Day Off

*waves to hox* i am off too ... still in pj's and about to go into my shed for an hour ... ooooooh bliss ... working is so DREARY ... don't you think?

Shut it you two, or I'll be forced to tell you that I'm going on holiday on wednesday.

Working is indeed dreary in the extreme. Along with smoking, it should be banned in public places. :-) * P * :-)

Well I'm off work tomorrow...hooooraaaay ...and I'm going to see a sage in Berkshire to reclaim a misplaced Russian Wedding ring! I'm so excited and all! So if yous two (Hox'n'Fish) are off work today, can you kindly spare some time to buck up these phorums which have been a bit slow these past few days.

Well, I work from home full-time, and I just found out I'm getting a free holiday to LA next month. TRUMPED!

Last time I was in LA my friend got mugged (actually I love CA even LA so I am seething with jealousy)

LA? is that a note to follow SO?

No it's half a tellytubby....bisected at the groin with a chainsaw.

Yes, too right Jude. I will be visiting the severed midriff of Lala.

i've had a lovely time in the shed ... fa la laaa ...

Days off. They seem like nothing now to me, but I can't imagine when I am an adult. I don't even have the day off in USA though. As for me, I am going to get home, and curl up in front of the TV with my Mom and my little dog, and enjoy a few good movies.

My turn for a day off! *Toddles off to make a cup of tea* Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

I can't even remember what they are. sulk. Span

Dammit, I am grouchy! Giving up smoking is making me grouchy, being at work is making me mean! Help!

I seem to have days off every day now that I'm being paid to write. Although I am spending hours and hours actually writing, and have only watched This Morning once (okay twice) and the Jeremy Kyle show once. I have to stay well away from the TV once Doctors is on because I know it will be followed by the glory that is Murder She Wrote. Luckily I do most of my writing in the library where there are computers, so no TV here. I am planning a proper day off tomorrow. Pyjamas, mugs of over-stewed tea, the latest Paul Auster novel. I cannot wait.

I can't imagine you being grouchy span... it's not in your nature (or are you always on your best behaviour when I see you?)

Ah, ask Spack. He has known me long enough to loose the best behaviour entirely. I am grouchy when there is not enough fun. Sometimes this leads me in to trouble. Like this not smoking malarky, I will probably roll twenty at the weekend and come home looking and smelling like a chimney. But that was kind, thank you Fergal. Span x

Wouldn't it be great if one of the effects of smoking was that it made you look like a chimney? Ah, my ears have turned to bricks and my hair is a TV antenna. Um. Yup.

Well my day off was perfectly splendid. I rose at 8 and took some documents to wave under the noses of half witted council workers to prove my identity. I then boarded a train for Berkshire and made a note of just how remote yet close the pale blue sky seemed. Once at reading I smoked two cigarettes whilst waiting for the train to Midgham, a small hamlet where my friend doth reside. We talked about all sorts of wonderful things and remarked of the mysterious and miraculous before enjoying steak and kiddly pie for luncheon. After lunch we walked around the meadow musing on spring and the tenacity of life before I had to go back to the big smoke. All in all it was utterly spiffing.

You are joking that you were in Midgham!! I grew up in Thatcham. Lived there till I was 18 in fact... you must have caught the train from Paddington... Sorry, but that is exciting. I haven't been back there for ages.

Ferg, My friend who lives in Upper Woolhampton is a seemingly inexhaustable fountain of knowledge on the local history (and inseperable geography) of the area. and also...if I ever write my memoirs, Midgham Station would get at least one paragraph as I sort of shivered and limped off the train there on 17th November last year in a right mess! I have no intention of writing my memoirs which is as far as I can see the literary equivalent of compulsive masturbation.

Small world, I live two stops from Reading (not far from Thatcham)

In fact, Thatcham has a great fish shop where I buy all the bits for my tank. They have these enormous tanks at ankle level, and I have been know to browse there with my youngest and call it 'a trip to the aquarium'.

Wow. Cool or what? I used to work in the fish AND chip shop in Thatcham. It was my first job aged 15. I guess that's not where you buy bits for your tank...

I would have liked to have grown up there...I liked the Miss-Marple-Y Village feel of West Byfleet where I was born but my folk decided to move to Woking when I was eight. It was a suburban hellhole it is now a suburban hellhole that has descended into a deeper layer of hell a la Dante's inferno. Is it true though that in villages everyone knows everyone else's business?

A bit, but not so much as it once was - too many folk moving about, hard to keep up. There is a lot more support (I think) for each other.