Roxy Music - Virginia Plain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zoi6O-cq9I

TOTP Performance 1972

12:21 - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

having a bit of fun with this
Category: Games

Anagrammatic Head to head battle of anagram solving action!

Play this free game now!!

08:13 - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

One which may interest those in need of relaxation
Current mood: drained
Category: Life

http://www.alittlebitofmetime.com/

dedicated to those who need a bit of me time

03:53 - 9 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

Bah plum bug
Current mood: angsty
Category: Blogging

I was so damn tired last night that as soon as I got home I went straight to bed; I think I was asleep for 7pm and I heard nothing until about 11.30pm when fat cat jumped on the bed following his ½ can of tuna chunks in brine which is his normal nightly supper that prevents clawed toes .
I sorted out the diplomatic incident without any further negotiation – I have got decidedly better at disarming people i.e. apologising unreservedly generally diffuses the situation. 'nuff said.
I didn't realise just how knackered I was; while the 3 ½ days of meetings were conducted in English, it is stressful having to remember to articulate clearly and avoid jargon or local colloquialisms. Our transnational visitors had excellent English and all of them could converse in at least 2 other languages as well as their mother tongue. I can get by in French but would be completely out of my depth in a technical environment. I am going to get that 'Rosetta Stone' language training thingy and have a go at improving my French and maybe even try Polish.
I have three HR investigations on the go at the moment well one is nearly done and dusted all bar the final report (following verbal feedback) and two new cases so to speak. They are very time consuming and draining too as you are dealing with so much emotion and need to remain objective but still demonstrate appropriate empathy . I like to think I do a good job. There are no winners in such circumstances.
Had a good briefing with the staff team today – I got the board to agree to giving everyone an extra 2 days holiday over Christmas as recognition of all the hard work; last year everyone got Christmas lunch but with the cash flow issues we are facing 2 days extra was easier to do and folks were really happy especially those with not much leave left. Also, everyone is getting around £300 back pay relating to the cost of living allowance – some places pay what they think it will be, we didn't and it is just as well as it was 2.475% not the 2.9% people had predicted and some people will see the overpayment being deducted which is not nice at all. We will all have to pay for lunch ourselves and everyone has agreed to pitch in another £10 each which will mean we can give our "hidden weapon" (Margaret our cleaner) and Jim the security guy a little something in recognition of all their hard work for us over the last year.
I will never wear that silver blouse again – I thought it was nice on me but when I looked at the photographs I looked like a bloody turkey ready for the oven. On a brighter note, I confess I bought a pair of brown suede boots on Saturday but will be returning them as I believe prolonged wear could possibly have that tourniquet effect, leaving yours truly's legs resembling pulsating purple plums.

15:43 - 9 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Don’t coat me on this
Current mood: crappy
Category: Blogging

At a risk of boring people on the subject of my outfit dilemmas I have decided I will be wearing the original brown wool coat I bought with the brown and barley coloured hat and my comfortable brown boots and a brown skirt and top that I have. I look bloody awful in the red jacket - strung up like an overcooked plum duff or a post box on legs. The black hat I bought on Sunday is too small and if I jam it down on my head to make it fit, the rim on the back of it catches on the collar of my coat.

Of course when I tried the sorry lot on SO's face was tripping him as he doesn't like the brown coat, that and the stress of trying to buy the house is enough to make me run a mile. The irksome thing is that me being that bit, ok ten years older than SO means that the length of time they will give us a joint mortgage is based on my age. Accordingly, we have decided that he can get the mortgage based on his salary alone and that way we get 20 years. When I first bought a house 30 years ago the banks would only lend you 3.5 times your salary, now it is 5 times and that's just the high street banks - apparently some lenders will lend much more on much less.

I got the 3 funding applications completed with just proof reading and financial bits to do; the deadline is Friday 12 Noon so that gives a bit of space. Its actually made me feel quite ill this week - last year was stressful enough but at least then we had a bit of a cushion, this year we are sitting on the springs with our arses dragging the ground - life in the voluntary sector don't ya just love it?

Next worry is trying to find £7K extra to pay the recently published cost of living allowance of 2.75% - not bad over a month but it has to be backdated to April - nice xmas box for the staff and a major headache for me. Things are just so tight at the moment its not much fun.

On a more humourous note I have decided not to eat cheese infested products before going to bed - on Sunday evening I had pizza for dinner and cheesy garlic bread I had been watching SO playing that assassins creed and had the most awful nightmare where I was being chased up the spire of a mosque and got stuck trying to get through a window or something and they had to grease my flanks withgolden cow butter to get me out! at least I kept it to the dairy cabinet.

13:50 - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Don’t coat me on this
Current mood: crappy
Category: Blogging

At a risk of boring people on the subject of my outfit dilemmas I have decided I will be wearing the original brown wool coat I bought with the brown and barley coloured hat and my comfortable brown boots and a brown skirt and top that I have. I look bloody awful in the red jacket - strung up like an overcooked plum duff or a post box on legs. The black hat I bought on Sunday is too small and if I jam it down on my head to make it fit, the rim on the back of it catches on the collar of my coat.

Of course when I tried the sorry lot on SO's face was tripping him as he doesn't like the brown coat, that and the stress of trying to buy the house is enough to make me run a mile. The irksome thing is that me being that bit, ok ten years older than SO means that the length of time they will give us a joint mortgage is based on my age. Accordingly, we have decided that he can get the mortgage based on his salary alone and that way we get 20 years. When I first bought a house 30 years ago the banks would only lend you 3.5 times your salary, now it is 5 times and that's just the high street banks - apparently some lenders will lend much more on much less.

I got the 3 funding applications completed with just proof reading and financial bits to do; the deadline is Friday 12 Noon so that gives a bit of space. Its actually made me feel quite ill this week - last year was stressful enough but at least then we had a bit of a cushion, this year we are sitting on the springs with our arses dragging the ground - life in the voluntary sector don't ya just love it?

Next worry is trying to find £7K extra to pay the recently published cost of living allowance of 2.75% - not bad over a month but it has to be backdated to April - nice xmas box for the staff and a major headache for me. Things are just so tight at the moment its not much fun.

On a more humourous note I have decided not to eat cheese infested products before going to bed - on Sunday evening I had pizza for dinner and cheesy garlic bread I had been watching SO playing that assassins creed and had the most awful nightmare where I was being chased up the spire of a mosque and got stuck trying to get through a window or something and they had to grease my flanks withgolden cow butter to get me out! at least I kept it to the dairy cabinet.

13:50 - 7 Comments - 9 Kudos - Add Comment

Moments of Pleasure
Current mood: amused
Category: Blogging

I am not what could be called high-maintenance in terms of material items (shoes aside) and to be honest I hate shelling out my hard earned money for bathroom smellies and stuff. But I absolutely love Champney's Spa Oriental Bath Float and steel myself to shell out £10 for a jar of the stuff when I go to Sodbury's to get the shopping.

I just love its glossy, shiny, iridescence, its jasmine smell and the bubbles it creates and of course the fact that it leaves my skin really soft. Compared to the price of the beluga infested slap that some starlets slosh on their duckholes £10 is a snip but I find that pang of guilt paying that for stuff when I can get five large bottles of bath foam for less than a tenner.

Christmas coming does have its small mercies as with it it brings the boxed sets - you know what I mean the ones with the talc and hand cream that never gets used or the bath cubes that leech out yellow pus as they go rancid on the shelf. Anyway, the single jars of my bath float have been reduced to £7.50 to make room for the festive fripperies and I felt less guilty buying a jar - well 25% less guilty.

I am left wondering what little indulgences do my readers allow themselves and why?

09:40 - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

I see no quips
Current mood: amused
Category: Blogging

It's been a strange couple of days; I thought I was coming down with a virus as my eyes were watering and very blurry. I generally wear contact lenses for work as I prefer them to my glasses - I suppose its about comfort and what I am used to, when I worked in a secure unit, glasses weren't the most sensible thing to wear. I haven't been able to put my lenses in since Saturday and I have been a bit narked as, while my specs are ok they do all the stuff I hate like steaming up and sliding down the bridge of nose. I had to drive 120 miles today and it was damned annoying as the sun was a bit harsh and of course my prescription sunglasses were on the dressing table in my bedroom.

Well guess what? I lifted the bag containing 8 boxes of daily disposable lenses this morning after deciding to have another go at wearing them and on looking at the box the penny dropped - the optician had given me 8 boxes of a prescription of -6 and I wear +6 lenses. I had been struggling for the last 2 days trying to see while wearing the complete opposite of what I need. I had been inwardly panicking about my deteriorating vision.

The worst thing has been trying to put the slap on my duck-hole only being able to see the blurry outline of my face and that was just the foundation - I resisted the eyeshadow and lipstick as I was worried about looking like one of those cheap blow up dolls

I will have to wait a week until they get the replacement ones for me but it's not all doom and gloom as I found 3 pairs in my desk drawer at work so I am tickety-boo until Friday.

13:19 - 7 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Bringing home the beer can
Current mood: amused
Category: Blogging

Summer has been shedding its golden brown skin and the Autumn leaves are falling; Its still too warm to huddle up in Winter clothes as a trip along the main street of my home town proved to me on Saturday afternoon. I had chucked on a pair of jeans and a long jumper and shuggled into a short leather jacket.

I was bringing home the bacon in pigskin as SO had suggested I get him 20 slices of pale back should I venture down the town. By the time I got back with the pale back the perspiration was running down my back. It was almost as hot as a Summer's day and I had the horrible choice of keeping the leather coat on or carrying it along with the two bags of shopping and my handbag. The bacon had been joined by beer can, well 12 cans of Kronenbourg which was "on offer" at the stupor market, not to mention the 12 rolls of bathroom tissue (bog roll to the rest of us), pan loaf, 2 litres of semi-skilled milk and various other items of grocery and non grocery I chucked into the little basket with gusto.

Of course, I had forgotten that the car was 14 miles away with SO delivering Aimee et al to another birthday party at the Kidz Club; I had to do the long walk home carrying this not so movable feast , well more a short walk with a series of standstills in my case. I couldn't work out what was bothering me more, my fringe stuck to my forehead, my arms feeling that they were being torn out of their sockets by the weight of the carrier bags, the palms of my hands burning like they had been branded by the pressure of the carrier bag handles or the pain in my shoulder caused by the shoulder strap of my save the planet canvas bag digging into it.

By the time I got in my front door after struggling to get the key out of my handbag and at the same time prevent 12 rolls of Andrex from rolling down the hill and into the path of oncoming traffic, I was fit to be tied and not in a nice way either. To add insult to injury some pillock had left the flaming heating on "all day" and the place was like a flaming sauna bath - I had visions of the cats sitting on the edge of the toilet with their paws in the water in an attempt to keep cool. Of course they were upstairs carked out on our bed oblivious to the heat and to the fact that I had turned into Dr Zoidberg sans shell.

Currently listening : The Hoople By Mott the Hoople Release date: 27 March, 2006

14:40 - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Jason and the jargonauts
Current mood: bouncy
Category: Blogging

Just out of two very intense days of strategy mapping; after a lot of thought, I decided to engage a consultant to help us clarify our objectives and the strategy needed to achieve them. Challenging stuff and day one was like pulling hen's teeth but by the end of this afternoon we had identified our gold nugget.

Of course, we have a lot of work left to do but we all agreed that it was worthwhile to take the time out and we are committed to seeing the process through. In essence we did the right thing and I did the right thing too. My colleagues will be managing this project from here on in; I have one task relating to the golden nugget and they have the other 10 relating to the strategy map itself. We have a couple of months to take it to the next stage and our consultant has agreed to assist us by marking our homework.

We have been fire fighting so long just to keep the money coming in that we became stuck and the last two days have really helped us to work out a way forward for the organisation. Of course like all change, it will be subject to risk and self-doubt, but I feel knackered and re-energised at the same time and more than a bit hopeful for the future. I get really pi55ed off when people see the organisation I work for as being about me and my vision, in my eyes that's not really any better than being a benevolent despot, like a ship's figurehead looking down at the sea.

I much prefer the idea of being perceived as an abundant sexpot :o)

Currently listening : Second Helpings: The Best of Blancmange By Blancmange Release date: 08 September, 1999

13:00 - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment