Here is a picture of my pussy, to warm the cockles of your heart!

An old dalek -

A new dalek -

Inside a dalek -

And other aliens -

Yallum Ridge Estate.

Shiraz.

2004 vintage.

13.5%.

Followed by some of my mom’s home made raspberry/blackberry/damson/sloe/other red fruit gin/vodka. She makes it. She doesn’t label it. She can’t remember which is which.

Who cares.

It’s red. Fruity. And alcoholic.

Hic.

Yesterday I saw Daleks.

Tomorrow there will be photographic evidence. Tonight I can’t be arsed to go and fetch my camera from downstairs. I wanted a picture of ONB with a Dalek, but he refused.

I still love him.

Watched the film ‘Signs’ tonight. I am glad I didn’t watch it in the pictures - I’d have really pissed off everyone else in the cinema. I love scary films so much, but I always scream at the scary bits.

And I screamed.

Quite a bit actually.

What a brilliant film!

I’m glad that’s over. I love my mother dearly, but she has got the art of martyr down to the finest art.

Last night I managed to upset her by answering the question, “Do you watch Emmerdale?” with “Yes, sometimes.” She walked out of the room, and sulked upstairs for an hour. Even my dad was bewildered.

Christmas dinner was, well, a typical Christmas dinner cooked by my sister. Three tiny roast potatoes each, an enormous bowl of mashed potatoes (I hate mash!), the sprouts cooked so long they had turned grey, she even managed to make frozen petit pois turn grey (those things just need *warming*, for gods sake), and they were served in a dish with some token mange tout - that had been boiled for as long as the peas had. My niece announced she didn’t like mange tout, and it was all I could do to stop myself from saying “I’m not surprised if they are served like that.”

My family, in recent years, after visiting other families and seeing it done this way, now serve dinner with all veggies in bowls, and the meat on plates for people to help themselves. However, they haven’t fully grasped the concept - the bowls get put on the table, but you have to empty them straight away so they can go back into the kitchen. There is never a chance for seconds, or for someone to just take a bit, and go back for more later if they want. If you don’t grab it first time round, you don’t get any more.

With the exception of a small spoonful of those grey peas, I have had no vegetables since Friday night. It’s just been meat, bread, and potatoes. No wonder I feel sluggish.

And if I didn’t look so much like my parents, I’d swear I was swapped with another family at birth.

My whole family communicates in a series of questions, to which there is never a polite way to answer. Examples -

“I thought you liked insert tv show name here? It’s rubbish isn’t it?” I mean, how on earth can you answer that?

“You’re not going to eat *that* now are you?” when said food object is already half eaten.

“Going in your car is horrible isn’t it?” Huh? If I thought my car was horrible, might I not have got another one, or maybe not even bought it in the first place?

“Everyone else who has stayed in that bed says it’s really comfortable, so I don’t know why you are saying it’s uncomfy?” How am I supposed to defend that? Especially as it’s the exact same when they come to mine, I get the “That spare bed is bloody uncomfortable isn’t it?” when everyone else says how comfy it is.

They also seem to talk in code - giving out the tiniest bit of information at a time, making you ask them questions, when they answer it by giving the smallest further amount of information possible, while trying to make you look stupid because you haven’t guessed what the hell it is they’re on about. This is often prefaced with the conversation, “Guess what?” Pause. Sigh. “What?” “No, you have to guess.” “But I don’t want to.” “Well what’s up with you, misery guts?” Or they will make a statement when they know full well you don’t know what they are talking about. If I bite, and ask, I get the rolled eyes, “Don’t you *know* that? I thought everyone did?”. If I refuse to ask, the statement gets repeated. And again. Until either they give in and say, “Aren’t you going to ask?” (”No, I don’t play that stupid game, if you want me to know something, tell me.”), or I give in, and ask.

Another favourite is, “We went to such and such the other day.” I will ask, “Where’s that?” “You know where it is, it’s by somewhere else.” “No, I don’t know where that is.” “Yes you do.” Oh, right, well I guess I do then, stupid me for thinking otherwise, you obviously know what I know better than me.

The best has to be my mother though. In a supermarket, her and my dad were talking to one of the young lads who works there, chatting to them. Now, my parents seem to know everyone, and every supermarket they go into they seem to know all the staff. My mother turns to me, “Don’t you know who this is?” Erm. No. “He’s Barbara’s nephew.” Oh, right. A girl I went to school with, who I haven’t seen for 20 years. Her brother (or sister)’s son, who is about 18. Stupid me for not recognising him!

In a non-sexual way of course.

It’s with ONB. He is a very funny guy - in some ways reminds me of X. I’d like to say without all the bad bits, but that’s probably not true, he might just as easily have the same bad points. But it’s a moot point anyway - he works for me, and is madly in love with the woman he is engaged to.

However, the more I know him, the more I realise we have in common. We have had a very similar upbringing (although the “who is roughest” competition he is winning hands down), have a similar sense of humour.

And today I realised we have similar opinions about people.

“The Arsehole” as LELI calls him (not to be confused with “The Arsehole’s Friend” or “The Twat”, two other people LELI, and myself for that matter, don’t like), sent an email out yesterday. Not to the few people who might possibly be able to help him. Oh no. He sent it out to the whole department. Including all our colleagues up in Yorkshire. With a *very* simple question about the programming language we use. The language he is supposed to have a reasonable understanding of.

Followed very shortly by another email, saying he had the solution, and including the solution at the bottom. The solution given him by the bloke who sits next to him (isn’t ‘voice’ a wonderful thing? Or maybe he could have tried the help facility, or the internet, rather than waste everyone’s time). Only it wasn’t quite right - as explained by yet another email from K (who I also am in love with, but who is happily married, but I know a secret, my friend J once slept with him…….) who had to put it right because this arsehole was sending it out to the whole department.

The unfortunate thing is that none of the managers will realise what a stupid question it is, and what a waste of everyone’s time it is.

This guy, about 3 weeks ago, sent an email around to the whole of the department yet again, asking if anyone had seen his pen.

LELI laughed when I forwarded it to him, asking if he had seen *my* pen, it was a yellow colour, with a blue top, wrote with a fine line, had ‘Bic’ on the side…….

Anyway, I opened my email today, and we always play the game when someone has been off of ‘how many emails did I get?’. ONB said, “About 50, because you got tons from The Arsehole “, (obviously he used his real name at this point), “Is that guy trying to get his name known to management by sending out stupid emails to the whole of risk, in an attempt to make himself look intelligent?”

Oh how I laughed. ONB is aware of my opinion on some of the people in our department, but I try not to let him know too much - I think people should make their own minds up, and just because I don’t like someone, doesn’t mean ONB won’t.

Only it seems he has taken a dislike to the same people as me. He also doesn’t like “The Twat” - completely unprompted by me.

And I love him for it.

I gave him a Christmas present today. I am sort of glad it was just the two of us (he picked me up this morning, because my car had to go in for it’s MOT), because I think the other two of his level didn’t get anything from their immediate bosses. I think I am the only one at my level to have bought a present. I don’t regret it - I certainly think he deserves it - but I might have been embarrassing for the other two.

Receive a text from a work colleague, one you consider to be in the same ‘age bracket’ as yourself. One whose boyfriend comes from the same home town, and she has gone back there in the run up to Christmas.

And the text says, “I am sitting next to RP. She says you used to babysit for her.”

And realising that RP is probably older than the work colleague.

I had the day off work today, to stay in for the Sky man! Funny, I happened to mention it to Andy, and he happened to mention he “has to come round and see me in the New Year…..”

It was a pain in the arse really - the Sky man came at 10 this morning (which was good), but the first thing he asked me was, “Do you have your Sky card?” Of course not - do you know how long things are taking to get here by post at the moment? Plus, although it is 10 o’clock, the postman hasn’t been yet, something to do with improved efficiency at the Post Office….

He fitted it all, I could sit and watch BBC London (very useful), and Central. I could also watch all the shopping channels. He left about 11 o’clock.

The postman came around noon - and hooray of all hoorays, my Sky card was in there. Excellent. All I have to do is put it in the box, ring Sky, and all will be luvvly jubbly.

25 minutes later, I finally got to speak to someone at Sky. All went well, he stepped me through all the buttons to press, he was obviously pressing buttons at his end, things were progressing. Then we get to the final step. “Right, you have to hang up the phone, then press the ’select’ button, and wait a few seconds. What should happen is you get a message saying all is now connected, press ’select’ again, and then everything will be fine.” I laughed. “And if it’s not? I have to wait another 25 minutes on the phone?” “Well, I’ll give you another number, which should be quicker to get through on, but you can’t do the next process while the phone line is in use.”

What a stupid system! Luckily, it did all work properly.

Then I headed into town. Of course, it was chaos down there. I was a naughty girl. After dropping Andy’s Christmas card off, I just *happened* to leave my car parked in his ‘resident’s only parking’ street. Again, luckily the traffic wardens were busy elsewhere today.

I now have all my Christmas presents I think. Including a whole bunch I have bought myself (on top of the Sky subscription). I have wrapped half of them, but got bored.

Tomorrow, I need my luck to hold further. My MOT is up tomorrow, and it is booked in to get another one tomorrow. Fingers (and everything else) crossed nothing too major needs doing to prevent them issuing me with it. I don’t fancy being stuck here with no car over Christmas, especially as I have no food!

This afternoon there was an email sent around by one of the big bosses based “oop norf”, basically saying “Hey, look at the structure chart, we have lots of new vacancies going, here is a generic job description, is anyone interested in applying?”

I looked at it - of course, considering how much I hate working for Z (and L) at the moment.

Hmmm. Something appears to be missing.

I grab my phone, and dial. “Well hello, Ms R, and how are you? I am looking at this email sent by G, and the structure chart…….”

“…… and your ringing because there appears to be a certain person missing? Well, I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you first. I’m surprised they sent that out already, I expected them to wait until there was an official announcement.”

We chatted for a few minutes, her apologising because she couldn’t tell me, me saying it was fine, if she couldn’t tell me, she couldn’t tell me, but when would it be safe to ring back and ask again? She told me to “Ask me in the New Year.”

Then we chatted some more - she is a fellow card maker, so we exchange websites for buying nerdy crafty stuff, and discuss other such incredibly interesting things.

Then I ask the question, “There isn’t relocation for my level is there? It is only for the level above me and on up?”

There was a very long pause.

“Ask me in the New Year.”

Whoo hoo. Ms R has a senior role going in her new job (whatever that is - word on the street is it’s fraud). Sounds like Ms R might be interested in a certain candidate applying.

She sent me an email later, asking me to ring her. I did. “I’ve spoken to G, I didn’t mention specific names or anything, but asked about people who apply within the company and want to move but the cost might prevent it….. he says that any one who is interested in any of the jobs (including any which are not yet advertised, but which might, hypothetically become available in the New Year) should apply, and the right candidate will be given any help they need.”

Question is, do I really want to move “oop norf”? I love my house here, but I know LELI isn’t happy, and is talking of moving to London mid-year, and if he left then it would leave a big whole in my friends down here.

All a moot point at the moment though, since there isn’t currently a job going, in a team which doesn’t yet exist, and even if I do apply, I might not even get it.

However, Ms R did ask me not to mention she had been “poaching”, and that should it ever arise that I had approached her first.

I feel poached.

Secret Santa at work today. The one where you draw someone’s name out of a hat, and have to spend around £5 on a present for that particular present.

I bought a bottle of beer and a burping bottle opener for the guy I had to buy for.

P, with a witty, “Haha, like you really need *another* one of these…” hands me what is obviously a bottle of wine.

Only it wasn’t. It was a bottle of champagne. Worth considerably more than the £5 (well, I would guess at around £15, but that’s still a lot more than £5, if not a top of the range bottle of shampoo).

I have no idea who got it for me. It was obviously from a boy (why can’t boys wrap up presents nicely?), but that’s it as far as clues go.