Received my paycheque today and wondered out loud what the National Insurance is for and why I was paying for it.
A colleague told me that "it pays for the NHS. So, you know, when you're ill and you want a superbug, you can go to the hospital and die."
Rather well put, I thought.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Spidey senses tingling...
A generally busy week, but I'm in surprisingly good spirits. Had a weekend full of running errands, including a trip to IKEA for a shoe rack (assembled), new blinds (up) and a full length miror (still sitting on the floor in its packaging). It's funny how that would never have counted as a 'good weekend' when I lived in Dubai, but here in London it feels quite pat-on-the-back-worthy.
Am attempting to register with a clinic nearer to the new house and I am not sure why the process is quite so convoluted. I've had to go in once for the forms, once for the initial health check and soon again for the 'Women's Clinic' health check. Three visits already and I'm not even sick...
Was struck by a mild sense of melancholy earlier in the week when I realised it's been five years since I graduated from university. What have I been doing in that time? It's all passed in a blur and I can't seem to remember any of it. Any minute now I'm going to wake up and find that I'm 60. Oh well, no doubt I'll still be poor and single then too. Perhaps it's time I put a positive spin on the situation and was grateful for the only truly consistent elements of my life.
7 weeks to Russia. Clare and I are now on some sort of detox diet - or as I affectionately call it, the Diet of Death. It's not going too badly at the moment but it's only Day 4; any minute now someone is going to mention chocolate cake and I'm going to snap.
Have been put on a project for a client based in Qatar - it's only Day 2 and already some of the processes are starting to feel familiar. Can't wait until someone springs an 'inshallah' on me.
A visit from the Peters looms on the horizon - hurrah!
Hotel finally booked for the Scorza/Wade wedding extravaganza and just received an agenda for the St Petersburg jamboree. Think this might be another Year of the Maxed Out Credit Card...
Spiderman 3 premiere in Leicester Square a couple of nights ago - that shall be my mission for the Bank Holiday weekend. The greatest battle lies within.
Am attempting to register with a clinic nearer to the new house and I am not sure why the process is quite so convoluted. I've had to go in once for the forms, once for the initial health check and soon again for the 'Women's Clinic' health check. Three visits already and I'm not even sick...
Was struck by a mild sense of melancholy earlier in the week when I realised it's been five years since I graduated from university. What have I been doing in that time? It's all passed in a blur and I can't seem to remember any of it. Any minute now I'm going to wake up and find that I'm 60. Oh well, no doubt I'll still be poor and single then too. Perhaps it's time I put a positive spin on the situation and was grateful for the only truly consistent elements of my life.
7 weeks to Russia. Clare and I are now on some sort of detox diet - or as I affectionately call it, the Diet of Death. It's not going too badly at the moment but it's only Day 4; any minute now someone is going to mention chocolate cake and I'm going to snap.
Have been put on a project for a client based in Qatar - it's only Day 2 and already some of the processes are starting to feel familiar. Can't wait until someone springs an 'inshallah' on me.
A visit from the Peters looms on the horizon - hurrah!
Hotel finally booked for the Scorza/Wade wedding extravaganza and just received an agenda for the St Petersburg jamboree. Think this might be another Year of the Maxed Out Credit Card...
Spiderman 3 premiere in Leicester Square a couple of nights ago - that shall be my mission for the Bank Holiday weekend. The greatest battle lies within.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Birthdays, belly-dancing and babies
Hurrah for an interesting week so far.
Despite all the portents of doom surrounding me attempting any form of travel on Friday the 13th, I managed to get to Cardiff safe and sound and even on time.
Saturday morning saw Jamila, Rania and me off to a belly-dancing class where I think we overcompensated for not having jingling coin belts by thrusting our hips harder and waving our arms more enthusiastically than strictly necessary. By the time we left, we were feeling tired and broken, even though we were among the few people there under the age of 50. Still, it was a fun first attempt - might wait a while to see if I feel like a second. Or if these old bones can stand any more abuse.
The rest of Saturday passed in birthday shenanigans for Marc and suprisingly I made it home on Sunday afternoon in one piece. One rather sniffly piece though. I hate being the one to complain about a cold but they really are rather inconvenient aren't they? Your brains feel like mush, you can't breathe, your head hurts, your throat is sore, you cough like a 2-packs-a-day smoker and you feel weak as a kitten but all you can say is 'I've got a cold'. Hmph.
Still, I was clever and took the day off on Monday to rest, drink fluids and watch Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I've never watched the show on a regular basis but through no fault of its own really. So far am enjoying it, so I'll refrain from questioning elements of the plot. Besides, I'm only a quarter of the way into Season 2 at the moment, so perhaps all shall be revealed at a later stage.
Other news includes that I won the office sweepstakes for the Grand National (Silver Birch won at odds of 33-1) and scooped £39 in mixed coinage.
However, the biggest news of my week so far came last night when Chris and Christina called to announce the birth of Samantha Minga Neukam. I'm sure they told me important things about her like time of birth and size and such but I was busy squealing so I might have missed some of those details. Yay! I'm an auntie! (Really must get the present I've been working on sorted out - there is absolutely no excuse for this sort of tardiness.)
Exactly 8 weeks to Finland/Russia extravaganza. The diet starts today.
Despite all the portents of doom surrounding me attempting any form of travel on Friday the 13th, I managed to get to Cardiff safe and sound and even on time.
Saturday morning saw Jamila, Rania and me off to a belly-dancing class where I think we overcompensated for not having jingling coin belts by thrusting our hips harder and waving our arms more enthusiastically than strictly necessary. By the time we left, we were feeling tired and broken, even though we were among the few people there under the age of 50. Still, it was a fun first attempt - might wait a while to see if I feel like a second. Or if these old bones can stand any more abuse.
The rest of Saturday passed in birthday shenanigans for Marc and suprisingly I made it home on Sunday afternoon in one piece. One rather sniffly piece though. I hate being the one to complain about a cold but they really are rather inconvenient aren't they? Your brains feel like mush, you can't breathe, your head hurts, your throat is sore, you cough like a 2-packs-a-day smoker and you feel weak as a kitten but all you can say is 'I've got a cold'. Hmph.
Still, I was clever and took the day off on Monday to rest, drink fluids and watch Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I've never watched the show on a regular basis but through no fault of its own really. So far am enjoying it, so I'll refrain from questioning elements of the plot. Besides, I'm only a quarter of the way into Season 2 at the moment, so perhaps all shall be revealed at a later stage.
Other news includes that I won the office sweepstakes for the Grand National (Silver Birch won at odds of 33-1) and scooped £39 in mixed coinage.
However, the biggest news of my week so far came last night when Chris and Christina called to announce the birth of Samantha Minga Neukam. I'm sure they told me important things about her like time of birth and size and such but I was busy squealing so I might have missed some of those details. Yay! I'm an auntie! (Really must get the present I've been working on sorted out - there is absolutely no excuse for this sort of tardiness.)
Exactly 8 weeks to Finland/Russia extravaganza. The diet starts today.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
If it's Tuesday, this must be Blackfriars...
Boo to the end of the long weekend.
And boo to not having an Easter egg this year. Well, not too much boo, since really I have no-one but myself to blame for that. Besides, impending Russian holiday, where I will be forced to compete with gorgeous leggy blondes for the attention of my friends, just to ensure that I don't get left behind in some random nightclub while they disappear off with woman who will (if stories are to be believed) elbow me out of the way, means the fewer calories the better at the moment.
(Wow, that was a long and complicated thought...)
Anyway, hurrah for the shortened week and then upwards and onwards to Marc's birthday extravaganza over the weekend.
Over the weekend I went to sunny Brighton on the South (?) coast of England and a charming little city it was too. Well, the bits of it that I saw were nice. Narrow, winding streets with random little shops and kiosks, as well as a wonderfully garish pier with loads of dreadful looking rides, cotton candy stands and hideous stuffed animals to be won. Even though this is a new Brighton pier (the old one apparently burned down or something), it had a lovely old carnival ground feel to it - exactly how a pier should feel, if that makes any sense.
And hurrah for old bookshops where I picked up THREE early edition Wodehouse books, in green fabric hardcover and inscriptions inside from 1929 and 1931.
Mr Kenny is doing well and I am well pleased for having a friend living in an interesting city as it gives me reasons to go down there without feeling like an oddball. On the whole, with him living there and Clare having grown up there, Brighton seems to be worming its way into my consciousness with no small amount of sneakiness. What can it mean?
Plans for St Petersburg continue with hotel bookings chopped, changed and now finalised and train tickets to and from Helsinki to be purchased next week.
Went into O2 shop yesterday to proceed with phone number transferring process and was told it would take ANOTHER WEEK before it was finalised. Admittedly I don't actually know the intricacies of how these things work, but I'm convinced this process shouldn't take 14 days from start to finish. Someone somewhere is attempting to lead me up the garden path and I am wholly unimpressed.
Still no shoe solution for new room. Still no word from Christina on Baby Neukam. Still no idea what I feel passionately enough about to present on it at my Presentation Skills training on Thursday.
This is going to be a busy week.
And boo to not having an Easter egg this year. Well, not too much boo, since really I have no-one but myself to blame for that. Besides, impending Russian holiday, where I will be forced to compete with gorgeous leggy blondes for the attention of my friends, just to ensure that I don't get left behind in some random nightclub while they disappear off with woman who will (if stories are to be believed) elbow me out of the way, means the fewer calories the better at the moment.
(Wow, that was a long and complicated thought...)
Anyway, hurrah for the shortened week and then upwards and onwards to Marc's birthday extravaganza over the weekend.
Over the weekend I went to sunny Brighton on the South (?) coast of England and a charming little city it was too. Well, the bits of it that I saw were nice. Narrow, winding streets with random little shops and kiosks, as well as a wonderfully garish pier with loads of dreadful looking rides, cotton candy stands and hideous stuffed animals to be won. Even though this is a new Brighton pier (the old one apparently burned down or something), it had a lovely old carnival ground feel to it - exactly how a pier should feel, if that makes any sense.
And hurrah for old bookshops where I picked up THREE early edition Wodehouse books, in green fabric hardcover and inscriptions inside from 1929 and 1931.
Mr Kenny is doing well and I am well pleased for having a friend living in an interesting city as it gives me reasons to go down there without feeling like an oddball. On the whole, with him living there and Clare having grown up there, Brighton seems to be worming its way into my consciousness with no small amount of sneakiness. What can it mean?
Plans for St Petersburg continue with hotel bookings chopped, changed and now finalised and train tickets to and from Helsinki to be purchased next week.
Went into O2 shop yesterday to proceed with phone number transferring process and was told it would take ANOTHER WEEK before it was finalised. Admittedly I don't actually know the intricacies of how these things work, but I'm convinced this process shouldn't take 14 days from start to finish. Someone somewhere is attempting to lead me up the garden path and I am wholly unimpressed.
Still no shoe solution for new room. Still no word from Christina on Baby Neukam. Still no idea what I feel passionately enough about to present on it at my Presentation Skills training on Thursday.
This is going to be a busy week.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
The memory's the first to go...
Forgot one event of interest and one random conversation from the past week.
Event - met up with Gareth and went along to pub quiz at the Prince Regent in Herne Hill last week. I felt a little rusty having not been at any sort of quiz in easily a year. Have to say this was reflected in the very few things I actually knew (notably the chemical symbol for Ozone and the name of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' nemesis) but in spite of my poor contribution we still WON! And walked away with a handy £45 apiece in prize money.
Am worried that the precedent thus set might be a bit too ambitious for future attempts, but will worry about it if we ever go again.
Conversation - rang up Orange yesterday morning in order to get some sort of code which would allow me to switch network providers but still keep my phone number. I have been pretty much forced to do this because Orange provides no coverage for my phone in the new flat and in order to get reception I have to dangle out of the kitchen window. And while it provides a mildly amusing mental picture, that sort of thing's simply not convenient on what we might call a regular basis.
Needless to say the process of getting through to someone who could help me with this need was quite involved and required a lot of 'if you require this, press one', 'if you require that press two' etc. Once I finally got through and explained to them that I had no reception in my house and that I needed the PAC code, I got transferred to some guy who then launched off on a giant spiel about all the good deals I could get from Orange, the number of free minutes and text messages a month I could have and why Orange is the best mobile service provider on the face of God's green earth.
I let him stop for breath before reminding him that the reason I was choosing to stop using Orange was not price related but because all the free minutes in the world are no use at all when you HAVE NO COVERAGE.
To which he said, in a tone of utter contempt, 'you have no coverage AT ALL?'. I got the feeling it was only by a thin thread that he was avoiding telling me I should clearly just move house.
Event - met up with Gareth and went along to pub quiz at the Prince Regent in Herne Hill last week. I felt a little rusty having not been at any sort of quiz in easily a year. Have to say this was reflected in the very few things I actually knew (notably the chemical symbol for Ozone and the name of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' nemesis) but in spite of my poor contribution we still WON! And walked away with a handy £45 apiece in prize money.
Am worried that the precedent thus set might be a bit too ambitious for future attempts, but will worry about it if we ever go again.
Conversation - rang up Orange yesterday morning in order to get some sort of code which would allow me to switch network providers but still keep my phone number. I have been pretty much forced to do this because Orange provides no coverage for my phone in the new flat and in order to get reception I have to dangle out of the kitchen window. And while it provides a mildly amusing mental picture, that sort of thing's simply not convenient on what we might call a regular basis.
Needless to say the process of getting through to someone who could help me with this need was quite involved and required a lot of 'if you require this, press one', 'if you require that press two' etc. Once I finally got through and explained to them that I had no reception in my house and that I needed the PAC code, I got transferred to some guy who then launched off on a giant spiel about all the good deals I could get from Orange, the number of free minutes and text messages a month I could have and why Orange is the best mobile service provider on the face of God's green earth.
I let him stop for breath before reminding him that the reason I was choosing to stop using Orange was not price related but because all the free minutes in the world are no use at all when you HAVE NO COVERAGE.
To which he said, in a tone of utter contempt, 'you have no coverage AT ALL?'. I got the feeling it was only by a thin thread that he was avoiding telling me I should clearly just move house.
Fish, Facebook and new furnishings
It's been a busy eight days since I last posted.
Since we last met I have moved house and am now reasonably well settled into the new flat. Well, my shoes are still a bit homeless but I'm trying to figure out what my strategy for storage and retrieval is. An IKEA mission might be in order.
Apart from that, am getting used to a slightly new routine (and figuring out where things are), including looking after my new pet fish - Claude and Eustace. They're coldwater fish and that's all I really know about them except that they don't seem to be very smart. Lively, but seemingly not intelligent enough to open their mouths when they want to eat. Still, am feeling quite attached to them already and I'm beginning to understand why they say watching fish can be soothing.
In the last week or so I also got involved with the somewhat time-consuming but ultimately-pointless shenanigan that is FaceBook. After an initial flurry of searching for and adding friends to your list, there doesn't seem to be much else to do with it. Think I shall stick with blogging, less interactive though it may be.
Long weekend coming up, with both Friday and Monday off - am going to Brighton on Saturday to visit Mr Kenny and explore the rumours I've heard about the city being very cool. Apart from that, I plan to spend the extra time off sitting on my new sofa, in front of my new fire and staring meditatively into space.
Since we last met I have moved house and am now reasonably well settled into the new flat. Well, my shoes are still a bit homeless but I'm trying to figure out what my strategy for storage and retrieval is. An IKEA mission might be in order.
Apart from that, am getting used to a slightly new routine (and figuring out where things are), including looking after my new pet fish - Claude and Eustace. They're coldwater fish and that's all I really know about them except that they don't seem to be very smart. Lively, but seemingly not intelligent enough to open their mouths when they want to eat. Still, am feeling quite attached to them already and I'm beginning to understand why they say watching fish can be soothing.
In the last week or so I also got involved with the somewhat time-consuming but ultimately-pointless shenanigan that is FaceBook. After an initial flurry of searching for and adding friends to your list, there doesn't seem to be much else to do with it. Think I shall stick with blogging, less interactive though it may be.
Long weekend coming up, with both Friday and Monday off - am going to Brighton on Saturday to visit Mr Kenny and explore the rumours I've heard about the city being very cool. Apart from that, I plan to spend the extra time off sitting on my new sofa, in front of my new fire and staring meditatively into space.
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