Daily Archives: 11 March, 2011

Good and bad

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What would you like first, the good news or the bad news?

Obviously, that’s a rhetorical questions since a) it’s my blog and b) I’m writing this rather than asking you in person.

OK so I’ve decided that you shall get the good news first.

The weather is getting a tad warmer. As my regular readers will know, this makes me much happier.

Also, F comes back tomorrow night. But not late, I think. I think he lands at about 6 or 6.30. I will, as usual, pick him up from the airport. Again, I am so much looking forward to him being back – almost excited – like a child! :-)

The third bit of good news is that I have decided to take the first three days of next week as holiday. Actually this is, in some way, being forced upon me. Some stupid rule in this company has been made up that means that any ‘left over’ holiday from last year has to be taken by 31st March. It’s stupid because I would prefer to take it sometime in May or June when the weather is really nice.

You may ask why I am only taking 3 days when I have over 6 days left? Well, Thursday and Friday are ‘forced’ holidays. Thursday because they have decided to celebrate Unification Day. Apparently it’s 150 years on Tuesday since Italy was first unified as Italy and for this year only they have declared the day a ‘bank’ holiday. Then Friday is a holiday because of this thing called a ‘bridge day’ – bridge days occuring when the holiday is on a Tuesday or Thursday, where the bridge is so that the company doesn’t open for just 1 day.

Actually, I had a student last night who is from Veneto (i.e. somewhere near Venice). He said that Venice won’t be celebrating because they didn’t join the union until a couple of years afterwards so, for them, it’s not yet 150 years. In fact, doing a bit of reading up it seems that 1870 would be a better reflection since it was only during that year that Rome became part of the union!

Anyway, they’ve decided on March 17th as that was the day that the first ‘parliament’ was held in the capital – which was, then, Turin.

OK – enough history. The effect of all this history being that I will be on holiday all next week.

This is an end to the good things.

The bad things are that, although it’s getting warmer, it is also going to start with the rain thing. That’s from tomorrow. Worse still, it’s going to continue raining all through the weekend and at least until next Thursday.

The other bad thing is that I am on holiday all next week ……………………….. when it is going to be raining. Exactly why I don’t want to be taking holidays now, ffs!

I have a blanket.

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I have a blanket ……………… in my mouth.

Also, to coin a very old phrase, I came over a bit queer as I was walking up the stairs to the office this morning. And everything has to be a little more ‘deliberate’. Like breathing.

I blame A. He ordered a bottle of wine and then said that he couldn’t drink much because he had already been drinking. Oh yes, and then I had a Mirto which may not have helped. But it was his birthday or, rather, it IS his birthday today.

That’s why I got away with paying for the meal. I said that, as it was not actually his birthday, I could pay for it.

Still, the wine was good and nicely fits in with my ‘wine diet’. Although I must admit to breaches on the ‘Mars Bar front’, since I picked some up the other day and have, some nights, had one. Still, I am managing NOT to have bread at lunchtime.

So, in reality my so-called non-diet remains a non-diet. God knows what I would be like if I really had to stop eating anything. Well, actually, I know. I would be crap.

So, the blanket in my mouth also doesn’t really taste very nice and I might even go and clean my teeth again in the hope that it will help.

Now that I’m older, the ‘coming over all queer’ bit is not nice either. I always think ‘Is this it?’ – a little like the start of Meet Joe Black, a film which I love and not only because it has Brad Pitt in it (although in this film he is particularly sexy – it was his best period for looks, imho).

And I’ve started having these quite strange happenings in the morning.

The alarm goes off and I set it to snooze for another 5 minutes.

Except that, when it goes off, as I am waking up, I think that this is already the second time it’s gone off. And then I look and spend a few seconds (which feels like minutes) working out that this is the time of the first alarm, not the second. So I put it to snooze. I turn over in snuggle up in bed but, by then I am awake because I’ve had to do some thinking and stuff and so I get up within a minute or so.

Or I worry that I’ve made a mistake and dismissed the alarm.

Either way, I get up and so don’t get the extra 5 minutes after all. Bah!

But tomorrow will be perfect. F is away. I do not HAVE to get up and so I will sleep in. And then I will have a leisurely coffee and then take the dogs out. This has been a very busy week and, not helped by last night for sure, I am very tired.

You’ll be pleased to know that my blanket seems to have become a little less fluffy in the time that I’ve written this. Onwards and upwards. It is Friday, after all :-)