Hi y’all, we had an eventful time of late. In a spree of uncontrolled consumerism I’ve been virtually shopping until I virtually dropped. The push-bike I mentioned previously: with it’s narrow tyres and raised ridge thereupon to decrease the contact patch with the road still further: and I mentioned my new hat: here modelled with another recent acquisition, a Chinese Kung Fu / Tai Chi top from Hong Kong. Then from the States we have some new ‘cat eye’ sunglasses for Wendy They really are some bad-arse sunglasses! Here’s the handsome couple; Now then, I put captions on these photo’s when I uploaded them, but in case they were missed I’m going to reiterate a few points here; the first being that that is a loose fitting, kind of stiff, linen top I’m wearing that naturally hangs loose at the bottom. (The camera adds ten pounds! How many camera’s were on you? As the saying goes.) I am actually at my lightest weight for, well possibly years. This damned ‘no sweet stuff’ diet is doing the trick, I’m down to ten stone five pounds (with five to go). I suppose I should also mention that Wendy has lost a bit as well. Three stone two pounds, to be exact. She been hanging on to that dress for years and years, vainly hoping that some consumptive illness would make her slim enough to wear it again. Now she’s done it all by herself (by starving for half a year). Respect is due. Kudos to the Wendster. As though all of the above spending wasn’t enough I then filled in the gaps (well three of them) in my Sci-Fi Masterworks collection, and I’ve ordered a pair of shoes! Also today, as Wendy finally got her first pay packet last Thursday, I acted on an idea I had the other day. We’ve been living here for about three and a half years. We have a bath with mixer taps and a shower pipe jobby. It wasn’t until last week that I realised that the shower kept flowing at Full strength even at head height. Therefore, if I just got the attachment that holds it up, and a shower curtain and rail, we could have a functioning shower. For buttons! Then I thought we’d better paint the bathroom as well. Then it turns out you have an adjuster pole the shower head hangs from, a matching shower head, and it costs ninety nine pounds ninety five pence! One hundred bloody pounds! So much for cheap and cheerful! OK, I expect all you rich people are laughing at a mere hundred quid, but it nearly broke my heart at the checkout. I was envisioning a thirty or at most, forty, pound project. Then we had Luke returning to the nest like some six foot cuckoo after a domestic at home. (Domestic at home. Tautology? Discuss.) That appears to have been a storm in a teacup as a day later he’s back with his chick. I’ll […]
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Turn and about.
Well, it’s all change again. I went into Human Resources again today, but the HR chick I spoke to a few days ago had been off for two days and by all appearance had forgotten about me. She took my name and number and said she would see the main manager then contact me. This was in relation to my request to have a bit of help in my driving progression. The company boasts of it’s initiatives for its employees, one of which being the ‘warehouse to wheels’ scheme. It’s on a big board as you walk into the main building, yet when I’ve asked the transport hierarchy all they’ve done is provide excuses why our site doesn’t run the scheme. So I asked the HR bint the other day if, now I’ve paid for the expensive bit out of my own pocket (getting the training and licenses) if the company could put me on the final part of the scheme. I wasn’t placing any great hopes on getting a reply, but as I was having a shower (typically!) she rang me. She said she’d talked to the MD of the site and he’d told her to contact the site that does run the W-T-W scheme to find out if it was practical for it to be implemented on our site for me! Apparently the person responsible at the other site is on holiday until Monday, but my new best-mate has sent them an email and has told me to get back to her Monday dinner time, when she can tell me more. That’s not a no. Hope springs eternal. We have qualified driver assessors on site, a whole fleet of trucks and the truckers to man them, what more do they need to get me up to scratch? I’ve passed the bloody test, all that’s left is experience. Yesterday at work, at 13.50 hrs, ten minutes before my shift ended and I was due to speed home with a glad heart and start making ‘phone calls about the jobs advertised on the interweb, a siren went off at work. As is common practise, everyone ignored it. However this time it was for real. We had a major ammonia leak from the cooling system in the freezer. Apparently that’s bad in a terminal way. The fire service and police were on site in minutes, they closed off main roads around the site and banned us from returning to the building until we weren’t going to die. 17.54 they finally let me go back inside to get my keys out of my locker so I could go home. My sinuses had kicked in again so I was suffering from a progressively worsening headache, I was sat outside for the four hours, with no idea when I was going to be allowed to go home. Less than fun. Today, as soon as I got home (without headache, hurray!) I set to ‘phoning around. One of the jobs was a flat out ‘no’ […]
Continue readingBelieve nothing that you hear…
…and only half of what you see. As they said in the army. That union rep I said about a few weeks back, the one who spontaneously announced that he’d been in the office and sorted out a training programme for me, is full of shit. I went into the transport managers office today and whilst I was waiting for some drivers to sort out their business (so I could get to see one of the managers) Nick (the rep) walked in. I collared him and asked what to do next, and basically he told me to go and get some experience elsewhere, then apply for our place. Thanks for nothing, Nick. Why, though? I didn’t stress him, or even ask, he said to me he’d been in and sorted it out. Did he think my license would never get back from Swansea so I’d never realise he is nothing but a bullshit merchant? I just don’t get it. If he can’t do anything for me that’s just the way it is, but why get my hopes up? What purpose did it serve? I do not understand why he would do that. So I’ve been scouring the interweb looking for work. Surprisingly I may have found some. There were about five jobs that didn’t categorically state ‘no new drivers’ and one that actually said ‘new drivers welcome’! OK, so it’s all agency work, crap pay, and two of the jobs state that it’s only for thirteen weeks, but I’ve got to get the experience somewhere. The two thirteen weeks one will be my last option, that would mean they are just wanting agency cover until xmas, then I would be on the dole in January, when there is no agency work. Wendy pointed out that I will have to take a chance at some point. If I end up taking one of those it will be with a goal to secure other work ASAP, well before the thirteen weeks is up. Once I’m up and running, already a driver, surely it will be easier to convince other prospective employers to give me a go. Off my own back I have been in and seen HR at work, to see if there is anything they can do for me, I’ve filled in an online application for Eddie Stobart’s, and I will be ringing about those jobs tomorrow. Also I will be tracking down all the local supermarket distribution centres to put in speculative application forms. Th’Asda, th’Safeways etc. Bugger. Anyway…, other stuff. It wasn’t just that I’m fat and old and lazy, it was also that damned mountain bike! (I KNEW IT!) Tried out my spiffy racing bike this morning and it was so much easier. The riding position is right, you’re not sat upright with all your weight squashing down on the saddle, your nethers are more or less in the air, and instead of having a contact patch of about three inches of soggy tyre, I have a little […]
Continue readingThe Device and other achievements.
I’ve been trying out my purchases whilst I’ve been off. I went for a run (my first run in months, prior to that, years) and decided to try out my ankle weights! Can anybody guess how that went? First run in ages, with a kilo strapped to each ankle. Not well is the answer, in case you were wondering. I managed to miss the road I was aiming for so went on a much longer circuit, I completely outpaced myself and by the time I got back (only twenty minutes or so later) I thought I was going to throw up. Not an unqualified success then. We are supposed to be starting training sessions on Sundays now the TKD classes have been cancelled so I thought I’d get a head start. Apparently you need to be able to run a mile in under twelve minutes (OK, stroll a mile in under twelve minutes) before you can qualify for black belt. I could do that now. But to do it with élan I really need the practise. So I got back, tried to get my breath back, then carried on with the rest of my work-out. When I’d finished I tried out my latest invention: The Device! As you can see it’s just two home-made ankle loops attached to a length of rope that passes between two eyed screws. The pulley does the rest. Pop your feet in those loops, pull the cord on the pulley, then weep like a little girl. It’s a home-made substitute for a £150 device you can buy. Mine cost about £20 or so, and I have enough rope and screws to build another. That’s the crowing over, the question was: will it work? Oh my sweet lord, yes. I tried it out yesterday after my work-out, when theoretically I’m as stretched as I get, and it stretched me further. Today I was so stiff, with the leg weights and the stretching, that I had to do a quick work-out. This promptly turned into another run in weights (much better this time, thanks for your concern) a work-out and back to The Device! This time I managed to pull another nine inches or so through the pulley. (I marked the pulley cord to give me a record of my progress.) This is not as impressive as it sounds, my feet did not go nine inches further back, there is a 6:1 ratio on the pulley. I’m here to tell you that when you feel at full stretch, then pull another nine inches of cord through, it feels like you are being torn in half, however insignificant the actual improvement is in inches. I have placed it behind where my kick/punch bag usually hangs (I only took it down for the sake of clarity on the photo’s) usually it looks like this: The benefits are many. It hides most of the mess, and more importantly my girly, sobbing face when it is in use and when I […]
Continue readingKicking back (is Lily Allen the new Bowie?)
Ah, sweet days off. Done loads of jobs today, all of them rewarding, a few of them fun. I trimmed my box hedge around the grassy knoll. Apparently that’s the last trim I can give it this year as it has to have time for any new growth to toughen off before the first frosts. It doesn’t look that much different, a bit tidier, but the main thing is in trimming the top branches it will make the growth below fill out. It’s so nearly there now. This time next year I will have to go around with my spirit level and level it all off (it strikes me now, too late, that is how I should have gone at it in the first place!). Also I trimmed all the grass with the same shears as the box. I had one of those strimmer jobbies but I couldn’t get the hang of it. I was chopping out lumps of earth and butchering plants left right and centre. So I sweat and it takes ages, but the majority of my plants survive. As today was actually summery I stripped all the covers off the sofa and gave them a wash, and did the bedding. Yes I really am that sad. I get bored very easily and even jobs that aren’t fun, once done, can be fulfilling. If nothing else they save Wendy having to do them and that’s got to count for something. Not that she showed any signs of actually doing them herself mind, but in principle she might one day have considered doing them. I did the shopping and got a new ‘phone this morning. Obviously the devious postman seized on that window of opportunity to claim he’d been around with a parcel. Left a note saying I can collect it from the main office in town in twenty one hours! How big is his walk? (Round, in non-posty talk) No wonder these posties are all minted if they are out for twenty one hours a day! Damn the Royal Mail! My new ‘phone has a camera! No film in it mind, to borrow from the excruciating Rob Brydon in Gavin and Stacey. I had some mad idea that that was what I needed to make my life complete, apparently not. It’s just another bloody mobile and you get a thousand texts pestering you about all the things you should be doing to be down with the kids. I don’t even know any gullible schoolgirls! (Topical joke, don’t put me on the register!) I’ve been on 2-10 this week so today was my first chance to go to TKD, bloody hell what a lesson! It was so hard that at the end, when we were doing spinning back kicks my pony- tail was so soaked in sweat it was whipping me in the face and spraying sweat everywhere. Unpleasant for all concerned. Good lesson though, showed me what I need to concentrate on (they have a name for the […]
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