The perils of not thinking things through...

Today has possibly not been one of my best kind of days (I'd blame the continuing lurgy, but if I'm honest, nope, it was in fact just me)

Here's the thing, sometimes I'll get an idea, and it's a good idea which gets me from point A to point C without all the faffing about that usually goes on via point B... ie it seems like a bloody good idea at the time..... Yeah, well I had one of those ideas today... it seemed brilliant as these ideas often do, but alas for the lack of forethought and planning, seriously, not so much...

To cut a very long story short, en route to point C from point A I fell into a totally self manufactured hole which I then needed to dig myself out of with a great deal of tact and diplomacy, which are so not my forte....

Suffice to say I will perhaps be thinking a little more carefully in future to avoid the same occurring again....

Raise the quarantine flags... I have the lurgy...

This morning started with a small sniffle, which has grown through the day via itchy eyes, sore throat, aching bits of me that don't usually ache and the overwhelming feeling of bleurgh.... Yep, it appears I have a common or garden cold..... (no, not man flu, or anything so dramatic, just a cold)

So yes, rest, relax, drink lots of fluids..... yeah right.... run around like a loon after the critters, go into work because it's far far to busy to do other wise unless say I am dying of something infectious or perhaps have broken both my legs (seriously, just one and they'd probably send a taxi for me to get me into work).

I have to say, being poorly with something as mundane as a cold is possibly when it hits me the hardest about being on my own... there is no one to look after me, to deal with the dogs, to make sure that I am doing what needs to to get better or just to give me a hug and say I'll be ok

Oh, now I'm snivelling and sounding pathetic... shall go off to bed and, erm, cough and sniffle at the cats.....

Snowy Sunday & good neighbours...

So it snowed yesterday, we had about 4 inches in total (10 cm for those that do metric), and then it froze... as I discovered at 5 am when I got as far as the end of the drive in a somewhat overly optimistic attempt to walk the dogs... luckily grabbing the fence post with one hand and hooking my hand round the recycling bin prevented me from landing on my backside in the middle of the road (again).... and I kept hold of the leads - which is a bloody good thing or Gretchen would probably be still skipping around the local park staying out of reach.

So I then spent much of the day hiding in the kitchen and hoping that it would all go away .... I was supposed to be using my time wisely (yeah right) and doing my next assignment (a 1500 letter of advice on a particular legal matter.... they think of some really really boring things for us to do) but got sidetracked by the plot bunny and wrote about 4000 words of story instead.

This evening, I ventured out to consider the feasibility of getting the car out tomorrow morning, as opposed to having to brave public transport (shudder... I seem to have a magnetic attraction to small children when on the bus, particularly those covered in horrible sticky substances)... As I crunched down the driveway on the ice feeling very pessimistic about my prospects of driving to work tomorrow, I realised that in fact my car had been cleared of snow, and my driveway and road directly outside my house had all be cleared and then gritted!

Now, I live on a small caul-de-sac of 8 houses which is kind of a spur off another part of the street.  It's a mix of privately owned and Council/Housing Association properties and is very diverse ethnically, culturally and socially (I love it, after growing up in a predominantly white middle class area I love the mix I get living here). Of the 8 houses, there are no two who have the same family structure, ethnicity, social make up or age range.

Anyway, not knowing who had been out clearing the road I wondered next door to see my neighbour and apparently the kids on the street, as well as some others from the next street, had decided that they would clear the road for everyone because they were bored!  Sometimes it's easy to forget what good neighbours are... until presented with something this damn obvious.

So I shall be driving to work tomorrow, and on the way home I will stop at the shop and try find something nice for them all to share.

Judgement by reading material....

My Kindle has (well before I managed to at some point today completely kill it stone dead so that even after 3 hours charging, a short reboot, a longer reboot, a moan to the service desk guy called Richard and some general swearing it would only show me the screen saver..... in Richard the service desk guy's words "Ah, I think we'll just put it down as "dead from unknown causes" and send you a replacement....... yep 5 weeks it managed... I wonder if that's some sort of record?)... anyway, sorry I digress....

My Kindle had the ability for me to tweet to say I'd just read a book and to comment briefly on it... now I'd considered doing this, given that I personally have no problems with what I am reading, but then I thought of my twitter followers - including work colleagues, net friends, random dog and cat people, generally random people and the odd spam bot/person trying to sell me strange and exotic items I don't require - and I thought to myself, erm, no perhaps not...

Now is this wrong?  I am not ashamed of what I am reading... but I know that it will cause some raised eyebrows amongst some of my followers, particularly those who came from a website for children's books, some of which are also quite, well, narrow minded. Whilst they might tweet about the latest chick lit/GO or other book (slow cooker recipes it was last week) I just read it and think not for me and move on, I wonder how many would perhaps investigate the books I was reading and it cause a raised eyebrow or worse?.... It shouldn't really matter what someone else is reading, and conversely I shouldn't care about what someone else thought of my reading material, which is making me feel a bit conflicted, possibly even disloyal to the genre I am reading the most of at present.

I firmly believe in the philosophy of "my kink is not your kink, but I have no problems with your kink" which I think can be applied to all aspects of a persons life rather than just on the whole kink referring to BDSM or any other lifestyle.... and probably because I am extremely broad minded and insatiably curious (read as nosey if you wish) about well, almost anything that might pique my interest, I do tend to look into things, research, consider and sometimes experience things that perhaps others would shy away from.

I would also never judge some one for what their "kink" was.... even if it was down to simply reading material.  The problem I have though is a, possibly unfair, thought of... but what if they are judging me... until I work out not whether they are judging me but whether I actually give a toss that if they are I shall just keep my reading material to myself (oh, and blog readers, and Goodreads followers, and anyone who ever visits my book room....)

Shall we talk about the weather...

Dangerously long icicles at the front of the house last year,
very useful for keeping small children out the garden

Ok, it was going to happen sooner or later... I'm British, of course it was.... it's only to be expected!

For the last few days it's been below zero here, night and day, but thankfully dry.... but... we have a weather warning... 10 cm of snow expected between 2 pm tomorrow afternoon and midnight......Right, stop laughing at the whole 10 cm thing, yes I know it's absolutely nothing compared to the snowfall other people get.. but here's the thing... the UK, people and infrastructure cannot do snow, at all, ever, even a light dusting of the stuff.  Everything will grind to a halt, schools, businesses, sporting events will be cancelled, the bus service will pack up, trains will break down..yes, that bad.

Now I learnt to drive, thanks to the patience and probably prayers of my father who bravely lent me his car, in the Peak District... which is extremely hilly, has small very windy roads, often one car each way at a time, and doesn't believe in winter weather gritting or clearing.... (things get too bad they just shut the roads).  Most of my driving career was then spent in Lancashire where, being on the west side of the country it doesn't really do snow (rains a lot mind)... About 2 cm of settling snow would send everyone into a tail spin and get us all sent home from work early... apart from me who could quite happily hang on till it got to top of my shoes.

Coming back home I remembered very quickly that this side of the Pennines, when it snows it usually means business... last year we had a couple of foot of the white stuff and everything ground to a halt... (I did have a nice snow man in the front garden though)  the temperatures of -10 or so didn't help.... If it snows tomorrow I will be prepared! On the way home from work I went a stocked up on essentials... well, cat food, cat litter, filled the dog's freezer... I know my priorities! and am now just waiting to see what happens tomorrow.... we could all be snowed in ... but...

Chances are it will pass us by ... Kammi hopes so, she's little and white, she gets lost in deep snow....

Work related whining...

Working in the legal field you come across a wide variety of people - both in terms of clients and the people you work with (whether they are in the same firm, on the opposite side or in Court).  Now save for in Court (where you have to mind your P's and Q's - Judges are addressed as Your Honour, then Sir/Madam, unless they are a master, and then they are addressed as Master, even if they are female... ) I have a tendency to address everyone exactly the same way... whether it's a senior partner or the post room runner... in my mind you treat everyone respectfully, politely and professionally...

In return I kind of expect the same thing....which to be honest you usually get from outside your own firm... ok there is the odd unprofessional moment... like the sudden marriage proposal I got from an opponent when I phoned to say that a Court hearing wasn't going ahead wasn't something I expected....

So year end approaches, and within the firm those people with financial targets are getting edgy, and probably taking it out on people lower down the food chain.... now whilst the area I work in involves actually getting us paid (yes, I haggle over large amounts of money for a living... not totally accurate, but the job I do in the legal profession is a fairly small field so I am not going to put the actual job title down because I whine too much about work on this blog... ) I am not responsible for actually writing the damn cheques, or ensuring that money is received.... Unfortunately, some people can't see it this way and whilst year end means that tempers are frayed surely it's not on to take it out on someone else?  It isn't as though it's the actual people with the targets that are being rude, but in the last two days I have been talked down to and had stroppy and downright rude e-mails from junior assistants, who are basically jumped up secretaries.

Now I would let this wash over me, but my tolerance levels are not high right now and uncivil behaviour really raises my hackles..... this final quarter is going to be sheer hell I know it is, and I can see myself having to gag myself to stop myself from ranting back and possibly sit on my hands to avoid replying to e-mails without thinking about it.

I shall keep repeating to myself, I am a nice person really, I will not stoop to their level, I will let the stress wash over me.... and then I might treat myself to a large vodka...

Midweek Music - definitely no mumbling

It's pretty well established that I have music playing when I am awake (and sometimes asleep but that's more accident than design....).  One of the things I use music for is to clear my head of thought's I'd rather not be having, or to get me out of a particular mindset, or calm down for that matter.  Now as much as I will pretty much listen to anything, sometimes my brain just demands "loud" music... which leads me to one of my favourite bands.  Most people will only know of the last album (ok, possibly the one before two) as they've only really hit mainstream in the last 3 - 4 years... The first album of theirs I picked up was the second and I've been a stupidly obsessed fangirl ever since.

The band is Biffy Clyro... and these are a couple of my favourite tracks from more recent (and some would say more friendly) albums....

ok, and a couple from older albums...