Every day at work I get to fix a random selection of problems from an ever expanding set of potential problems. It’s bloody frustrating knowing that after fixing a problem, it will only be a matter of days weeks or months before it needs fixing again. Some of them could be fixed “properly” with an investment in hardware, time or interest; none of which we can spare. Others are just caused by bogons that occur too infrequently to discover what’s causing them. It’s like the pressure loss in a central heating system. No-one knows what causes them to loose pressure, but as long as it doesn’t need filling up more than once a month no-one’s going to be bothered/able to find out what’s wrong. Without wanting to extend this dodgy metaphor to new-Labour levels: I have to run about 30 similar central heating systems at the same time.
Tensions in the department are high, mainly due to management; not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t exist. As people get more uptight and stressed, they take it out on the people with whom they work, and the vicious circle continues to turn. I’m just as guilty as anyone for loosing my temper, but it’s hard not to.
Anyway, on thursday evening I went to Brighton straight from work – Ben had got a couple of tickets for Mark Steele doing stand up. It’s been many, many years since I’d seen him live and I remember thinking he was brilliant. Well it’s been a long time since I belly laughed as much as that – superb. After the gig, we had a few pints in the pub and went back to Ben’s where he managed to make a gourmet quality meal of bangers and mash. I wish I ever had the energy and talent to knock up a really together meal like that…at midnight…when half cut. I drifted off to sleep watching a rare Bill Hicks video. A Satiritastic evening.
Friday morning, Ben was ill and so didn’t go into work. We started the day slowly and comfortably – tea, more Bill Hicks and a couple of Trisha lie detector results. After this I walked along the sea front and up to the station, stopping breafly at “Bites Cafe” for an egg and bacon sandwich. The weather was absolutely perfect; just how I would have it every day: very bright, cold and not a cloud in sight. I don’t care what anyone says, autumn is the most beautiful time of the year.
From Brighton I went up to Dorking. Adele, her sister, and Stuart had brought Peter down to see his dad. So Brodie went out and bought a massive pedal-power JCB-type-tractor thing and Peter nearly exploded with excitement. Later on, Fino turned up from Wolverhampton and we all had a good day. For weeks now I’ve been working on a picture for the wall of the pub and the day before I’d managed to get it printed out so was able to present it, framed. Printed on that high quality photo paper it really did look good. I also managed to get Brodie’s PC together at last and hook him up to the Internet which provided enough smugness for me to not worry about spending the day in a pub.
But, it was very knackering,I fell asleep on the train and had to be woken up when we hit Waterloo. By Lewisham I was dead and spent the best part of 5 bloody quid on a black cab from the station…worth every penny. I just wanted to fall into bed, but Humphrey had other plans for us.
When I got in he was very pleased to have the full complement of his flock back in the house and so when I left the room he tried to fly after me. Sadly, due to lack of experience, he’s a really, really crap flyer. He ended up on the curtain rail. To cut a long story short we both slept on the floor of living room…with the light on.. in case he tried to come down in the night and hurt himself. Every hour or so the discomfort of our landlady-fitted parquet flooring, coupled with the fact that light was on, woke us up and we spend some time calling him and making bird noises.
We didn’t manage to get him down until late this morning. I had to get the step ladder out and coax him down. Even then it took three or four goes before he actually got down. One time I got him perched on his food bucket and halfway down the ladder when he panicked and flapped off…straight back up to the rail…pillock. He really wanted to come down but was just so scared – I don’t think he managed to sleep last night. Anyway now he’s back down and sleeping on one leg while I end up doing a bunch of work that I didn’t do on Friday and seemingly no-one else there could do. God how irritating….
