I think I've mentioned before that I don't enjoy driving. I will now clarify this point by stating quite clearly if I never had to drive again, not a bother would be on me. I should have thought about the driving before I agreed to take a job that necessitated me covering 5 counties and spending on average 4 hours a day in my car.
My January has been filled with driving.
Rush hour stuck in traffic type driving.
Getting to places so far away on tiny rural roads that my sat nav keeps going off in a huff because she thinks I'm ignoring her and driving in a field type driving.
Leaving so early Chris Moyles isn't on the radio driving.
Getting stuck behind a tractor and driving at 16 miles an hour and not being able to overtake as it's a 1 track road with a ditch filled with water on either side type driving.
Constantly stressing about whether or not I'll get there on time driving.
I am truly worn out. And my teeth have been ground down to stumps. I am in flitters.
This is part of the reason for my pitiful, hardly managing a post per week blogging.
On a cheerier note, my blog was 4 this month.
4 years of me getting my say. Amazing.
These last 4 years have seen me change jobs a few times, fail to finalise a divorce, moan about my children, fall in and out of lust, see me remain the worlds least romantic woman, hopefully occassionally be happy with my children and read quite a lot of your blogs.
Some of the blogs I read and loved 4 years ago have gone, I've added some new blogs to read and love. I've been invited in to have a peek at lives all over the globe, some very different and some spookily similar to my own. I have laughed and cried with you both virtually and in real life. I am so massively grateful to blogging.
I hope you've enjoyed a little peek into my world and somewhere along the 4 years I've made you smile, so if you can be arsed, pop by the comments box, even if you don't usually and say hi to your auntie. It's my birthday.
Friday, 28 January 2011
Friday, 21 January 2011
Things I learned yesterday
Always check the chair before you sit down.
Especially in Nursing homes.
It isn't comfortable to be delivering a 3 hour training session with a wet patch on your middle aged lady Boden wrap round dress.
Especially in Nursing homes.
It isn't comfortable to be delivering a 3 hour training session with a wet patch on your middle aged lady Boden wrap round dress.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Taxing Times
I would so love to spout off the full 3 verses and the disco chorus of how unbelievably tedious my evening has been.
But that wouldn't be fair.
The short version is in October I filed my short tax return. I was a numpty and didn't include a page and we won't even get started that it happened to be a page I didn't need. They sent it back to me and told me to file online. The rules state you must have a full set of foreign pages and I didn't. Rules is rules or some other bollocks.
Tonight unfortified by wine or gin, I attempted to register for online filing. This was a mistake. They wouldn't let me, they said I had already registered. Glory Be there is a God, I managed to find a letter dated 2007 with my log in details. I have no clue how that happened.
Easy peasy thinks your auntie, with the returned paper copy of her tax return beside her, she's thinking she'll be done in time for Mary Portas being cross about customer service.
I was wrong. On both counts.
The short paper version asks you for your combined earnings (I had 3 part time jobs in that year) the online version wants each employment separately and the tax reference number for each.
I managed to find the P60 I'd lost. But have managed to lose the 2 P60's I had.
I don't know how much I earned or how much I paid separately, only all added up. It was pitiful anyway, I read somewhere you should be earning your age, in that tax year I was just out of knees socks. And I was knackered.
I also failed when I didn't have any tips to declare, it demanded tips, I said I'd been tipped £1. This is a lie. No one ever tipped me a curdy.
I had been at this for hours and I was only 7% complete.
I ate nearly half a tub of Rum and Raisin ice cream. I ate nearly half last night too which necessitated it to be forcibly removed from my sweaty mitts. When I was returning the 2 spoonfuls left of ice cream to the freezer, I spotted the box of emergency present chocolates left over from Christmas. That'll be the same box I am munching through now.
I gave up and then I was hugely disappointed to find out I was a day early for Mary and was more than a little confused to see very young girls in very big dresses getting married. They reminded me of the doll my granny used to have on top of her toilet, she kept a loo roll up the dolly's frock, was that just a Scottish thing?
The irony is, according to the tax man, they owe me over £600, I'll let them keep it if I don't have to file the fecker.
PS - My laptop is fixed, as in my own, never let me down fashion, I offloaded it to someone else and whined and cajoled and pleaded till it was done. I have no shame.
But that wouldn't be fair.
The short version is in October I filed my short tax return. I was a numpty and didn't include a page and we won't even get started that it happened to be a page I didn't need. They sent it back to me and told me to file online. The rules state you must have a full set of foreign pages and I didn't. Rules is rules or some other bollocks.
Tonight unfortified by wine or gin, I attempted to register for online filing. This was a mistake. They wouldn't let me, they said I had already registered. Glory Be there is a God, I managed to find a letter dated 2007 with my log in details. I have no clue how that happened.
Easy peasy thinks your auntie, with the returned paper copy of her tax return beside her, she's thinking she'll be done in time for Mary Portas being cross about customer service.
I was wrong. On both counts.
The short paper version asks you for your combined earnings (I had 3 part time jobs in that year) the online version wants each employment separately and the tax reference number for each.
I managed to find the P60 I'd lost. But have managed to lose the 2 P60's I had.
I don't know how much I earned or how much I paid separately, only all added up. It was pitiful anyway, I read somewhere you should be earning your age, in that tax year I was just out of knees socks. And I was knackered.
I also failed when I didn't have any tips to declare, it demanded tips, I said I'd been tipped £1. This is a lie. No one ever tipped me a curdy.
I had been at this for hours and I was only 7% complete.
I ate nearly half a tub of Rum and Raisin ice cream. I ate nearly half last night too which necessitated it to be forcibly removed from my sweaty mitts. When I was returning the 2 spoonfuls left of ice cream to the freezer, I spotted the box of emergency present chocolates left over from Christmas. That'll be the same box I am munching through now.
I gave up and then I was hugely disappointed to find out I was a day early for Mary and was more than a little confused to see very young girls in very big dresses getting married. They reminded me of the doll my granny used to have on top of her toilet, she kept a loo roll up the dolly's frock, was that just a Scottish thing?
The irony is, according to the tax man, they owe me over £600, I'll let them keep it if I don't have to file the fecker.
PS - My laptop is fixed, as in my own, never let me down fashion, I offloaded it to someone else and whined and cajoled and pleaded till it was done. I have no shame.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Blogger Interuppted
Much as I love blogging my life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of my free time. I lied, I have no free time, I have hardly the time to blow my nose at present. I shan't play "I'm busier than you" Top Trumps because I would win and it would be boring for both you, dear reader and for me.
Edited highlights of the last few weeks
Beautiful Baby Daughter
Continues with her plan of household domination by wearing me down, she is good. She has no end of reasons for why I should give her what she wants, as I've said before top barristers could practice their debating skills with her. Fortunately I love her and this is why she is not dead or living with her Dad. Also she is very good at inserting video clips in my PowerPoint's as I have no patience expanding wee boxes, they are too foutery for me.
The Beautiful Son
Is unhappy, stressed, off his food and not sleeping. For once I can't make it better, he just has to accept that life is changing and he will have to accept it. I can't bear to see him unhappy and I have no control over the circumstances. I am not even meant to know, TBS has been sworn to secrecy and that is something that he can't deal with, so he came home, told me all and I can't do anything as he wasn't meant to tell. Secrets and change, double whammy for him. Pants. Big fat granny pants.
Eldest Beautiful Daughter
Came home for Christmas, made a lot of noise about mess, got upset about siblings saying they preferred her and her moaning about mess to stay at uni. Has to decide whether to find people to share a house with next year at uni or come home and commute in every day. She feels about decision making what TBS feels about change.
Cons in both plans...
Sharing house - there are very few students who will cope with her low mess threshold and her need for strict order in kitchen cupboards, not to mention her need for daily bathroom cleaning.
Coming home - despite the fact we will pay for a lesson a week and take her out to practice and on passing she will be given a car, she has yet to start driving lessons. This is possibly because she will actually have to do this for her own self, this is something she can't offload onto me or Hot Boy, both chief recipients of EBD's offloads. Shall I look in my crystal ball and give you my prediction? She will decide to come home, she will fail to learn to drive, I will spend a frantic 2 weeks before uni term starts trying to find somewhere my pampered princess can cope with living in. Before you start giving out to me, I know it's my fault. Even Hot Boy now texts me with her inability to be more use than a 5 year old and ends with "You raised that"
House
Despite having a week off at Christmas, I yet again failed to have an Anthea Turner standard of cleanliness. I also failed to do the eleventy million wee jobs that so need doing. I hate cleaning, so do the others who live here, so rather than be accused of nagging I do it, very passive aggressively. I still do as much as I did for my children as I did when they were 4, the only difference is they can bathe and wash their own hair now. I have swapped the bedtime story for the daily telling of "So she said and then I said" though on balance I think I preferred the nightly rendition of The Tiger Who Came to Tea. I can still retell it, every single word verbatim, it's my party piece.
Work
I love it. I don't always love the fact it takes me hours to get there. I can regularly spend 5 hours a day in my car. I also have a ferocious amount of technology to take with me to do my presentations, laptops, speakers, projectors, pointers etc. I am coping (but only if BBD does the bits I can't be arsed with)
My laptop
Still fecked. I have AVG, I have Norton and Norton 360. I think I have got rid of the nasty trojan but now when I try and log on it says Mozilla uses a proxy server and it doesn't have permission and to contact my service administrator. I have no clue who that is. I need the Internet, I haven't read my horoscope for days. I am writing this on my work laptop and I am terrified I will infect this one, the last one appeared when I clicked on someones photo on their blog.
General Failure of life stuff
I am still not divorced.
I can't find a P60.
I need the P60 to fill out the online tax return.
I need to fill out the online form as I filed my paper return with a page I didn't need missing, oh I'm still mithered about that.
I have a leak in my underground water pipe in Turkey. It appears to be an expensive leak.
I lost my work mobile phone.
I had to fess up this to the IT guy at work. The IT guy cowers under his desk and rocks when he sees it's me calling. I think I am accounting for about 90% of his work problems at the moment.
I am fatter than I was before Christmas, and I was fat then.
Now then, have I cheered you all up? made you realise that your life isn't as bad as you thought?
You're welcome.
Edited highlights of the last few weeks
Beautiful Baby Daughter
Continues with her plan of household domination by wearing me down, she is good. She has no end of reasons for why I should give her what she wants, as I've said before top barristers could practice their debating skills with her. Fortunately I love her and this is why she is not dead or living with her Dad. Also she is very good at inserting video clips in my PowerPoint's as I have no patience expanding wee boxes, they are too foutery for me.
The Beautiful Son
Is unhappy, stressed, off his food and not sleeping. For once I can't make it better, he just has to accept that life is changing and he will have to accept it. I can't bear to see him unhappy and I have no control over the circumstances. I am not even meant to know, TBS has been sworn to secrecy and that is something that he can't deal with, so he came home, told me all and I can't do anything as he wasn't meant to tell. Secrets and change, double whammy for him. Pants. Big fat granny pants.
Eldest Beautiful Daughter
Came home for Christmas, made a lot of noise about mess, got upset about siblings saying they preferred her and her moaning about mess to stay at uni. Has to decide whether to find people to share a house with next year at uni or come home and commute in every day. She feels about decision making what TBS feels about change.
Cons in both plans...
Sharing house - there are very few students who will cope with her low mess threshold and her need for strict order in kitchen cupboards, not to mention her need for daily bathroom cleaning.
Coming home - despite the fact we will pay for a lesson a week and take her out to practice and on passing she will be given a car, she has yet to start driving lessons. This is possibly because she will actually have to do this for her own self, this is something she can't offload onto me or Hot Boy, both chief recipients of EBD's offloads. Shall I look in my crystal ball and give you my prediction? She will decide to come home, she will fail to learn to drive, I will spend a frantic 2 weeks before uni term starts trying to find somewhere my pampered princess can cope with living in. Before you start giving out to me, I know it's my fault. Even Hot Boy now texts me with her inability to be more use than a 5 year old and ends with "You raised that"
House
Despite having a week off at Christmas, I yet again failed to have an Anthea Turner standard of cleanliness. I also failed to do the eleventy million wee jobs that so need doing. I hate cleaning, so do the others who live here, so rather than be accused of nagging I do it, very passive aggressively. I still do as much as I did for my children as I did when they were 4, the only difference is they can bathe and wash their own hair now. I have swapped the bedtime story for the daily telling of "So she said and then I said" though on balance I think I preferred the nightly rendition of The Tiger Who Came to Tea. I can still retell it, every single word verbatim, it's my party piece.
Work
I love it. I don't always love the fact it takes me hours to get there. I can regularly spend 5 hours a day in my car. I also have a ferocious amount of technology to take with me to do my presentations, laptops, speakers, projectors, pointers etc. I am coping (but only if BBD does the bits I can't be arsed with)
My laptop
Still fecked. I have AVG, I have Norton and Norton 360. I think I have got rid of the nasty trojan but now when I try and log on it says Mozilla uses a proxy server and it doesn't have permission and to contact my service administrator. I have no clue who that is. I need the Internet, I haven't read my horoscope for days. I am writing this on my work laptop and I am terrified I will infect this one, the last one appeared when I clicked on someones photo on their blog.
General Failure of life stuff
I am still not divorced.
I can't find a P60.
I need the P60 to fill out the online tax return.
I need to fill out the online form as I filed my paper return with a page I didn't need missing, oh I'm still mithered about that.
I have a leak in my underground water pipe in Turkey. It appears to be an expensive leak.
I lost my work mobile phone.
I had to fess up this to the IT guy at work. The IT guy cowers under his desk and rocks when he sees it's me calling. I think I am accounting for about 90% of his work problems at the moment.
I am fatter than I was before Christmas, and I was fat then.
Now then, have I cheered you all up? made you realise that your life isn't as bad as you thought?
You're welcome.
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