Daily Archives: 28 July, 2011

Luncheon vouchers?

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I’ve never worked anywhere that gave luncheon vouchers.

Here, we have a canteen that is, in my opinion, very good. Every day (more or less), I have a pasta dish and a meat dish with a vegetable. It’s good value for money in that only about 7 cents is deducted from my wages.

Also, our cook is very good and tries to be a bit imaginative, which I really like.

But we are into the holiday period and, I have been informed, the canteen is getting some sort of make-over. And, so, it’s closed in August – for the whole month.

Here, in Italy, lunch is provided almost everywhere you work. Provided for a small fee. I think this sort of thing happened in London, at least until the Inland Revenue saw it as a useful source of extra tax. If your company (in Italy) does not have a canteen, then you are provided with these tickets. The value depends on your company. It is usually about €7 or so.

And so, we have some tickets for this period. The value of each ticket is only just over €5. Some people are less than happy with that. To be honest, I don’t really care. It’s not so important. After all, this will give me the chance for a bit of a ‘diet’ for the week before I stuff myself with food for two weeks and a week’s ‘diet’ for the week after the two-stuffing-weeks. It may, after all, be quite a good thing.

So, I shall probably, for the first time in my life, be like so many other annoying people at the supermarket queue – using my tickets for the shopping!

I am very excited. Does it show?

The problem with him was ………..

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26/7/11

You know how it is with couples. There’s one that you really like and one that you don’t like so much. OK, that’s not always true but you know what I mean. Of course, if you were the friend of one before the relationship started, then you are bound to like them better, aren’t you? Even if you like them both, of course. Even if you’ve always known them as a couple there’s probably one that you gravitate towards and that one you like better.

It makes me happy to see someone with someone they love and who I like too – but the one you’ve known before is the one that you hope ‘doesn’t get hurt’.

The problem really comes when you really dislike (I hesitate to say ‘hate’) one of the two. Often it can end a ‘beautiful’ friendship.

It’s not the first time it’s been said to me. I suppose everyone makes comparisons and I can’t stop them saying it but I find it interesting.

V wasn’t perfect, obviously; otherwise we’d still be together. Some people say that they didn’t like him directly whilst others say the same thing but in much more diplomatic ways. Sure, he could be ‘difficult’ but I really didn’t realize that so many people thought so. I always thought that he was ‘more liked’ than me – not that it was a competition – just because it was that way. I didn’t have a problem with it. I was, kind of, grateful, to be in his shadow, so to speak.

But now people say that they felt ‘uncomfortable’ with him. That he ‘didn’t really like me’. Things like that. Even if F is ‘the same’ (which he isn’t really but since we’re trying to draw comparisons ……) he is different.

But now I know it wasn’t always so. Some people preferred me, after all. Wow!

I don’t mean that I thought they didn’t like me, I just thought that most people preferred V. V was more gregarious, more chatty, more friendly, etc., etc.

Of course, he was also more false. I knew that but I didn’t want that to be known. And, apart from this blog, I don’t say it to others, even now. Since most of the people who knew him, when we were together, don’t read this blog or read it so infrequently, I can post it here.

But then, these people from the ‘past’ meet F. People like F. He’s quite like V but less false; kinder, somehow; genuine. People like him instantly. They congratulate me on finding someone so nice. It makes me sorry for V but, I suppose, those people that remain friends of V like him too. I’ve never asked them to choose. It’s OK by me. I was with him for a long time and I liked him for many reasons. The things I disliked, eventually, drove us apart but that doesn’t mean that, overall, I didn’t like him.

However, now that people can ‘talk freely’, they say what they thought and still think.

I’m guessing V was right to ‘defriend’ so many people as he did when we split.

In a way, though, it’s a shame that people didn’t see the side that made me fall in love with him and only saw the side that made me fall out of love. Or perhaps it’s me who’s being stupid?