Local wild life

The cat has turned out to be a good mouser. Perhaps a local farm would be interested in him. I know cats catch things. I know they tend to catch things for the sake of it and have a nasty habit of not killing their catch quickly or bothering to eat what they catch when it eventually dies.
I object to the cat because he is mean spirited, which is mean spirited given the grim start he had in life. I can't help it, I can't like him.

Yet I accept him catching pigeons and littering the garden with their feathers, setting up camp on the neighbor's garden shed right above the nesting box they so kindly attached to it.

What I find difficult is coming downstairs and treading in entrails that are strewn across the carpet. I thought I had developed the knack of intercepting him as he brings these creatures in; I've succeeded numerous times in liberating field mice and birds he's brought home.

I failed last night; he came in with a mouse clamped between his jaws. I was at the far side of the room and he knew what I would attempt so he backed out through the cat flap. Bye bye mouse. I just wish you hadn't squealed so pitifully on the way out.

Now the nasty little rat faced interloper is curled up on My Bed, looking like butter wouldn't melt. Want a cat? Excellent mouser. Free to Good Home. Must be prepared to collect. [Neutered male, vaccinated.] Even his cute girlfriend can't save him. And if her arse gets any bigger she won't be fitting throught the catflap.

As if that wasn't enough we're heading for an almighty row over things. It is bad enough that he drinks himself legless every night. One night this week I came home to find the house wide open and the offspring fending for herself. He hasn't cooked her a proper evening meal all week, she hasn't had any help with her homework. He regards his parental responsibilities as being met when he escorts her from the gate back to the house in the afternoon.

Once he's settled her in front of the television with a microwaved meal on the table in front of her he is at liberty to return to his Ricard or his vodka, fags and book outside. I suspect that they don't exchange a word from one hour to the next, then he shuffles her off to bed without a wash and without brushing her teeth.

I suppose I would be castigated for giving up my job, flinging him out and throwing myself on the mercy of the state, when obviously this current arrangement of us being married and working creates a so much superior environment in which to raise a child.

I'm depressed and words are not flowing, or at least not useful ones. I'm going have to work myself up into a temper and get out of this.

The thing is insatiable. It demands and it demands and tonight I am too damn tired. I have to be up at some uncivilised hour, in order to be at work at 7:00. This is obscene. What possessed me to agree to this?

I shall be too tired tomorrow afternoon as well. That's two entire days of not wrestling with the lumpen creature. I have a clear run on Monday and Tuesday, but I thought that this time a week ago only for the offspring to be felled by one or other of the viral illness doing the rounds, it being that time of year.

That said the brief period at the keyboard this morning was sufficient to get me over the psychologically important 20k mark as it puts the half way stage in clear sight. The home stretch is likely to be a nightmare of reining in, but at least I shall be able to feel the thin buckle and submit to my will.

I'm too tired to have a proper moan. I'm off to bed.

WARNING: This post is particularly not worth reading

We do a bit of charity fund raising toward the end of the year: a Pink Day for breast cancer in October and Children in Need the following month. On each occasion the staff are free to throw off the sartorial constraint of our 'uniform' and express themselves - in Pink (obviously) in October and however tangentially according to the designated theme the following month.

Most of the staff throw themselves enthusiastically into the days. Last year's wobbly was only thrown when the monkeys at head office decreed that we WOULD do a third fundraiser with an extavagant theme only after we'd committed to the first two. The only people who were comfortable saying NO were those who say NO to everything; the rest of us were sorry to draw a line anywhere but when staff on minimum wage are shelling out hours of before-tax pay to get themselves kitted out, the third fund raiser was a demand too far and looked like heavy handedness by management too remote for the good of the business.

The residual bad taste in the mouth still lingers. Having done Pink, and gearing up for Children in Need we're all wondering what we're going to be ORDERED to do for some fool's pet charity.

As I'm rather prone to taking my camera with me everywhere (meaning I have a VERY big 'handbag') so I have photographic proof of the trouble some staff went to and the willing shown by those born without the imagination but hearts in the right place.

I also had a photograph of me. I deleted it. That's the upside of being the one to take all (but one) of the photographs, and get to take the camera home before they're transferred anywhere.

On hating Christmas (again)

It is that time of year, again. The central heating is on (did I admit I blinked first? I have now.) The air is cold, the cat is bad tempered, the Slug is drunk, and shop is over-full (of crap you'll only buy on the promise of a skin full of half price pre-made mulled wine), prices are up, essentials are down and everyone is fed up with absolutely everyone else.

At the best of times we can't manage a price change over smoothly, but since the guru was, er, retired following a restructure things have frankly gone to hell in a hand cart. The Dodo given the job of filling Guru's boots was not given training, has no initiative and less gumption. Today when we phoned to ask why after the best part of a week such a large proportion of the offer lines are sitting in the warehouse because they're mis-priced he burst into tears.

So now we feel like a coven. More heavy sighing.

To make ourselves feel better we snipe at one another. We snipe at the shop floor staff. They snipe back. Sue goes off her trolly; she and the Maltese Terrier have a slanging match that was probably heard all over town let alone the store itself.

The customers get into the spirit of the season. The 'english' gene drives me insane and the english to an wholly irrational fear of being seen to be civil to anyone providing service. In the english mind service = servitude. Therefore, for the english, there is no honour in providing service.

So on the one hand the english generally cannot bring themselves to provide good service, as though honour bound to do the least possible as a subversive show of independence. On the other hand they cannot bring themselves to receive good service, for fear of being seen by others to have voluntarily sunk to the same level as those providing it.

This is all very tedious to an outsider, until you find yourself confronted by a surly vindictive shop worker; but bear in mind the kind of customer he or she is most familiar with.

The closer we get to christmas the more excessive this seems to get, as though the fuel of consumption desperation aggravates the general condition of englishness. We're not quite at the 'trollies at ten paces' stage yet, but it is still October. No adjudications have yet been required over ownership of the last pot of brandy butter.

We've all these seasonal delights to come. I have hateful stuck here in the freezing cold away from family who hate me anyway for being here dramas to come. No cards because I live here rather than there as though this is something I want and have done to up upset them.

I'm miserable already.

How many days until this whole bloody awful business is over for another year?

PS That's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. After last night's stupid unwelcome offering of mulled wine he's shown some sensitivity tonight and taken himself off. So I'm going for my longest stretch in months tomorrow night. Why though, is it, I've woken up with a really thick head the past two mornings. That just isn't fair when I'm being such a good girl!

Just moaning along

I'm too tired to assemble cogent argument or passionate drivel. I have been awake since 4:30 this morning. I worked yesterday's evening shift which had an upside in that I knew I was taking over this morning from someone who can do her job properly. The downside is that after getting home (in the dark now) at about 9:30 then unwinding for a short while, then having something to eat, I got to bed later than ideal. I went to work in the dark. I hadn't seen sunlight properly since starting yesterday and I wouldn't see it properly unti midday today.

No wonder I'm miserable.

Phut post

I did the morning shift and I did something wrong. I don't know what, yet. I got in on time. I had my crib sheet with me - I am after all talking a six o'clock in the morning start, and I have to hit the ground running rather than loll about with coffee for a couple of hours while my brain warms gently.

I remembered for the most part what I was required to accomplish and in what order; my notes were adequate for those few moments when confidence ebbed (as caffeine levels dipped).

By the time the checkout supervisor arrived for work I had finished. Done and dusted. No dramas. No recounts. No calls to anyone for advice. Smooth as the proverbial baby's backside.

What the fuck didn't I do? What the fuck did I do wrong?

I know that I'll be set straight when I turn up for my next shift, probably with a laugh to lighten the moment, and they'll never know that I've agonised over this.