Um, as you were....

...I have gone back to the old blog. I sort of miss it, and I've been away for long enough that a lot of people will have stopped visiting.

I know, I know. I'm fickle and annoying. Think yourselves lucky you don't have to live with me.

Working Girl

So yes, I will update on the wedding and all its splendidness at some point.

I'll tell you about the dress, the car, the cake, the reception, the giant cocks. All that good stuff.

In the meantime I am freaking out about an enormous work-related challenge which involves me, the girl who is deeply, irrationally afraid of pretty much every mode of transport from rollerskates up, spending the next six weeks on/in planes/ships/Ukranian taxis.

I fly to Istanbul next Tuesday. I will be attempting to fly home from Odessa next Friday. Then I do it again in a fortnight. Then I do some different routes on different ships and by the end of it I am expected to have rolled out a new Personnel system across a fleet of cruise ships. Then I have to do it all again early next year for Phase 2.

No pressure then. Pray to your individual gods for me.

eep!

The Girl Can't Help It

So anyway. Let's start again, shall we?

I went for a smear test this afternoon*. It's the second one in six months as I had an abnormal** one last time. So there I was again, legs akimbo, staring at the ceiling with an anglepoise lamp illuminating my foofoo, trying to cheer the atmosphere up a bit. In my own inimitable style. You know. It went a little something like this:

Nurse: Lovely***. Now, I'm just going to introduce the speculum to your cervix.

Me: Oh. Ha ha! Like, speculum, cervix; cervix, speculum?

Nurse: ...............................

Yay me. Oh, and I got married. And I have dreadlocks again. And I lost loads of weight for the wedding and am now doing that slow-motion-ballon-inflating thing where I'm ever so gradually getting really fat again. Boo.

As you were.

* Look, I'm sorry. But I have to share these things.

** Abnormal? Me? Really, what are the chances? Ha.

*** Why do nurses always say "lovely" at the most inopportune moments?

Seriously? Meltdown...

Good lord.

To recap.

I changed jobs a year ago and returned to a company I had worked for previously for four years. I took a pay cut. I have, in the year since I came back, been promoted and had a three grand pay rise.

What fun.

I now have two people in my team, who I am directly responsible for.

It makes my brain hurt.

Add to this the fact that I am getting married in pretty much five weeks and have had a major fallout with my Invitation Lady and have no clue so far despite sending a cheque with regard to Middling Person's bridesmaid dress and it's pretty much a miracle that I'm still breathing.

See? Even my punctuation has taken a turn for the worse.

Breathe.

Is there anybody out there? Only, I'm watching Big Brother for entertainment and it makes my brain feel dirty.

In which I become giddy with excitement

Whoever runs the sound desk at the London Astoria presumably plays a mean pinball.

They do not, however, have any notion of how to run a sound desk. We went to see the magnificent Flogging Molly last night, and the levels were so bad that no song was at all distinguishable. The person on the desk went at the controls with all the finesse of a hippopotamus driving a JCB. It was like listening through bathwater. Which is proper annoying as Flogging Molly are aces.

The one thing the sound people did know how to do was volume. As in VOLUME. My ears are still ringing and I am driving the Other Half mental as every time he says anything to me he is rewarded with a quizzical look and a response of “eh??”. Every time. Exasperation levels are currently sitting somewhere around Defcon 2.

But anyway. That’s not the exciting part. The Astoria (sound aside) is a fabulous venue. It’s tiered, so that old people like me and the Other Half don’t have to slum it in the pit with all the youngsters. So we stood upstairs. And halfway through the set, Dave King (the singer. God, Granddad, don’t you know anything?) waved up at us and mentioned “the girl in the Motorhead t-shirt”. That was me!! Me! Fortunately, the Other Half managed to persuade me not to show Mr King my boobs, and a crisis was averted.

But still!! I am thirty-five! And despite the fact that it was dark in there, and he was a long way away, and probably blinded by the stage lights, and possibly drunk, a singer in a band noticed me! And said hello!

We are going to see the Foo Fighters at Wembley next Saturday. I will of course be wearing my Motorhead t-shirt. And by next Sunday I will be the next Mrs Dave Grohl.

Fact.

Fresh starts, and all that

So, here we go again.

It all got a bit much, you see. Too many people I know knew my blog. People I didn't particularly want to read it. People like, say, my assistant at work. Hmm. I've been promoted, you see, and I now manage a team of two. So I feel I need to separate myself somehow from Ms _ at work who has to be all professional and set a good example and things, and remember how to be Surly Girl, who rants and whines and vents and actually helps her head to shut the fuck up, already, by spilling all my crap onto an unsuspecting interwebs.

And, I need the freedom to talk about anything without fear of retribution. About how work delights and horrifies me in equal measure these days. About my upcoming wedding. About the Other Half and my Middling Person, who turned eight (eight!!) on Sunday. And about all the shit I am still, at the ripe-old age of thirty-five, carrying aroud with me. About how I am waking the Other Half up at night with the sound of grinding teeth. About how my family can still instantly make me revert to a sad, lonely little girl. About how depsite the meds I am depressed. About how sometimes that really high bridge over the river seems inviting. Sometimes.

And, of course, about how much I adore David Hasselhoff and loathe loathe LOATHE the sound of Scott Mills. Really. He makes my teeth itch.

So.

Here we are again then. Whether anyone's along for the ride or not, I'm going back to basics.

Good lord.