Toilet humour!

I am back! Had a wee break as the first 2 days of this week were pretty full on and stressful. For once it wasn’t my family causing my distress or, for that matter my job. It’s tedious and infuriating timing, but K’s had to leave the company he’s been with since end March. It’s a complicated story of him being on compassionate leave as their plans for expansion (which involved him) changed and the fact that in the current market, everyone is now expendable. I should know, having recently discovered this about my own role.

After the post mortem on Monday evening, K headed back down to Southampton on Tuesday morning. He is there now for the rest of the week. In many ways, it was the only solution, as K’s head has been with his dad for weeks now and it’s been impossible for him to concentrate or be fully present in the workplace. His dad has been slightly better (in relative terms) the last few days, although they have been well advised that his condition will deteriorate again sooner rather than later. Until the inevitable end, he can spend proper amounts of time down south and will be in a position to organise the funeral and house clearance without any demands from work.

The bollocks bit of it is that we are one salary down and with my pay cut, that’s not particularly funny. The other bit that annoys is that he has to add another chapter to his CV and will have to resolve this as soon as things are over where his dad is concerned. C’est la vie and all that but yeah, this has tested me I have to say.

Anyway, am now over the agony and moving on with the practicalities; budgeting like mad in other words! But the constant upside, and the one I continually remind myself is worth a fortune, is that I still haven’t hit the bottle as our precarious house of cards has teetered on the balance. I felt immense pressure on Monday of the ball juggling kind (they are all in the air right now and spinning madly) but I resisted a drink and could tackle stuff on Tuesday after a good sleep, with a clear head and a clear conscience.

Anyway, I am bored with my ramblings today – I sense that my blog makes me out to be miserable, stressed and anxious when that is far from the case, so in a return to one of my previous resolutions, I should like to tell you a wee story that made me chuckle yesterday.
As mentioned before, we moved last Wednesday from a plush, vast office on the 3rd floor of a splendid Georgian conversion with views across St James’s Park to a new ‘rabbit hutch’ style converted meeting room, in the basement of the same building. With the exception of a window that looks straight out onto a brick wall, we are now housed in an airless box (albeit one with top notch fixtures and fittings!). This does mean, however, that we have our door permanently propped open onto a communal corridor in order for some air to circulate and to alleviate the stress from the claustrophobia-inducing dimensions.

Our door happens to be opposite a loo/shower in the building, which is used by our fellow lessees on the ground floor as a ‘quiet’ one. Basically, they have their own facilities close to home, but this one is huge and well away from the masses. To say that at least one of them comes down with his newspaper of a morning tells you a little about its usage! The head of office services came to see us yesterday, highly embarrassed but obliged to tell us that she has had 3 separate complaints in as many days from people who think we must be peeping at them and observing their habits. That is fucking priceless. British reserve at its very, very best!!! I would just love to have seen the emails they sent her. How might they have gone, I wonder?

‘I would like to complain about the change of use of the room opposite the lower ground bathroom facilities. Since the new occupants have arrived, their door has been left constantly ajar, thus preventing me from having a discreet and private shit every morning whilst perusing the Daily Hate. Could you please request that they desist from monitoring my toilet habits and respect my right to use the shitter with impunity. Many thanks.
Keep on smiling!