Pumpkin-tide

Pumpkin1
Originally uploaded by CornishRambler.

Happy halloween, my little cacklers!

The ring's the thing

Why is it you think you can picture the shops in the town you've lived in for years, only to discover upon the first actual need to visit them that they've gone without a trace? When, exactly, did Samuels shut? Anyway, despite there being hundreds of (also hitherto unnoticed) jewellers in the town, or possibly because of doing the trip both hungry and with PMT (and anyone who's been shopping with me in a bad mood will both know how much fun that can be, and be pleasantly surprised that I am still engaged) I still don't have an engagement ring.

Now, this is not a fact that is particularly upsetting me, but I would like something to wave at the unending stream of people, who, on being told my news, must see my ring (and yes, I probably could have phrased that better). With many, it's the first thing they ask. And I keep being given advice on what stones I should and shouldn't get. And being asked how much we're going to spend. It's quite tempting just to wear a bit of twisted grass and say that wearing gems ripped from their mother earth is against my religion. That'd shut em up.

Obviously, once I've actually got one, you won't be able to stop me showing people, so I should probably shut up now.

General Confusion

There was a point yesterday when I realised the two tables on the sheet of meeting venues I was working from were titled "miscellaneous" and "other". I'm still not sure how they decided which should go in each.

Sisyphean Stationery Shifting

Spent a large part of the morning moving stationery from one cupboard to a new home at the other end of the corridor. Fairly early on in this process, I was heard to remark "it's not all going to fit is it, this cupboard's smaller". Which was rejected. Until a little later, when the instruction to move several loads back down the corridor to the original cupboard was issued, as, yes, there wasn't enough room...

Drink The Town Dry

Saturday saw that annual celebration of bellies and beardiness the Falmouth Beer Festival - and with it the resolution (that I suspect we actually make every year but are generally too drunk to remember) - to go on the Friday next year in order to come within a whisper of actually tasting the beers that we fancy from the programme. This, rather than going from the repeated refrain of 'all gone love' to just pointing at random at a barrel still giving out its stuff. Which luckily works quite favourably a lot of the time. This year, they managed to surpass themselves by not only running out of most of the beer by the time we arrived, but also this year's pint glasses and the programmes.

In an attempt not to end the evening lying in a ditch somewhere (well it WAS raining) three of us worked our way through sixteen sausages-inna-bap before hand. Seemed to work too, although didn't dissuade me from proposing at the end of the evening. Fortunatley wasn't too drunk to pick the chap actually eligible for this offer. And I refute any suggestion that this was merely an attempt to provide a more dramatic ending to my blog entry than James at jamesandthebluecat, who I had a feeling would beat me into print....

Real Pixie Toadstools

Went for a walk at lunchtime, along the edge of the golf course next to the hospital where I work - and along under the trees was a HUGE number of fly agaric toadstools, all red and white just like a proper toadstool should be! I've never seen real ones before, didn't even know they grew down here, they were really magical.

The Ancient Gods of Olympus Are Angry

Oh yes, I am now the proud owner of the ENTIRE series of Ulysses 31 on DVD, all 26 episodes. So I still won't be getting anything constructive done for a while...

Uhhhh...

How to lose an evening in one easy lesson - order Shaun of the Dead on dvd. Waiting for me on the mat when I got in from work, so I thought oh, I'll just bung it on for a bit. It's now gone 10pm and I appear to have watched the entire film, and then the entire film again with the Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright commentary, and have got absolutely nothing constructive done. Although I think I could probably do a good bleary zombie impression right about now...

Your Flexible Friend

Interview today with Kernowflex, which isn't, as you might suppose, a Cornish bondage group, but the NHS temp agency. Still, having bothered to turn up you may as well go through with these things...

Was left in a tiny empty room with a harsh light for what seemed like far too long, before being led through what appears to be some form of shanty town grown up around the back of the building. The interview room was a large, empty, echoing place with two interrogators, er, interviewers who had a disturbing tendency to stare back silently at me once I'd finished answering each increasingly pointless question ('tell us about the different methods of filing you've used'). And I still really really wish when asked 'what does confidentiality mean to you?' I'd had the nerve to say 'I'm sorry, I can't tell you that, it's classified'....

Make a cup of tea....put a record on

Ah, inspired lyrics. Haven't listened to this for ages, forgotten how much I like it (Elastica, by, er Elastica).

Well, himself's off to Korea for ten days, what is a girl to do? Other than make a cup of tea...etc. Oh, wait, I've got it, get rather drunk and write rubbish to loud music.

Somewhat redeemed myself at work in the technology stakes today (after breaking the shredder AND laminator in the first two weeks) by fixing the rather screwed (by persons other than me) fax machine this morning, huzzah!

Rowan Berries

Went out the other night to collect some rowan berries (as you do), in what turned out to be a slightly more farcical expedition than envisaged. Had decided to wait until after dark on the grounds that a woman climbing the verge with a pair of secateurs might not be less suspicious, but would at least be less visible. Of course the flaw in this plan that rather rapidly became apparent was that while no one could see me, nor could I see what I was doing. Located the tree easily enough, as it's on a road junction, but after that things were a bit dark (well, very dark) and higher up than they'd looked while previously driving past in daylight. And things were further hampered by the occupants of the end house, not being decently indoors in front of the telly and behind closed curtains, but ALL out in the garden, packing the car or something. So following the subsequent blind leaps and grabs and scrabbling in the hedge there's probably now a family up the road under the impression they were recently attacked by a giant squirrel...

A Fashion Expletive

Ever felt you might need to be removed from an item of clothing with a tin opener? We had one of those charity bin bags through the door today, so I reckoned it was a good time for a wardrobe clear out. Had this one dress which I bought (for a pound) as a possible wearing-to-a-wedding thing - never wore it (bloody pink, what the hell was I thinking) so I figured that could go in. Now I tried it on at the time and remembered it was a bit tight round the shoulders, but I thought I'd have one last look. And that was the point when I began to worry it was about to become a fixture. It went on, but there was no way that bunny was coming off without a fight. Practically had to dislocate my shoulder to wriggle out of it again, and that was with two of us pulling...maybe I should stick to jeans from now on...

Cordon Bennett

Just been given my mum's old 72-week Cordon Bleu cookery course magazines from 1969. There's some good as well as rather bizarre stuff in there. Think my favourite issue so far is the one promising catering for coffee mornings, committee lunches and church fetes...

Work, work, work

End of a busy week, with one of the other secretaries off and me doing two people's work on behalf of FOUR managers - still, I'm enjoying it so far - first time I've been really stretched in months. Plus, I must be doing something right, as one of them made me a cup of tea this afternoon, and I'm reliably informed he's never made a cup of tea for *anyone* in that department!

A Foxy Topic

Went to a lecture in Penzance last night, by Steve, who ran the evening course I did. In what we'd come to recognise as his traditional fashion, he'd made a last minute change to the topic, so not 'Cornish Witchcraft' as billed, but Earth energies and practical magic (minus Nicole Kidman). I think this rather foxed the rest of the audience though. However, what foxed 'em good and proper came later on in the questions and answers at the end, when an innocent question from some visiting Americans nearly prompted a punch-up between pro- and anti-hunt supporters. Anyway, the result was a farming couple storming out of the theatre - we'd all thought they were actually getting up to get rather more violent...overall, it went down as one of the more entertaining lectures in the series anyway!

What was rather more annoying was me being charged £9.05 for three drinks - definitely overcharged, but handed the cash over in a sort of stunned bemusement. Now of course wish I'd been rather more stroppliy farmer-liker and queried it at the time...