A slightly longer weekend

Work last week was not so bad, I had the job to sort through our sample store, removing boxes that were more than two years old. Not a taxing job, but it made a very pleasant job and time went by very quickly. And much to our surprise the factory manager decided to close the factory on Friday afternoon, and so just after one in the afternoon we all left work for a nice afternoon off and the whole weekend.
She did take me to one side to say that she would speak to me on Monday, I guess about the job, but gave no hint to which way it might have gone. So, the wait goes on for another couple of days at least.

Anyway, on the way home I went to Tesco to get the shopping out of the way. I even remembered most of the stuff on the shopping list, which was at home, and be home in time for two o'clock and most of the Simon Mayo show and Mark Kermode's film reviews. A good result.

That evening was the monthly quiz at the Dover Harbour Board Social Club; after leading most of the evening, we slipped to forth by the end of the sixth round. But hey, it was fun enough.

And so Saturday, I got back to the photographing Kentish churches thing, first of all to Betteshanger, once home to a mine in the Kentish coalfield. The church is in the grounds of a minor public school, and is quite delightful. The early morning sun was catching the flints in the stonework, and was really pleasant. Sadly, it wasn't open, but we wandered around the churchyard taking in and wondering about the possible stories that lay behind, and now forgotten, the stones.



And then to Great Mongeham, another wonderful church, tucked behind some new houses, but delightful too. More shots taken, and we stand and take in the scene with pheasants making a racket in the woods behind. The sky was deep blue and the sun quite warm.

We then head to Pegwell Bay for a walk along the mudflats. The light was wonderful, and the tide well out. People were out with spades and buckets, digging for lugworm.In the distance, waves broke on the edge of the flats. On the horizon a white ferry headed for Ramsgate. We headed to the abandoned Hoverlloyd hoverport, now being taken over by nature. The wind whistled around us, but the wading birds seemed oblivious to us and continued to search in the mud for food.



Back home to listen to the football on the radio, and then settle down to watch Norwich play in the FA cup on the computer; a wholly unsatisfactory experience, as the feed kept buffering and Norwich lost.

Bugger.

Let me intoduce me to our cats.

Sulu is the oldest of our three. He is 18 going on 19, mostly deaf, probably blind, but with a sense of smell so keen he can smell a slice of ham from the bedroom when I'm making a sandwich downstairs in the kitchen.
He has an underactive thyroid and possibly liver cancer, or something growing there. He survived a nasty nose-bleed incident at the weekend, but is better now after a course of anti-biotics.
He is almost always hungry, and loves food of all sorts including beans and cheese; loves to sleep and sit on anyone's lap.



Little Girl; AKA Stumpy; AKA Squirly Girly has several names, as you can tell. Jools has had her since she was a kitten, and I guess she is now about 12 or 13. She is a little eccentric, runs away when food is coming, is shy, loves to be brushed, dribbles when she is being stroked.



Oh yeah, we also call her Teddy Bear on occasion, no wonder she is confused at times.



Molly and I have been together since I took her home from the RSPCA home. She was so shy, she would not eat until she was stoked. She grew happier and bolder, and was a lively thing for a house cat. She used to sit on the window sill waiting for me to come home from work, and was a local landmark.



When I went to sea, Molly came to Kent to live with Jools and her cats. She is now an outdoor and independant cat, and loves to hunt and bring us gifts of small dead mammals. And frogs.



Everything is on her terms, but can be cuddly when the mood takes her, and she loves to sleep on the end of our bed when she gets the chance.

You keep me hanging on

Jools has pointed out that many of my blog titles are also record titles, and who am I to disappoint?

I was told by my boss/sister-in-law that I have a two day reprieve and will have a job now until Tuesday evening at least. There is no chance of a post for me in the QA dept, which is a shame. In truth work has fallen right off to be honest, and today I had an hour with nothing to fill other than to do some internetting, and so I knew this time was coming.
I am still waiting to hear about the job which I had the interview for. I don't know if I'll get it, I live in hope, and to be honest even a job that pays minimum is better than claiming the dole. And I do enjoy working there, honest.

Other than that, life goes on; we get up, go to work, work, come home have dinner and go to bed. And then the weekend arrives and time flies by and next thing it's monday again.
Special thoughts to my oldest online friend, Dawn, who is going to lose her job after voters in her town decided to not pay more in taxes than have libraries, or have less anyway. Every day I hope that I will read in her blog that the local council in Colorado has changed it's mind, but apparently not. The short-sightedness and political dogma showed in this is just shocking.

And here in Britain, the 5th inquiry into the Iraqi invasion and war began yesterday, and we live in hope that this will not end in another whitewash and that our glorious ex-leader will be brought to book for lying to parliament and the British people.

We're not holding our breath.

a memorable weekend

We came home from work on Friday night to what looked like a small massacre on our bed; we have a white duvet cover, and it was pretty heavily splattered with blood. We though a small animal had met it's end. We put the bedding in the wash and made dinner.

Some time later, Jools noted that Sulu had blood around his nose; and it was dripping. Wrse than that, he was sneezing and blood was going everywhere. We thought maybe he had an accident or something, and tried our best to clean him up and it seemed to get better.



Saturday morning there was loads of blood on his bedding, but the bleeding had stopped. We went to Tesco and onto the butcher in Preston to stock up on stuff. When we got back home there was more blood and Sulu could not stop sneezing. We called the vet and got an almost immediate appointment.

We had looked up the symptoms on the internet, and it did not look good; odds were it was another tumour, and it would be bad, bad news. We drove Sulu into Dover with heavy hearts, the vet confirmed our worst fears, but but said it might not be that, lets try with some anti-biotics first and see what happens.

We came back and Sulu was in a bad way. The vet gave him a shot when we left, but he was not well, blood dripped from his nose all afternoon and into the evening. He found sleep impossible, but at least was still eating well.

This morning, the blood was all gone, and he was breathing fine. Although this is not an all clear, this indicates it was an infection after all. We have treated him specially today, a few treats and licking our plates clean.



Other than that; not much else to report. Yesterday afternoon we went to the national Trust's place on the white cliffs to enjoy the gale blowing and look at the rough seas. I took some shots, of course, but we decided to have coffee back home rather than have a drink out.

We went into Dover to the library to see a couple of online friends of mine launch their book on local history; needless to say, I took a shot to record the moment. They have done well to have their work published by a good company. We bought a signed copy, maybe to give to my father-in-law for Christmas.



We had curry for dinner; a self cook one from Tesco; not as good as from a proper curryhouse, but a quarter of the price.

Today, the weather once again blew, but the rain was not as heavy as forecast, and so we went for a walk on Sandwich beach, which much to my anger is private, or the land approaching it is, and we had to pay a ludicrous price to drive across it; just to say we had been. Anyway, we walked along the beach as the tide was coming in, and then went back to the car before the rain came to sit and listen to Dessert Island Discs on Radio 4.

Then off the in-laws and I managed to fix their TV and cable box, which means they don't have to get new equipment after all. Back home and an afternoon in the kitchen; it's Jools' birthday tomorrow and she cooked three spicy pumpkin cakes to share with the folks in her office. I made sausage rolls with the garlic flavoured sausage meat from the butcher; and then we shared the work in making a huge pot of stew for next week.

And now, I am sitting here with the cats watching NFL on TV; The Colts somehow win in Baltimore and now We're in denver. Although I won't see the end of that game as it will be too late.

We have ways of making you talk

So, I had the interview.

They asked me what my last job was; I replied that I was a geophysical engineer. Or was. And then, of course, spend 5 minutes describing what it was I actually did. Their glazed looks showed they were impressed. Or bored.

Why did I leave my last job? Easy, company went bust; there's a lot of it around.

And why did I want a job on minimum wage in the factory? I think I answered that ok; I don't like going to sea.

So now the waiting begins. Oh well.

At least it's the weekend and i can forget about boxes and the stuff for a couple of day. I know that many people have it worse than me, us, and we still have options and choices.

The wind will bow again and rain will fall; another wonderful autumnal stormy weekend, hopefully with more looking at rough seas and crashing waves. Maybe taking in a local football game tomorrow afternoon if the weather stays calm and dry.

'Tis the season

As I have mentioned before, they do have a radio station piped in at work; I believe it's called Heart FM, and it is rubbish. They have such a narrow range of music programed, it almost wants me to scream when Simply Red or Michael bloody Jackson comes on again. I have heard more Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Take That and the such to last me a lifetime.
However, Monday November 16th was declared the first day of Christmas apparently. As we walked into the factory, The Fairytale of New York was blearing out. Now, in my mond that is the second best Christmas song of all time, but hearing it in November is a little surreal to say the least.
And since then we have had a yuletide hot on the hour, every hour, or so it seems. Not many people at work seem to like this, so I adopt my best Santa voice and go 'Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!' Usually met with quite a rude response.

This, in my mind, is the best Christmas pop song of all time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyEztz6nY9Q

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I have been told, again, that my time at the factory may be coming to an end. I have been given until the end of next week in the QA dept, after that, who knows? I have an interview tomorrow for a job on the production line; it's not the job I have been hoping for, but it would be a job, and would mean that we would not need another car to go to different places of work.

So, maybe tomorrow I may be asked as to why I want to work with boxes, I may have an answer for them. I hope so. So many other people who have worked there all summer are going for the one job; should I get it? At least that is not my decision. I can offer them all sorts of skills; maybe they'll see that and give me a chance.

There would be other choices, at the moment I can't see them; but out of the blue the other day, I got a phone message offering me the possibility of a job back offshore; that fell through, but it shows that that industry is coming out of a very slack period, if I want to do that.

I have gotten used to working at the factory, and have made some friends and actually enjoy going into work each morning; I've not felt that for some time.

We'll see how things pan out; either I'll get the job, or not.