Today, for some peculiar reason, rather than standing in the middle of the ‘L’ of ONB’s desk to reach something on there, LELI decided to kneel upon the desk.

Even shouts of “Oi, LELI, they are taking a picture of your arse,” did not deter him, and he remained in position, chatting away to T about something totally unrelated for about 5 minutes.

Can’t really say I blame him. He does have a nice arse.

Tonight I said goodbye to my friend Andy - in fact my only friend in this town who is not work related. He is heading off to North Wales, to live happily ever after with his fiancee. I will miss him loads - who else am I going to go to Chinese buffet with now?

Except tonight we went for tapas. The first time we met, he promised to take me to tapas. Only 18 months late then!

We also went to an electrical shop, where Andy was in his element (I knew he would be), buying me a mains charger for my new mp3 player, so I can charge it up while I am away on holiday. He was like a kid in a sweety shop, running around trying to find me all the necessary cables. Bless!

Good luck to you, Andy, and to the Lovely Miss R!

Just got home. Been out for dinner with R, who is down from ‘oop norf for a couple of days. S and E also came along, so it was a great time, the cackle of 4 women sat in Nando’s for 4 hours. Luckily they weren’t too busy, else we’d have probably been kicked out.

Not sure if LELI is talking to me - we have both been involved in this project which has already been going for months, and is going to keep on going for many more months. Part of it involves pulling large amounts of data to give to outside consultants, which, much to his disgust, fell to him a few months ago. Well, him and his boss to be fair.

Now, at the time I kept going to K and asking if he needed me to check anything, was everything going okay, etc, etc. But that team - and K in particular - are so fucking anal about everything, he just kept replying that everything was fine, and refused to let me actually look at anything.

Yesterday I discovered that 2 of the items the consultants had asked for had not been provided. These are related to Z’s ‘hot topic of the week’, and so he will be furious that they are not included. I spoke to LELI yesterday asking why they hadn’t been sent, and he (finally) sent me over a spreadsheet listing all the things the consultants had asked for, and what we had provided them with, and from where each item came.

Next to the 2 items in question was the notation, “DATA NOT AVAILABLE”.

Oh fuck. Yes it is. Quite clearly, on the main file we all use, look, there, the two variables.

LELI just shrugs. “I do not care, it is not my problem.”

Unfortunately, it is now his problem. I had to send out an email to Z and E (his big boss, equivalent of Z) and copy in everyone else involved, basically saying that although these 2 variables are probably not that predictive, given that my team is currently writing two papers proposing changes based on these 2 variables, they probably should be included. Oh, and by the way, there is no resource in my team to do this. So E, after a couple of emails asking for further information, has said that it will fall to LELI, with W’s help, to pull this data over the next couple of days.

I have hardly seen LELI since, and he’s not replied to my last text……

Still, it’s their own fault for being so bloody anal. If they had shown me this 3 months ago, I could have told them where to find the data.

1. Weather was nice on Saturday - caught up on some housework, and even managed to clean the kitchen floor! Did some ironing in the garden - it’s not nearly so bad when I do it out there.
2. LELI was away on a conference with his whole team plus loads of other very big knobs from work. He had to do a presentation on Friday. Apparently, the 20 minutes he stood up to give the presentation was the only 20 minutes of the day he wasn’t vomitting his guts up between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm. I have no sympathy - wine and whisky, I ask ya?
3. Went for a drink last night with LELI, where he is once again moaning about being fed up. Thing is, he’s not sure what he’s fed up about, so not sure what to do to put it right. His latest scheme is to give up work and sell ice-cream on a beach somewhere hot. Or give swimming lessons. He is off on holiday in a few weeks on a boat. I think that will be his next ‘dream’ - to take tourists out on his own boat.
4. Told the blokey at work who might have the job for me that if I didn’t get one soon, I was going to apply for one ‘oop norf, since one had become available and that I stood a good chance of getting it. He said he still hasn’t confirmation of the level of the job, but that last week at the conference he had been talking to several peopl about me, and every reaction he had had been good. He then went on to say he couldn’t promise me anything, but that I stood a good chance.
5. The lads LELI work with bought him a Welsh football top for his birthday, months ago. He did wear it once to work on dress down day, but I haven’t seen him wear it since - he usually wears tops with collars. Last night, when I picked him up, he was wearing this football top. Hmmm. Let’s just say it was snug. He has mentioned before about how he used to be into gym, and pumping iron. I also know he is fairly fit, and he does exercise regularly. But Phwoar!!! This well fitting top was showing off all his muscles last night. Has made me look at him in quite a different light! (Not made any better, by his casual mention of his speedo wearing adventures in the swimming pool and sauna at the hotel they had been staying in). I came over all unnecessary!
6. I am excited about my coming holiday. Booked the cats into their holiday home today - bloody hell, it’s costing nearly as much as me! Still, can’t leave them in the house all day every day while I am away, not in this heat (laughs hysterically). Well, in possible heat, should the summer ever come back.
7. Watched my first World Cup football game yesterday, when I saw England win. Can’t say I was too inspired - watching it on your own is just no fun.
8. Bugger. England are playing Portugal on Saturday, when I am going on holiday….. to Portugal! Due to land at 5.15, which I think is after the match has finished. But I am sure there will be plenty of pissed football fans around.

I love talking to LELI, simply for the look on his face when I use a word he doesn’t understand.

Today’s word was ‘gloat’.

He came over to see me this morning, dressed in jeans and a tshirt. I was in the middle of something pretty urgent which needed to be done by 10 o’clock, and after he made jokes about someone in our team doing some work for a change, said not to worry, he was only coming over to say he was doing no work today, as he is going far oop norf for a conference.

I told him to bugger off and stop gloating.

Later, when I had finished what I had to do, I went over to see him. He asked me what the word was I had used, and then grinned with delight.

Even later, I sent out an email to the whole department letting them know a problem with our server had been fixed - it’s stupid, we are a pretty important part of the business, yet there is nobody in IT responsible for our servers - and I got a reply from LELI.

“Thank you for this. But I am not going to do any work, I do not need to know this. I am enjoying gloating.”

I suspect this word may be used a lot in the coming weeks.

On another (partially) LELI related language thing, there was a group of us on a conference call with some consultants yesterday.

History - we had a meeting with them last week, where Z, totally unaware of the double entendres he keeps coming out with, in one sentence managed to fit in “I’m bent over the table”, “You’ve backed me into a corner” and “I need to keep getting K’s tool out”.

We were all very restrained at the time, yet had a chuckle afterwards. We had another chuckle about it today, when we were saying how much easier it would be without Z there this time.

However, about halfway through the meeting, K comes out with, “I’m pulling it off right now”. I lost it. You know when you are in a real inappropriate situation, and something mildly funny just escalates, because you can’t laugh out loud? I was sat in my seat, both hands clamped to my mouth, tears streaming down my face. Made worse by K trying to carry on his conversation, no idea what I was laughing at, making puzzled faces at me. Then, just as I got control of myself, I caught S’s eye, and she was sitting there wiping her eyes. I lost it again.

This was made even funnier, when an hour after the meeting LELI comes over to me and says, “I did not know what that phrase meant when you were all laughing.” He laughed at my horrified face, when I asked, “Oh god, you don’t need me to explain do you?” “No, it is okay. I asked K, but he refused to tell me, told me to ask J. J has explained.”

Priceless.

One of the manager’s who interviewed me the other week called me over today.

Asked me my thoughts on doing a lot of travelling - since he has to spend a lot of time away and he is looking for someone to share the burden. I explained I had no big issues - as long as it wasn’t every week, 4 nights a week, since I now had Madam and Mister to look after.

I didn’t think to tell him that if he doesn’t offer me the job I will apply for a job oop norf anyway. I should have - that might swing it.

Mind you, I still don’t know what the grade of his job is.

Went to the barbecue on Saturday, had fun even without the underage boys turning up!

However, it appears that I was the food selection for some rather nasty evil biting creatures, who seem to have eaten more than I did!

My whole leg seems to be swelling up, and it is so damn painful. It feels like the side of my leg has been dowsed in boiling water.

I went to the chemist first thing this morning to see if they could give me something. She took one look at me, told me it looked infected and I should probably go and see the doctor. As this was next door, off I went. An hour and a half later, I see a nurse, to be told it’s not infected (yet), and to get some anti-histamine tablets, and some anti-histamine cream. From the chemist.

To give her her due, she did look embarrassed when I went back in for the cream and tablets. I suppose it is better to be safe than sorry.

But it’s going to take a few days for the stuff to kick in, and in the meantime there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it.

I also have a bite on my wrist, but that’s not nearly so bad. But it’s so weird - you can actually see the poison spreading out from the centre - the red mark on my wrist is now about 1 and a half inches across - it was probably only 3/4 this morning when I went to see the nurse. Same with the biggest one on my leg - the total diameter of it is about 5 inches, about 1/2 an inch in the middle is very dark red and the most raised, then there is an angry red ring of about 3-3 1/2 inches across, with the last bit being a dark pink.

I better get some insect repellant for my holiday.

… coming home from a party, to be greeted by Madam waiting for me on the dirve, and on picking her up she kisse sme for the frst time unitiiateied.

God, i lvoe hafi ne hcars

… what more could a girl ask for?

Well, not too much sea and sand possibly. But sun, and some nice swarthy foreign gentlemen. In that beautiful land Portugal.

First week in July.

Just booked.

Eeek? Never been on holiday on my own before, it’s going to be a bit weird. But hey - if I am going to look sad, surely it’s better to do it in a 4-star hotel in the Algarve, sipping cocktails by the pool, than sat on a beach in South Wales?

I stopped these posts for a while, but Krazy K has today surpassed herself.

She has invited me to a barbecue at her house tomorrow. Also, Mr Em is in town this weekend, and had asked if I was free on Saturday. When I told him where I was going, his first reaction was, “Can I come and perv over Krazy K please?”

So today I asked Krazy K if she would mind if I brought a friend along.

Now, even knowing her how I do, this remark caught me completely off guard. How on earth does her mind work?

“Yes, of course he can come, no problem. As long as he doesn’t bring any under-age boys.”

I can’t even think about this answer without collapsing into full on, crying hysterical laughter.

Where did that answer come from? Does she think I am likely to bring along a man who will also bring along under-age boys?

She is. She’s barking.