Monday, January 22, 2007

Our non-PC Office Mouth

The office football team arrived back just now and announced that they have actually won a game! Our Office Mouth (aka The Gobby One) promptly demands 'Who were you playing? Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder??'

Too funny.

Friday, January 19, 2007

A Brave New World

This is the funniest thing I've read for ages - check out the comments.

http://tinyurl.com/25erma

I am crying here. Seriously, you guys.

Train nightmares

It was a bit windy and the British transport network ground to a halt. Plus ca change. I left work at 3.20pm and got home at 7pm. Schedule ran thus:

3pm - check the web and see that there are two hour delays on trains.
3.20pm - leave work
3.30pm - arrive at London Bridge and discover it's closed. The whole station. No reason being given. (Later we discover that part of the roof has blown off.) However trains are still running *through* London Bridge from Waterloo East and Charing Cross.
3.35pm - get tube to Southwark and walk through to Waterloo East.
4pm - sign boards covered in Delayed notices. Decide to get a train in to Charing Cross, and there is usually more info at the terminuses (termini?). Plus possibly more chance of getting a seat.
4.10pm - the gods were smiling! The train I went into Ch X on turns out to be the one going back to Tonbridge. Get a big whole seat all to myself. *:)
4.30pm - go through London Bridge again (one hour later)
5pm - train hits a large branch (aka 'a tree' - I think there would have been a larger clunk) the other side of Sevenoaks. Train stops quickly and driver gets out to inspect the damage.
5.30pm - train OK and we get going again.
5.40pm - arrive in Tonbridge
6pm - the next train to T Wells also hits a branch outside Sevenoaks.
6.05pm - I call Paul V and enquire as to whether he is near Tonbridge and/or bored.
6.30pm - Paul V aka The Cavalry aka Archangel Paul, having extracted himself from HMV, arrives and picks me up ('I'm parked opposite Lidl and opposite the sex shop.' Wha?? And this is supposed to help me, who never goes to Tonbridge?)
7pm - arrive home.
7.30pm - feed PaulV dinner as a thank you.

Actually, all this was not that gruesome. I left work early, so it didn't get stupidly late, and us commuters are learning to be very pragmatic at delays, so people just take it easy and after about two hours Actually Start Chatting. (Commuters deviating from the Norm of Silence only happens in extreme circumstances.)

Also, my half hour wait in Tonbridge station was the funniest people-watching session I've done in ages. People rocked up and looked at the board which basically said Delayed in long lists and went 'Oooooh... that doesn't look good.' Other people were asking the ticket people, 'Can I get to London?' and they were replying, 'Well, there are serious delays', which means 'No! Don't try it!' 'But I've got tickets to The Sound of Music!' they wail. I should have told them it had just taken me three hours to get there. Some builders arrived and asked, 'What are the chances of getting to Essex?'. The ticket man refrained from laughing at them, just. Some lady's husband dropped her off and you could see he was trying to telegraph to her not to go, but couldn't say it, as she was all dressed up and clearly looking forward to her night out. I hope she didn't have to sleep in a station in her posh velvet trousers.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Housemates

Having a good housemate is a great thing. I love coming back from work and finding that the dead flowers have been thrown away and the vase washed up, or the washing hung out, or the dinner started. I hope I do similarly nice things like tidying up and taking the bins out. It's great sharing with a girl! Sharing with a bloke means coming home either to find him lounging on the sofa in a cloud of crisp crumbs, watching football while scratching his nuts, or not back at all because he's still 'networking' in the pub after work. Yeah right. Does anyone know a bloke who does not conform to these trends??

Other good thing about female housemates:

1. They can approve completely unnecessary shopping purchases like shoes, because the shoes were beautiful and they were also about two-thirds off in the sale.

2. You can discuss knitting with them.

3. You can have a giggle with them.

4. They will never look at you disapprovingly for eating lots of dinner, because they will be naughtily eating lots of dinner with you.

5. Between you, you can source helpful men to help put shelves up.

6. They look suitably impressed by the other managing to successfully use the power drill.

Monday, January 08, 2007

What a tangled web we weave

Two options on this post:

1. Double pointed needles are a nightmare, but just try using them with doubled yarn (mixing two yarns) on the train with no elbow room. Argh. I thought knitting was supposed to be therapeutic??

2. Is it just me whose life is not like an episode of Eastenders? I met someone recently who turns out to be a bisexual pagan. Someone else at work has the Family Life from Hell, with his sons alternatively coming home to sleep on the sofa when they are kicked out of their various girlfriends' council flats. One got married, had a daughter, his wife had an affair and kicked him out / he left, she took up with the other man and got very difficult about letting him see the kid, then she broke up with the other guy and wanted her husband back, but turns out she's pregnant by the other guy. Meanwhile the mothers (in-law) are alternately falling ill and making large demands on time, while the rest of the family (in-law) causes other untold grief. Good God. I think I'll just stay in my sleepy village and keep my head down.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Up, Up and Away

It's all systems go here at the moment! Broadband is up, the cleaned curtains are up, and the new hook on the door for my dressing gown is also up (with successful use of power drill - no one was maimed, all is good). And, best yet, our first proper order on the wool from Someone We Don't Know! Hurrah!

Has everyone done New Year resolutions? I never normally do, but this year I think I should set myself some goals. Something along the lines of:

1. Start dancing again regularly
2. Join a choir
3. Not have a nervous breakdown at work, and to be more assertive with colleagues when they are pissing me off
4. Pay off my visa bill every month
5. Go on some fun dates
6. Sit down and write a plan for Aragon Yarns for this year. Should we go to farmers markets? Should we go to the stitch show at Ally Pally? Should we start stocking other people's yarns?
7. Proactively call my friends instead of them always calling me.
8. Schedule time to relax. Preferably a day a month - a Sunday specifically in which to do nothing. Ah, bliss.

I think that's enough to be going on with! Hope January is going well for you guys.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Happy New 2007!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a good night, whether it was staying up getting horrendously drunk, or watching Jules Holland's Hootenanny, or going to bed early with a cocoa. I have a good feeling about 2007. It's going to be a great year!

I went out with some friends of friends on Friday night - we went to a gig at the Forum. I have not felt so ancient for quite some time. All the kids were about 17! Including the bands. Some of the F of Fs were parents of the band that was headlining. They were pretty good - Seven Story Down - also playing on 6 Jan. Keep an eye out for them.

I'd not been to the Forum for at least 12 years, not since I saw my very mild and well-spoken uncle sing with his band - I walked in to be confronted with him wearing leather trousers screaming Ace of Spades while several guitars were thrashed. Surprising, to say the least. The decor in there is pretty much exactly as it was last time I was in there, although they did make a token effort at some Xmas decs - there were white house lights around the stage, and a white camo net was suspended from the ceiling. It seems the vogue with the kids at the moment is big hair - definitely long, and if you want to backcomb it into a birdsnest and stick it up with goop, then all the better. There were a lot of boys there, all at the age when they are still waiting to grow into their noses. Grungy preppy seems to be in. (I'm only telling you this in case you are thinking of going at some point - don't want you to stick out like we all did - who are that group at the back? Oh that will be the mums and dad and over-30 hangers-on!) After getting our ears mangled for a couple of hours, I had a five minute walk home. I think I am going to like this living in T Wells thing.