Sunday, 25 October 2009

Star gazing

in the middle of the common tonight. Mutt looked utterly bewildered obviously thinking "we don't normally stop here" & wondering what on earth I was up to. The sky was full of stars and cirrus clouds & looked so like the famous Van Gough painting I sat down on a bench and just stared.

"However far away, your loved ones look up to see the same moon."

I said thanks

to St.Delia of the cookbooks again last night :o)
My brother and his wifelette were treated to some good old comfort food...sausages braised in red wine, and baked stuffed apples. Seemed to go down well and none of the kids complained...well that's not exactly true, the strident student mentioned no one cooks for her any more and ensured I felt suitably guilty about leaving her stranded in the Steel City with only a sizable food parcel as compensation.

Friday, 23 October 2009

Fat chance of being bored

Strident Student has decided she needs something additional to occupy her when she's not doing her degree course, debating, voluntary work and part-time job so she decided to stand as dept. rep on the Student Union...never a dull moment...

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

Doing the Milkround

required a trip to deepest darkest Welsh Wales in order to man a recruitment stand at Cardiff University. Manic day with a good few hundred potential grads wandering round looking for jobs or sandwich year placements. Hard on the legs but the years in retail have stood me in good stead for this type of thing...had to be one advantage ;o)
Struck by how few of the students had actually done any research about the companies who were recruiting...somehow thought with the recession and jobs on the scarce side they'd have been a bit more prepared...maybe I'm just getting dull and boring in my old age...

Sunday, 18 October 2009

Career path

They start them early on the path to achieve their aspirations nowadays. Miss Sensible has been to see the careers advisor and undertaken some assessment tests to ascertain what careers she might be suited to.

In my day the 'penguins' at the convent didn't hold with such things. If you were a bright girl you would be a teacher, less able, join a bank or go into nursing....anything else you were doomed, which may well be how I ended up in retail management...or "working in a shop" as Sister Jennifer disdainfully described it :o/

Fortunately things have improved as I could see when Miss Sensible showed me the feedback recommending journalism or broadcasting…only a slightly competitive field then...

Friday, 16 October 2009

Royalty

has descended on the site. I couldn’t get into the cafĂ© at work other than by a back exit this morning. We minions are not allowed to be visible today. Everything has been cleaned, polished and tidied to within an inch of it’s life. Decided to go home to work ‘cos I somehow don’t think my dress-down Friday approach will be favoured ;0) As I left the office there was no sign of staff leaning from the windows, waving flags and cheering, merely a cleaner brandishing a duster;-) Well he's hardly first in line to the throne - can't believe the amount of fuss and security :o/ The guard dogs were out and there were loads of men in suits with walkie-talkies about the place - talk about over-kill!

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

Is there a protocol

about posting re. a cremation and memorial service :o/ Suffice to say...it went as expected - pretty harrowing.

If I pop my clogs please can someone give all the valuable bits to those who need them, ensure medical science gets anything else of use and should there be anything left, dispose of it quietly, preferably with no one looking on. Most of all I would like everyone to have a really good party with the odd story about me with some of my exploits (good and bad), music ('80's naturellement), dancing (but you'll need plenty of space for Jon's flailing limbs especially if you play Blancmange tracks) and sustenance in the form of bacon butties or fish & chips.