Fourth bit of stuff - Friday's here

For the average Monday-Friday 9-5 worker (8-4 and 10-6 heads included) Friday is the pinnacle of the working week, the last 4 days are all but forgotten and you’re already at least halfway into weekend mode. It also helps if - like the company I work for – Friday is casual clothes day, it just makes you feel more at ease and less like working.


The fact that it’s a Friday means that you can eat differently to the rest of the week, it’s kind of an unwritten rule. Having a chippy lunch or scoffing down endless cakes and biscuits is, for some reason, more easily justified than it is for the rest of the week. I did, however, attempt to eat breakfast before I left the house, in an attempt to not fall into the usual Friday habit of junk food and to kick start the metabolism.


It was an attempt that I failed miserably in; with no milk in the fridge cereal was a no goer, but it wasn’t a problem though as I remembered that the other day I had bought a bag of bagels, which I hadn’t yet opened. I opened the bread bin and took out the bag of ringed bread, I took a look at the best before date, as I always do with food, and it read 22-08-2010, 5 days out of date, feh! Anything else in the bread bin I wondered? Ah waffles, waffles will do, so I stuck ‘em in the toaster, went to the toilet, came back - burnt, ahh fuck it, I’m not an American anyway and I’ve got half a giant mint aero and a packet of chocolate éclairs in my drawer in work, they’ll do. Nutritional, I know.


Casual clothes Friday wasn’t just any usual casual clothes Friday today, for it has been labelled ‘Beach day’ and yes it is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. We, the worms, have been encouraged to dress up in beach wear with the ‘boys’ dress code being Hawaiian Shirts and Bermuda shorts and ‘girls’ Grass skirts and Flower Leis. We have also been told to bring in beach towels, buckets and spades and numerous other beach paraphernalia.


I don’t want to sound like a spoilsport, because I’m not, I enjoy the odd laugh, but dressing up in beach wear whilst in work isn’t my idea of fun and there is no way it is going to re-create a real beach environment, there’s no sand or water or half naked people for a start. I hate the beach anyway, it’s horrible.


Lunch time came and it involved - not for the first time of the week (4th, I think) - a trip to Asda with Matthew. I bought ‘Airplane 1&2’ and ‘Spinal Tap’ for a fiver each, couple of bargains and something to watch during my post op recovery (I'm having a kidney out, if you had forgotten). But that wasn’t the highlight of lunch. The highlight was the nostalgic conversation we had on the way back about playing football over the field in our younger days, it had me yearning to be 13 again, not that I feel much older than that now anyway.


The afternoon was a usual Friday afternoon, doing enough work to get through but without being too productive, not in danger of bursting a vessel. I also spent a large proportion of the afternoon clock watching, it doesn’t make it go any faster, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it.


A busy bank holiday looms, beginning with a trip to the casino tonight. I find casinos daunting places, I feel like I am being judged by how much I'm spending, or not as the case may be.  It has the potential to make or break the weekend -  financially at least - for a few good wins could well pay for the rest of the weekend, whereas a deficit will see me being a little more conservative with my hard earned money over the next few days.


The main event of my bank holiday sees me travel to Reading as I have a ticket to go to the festival on  the Saturday, with the highlight set to be the reunion of the Libertines.  As well as looking forward to it I'm slightly apprehensive for two reasons, the first being the fact it is the Libertines and although I've never been let down by the chap personally, Pete(r) Doherty is as unpredictable as they come.  


The second reason for my trepidation is one of the people I'm going with, Youngy, has a poor gig record over the last 2 years or so, as the below incidents will explain:




1) December 3rd 2008 - Youngy, Ian and myself go to Swansea on a Wednesday night to see Dirty Pretty Things on their farewell tour.  Get to the gig venue only to find the place is closed.  We then notice a poster outside saying 'Dirty Pretty Things - Saturday the 6th December'.  Just the 3 days early then.


2) August 23rd 2009 - Youngy goes to V festival, Chelmsford to see Oasis headline, only for them to pull out due to Liam Gallagher having a 'sore throat.'  The band split up days later.


3) October 24th 2009 - Youngy goes to Swindon leisure centre to see Morrissey perform, only for the ex Smiths front man to collapse and get stretchered off after one song and never to return.


So, like I say, a little apprehensive.

Third bit of stuff - Tuesday, the day after Monday

Ok I know I said I wasn’t going to update the blog today in fearing of this turning into a diary, but stuff it, I wanted to.



As I was finishing yesterday’s entry at about 00:30 this morning it dawned on me that I had changed my shift for today from my usual 9.15-5.15 to 8-2 to enable me to get to Peterborough to watch Cardiff in the 2nd round of the league cup.


I find it hard enough getting up in the morning for my normal shift when I have had a full 7 hours sleep, let alone getting up for 7am after 6 hours, so it was never going to be easy getting to work on time.
Not for the first time in my working life I woke up late (7.24) and was left with a familiar predicament. With breakfast already out of the question I could either a) bypass the shower and go straight to work getting there on time or b) have a shower, get to work inevitably late and hope that it gets unnoticed. To be honest the first option wasn’t really a realistic one as I find it just about impossible to leave the house without having a shower, it just doesn’t feel right.


So having taken the second option I knew I was going to be a little bit late, but at least I would do so feeling clean and fresh and I wasn’t going to look a dick in my work attire, for today I had remembered to wear my casual clothes, quick learner aren’t I?


So I get to work late, 8 minutes late to be precise, not bad, could’ve been worse. As the office has onlbeen open for those 8 minutes it’s still very quiet, but already I’ve noticed a distinct difference to Monday. It has become apparent that the few people who are in are dressed quite differently to yesterday, they are all in the usual Monday-Thursday work attire, what happened to casual clothes week? For the second day in a row I feel like a complete dick, how can something so simple be got so emphatically wrong? It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t wearing a bright orange polo shirt and shorts.


It’s also become apparent that my lateness hasn’t gone unnoticed as the boss is sat in her desk, ‘you have the cheek to be late after I changed your shift for you.’ Valid point I suppose.


The day has improved since 8.08 and I’ve been in relatively good spirits and what more the custard creams and tea seem to be doing their job today. The trip to Peterborough promises to be an enjoyable one so as long as I avoid spilling lunch down my top, what can possibly go wrong?

Second bit of stuff - Do I not like Monday's

Monday’s - hate them, but then again, don't must of us anyway?  If I was to mark each day out of 5 and work out a yearly average then Monday would without doubt be the day with the lowest average, and by a long way, but I’m not going to do that, it wouldn't be right.

Today actually started alright, probably just above average (for a Monday).  I had woken from approximately 7 hours sleep, which is about par for me and I woke relatively fresh.  Shower – check, breakfast – check, clean teeth – check, dressed – check.  So far so good.

I grabbed the Rolling Stones album I'm borrowing off Dowler (Let is Bleed) as I was leaving the house and whacked it on my car stereo and I was relatively enjoying the first trip of the week to the dreaded hell hole.  The journey went incident free, that was until I heard what I thought was the car next to me beeping, 'shit, I've started to drift across again' I thought, but I looked to my right and there wasn't a car there.  It took a few seconds to realise I had mistaken a sound on the stereo for a real life sound, I always feel like a tit when that happens and slightly embarrassed, despite no-one else knowing what has just occurred.

I got to work well before I was due to start, enough time to settle down, read any important (non work related) e-mails I may have received over the weekend and enjoy the first cup of tea of the day.  But as I walked through the doors I noticed something wasn't quite right.  Why was no-one else on the department wearing the standard work attire? why is everyone wearing jeans and t-shirts on a Monday?  Not for the first time and certainly not for the last I had forgotten it was casual clothes day, it's no biggie but no matter how many times I forget I always feel like a complete dick.  It also means I have to listen to countless people come up with that line 'casual clothes today Gav.'  Yeh, very funny, piss off.

By now I've realised I'm a lot less awake than I earlier thought and feeling a lot lower, I could battle the Monday blues, but what's the point? it's going to get you eventually so you may as well lay down and die, give up the battle.  The morning carried on in an oh do similar routine, speaking to customers I really couldn't care less about and feigning empathy for the fact their 2 year old grandson has put a 3 iron (golf club) through the TV screen.  We both know this hasn't really happened anyway.  Lying bastards.

Lunch time arrives, always the highlight of every day.  It's a chance to talk bollocks with pals Matthew and Ian.  Ian isn't in at the moment, he's currently in Vegas and is probably enjoying a lap dance as I type.  I don't know the time difference, so I don't know what the time is, but I doubt that has any relevance.

Because I couldn't be bothered to make myself sandwiches I was forced to buy my lunch.  My chosen 'meal' was one of those pasta pots you get at the takeaway section in supermarkets, a depressing lunch at the best of times, made worse by the fact you have to eat it with one of those shitty, flimsy plastic forks, pathetic.  And it was the shitty, flimsy plastic fork that was at least partially to blame for the spilling of the food down my work shirt.  Ok so I was probably mostly at fault, I probably loaded too much food onto the said shitty, flimsy plastic fork and undoubtedly tried to move it towards my mouth too quickly, but whichever one of us was to blame, it didn't change the fact I had to spend the day looking like a kid who had been left to feed himself for the first time.

The day was already a lost cause, I was in a shit mood and all the cups of tea and custard creams in the world weren't going to make a difference as much as I let them try.  Tuesday tomorrow, I wonder what excitement the second worst day of the week will bring, don't worry though, you won't find out, this isn't a diary.

First bit of stuff - A date for the Kidney Op

Yesterday I finally got a date for my kidney operation.  At last I have something to look forward to, well I say look forward to it, it's not a day trip to Bristol Zoo or Alton Towers, but you know what I mean, you know what I'm getting at.

I don't want to go on about it too much, because it's old news now anyway, especially for friends, family and work colleagues, who must be sick of me harping on about it all the time.  Kidney blah, can't drink blah, yeh it does get a bit tedious from time to time.  I try not to go on about it too much because I know there are millions of people out there with worse problems, Gwyns poor nerves and Tom's balding come to mind, but for someone as self indulgent as I can sometimes be (but can't we all?), it's difficult not to.

Anyway, like I said, at last I have a date, September 20th to be exact, with the 2-4 weeks off after work the silver lining of this particular cloud.  Of course there isn't really a cloud, it's a metaphor for saying that I'm taking a positive out of something which is predominantly a negative situation, I don't know why I'm explaining anyway, you're not an idiot.*

So on finding out my date I thought I'd share my good news (I know, but it does feel like good news) with a few friends.  The replies I got back were unsurprisingly a mixed bag of kind words, witty retorts and questions about when I will be playing football next.  The responses to the following text '20th of September, stick it in your diary, for Facey is going under the knife' are:

'Sex change?'

'Facelift?'

'Ah nice one mate'

'Good luck mate, I'll bring grapes and all that'

'I've always said Cook should've kept his place...'

'Finally the kid has a date! Curry night before?!?!?!?'

'How long before you can play football again'

'Is there a possibility of death?'

'Is it public viewing?'

If you want to play a game you can try matching the above quotes with the following names: Perry, Moe, Phil, Gwyn, Tom, Bondi, Brew, Kearney and Dowler.  It's harder than you think.

* You could well be an idiot