what possessed me?

So, with 3 days to go, I decide my NANO idea is unworkable and boring. I'm back to having one character and I know precious little about him but he's kinda cute and *I'd* follow him home so that's alright isn't it?

jack o'lantern

Had a lovely evening with friends eating pumpkin soup and other yumminess.

Mixed bag

I try to keep things on this blog fairly light hearted (thinks back to dog knitting, hang man, cat buckaroo etc). So bear with me if I use this space today to splurge out what a rubbish day yesterday was.
My new boss rang to tell me that two of my colleagues were involved in a nasty car crash. One guy, who has moved from the MK branch with me to be our cash office lovely, is in hospital with a fractured collar bone and the other, his mother, who was the cash office lovely at MK, died. It is truly shocking and I find myself lapsing straight into those ridiculously irrational sentiments that you can only understand when you've experienced it first hand; I don't want it to be true, I'm sure I'll see her next time I go into the branch, perhaps if I wish hard enough and sincerely enough it won't be true after all, maybe someone got the wrong message. She was good fun to work with, excellent at her job and will be badly missed. The whole language of death is a cliche but it's all I can say at the moment.
But this is called a mixed bag and some fun stuff has happened too.
I've had my first week at the new job and it's going well. If it had a time lapse camera on it the shopfloor would have gone something like this; dark with black empty shelves, some people wandering about pointing at things, 1000 crates arriving, a bit of lighting here and there, an explosion of stock over tables and zipping across shelves, general mess, lots of people waving their arms or huddled into groups scratching and shaking heads, stock disappearing from the floor, crates leaving and people moving stock from one shelf to another and pushing tables about. That's how I left it Thursday night. By Monday we should be putting up POS and putting in the Christmas campaign. It's beginning to look like a bookshop now but outside is still a hard hat site. We're due to open Thursday!! Anyone in the area??
Other news. Sorry if this is sounding like a family Christmas newsletter. Ick, I have a horror of them!
Mini-me has his girlfriend staying down this weekend which is a new experience for me and Mr K. It's very sweet to see how Mr K responds to them. Hee hee. Trying his best to embarrass them by threatening to go out to the pictures with them in my hi-vi. (high visibility vest that I have to wear when crossing the building site! Must include a picture some time!)
Last night our errant mog returned home. We hadn't seen her for 2-3 weeks and we thought she had shuffled off her mortal coil. She is a tiny scrap of a cat and last night you could almost put your hand round her back bone and meet in the middle she was so skinny :( We fed her and fussed her as you can imagine. This morning she's nowhere to be seen again.
And now I'm going off to meet the kids in town and buy them lunch.

Unbelievable.

If you were to follow the link from one of the spammers on a previous thread, and why would you when the only temptation is a link called 'private road constuction'(?), you would find yourself at the home of The Interim Monetary System of Heaven on Earth. Scrolling past the offer of 100,000,000.00 Credon Barter Dollars (hmm, that sounds like real currency), you would find another link. This time to Normism and the Declaration of Heaven on Earth. I suspect this is an example of someone trying to start their own religion. The logic goes something like this: there are lots of religions and that proves that god will give us whatever we want. Maybe I'm being overly critical but something doesn't ring true there. Apparantly the ideal age for asking for, well, anything, is 40 but this is not a religion without generosity:

After some brief discussion with Norm and Jesus we reached the conclusion (upon my request) that it is ok for anyone who accepts this declaration to receive immortality and peace in life right away.

So don't tell me I never give you anything!!!!!!

Long overdue pics from the peaks

induction day

I got to meet my new team today at an induction day in London. Interesting, fun, enlightening, encouraging. Looking forward to Monday now.

i hope...

...i've made the right decision.

Of course I have but I am seriously going to miss the bods at MK. They're all great and some of them are particularly yumptious. It's been tough saying goodbye to them this evening.

guess what?

Guess what I've just signed up to again? Am I a complete

numbskull? NANO time again. Another November where

likeminded idiots around the globe attempt to write 50,000

words in 30 days. This year, because of other commitments, I'm aiming for

30,000 words instead. If I get to 30K I'll be delighted, anything beyond that is

a miracle.

Who would have thought?

My money was on Ishiguro but John Banville it was and didn't he look a sweetie?
I thought K.I would grab it because the theme has such a current feel but after the reviews this evening I have to say I'm drawn to JB (not Julian!)
I thought Ali Smith looked far too self confident looking to camera all the time and smirking pretend shyly.
Anyone read any of the short listers? Anyone going to buy the winner after this evening? I'm tempted but I have about half a dozen on the go or waiting in my urgent pile.

'Birdy', I got about 20 pages into then had to pause because of a billion things going on at work but I'll get back to it ASAP. I picked up Guillani's 'Leadership' and think it's brilliant so far. Also reading a book whose title eludes me...(enchanting? enthralling?) and plodding through Ackryod's 'Albion (fantastic). Vonnegut and Murakami sit on the shelf up here, looking delicious and tempting. I have an interesting one co-written by a Palestinian and a Jew downstairs. And don't even get me started on the proofs I have!

fit of the giggles

It's been a long week, feeling torn between two jobs & two bosses. Maybe I've had more than my average dose of stress recently but all it took was this one enquiry at work today and tears of near hysterical laughter were pouring down my face as I try and keep up a semblance of professionalism.
First my customer asks for 'Knitting for Dogs'. This is enough. My face is contorted in an effort to stifle my laughter as I regrettably tell them that this gem is not in store:

So after they have left I call upstairs to our resident knitting knut and tell her I have an ISBN she needs to check out. We have a laugh but then comes the clincher. She outdoes the unspeakable horror of pet dressing:
Yes indeed folks, this book will teach you how to take dog hair, weave it and then knit it into snug items to keep you warm during the long winter months. Just think! Spaniel scarves, Golden Retriever gloves, Jack Russell jeans and Poodle pants. Contact your local dog groomer to start up your own business!

Botswana

http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamafrica/wildcam.html

This has to be the most amazing link I've ever seen! It's a webcam onto a pond in Botswana. Don't forget to turn up the volume. I sit for 15 minutes every night watching this before I go to bed. Things at the pond are livlier during the day but I've seen an elephant washing itself and some kind of deer creatures walking around in the evening. In the day I've seen these massive birds chasing each other about. I wish I knew what they all were. It's compulsive viewing! Hope you enjoy it as much as I am.

At last!

The news is finally official and out in the open. I have a new job. (yeah, another one, i know!) I've only been at MK for 4 months but I've been offered an assistant managership that I'd be stupid to turn down. So I didn't. Two more weeks at MK before heading south to HH.
Recruitment for two branches simultaneously is a challenge! Arriving at 7 a.m after an hour's drive to let the cleaning lady in is something I just can't wait for either. But it's a brand new store so I get to be Book Fuhrer from the word go. It's all good.
One of guys at work responded with 'Good, I never liked you anyway', which was momentarily unnerving. I manoeuvred that one then he came back with 'how soon are you leaving?' Touching.

nothing dramatic

...just to say i'm back. work is frenetic and brilliant. the animals are crazy. the humans are competing on that front. interesting work news that i can't divulge to the world for perhaps another week but it's good. had my hair cut. bought new red shoes. went to the peak district for a weekend. that *is* about all that's happened in the last fortnight.

back online!

Monty chewed through the cable. I'm back online now though! (rolls eyes)

Thanks for your contributions.

Computer is still doing odd things. Must be some remnants of doggy saliva somewhere.

crazy day

without giving step by step instructions to the universe at large about how to break into my house, i had to do just that this morning after i locked myself out. the break in process involved climbing a wall, lying full length in mud and climbing down a ramshackle piece of trellis. i had to buy a loaf of bread so i had change to use the phone to ring mr K to find out he was miles away and couldn't help. which reminds me, that loaf of bread is still in a plastic bag in someone else's back garden where i left it as i hacked my way through nettles to get to the crumbling brick wall i was to scale. (i just ate the last slice tonight so maybe i could get minime to go fetch for breakfast!!)
then i get to work, amazingly only 10 minutes late, to be faced with news that some wacko has gone straight to the MD because he didn't have staff bow to his every whim when he last came in.
then at the end of the day i realise i can't shut the back door at work so have to call out security to do a bit of man handling of the locks to get the place secure.
i get home after nine from a late shift, eat a bowl of beans for tea and now i'm going to bed.

good job the coffee was strong

yesterday i took a 70 mile round trip for a cup of coffee. or so it felt. decided to drop in to the Hemel branch of a certain bookshop unnamed for legal reasons (!) It's a new shop in which I might be having some kind of involvement in the future. What I discovered...after timing the journey, noting the miles, researching the parking facilities and getting my bearings...was that the shop was so new it hadn't yet been built.
Thought I'd give you all a laugh at my expense on a Sunday afternoon.

is it just me

or does it seem less than satisfactory when a hospital consultant tells you to go home and find out how to get better by surfing the internet?

first day back...

...at work after 2 weeks off.

A pleasant evening with rocket dog shoe-wearing friend round to see greyhound wannabe rocket dog, Monty.

Minime has first day at upper school tomorrow which pretty much freaks me out as it doesn't seem that long since it was my first day at upper school. My form room was the metal work room so it was smelly and there was nowhere to sit. I'm sure minime will get a better deal tomorrow!

Beautiful south

A couple of pleasant days in Bournemouth,

trying to get a weeks worth of sea & sun into

a couple of afternoons!

Got to swim in the sea,

run crazy round on the sandy with loopy lurcher here

& write embarrassing messages in the sand about mini me

liking barbie dolls. Ha ha ha. Such an easy wind up!!!

Had an amusing moment in a shop where i picked up the vilest looking

hair accessory, stuck it in my hair and went up to my sister in law to make her laugh. 'It really suits you' she says. 'Oh thanks a lot!' I reply, bothered that the pinkest, featheryest, ribboniest thing in the shop "suits me". Then I look in the mirror. The damn thing looks great. I end up buying it!

Don't mention the (war) garden.

Still nothing done and the place looks like a WWI reenactment. The mortar was runny (day 1), runny (day 2) and a 2 tonne brick (day 3). Patience an increasingly rare commodity round these parts.