Two In The Bush

January 11th 23:15 Saturday.

Today I went out for a meal with my family, to celebrate my Dad's birthday which is tomorrow. Earlier in the day I had gone out with him to take his computer to Novatech to upgrade the memory.

His computer was beginning to struggle a bit, Windows being the memory hog that it is, as well as all the other crap that your PC loads up these days. To be fair, he has had it years, and he is still running Windows Vista, and until today only had 1 gig of RAM. I've gotten this upgraded to 4 gig for him, I did offer to get the hard drive done at the same time, but he said there was plenty of space left on it.

He did say that he was getting annoyed with the wireless keyboard that he has as it keeps running out of battery power just at the wrong moments and he has to change the batteries. With this in mind we also picked up a new keyboard and mouse.

Felt quite the role reversal, me taking his computer to be worked on, and getting his (combined Christmas and birthday) present. Although he was good, I didn't suggest that because of this he can have an ice cream.

With the arrangements for the meal out today being made the day before, I had asked my daughter if she would want to come up early so that she could come, and she had agreed to do so. This was a pleasant surprise. After all, hanging round with friends is the thing that most fourteen year olds want to do the most, for her to change her plans to come out with us is just really nice. We had a good time.

We went to the 'Bird In The Hand' in Lovedean. The food was bloody amazing. Lots of it (although to be fair was not cheap) - it was worth the money though.  You really did feel that you got what you paid for.

Everyone enjoyed their meal too. Even Chloe, who at times can be a fussy eater, although she has gotten better in the last couple of years. I think going round her friends, or going out with them has given her a chance to explore different foods that she may not otherwise have tried.

I know it sounds mushy, but I am really proud of my daughter. She's going through that horrible teenage stuff, all the pain and stress of school as well as growing up, and she's still a reasonably well rounded and sensible person. Sure she has her moments, but I know I can count on her to do the right things when it really counts.

I have some overtime tomorrow, to bolster the post Christmas paypacket. I also need to get my arse in gear learning lines of Prime Directive, the second act of which we start filming next week. Eeek.

Learnt my lines ? Don't be ridiculous.

Hurry up, it's nearly here.....

Thursday January 9th 2014. 00:23

Funny how we spend the latter few months of any year, eagerly counting down toward December 25th. All that build up, all that stress, all that shopping. All that wrapping.

With all that lead up, you eagerly wait in anticipation to see the smiles on the faces of your loved ones when you give them the gifts that you really hope they will love.

And within the space of less than an hour, the unwrapping is done.

With all the muscling through the supermarket to fill your cupboards, fridge and freezer with enough food to feed every person in your extended family. Completely lost is the realisation that if every one in the family is spending all this money in case the related hordes descend on them, surely the whole family can't go round everyone's house ? If we're all round someone else's house eating all their food, I'm not at home eating mine.

In any event, no amount of sweating over exactly how to cook the perfect Christmas Turkey, or discovering the latest new and entirely secret way to roast potatoes (a secret that the whole country is party to I might add) even though roasting potatoes is something most of us do every Sunday without a second's thought. It's all over and done.

Stomaches are full to bursting. Wallets are empty. And still it is all over. So we then start looking forward to the inevitable slide into the New Year.

Excitedly recanting the events of the year gone by, and daring to suggest or guess at the new opportunities the next 365 days will bring. THIS year will be different, we tell ourselves.

Resolutely we commit to changes that we can barely remember, let along keep to a week later.

Now, a week into the New Year itself what are we doing ? (well, okay, I mean what am I doing). I'm counting down, wishing the time flies past until my next pay day.

That date, now two weeks away feels a long way away in deed.

Out of the depths of despair...

.... you come across some successes, and grab them, as seldom as they may be, with both hands and hang on like hell for dear life.

It's been another tough week, in so many ways. Within an hour of my shift finishing today, I felt pretty much invincible. Not only had I managed to resolve two particularly tricky customer complaints, but I also manage to 'negotiate' the tricky situation that had been brewing all week with Chloe wanting to spend some more money on yet another gadget from ebay.

12 year old ebay addict ? Maybe.

Taking those in reverse order, I'd spoke to Chloe's mother in the week about how we were both worried that she'd yet again wanted to buy something new (a radio controlled hover car). Having sold her old netbook a couple of weeks ago, the proceeds are burning a hole in her pocket. Not unexpectedly, her Mum is urging caution, and saying that she can't spend that money, and needs to set it aside. Chloe, reacting like an apprentice teenager saying that it was 'unfair' and that her mum was being 'out of order' not letting her spend her own money.

Apparently she'd even said that she thought that if she took her mum to court she would win, as it was her own money. Bless her, she is her Father's daughter. Her poor Mother.

In the end, a deflected suggestion that I go halves with her, and let her have the damn thing as an early Christmas present, we eventually stood our ground and agreed that if she really wanted it, should could have it for Christmas, but would not have it early. More decries of 'unfair' and 'out of order' followed, but eventually she succumbed to the reasoning that getting it in two months time is still better than never having it at all.

Happy daughter. Happy ex-wife. Good bit of parenting and standard setting. Joint operation. Job done. (until, of course the next crisis comes up). There had been some drama and crisis at the weekend about how things were going between Chloe and her Grandparents, who live next door to her. She had been rude to them, and used some colourful language. A bit of peacemaking, listening, understanding and then talking with her Mum seems to at least not made things any worse. For my part the explanation that treating her Grandparents, or parents like that isn't acceptable, no matter what she feels they did, and even so, if she wants to get them to change their minds and treat her differently, is shouting and swearing at them the way to do it? She's clever enough to see that it's not.

As shameful, cringeworthy it may be hearing that these things have happened, I'm pretty sure I said some choice things to my relatives over the years, and although I feel like I had more respect for them, I knew where the boundaries were but was resolutely determined to push them, not just a little, but with a full sized jump kick to the head.

Hopefully, whilst maintaining that this behaviour is unacceptable, getting Chloe to see that there are much more effective ways of getting what she wants will be a better way of getting her to chose the right way to be, and to treat people.

As for work. The things that are difficult don't get any easier. After all, I really do think that I would be in the wrong job if I actually enjoyed the things I'm talking about. I am being necessarily vague about some things that I have to do, as this is entirely proper. Some times it is hard to do the right thing. Doing the wrong thing is really, really, easy.

Now, to resolve that broken friendship.....

Twelve days of Christmas....strike action..

News today that the members of the Unite union will be on strike from December 22nd, thereby ruining the Christmas travel arrangements for thousands, possibly millions of people.

The apparent disagreement is about BA wanting to cut the number of air steward staff on flights.

I'm always a little bothered by unions' obvious attempts to blackmail the employers of their members. It always seems more than a little ironic to me that by preventing measures that will make the organisation profitable again, there are dangers that more drastic measures will be needed later. Including larger redundancies. If the company went out of business, then all the cabin staff (and everyone else) would be out of a job.

The owner of a sweet shop was on the news earlier today, saying that he had banned all BA staff from entering his shop in Horsham as they were to blame (he perceived) for his plan to go to New York and share Christmas with a friend being put into the balance.

I don't think my opinions of union action will shock, I personally feel they tend to be counter productive in the end. There is, after all, only so much money to go round, and it's sheer naivety on their part to think that the budget for wages increases because of their actions. If anything, it just prolongs and increases any action required to bring a company back into profitability.

Having said that, I do believe that companies should be prepared to think beyond the 'need to cut staff to save money' model that some seem to wheel out in times of financial hardship. What does seem strange is that when any company is doing well, the members of its board do very very well indeed as the success is supposedly due to their actions. When a company falls onto hard times, it appears that they are able to justify stiff pay rises or rewards for themselves as they are having to make 'difficult decisions'. Surely it would make more sense that they suffered a share of the pain that they meter out to the general workforce ? Wage cuts, pay freezes, increases of duties all being things that are asked of staff during such times. Funny how that doesn't appear to translate into the boardroom.

Day two

Second day of the holiday.

I have gotten up much later than I had wanted. Having gone to bed a bit later. Still up in time to catch 'Homes Under The Hammer', just because I'm nosey enough to want to look at what other people are doing with their money, and how they are able to make more by refurbishing neglected properties. It's all good stuff. I like watching it, but think that I am teasing myself a little because I know full well, that as much as I would like to try something like that myself, I just don't have the money.

End of 2009, and I'm still renting. Still stuck without even a foot or hand on the property ladder. The hope that house prices would have crashed enough to allow me to buy something of my own has evaporated with the offers to lend money by all the banks that got us into this mess.

My current home is nice enough, but it would be good to be able to do the things that only owners can do. Decorate !

I want to be able to stick things on walls without worrying that pulling off paint or plaster will mean the loss of my deposit. I'd really like to be able to have a whole wall as a blackboard, so that I can 'brain storm' or 'mind shower' (depending how politically correct you are).

I've also got this idea of putting all my DVDs on a wall, with the covers showing, in order to give this collage effect which actually shows a passage of time marked in film releases. I like going round other people's houses and nosing through their book collections. Others like to look at their music - as indeed some people have with mine.

With everything going digital, and being stored on a computer, there isn't this conversation piece. It's such a shame. I just think there's something fundamentally beautiful about a well stocked bookcase. Something about the hodge podge of colours and styles. I guess that's like life itself, in that things aren't (thankfully) uniform and monotone. As much as I love my Mac Mini, or my Netbook, they're pretty soulless. All they say about me is that I can't resist a gadget or two.

If I were to entertain any visitors now, the thing that they would gather mostly about me, and the type of person that I am is that I am messy, and don't clean enough. I never did get around to the cleaning yesterday. I am trying to convince myself to get on with that, and at the same time to get into town and start my Christmas shopping. I am tempted to purchase a copy of the Star Trek film that has recently come out on DVD.

Do I buy it, or do I wait, and let someone buy it for me for Christmas ? Decisions, decisions. Every year my Mother asks me to give her a list of things that I want, for Christmas. Each year, I struggle to find things, because I don't sit around, waiting for Christmas to come about in order to get things that I need. I just go out and buy them myself. There are plenty of things that I want, but don't necessarily need. These things I usually learn to do without. Why would I want something that I don't actually need to have for Christmas.

It seems that procrastination is indeed an art form at which I excel.