• Sight of the sun, perhaps?

• My PDR!

• Middle Son is 21

• FATHER'S DAY (19th)

• We finally get a week's holiday

• The longest day (21st)

I’m not a natural shopper. To me, shopping is akin to having my toenails pulled out with rusty pliers. But it was a mate’s birthday today so I was forced to endure the rugby scrum of lunchtime shopping in the city to get a present.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, WHY do they allow pensioners and (worse) pushchairs in the city between the hours of 1 and 2 o’clock. It would be so easy to position an official at New Street Station and all the major bus stops during this one single hour in the day to tell the dithery thousands, "Sorry, you lot have had all day to come to town, this is office workers time. Now form an orderly mob and we’ll let you know when the time-starved office workers have finished."

Am I being too harsh? Honestly, I feel surges of violence when pensioners potter along, blocking your path and looking for all the world like lost children in the middle of a riot. And pushchairs, they use them like battering rams, coming at you like a charging rhinoceros assuming you’ll just leap out of their way.

So anyway, as I dodge round pensioners and leap out of the way of charging pushchairs, I head towards the shops. Only there’s a lot of shops in town. And I have Absolutely No Idea what to get. Not a good combination.

Raced into Superdrug. Stared at the gift selections. Wasn’t sure my mate would appreciate pink Barbie bubblebath or a Brut aftershave set, so dashed off to Boots. Nothing outstandingly obvious in there either. Doesn’t help that I can’t smell, so smelly stuff probably isn’t the best thing to get anyway.

Raced round randomly, exploding into shops hoping for inspiration, or at least a sign reading "Perfect Birthday Gifts for Mates Here."

Nothing.

Twenty minutes left. I spot photoframes in a photography shop. Pick three so she can display her children on her desk. Massive queue. Fifteen minutes left. Someone at the front of the queue is depositing photographs from what can only be an extensive three year journey round the world. Ten minutes left. Panic sets in. I dump the photoframes and dash off again.

By now I’m exhausted and on the brink of standing in the middle of New Street and just screaming. Go back to photograph shop, buy the photoframes, sprint back to office to wrap them, and hand them over.

She likes them.

Phew.

Did you know that if you click on these 'Extra' icons you get something extra?  Okay, just checking.

One of the secretaries explodes into the office first thing, coughing and spluttering all over the place and claiming to have bronchitis and tonsillitis. Tonsillitis? I could feel my tonsils twitching at the very mention of the word, just waiting for the first excuse to BALLOON!

"Why are you here?" she was asked.

"Because [cough] I’ve got [splutter] work to [hack] do," she said. Her constant coughing was like listening to a donkey screaming in agony.

Several people shifted swiftly out of the line of phlegmy fire. "Go home!" she was told, "We don’t want your germs."

She didn’t. She stayed, sitting at her desk spluttering mucus like a infectious fountain. Eventually, she and her phlegm were persuaded to leave.

Later, I broke a nail (it was just one of those days) and emailed the head secretary. "I've broken a nail, can I claim compensation from the company for industrial injury? Preferably a large cash payoff. Incidentally, if my tonsils get wind that there's been an 'infected person' in the office, I'm suing the infected person! :-)"

She told me to join the queue.

It’s Middle Son’s 21st birthday next week (21, ye Gods, I’m so bloody old). I offered to buy him a really nice watch and have it engraved with some fabulous words of wisdom, maybe a nice Armarni that would last him a lifetime. He picked a sports watch. But not any old sports watch, this was a watch of the ‘how bloody much?’ variety that had so many gadgets it could navigate an Apollo space flight to the moon and back. And, of course, it cost an arm and a leg.

I rang the ex and told him the news. He screamed, "HOW MUCH?" but agreed to cough up some dosh.

"What shall we have engraved on the back?" I asked him.

"I think we should put ‘This is a bloody expensive watch, don’t lose it!’"

Perfect.

I haven’t seen Middle Son since Easter, aeons ago – he’s been busy studying for exams, taking exams, and celebrating end of exams. In an effort to persuade him to come home before I draw my pension, I email him:

"When are you thinking of coming home ... only we have three Albanian refugees living in your room at the moment and I need to give them notice about moving the sheep out."

No response. I send another email:

"The Albanians are asking when they should move their sheep, what should I tell them?"

Later, another:

"The Albanians said if you’re not coming home anytime soon, can they bring their goats indoors."

Eventually, obviously realising mother wasn’t going to give up easily, he emails back with a homecoming date.

He doesn’t mention the Albanians.

Monday 6

So I’m at my desk, furiously typing away, when my computer is suddenly taken over by an unknown person. The cursor shoots across the screen and shuts my work down! I sit back in my chair, aghast, as the cursor opens another programme, changes some settings, fiddles around with some other stuff, and then comes to a dead stop. My phone rings. IT department.

"Nice of you to warn me!" I whine.

"Sorry," says the IT person, "I was trying to fix someone’s computer and they only just told me there was nothing happening on their screen."

Ah, human error. For a change.

Tuesday 7

A photographer came to take our photos so we can be displayed on the intranet and have people laugh at the picture on our security passes. Last time, we were lined against a wall and a quick shot was taken with a digicam. This time we had professional photographers.

Oh yes.

"Turn your head a little this way," the photographer said, clicking away madly.

I had the urge to start pouting and maybe doing some Jordan poses, but managed to control myself.

"Can you make my boobs look bigger?" I asked (half joking).

"We’ll see what we can do," he laughed.

"And can you make me look thinner?"

The photographer stopped clicking and looked at me. "We can only work with the material we have, love," he said.

I bet Jordan never gets this problem.

Wednesday 8

Lunch with the girlies. We chatted about bad neighbours (seems everybody has them, see here for mine).

One of them said she was so fed up of children climbing over her fence and wrecking her garden that she painted the fence in black vandal grease.

"Did it work?" I asked her.

"The day after we painted it, a neighbour said she saw a kid running down the road with black paint all down its front," she said. "We haven’t seen any kids in our garden since."

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when this black coated child got home and got collared by its mom.

Thursday 9

I’ve got my PDR again next week. Oh deepest joy! My bosses plus the head secretary all pondering the vagueness of my PDR form and asking where I see myself in 5 years time. I’m a secretary. In 5 years time I’ll still be a secretary.

My boss keeps telling me not to worry about it.

"I’m not worried!" I whine, "I just think it’s completely pointless for secretaries. I mean, if you’re not happy about my work, you don’t have to wait for an annual PDR to mention it, tell me now." I paused. Silence. Phew.

They say it’ll only last an hour. Ye Gods, an hour in a meeting room having a hugely formal and intense discussion about me, could anything be more boring. Just give me my payrise and leave me alone!

Half an hour tops, then I’m out of there, finished or not.

Friday 10

Yes! I’ve done it! After months of searching I’ve finally found a greenhouse on ebay that’s (a) in the right price range (ie cheap) AND (b) in the Birmingham area. I tell ya, when I spotted it and saw the Buy It Now button, my heart literally started pounding, I was that excited (I’ve really got to get out more).

Rang my Partner to tell him the thrilling news. When he answered his mobile, it sounded like he was standing next to a jumpjet during takeoff – he was in the warehouse.

Trying to be discreet so the whole office wouldn’t know I’d been on ebay (during lunch, of course), I whispered, "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," he hollered.

"I’ve just bought a greenhouse off ebay."

"What?"

"I said I’ve just bought a greenhouse off ebay."

"Speak up, I can’t hear you."

"I’ll text you," I said, and hung up.

I rang Small Son (who’s arranging a van to pick it up).

"I’ve just bought a greenhouse off ebay!" I breathed.

"So this is what you do all day at work, is it?"

"Of course not," I said, "I just happened to come across it whilst searching for an important document on the internet."

"Yeah, right."

Honestly, sometimes there’s just no-one to share your triumphs with.

Saturday 11

I have slugs invading my garden for the first time ever. And snails. Big snails roughly the size of small dogs. I found one this morning (voraciously chomping its way through my seedlings) and I was too afraid to kill it in case it fought back. Small Son actually wanted to keep it as a pet.

Dad the Gardener said to go out at night or early morning with a stick – he didn’t elaborate if the stick was to kill them with or to fight them off. I tell ya, they’re massive – one generation short of conversation and tool skills.

"The birds should eat them," dad said, eyeing up my laden bird table, "But they’re probably too stuffed. You could always eat them yourself."

"What?"

"Well, the French do."

"You could make a Brummie balti with them," Small Son laughed, peering over the garden fence from his girlfriend’s house.

"Forget it!" my Partner yelled from the house, "I ain’t cooking no bloody snails."

So I guess I’ll be spending a bloody fortune on industrial-strength slug pellets then.

MY LIFE IN PICTURES

I miss my bike

My desk

My computer played up one time too many

My work's car park

And I thought this was funny

 

Yesterday we went to collect the greenhouse I bought off ebay. The plan was simple: dismantle, transport in Small Son’s mate’s van, and erect in back garden. Only Small Son’s mate was nowhere to be found. How were we going to move an 8 x 6 foot greenhouse without a van?

We figured we’d figure that out when we got there.

The sellers had a nice but strange house that had no gate or access to their back garden, so we dismantled the greenhouse (2 hours) and traipsed everything through right through the middle of their home. We transported the glass and small pieces of aluminum frame in the back of the car (fortunately not a mini or – I wish! – a little sports number). Then we went back and tied the 8 x 6 main frame onto the roof of the car using lots and lots of rope! Hairy ride home, I can tell you. Good job we didn’t have far to go.

The greenhouse, being second hand, was coated in moss and algae and we spent the rest of the day cleaning off everything with the aid of a broom and a jet spray. In the rain. And gale force wind. I cut my hands so many times cleaning the glass the back yard was virtually a bloodbath. But the greenhouse came up like new and I’m really really really pleased with it.

My hands are now like slashed claws and I can barely move today.

I’m not normally prone to paranoia – I simply don’t have the energy or the enthusiasm for it. Nor was I particularly bothered about my PDR (Personal Development Review ye gods) tomorrow.

But things happened today that got me in a right state, totally convinced I was about to get the sack.

Firstly, my bosses went off into a huddle in the corner of the office. Fair enough, obviously talking about me, not a problem. Next thing I know, bosses are joined by the Head Secretary and they seem in deep discussion about something – could only be about me.

Oh yes?

Meeting finishes and, immediately afterwards, I spot the head secretary talking to someone in the HR department! Hmmm, getting a bit edgy now. My bosses return to their desks, one of them looking unusually sombre. Panic mode notched up a little here.

I went home absolutely dreading my PDR, certain I would walk in and they would sack me on the spot for something.

I would just have to wait and see.

Okay, this was it. The day of my PDR. The day of my sacking for unknown reasons.

My two bosses and the Head Secretary seemed unwilling to leave their seats when the allotted time arrived – obviously reluctant to do the dreaded deed, I thought. I’d like to say I whipped up my PDR form and hollered, "Right, come on you lot, lets get this over and done with." But I didn’t. I clung onto the last remaining moments of my employed status and hoped they’d forget all about it.

They didn’t.

We entered the meeting room and sat down. "Interrogators on that side of the table," I said, "Victim this side."

It started. They went through my PDR form – the usual stuff, what do you think you’ve achieved in the past year blah blah blah. To my astonishment, one boss said, "We think you’ve underestimated yourself." The other agreed. They both looked at me and began telling me what a wonderful job I was doing and how much they appreciated my work.

I kept waiting for the ‘but’ … ‘but we think you’re not entirely suitable for this company,’ or ‘but we don’t like you any more and we’d like you to leave’ or ‘but we think you’re rubbish’.

Only they didn’t. They just kept heaping praise on me. I actually blushed.

They laughed when they saw I’d typed on my form, "My tiepin akuracy has improved sins last yer." Obviously buttering me up for the chop.

Then came the scoring - how well do you think you’ve done and, more importantly, how well do your bosses think you’ve done. Again, my bosses said "We think you’ve underestimated yourself" and started giving me higher scores!

They said I was very calm in a crisis. "I’ve had three kids," I shrugged, "Nothing phases me any more."

And all the time, I was waiting for the ‘but’ and my P45. Neither came. They said nothing negative at all, not one single thing.  The meeting ended and we all went back to our desks, me with a flushed WHAT? expression on my face.

From sacked to successful in 45 minutes. Wow!

Now, of course, I’m rubbing my hands in glee at the ENORMOUS payrise I’m going to get.

I think that’s where the ‘but’ finally comes into practice.

  
TO MIDDLE SON who is 21 today. He’s now a fully formed, stunning handsome, stupendously clever human being. An adult.
Time to stop the allowance, me thinks.
[Anticipating call off panic-stricken son any moment now].

Still flushed from the success of my PDR, I went out and treated myself. I splurged and bought a ring. Silver. Unusual shaped stone. Looks great on my finger.

Total cost, 98p (obviously not real silver).

Then, basking in my fabulousness, I sense something amiss. Something all-too-familiar.

Pain. In my tonsils.

The total sods start swelling!!!!

I leave work at 4pm. Get home 4.45pm. Flop onto sofa and sleep until 7am the following morning.

The £2.50 Do-It-Yourself Tonsillectomy Kit off ebay is on its way.

Ears come out in sympathy with my tonsils, so now my entire head is throbbing to the same pulse of pain. Illness is SO boring.

Anyway, as I sit here at home, awash with lethargy (barely strength to lift my fingers to the laptop keyboard), time to tell you about the recent fad going on in my office. EVERYONE is reading Dan Brown books, myself included. There’s tv programmes on about The Da Vinci Code, and there’s even going to be a film starring Tom Hanks (Tom Hanks? Tom Cruise would have been perfect). Personally I thought Angels and Demons was much better.

Anyway, bored out of my brain, I thought I’d do my own version of The Da Vinci Code …. Da Brummie Code - proof that illness is detrimental to your [mental] health!

With a neck as thick as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, talking like Marlon Brando and dosed up to the eyeballs with every painkiller known to man, me and my swollen tonsils determine to erect the greenhouse we collected last Sunday.

My Partner leveled an area in our back garden (with the aid of rather a lot of bricks, I thought) for the frame, whilst I cleaned what seemed about 37,000 panes of glass.

The greenhouse is now up, minus eight panes of glass.

Nearly there.

Sunday 19

Mostly sat in garden trying not to swallow too much and staring at my almost complete greenhouse.

I'm still falling asleep all over the place.  If I'm still for more than 5 seconds, I'm in a coma.  My Partner asked me, "What medication are you taking?"

"Some tablets I found in the cupboard," I say.

"What tablets?"

"Co-Codamol."

A long pause.

"My Co-Codamol?" he finally asks.  "The extra strong painkillers the doctor gave me when I was in agony from strained muscles in my abdomen?"

"Yeah."

"They're 400 milligram each! How many have you been taking?"

"Two at a time."

"You're only supposed to take ONE!"  His voice was very high pitched by now.  "And you can't take no more than three in a 24 hour period.  How many have you had today?"

"Eight."

My Partner's now verging on hysteria.  "You're not ill!" he screeches, "You're bloody overdosing!  STOP TAKING THEM!"

I did. 

My Partner emptied the medicine cupboard of pretty much everything that was in there.

Monday 20

Trooper that I am (!), went into work, primarily for two reasons. One, I had LOADS of work to do, and two, I’d rather go to work with bubonic plague, a missing leg and an axe in my head than phone in sick.

Tuesday 21

I heard my boss saying, "Oh no! But I thought my secretary booked the meeting room weeks ago." Sensing that I might have ballsed up in some way, I swiveled round in my chair as my boss hurried towards me in a state of panic and gasped, "They don’t have the videoconference room booked in our other office for the client who’s just arrived."

Not booked!

I rang the other office with my anxious boss listening in (and me praying I hadn’t screwed up). "I booked the videocon room," I began.

"No you haven’t," a woman curtly replied, obviously just having had the same conversation with my boss. "There’s already a meeting going on in that room."

"I booked it weeks ago," I said.

"Do you have a confirmation number?" she snapped.

"I most certainly have." [Note to all secretaries: save everything, cover your own back for heart-stopping moments like this!]

After a few seconds of silence, the woman’s tone changed. "Oh yes," she breathed, "Someone hasn’t entered it in the diary."

So that was me off the hook (relief). "We have a very important client waiting in your reception to attend a conference with my boss in Birmingham," I said, confident now. "What do you intend to do about it?"

"I’ll evict the current occupants," she declared.

Sorted. My boss was hugely relieved. He rushed back to his desk to collect papers, and as he hurried passed me to attend the meeting, I jokingly called after him, "Hope your room isn’t double-booked."

My boss then did something that absolutely floored me. He held up his hand as he left the office. For a whole second I thought he was throwing me a V-sign. My jaw dropped to the floor.

Then I realised he’d actually been crossing his fingers.

Wednesday 22

Lunch with the girlies.

I don’t do ‘proper’ lunches any more, where we order a meal, wait 45 minutes for it to arrive, wolf it down and rush back to the office with indigestion and heartburn. Oh no. Lunch these days consists of cappuccino and cake.

We thought we’d give Druckers a miss and try the Victorian Restaurant in the Great Western Arcade (which, in case you don’t know, has a very nice upstairs area). We drooled over the ‘illustrated’ menu and ordered our desserts with relish. Despite all this cake gobbling, I don’t have a massively sweet tooth and ordered cheesecake. One of us (a chronic chocoholic who’s habit it so bad she ought to be studied by the scientific world), ordered chocolate gateau, whilst the other had ‘sensible’ sausage and mash.

It’s a sad life when the highlight of your day is anticipating a slice of cake and a cup of coffee.

The food promptly arrived at our table and, one by one, was placed in front of us. We all stared down at it in silence for a full three seconds. Finally, I whimpered, "Where’s the rest of it?" but too late, the waitress had already beat a hasty and very wise retreat.

Like Michael Douglas at the burger restaurant in Falling Down, I stared at the tiny sliver of cheesecake and gateau and then at the illustrated menu – the photographer must have gotten in real close to take the pictures, that’s all I can say. And the sausage and mash consisted of one ice-cream scoop of potato.

Oh, the disappointment. And my cheesecake was that horrible whipped up stuff, not proper cheesecake at all. AND it cost a bloody bomb.

It’s a sad life when lunch is ruined by minuscule, over-priced puddings.

We’ll stick to good old, reliable Druckers in future.

Friday 24

I’m so EXCITED!!!!! Holiday time! Last day at work for nine whole days. I could barely contain my joy and bounced around the office like a rubber ball on speed.

Celebrated with a pint at our favourite pub after work, where we sat outside watching the rush hour traffic roar by, with me screaming, "We’re on holiday! We’re on holiday!" roughly every two minutes.

Love it love it love it.

Saturday 25

Have spent the last 24 hours doing my happy dance and grinning like a demented Cheshire cat. Got up at 7am to make the most of my precious free time. 7am on a holiday, unheard of!

Bought replacement glass for the almost complete greenhouse at £3.80 at time (flipping 30 quid!). Ordered eight concrete slabs to make path down middle (another 30 quid!). But at least its now active and currently houses three sunflower seedlings, one marrow plant from my dad (what the HELL do you do with marrows?), and a lone tomato plant.

But next year …

Monday 27

No work! S’great. Could EASILY get used to this (please send donations to finance my life of glorious leisure).

We’ve encouraged a thriving population of wildlife in the garden now, including a variety of birds to our Mega Bird Table and some squirrels to the feeding box on the apple tree. Nice to have the time to stand and stare though the kitchen window. Sometimes we have a real close up view when the fantail doves from three doors down slam themselves into the window and sit on the sill staring in at us until we fill the bird table up. I’m thinking of charging my neighbour for feeding them.

I bought some bamboo today. Figured if I plant it in the garden, it might encourage Panda bears. I know Panda bears aren’t native to Birmingham, but that’s probably because of the lack of bamboo in people’s gardens. I intend to start a trend.

I’ll let you know if I spot any black and white bears.

Tuesday 28

Still getting up at 7am in the morning – makes the day last a lot longer! During the working week I haul myself out of bed already sobbing, cry my way through a shower and apply waterproof mascara between hysterical bouts of tears. On holiday, I enthusiastically leap out of bed screaming, "What are we gonna do today, then?"

Picnic time! No particular destination, just drive into the countryside with the cool box filled with goodies and see where we end up.

Whizzed down to Bromsgrove, through Tutnell, Tardebrigge, and various tiny villages that weren’t even on the map, zigzagging towards Alvechurch. Some of the houses were jaw-droppingly amazing, veritable mansions – in awe, I kept saying, "Who lives in a house like this?" and "Let’s do the lottery tomorrow."

The plan was to park up at a picnic site and admire the glorious views, only the area was obviously too posh for such things so we actually ended up at the Lickey Hills, about 20 minutes from home.

Stuffed ourselves stupid, fought off a marauding Labrador, watched youths buzzing across the grass on a motorbike roughly the size of a 5p piece, and listened to a father urging his two year old girl back to the car by saying there was a dragon there – I almost followed him myself just to see the dragon.

Lovely day.

Wednesday 29

Okay, time for a spot of … decorating (huge groan of extreme apathy here). We’re having a barbecue party on Saturday (thunderstorms allowing) so thought we’d better tart the loo up a bit.

The walls were a nice shade of blue, but in a moment of complete madness at B&Q, I bought yellow paint. BRIGHT yellow paint. A colour so stark we now need sunglasses to take a leak.

It certainly wakes you up in the morning, as in "Bugger me that’s bright!" It’s so intense a colour we expect it to spontaneously combust at any moment, and I swear it glows in the dark and can be seen by passing aircraft (Captain to passengers: "On the starboard side we have night-time views of Birmingham, and on the port side you can clearly see the yellow glow of a resident’s newly painted toilet").

Took three coats and 7 hours to complete. Towards the end I was half blind and all for decorating Mr Bean style – covering the windows and doors and putting explosives in the paint tin. Looks like a bomb’s gone off anyway, I’m a messy painter and there’s gobs of yellow everywhere – the house looks like it has some terrible disease.

Anyway, we’re having a party on Saturday (to which we seem to have invited an extraordinarily large number of people, including my bosses). On the invites I’d put "Bring a bottle/case/magnum." Underneath I’ve added "And sunglasses!"

Thursday 30

The decorating is snowballing to staggering proportions. Doors need glossing, tiles need replacing, and what we’re going to do with the redundant water pipes sticking out of the kitchen wall I’ve no idea. My Partner thought he’d knock them back into the wall a bit and managed to crack one of the huge tiles in the adjoining bathroom. I didn’t moan about it at all, I was too knackered from bloody glossing the bloody doors to fully register the destruction of my precious bathroom.

On the bright side (bright yellow phnar phnar) I now have a permanent French manicure, and Middle Son finally came home from university – yay! Grab a paintbrush, kid.