Snoozefest

It's 2pm on a grey damp day and I'm sat in a very overheated reception area struggling to stay awake. The secondment is only into its third week and I'm already beginning to think that it wasn't such a great idea to come here after all. You'll understand how much time I have to think about stuff when I tell you that I've already drawn up a mental list of the pros and cons.

On the plus side, the first week was excellent fun. Running around and exploring a huge school, including spooky block is not exactly what I would call work. Everyone was in good spirits, we were united in our cause and we seriously couldn't believe the amount of stuff that has been left behind here. It's also been fun getting to know new managers, especially ones that like to talk and gossip as much as we do. You wouldn't believe the stuff I've heard this past couple of weeks about high up peeps at work! I've also enjoyed being able to drive to work 2 days a week as it's doing wonders for my ever ailing flexi; in fact there's a serious danger that I might actually return with positive flexi! This is something I have never known, wonders will surely never cease!

However, the cons far outweigh such nice things. For starters, we've hardly got any students. On Fridays we have none at all. Can you believe that? A university campus with absolutely no students on it. It's too much to comprehend. And we've also got absolutely nothing to do. Again, this is a very alien concept. I'm used to being surrounded by paperwork and telephone queries and emails demanding information. Here, nothing. And next week we get a permanent member of staff to join us so there'll be four of us twiddling our thumbs. It's one of those strange situations in that we have areas that need covering hence the need for staff, but with nothing to do those staff are just struggling to stay awake. It's completely and utterly bonkers. I have honestly never known anything like it my whole working life. Don't get me wrong, I've had boring jobs, but I've never worked anywhere where there is absolutely nothing to do. Last week, the heating was broken and it suddenly turned autumnal so we were really rather chilly. They fixed the heating last Friday and now the place is like a sauna! But they don't know how to control it so it's just switched on. Permanently. Are you getting the bonkers here? Am I conveying it accurately enough for you?

To top it off, last night was our first late night of opening, and also my night to work late. It started off just grand as I didn't have to start until 1, a nice sleep in on Monday mornings is always welcome. By the time the other staff left at 6 I'd had one woman in reception shrieking and screaming and crying hysterically and a very confused old man looking for the school children who used to occupy the building! Add to that the fact that it's very very dark outside with very few lights and it's a huge old building with lots of squeaks and groans, I was thoroughly creeped out by the time I left just after half 8.

The biggest thing of all is that I'm so disappointed. I wanted it to be something really good. Something for me to get my teeth into. Everyone kept telling me what a great opportunity it was going to be. So far, I've probably excelled myself in manual handling having spent a few days lugging furniture around, and it turns out I may excel myself with blogging and email catching up due to excessive availability of time. RAH peeps, a big RAH!

An elegant affair

I went to a family wedding yesterday. And it was an absolutely delightful experience. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't always look forward to weddings. I get the whole concept behind them, they're supposed to be lovely days and drunken evenings, fun and frolics, dancing and big smiles. But more often than not they're quite stressful and not always enjoyable. But this was one lovely day.

I should have guessed it would be really by the engagement story. On a trip to New York to celebrate a special birthday, groomie proposed to bridie at the top of the Rockefeller Centre and then took her to Tiffanys to buy an engagement ring! Now that's classy, with maybe a hint of cheesey, but every girl that I've ever told that story too always says "awwwwww" at the end of it.

So to the wedding. It was at a most lovely venue, up in Jesmond in Newcastle. Everyone was in their finest and we all looked super dandy. I had my favourite new dress on, bright bright pink with ruffled sleeves and my favourite new shoes, shiny patent leather with a high block heel and a heart on the front, very wedding appropriate; a purple flower in my hair and red accessories topped the clashing with style ensemble. Wavey was looking super handsome in his suit and my ma had the finest fascinator in her hair, it was feathers and net and flowers and jaunty angle-d, looked fabulous! My dad, in typical Dizz-dad mode pretended to be blinded by my bright pink dress but I knew that secretly he was very pleased that I wouldn't be letting the side down as we say in our family, and had scrubbed up well.

It was a small wedding, only 47 guests, but it was lovely to catch up with family and meet new family members. Everyone was ever so lovely to Wavey. I was given full approval by one auntie whilst in the powder room, and at the end of the night when everyone had consumed much alcohol, we were both told that he is a very welcome addition to the family and must stick around! Yay! Cos my family are tough cookies and very protective of me, so this is a very good sign for Wavey.

The room for the wedding was lush. Big high ceilings and dimmed lighting, all adding to the elegance of the day. My cousin was bridesmaid in a gorgeous Karen Millen dress in gunmetal grey and the groom and best man/bride give away-er were dressed in dark grey suits with peacock blue ties. The bride wore a beautiful dress in peacock blue with a bolero, that was simply stunning. I know I keep saying it but it truly was all so damned elegant. It was simply gorgeous. It takes real effort to do this at a wedding, in my humble opinion.

The food was really rather tasty. For starters we had smoked haddock with baby potatoes, green beans and broccoli and a creamy mustard sauce, and hot little rolls so that the butter melted right through. The main course was corn fed chicken with roasted beetroot and carrots and potatoes and then for pudding we had cinnamon donut balls with apple flavoured icecream! YUMNESS! And the wedding cake was made up of little cupcakes of all varieties and they came round shortly after, along with some other petit fours that were chocolate truffle type things and jelly, wow sugar, treats.

Lovely. It must be hard to know how to plan a wedding when the bride and groom are both 60, but this one was a true success. Tasteful. Elegant. Simple yet rather lovely. The happy couple have gone on their honeymoon to Marrakech, so here's to them. I hope they continue to live as happily as they have done for the past 22 years...for the next 22 years...and beyond. Ain't love grand x

If your name's not Paul...you'll have to change it

Greetings! We are still alive dear readers, it's just that everyone seems to have gone awol whilst I've been away in France. Wavey and I had a simply super holiday but that post will come later when I have time to put piccies up too. For now, I just wanted to reassure you that we're all still here. But, as it turns out, at slightly different work places.

Yep, I finally got me a new job! Well, I say new job. It's officially a secondment but it certainly feels like a new job. As it's not libraryland. And for that it deserves a very large WOOOOOOO! So this new job is for only 8 weeks, well so they say, but our new boss is already talking about keeping us until Christmas and we don't actually have our new contracts yet so who can really know. We officially started on Monday but they were still re-wiring the place so we had to wait until Wednesday to start, which is probably a good job as I had rather a lot of work to catch up on when I came back from my jollies.

But time to start at the beginning. And introduce you to all the Pauls. First up, we got an email from libraryland Paul asking for volunteers to head to our new campus at Darlington. Ah, thinks T and I, this will be a good opportunity to get lots of experience. So we applied. And we got an interview. I had to have mine early as I was going on holiday 2 days after the deadline (yay!). And on the panel was libraryland Paul. And new boss Paul. And IT guy Paul. Safe to say, if you added the name Paul on the end of any comment, it was a winner. And I got the job. I actually got the phone call about getting the job in the middle of our tent pitch in France which was a truly bizarre experience, and then of course we were obliged to drink mucho vino in celebration that night, and maybe eat a celebratory tart or two, but as I said earlier, more about that when I can actually post some photos along with the tales.

We arrived on Wednesday with new boss Paul. And IT guy Paul was there too. And it's so exciting! Our office, when we first went in, only had 3 chairs and 4 desks. The property is basically an old school which has shut down and it's huge. And when I say huge, I mean HUGE. You have to walk miles to get anywhere. The new library is quite close to our offices, but the classrooms are at opposite ends of very long corridors. It's bloody ace! We've had the run of the place and free access to whatever we wanted. Yesterday was such a fun work day! We spent literally the entire day exploring this huge school, including the haunted block (eeeek!) and scavenging stuff to put in our office. Which looks super homely and has a comfy seat area where we now have all our meetings. And a mini-kitchenette with all our heating up and keeping cool requirements. And the best thing of all is that the office has these huge windows which let in tonnes of lovely delicious natural light. This is such a novelty to us, as we work under all false light in libraryland. I've spent several enjoyable meetings basking in the sunlight now, deeelicious.

Today we went into full work mode. We had loads of visitors and rushing around and making contact with main site again, it was great! I know that new jobs are always novelty and it's exciting at the moment as there's lots to be done, but it feels good you know. It's been a long time since I've been miserable at work and feeling like they weren't using me to my best potential. I don't think anything else will come of this other than the short secondment, but so far so happy. Tomorrow brings more visitors, more informal meetings in our lovely sunny corner of the world, and it's Friday, most brilliant.

And don't forget my new name, from now on you must call me Paul...

Naughty party

Maybe this is going to be weird to other people but until last night I had never attended an Ann Summer's party. And quite an experience it was too! First up was me thinking that the woman at the back of the room putting all those fancy knickers and bras on that stand looked vaguely familiar, but more of that later. I wasn't drinking as it was quite far away from the Dizz abode so I was Des for the evening. Great for everyone else but thinks I, how am I going to do these really embarrassing games when all that has passed my lips is fizzy pop?

The first game we had to do was to close our eyes and out of a sheet of A4 paper construct 1 x willy and 2 x balls to make a complete set. There were some very interesting creations as I'm sure you can well imagine. Mine wasn't that bad but was slightly out of proportion, chuckle. Next up was the pass the parcel which started out okay until the party woman stopped proceedings in order to say my full name and remind me that we used to go to secondary school together. Noooo! This could only happen to me. Anyhoo, bit of blushing later we were ready to proceed. Poor R was the first to open the parcel and get the challenge: she had to fake an orgasm. This was very early on in the proceedings, only about 4 sips of wine had passed her lips, so we agreed that we'd all do it with her. Mad! Lots of moaning, groaning and a couple of woo-ooooos later the parcel rolled around again. This time S had to simulate a blow job on a vibrator. The one problem I could see with this challenge was that her mam was sat 2 chairs down from her. Oh. My. God.

The next bit was quite nice as there were lots of fancy knickers and bras and babydoll chemises rolled out, and a couple of fancy dress outfits which had like 6 parts to them, complicated! Then the tone changed slightly as we started to look at the toys. I have to admit that I've been into Ann Summer's shops before and mainly just stared googly-eyed at the array of toys that were available - it's fascinating! I'd been told that at these parties you have to try vibrators on your nose as it's the most sensitive part of your body that you're allowed to display to the general public, but this was a myth. In actual fact it's the part between your thumb and your forefinger that gets the testing. Of many many different kinds. Small ones, big ones, ones with ears on them, ones with tiny vibrating balls in them, ones with 10 settings on (oh my word), ones that did like 3 different things at once, there was even one with a ruler available in the catalogue for measuring, um, yeah...

The next game was dirty word bingo. She flashed up cards and the person with the rudest word won the card. We weren't allowed to say the evil c-word, which I think is fair enough as that is a particularly horrible word but everything else was a free for all. The card J flashed up. And I couldn't help it. Out of my mouth popped the word "jiz" (I have no idea how to spell this correctly but I'm not going to google it but I'm sure you all know what I mean) Someone else had said something else so she made us repeat our words. It wasn't bad enough that I'd said it once but she made me say it twice. In front of S's mam! Oh the shame. Safe to say I won the card.

The final game involved 3 plastic bags and a roll of sellotape. With this we had to create the sluttiest outfit we possibly could, get someone to model it for us and then describe it to all the other party people. We made our model wear a black binbag corset with white detachable nipple tassles, pink suspenders and a whip and matching necklace. And she went home in that. Nice.

All in all, mucho fun was had. And I have somehow found myself being a hostess to my own party, so when you all get your invites, make sure you leave your blushes at the door and come and join in the fun!

17 days

The countdown has begun. In 17 days Wavey and I pack up the popemobile and begin our journey to France. Yep, our holiday will begin, oh happy days! The first day we're driving down to Folkestone and staying in a hotel as the following day we get on a very early tunnel (7.57 in the a.m peeps) to go under the water and arrive in Calais. Then we begin to meander (good word) our way down France until we reach Sarlat in the Dordogne region, where we're camping for a week and then meandering our way back up again. 2 whole weeks! I seriously cannot wait!

Especially as this has been a pretty crappy work week. Odd how being told your job is a "waste of time" can have such an impact on your day...okay then, cheers very much, I'll just get me coat will I? Libraryland is not a very happy place at the moment. Mucho uncertainty and anxiety about where we'll all be and what we might be doing.

But! Holiday! We haven't actually made any agenda for the holiday, it truly is a let's drive along and see what happens kind of trip. We've booked the campsite but that's only cos you have to ensure you get a pitch (with electricity no less, and a petite bush apparently to separate you from your fellow happy campers). I have visions of us wandering, nay meandering, through tiny villages that lie along the river, in summer shorts and flipflops, eating the required daily icecream that is the holiday rule, and of course the pain au chocolat for breakfast and the wine in the evening...let's hope it lives up to my expectations!

Come on 17 days! Hurry hurry hurry!

And to end, on a totally non-holiday related topic. I just let a small boy stamp his daddy's library book with the library date stamp and you would have thought it was the best toy in the world ever! Aw bless.

Dicing with death

So this week finds us halfway through a 6 week stay of the Wavey-sister. She spends 46 weeks of the year living in the US of A, and 6 weeks visiting here with Wavey. Last year, as Wavey and I weren't coupled I did a pretty good job of hiding from her, obviously that isn't allowed now so we've been spending lots of time together. The thing with Wavey-sis is, she has allergies. And we're not just talking little allergies that might make you go a bit red (though she has those too) but she has a severe allergy, as in DEATH WILL OCCUR if she encounters any dairy.

Yikes!

So now the background is over I can commence with the post. As we know, in the Wavey/Dizz life, I'm the chef the majority of the time. And I'm very happy about this. I love to cook. The kitchen is one of my most favouritest places in the world. Until the dairy death became a possibility. Now I'm like flappy chef. At some point I'm going to cook in my kitchen for her so I've been obsessively avoiding dairy going anywhere near any chopping surface, just in case a tiny bit lingers and it leads to the very last breath of Wavey-sis...

*...cue Dizz running to the hills in fear of Wavey family...*

...I tells ya, it's tough! We made dinner last night at Wavey's and we had fish (kind of safe but not if it's of the salmon variety), couscous "did you read the box, Wavey-sis, is this safe?" and salad (phew, safe, oh wait, except for tomatoes) Sheesh folks!

Obviously I'm still cooking cos it's what I love to do. But I'm sure you can imagine the scene at the table as we eat, as Dizz tries not to obessively watch every mouthful Wavey-sis eats wondering if this will be the one...I don't even know how the allergy itself manifests, I imagine some hideous throat clutching, gurgling, rolling around on the floor in agony type incident (drama queen anyone?) But you know what? Funnily enough, I'd really rather not find out for real. Maybe I should just ask so that I'm prepared? Or maybe not cos that seems a smidge rude. How to phrase it, one wonders. "So, when you do get this death allergy, what actually happens...other than the death part I mean..." hmmm methinks not. Best just to keep schtum and continue the intense scrutiny of all packets and labels until she returns safely (fingers crossed!) to her home. But I'll just go and wash that food preparation area in the kitchen again, just in case...

Feeling the (vampire) love

You might not remember me blogging way back in December last year about going to see Twilight, the movie. And how much I really didn't like it? Well, a couple of weeks ago I decided that I would read the book and see how different it is. I know, I know. It seems like an odd decision when you really didn't like the film but I often find that book adaptations are usually not that great in comparison to the book itself. Whatever right? It's a woman's right to change her mind!

And so the book reading began. And it's proved highly entertaining! More so because of the crazy lines that are used - Holy Crow! What? Did we suddenly move out of vampire-land and into Batman-land? And descriptions of Edward as being this perfect angel who was just too glorious to resist...it's just so funny!

I reached the chapter this morning when Bella and Edward (spoiler alert if you've neither seen the film or read the book here) headed off into the woods so that they could see how much Edward sparkles (look! the vampire sparkles in the sun!) and also do a bit of flying and running very fast (look! the vampire runs really really fast!) but mostly they did a lot of lusting. So much so that Bella nearly passed out with the lust. Or was that with the running too fast? I was a little confused by this time. And I tells ya, by the time I'd read this chapter I was feeling a little faint hearted myself.

I'm beginning to understand now why 14 year olds are so obsessed with these books. But I'm also a little worried as well. Cos if you're 14 and you're reading about all this lust that's so intense you're going to pass out, it's very likely that you're going to be disappointed by real life. For starters, I don't think you're going to come across many vampires (unless they're on some freaky "I drink blood" website - oh come on, they're bound to exist!) and a romantic entanglement with your average 14 year old boy is not going to result in passing out with lust, unless you've drunk too much to get through said entanglement and have passed out for this reason. Either way, disappointment lies ahead. I was told today that apparently they have a whole facebook page about how no man will ever be good enough cos everyone is in love with Edward Cullen...truly, this is a frightening thing.

And you know what else I found out? The author is apparently a Mormon so how come she's writing about all this vampire lust and using such lines as "holy crow"? It's so bizarre, the whole thing. I'm baffled.com about it all.

But putting all of the above aside, I'm enjoying reading the book. And looking forward to borrowing the other 3 in the series so that I can find out what happens to the lustful teenagers, although strictly speaking one of them is about 400 years old. Safe to say that the only way to enjoy these books is to put aside all sense of reality and embrace your inner teenage angst. I didn't actually have any inner teenage angst when I was a teenager, never mind now as a 34 year old, but hey, I'm going with the (lustful) flow...