Monday

I’m almost deliriously happy tonight. I’m still sat here by myself with either the radio or some music on and with rather chilly feet on the lounge floor tiles but I’m happy. It’s kind of giddy, floaty happiness. The laundry can’t dent it, neither can the washing up (because I’m not doing it tonight – ha!) or the thought of an early start in the morning. Sigh.

So what else. I have an application form for a different job but still at the same place that I need to fill in. The major advantage of this would be that’s a permanent post, employed directly through The Company, rather than a temp from an agency. I’ll keep you posted.

I suddenly have loads of plans for the house. The first of these to put into practice must be to contact the landlord and landlady about the “little jobs” that still haven’t been done since I moved in. That may be my job for tomorrow evening, actually, as it’s too late to start that sort of important thing now. Ideally, of course, I’d win the lottery…

Yawn. I had no particular plans to blog tonight but I’m too weary for chess and my book is upstairs, where I will be soon. I’m just passing the time while the washing machine finishes so I can swap the load over before I hit the hay. The spin cycle is too loud anyway.

So that’ll do for me. The end of my Monday. A day of a certain amount of frustration, growling and stress but with large amounts of cuddling, giggling and love to sweeten it all.

Happy dreams, everyone.

Sunday

It's a cloudy and overcast Sunday in Cork. Not cold and not as gloomy as it looks through the tinted windows of the building.

Considering I'm at work (on lunch break at the moment - which is why I'm typing this), today is going pretty well. It's quiet and fairly relaxed and kind of how a Sunday's overtime should be. I'm working steadily without knocking myself out and am happy with how things are going.

Three and a half hours to go....

Trust

Okay, very briefly because I’m tired.

The work night out was good fun. I met some people who were new to me and got to have a few laughs with the people who I’ve now known for nearly 3 months.

So what do you do when someone discovers a secret? It completely depends who it is. Some people will blab it everywhere instantly. Luckily, the person who discovered a secret tonight is the person who, out of all of the team, I would have trusted most with it. She’s a genuinely nice girl whose glee at her discovery was rooted in happiness about what she’d found not in any kind of maliciousness or “ooh I know something!”

No, I wouldn’t have told her but I have no worries at all about her spreading things. None at all.

Goodnight all. My pillow beckons.

Beneath My Wings

Life can be hard sometimes.

That’s not me whining, I don’t necessarily mean “life can be hard for me”. Life can be hard for everyone sometimes. You know the kind of thing – the balls that unexpectedly bounce off a good length and get right through your defences. You’re rushing across a city to make a flight and when you try to buy a ticket for your next connection you find that your credit card is declined. You get home after too-fecking-many hours at work and it’s not until you take your boots off that someone casually mentions that there’s no food in the house and could you possibly put your boots back on and buy some.

Sometimes you’re at your best when these things happen. The ball hits you and stings but you can smile back at the bowler and he knows that you’re not rattled at all. Other times the impact brings tears to your eyes and knocks the wind from your sails completely. Am I allowed to mix cricketing and sailing metaphors? Pshaw! It’s my blog and I’ll do as I please. Mixing metaphors is one of my favourite hobbies. I digress.

What I’m trying to say is that bad stuff happens and sometimes it hurts more than other times. “Misfortunes come in threes” they say but there are times when the third one feels like it’s just the start of another series. At times like this what you need is someone who loves you. Be it a small child who’ll snuggle up to you on the sofa or some who’ll make themselves late back from tea-break to make you a cup of tea and buy you a Snickers bar, hold on to the ones that love you best when life treats you badly. Whether they’re sat next to you or not, when you’re feeling cold and small they’ll make you feel safe and warm.

On a lighter note, I have a full day tomorrow. The morning sees me sitting my Driving Theory Test, assuming I can find the test centre! I haven’t been so anxious since I did the Spreadsheets module in my ECDL. I’m not going to get horribly wound up about it, though. If I fail it, I’ll retake it. It’s not like I could go out and buy a car tomorrow and start driving it when I choose, anyway.

Tomorrow night sees a “Team Night Out” from work. A pub crawl basically. I have to confess to being not over-enthused at the prospect. There are people whom I wouldn’t choose to sit with in the works canteen who are going to be there. Still, I’ll approach it with as open a mind as I can, have a couple of pints and see where we go from there. If I’m enjoying myself, that’s grand. If I’m not I shall just slip away quietly. My days of doing things because other people expect it of me are long gone.

Right, my feet are getting cold now and as I don’t have a bunch of cushions to snuggle into on my sofa, I believe that my cuddly dinosaur and I shall head for bed with a good book.

Sweet dreams, everyone. Especially you and you know who you are.

Making a spectacle

So I have just over a week until my driving theory test. I’m reasonably confident but intend to keep working for it up to and including Friday night.

This, of course, brings into focus (groan!) the fact that my eyesight doesn’t appear to be what it was. The canteen at work has pool tables and one day a couple of weeks ago I walked in to find that someone had left some balls on the table. I used to be a fair pool player, although I haven’t picked up a cue for years. I thought I’d have a couple of quick pots and was horrified to find that the edges of the balls were a bit blurry. I guess it could be that I was tired but I fear that before I actually get behind the wheel of a car I may have to get my eyes tested.

I’m not sure how I’ll look in glasses, should it come to that. I’ll certainly need some assistance in choosing frames to suit me. I like the idea of contact lenses but can’t see myself being particularly comfortable about putting them in. One of my nervous tics is rubbing at my eyes, which definitely wouldn’t mesh well with contacts.

The thought of being able to drive at last is kinda exciting. It’ll open up a range of possibilities for me that I’ve never had before and take away my reliance on public transport or the goodwill of others for transport. And it’s a good time to be shopping for a car, apparently.

Oooh! Huge, jaw-cracking yawn. Right, I have to be up early to catch a bus so it’s bedtime for me.

Say nighty-night…..

Middle of the week

So after two days back at work after my lovely, long weekend, I get a day off. I’m not scheduled to be working Friday or Saturday this month but have to this week to cover the fact that I had Monday off.

Over the weekend we found some wonderful shops, saw some beautiful things, had some huge laughs, some very touching moments and ran into a couple of stressful situations. Such situations can be dealt with, providing one approaches them in the right frame of mind and we coped handsomely!

I’m actually learning to enjoy flying. I’m never going to be the biggest fan of take-off and landing but the bit in the middle is quite fun.

After being a non-smoker for the weekend, I lapsed (again!) on Monday morning having had something of a panic over getting back to Heathrow in time for my flight. I’m faintly disappointed in myself. I’m not really enjoying the smoking any more, it’s just something of a crutch. I think that it’s finally time to cast that crutch away for good and walk. I make no promises about tomorrow, as I still have some in the packet but as of Friday I shall be a non-smoker and intend to stay that way. Largely. On occasions I may fancy a smoke if I’m out and won’t necessarily deny myself but I’m kind of done with it as a habit.

So I’m off to bed and don’t have to get up at a quarter to six in the morning. Yay!

Good night, all. Sweet dreams. Especially you!

Room 17

So this is interesting.

I'm sat in a hotel in Kensington, London. With a funky little pink netbook at my disposal. I actually won it from my previous mobile provider before I moved out of the UK but haven't been anywhere with a wireless network to connect it to before now. I've downloaded and installed all the patches and updates that it wants me to and it's just about connected to the (slightly flaky) Wi-Fi at the hotel.

My Polly is sat at the dressing table catching up on a little work. It's a shame but I knew when we arranged this weekend away that she'd have to go online to get a little work done. That's cool. She's a busy lady and at least when she's done some work I can take her out to do something to take her mind off work for a while.

I had some rather disturbing news last night, which freaked me out somewhat but I have my head around it now. What can't be changed, must be endured, right?

It's a beautiful day in London and it promises to be a lovely evening in the company of a beautiful, if a slightly stressed lady, at the moment. It may actually be nearly lunchtime so now to see if I can copy and paste this lot into Blogger and get it to publish!

…but that’s not important right now!

This evening I had my first exposure to the wonders of the Cork International Airport Hotel. Fascinating place and far removed from the usual hotel decor.

It’s something akin to the bastard offspring of the set designer from Airplane and a psychotic surrealist.

Even though there’s no practical need to do so, I may have to spring for a night’s stay there in the near future, just because my head would enjoy it!

Saturday Night’s Alright

It’s typical isn’t it. I agree to work on a Sunday and on my way home, early, on a Saturday night, I get literally dragged into licensed premises (okay, it didn’t take a lot of doing) to find two guys with acoustic guitars playing some quality blues.

I could comfortably have stood there grooving until they locked the doors behind me but a sense of responsibility drove me back onto the road home. I could do with seriously letting my hair down. Not necessarily involving large amounts of alcohol but I feel the need to sing and dance. Co-incidentally I noticed another place in town has a Rolling Stones tribute on tomorrow night but wonderfully, I’m at work early on Monday.

I’ve enjoyed today in a kind of obscure way. Working out of one’s normal hours always has a different feel, unless one is salaried and expected to work all the hours God sends until the work is done. I bought a carry-on suitcase for a trip next weekend that I just can’t wait for, watched Ireland win at football in a pub that positively erupted when their (our!) winning goal went in and then just soaked up the vibe of a relaxed city on Saturday night, coupled with music and playing with friends on Facebook. I’m now back in my own little home and planning bedtime. Life is being as good to me, personally, as it ever has been. And I mean ever.

That’s not me wearing rose-tinted specs of any kind or disrespecting my old friends. Life has stresses and pitfalls and awkward fences. I guess I mean that I’ve never been more ready and able to cope with whatever life throws at me. I am more me than I’ve been for a long, long time.