Welcome to Essex...

So sad as it may seem, I am now an Essex girl. Not by choice you understand, but because we could afford our lovely house here. And it's not been bad round here, if you avoid the town centre on a Saturday you don't see many chavs and avoid the excesses of Essexdom. The neighbours are lovely and we have a chip shop right round the corner and about ten million takeaways send us menus every day, we have so many we could eat at a different place for about a month without repeating ourselves. So far so good. But Saturday night we were rudely awakened by a typical Essex boy/girl fight right under our window. This is how it went (you have to imagine an Essex accent, kind of like Birds of a Feather, and really loud and getting louder in the sweary bits):

Dwayne: (I didn't catch his name but this sounds about right): "Oi! Youf broken me 'eart you fuckin' slag."

Jordan: "It was a mistake Dwayne, I'm really sorry"

Dwayne: "You SLAG you big fat SLAG"

Jordan: "Aw Dwayne, I made a mistake, can't we leave it? I really really luv yah"

Dwayne: "Feck off slag"

Jordan: "Dwayne, if you leave me now I'm gonna kill meself. I mean it!"

Dwayne: "!!!"

Jordan: "Come back Dwayne! COME BACK!! AAAGGGHHHHH!!!"

Dwayne: "Oh you fuckin' slag, I'm gonna ring your mam and tell her what a slag you are"

Jordan: "No! You'd better not fone me mam, fuck off Dwayne, I never wanna see you again"

[Sound of mobile being thrown and smashing into bits by the lamppost across the road]

Jordan: "No!! Not me fone Dwayne! I love ya Dwayne!"

Man in flat across the road: "Will you two sod off?!!"

Dwayne: "Right! I'm gonna come back wiv all me mates and get you! What do ya fink you are doin' looking' at me?"

And on and on. I would love to know what happened to them and if Dwayne eventually forgave Jordan. It didn't help that as I didn't dare look out of the window, I had an image of Vicky Pollard and Eminem in my head when I was listening to them. Then we were woken up by the Beach Boys being played at full volume by the crazy lesbian next door when her mum went to church in the morning. Earplugs at the ready next weekend...

Renee update!

So my source in the US says that Kenny is gay. You would have thought Renee would have established that before marriage. Or is she such a good southern gel that she waited till the wedding night and then got quite a shock. Doesn't she watch her own (or any) movies? And what was Kenny thinking? Did he think he would "get over it", or that he'd get half her millions just from marrying her, or that she's readily agree to a marriage of convenience (a la Cruise/Kidman allegedly)? I read today that Jack White has hot-footed it to Renee to help her get over it, leaving his own hastily married wife well pissed off. I love celeb rumours, now the Tomkat camp has gone into hiding it was jolly well time someone else caused some goss.

Footpath of celebrity?

So London has now got it's own Walk of Fame. Cool huh? A chance to celebrate some of Britain's best actors and bring a bit of Hollywood glamour to London. Nah. Who did they pick? Out of all the hundreds of well-loved actors from years and years of film and tv you would have thought they'd be spoilt for choice. But Hollywood get Marlon Brando. We get Ant and Dec. Hollywood get Greta Garbo. We get Dame Edna Everage. And why do we need to copy the Walk of Fame? Nicole Kidman made it onto both, so surely (apart from the bizarre tv celebrities that get on because they have been on prime time Saturday night tv for a few months and the grannies love em'), the Walks should mirror each other? And who picks them?!

And "Avenue of the Stars" as a name? Oh puhlease. It'll be a different story in a week or two when a few drunks have visited them. More like Urinal of the Rich and Famous.

Poor old Renee...

So after 4 months of marriage and a whopping 15 days spent together, Renee Zellwegger has decided enough is enough and is getting an annulment. Of course no-one ever says why, apart from a very vague reference to "fraud", so that fans of celeb gossip can spend hours and hours trying to decide what happened. These are my theories:

a) Kenny isn't really a multi-billionaire country singer, he is a successful mime artist who mimes to huge audiences, and Renee only found out when she asked him to serenade her on honeymoon and realised he didn't have the voice of an angel at all, more a rusty nail dragged down a blackboard.

b) She is still hung up on that kerazy Jack Black of the White Stripes (or substitute Jim Carey) and only married Kenny in a fit of jealousy/trying to win him back scenario that clearly backfired.

c) She refused to give up her career and go and live in backwater Tenessee breeding loads of kids and only seeing Kenny in between his world tours.

d) He refused to be arm candy and give up his successful miming career to follow her round the world to all her premieres and wait around in dodgy cafeterias while she's off filming.

e) The "fraud" references relate to the fact that she thought she was marrying Kenny Loggins (of Footloose fame) as she was off her head on champagne and pina coladas. When she sobered up she realised her mistake.

f) He thought she could wrap her legs round her head after all that dance training for Chicago. But she couldn't.

Ooh I could go on all night! It is sad, but then at least they can afford lawyers to swiftly annul the marriage and carry on like it never happened. But at least Kenny will be a hit with the girls. And what's with the "annul" rather than "divorce"? Does that mean they never did it either?! Poor poor Renee.

Yikes I'm falling apart!

Ooh I'm having a poor few weeks since my birthday. Today I am off work with a bad back. I'm not 60!! I don't even know what I did, but it bloody hurts. I never used to suffer with anything at all, a few migraines here and there and I've always had dodgy knees. But in the past 3 weeks or so, it's been possible RSI, bad back, my eyes are getting worse I'm sure and I found a white hair! AGH! I could be being a bit Dot Cotton over all this, but is it possible to suddenly age?! Or have I been in an ageing vacuum all this time? It's quite a shock I have to tell you. I have been lucky, in my 20s the worst thing I had was a hacking cough that lasted for weeks and drove me and my housemates mad. And I was on holiday in Crete at the time it started so my poor friend was kept awake, and I must apologise to all the people on the plane home too while I think about it. But now I'm prematurely old and can barely move, there's so much to do. Now I'm forced to spend time in our new house while it's daylight (which makes things look so much worse don't you find?), the weeds are taking over the garden, the front room looks like one of those Big Yellow Storage places and my dad is threatening a visit soon too. Renting was so much easier!

On the plus side, it sounds like Britney is going to name her kid Preston. Brilliant! I'm from Preston, and it's getting tons of press at the moment - Freddie Flintoff got the freedom of Preston the other week. He was being interviewed last week and I was listening thinking, "blimey he's got a right accent on him" then realised that's what I used to sound like before I defected south. Britters might also call the kid London which is also cool. As strange celebrity baby names go, they aren't too bad. Not as bad as Apple Paltrow or Junior Andre!

I think the Woman in Black might be partly to blame for my back problems. We went on Wednesday night and I was SO scared. I've seen it twice before and read the book so theoretically I shouldn't have been scared. Oh no. I was terrified! I don't know how they do it. There's 2 actors (plus the eerie woman) and not much of a set to speak of, 3 chairs, a basket, a few old boxes and some sheets. But they make it seem so real, and it is genuinely scary. The audience were screaming every few minutes in the second half. And jumping. Which leads to poorly backs I think. But honestly, if you haven't seen it and you like scary things, go and see it. You'll be checking under the bed before you go to sleep...

Oh purlease!!

Today I have been told WAY too much information by certain acquaintances of mine. There really is no good reason to share very personal information with people you know, it puts vivid pictures in the mind that are very difficult to get rid of and frankly I can do without it. Today I have been told about birth control methods, that someone I know has caught a nasty STD off someone on the same estate (but is still going back for more) and that a friend of mine has taken up salsa dancing. The last one isn't particularly offensive but it did put a brilliant picture in my mind of flouncy sleeves and a big red flag. Oh sorry, that's bull-fighting. Almost the same thing I think!

But there is no excuse for being sat innocently on the enquiry desk only to have such filth sent to you to peruse. I am sure I am going to have nightmares tonight.

On the plus side, today we started doing library tours for new students. Ordinarily I hate them, I said several times today to anyone that would listen that I HATE LIBRARY TOURS. To be fair, we don't do that many, a couple of weeks once a day, but I've got a right thing about them. So imagine my horror when I found myself actually enjoying my tour today, and then volunteering to do another one when a lady turned up late for hers. What has got into me? The 6 lads I showed round on my proper tour were very polite, asked sensible questions, and all shook my hand when they left! Bless. I must look like an old married woman this year. Last year I got my stupidest question of my career (and he's still around!) - "has anyone ever been knifed in the head in this library? It looks like the kind of place that would". !!!!. I politely said "no I don't think so" but this bloke wants to be a lawyer? Well actually, thinking about it I suppose he's perfectly qualified being a bit (actually alot) eccentric! Another favourite is a bloke who asked us what size bag he should buy to keep all his books in, and then bought his purchase in to show us! He then proceeded to spend the next year asking us what pen/calculator/pad he should buy too and drove us all to distraction. Library users, they're all a bit odd.

Cut off in my prime?

So recently I've been suffering a bit with my wrist - early onset RSI I hear you cry, will Bookish Barbara be no more? Well, as I'm typing now it doesn't hurt a bit, but at work it really does. So being a sensible old stick, I contacted our personnel lady to see if she could suggest anything. She came over to look at my work station, and I thought I was on to a winner when she condemned my desk and said it was really rubbish and that was the root of all my problems. She also muttered the phrase "personal injury claim" so I thought: "Brilliant! She's going to sort it right out and heal my poor old wrist so I don't have to sue their arse". But no. After a promising start she said "well we can't do anything about it, so learn some keyboard shortcuts and try and be sensible about having breaks". Pft!! They won't get me a new chair with arms, but I am getting one of those cool mousemats with a gel pad in it. I had one of those before, and it was brilliant as a stress reliever, I spent most of my time messing with the gel pad, not leaning on it!

And the fact that my monitor is at an angle meaning I have to twist to use it, my desk hasn't enough room to lean my arm on flat when I'm using the mouse, and my arms are about to drop off because of it? Nada. I'm definitely going to take advantage of the advice about breaks, and when my boss asks why I'm always wandering off, I'll say it was on the advice of the personnel lady! Marvellous.

Of course, I can't really sue them as most of the time I'm on the computer I'm surfing the net or writing my blog! Dammit. Now I've got the miracles of the internet at home (yes indeedy it finally happened!) I'll have to do proper work - which incidentally does involve lots of typing - and then sue their arses!!

Birthday girls

So as it turned out, the booze-fuelled rampage round London turned into a more sedate affair. It started off with my birthday friend (a whole day older!) running into a large man as she was waving at me and paying scant attention to her immediate surroundings, she always does things like that! She'd fallen over on the way and ruined her beautiful pink shoes too so that was Bad Thing No. 2 (of the 3 things that always happen). I suppose running into a fat man isn't exactly Bad so I could substitute my failed attempt to buy new flip-flops. I found 2 pairs in Accessorise but only in wee tiny feet sizes (see Lady Librarian for this) so when I asked if they had any more I was met with a scathing "It's winter now madam". !!! Winter?! It's September people, Indian summer anyone? And Madam?! Do I look like Heidi Fleiss? Anyway, we made it unscathed to a lovely falafel place on Old Compton Street, and we got seats right opposite the Admiral Duncan pub (infamous for nail bombers sadly) - it is an amazing bright pink pub full of mustachioed men in vest tops and shorts. Kind of like Frankie Goes to Hollywood but more 2005 (they weren't all in shorts, I'm stereotyping here!). So we sat and ate big fat falafels and watched the comings and goings for a while and then Bad Thing No. 3 happened. Lady Librarian had been at work all day, (she does a 6 day week!) and the poor thing had spent the day with Bad Library Users and had the hump. Poor thing, she works way too hard and so she stayed in. That meant the person who could jolly us old ladies (on account of her being younger and knowing the cool scene better than we do) into drinking shots and dancing our socks off was no more, and so we stayed in the pub till closing and then wandered homebound. It was a good night, though less debauched than I'd planned, and my other young friend invented a great drink - gin with cranberry and apple juice. Yum. Maybe it is a sign of our age, we had seats so when someone suggested moving on to another pub we vetoed it on account of having to possibly stand up! Rock n' roll people, rock n' roll...

Speaka de Eenglish??

On Saturday night en route to the birthday do (more later) I had an entertaining encounter with a man on the tube. I don’t get the tube very often anymore and I was getting the Circle Line round from Liverpool St to Embankment. As a tube pulled up, a man asked me if it went to Victoria. I had to think about that for a second to see which way round the tube was going (imagine my horror if he’d ended up at King’s Cross instead!) and in this very short period he looked at me and said very slowly “Does … this … train … go … to … Victoria…?”. Do I look like a tourist or an idiot?! Why ask me if either is true? So I just said “yes” and scarpered up the other end of the carriage. I should have dragged out my GCSE French and babbled on at him about toilets in French to scare him off.

It’s my party and I’ll strop if I want to…

So it’s my birthday on Saturday. Me & my friend who is a whole day older than me (but who isn’t showing any signs of being any more mature!) are having our usual joint do on Saturday night but I haven’t half got the hump about it. The past few years’ dos have been great, drinking and dancing and lots of embarrassing behaviour to be frequently dragged out by our friends to humiliate us with. I think my crowning glory was the year before last when I ended up being sick at Victoria Station at 2 in the morning, much to the displeasure of the poor station cleaner who happened to be passing. And in the train. All the way home. Ick. And I think that was the day I flashed my pants at my male housemate – admittedly I was unconscious and he was carrying me to bed – but how that one lingers. Oh no, that was a different day.

Anyway, I think I’ve got the grumps because now I’m married/old (I can’t decide which one it is!) I can’t be doing silly things like that anymore. I seem to be unable to get drunk nowadays and not that I want to now I’ve ensnared my lovely husband but I used to have this weird ability to attract lots of men when out on the town. This could have been because of the short skirts, or the beer goggles, who knows, but it was good for the old self esteem. Now although I have no desire to attract anyone else (man I’ve had my fair share of odd men in my glory days), I think it’s the fact that I could. The old self esteem is a bit low, and I feel like an old housewife doomed to a life of domesticity. My life at the moment revolves around gardening and cleaning and trying to get to Ikea. I used to be famous (or is that infamous?) for stupid behaviour and spending the weekends doing stupid things. I don’t do silly at the moment. Hubby is also prevaricating (look! long word alert!) about whether to come out at all, and he is spending the day watching football (yes I am a football widow). This is a perfect excuse to go shopping methinks but instead I’m grumpy about him not spending the whole day making me breakfast in bed, feeding me chocolate cake and champagne while also peeling grapes as I lounge in the garden reading trashy novels, and providing lots of lovely surprises all day long. As Lady Librarian points out, this would never happen. He is a man and men don’t think like we do. Though as long as he makes me a cuppa I’ll be quite happy!

So I think my challenge for Saturday is to drink lots and lots of random evil alcohol and see what the night brings! I need my stupid side back! But next week I’ll be moaning about the perils of alcohol and heels I should think.

Do you want our food tester to try that sir?

Last week a funny thing happened. We went out for a meal to one of our local pubs after a very long day. I was really looking forward to it, mmm someone else can make my dinner! But it all went a bit wrong. It didn't bode well when we got in there, a whole family were in mid Jerry Springer mode, swearing at each other and threatening to leave every 5 minutes. Then when we tried to order there was a big hoo haa about whether they were still serving (this was 7.30) but they finally agreed to serve us. Then my dinner arrived. The lady who served it said they stopped serving at 8 which confused me about why we had had to argue with them in the first place. Then we were waiting for the other meal. And we waited and waited. Finally we both made a start on mine which to be honest wasn't great. How can you make chips rubbery? Then my other half swore he saw his dinner waltz past to the only other table with people sitting at it. Then just as quickly the waitress whipped it back and disappeared into the kitchen again. 2 minutes later the meal reappeared, with one corner cut off! Sorry vegetarians, it was a steak. He was so hungry he ate it anyway but I wish we'd refused it and got our money back. I bet the other person in the pub wasn't a mystery shopper testing the wares for our benefit, and the thought that he'd licked our dinner really put us off. Next time I'm not being so lazy and cooking! But what a pisser.

And another thing...

Things that have made me cross this week:
Drivers of cars like Audis and BMWs who think that they can weave in and out of traffic with no regard for other drivers. They drive me nuts. Weaving in and out of a 3 lane carriageway with everyone doing 60 mph. We had a near miss with a BMW this morning as he blithely undercut everyone using the inside lane – which last time I looked at the highway code was a no-no – as the people in the other 2 lanes weren’t going fast enough for him. If I started taking numberplates down of ar*ehole drivers I’d be down the copshop every day and they would have to ban me for using all their resources! I want to Pimp our van with one of those police ‘slow down’ signs on the back – that would scare them, if they thought we were undercover cops!

Cyclists – still making me cross. And scooter drivers. Grrr.

My windchime. I was given a lovely wooden windchime for my birthday last year. As we lived in a flat it has been languishing in the spare room, but now we’ve moved into a house I put it up in the garden. Queue lovely melodious chimes for a day or so. Then I realised I hadn’t heard it for a few days and went to investigate. The wood has stretched so much that it almost reaches the ground so the chime is on the floor! Typical.

Barristers – this week they have been mainly very very irritating.

A lady from the Times. Oh ho, this is my favourite irritating thing of the week.Yesterday at 5.45 I received a call in the Library from a plum-voiced lady (whose name I didn’t catch when she barked it at me) who said they were writing an article and needed our crest immediately. Sadly as it was that time in the evening the librarian who deals with all bizarre enquiries like this had gone for the day (and indeed weekend) and with it being August, lots of the senior staff aren’t here as it’s the only time they can get holidays as the courts are closed. I very politely explained all this and said it would have to wait till today at the very least, or next week when everyone is back. “I’m from a national newspaper, I don’t do people being on holiday” she snipped at me. Then I lost it and told her that if she decided to phone up at some random time demanding things then she obviously wasn’t going to get what she wanted. Stick your national newspaper where the sun don’t shine! Rar!

Librarians in the news (or bad press shocker!)

Well the papers this week have been full of horror stories about a SHORTAGE OF LIBRARIANS. My god. Is there a need to scare the general public with stories like this?! I found it quite entertaining to begin with, they have basically realised that by 2010 all the doddery old librarians in public libraries will have carked it and there aren’t enough new librarians to replace them. I have a few problems with this. Firstly, I know at least 2 people who are having huge problems trying to get posts in libraries, and this is mostly because all the jobs are filled by doddery old timers. So are they supposed to temp for a few years till they pop their clogs? No. Most sensible young and hip librarians are getting jobs in the city, working for law firms or big companies – they pay better for starters, have better perks and have far better career opportunities. So then of course they don’t want to go and work for some local lending library in Liverpool or wherever, well not until nearer retirement anyway!

Then this morning on the TV the BBC ran a feature on the shortage. It was absolute rubbish. They based it on a public library in Liverpool and went out on the street to ask the general public what they thought about librarians. It was awful! They all came out with the usual stereotypes that librarians were boring, wore cardigans, had their hair in buns etc etc. Then one evil South African girl said “well it isn’t a career is it? It’s just a job”. Pft! Try telling that to the people who have spent years getting qualifications – librarianship is one of the most qualified professions there is. I’ve got a degree, a postgraduate degree and chartership, A friend of mine went crazy and has 2 degrees! Admittedly, in public libraries there are the remnants of people who got their jobs when they didn’t need to be qualified, but then they have years of experience behind them. And as for boring. Well I would find working as a shop assistant (which the South African clearly was) boring, but do I slag them off?! Any job can be boring, and public library work can be less stressful than in other sectors, but you still have to have the skills to calm down an upset octogenarian as the latest Catherine Cookson is on loan already. Seriously, you need the skills of a hostage negotiator sometimes in this job.

The BBC then drafted in a PR “expert” to tell us librarians what to do to improve our image. His suggestion? Coffee shops. Uh huh. I think Borders have the monopoly on that one already, and you remember what happens to librarians when food and drink are brought into libraries don’t you?! For my part, I would love to have Trinny and Susannah glam up a bunch of nondescript library staff, that would be brilliant! But then I think some of our users here like the stern image librarians get – they get off on being told to be quiet or to go outside with their mobile phones! There’s a fine line between librarianship and S&M sometimes I think :-)

Another librarian blog!

On my way to work this morning for some sad reason my brain started thinking about librarians in books I've read recently. This was probably due to all the publicity for the Da Vinci Code at the moment but hey, good subject for a blog!

In The Time Traveller’s Wife the main character Henry thinks that a career choice of being a librarian is a very suitable job to combine with his time travelling antics. He spends a lot of time in the stacks shelving (and often naked) to avoid users when he knows he might pop off at any time. In real life they would track him down, and even if he had gone back 25 years there would still be someone wanting to know how to use the photocopier. I once knew a “librarian” (for want of a better word) who used to go off to the stacks to have a sleep. Do you think he was time travelling too? Now I do love this book, but my practical librarian mind has issues with it. Why didn’t he become an accountant? No one would have noticed if he’d disappeared. Or in the words of someone I know was it because librarianship doesn’t require any brainpower and is mindless, so when he popped up again after a time travel, he could carry on as if nothing had happened. I don’t think so!

The Da Vinci Code: this book is great because it has a librarian from King’s College Library where I used to work. However, this book is quite obviously fiction as the librarian lets someone in who ISN’T A MEMBER and then MAKES THEM A CUP OF TEA. In a library. It would never happen. Period. The mere sight of food or drink in the vicinity of books can turn even the mildest-mannered librarian into a spitting raging ball of fury. (As an aside, I think it’s hilarious that Tom Hanks (mild-mannered actor) has been assailed by crazed nuns who think he represents the anti-christ. Poor old Tom, it’s only a day-job love, you’ll be back filming worthy yet uncontroversial films soon…)

Ghostbusters: I have a special place in my heart for this film as it starts off with ghosts in a library. But did they really have to trash the joint? I think the librarians on duty at the time would have been much better placed to politely ask the offending spectres to leave, rather than bringing in the big guns and destroying the shelving. Ah yes that brings me on to The Mummy. This film infuriates me. Kooky Rachel Weisz plays a librarian who obviously wasn’t born to the job. When she knocks all the shelves down she doesn’t look remotely guilty or concerned about the fate of the books she’s destroyed. And then she decides to go off and fight supernatural beasties. Most typical librarians would choose to remain in the libraries and let the heroic types risk their necks. And I bet she was supposed to be on the issue desk!

I’m sure there’s loads more librarians in film and fiction, but my brain just died. The sad indexer part of me every now and then when I read a book with a librarian in it thinks “ooh I should start a list” but thankfully my more normal self has prevailed so far! But is this blog the beginning of my downfall?!?!

When librarians get the hump...

Grrr. Now my job isn’t stressful at all most of the time (except that one time we had a rush of 5 barristers at the desk) and I can do most of my jobs blindfolded, so there is absolutely no reason for me to have the hump. We’re on "vacation hours", there are far less people around than normal, and from today my boss is off so we can run riot. But I am so fed up. I can’t be bothered to do anything, I sit at my pc glowering, and watch the clock till it’s time to go home. Our poor users look too scared to come to the desk, usually I can have a laugh with them and they are mostly very sweet. And then I think that everyone thinks I must have had a row with the other half and that makes me even crosser!

I think in part it’s due to wanting to do stuff at home. There are a million jobs to do and no time while I’m forced to go to work to pay for it all! I’ve decided that my ideal job would be to do houses up, sell them for billions of pounds and then be able to retire in ten years or so. I love deciding what colour to paint rooms, and if I had a huge budget for expensive furnishings and gadgets it would be great! But I’m sure once I’d finished I’d want to live there and would refuse to sell it. I was watching one of those property programmes the other night, and there was this brilliant house which was an upside down house. It had a lovely courtyard and was really quirky but the couple who were looking to buy weren’t interested at all. If I had half a million quid to throw around I’d have had it.

On the plus side though, today I had to go and buy a birthday present for my sister-in-law. I got her ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ on DVD (her video has worn out she’s watched it so much!) and when I got it to the till it was cheaper than it said (I love it when that happens!) and as an added bonus I got some free stickers! I have absolutely no idea why, but they cheered me up no end.

I need some celebrity gossip to cheer me up. It’s been oh so quiet on the Cruise/Holmes front, the most exciting thing that happened this week was that Madonna fell off a horse. Come on celebs, do your stuff!

Customer service taken to extremes...

So, tomorrow a brand new lovely shiny kitchen is being delivered to our new house. (I am obsessed with all things housey or gardeney at the moment, where has my obsession with vodka and all things purple gone?!). But the company we bought it from was supposed to phone yesterday to confirm, so I called them today to check. It’s all fine, and will be delivered as expected. But as a bonus, I had a brilliant conversation with the man on the customer services helpline. He was lovely (but a bit crazed I think) and took it really personally that we hadn’t had the phone call.

Englebert: (names have been changed to protect the innocent crazed helpline operator): "Oh I am SO SO sorry, you should have had a call yesterday. I really don’t know what went wrong. PLEASE accept my apologies"

Me: "Oh that’s ok, I’m just pleased it is being delivered"

Englebert: "I mean I am SO sorry, what can have gone wrong? This is awful, you really shouldn’t have had to phone us!

Me: "No really, that’s fine"

Englebert: "It is awful that you didn't get a call. But please accept my assurances that it will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. Now, can we fit a lorry the size of a double decker bus outside your house?"

Me: "?? … Yes, I’m sure it won’t be a problem" (thinking, "what would happen if I said no?")

Englebert: "Goodo! They do drive big lorries you know."

Me: "!!!!"

And on and on and on. Bless him! It was like he’d built the kitchen himself and it broke his heart to think that his company might have upset us. Nowadays I am surprised if companies do phone/deliver when they say they will so it really wasn’t a big deal. But he definitely earns gold customer services stars from me, I might ring him again tomorrow just to definitely check it’s on the way! I just hope the kitchen comes with a big shiny ribbon on it and extra gold accessories to make up for our distress :-)

My neighbours get their comeuppance!

This has made me so so happy, and I know it’s evil. As we’re leaving our flat soon we had some people come to look at it the other night. As you may or may not know, our upstairs neighbours are the spawn of satan and have made our lives hell. They have a little girl who screams constantly, runs around with clogs on till gone midnight, and never seems to leave the house or go to school. The wife speaks very poor English and screams at the little girl in Russian (which sounds much more threatening than in English, I’m sure it’s all about kneecaps and concrete shoes). The husband is very strange too but can manage to tell us how it is (in his ideal world) in English. We share the garden and the drive, but when we moved in the husband made it very plain that he parked his car on the drive and there wasn’t room for another. And we share the back garden and washing line, but the wife (who doesn’t work and is in all week!) hogs the line all weekend so we can’t use it. And we can’t sit in the garden due to the presence of the evil little girl with toys everywhere. We have never bothered to bring this up with them as we knew we weren’t staying there for that long, and I have had enough problems with bad neighbours for a lifetime.

But anyway, the couple who want to move in are better than my wildest dreams could possible have come up with (with the exception of some chavs with a big stereo system and a rottweiler). She is 9 months pregnant, about to give birth – queue screaming baby. She also has a dog, and announced that she wanted to divide the garden up with a fence. They also want to park on the drive. Go new people!! It was all I could do not to hug them! They are a really nice couple, but unlike me, don’t take any shit. The upstairs neighbours are so getting what’s coming to them. I wish I was around to see it.

A whole week off to argue about paint!

So next week I will be mainly trying to decide what colour to paint the kitchen and the lounge. It’s really difficult when there’s another person involved, when I lived by myself I painted my bedroom with one wall lilac and the rest cream and it was lovely. Now I’ve got to agree on a colour scheme with my lovely husband. We don’t disagree a lot, but I’m sure whatever I say is nice he will say the opposite! Queue lots of pointless arguments, and I get all cross and irrational over things like kitchen cupboards and blinds. But I should enjoy it, I’ve got the opportunity to make it feel like our home and we can do whatever we want, so why stress? If it doesn’t look right we can change it. But of course I will stress. I’ll want a nice shade of cream (how exciting am I?!) and hubby will want a very slightly different shade (not obvious to the naked eye) and world war 3 will break out. So when I get back to work I hope to have a lovely kitchen and lounge that isn’t the greenish white colour it is at the moment. And still have a husband of course! Sure I will :-)

Go Lauren Bacall!!

Well she is only saying what everyone else is thinking! In these days of libel actions and litigious celebs, it’s heartening to see someone unafraid to have a right old go! I guess if I was 81 I would say it how it was too! You can always blame it on senility and get away with it (though if you’re reading this Lauren, I’m obviously not referring to you so please don’t sue me). Poor Tom Cruise seems to have dropped out of the media circus lately, how long do you think it will be before the break-up with Katie is announced due to "work pressures"? I wonder if he will respond to his slagging by Lauren, she also had a go at his ex-wife a while back too. But then Tom himself isn’t averse to random attacking of other celebs, poor old Brooke Shields must have wondered what she did to deserve that. Ooh how I love the bitchy backstabbing world that is celebville, I’m just glad I only have a ringside seat and am not in the firing line. Who will be next?

"Computer glitches" or just plain incompetence?

We finally got the keys to our lovely house at 4pm on Friday. And of course, it being me, it didn’t all go to plan. At 11.30 we called the estate agent hoping to be told that we had completed and could get into the house. No such luck. Queue calls every hour, by 3pm I was starting to think it would be Monday before we got them. Our solicitor (the monkey trained one) insisted that the money had left their account but it hadn’t reached the seller’s. So I asked the obvious question of "you did send it to the right account didn’t you?". This was met with a slight pause and "oh of course, we double checked that already" (i.e. "as soon as I get off the phone I’ll be checking that immediately") and so the money was lost in cyberspace. Then at 4pm we got the call, hurrah!! Turns out (the solicitor’s secretary probably shouldn’t have told me this) that their computers were down in the morning so the money wasn’t sent "first thing" at all and that explains why it took so long. If they’d just admitted that in the first place I wouldn’t have minded so much, at least I would have known not to have all the family down at 11.30 sitting around tapping their feet and drinking far too much coffee.

So we are house owners. And despite all the stress, tears, nervous breakdowns and arguments, it has been well worth it. It’s such a weird feeling having your own home, I’ve lived in rented flats or houses of one form or another for about 12 years, and I have never stayed anywhere longer than 2 years. (I’m not on the run from the law, I just move a lot!) So knowing that I will probably be in this house for years (well until I can face the prospect of selling – so that will be never) is a bit odd. But exciting too. There’s so much potential (and so much to be done too!) that it will take about 20 years before it’s how we want it. We have an apple tree and a runner bean rack at the end of the garden – I must be getting old, as I was so excited at the prospect of growing beans and tomatoes that I thought I might be sick! (I am ignoring the fact that I have no idea how to do this much less taming the garden itself). Long gone are the days when I got excited at the prospect of going dancing every night and being sick from vodka abuse every morning. Hellooo old age!