Time for my boss to say something hideously innappropriate in the middle of the office. Today, it was a fantasy about how to spend the extra budget. "And there'll be scantily clad women."
"Boss", I remark.
"Sorry. For you there will be scantily clad men."
"Boss! There shouldn't be any scantily clad anything."
"Not even scantily clad chocolate?" asks a colleague.
I gave up at that point, and stomped out on a chocolate hunt.
xxx
I also 
the fact that I was in bed by 10:15pm last night. Much good sleep, only interrupted by the return of the Intern at 2am (which is an improvement on his return at 4am a couple of nights ago. They work them hard in those investment banks).
Oh, and I the Welshman, who snuck up on me this morning and then suddenly, and randomly, waved an open bag of rather good coffee under my nose, in order to entice me into the office kitchen.
xxx
I was angry with my friend
I told my wrath, my wrath did end
I was angry with my foe.
I told it not: my wrath did grow.
I've spent most of the evening being annoyed with everyone, myself included. This began with a conversation in the office which I felt would be better in the pub, and said so... unfortunately, there's leftover Christmas wine in the pub, so the office was declared to be the pub. I whinged to my friends. They were bracing and teasing: I was not in the mood. I wanted sympathy. I sulked, noisily. I work in an open plan office with eight guys. The other women on the floor are in their own offices, with doors. It gets very trying on occasion, particularly when the chaps don't bother to engage their brains before opening their mouths - this is increasingly often.
I went over to Selfridges, to buy coloured jelly beans to decorate tonight's batch of fairy cakes (I spread the mixture out a bit too much, so they are very sunken fairy cakes. This is also annoying. As is the fact that the green icing is the right colour, but too runny while the pink icing is the correct consistency but too dark. There are too many cakes for the cake rack.). I wandered round the confectionery department, and the cards, and concluded that the only way anyone was going to buy me anything in the expensive chocolate line from Selfridges was if I bought it for myself, and the only Valentine I was going to receive this year would be from my Mummy, and that, although it shouldn't matter, it does matter, and I am annoyed by that. I texted a couple of people to ask if I was being unreasonable, on various matters. They have not replied, so I can only conclude that I am being unreasonable. Therefore, I am annoyed, both with them, and with myself. With myself for being both unreasonable, and for being annoyed about it. And for beating myself up over it (I could go into further detail, but, frankly, it's irrelevant).
The annoyance abated somewhat when I wandered out of Selfridges to get the bus home, and walked past Michael Buerk looking very dapper in a dinner jacket. It came back full force when someone thumped me with their elbow while in the process of retrieving their travelcard from their coat. Matters improved with the mixing of fairy cakes when I got home, which was a neatly absorbing sort of activity, particularly after I switched off the radio (it was annoying me) and listened to Douglas Adams going on a hunt for Aye-Ayes and Komodo dragons.
It is a vicious circle. I am annoyed with myself for being annoyed at other people. I am annoyed by the way I have reacted. I am annoyed because I know I've been thoughtless. I am annoyed because I should be perfect. Hubris in action....
Oh. And I'm annoyed because I'm on call tonight, so neither alcohol nor melatonin is indicated....
xxx
OK. Jane Brocket I am not. But, there is a certain recherché charm to these wonky fairy cakes. And I'm watching Withnail & I, again. This is helping me to regain perspective.
The jellybeans are bubblegum, orange sorbet and lemon-lime flavours. And I've only eaten one (it fell on the carpet in the sitting room, and I thought fluffy + sunken + erratic was a really bad combination: I had intended to eat the orange-sorbet ones myself, but somehow they escaped onto the icing). I'm very pleased with the pale green icing: the pink stuff is slightly less orangey than the picture looks. It's more of a blue-pink.
Time to fold up everyone's laundry, and to find my iban number, else the rent isn't going to get paid. Well. The rent would still be paid even if the laundry weren't folded, but the iban number is vital...
Oh: good news. There are 19 rooms booked for the chaps and self for the away rugby match and ceilidh on Saturday. I occupy the 19th all on my own.
xxx
For the hat which was lost is now found, skulking in an extra-deep coat pocket.
xxx
I need a list. My head is slightly not-quite....
my pink electric pencil sharpener. Saves on blisters.OK. Time to get out of flat (or possibly retrieve dark wash from machine and then get out of the flat - nope, it still has far too much running to do).
xxx
4.30pm - receive message that the peer educators who are supposed to be turning up to run both Brownies and Guides tonight cannot come. Formulate plan.
4.31pm - finally finish updating data on behalf of another colleague who is currently terminally confused owing to abrupt departure of the guy who used to do the same job, sans proper handover just before christmas.
4.33pm - try and print off Brownie Bingo. Get all excited as the printer is whirring.
4.35pm - discover that printer is not functioning, and that it has printed a piece of paper with the legend 'IB' in one corner. Curse.
4.36pm - email document to colleague to print.
4.37pm - The Welshman demands a new copy of the database to play with. Now. On Friday night. Before home time. This instant. Demand Brownie meeting from Welshman in return. He used to do cubs. Welshman now hovering next to desk, in order to say useful things such as 'I've saved it there' and 'I need you'.
4.40pm - begin database restore
4.42pm - retrieve document from printer.
4.44pm - phone Guide Guider to give her joyous news.
4.45pm - fight photocopier.
4.46pm - fight again.
4.47pm - win.
4.54pm - database restore done.
4.55pm - Welshman cannot get into database. Or rather, he can get in, but he can't find anything once he's there. Wonder why we can't use windows logins. Faff trying to fix.
4.56pm - simultaneously with faff, email something else to colleague to print (term plan).
5pm - with both Welshman and contractor hovering round computer, still fail to sort out login problems.
5.02pm - retrieve documents from photocopier.
5.07pm - finally get Welshman to agree that no, he does not really need a database to play with right now.
5.08pm - retrieve another document from printer
5.10pm - start shutting down machine.
5.11pm - loo break
5.13pm - leave machine to deal with what's left open. Cannot cope with waiting around.
5.14pm - Shoot out of office door.
5.16pm - Hail taxi
5.25pm - get home. Phone beleaguered Snowy Owl several times in course of trying to find phone directories and feed self something for supper.
5.28pm - get changed while eating Mrs Crimble's wheat free fruit cake with goat's cheese on top.
5.37pm - shoot out of front door.
5.50pm - at Brownies. Setting up. Dealing with lots of incoming parents, all of whom need forms.
6.55pm - announce that we've only got 5 minutes left of Brownies. Wonder where the Guides are.
6.58pm - have it point out that there's still another half hour of Brownies to run. Wonder what on earth to do with them for another half hour.
7.21pm - Someone's Mum phones, knowing full well I'm at Brownies. Silence phone.
7.25pm - begin flying-up-to Guides ceremony.
7.40pm - all badges handed out. Brownie flown up. Much photos. Much delegation. Much noise.
7.50pm - 8.40pm - spend entire Guide meeting enabling one Guide. Achieve something. Toast mashmallows over gas burner.
8.50pm - collapse in giggles while Claire trying to achieve silence for Taps. Unhelpful.
8.55pm - haul recalcitrant Guide outside. While Taps goes on, try to summarise Guiding in 30 seconds. Fail. Recalcitrant Guide's future at Guides uncertain.
9pm - get rid of last Guides.
9.15pm - manage to leave building having had long indepth conversation with church caretaker.
9.32pm - Gaze at Chinese takeaway. Decide not really hungry.
9.44pm - Get home, phone back whomever's Mum. Answer question.
10pm - watch Eastenders, eat boiled eggs.
10.09pm - The Intern phones work mobile. Panic, as I do not recognise the number, and it's the work mobile. Surely a server didn't die? Server did not die. Intern merely wishes to use washing machine tomorrow morning, and was being uber polite about it...
Woudl it be wrong to have some chilled white wine?
xxx
A mouse ate my sleeping bag. Fortunately, Chris-my-first-flatmate was so drunk, he didn't care. Very lively walk into work this morning, with him flaunting his bottle of champagne (still tipsy). He's officially left, but there's still 3 calls he wants to finish off. Such professionalism (and I shall see that the Head of the Department who wouldn't let him have 6 months sabbatical to go travelling so he had to resign knows this).
It was a very nice leaving do. There were flatliners. The barman kept giving me free drinks. And free drinks to my Daddy who'd dropped by. I knitted some sock in the bar at nearly midnight. Chris couldn't walk in a straight line. Hee hee.
And the heating seems to be functional. Although the programmer is a bit beyond me at midnight after alcohol...
xxx
During the course of today I have acquired a fundamentally bad mood. Grump.
xxx
Who could resist lilac and lime green cashmere? On SALE? Mittens are being knitted...from Vogue Knit Simple Fall 2007, with stripes. There may be enough left for a hat. Picture to follow. The lime green and lilac is an edible combination...
It's fickle, because there's a lot of red and black in my life, including Fee Lock's Socks (one done. I was only in John Lewis because I needed a wee bit more yarn for the second sock. And now the needles are in my new mittens!).
xxx
p.s. I'm trying to gain weight because my trousers and jeans keep trying to fall off. And a BMI of 20.3 isn't exactly what you'd call stonkingly solid.
Left the taps running as my brain was working in series while I was attempting to function in parallel. And I filled the sink, and it flowed over the edge, drenched the washing machine, and left me with a kitchen floor that was an inch deep in the middle.
We give due thanks that the kitchen floor is lower than the hall floor (it's the only floor in the flat that has a lip), that the previous incumbents installed vinyl on top of vinyl, that I noticed before the water got to the edges, that the floor dips in the middle, that I had many towels to soak up the water, and that Mum was helping to clean the flat before the Intern arrived, and that she pointed out, while I was standing in the middle of the floor, panicking, that maybe soaking up the water was a Good Idea.
Heather's Daddy says that the washing machine will probably be fine, but to give it 48 hours before trying to use it. Heather's Daddy is more reliable about this sort of thing. My Daddy merely said that of course it wouldn't bloody work if its front was hanging off. Its front was hanging off because I was trying to dry it out.... the door dripped for about 12 hours, most of the water seemed to be in there, but it took much unscrewing of things to work that out. The electrics did get wet: it was mid spin cycle and it just halted.... It's reasonably new, I'm sure a replacement set of electrics can be acquired.
I've spent the last couple of hours at the laundrette, so that my white wash could be completed (and the towels used for mopping could be washed and dried out: they went in the tumbler and are all nice and fluffy, rather than feeling like cardboard. I miss having a tumble dryer).
Otherwise, the flat is all empty looking because there are no Christmas Decorations anymore, and I need to hang the pictures in the Intern's room, as that looks particularly bare at the moment. The heating is still not working quite as one would like, but, there is good news. The TV is receiving all ITV and all Channel 4 stations again, after a gap of months. I have no idea quite why but No One Move Anything.
xxx
The intern is trying to iron his shirts. So far, this is hilariously funny, and I'm having difficulty keeping a straight face... I think it was the water in the iron going everywhere. Then the not realising that UK plugs need switching on at the wall. Then reorientating the ironing board and nearly pulling over the drying rack!
xxx
My new crush? Groucho Marx... I think it's the lightning fast brain. It certainly isn't the moustache...
xxx
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