It was only the end of last week I was patting myself on the back for managing to not be off work sick since September, when I had shingles.

Then Saturday, I came over all hot and bothered (now now, not hot flushes, I am getting on a bit, but am not *that* old. Yet.). Felt all achy. So didn’t go out with Krazy K.

Yesterday I didn’t feel great either - not exactly flu-ey, but I could feel my chest tightening.

Today has been the same. I haven’t been to work, although I am realising now that there was really no point in staying home. If I am going to get a chest infection it doesn’t matter if I am in work or not.

I am coughing, but it is still a dry hacking cough, but the front part of my chest feels very tight, and that is where the cough is coming from. I might go to the doctors tomorrow - not sure what they can do if I don’t yet actually have a chest infection, but I really, really don’t want to get one then spend months fighting it off.

On a lighter note, I really do love Corrie. In the middle of all the doom and gloom of Ed being Ernest’s murderer, shunning Eileen, the stupid model train story, the Deirdre blackmail and the Charlie/Tracy debacle along comes the belly laugh moment.

“Tricia.”

Priceless. Absolutely priceless. Had me howling.

Got to love it.

I was tagged with this ages ago, by Andy, Cherry and Em

Four Jobs I’ve Had

1. Saturday girl in Boots - great job when you are 16, and you get all the new makeup (Boots No 7, soooo sophisticated), and at a discount too. I also managed to sell more home computers (ZX81’s, and Commodore 64’s) than the full time staff - but mainly because they all worked alternate Saturdays, our busiest day for computers.
2. Cash in hand job my first Christmas as a student, working in an insulation factory. I knew I wasn’t quite the right fit when the foreman comes up to me on my first morning and says, “So, you’re a student? What are you studying?” “Maths,” I replied. “Oh, retaking your CSE are you?” “No,” I squeaked, “I’m doing a degree.” “Oh, so you’re a clever bugger are you?” he muttered, and walked off.
3. Waitress in an Indian restaurant. I loved doing this - I was already fond of spicy food, but this really entrenched my love of Indian food. I was *real* Indian food either, not your standard curry house fair, and it felt soooo good to be encouraged to kick out anyone who came in, sat down, didn’t even look at the menu before ordering chicken tikka masala, bombay aloo and pillau rice. We were told to send them down the road where “There are 4 more restaurants down there which will give you the kind of food you want!”
4. Credit Risk - had several jobs in this field, and it’s what I do now. I expect I will be doing it until I retire.

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

This is a hard one, I don’t *do* movies
1. Grease - just because it’s so ‘feel good’ - and great to do the ironing to, while I sing along gustily.
2. Resident Evil - this is on the list just because it’s a dvd I own, and therefore have seen it more than once.

Um

3. Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat - not technically a movie, but I also have this dvd, and watch it over and over again while ironing (see 1).
4. I give up.

Four Places I’ve Lived

1. Rugeley - armpit of the civilised world. Born and raised here, left when I was 18.
2. Brighton - moved here from Rugeley when I was 18, and loved it. It’s a great place to be a student. Me and X moved back there after 6 years away, and spent another 6 years there as ‘adults’.
3. New York - well, technically New Jersey. I lived in Jersey City, just a couple of hundred yards from the Hudson River (and the World Trade Centre). I loved it. Wish I still lived there now.
4. Northampton - possibly 2nd in the armpit competition. Not helped by the contrast with New York since this is where I landed when I had to come back.

Four TV Shows I Love

Another hard one, since I don’t watch all that much telly.

1. Coronation Street - king of the soaps in my opinion, with it’s capacity to make me belly laugh maybe once a week.
2. Emmerdale - second only to Corrie in the soap stakes.
3. The Office - one of the funniest shows ever - it still makes me laugh when I watch it over and over again (well, when I *have my dvd’s……. you know who you are!) and know exactly what is coming.
4. Secret Army - only because I have just finished watching all episodes on dvd. I have memories of it from when it was on telly years ago, and watching it now almost 30 years later it is still a great series.

Four Places I’ve gone on holiday to

1. The Gower - camping in June 1977 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. It pissed down all week, where the highlight was finding some Famous Five books in the camp shop still marked in shillings, and them having to sell them to me for 17¹/₂p, instead of the 30p they were going for in book shops.
2. Ibiza - my first holiday with X. I was very nervous - although we had been going out for over a year, I was worried that spending two weeks just me and him in a strange place would end the relationship. This feeling was enforced when we had a blazing row within minutes of arriving in our room. This ‘welcome’ was something that was repeated on every single holiday we ever went on.
3. New York - several times. Went a couple of times before we moved there, the first time with friends and the second time we took my parents and X’s parents. My mom’s face as she emerged at the top of the Empire State Building, and the look of wonder and amazement is still something which brings tears to my eyes. I am glad I gave her that experience.
4. Australia - obviously. My most recent holiday, where I had such a great time. I am still not entirely sure I can make it for Easter this year, but if not then it will definitely be May. Of course, SE being there is just a minor pull. The major pull has to be Rosa

Four of My Favorite Dishes

1. Jalfrezi
2. Most other Indian food (as long as it’s hot)
3. Buffalo wings - atomic hot. Nobody does wings like the Americans.
4. Cheese scones.

Four Sites I Visit Daily

1. BBC news
2. Gmail
3. Most of the blogs linked on the side
4. Nothing else I visit every day.

Four Places I Would Rather Be Now

1. New York.
2. Sydney.
3. Can’t think of anywhere else, I am mostly happy here.

It’s one of the new boys birthday tomorrow. Now, both the new boys work for S. However, it’s me that ends up doing the baking.

On top of that, P emails me just before home time asking if I can make a birthday card for him for tomorrow while I am at it.

So tonight I have been making cheese scones (mmmmmm), and a birthday card with sheep on it. I hope he likes sheep.

Not much else going on. Have hardly seen LELI, just a couple of emails and texts exchanged. Creepy A is off sick, so it has been quite pleasant to not suddenly turn around at my desk to find him standing behind me, him laughing at how funny it is because he has been there for 10 minutes and I didn’t realise (oh how my sides split at the hilarity of it). I hope he’s not in tomorrow - I am going for lunch with one of the PA’s, and she suggested we invite A too. She isn’t that close friends with many people at work, so I didn’t want to say, “No!!! I can’t stand him!”

Am going out with Krazy K on Saturday, to her ‘alternative’ night again. I haven’t had the heart yet to tell her that her idea of alternative is my memory of school disco - mainstream!

Very boring two days at work. User testing a new system due to go live in April. Consists of sitting in front of a mainframe screen, typing in account numbers, checking a few screens, checking a few pages of printout, moving on to the next account.

ONB is also doing it. He is very bored too. I am doing my best to try and keep him upbeat, but it’s so hard when I hate the job myself. I am trying to sell it with the “Think of the overtime” tag, but even that’s not working, as so far it’s not actually led to any overtime.

But it will.

As release day draws closer, and problems still aren’t fixed, there will be overtime aplenty.

Went to see footlady today. I am worried/concerned - well, neither to any extent, but, maybe disturbed is a better word - that my *head* has come up as a problem. Now, some days I have bad headaches, but recently there has been nothing. In fact, on the whole I’ve been feeling pretty good.

So, one to watch is how my head goes in the next few days (although the bottle of wine I am drinking now might make it hurt tomorrow).

I just had a very odd text off LELI - a former manager sent harboouacted me for working for an italian bank.

I sent a text back, just saying - harboouacted?

He rang me, wanting to know what was the strange word I was texting him!

Anyway, thankfully he is not looking to go - although he did admit if he had recieved the email in December he would have probably gone.

I don’t want him to go!

Yesterday I headed off to Stoke for a mini-blog orgy.

Well, not quite an orgy, but I met up with 2 bloggers, and a blogger’s spouse.

I got to Gask Towers around 6.15, and met SFG and SWMBO. And Boris, can’t forget Boris. Mosh arrived 5 minutes later.

A night out in Stoke is, well, like nothing else really. After SWMBO and I consumed a bottle of wine, we headed off into town, first port of call the Weatherspoons pub. Only it was apparent as we opened the door that either this wasn’t a Weatherspoons, or it was a Weatherspoons but it was ignoring the “no music” rule that is typical.

It was no longer a Weatherspoons, apparently.

Mosh and I ate something vaguely resembling food, and SWMBO and I managed to finish another bottle of wine (well, it’s cheaper to buy it by the bottle than to buy it by the glass…….. honest duck). Mosh’s friend Matt turned up, and after he consumed one drink we decided to head off to a quieter pub. We went off towards a pub SFG and SWMBO knew, Mosh and Matt getting sidetracked by a woman in her bathroom with no curtains (they saw nothing, apparently, but were quite excited at the thought they might actually see her take her bra off. Bless.) We sort of found the pub, only it was shut.

So we headed back to another pub we’d seen on the way, which definitely looked quieter.

It was quieter, even with the Britney Spears wannabe belting her heart out as we walked through the doors. She actually sounded not too bad while we were at the bar, but we soon realised once we’d sat down in a little side room, and could no longer hear the music but just her singing, that she was, in fact, abysmal. This was not the sort of place in which one drank wine, so SWMBO and I moved on to vodka.

Fellow drinkers included the man/woman in the very short denim dress and knee length boots, with the corned beef legs, and her male companion. They disappeared for about an hour together, then came back about 10 minutes before closing.

We dared Mosh to go put his hand up her skirt to settle the discussion of whether it was a man or a woman, but he failed.

There was also the woman in the pink anorak, boogieing on down to the karaoke like there was no tomorrow.

There were also a couple of *very* young girls, who when we first went in I assumed were out with their parents. But thinking about it now, they were out quite late and I am wondering if they were actually just out on the pull.

At kicking out time, it was off to a taxi and back to Gask Towers, where more vodka was consumed by SWMBO and myself, and kebabs were ordered. A perfect way to round off a night out in Stoke.

I have checked my emails, and am quite impressed that they are even half coherent -

   nice to have tine off

   pissed as fart wirh mosh and sfg and swmbo

   stokem the place to be, duck.

It was a great night, and a big thank you to SFG and SWMBO for making me so welcome.

Even better, they are hoping to come down for the Cardiff blog orgy in March, where I can hopefully repay their hospitality.

---

Tonight I have been out for a drink with LELI. He had a night out himself last night - he was meeting up with some Italian physicists he had met online. Shows how two-faced I am in that I was very worried about him, and didn’t fully relax until he texted me this morning to say they hadn’t turned out to be a bunch of axe-murderers. And there was me, off to meet people I’d met on the internet, and stay in their home!

Anyway, just went for a quiet drink with him tonight. He is once again talking about leaving, saying he wants to move to London (he says this every month or so). I hope he doesn’t - I missed him when he was in Italy for a week, I’d *really* miss him if he moved away.

Pretty normal day at work, apart from ONB sending me a text first thing saying he had man flu, and wouldn’t be coming in.

Z, amazingly, given that ONB is his favourite bitch, didn’t spot he wasn’t around until we went out for lunch (to welcome two new people to the team, Hairy T and Baby J). When I told him why, he looked very puzzled, didn’t know what man flu was. S, P and I endeavoured to explain, and he made several comments about “You women, yet another way you have of putting down your men…”. I handed him my phone. “Look, the text is from ONB, he himself describes it as man flu!”

He’s such an arsehole.

Krazy K isn’t doing herself any favours - I know she didn’t get a good annual review, but then I have seen how she works and it should have been expected. She is upset, which is fair enough, but she is now firing off emails left right and centre. Including copying in Z, which will really not help her. The grades for all of us were agreed back at the beginning of December, in a meeting of all the managers, by committee. Including Z. So he knows why she got her grade, and he has also seen for himself. However, left alone it would have been forgotten, she is in a new job now (within the same department, a sideways move) and she has the chance to start afresh.

Went for a drink with her tonight, and she invited her new friend from her new team, K. So I invited LELI (who is back from his mysterious trip to Italy). It was fun, and then more of Krazy K’s friends turned up. However, as I had worked a little late, it reached the time when it would have been stupid of me to have headed home as I would just have immediately had to turn around again, so I went straight from the office. And was driving.

LELI was gone for a week, just an evening with him shows me how much I missed him. I am worried he will be heading back to Italy for good, I really hope he doesn’t.

Of course, we ended up doing our usual sitting in the car for an hour and a half outside his flat. I really should insist next time he invite me in - especially as it was freezing. And he still didn’t talk about his trip to Italy - I was hoping he would tell me why. However, I am not going to ask - I spent far too many discussions with X trying to drag out anything personal - I am not going to do it again. LELI knows that I am here if he wants to talk

Well, I finally caved in.

I rang X.

He hasn’t rung me since before I told him my mom had cancer. He never once asked me how I was dealing with it.

I was the first person he turned to when his dad died.

I rang him several times a day in the days immediately following his death.

X still never rang me.

I had half a bottle of wine, and rang him. I cried. I knew I would.

I told him I’d had enough. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, but that it just can’t go on like this. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, that’s fine, he should tell me so, and we will draw a line under it.

But the odd text, plus an email a couple of times a week does not constitute him being my friend.

He got all defensive. “Well, I’ll ring you more then if that’s what you want.”

He is totally missing the point. I want him to ring me if he wants to ring me, not because he feels obliged to. But if he doesn’t want to ring me, that’s fine, let’s just call it a day now, end the “let’s be friends” fiasco it has turned into this last year.

The doorbell rang and he had to go - it was his Chinese takeaway apparently.

He says he’ll ring me later.

I’m still crying.

I went to Chester Tuesday night, for a meeting all day yesterday.

It’s been a long time since I last went to Chester - I can’t remember it at all, but we used to go there for day trips when I were a young’un. It looks a really nice city - I will definitely be going back there not on business, so I can look around the city.

And also to pay another visit to the wonderful Indian restaurant we went to for dinner on Tuesday night. I haven’t eaten such good Indian food in a very long time - I’ve had bad Indian food, and I have had okay Indian food, but this was fantastic Indian food - almost as good as the place I used to work in when I was a student (almost, but not quite as good). And of course I have the manager’s phone number, so I can ring him next time I am in Chester, so he can arrange a special meal….. What is it with me and Indian waiters?

The meeting was actually not that bad. We went up on the train, me, ex-boss and this pillock called M. A (the sleazeball) was travelling up later that night in a hire car, so me and M went back in the hire car. I drove - partly because A hadn’t got to Chester until 2 o’clock and was tired, but mainly because he is a lousy driver, and I don’t ever want to be a passenger in a car with him driving again. He is such an arse - he had every intention of just falling asleep as soon as he got in the car, but insisted on sitting in the front, so that me and M couldn’t hold a proper conversation.

I got my own back as soon as we got in range, by putting on Kerrang radio really loud.

Before he fell asleep, he was fiddling with all the knobs in the car - even checking the car was in neutral before I started - what an arsehole. After his second fiddle with the heating controls, I politely asked him to not fiddle with any of the controls while I was driving.

So then he sulked, and even refused to find another radio station when we got out of range.

The more I know him, the more I dislike him.

Unfortunately, the more he knows me, the more he seems to like me, and the more he seems to be clinging to me like a limpet.

LELI is back - it seems he came back yesterday. I had an email from him, apologising, saying his phone was broken so he hadn’t been able to contact me. I might ring him later.

Tomorrow I go out with Krazy K.

Saturday it is the mini-blog orgy in Stoke - whoo hoo! In preparation for the blog orgy in Cardiff, where I will get lots of pussy!