Tuesday 31 July 2007

Back in Business

It’s with great lack of joy that I can announce that I am back from holidays, the Stationery Cabinet has been unlocked, and I am marvelling at how craply the company has run in my absence. God, my colleagues suck. Not only that, it’s nearly August, which brings me ever closer to my dreaded 29th birthday (all birthdays are dreaded as they bring me closer to THIRTY).

The holiday was good. We climbed a giant mountain, totally ignoring the warning signs telling people not to set off after 2 pm as they’d be caught up there after dark, and we were caught up there after dark, and I got scared. We were walking down this really rough track in the middle of a virtual rainforest, and it was so dark that the light from my mobile phone actually made a difference. And then I had this idea that when we finally made it down, the car park would be full of local chainsaw murderers, or that guy from Wolf Creek. The worst bit was when I was sure we must be nearly there, and yet the path kept going on and on, and there was a loud commotion in the undergrowth nearby. The Man said it must be a kangaroo, and he clapped his hands to chase it off. I was nearly sobbing with relief when the car doors shut behind us. Bit of an insult to the poor Man – it was obvious I don’t trust him to be able to protect me!

We also made it to Queensland, and it was gorgeous, except the parts that the locals have managed to destroy through their shootin’, choppin’ and general cementing. I recommend you go before they manage to annihilate the countryside entirely. We went to Steve Irwin’s zoo, where his wife what’s-her-name is having him slowly by surely beatified, and the vulgarity knows no bounds. I must admit though, it is a nice zoo. Anywhere elephants play soccer is fine by me. And we went strawberry picking and bought two wonderful pineapples, one which I’m still digesting right now. Yum.

Tuesday 17 July 2007

HolidayTime!

Great joy! As of 5:00 today, the Stationery Cabinet is closed for business until 30th July, because I’M GOING ON HOLIDAY. Hooray!! I am so happy. I will probably not update the blog until I get back, so my many readers will have to try and reclaim whatever is left of their lives now that I’m no longer a part of them, and get by without me.

Thursday 12 July 2007

Microsaaft Courses

Does anyone else hate those online computer training things? You know, like Microsoft software guides. They normally have some incredibly annoying American voice doing the audio, and there’s just something about that voice that makes it so I can’t understand a word they’re saying. It’s like it’s spoken by a robot that doesn’t understand the content of what it’s reading, and that makes it doubly difficult for the listener. I say doubly, because the content is also incredibly boring. It also doesn’t help that they use the clumsiest, techy language. It’s so hard to stay awake through this perky voice (that always sounds like it’s just about to run out of spit) voicing list after list of instructions.

I’m currently doing my company’s online SMART training guide. Geez, it’s boring. I’m only tolerating it by doing it in 2-minute bursts, interspersed between checking people’s blogs for updates.

I am so bored.

Wednesday 11 July 2007

Invasion of the Boxes

As my many readers will be aware from my post a few days ago, my parents recently returned to England for good after twenty something years. Alarmingly, they’ve started sending me e-mails about how they want to clear everything out of my room in their house – and throw it away, presumably – to make room for the shipment they’re expecting from Saudi Arabia. This shipment apparently comprises of ninety boxes.

Now, quite apart from the facts that:

1. Every offspring knows that your parents should never, ever clear out your old room; and
2. even if they did, there would still be no room because it’s so bloody small;

what exactly is in these ninety boxes?

My parents have already thrown out or given away most of my brothers’ and my old toys and other childhood stuff, excluding a few with high sentimental value, most of which my mother had already brought back to England on previous trips. I was also informed that they were not taking any furniture. So what exactly did they manage to find to put in all those boxes? Maybe all those festering old jars of food from the 80’s that they’ve always insisted they’ll use?

Actually, the main worry for me is that on their going-through-my room frenzy they’ll come across the two extremely racy books stashed in the back of my wardrobe. Though there’ll be some even nastier surprises for them if they decide to go through my brother’s stuff – I know this from my own snooping experience!

They are probably just punishing me for moving to Australia.

Monday 9 July 2007

More Weirdness

You know what’s weird? When you get on a bus that’s almost empty, and you think, “Ah, great, I can spread out all my stuff on the seat beside me and relax, because there are so many empty seats.” Then at the next stop, somebody (usually an old lady) gets on, passes all the completely empty seats and hovers at yours, forcing you to pick up your bags and scrunch up so that she can sit next to you. Isn’t that strange? That’s happened to me twice in the past few months. And the other day it happened to a girl sitting in the seat in front of me. She spent the next ten minutes looking astonished. It was quite funny.

What should you do? Part of me wants to immediately say “excuse me”, force the person to get up to let me out, then pointedly sit somewhere else. The other part of me worries about hurting their feelings in case they’re genuinely barmy. But then, by definition, they must be genuinely barmy.

Another weird thing: have you noticed, every time there’s a sex scene in a novel, the heroine is always wearing a ‘front-clasping’ bra (though not for long). Yet, has anyone actually seen or heard of one of these in real life?

Now this is strange: Parcels delivered not just to our door, but to the computer table inside the front room. Not that I’m complaining, exactly; it’s just that it just seems strange that Post Office employees are actually breaking and entering in order to provide a better service. In England they employ a technique I term ‘hit and run’ – they knock on the door, drop one of those ‘sorry, we couldn’t deliver your parcel’ cards through the letterbox, then run to the van and drive off as fast as possible while you’re making a mad dash for the door. I’m so glad they don’t do that here. I’m just perplexed because it doesn’t seem consistent with the service you get inside the actual Post Office, where workers are churlish, humourless and sullen.

The Man reckons the postmen/ladies are somehow sliding the window open from the outside, then feeding the parcels in through the bars, then closing the window again. Whereas, I think it’s possible that the neighbours (who have a key) are bringing the parcels in when they see them sitting outside. Still, I’m not sure that’s something they would do. I’ll have to ask them next time I see them.

Friday 6 July 2007

My Neighbour Has An Odd Relative

Our adopted cat’s real family has gone on holiday. The owner lady’s brother is in residence to look after the cats while they’re away. Now in case I haven’t explained this before on this blog, our adopted cat – let’s call her ‘Kitty’, to protect her anonymity – is desperate to belong to a one-cat household. So she escapes from her real house at every opportunity and comes to stay with us. She now has:

- own water bowl and food bowl with cute cat paw design (This is actually the second cute cat paw bowl I’ve ever bought her. I left the original one outside for her once with some food in it. That night, I went to bring it in before I went to bed. I didn’t bother to switch on the outside light so I couldn’t see anything; when I picked up the bowl I felt something scuttle up my hand to my wrist. A cockroach! Of course, I screamed and flung it away from me, and it broke on the tiles. A nice story for you).
- snack collection and regular fresh meat treats
- her very own cloth that we spread out for her to sit on when she wants to sit on the sofa or the Man’s best Persian rugs (which she ignores)
- toys – her favourite is The Red Piece of String, which is currently lost
- a throne - her very own chair, with a bundled up towel on it so that she can relax in comfort
- Coming soon: a scratching post (since the Man discovered she had been regularly sneaking under the sofa to scratch the corner of one of his rugs)

She is, of course, the most photographed individual in the household.

Now, by the time Tuesday came around, Kitty had been in round-the-clock residence in our house for about three days, blissfully happy that Real Owner hadn’t been round to take her home. At this point I decided I really should take her to her real house for the night. We don’t have cat toilet facilities so we have to leave a window open for her overnight, and she’s not really supposed to go out at night, so she’d be better off in her house with Real Owner’s brother.

So, we went across the road and rang the doorbell. I knew he was in because through the front door window I could see clearly see the reflection of his head in the hallway mirror. He was watching TV in the living room, but didn’t move on the first ring. So I rang it again. He stood up, slowly, then appeared in the hallway, turned and slowly walked to the kitchen at the back of the house. Now, is that weird, or what? We stood there shivering on the doorstep, Kitty staring through the front door window with her big, astonished eyes. I hope she didn’t understand what was going on because I’d just been reassuring her how much Owner Brother loved her and how happy he’d be to see her. We went home.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m home alone, someone comes to the door and I don’t want to answer them, I sit as still as possible, dim the TV if that’s practical, and pray that they’ll think I’m out and move on. I don’t saunter into the hallway, in full view of the person at the door, and wander through the house, completely ignoring them. In case you’re wondering, yes, the bell did sound, because I heard it clearly.

Also, weird, Owner Brother called me up the next day and introduced himself, and asked after the cats.

Very strange.

Tuesday 3 July 2007

Pull Yourselves Together and Get On With It

Apparently the whole of Britain has just had a weekend of terror. As far as I can see – and I avoid both news and newspapers, so I could be wrong – this is based on:

1 bomb – which didn’t go off – located outside a nightclub
1 bodged bomb job outside Glasgow Airport

Grand total death toll = umm, zero.

Well, I’m terrified!

I wonder how my grandparents, who went through the Blitz/WW2 would have reacted to the media’s desperate efforts to whip us all up into hysteria. I think it’s an insult to people both past and present, who have had to live through situations involving ACTUAL danger and fear, and it belittles their suffering. If I were someone living in Iraq/Israel/Palestinian territories/any other trouble hot-spot you care to pick, I would be infuriated by the pathetic bleating of the Press about ‘crises’ and ‘nightmares’ and ‘terror’ in the UK. It is also extremely insulting to the general public, suggesting that we are such snivelling cowards that we are scared to live our normal lives because of these rare incidents of terrorism.

Australian politicians are also spinning the recent events in Britain as fast as they can. Apparently, two failed bombs in Britain means that it is more likely than ever that Australia will soon be attacked, and we should be crapping ourselves. After all, why wouldn’t Australia be a terrorist’s number 1 target after Britain? I mean, you’ve got Britain – of strategic political importance both to the US and Europe, for geographical reasons and also historically, given its status as former #1 world power; and then you’ve got Australia, and its…its daytime TV export industry. I mean, does anyone outside the country even know the name of the Australian Prime Minister? Does anyone know where it even is?

And even if terrorists did want to attack Australia, and I suppose some must, I would think the weekend’s events should make us less worried, not more. I mean, they’ve shown us how pathetically incompetent they are. I’m relaxing already!

The media should be ashamed of itself for all its pathetic whinging about terror. I mean, I can understand to some extent that politicians can’t be seen to be brushing off these things. We elect them to protect us so they must be seen to be taking their jobs seriously. But the media have no excuse. They are trying to foster cowardice among the people of Britain, a nation traditionally known for its ‘stiff upper lip’ and courage (well, we like to think so, anyway!). I am ashamed at the impression of us that they are giving the world.

A Significant Day

Today marks the end of an era in my family. At this moment my parents are in the air somewhere over the Middle East or Eastern Europe; this is their last flight home to England as they won’t ever be going back to Saudi Arabia. After twenty-three years or so, my dad has been forced to retire, as he has just reached the company’s compulsory retirement age. They’re pretty upset to be leaving - even my mother, which is ironic, because she always hated living there. But it must be pretty scary to leave everyone you know and the life you’ve had for so long, to go back to a country where you don’t know anyone and hardly even have any family any more.

The house I grew up in from the age of eight has been cleared out and packed up. I can hardly imagine it. No doubt some Saudi family will move in now, and it won’t be our home any more. Once they touch down at Manchester Airport, I will no longer have a current Saudi connection, just memories. Now I’m just like anybody else. Now more so than ever, I’ll be making those virtual trips back, courtesy of Google Earth. Circling over the equator, zooming in over the Arabian Gulf then slowly pinpointing the exact, seaside location of my compound. I do that occasionally, with a little shiver of excitement and nostalgia as I get to peek at the neat little rows of houses that I know so well, hidden away in a community that only the few know exists.

Maybe I’ll have to go work in the Middle East just to feel right again. The curse of the expat! Once you’ve been one, you will never be entirely normal again. And I’m not talking about Australians who go to live in London, for example. I mean real expats who live in countries with privations and bizarre customs that leave a permanent mark on you. I can’t imagine my father blending in to English society again. I mean, he’s so weird, he only just got by in Saudi Arabia’s expat community! In a world of tax returns and reality TV and credit cards he’s going to feel like he’s landed on the moon. I hope he’ll figure out the way ahead.

Now this is really mean, but I must admit I’m glad I’m not going to be there in England with them to lend emotional support. My mother is difficult at the best of times and doesn’t believe in bottling up her feelings when she could take them out on someone else. The neighbours might have to move out!

At this point I suppose I should be feeling very old, having retired parents. I guess I just don’t accept it. They certainly don’t.