Hello to all my grumpy pals!

Had a mixed couple of weeks here. Things with my line manager are good again - although I will always be wary, but i'm enjoying the peace that brings. The only reason that they are good though I suspect is because she has now seen our management for what they are because she is being dumped on by them. The nasty part of me thinks karma is at work, but I don't really like to see it happening, although, she is copping what she was passing on to me before.

It was my birthday on Thursday and although I had to work a 10 hour day (my shifts totally suck at times) and I had to do it as a split shift (can things get worse on your birthday?) - I still ended up having generally a really nice day. My line manager came in on her day off to give me a birthday present, the assistant manager wished me happy birthday over the PA, then a while later I got a flowers and a big bag of goodies from all the girls in one of the other departments that I don't even work for to say thanks for all the help I give them which was really nice and according to the manager totally unprecedented. It was good for him to see that as he threatened me with a written warning a few days previously ... all part of the ups and downs of my last couple of weeks He obviously doesn't hate me though, because he sung happy birthday over the PA much to the amusement of customers and to the detriment to my ears! I'm traumatised I tells ya!

At home, YoungPlum continues to amuse me and we laugh way more than probably 2 sane individuals should do at totally stupid things. She had a cooking exam this week and had to cook a scottish meal ... she was going to do Finnan Haddie but you can't get smoked haddock here (how rude!) so she ended up doing stovies and Crannachan for dessert but without the whisky, we didn't think school would approve of that. Anyway, it turned out well in spite of our best efforts to self-sabotage. Seeing her peeling spuds was hilarious, she's never going to make it on to MasterChef!

Destructo is being moderately well behaved, just stealing the usual stuff and generally just because she fancies a dog treat, she's trained us well, she steals something and she gets a reward so she'll give it back! Dammit, that's another stream of employment closed to YoungPlum, she'll never make it as a dog trainer either! The Demento Twins are probably now full sized and cause chaos and mayhem. Climbing the screen windows or the curtains regularly, trying to push the tv over, knocking everything flying when they're doing mad spazzes round the house! Luna likes to slide on the tiles and Tonks now has found her inner gymnast after having been such a lazy kitten which earned her the nickname "fat kid in the gym" which is how YoungPlum always described herself (although she is actually tall and lanky, she is hopeless in the gym at school).

We're supposed to be going out to dinner for my birthday tonight since we couldn't do anything Thursday, but I'm too tired today so we'll do it tomorrow night, today I'm going to slob around being a chair potato!

I always enjoy catching up on the Grumpy posts and what's going on with you all - one of these days I'll get facebook... maybe

Keeping my fingers crossed for you LL that things pick up for you. Love and hugs to all of you xx

Plums how lovely to hear from you yes get on fb but we are between them both at times, glad things are picking up about time onward and upward go girls go.
Took my evening meds then two hours later took my morning meds so Im wide awake OH asleep on early shift tomorrow wish he could give it up or get a 0 to 5 job Monday to Friday without all the grief but hay ho.
Snowy Hope Dennis has returned nothing worse than not knowing where they are the mind does into overtime with worry
Gentle hugs and lots of love grumpies.

Morning all! *extra Plumwave*

laura, I agree about the weather making one feel limp.
Wet AND hot - how lovely! I need the rolleyes smilie here...

snowy I hope Dennis has emerged. Two of ours went missing for nearly a week recently when it was cold and wet, and turned up smelling of sheds and right as rain. Got themselves locked in, pair of idiots. So hopefully that's what has happened to Dennis.

It's been utterly mad at work this week - we're having a load of work done on the plumbing and electics so i have had to move rooms to the Lower School, which is a quarter of a mile away! Keyboards and the kids books are moved, just all the instruments, amps, cables, mics, etc etc etc to go...
I don't have to physically move them myslef, but just sorting everything out and packing it up to move it takes bloody AGES.

Big waves and hugs all round!

PS "Handy Beach" would be cool, shady and full of interesting rockpools, so i din't think batty would enjoy it at all!

hello
am worried about my Dennis

trying to stay positive though

so nice to hear from the plumster

Keeping fingers crossed Snowy

Almost two years since I've been on DS (anyone would think there's only footie on telly tonight) so thought it would be rude not to say hello to the GOW's. Hope you are all well and life is treating you kindly.

I can however confirm that there definitely is life beyond DS.

Toodle-oooo one and all

Just checking in to see if there was any news on Dennis - keeping my fingers crossed for you here too snowy xx

Heyup, Wendy!
Nice to see you pop in!

Sending "come out, come out wherever you are" vibes for Dennis. Cats are so stressful sometimes! (((((((((snowy)))))))) - our two were missing for nearly a week last time and turned up hungry but completely fine. Fingers double crossed for you!

Good News Dennis Is Home

He is home

Wont say where ha has been

Naughty boy! I'm so glad he's back, though.

And a very happy, though belated Happy Birthday Plumster.

handy - I could go for that!

Not much to report from here. Nice to be home. Sick of travelling. Hopefully staying put for a little while.

Glad to see Dennis is back.

Hello peeps. Happy Belated Birthday, Plums.

We had friends over last night to watch football and I am still recovering.

Five more weeks till I am unemployed - eek!

Yay for Dennis!

Glad all is well!

We had Sports day today in the village, it was lovely.

Thanks all for the birthday wishes

Really pleased to see that young Dennis is home even if he is being evasive about where he has been and what he has been up to. If he lived in the country, we could suspect foul (fowl) play ... badoom-tish.... ok - I should apologise for that, it was terrible

Working a split shift unfortunately, can't see the need for it today particularly, but ho hum, ours is not to reason why .... and all that. Just had a very quiet weekend was too tired after the last couple of weeks to actually do anything and think I spent most of my weekend staring vacantly into nothingness.

I need to find a new series of books to read. I'm entering a literary vacuum and can't find anything that appeals to me. It's probably more my mindset than a real issue and I'll get over it.

Right then, time to find something to eat - I hate having dinner before going back to work and I hate eating this early in the evening (it's 5.40pm) I like my dinner after 7 or it's just not dinner!

Hope everyone else has a superb Monday! ... or is that an oxymoron?

hi Plum

This is vastly underrated.

I think it's the associated dribbling out the corner of the mouth that puts some people off

I have been looking at some more modern Aussie stuff lately by Liane Moriarty. But staring into nothingness can be very relaxing.

It's tipping it down here. Guess the summer is over. Happy Monday.

Strangely enough, I have a couple of her books here, YoungPlum has read them and enjoyed them - I started Big Little Lies but couldn't really get into it. Sometimes with me it's all about the frame of mind I'm in, so perhaps I should give it another go. If I can't think of anything soon, I'm going to go back to old faithful and re-read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, that always is good for my soul.

Day off today, and it's a grey bleak looking day, but it's still nice and warm and I'm not at work, so i'm not complaining (much).

Morning all and night night plum

morning snoWy - I'm not going to bed yet and you can't make me

Hope all good with you now that the wanderer has returned.

Morning ladies!

Plum, if you're a lover of Jasper Fforde you might want to try the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. Personally when I'm fed-up I reread Bridget Jones Diary; it makes me laugh like a drain!

Cool and soggy here, but you lot know me, i quite approve!

Happy Hump Day

Funny you should say that about Ben Aaronovitch, I read Rivers of London a while ago and at the end couldn't quite decide how much I had enjoyed it. I've just started Moon Over Soho and hopefully will really get into it. Handy, have you read Jonathan L Howard's Johannes Cabal series? I love those books. I've never read Bridget Jones Diary, but I'm going to add it to my list definitely!

We're having strange weather at the moment. We're heading into winter which is also known as the dry season but it's wet, very very wet and getting colder earlier - having said that, a reality check reminds me that "colder" equates to about 18c overnight and 26c in the day, so not quite Arctic conditions, but I'm thinking about shutting the windows. How extreme is that!

YoungPlum and I have worked out that the Demento twins are conspiring against us. Every night we have to devise a new technique to get them into their room for the night, we even witnessed them looking at each other and nodding last night as if to say "game on" when we called them to their dinner and bed. It takes up to 2 hours to get them penned in some nights. We're convinced that after we finally close the door on them that they have a meeting to discuss where they went wrong and how to avoid making that mistake again. We've never been able to use the same trick twice so their meetings are effective. At the moment, I think they're winning!

Plum those Demento twins would get on well with Dennis