Time for a Day Trip!

Seeing as my life is Not Very Interesting at the moment, I'm taking all my readers on a day trip to An-Tarc-Tic-A today, to visit my dear friend Dr Ryan:

Click here for immediate transportation - and enjoy your trip!

Horse-Tastic!

I work in a lovely building surrounded by a working farm, and paddock after paddock of contented horses. Horses of all shapes, sizes and shades. I swear that some of them think I played a personal role in their rescue, as they look at me lovingly whilst contentedly munching on grass as I walk past. Some of them trot over to say hello, holding their heads high, snorting softly, letting their mains billow in the autumnal breeze. Thankfully, most of them have learned to apply the breaks or start to back-peddle before they reach the electric fence...

The horses aren't the only ones to have gone through adversity to reach the place, though, believe you me - for my journey to work proved to be Fraught With Danger! First, I had to cross the A140 - no easy task at 8 am, let me tell you! Trucks were trying to hit me. Then I had to drive through windy country roads, dodging suicidal pigeons and pheasants who kept threatening to run under the wheels of my car (it's like playing a computer game, Splat the Wildlife or some such like). There is a Weak Bridge (there's a sign that says so, so it must be true! How weak, I wonder? Weak enough to buckle under the weight of my car?). And to top it all off, a particularly large sugar beet fell from the trailer of a tractor and landed with a very loud thump on the roof of my car. It may have left a dent (I've been too lazy as yet to check). It is a perilous journey! Now I know how Sir Gawain felt (except, of course, I have no sex-mad trollop attempting to seduce me while my host is out hunting, and I'm also hoping I won't have to allow a Green Knight to chop my head off at some stage of my journey).* This sort of thing never used to happen when I used to commute in London, although there was always the danger of Leaves on the Track, and also flashers.

James is now a fully-accomplished house husband. I get tea in bed in the morning, then he makes my breakfast while I am in the shower, and makes my packed lunch while I am eating my breakfast and making yummy noises. He runs to the front door when I return home from my Perilous Journey in the evening, gives me a big welcoming cuddle and ushers me indoors to await my dinner. See, he may be really mean to everyone else in the world, but he adores me. For I am The Chosen One. What a lucky lady, eh?

Now I must leave you all, for I am weary.

* For those of you who haven't read the medieval text, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, do not worry, for it was a crap analogy anyway.

Resigning

So, rather than resign myself to doing a shite job for shite money, I resigned from the job on Thursday. The path of resignation did not run smoothly.

Firstly, I emailed my boss, who was at our other office all week, saying that I was having difficulty surviving on the salary I was getting and asking if there was anything that could be done in the way of a pay rise, however tiny - and asking if we could have a private chat. Instead of talking to me, my boss forwarded my email to HR, who in turn called the agency. So by the time I rang to resign, having received no reply to my request for a chat, Reed were waiting for me, claws out. Miss Squeaky-Voice, BA (Hons), my rep, said "Actually, Rebecca, we're very disappointed in you". I said "Are we? Gosh!". She then launched into a rehearsed speech about me knowing what I was letting myself in for with regards to both the job and the salary (and she managed to get the whole speech out in one breath - the lungs on that woman!!). Fortunately, 3 years of writing less-than-perfect essays and having to defend them on a weekly basis at Cambridge, has done its work: I argued back, in an articulate and confident manner. Miss Squeaky-Voice, BA (Hons) and her pathetic excuse for a recruitment agency have been put firmly in their place. And I'm still considering emailing her telling her exactly how pathetic it is to put BA (Hons) on one's businesscard. Wankress!

I feel as though a huge cloud has been lifted. The English weather, ever aware of its role in the pathetic fallacy, is displaying suitably bright blue autumnal sky and the birds are singing. And, what's more, today we are going for the long-awaited Chinese All You Can Eat Buffet for Sam's birthday - a banquet awaits us, all for £13.99 - imagine!! Oh, the food we shall eat!

In other news, my husband is incredibly gorgeous and an utter sexpot, so life is indeed looking great right now!

Doing a Runner

In breaking news, dear readers, I am running away from my job! Well, isn't life too short for doing a job that makes you want to pull out your own finger nails one by one, just to pass the time? Isn't life too short to spend all day pretending you're not playing Freecell because you're not allowed on the internet and have nothing else to do? Isn't life to short to be miserable for 8 hours a day and be paid tuppence ha'penny for your troubles? Isn't it?

For those of you who haven't already guessed the answer: Yes, it is!!

I am running away to a new place of work. A place that rescues gorgeous horses! A place where people take their dogs to work! Imagine! Oh, I shall start stockpiling carrots in eager anticipation of spending my lunch breaks making friends with horses - the fun I shall have!

I'm sure this one will be fantastic. Nothing could possibly go wrong - nothing at all!

Isn't life great?

Growing Pains

Ryan and Mo came for the weekend. We had drinks, funny conversations, serious conversations, walks and pub food. I got tearful saying goodbye to Ryan - he's off to Antarctica, and it will be some time before I see him again. Cambridge is starting to feel like a long time ago, and it's scary. Mo and I have gone from spending the hours every day in each other's company to catching up via email and occasional visits.

I'm not sure I like having to grow up and I miss the holiday camp atmosphere of living in college, where we were closeted away from the real world. It was a charmed life. The smell of autumn, the long shadows and the crisp multicoloured leaves, tell me it is Michealmas term and part of my brain is wondering why I'm not back at lectures, why I'm not cycling along with my scarf billowing in the October wind peddling furiously to get to a supervision on the other side of town. I want to be in Martin's cafe with Mo, drinking coffee and laughing so much my stomach hurts, I want to be in Ryan's room watching downloaded episodes of Southpark on his computer, I want to be talking utter rubbish with a big crowd of clever people in the college bar. I want to be standing on one of the bridges over the river Cam as a tourist loses his punting pole and falls in the river, to the applause of on-lookers, hearing someone inevitably utter the immortal words "that's so Cambridge!".

Then I think of the week ahead. Dinner with my sisters on Wednesday night, dinner with my parents on Thursday: I'm living closer to my family than I have done in over a decade. But this too will be over before we know it; the winter will have hardly begun before we are flung into the middle of an Australian summer and another exciting new chapter in our lives (we hope!).

Sometimes I just have to remind myself to stop looking back, to stop trying to look forward and take a look around me, where I am right now. We are living in a gorgeous old cottage, we have beautiful countryside on our doorstep, my whole family as neighbours, home-brewed beer in the garden shed, visits from friends to look forward to. I miss my past life, but I'm rather fond of my present one too.

But I'm still tempted to kidnap both Mo and Ryan and keep them prisoner in the cupboard under the stairs!!

Peter the Pig

Peter the Pig is my parents' friend. He is a pig farmer. That's why he is known as Peter the Pig. Once a week he, like many others in the village, gets visited by Paul the Fish. Paul the Fish is a man who sells fresh fish from the back of his van. He's a jolly chap, and his fish is delicious. We like Paul the Fish.

The only woman in the village who has attracted a similar title is Margaret Pudding. When I ask people why she is called that, their eyes glaze over, they smile in remembered contentment and say "Ohhh, she makes the most fantastic puddings, does Margaret". There is also Prue, who makes the most fantastic pies. But I don't think she is yet known as Prue Pie, perhaps because it sounds rather cannibalistic. Prue's pies are so good that when Nanny died, and we were all still red-eyed and raw with grief, Sophie still managed to find in our bereavement something to be exploited: "If Prue calls and asks if there is anything she can do", she said to Mum "...as she no doubt will, being a good Christian neighbour and all, tell her she could make us a pie". That's how good her pies are: they are worth exploiting the death of a beloved relative just for the small possibility of eating one of her lamb and mint or roast chicken pies. They would have comforted us, they really would. I drove past Prue the other day, as she was slowly making her way down the road, walking stick in hand, and I was sorely tempted to open the window and yell "Bake more pies!!!". Perhaps I shall call her Prue the Pie.

As for me, all I can hope for is that one day I am known as Becky Jam. I will be a creature of mystery, flying back into the country once or twice a year and leaving nothing but delicious batches of fresh fruit jam behind me. "When will Becky Jam be back?" people will ask, "I'm nearly out of gooseberry and I've been longing for some of her blackcurrant". "Ah, Becky Jam will know when the time is right", will be the reply, "just like she always knows when the setting temperature is just right - that's why her jam is so fantastic!". One day, if I'm really lucky, people will exploit the deaths of loved ones just for the chance to taste my jam. Then I'll know I've really made it amongst the other Great Named Ones of the village food chain.