3 October 2009 – Mattie Matiz, a new addition to the family

Mattie Matiz

Not long after lunch Philo turned up with the car he’d found for me. Truthfully, I didn’t know what to expect. On the phone he’d said it was a Daewoo Matiz but that meant nothing to me, you could write what I know about cars on the back of a postage stamp and still have room to draw a picture. The first thing I noticed was that it was silver. Silver is good. Had it been orange, lime green or pink I wouldn’t have been interested but silver, cream, white, blue (as long as it wasn’t pale blue) or, best of all black was fine. Shallow? You bet but, as colour is about the only thing I do notice about cars, it was the most important thing to me.

1 October 2009 – scary times

Last driving lesson for a while

Today I had my last driving lesson for a while, driving round Shirley, turns in the road and a half arsed attempt at parallel parking. It is the last for a while because, for the next six weeks I will be working nine until five thirty, five days a week and I don’t think I can cope with lessons after that. Once I’m out of training I’ll only be working 4 days a week (ten bloody hours a day though) so will be able to have a lesson on Fridays.

17 September 2009 – holiday preparations

Packing, I don’t see what the problem is

Commando managed to get the heating working again today. Isn’t he a clever thing? Ok so it’s summer, we don’t actually need the heating right now but it is one less thing to worry about. At the beginning of the week there seemed to be so many problems. So many things to get worked up about I couldn’t even begin to think about our weekend break to Barcelona. There was Mini Commando’s infection, an interview and, of course the boiler but, one by one they have been sorted.

15 September 2009 – longing for hot water

Full of tat but Mac likes it

Celebrities seem to be dropping like flies at the moment. On the news this morning they stopped going on about Michael Jackson for long enough to announce that Patrick Swayze had succumbed to pancreatic cancer, which was sad. It wasn’t that I was his biggest fan or anything but I did see an interview with him a while ago talking about how he was determined to battle his illness and I kind of hoped for a miracle just because of his ballsy attitude. Not only that but Keith Floyd, the famous TV chef has died of a heart attack, personally I was more surprised it wasn’t alcohol related, the man always seemed to have a glass in his hand. I did quite like his cooking shows, back in the day, though and it made a change from the endless clips of Thriller.

20 August 2009 – why do there have to be so many roundabouts?

All about roundabouts

Mike made me drive to Gosport today because I’d been telling him about the job offer and he thought it would be a good idea. It wasn’t too bad to start with, driving up through the village knowing I didn’t have to face Shirley High Street at least. Then I had to merge into the traffic on the bypass which was a bit scary. Luckily it wasn’t very busy but I kept thinking how different it would be in the rush hour. The next part was ok, it’s basically just a long straight road and, with Mike telling me which lane to get in, I only had to worry about going forward and Mike’s constant reminders to keep my speed up and go with the flow of the traffic. Personally I prefer to drive like a little old lady and let everyone else go past.

13 August 2009 – good news, then again…

Like a rabbit in a cage full of foxes

There were no jobs worth applying for today, not one. If I can’t find anything even vaguely suitable when I work for a recruitment agency what hope is there, especially as both Mac and I are devoting more man hours to searching for me than we are for all our other clients put together? Mac kept helpfully suggesting totally unsuitable jobs he’d found.

10 August – yet more bad news, will it ever end?

A bombshell I could have done without!

Despite all the not being able to eat over the last few days I haven’t lost an ounce this week. As if that wasn’t bad enough when I got to work today Jolie was in the office with Mac. They both looked at each other guiltily when I walked in. At first I thought she was there because she wanted me to work in Gosport again and they were looking so shifty because they were talking about me and plotting. Every time Jolie wants me to work in Gosport she and Mac end up having a row about it because Mac says he can’t spare me and she tells him she’s the boss, then he sulks. He looked pretty sulky as it happened.

6 August 2009 – a devastating blow stops me eating

Money, money, money but where is it going to come from?

They’ve announced almost a hundred redundancies where Commando works today and we’re both feeling a little panicked about it. So far they haven’t said who is at risk but I don’t know what we’ll do if it’s him. Yes he would get a big pay off because he’s been there forever but what if he couldn’t get another job? We couldn’t live on my paltry wages from New Beginnings that’s for sure. He’s beside himself but trying not to show it and I’m trying to be all positive so he can’t tell how frightened I am. This meant we spent most of the afternoon in silence staring into space while trying to look like nothing was wrong.

5 August 2009 – two of my least favourite things

A mad place to drive

I cant say today was one of my better days. Jolie called first thing and asked if I’d work in the Gosport office today. What could I say? I’d love to have been able to get out of it, the atmosphere in that office is horrible but even when I told her I had a driving lesson booked this afternoon she still wanted me to come in for the morning and promised to get me home in good time for my lesson. Just what I needed, a morning in Gosport listening to all the back stabbing and bitching and a driving lesson to look forward to in the afternoon. My two least favourite things.

2 August 2009 – sunshine and hunting for cars

The car that wasn’t to be

After the torrential downpours of yesterday it was a pleasant surprise to see sunshine this morning, especially as we’re were going car hunting. I’m totally useless when it comes to cars. If I was ever to witness a crime and was asked to describe the getaway vehicle the best I’d be able to come up with would be, “it was a blue car.” All that make and model stuff just goes over my head and I can hardly tell a Porsche from a Ford. Commando on the other hand is a car aficionado and has been poring over the car ads for weeks trying to find a car for me. Every so often he’ll show me one and the only input I can give is, I don’t like that colour very much.