it for something...

Current Mood: pissed off

It's my mum's birthday today, so we're going over later for some food. We also went out on Saturday night to Strada (the one in the ICC), which was amazing. Everything from the wine to the dessert was faultless. OMNOM.

Monday at work was annoying. I have mellowed since and was too bloody tired to update about it at the time, but suffice it to say, it was to do with yet more colleague fail. I was on tape rota (I see how this works; I get lumbered with all of the previous week's backlog and whoever does Tuesday gets an easy ride) but seeing as on Friday night I was accosted (AGAIN) whilst trying to leave about an urgent, I decided to do that when I got in first thing instead. At around 10.00am (I think), Forgetful came downstairs to deliver some work and said, in an accusing tone:

"I thought you were doing tapes today."

Yes, but there are urgents, so I was helping. Her response was that "Normally whoever's on tapes just lets everyone else do the urgents". Pardon me for being remotely useful, then.

So pretty much from that point onwards I was waiting for hometime. Also my voice had packed up for some reason so I didn't really talk much all day, which everyone noticed (I'm not that talkative, honest!) and wondered why. Meh. Probably for the best, actually, or I would have shouted the odds to whoever was listening.

In other news, Arsey is apparently talking to me again. So I suppose I should change his alias. :) Maybe he was embarrassed about his conduct on the Day of the Move and decided ignoring me was better than apologising? That would explain his lack of eye contact in the lift the other day. Anyway, I was doing the rounds earlier with Noor's get-well-soon card and he was chatty and normal and actually initiating a conversation...

I'm very glad it's blown over, actually, as I was starting to worry there'd be an atmosphere, and as he's a locum there is every chance that he might end up working for South at some point (he already has once) and I didn't want it to continue if that was the case.

Nowt else to report. Hopefully I'll have time to post the music-meme entry later, though I have the majority of the other options written down on paper so as to make things quicker. It was just that first one which I found tricky, all the others were fine. :P

Yesterday's stupidity continues...

In the midst of moaning about fee earners' bad dictation yesterday, Forgetful quoted an example of one particular legal assistant, who dictated that she required a Form 1.

A Form 1, I should explain, is basically a one-sheet consent form which is signed by the parties to a case, enabling the Applicant (usually us) to renew an Interim Care Order (so called because it only lasts a month each time) by writing to the Court, rather than having to hear the matter each time.

We type enough of these that, in any case, she should know what the precedent number is. And even if she doesn't, we have a list of all the precedents to hand, both hard and electronic copies.

She brought this up with the legal assistant in question, who was under the (admittedly wrong) assumption that it was "automatic". We're still not quite sure what she thought would happen, though initially it was thought that the digital dictation system would work in partnership with the case management system (i.e. IKEN) and open up the correct precedent at the same time as opening the dictation. Given the issues with IKEN, I can understand why this clearly isn't the case. I assume the legal assistant thought this was the process, or alternatively that we simply typed 'Form 1' into IKEN to get the precedent.

Anyway, Forgetful brought the legal assistant over to her desk to demonstrate the problem of not quoting the precedent number and merely requesting a 'form 1', by showing her "how many documents come up when you type in Form 1".

I tried this myself earlier, just out of interest. Guess how many documents come up.

Go on, guess.

( I'm going to cut this because it's just too bloody brilliant. )

I think Forgetful has achieved her quota of fail for the entire year in one single meeting.

In other news, earlier on I held open the door for Arsey (he was right behind me so I couldn't exactly let it go in his face, tempting though it was) and he actually thanked me. Maybe he's finally got over himself. We can only hope.

I just had the following exchange with a WPO colleague during our (wholly unproductive) team ~~moanathon~~ meeting. Surprisingly, Moany wasn't even there. This conversation took place with newly-aliased Forgetful, so-named for her previous statement about forgetting everything we'd learned about Iken because she would have slept in the interim...

Me: [regarding dictation] I've said to Lisa that if she has trouble using the untethered device, she can always use Kate's [her jobshare] when she's in.

Forgetful: That's not fair, you'll pick up a piece of work from Kate and discover it's Lisa.

Nice attitude. They don't like Lisa's work because (a) she never dictates matter numbers (which is why I produced a reference list of them) and (b) she likes scanning and sending emails, OH NOES THE HORROR. Which is exactly why I keep getting lumbered with it on a regular basis, because I do it without any hassle. (Lisa actually using the digital dictation system is a whole other rant, mind you, because of said scanning issue, and I tried to resolve it before it became a problem to no avail... My attempts to explain why it wasn't just as simple as giving her a dictation device and the appropriate training were not met with the appropriate enthusiasm. I have now washed my hands of it.)

Also discovered in course of said meeting that Forgetful had clearly completely ignored the helpful email sent some months back by one of our IT guys, attaching the desktop links for the other two shared drives on the network, subsequent to the original office move back in January. We use 'socshare' (Social Services), and there is also 'pubshare' (Public Law and Property) and 'litshare' (Litigation). Pubshare is used for Education Team's work and litshare for Employment's, hence why we needed access and links. She was asking where we were supposed to save work for Employment because they never make it clear, and I said their case files were on litshare, which was enough to send her into paroxysms of confusion and affrontation.

Look, if you ignore an email because you think it does not apply to you personally, that's not my problem. Considering everyone else knew what I was talking about, it clearly IS just you. Yes, fair enough, Employment shouldn't be using the network drives, but they are, and that's their choice. Until they start using Iken, just do as you're bloody well told.

GRAH, so frustrating.

As is having vegetable fail at Tesco. They had no parnsips AND no leeks. I know they're winter veg, but come on!

commoncomitatus is forcing me to do one of those 30-day memes (and obviously picked the hardest subject possible, i.e. music) so I will start that when I've written down some possibilities and whittled them down. :P

In the meantime, here's an update of last week. ( Week of Sociability )

( Less Pleasant Colleague Stuff )

That's about it, really. We are currently levelling out at 48-hour turnaround on work, which is better than seven days as it was a couple of weeks ago. Despite doing three long days last week, leaving early on Monday and two long lunches effectively killed off any flex I might have gained (I only got 0.10 of an hour), so I need to make the effort this week. It does seem that no matter how hard I work to get through the typing, it just keeps on coming. I hope when Noor finally comes back from sick leave we'll be able to cope a bit better; KEH typists were helping out but were more trouble than they were worth, and couldn't access the matters on IKEN anyway, so I think they've given up now.

Anyway, I should really tackle said typing, I suppose.

Edit at 18.20: The afternoon did not exactly improve. I had intended on leaving work at 4.30, and picked up a longish piece of dictation at just before 4.00 to kill some time. It was 25 minutes in length and shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, except the fee earner in question has to spell everything every single time (not being content to spell, for example, the child’s name the first time and expecting us to be intelligent enough to remember it two seconds later…), which uses up precious minutes, and also being overly verbose. I disapprove of the phrase: “… has the ability to be able to…”. Calling the Department of Redundancy Department!

Anyway, I finished that at about 4.45 (I think) and was just filling out the receipt for it to take it upstairs, when Senior 1 tells me she’s put something in as urgent and it needs to go out that afternoon. Right. Okay. So I do that, and am in the process of printing it off when Senior 2 comes up to me and says he’s put an urgent in that also needs to go this afternoon and could I please do it. Having already been thwarted in my first attempt to go home early, I reacted possibly less politely than I should have done, but did it anyway.

You know what? This is getting a bit tedious now. I’m rather sick of being the only person around after 3.30pm to do any urgents that come in. Also I seem to have done nothing except urgents today, and there’s a lot of it because we’re still behind and people are panicking.

*grumps*

It’s all flex. I just have to keep telling myself that. And I have a week off in September. I will doubtless return to similar levels of chaos as last time, but that seems to be par for the course.

On the plus side, I did manage to find a halfway decent cardigan in Primark with very little hassle, for once. It’s one of those buttonless ones with the dangly tails at the front. I have several tops which are longer than my standard cardigans / hoodies so it will come in very useful…

Current Mood: grumpy

Once again I have been rather lax in updating, and once again it's because I haven't been doing anything. Work is still insanely busy, with the pile of typing simply not dwindling despite best efforts, and to be honest I've just been trying to get to payday without being completely destitute.

In fact, last week I had to extend my overdraft online by £100, to cover a leaving dinner which took place yesterday, the day before payday. I'm glad I did, though, because it was a very pleasant evening. (And anyway, now that Paul's been paid I can knock that £100 off the overdraft again and go back to normal...)

We went to Piccollino last night, an Italian restaurant in Brindley Place (opposite Ikon Gallery and directly behind Flares), and there were ten of us in total, though one of the people for whom the dinner was held didn't turn up, as she left several weeks ago... We were under the impression she would come, but never mind...

The food was lovely. Fairly expensive (I always think Italian food is horribly overpriced anyway), but actually worth the money. The grills were very steep (steaks were about £20!) but the pastas, pizzas and risottos weren't too bad (between £9 and £12), and it all came to about £20 per head in the end, which was surprising considering how quickly the wine was flowing...

It was all very laid back and we finally left the restaurant around 9.45, ambled back in a New Street sort of direction and parted ways at the ramp to go our separate ways. Everyone always says after nights out like this that we should do it more often, as we only ever seem to get together when people are leaving. The good intentions are usually scuppered by various other work commitments, though... Ah well.

As a result of being slightly tipsy and the heat last night, however, I'm somewhat hungover and decidedly sleepy today. (And we might be going out AGAIN for another leaver tonight! Will have to see how I feel about that later...) I also had two very bizarre dreams, which I shall recount herein. :)

( Dreams: Exciting Exhibition; Interrogation )

I totally want a Sunset Boulevard exhibition, though. :D I suppose I'll have to make do with the Tim Burton artwork exhibition when it finally appears in the UK in about 2011. And frankly, I'm not missing that for anything. :P

Current Mood: thirsty

Dear People-at-the-Bus-Stop,

Why do you feel the need to try and get on the bus before the passengers disembarking have a chance to get off? Apart from being rude, what do you expect will happen? You're not going to get home any quicker than if you were to wait, unless those few seconds are absolutely vital. I appreciate, man-at-the-front-of-the-queue, that you did apologise to myself and the lady before me, but that does not negate the fact that your foot was already on the platform as soon as the doors opened.

No love,

teylaminh

It's not just randomers, either. As I was getting off the bus this morning (I had to sit upstairs because I left five minutes late - go figure - so I was one of the last straggers to get off), I think I saw one of the fee earners in Adults haranguing the driver. It sounded like her, anyway. It's not a fee earner I particularly miss since the move, as she was constantly pestering me and announcing her PC issues to the entire office. After the incident this morning, it reminded me that, yes, she did have an air of self-importance about her which would explain what I saw happening.

I assume she was trying to get somewhere on the 50 for a meeting or otherwise. As I and several other remaining passengers were still getting off, I spotted that she was standing by the driver's cabin. I think she was trying to ascertain how much it would cost, as I distinctly heard, "I've only got £3.50..." before I got off myself. And yes, there was a queue of people waiting to get on. The 50 stop is a busy one no matter what time of day it is.

I can almost accept it from teenagers and old people, the two groups who seem to believe the world owes them something (I can understand it from the pensioners; the 'yoofs' have no excuse), though it's still a sad picture of society in general that we live in a universe of self-absorbed egotism and downright rudeness. I just hope I don't reach the point of having so much money that I consider myself so entitled that the rules of manners no longer apply. Money buys you lots of things; it does not buy you respect.

I think perhaps this would not have annoyed me quite so much, if not for this week at work being completely horrendous. We are still three days behind on typing, and today I feel like I've been horribly unproductive, despite the fact I literally haven't stopped except for lunch. I don't mind being busy (I would rather have too much work than none at all), but there are limits.

Gah. Only one day to go, anyway.

Current Mood: cynical

So, I've just returned from a week-and-a-bit of leave to find that the work is behind, to the tune of there being dictation in Winscribe (the digital dictation database/list/thing) from last Tuesday, 6th July. Noor has been off sick (and still is), Slowpoke is AFAIK still doing admin due to her RSI, so that leaves four WPO's to do the work.

I could expostulate on this endlessly, but you know what? I really can't be bothered any more. Since room / floor move, morale has been incredibly low all through the various teams. I was hoping I would come back to find it had improved, but apparently not.

Anywho, here's what I did during my time off.

( Not very much, actually. )

Nothing else to report. Two more weeks to hold out until Paul gets his first proper paycheque and things stop being so frugal around here, and not before time. :P

Current Mood: busy

Interview seemed to go okay. It wasn't quite as surreal as the last one (for the secretary job) and I think I answered all the questions properly, though obviously it did suffer somewhat from the usual post-interview feeling of "Oh, I should have said such-and-such as well", but never mind. We shall see. I asked some pertinent questions about the role itself and it would be on a trial period for the first year, with a review after six months to see if the new structure is working and the senior WPO/Clericals are happy / capable in their roles, and then it would go properly permanent after a year...

Not sure when I get to hear back. I shall update again when I know more.

I left early to walk to the surgery to make an appointment and thankfully managed to get one on Saturday morning at 9.50am, which wasn't even an option when I rang up the other day. Hm. At least now I can take that last pill and not have to worry...

I was ridiculously early even after pottering about town, but I had the interview at 1.15 and was back on the bus home again by 1.40. Which included a trip to the Works (right next door) to pick up a couple of recipe books. Retail therapy, yo.

The books are a soup book by the New Covent Garden Food Co. (who make all the lovely fresh soups) which has lots of interesting things in it, and the other is "Cakes and Cookies" from the same range as my other favourite recipe books, which has some rather amazing-looking cakes in it. The baking bug has hit. I might attempt the spiral tea biscuits tomorrow (from the chocolate book I bought Eni for her birthday) and take photographs of the process so that she can see proof that the recipe is possible! Er, assuming I don't mess it up, anyway. :P

Right, nothing left to do now but sit tight. I will finish my penultimate Christmas decoration embroidery and make a start on the last one. I am determined to get these things finished before I go back to work! Will post photographs when they're all sewn and then again when I've finished them properly... Watch this space for many and varied updates.

Current Mood: relieved

Unfortunately, given that one of those idiots is me... I doubt there's any escape for the foreseeable. I should probably update about what I've been doing with my time off (answer: not much) but instead you'll have to make do with this rant...

( Part the First )

TL;DR: Virgin Mobile suck.

( Part the Second )

TL;DR: work are stupid sometimes.

( Part the Third )

TL;DR: GP surgery fail.

Anyway. I shall re-read my application thingy, find a smart-looking shirt that still bloody well fits, and hopefully by venting all of this stress it will go away.

Current Mood: frustrated

I'm not going for it. I've spent the past couple of weeks in a state of fluctuation about it. Whilst at work I wanted to go for it; when at home I emphatically didn't. The difference between work-brain and home-brain, clearly. Anyway, my final decision has come about as a result of a conversation with Paul on Friday night (he thinks they might be doing something very sneaky as the job description is so vague and unspecific...), plus Thursday and Friday being absolutely frelling stupid...

( Details / moaning under the cut - very long )

So there you have it. As much as a pay rise would have been nice (and very much appreciated), it's not worth the hassle. The cut-off is Wednesday, and they're interviewing for it on 27th April whilst I'm on leave, so essentially it would be the same situation as last time where I'd be thrown into a job immediately on returning to work.

I should get my cost-of-living increase in this month's pay, and with any luck I will pass my PDR with flying colours and thus achieve my pay increment too. Which will be better than nothing, at any rate.

Current Mood: frustrated

Further to my latest tweet, here's the full story...

Firstly, apologies for the lack of updating around here (again), but... actually, I have no excuse. I've just not been feeling very posty. My online activities of late involve reading Facebook and Twitter, checking my Flickr stream and LJ f-list, and nowt much else. I'm still quite skint and haven't done anything of interest since Alice in Wonderland (still haven't seen that again, either). Choir is choir, life is life, work is work. At the moment I'm just waiting for this week to be over and Easter to start. I have annual leave booked from 16th April and will not be back at work until 5th May (the 3rd is a bank holiday; I have training on the 4th).

Anyway. I think I half-mentioned that there were some potentially exciting opportunities possibly arising at work. Here's the full story, and explanation of subject header... You can probably miss out the first cut if you really want because it's quite boring. ;)

( Precursor )

( Wibble )

I anticipate an influx of similar comments to last time, and I will of course keep LJ / Twitter / Facebook updated with progress reports.

Current Mood: pensive

It's been a while since I updated. I've not been feeling very updatey, really. Here's what I've been doing lately.

( Watching Stuff )

This week at work has been much more bearable than last week, not least because we have heating / a working lift / electrics, and there's been plenty of work to do. I'm trying to make up some hours because I need to take 1.5 flex days before the end of January and currently have 0.14 of an hour. Don't think I'll manage it somehow. (I need to take 1.5 days because Legal's 8-week flex allowance is three days total rather than two, and if you take two days in one four-week period you must take one in the other, ditto for 1.5 - I took 1.5 flex days before Christmas, so am rather stuck.)

( Singing Stuff )

Aaand finally... ( Money Stuff )

Anyway, that'll do. I think I've not been updating because it would be mostly doom and gloom. I'll come back when things are looking up. So... probably in about five years. Bye.

Current Mood: discontent

Yesterday morning - heating broken.

Yesterday afternoon - heating fixed, however lift broken.

This morning - lift still broken; heating broken again. Lift fixed during course of afternoon.

This afternoon - circuits broken, half of office plunged into darkness, lift re-broken and wheelchair-bound colleague thus stranded...

...and a VERY VERY LONG dream write-up lost to the ether because I wrote it in Wordpad and didn't save it.

Bugger.

I dread to think what joys tomorrow will hold...

Current Mood: cynical

I got into work this morning to find the heating was broken. Ten degrees celcius at 9.00am (I was delayed by traffic stupidity in the first instance), so I went straight back out to get a hot drink, following which I've been sitting here in my coat all morning.

The heating was fixed by about 9.45 or thereabouts, but given the office takes the best part of a day to warm up anyway, and is always quite chilly on Monday mornings even when the heating is working, over the course of a couple of hours the temperature slowly clambered to 15 degrees.

There are very few people in today, and thus there is nothing to do. At 10.15, David said that if the temperature had not improved in an hour of so, he was happy for Noor and I to go home and he'd take the blame for it if questions were asked later.

So, at about 11.30, the temperature had not improved sufficiently, and we still didn't have any work to do. He then set about trying to find someone appropriately in charge of the WPOs in Marie's absence to authorise us going home. He then came back from his mission to inform us that it was significantly warmer on the other side of the building, and our options were to either go and sit at a spare desk over there, or merely have an extended lunch until the building warmed up. He could see the lack of sense in having two dithering WPOs sitting at their desks with nothing to do, but didn't want to just send us home when it transpired that the WPOs over there (i.e. Marian) were staying put.

Anyway, a few minutes later Carol H wandered over, the secretary named on the rota as covering in Marie's absence. Obviously, she wasn't about to send us home. There was some discussion as to whether it was down to manager or employee discretion, whether we would lose pay or have to use up leave, etc; Carol went to "ask Jerome" (her Head of Service) and didn't reappear, so we assumed that we were not allowed to leave - neither of us are going to be so presumptuous to merely walk out without permission.

The most irritating thing in all of this was that Carol said we should go and sit over their side and help Marian - when we checked a few minutes earlier, there was no work anywhere, and no help therefore required. The suggestion of helping is not annoying in and of itself, as if there was any work to do it would be done with pleasure. It was the implication that we simply weren't bothering which irritated me. Noor and I are the only two WPOs who provide full cover at any given time. This issue has been raised over and over again without resolution, but that's neither here nor there. As ever, those of us who are willing to be flexible are penalised for it.

And now, to top it all off, the lift's broken.

I should have stayed in bed.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: a very cold office

Paul and I got some more presents last night - all that remains is something else for Robin / Bumble, which Paul is going to hunt for at the same time as shopping for me. I also have £9 left to spend on something for him to make up the £30 limit.

Next week's evenings have gone from being fairly quiet to being jammed!

Monday - Paul at Broken Amp.
Tuesday - last choir rehearsal before Christmas.
Wednesday - meeting

herringprincess at the pub to hand over pressies pre-Christmas as she won't be around on Christmas Eve.
Thursday - going to see grandmother.
Friday - nothing. Yet, anyway. :P

Tomorrow we're going to Jen and Dave's for dinner so I will need to wrap their presents tonight. Paul's working in the morning so will meet Lisa and I in town on the way there. On Sunday we're hoping to go and see Paranormal Activity (I've bitten the bullet - as much as I know full well I'll be backed firmly into my chair with horror, I also know I'll regret it if I miss it at the cinema) and maybe a ride on the wheel, so I must remember to take the camera with me. Might take it on Saturday as well.

I cannot be any more sociable than I already am being, so please - don't ask me to do anything else.

Nowt else to report. It's been quiet here the past couple of days. Today I've allocated myself the task of sorting through our filing cabinet full of police videos. Might as well make a start on that.

Two hours later...

Police evidence cataloged and databased. Now back to my day job. :P

Current Mood: productive

For some reason lately, people have been infuriatingly dim-witted.

( Cut because it's stupid and petty but I need to vent it before I hit someone. )

Nowt else to report, alas. I finished my fifth Christmas decoration embroidery last night (five more to go - argh!) and took photos of that and the fourth one, except our internet was down and I couldn't post them. Will do that tonight if it's back up.

Current Mood: irritated

Here's a bit more work humour for you, even though I know it's not funny outside of the office. I like to record these things for posterity... (Er, not verbatim because I can't quite remember it...)

( Cut because it's mostly for my own benefit. )

Anyway, even though it was somewhat inane, it brightened up my morning.

I was so tired this morning that I bought a croissant from Pret and then forgot about it until 10.20... (I got into work at 9.00). Not quite so nice after being zapped in the microwave for 45 seconds, unfortunately. I was hungry when I bought it, but was then concerned with drinking my coffee (mmmm, liquid sanity) and forgot it was there. Oh, well.

For some reason I couldn't get to sleep last night. We went to bed around 11.00 and Paul nodded off almost straight away, but it took me a couple of hours to nod off, despite being really tired beforehand. I had various bits of songs going around my head, which didn't help, starting with Sea Drift (the horrendously difficult thing we're doing for the November concert; even Adrian said that if he ever met Delius in a bar he'd hit him upside the head... :P) and then I think it was the Killers. Can't remember. Annoying, though.

( Work moaning )

*ahem* Sorry, just had to get that off my chest...

In other news, I've been trying to get a plain, black, v-neck t-shirt for work. I did have one, but it has gone AWOL in the flat, presumably to the same place as the big nail clippers and the metal tape measure. I swear we have Gremlins, or perhaps a particularly mischievous poltergeist... it's getting a bit silly now. (Having said that, I did find my bicarbonate of soda*, at the back of the cupboard behind the six-tonne bag of pasta...) Anyway, do you think I can find a black t-shirt? No, of course not. I've tried Primark, New Look, Peacocks and Store 21 (in Kings Heath) to no avail... next course of action is Matalan, but I don't really want to traipse that far just for a t-shirt - and I know full well that as soon as I buy one, the one I lost will miraculously reappear...

My new embroidery frame arrived this morning, so I'll put my ongoing / on-hiatus project onto that, as I transferred the Christmas decorations to the old one on Monday. Will post a photograph of the first completed one soon... I did realise last night, however, that I've measured my fabric partitions wrong and divided it into eight segments, and there are 10 decorations. Bugger. Thankfully, some of them are narrow, so I might be able to rectify it...

I'm sure I had another thing to post about, but I've forgotten it... probably for the best, as this is quite long enough already.

Over and out.

* Here's a handy tip from the ever-resourceful Kim and Aggie, which works wonders. If you have a blocked drain, pour down half a cup of bicarb, half a cup of salt, and half a cup of white vinegar. This part is quite fun for the chemical reaction, though the fumes are a bit rank (unless you like vinegar...) Leave it five minutes and then pour through with boiling water. I didn't think this would work but it's actually unblocked our bath (as much as it's possible to do) and it's draining at a reasonable pace now. So, forget Mr Muscle, go for the all-natural solution. :) I wish I'd known this when our kitchen sink was blocked rather than attempting to kill myself with chlorine gas...

Current Mood: tired

Paul has a job! Hurrah! It's based at Lancaster Circus and has the potential for lots of overtime (paid at time and a half), so even though it's not as much money as he was hoping for, he can still pull in the equivalent that he was on before. Also the basic rate can increase based on performance, which is always of the good. It's still via an agency, but never mind. JOB!

Thank anything for that. I was starting to feel the panic set in.

Not much else to report. I ordered a new (bigger) frame last night for my Christmas decorations, though depending on the size of the fabric I might put the ongoing project (the one I've been posting pictures of) onto the new one and the new-and-hopefully-finished-by-Christmas embroidery onto the old frame.

I am officially middle aged, it would seem.

This morning has been about typing endless emails (plus scanned documents) and nothing remotely substantial; I can feel the brainrot setting in. Give me a juicy two-tape report, someone!

This lunchtime I have to go out to buy socks, as my feet got soaked on the way to work and are now uncomfortably damp and itchy. Meh.

Current Mood: bored

Feeling a bit better today. I had a good relaxing bath last night and Paul and I were both in bed by 9.30 because it was so bloody cold (and anyway, there was nothing on television), so I've had probably more sleep than I needed. I did wake up at one point when Paul went to get a drink, but I have no idea what time that was. Had some very odd dreams indeed, though...

There was some work this morning but only enough to sustain us until 11.00, and now we've run out again. There seem to be a lot of people out at Court or on leave lately. The former means that hopefully there'll be some post-Court file notes to type up eventually, but not particularly helpful at the moment...

I keep feeling all strangely woozy headed lately. On Monday night I had three separate occasions of feeling light-headed and almost falling over, plus one yesterday at work, and today I just feel generally monged, but I think that's because I had too much sleep (can't win either way, clearly). I'm going to keep an eye on it anyway and see how it goes, and if they get worse then obviously I'll go to my GP. I didn't have a Sunday Headache this weekend, and I'm pretty sure I only get those when (a) I'm stressed or (b) I don't eat properly, and I've been trying to be good... I find that when I eat regular cereal and/or brown bread it has the positive effect of flushing all the Bad Things out of my system.

I attribute it to Paul's-job-related stress...

Literally nothing else to report, I'm afraid. I apologise for the rather up and down nature of my LJ of late, but it's either purge things or go slowly mad...

Current Mood: groggy

( I Can Haz Funkshunal Ikwipmint? )

In other news, Paul is currently out of work again and also struck down with lurgy (hopefully not the dreaded Pig Plague), I'm absolutely skint to the extent that pay on Friday will not even bring me out of my overdraft - though to be honest I've been too scared to check my account balance this week - and starting to feel like there is no way out of this limbo I presently find myself in. I'm basically trapped in a deep, dark pit, attempting to scrabble to the surface and finding no purchase. If someone could please provide a rope ladder or a lottery win, that would be most helpful.

PS:

803am - I keep forgetting to mention this, and meant to comment on your X-Factor entry - given that this year's initial auditions are in the style of Britain's Got Talent and in front of a HUGE AUDIENCE, I'm suddenly very glad I won my bet last year. :P

Edit, 13.16: M has just redeemed himself by complimenting both my hair and my lunch (leftover enchiladas) - because I am that shallow.

Current Mood: restless

Well, I intended to have a tidying blitz this weekend, but instead we ended up doing something a lot more pleasant. Lisa texted us both at about 9.45 or so to ask if we wanted to go to a place called Earlswood, as she'd found it on the map and it looked interesting, so that effectively forced me out of bed. I put some washing in (and subsequently out) before we left and we headed off at about 11.30am.

Earlswood is located near Solihull, as it turns out, about 20 minutes away from Kings Heath. There are two large lakes there (apparently man-made so the Victorians would have somewhere to go walking) and a craft centre including lots of little shops and a maze made out of maize. It is in fact the self-same Maize Maze I visited with my mum about six years ago, though obviously they've re-grown it since then...

We parked at a nearby pub (The Reservoir) and then followed a footpath which led to an uncrossable brook, so then wandered down the road for a bit until we reached the two lakes, following which we stumbled upon the footpath again. I have no idea how far we walked but may well post a Googlemaps image later just so you can see the scale. We look lots of pretty pictures of greenery and such, and were accosted by a very friendly dog along the way.

The footpath led conveniently to the craft centre, where we wandered around the shops for a bit. Paul and I came away with a cats-eye ring (for "wealth and abundance", apparently - it's too big to wear as a ring so I've threaded it onto a brown suede lace that came with some present or another, to wear as a necklace - he's going to wear it at his Kelly's session later... well, you never know), a happiness stone (it's heart-shaped; I liked the pattern), a celtic-style ring (for Paul) and some lavendar and aloe-vera soap. There was a shop selling thousands and thousands of beads, loads of interesting little shops - if I could get there by bus I would take

jackiesjottings there next time. ;)

After that we finished the circuit of the lakes and walked back to the pub for lunch. Very nice it was, too, though the drinks were horribly expensive. Then we drove back to the craft centre because Lisa wanted to buy some beads, and Paul and I attempted the Maize maze... You're supposed to exit it over the bridge, but by the time we'd found ourselves back at the entrance twice we gave up and went out that way. It's seven acres, apparently. I think we were in there a good hour or so.

Then we drove home and did nothing for the rest of the evening. A thoroughly pleasant day. There are photographs on Flickr, though for some reason it chose to upload them in the wrong order...

On Sunday we were fairly lazy, other than a trip to Aldi for tea stuff. We had half-planned to go to

herringprincess's barbecue but after the knackering Saturday eventually decided against it. And I totally forgot to text her and apologise, for which I suck.

Of the evening I got around to re-watching Rent, having listened to the soundtrack most of the way to London the other week. I think I had more to say but it fell out of my brain.

As anticipated this morning, now that Noor is back off leave, there is not enough work to sustain both of us, whereas last week I was drowning on my own. Typical.

( Follow-up to last (f'locked) post )

That's that. I need to tackle this long piece of dictation before lunch, so I'll post this and get on with it...

Current Mood: guilty

Okay, so on Thursday afternoon I had booked flex leave, which meant that I spent most of Thursday morning typing like the clappers to get the pile down to a manageable level, sending copious emails, hiding my stationery, etc.

I left work shortly before 1.00pm and went to get my hair cut, then went back via Wilkinson to pick up some bits, and some lunch from Greggs. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing various household stuff and dying my hair, which is now black again. :)

On Friday, we got up at 7.15 in order to catch a coach to London, arriving just after 12.20 and immediately tube-hopping to the O2, where we were going to see ( Gunther von Hagans' Bodyworlds Exhibition )

After that we had loads of time to kill so wandered around Soho for a bit (firstly getting lost - it all looks different in daylight!) to find the bistro we always go to. Lovely food, as ever. We had a couple of drinks in some pubs, and passed a liquor shop selling two rather exciting things: a bottle of Absolut vodka ensconced inside a red, besequinned jacket, advertised as "100% gay vodka!"; and, apparently, some fizzy vodka. Paul spotted this, though I didn't see it, however I made sure to inform Sharn at work this morning, who was suitably impressed. ;)

We also accidentally stumbld upon L'Escargot, Marco Pierre White's restaurant, down a back street in Soho. I literally double-taked and was like, "Is that the real L'Escargot?", and we wandered over to have a look at their prices. Surprisingly, they're no more expensive than some of the high-end of independent restaurants in Moseley...

Coach back was at 8.30 and I dozed off and on all the way back, which at least made the journey pass a bit quicker.

On Saturday I was knackered and slept in until around 11.00, before heading out to meet my mum and David to see We Will Rock You at the Hippodrome. ( OMG SO AMAZING )

In the evening we met up again to go out for a meal at La Fibule, which is where Paul and I went on Valentine's Day. It's quite pricey, but the food is absolutely amazing. For starters, Paul and my mum both had the three-cheese salad, David had... damn, can't remember, and I had the falafel, which was nice, if a bit dry. For mains, Paul had the king prawn skewers, David had the fish stew (which was a GIANT PILE OF SEAFOOD in sauce, amazing), mum had the Poulet Khaddra (which I had on Valentine's Day) and I tried the Tagine D'Agneu D'Asilah, which was lamb cooked in yoghurt, sage and mint. OMG so delicious. There was far too much, so alas I couldn't finish it, but it was so creamy and amazing. Wow. If it wasn't so expensive I would eat there more often.

It was baking hot in there, also, which given it's Moroccan makes for an authentic dining experience.

Sunday, thankfully, was lazy - I put washing out, watched EastEnders, had a shower, the usual.

Back at work this morning to find a note on my desk from Gaynor, apologising for the fact none of the work had been done in my absence (Noor is also on leave). Apparently one of the seniors in Central Team had decreed one particular fee earner's work to all be urgent, because they were holiday cover notes, thus effectively depriving us of one typist; another typist got lumbered with the three-taper off Lisa which was needed for Monday morning, which I had hoped to get done before leaving but had deprioritised to get through everything else, and after she'd finished that managd one other thing after lunch before swanning off at 3.30.

So this morning I had to do the 1.5-tape from Lisa (also needed for Monday, as above), plus the remainder of Thursday afternoon's work AND all of Friday's. By the time I left this afternon at 4.45, I had just caught up to the stuff from this morning.

I don't know why I bother trying to be organised. Meh.

Okay, that's enough for this entry. I should have done the WWRY review straight afterwards, but I was bloody knackered from all the rocking. \m/

Over and out.

Current Mood: thirsty

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teylaminh

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July 2017

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I Has A(Nother) Dilemma...
Long Overdue Update One of Many...
Today is my Humpday
Life Update
Work, Fandom - Just the Usual!
More Fandom Stuff, Basically.
Job Ambivalence
Somewhat Overdue
My Body Hates Me
I Do Not Think This Bodes Well
Whole Lotta Dumb
Bit of an Update
Update
Almost There...!
Boooooooored...
Ah, frell it...
Various Bits...
*head-->desk*
Some Work Stupidity
Randoms.
Work Stuff...
Recipe; Work Annoyance
I Hate February
Generality...
Update on various stuff
Small Work Annoyance
Strange Weekend...
Not worth the effort.
Bit of an Update
I Don't Know Whether to Laugh or Scream...
Charming!
Update Time
Dream Post, Plus Update
Grr.
Back to the Madhouse
Update...
I'm SURROUNDED by IDIOTS.
Update on Job Sitch.
More Job-Related Wibbling
Not Very Interesting
What next?
If I'd Known, I'd Have Had A Duvet Day
Nearly Done...
Some Petty Work Annoyances
Heh.
Success at Last
Somewhat Better
In Which IT are Frustrating...
Impromptu Day Trip
Weekend write-up.

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