Picky bits

Remember poor little fear, our fourth office fish that died in mysterious circumstances a few weeks ago? Well, I’ve just received the following message from my ‘co-carer’ who actually found him on that fatal morning…

Yay… have finally discovered someone who is just as bad as darling boyf when getting ready in the morning. Though whereas darling boyf phones me to ask for emergency clothes supplies to be brought in from home, poor work pal has to invest in new lingerie just to avoid having a pair of black eyes by the end of the day… bless her!

Last xmas my mum and dad bought me a fab stocking filler - a really cute little Radley pencil case and pen set. This was all well and good but did set me hankering for the real thing - a Radley bag to put the set in.

Niavely - and after a few too many glasses of xmas baileys! - darling boyf promised to buy me the bag to match. To be honest I don’t think he was really aware of what a Radley bag costs when he offered to buy me one… you’d have thought that the knowledge that just the pencil case cost £45 would have given him an inckling of what he was letting himself in for really but nevertheless, a promise IS a promise and for the last 4 months I’ve been dropping not-so-subtle hints about the promised purchase…

Anyway, last saturday we actually went shopping together (this happens very rarely as darling boyf is totally allergic to shopping) and he not only remembered his promise but actively steered me towards the bag section in John Lewis! So I am now the proud owner of a beautiful Radley handbag which is sooooo pwetty it makes you smile just to look at it

He did ask this morning if I was taking my beautiful new bag to work though!!!! Of course not… it might get scratched

True love … is buying your girlfriend a Radley handbag

I had an absolutely fabulous day yesterday… I’d booked the day off work (which in itself is cause for celebration!) but the day got even better when my mum phoned up to see if I fancied a girly day out shopping

Now I’ve been a bit ’lacking’ in my clothes shopping expeditions recently, not for any bad reason but purely ‘coz I didn’t see much point in buying clothes while I’m still doing my healthy eating kick and losing weight. I have in fact, been under strict instructions from darling boyf to buy nothing until I stopped dieting as I already have a wardrobe full of stuff that’s now too big for me.

However, a girly day out with mum is never to be turned down so I happily tootled off - promising darling boyf that I wouldn’t buy too much - but not actually specifying what ‘too much’ was

I’d got a couple of bits and bobs - a couple of tops and a LBD for an upcoming wedding (oh, and a pair of killer heels to go with the dress!) when we popped into my ‘mecca’ - NEXT! Well, I tried on a lovely blue party dress - in my usual size and it looked really pretty but I then got a bit disheartened as I tried on a grey dress that looked really nice on the hanger and really wrong on me…

Neither mum or I could work out what the problem with the dress was and try as we might we couldn’t get it to hang right. It was only when the changing-room assistant came over and pointed out that the reason that it looked wrong was that there was too much fabric hanging down did the light dawn on what she was getting at… yep - I needed to get a smaller size and not only in the grey dress but I needed to go down to a size 12 in the blue one too!!! It totally made my day, I even had to phone darling boyf up to share the amazing news…

I know that everyone had been commenting on the fact that I have lost weight, and I do feel much better (I’ve lost about a stone) but I really didn’t expect that I’d have dropped a dress size - and without really having to try that hard

I think darling boyf thought I was going slightly mad though when I insisted on showing him the labels on the dresses at least a dozen times last night… I wonder if I should wear these dresses inside out now… that way everyone can see that beautiful number 12!!!

Why is it that men can’t just come and and say what they want? Most guys I know say that the female of the species is difficult to understand but honestly, understanding the fairer sex is a walk in the park compaired to getting to grips with the male psyche.

A friend of mine had a few dates with a ’seemingly normal’ guy recently - on the surface he looked pretty sane, he had a good job (he was a copper), no obvious personality defects and hadn’t been smacked with the ugly stick… all good!

Everything was going well, or so she thought- they’d exchanged soppy valentine’s prezzies (well he had - she made a bit of a faux pas by buying him a chocolate heart when he was alergic to chocolate!), had had cosy nights together in front of the tv and seemed to be getting on fine. Then, just like that, the text messages ground to a halt, and when she commented on his sudden silence she got fed the old ‘I’m just not in the right place for a relationship right now’ crap…

Now being a cool and sassy chick, my mate wasn’t overly concerned by this and had pretty much forgotten about the whole thing when, out of the blue, ‘wierdy-cop-boy’ started texting her again… WTF!! Why would he do this, he’s not asked her out or anything, he just keeps sending her bizarre texts about random rubbish and my poor pal doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going!

The latest of these messages was the bizarrest though… its his b’day this weekend and he’s asked her if she wants to go out with him and his mates!!!??? Now this would be quite a big deal if they were actually dating… meeting the boyf’s mates is always a big thing, but what does it mean when you’re not actually in any kind of relationship with the bloke in question? Can you imagine how difficult it could potentially be? And what would happen if he had a really hot mate… would it be a ‘no-no’ to say ’see ya later’ to ‘non-boyf’ and bugger off with his bezzie mate?

Its no wonder there are so many single gals out there when the messages sent out by their male counterparts are so damn difficult to decipher!

We’ve had a sad start to the week in our office, we came in to work on Monday to find a friend who we were very fond of had died over the weekend. Little fear - the fourth office fish - had sadly passed away

Accusations of bullying from the other fishies - juan, dos and trey - were bandied about, as were medical oppinions such as ‘fear was the little fat one… maybe he died of obesity?’ But whatever the reason for his untimely demise, little fear had certainly left a golfball-shaped hole in our fishtank.

So the decision was made to go back to the garden centre that we bought him from - receipt in hand, and ask for a replacement. We had only had him for 5 days after all and apparently they’re guarenteed for 14!!

When we arrived at the garden centre though I did start to feel a bit like a suspect in a murder enquiry… Firstly we were told that we could only get a refund for the cost of the dead fish if we brought him back in with us (??? - it’s a dead fish for christ’s sake - not the kind of thing a gal really wants to carry round in her handbag!), and not only that, we had to take a sample of the tank water in with us so they could get in analysed for toxins… Our arguments that the other three fishies were thriving held no sway with the ‘Inspector Morse’ of the fish world who said that under no circumstances would a refund be issued without a) a body, and b) a water sample!!!!

I actually think this guy was under the mistaken impression that he was working in some crime scene investigation squad for MI5 rather than the local garden centre!

Nor did he find our growing hilarity about the whole situation endearing… As our giggles about the ‘nonsense-ness’ of it all increased, so did his earnestness about the need to examine the water for toxins. He certainly didn’t appreciate us asking whether they needed to have the body back because they were planning on carrying out a post mortem to determine time and cause of death!

So - without our refund, or our dignity we left the garden centre with a new playmate for juan, dos and trey… welcome to our world little fumph

… well this one certainly does naval pilots in particular!

Everyone knows that there is something incredibly sexy about a man in uniform but until now I’d never been lucky enough to actually meet any men wearing their uniforms and therefore was a bit ‘non-committal’ about the effect the uniform would actually have… Well, its true girls… boy oh boy is it true!

Last saturday Rob (one of my work mates) and I had to go down to London to interview and video some naval pilots at their graduation ceremony. Having to work on a saturday is never my idea of fun so it was with great reluctance that I hauled my ass out of bed for a day of ‘work’. Work - ha… I think I might actually have paid my employers to be given this job

Our basic task was to meet the guys, organise photographs with the naval photographer, watch their cermony and then interview/video them about their studies afterwards. It wasn’t until they actually arrived - in all their naval splendour - that I realised just how scrummy a uniform makes a man. OMG! Fantasyland or what!

Watching them on stage, saluting the presiding officers and looking all smart and shiny in their uniforms had Rob and I glowing with pride at ‘our boys’ - even though we’d only met them for 10 minutes or so by this point! And by the time we got round to properly chatting and then interviewing them we were both giggling like a pair of schoolgirls with the most enourmous crushes! I got even more giggly when I had to give one of them my card so he could get copies of any of the photos taken - good excuse or what

I’m not sure what it was exactly that caused my regression to giggling teenager mentality, all I can remember is the uniforms and an incredibly strong desire to re-enact that famous scene out of An Officer and a Gentleman!! And I had to try really hard - when one of them talked about settling down and having a family in the future - not to propopse to him right then and there!

Wonder if there’s any way of persuading darling boyf to sign up…

Haha - I’ve just read the funniest and most fab news… Sky One is set to resurrect that staple of 90’s saturday night entertainment - Gladiators!

They’ve got a new set of ‘glads’ - well I guess they’d have to really… some of them would be well past their duelling best by now! - and if you read Sky’s hype its gonna be BIG! The best bit though is that the annoyingness that was John (AWOOGA) Fashanu will NOT be reprising his presenting role (thank heavens for small mercies!)

I’m thinking though that maybe the beeb and Sky are missing a trick here… they should combine elements of BBCs The Apprentice with the more - shall we say ‘combatative’ (is that even a word) - sections of Gladiators… who wouldn’t just love to see the awful Jenny having to go up against a gladiator with a pugel stick? Already the viciousness of her attacks on other contestants certainly have an element of ‘arena bloodshed’ to them!

OK - its official - I’m addicted… to The Apprentice.

In one of my blog posts last week I mentioned the possiblity of this happening and now, after watching episode 2, its a foregone conclusion. My wednesday nights for the forseeable future will be planned around watching The Apprentice follwed by The Appretice: You’re Fired.

Last weeks’ episode - which I watched last night - was the dry-cleaning business one where the boys team shone in comparison to the god-awful girls’ team led by the bitchy and bullying Jenny. I thought these people were bad last week but this week they really outdid themselves!

Nevertheless, my addiction is such that I’ve been scanning the programme’s website - sad I know and I have to say that the stuff the candidates are saying on the website is even worse than the bull that comes out of their mouths on the tv!

The cream of the comments so far has to be from Dublin-born Jennifer who states in her profile: “I can sell anything. I can sell pieces of paper for £50 and make a living out of it.”

Ehhhh??? Bank managers do that too luv… the pieces of paper are called £50 notes and they’re worth - yep einstein, you got it - £50!!! Someone give that gal a 6-figure job in sales!!! Jesus… is she for real? Now that’s what you call entertainment!

A couple of months ago a colleague at work suggested that it would be nice to get an office aquarium, suggesting that the fish would bring a calming effect to the office and would be a nice thing for everyone to get involved in - kind of an ‘en-masse fish-adoption’ event.

So we all chipped in for a second-hand aquarium (which one poor work pal had to spend a whole day cleaning out as it was soooo disgustingly dirty - honestly, we paid 90 quid for this tank and the cheeky mare selling it couldn’t even be bothered to clean it up a bit for us!) and for the past couple of weeks the fishies’ new home has been sitting at the end of the office, full of water, waiting for its new inhabitants. Its actually been quite amusing to see visitors to the office standing watching the stray leaves from the aquatic plants float around the tank thinking that they are fish … the leaves not the visitors!

But anyway… today was the day to go fishing. For the size of the tank apparently we are allowed 32.5cm worth of fish! (Erm ok… are we supposed to take our rulers to the shop and measure them or something?). So three of us trundled off at lunchtime to pick out the new fishy members of our team and, after deciding that we should get four fish to start with, we finally chose the different ones that we wanted - this might sound like an easy task but believe me its not - there are some really wacky looking fishies out there!

So after waiting ages to get served, the fish-man told us that we couldn’t actually get our four new friends today, apparently we have to introduce them one at a time… childish I know but I did sulk a bit at this and tried to persuade fish-man that taking two wouldn’t hurt but he was not for budging

Well, we got fishy number one back to the office and have introduced him to his new surroundings. He deffo loves the extra aquatic trees I bought for him and although I haven’t seen him swim through the rose-slate tunnel I contructed (I’m a designer, it’s second nature to try and make stuff look pwetty!) I’m sure he’ll be very happy in his new home. It will be much better next week when we can go back for number two though so he’s not lonely.

And the names… well, after great deliberation we’ve called him Juan (pronounced one… geddit!), next week we’ll pick up Dos (deux); Trey (or tres) will be in week three and finally we’ll get to bring home ferocious-looking little Fear (vier) 

Haha, we’ve just noticed the names… Juan, Deux… remind anyone of a film title? A Fish Called … !!!