Arrivals and Nervousness - and that's just me!

Well, my mummy arrives tomorrow - the house is clean(er/ish) and the front door key is hidden so as they arrive while we are still both of work, they can actually get in, rather than sit on the door step!!

But the big news is hubby has his driving test tomorrow - scary!!!! So, by this time tomorrow, he sh0uld be the proud owner of a category D licence, which means in the UK, you can drive a bus / coach with over 16 seats, for hire and reward (ie carry fare paying passengers). Useful if you are employed as a bus driver!!! Actually, if he fails, he gets another a few goes, so it is not the be all and end all if he fails, but being a competitive sod he wants to do it first time. Also, he will be so grumpy he doesn't pass. I will be keeping everything crossed and will be awaiting the text (sms) that will reveal all..............so be warned, no stroppy punters tomorrow morning thank you very much.

So fingers crossed and in a few weeks he should be driving one of these, all by his self!!!

This and That

Have been having a play around with the settings etc on the blog, as I came to realise, that although the black back ground was nice and sophisticated, it made my eyes go funny, every time I looked up from the screen, I kept seeing white lines. I changed the pic a few weeks ago, as although the first one I used was interesting - the arch over Durban football stadium, I thought I would use the one taken of me in Uzbekistan a long time ago.........about 18 years ago.........when not only was I much younger, but much thinner too!!! Well I am working on that.....the getting thinner bit I mean, as as far as I know, we can't yet turn back time!

Well I have finished the worst stretch of our shift pattern..........four nights, three days off, five lates two days off! Even though in fourteen days you have five days off, you still feel like death by the end. Well it is over now and it doesn't come around again for a whole six weeks!!!!

Having been on lates for the week, you don't get much opportunity to do much, as invariably you never go to bed much before about half one in the morning...need to chill a bit first, then you get up late...and before you know it, time to go back to work!! Has meant I have not seen much of hubby as he is still 'in training' so to speak, so is doing Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm. At 7am when he is leaving, I am still sound asleep, I am at work when he comes home and although he was waiting up to see me when I got home, he was then going straight to bed. Well next week I am on earlies for the first three days, so we will be getting home at about the same time!

Nothing much has happened in my work world............well there was quite a nasty murder at a local posh golf club. Member of staff decapitated the bar manager in a row................yes you did read it right, DECAPITATED...as in head chopped off! I still find it rather strange that we know all this info that isn't in the public domain.........like it wasn't released to the press until Wednesday that he had been decapitated, four days afterwards. Interestingly, although you have a body sans head, a paramedic or doctor still has to pronounce life extinct...........how about that for following procedure!! Other than that, the usual of people thinking that the police are here to solve all their problems (they're not!) etc etc. Did have to love the person who phoned up to report that she had lost her hand bag, which included details of where she lived as well as her house keys, so she was having to get her locks changed (sensible) but then proceeded to ask me how she could be sure that the lock smith would not keep a copy of the new keys and then come back to her house at a later date and steal all her stuff. Honestly.............the way some people's minds work!!

Well, back to sorting out the house as my mummy arrives from the southern hemisphere on Wednesday for a few days, so serious tidy up is called for. Now I don't want to give you the impression that I am a complete slob and live in a slum, but when you work full time, and shift work at that, something usually has to give, and in my case it is dusting (don't mind dust, don't think dust has ever killed anyone) and doing the filing......as in the dining room table is the usual dumping ground for all the post etc, rather than actually put it away. I am also going to have to find the spare bed, as we usually use the spare room as a drying room / waiting to sort clean clothes out room!!

I have managed to do a bit more of the outside painting, but generally the weather is conspiring against me and it is cold and wet all time. Hasn't someone told the weather it is August for gods sake and it is supposed to be warm and sunny!! Managed to get the undercoat on before it slashed down, but have then had to have 'another' expensive trip to B&Q to buy stuff to sort out the rotten bits in the boards............well at least I now know how the water is getting in! Hope to do a bit more when I get home tomorrow.

Still on nights!

Am still on nights, though tonight is the last one which is nice. It is not that I mind working nights, after all I only worked nights for ten months in my last job, but the human body is programmed to sleep at night and be awake during the day, though I am pretty sure mine is programmed to be asleep most of the day as well as the night, but that is another thing!

Anyway, last night, or probably the early hours of the morning, I came across this article on the BBC website. I spend a lot of time surfing the net at night, as my role is basically reactive......someone comes into the police station, I deal with it. No one comes in equals no one to deal with. Okay, we do have a few admin type tasks to do as well as doing PNC (Police National Computer) checks for officers - we have access, they don't - but that still leaves a lot of the night to fill.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11012356#

I found this article quite interesting as I am firmly in this camp, rather too firmly I am sure some would say. I actually have an 'O' level (yes, I am old enough to have done 'O' levels instead of GCSE's, though I have a couple of those too) in Computer Studies. The machines my school used where the old BBC basics and this was BW (before windows) and everything was in DOS (do most modern computer users even know what this is). Projects at school involved many hours with the Encyclopedia Britannica and the photocopier, none of this whack it into Google and hey presto, project done. Oh, and we actually had to write as well, draw grafts and stick (as in use glue) in pictures etc if required. Anyway, I digress...........my laptop goes on the minute I get in the door and I spend many an hour happily surfing. I feel slightly uneasy if I leave home without my mobile (cell phone to you overseas types) and my ipod goes with me almost everywhere. I get my news online, happily shop on line and chat to family overseas by text. I also watch TV, usually while surfing the internet - the advantages of a laptop and wireless. Seven to nine hours a day - IS THAT ALL??? If I count time spent at work, I probably equal much more. It does make you wonder though, how did we ever manage without computers, the internet, mobile phones etc? As I am from the generation that saw home computers become available, the use of the internet become common place as well as the birth of mobile phones, I guess I should be able to answer that, but I can't. When my internet broke a few weeks ago I felt lost, isolated, cut off and I still had access at work. Just another example of how we all become so reliant on things that we once did so well without.

Well I hope that tonight is a peaceful night with no dramas - well for me anyway. While my nights have not been busy in anyway, last night I spent over an hour with a drunk 'person' (struggling to be polite here) who came in with a problem that was not a police matter. Anyway, it was about 1am, not much else to do, so listened, tried to establish what the issue was, gave advice, listened some more, before at about half two and having lost the will to live I told him to leave or I would have him removed. I then get a phone call from the control room, followed from another from the PEC (Police Enquiry Centre - the nice people who answer the phone when you call us, either on the 9's or on the non-emergency number) asking if I had just thrown someone out of the station (yes), why (he's a drunk nutter) and what did he want coz he ain't making sense to us (well he wasn't to me either, but after and hour and a half, the gist of his story is....). Yeap, you guessed it, he called in from the phone box that is just up the road from the station (about 50 feet) on the 9's!!!!!! Let me remind you, the 9's are for emergencies, ie someones life is in danger, you witness a criminal act taking place etc, not because you fancy a chat or are pissed.

Well, it is time for the news, so I had better go an watch that to keep my average up.

The night shift!!!

This week I am on nights, so spent the day trying to sleep. All I can say is thank god it isn't hot. Have you ever tried sleeping during the day, when it is 30 plus degrees outside, so you have to have the window open to attempt to get a breeze, when the kids are on school holidays??? No......does not work, let me tell you. Normally, on the day of your first night shift, you try to sleep in, or if that fails, try to catch a few hours in the afternoon or evening. Well, yesterday I woke up at 8.30am, tried and failed to sleep in the afternoon and tried to sleep in the evening, and managed 40 minutes. Not good, as I figured that by the time I got home this morning, I would have been awake for nearly 24 hours.........argh, really not good, especially when you consider the 20 minute motorway journey I have home. I did have visions of ending up in a ditch on the side of the motorway having fallen asleep at the wheel, but at the special request of the traffic unit who dropped in last night, who had just been to a fatal on the motorway where someone had gone off the road, I managed to stay awake. Actually, I felt surprisingly awake at 7am, but by 7.30am I was fast asleep.

Night shifts can be a tadge on the boring side. The three we do over the weekend tend to be a bit more lively, it's amazing the fun you can have with the drunks who seem to believe that actually the sole reason for the existence of the police to to run them home when they miss the last bus, drink their bus / taxi fare or aren't allowed in a taxi or on a bus because they are too drunk. Ok, the police due have a duty of care if you are drunk and incapable - ie can't look after yourself, but what tends to happen then is you spend the night in one of our nice warm rooms (also known as cells) and have the possibility of a caution or reprimand or worse to go with it.......not a free taxi ride home!! Oh, and you still have to get yourself home in the morning when you sober up.

However, the four nights we do Monday to Thursday are generally a little quieter. For example last night I had the lady who came in and demanded help. When I asked her what was wrong she told me she needed sectioning as she knew too much!!! Sigh, care in the community DOES NOT WORK PEOPLE. All that happens is the health professionals who have many years of training to deal with it, don't deal with it, and the police who don't have many years of training, do deal with it. For example, I am considered trained to deal with people with mental health issues coz I have read the relevant chapter in the book! Anyway, I suggested to this lady that she go see her GP in the morning, as she did not appear in immediate danger and to my relief she then decided she was going to be strong and deal with it herself. You do always have the moment of doubt........what if she leaves here and does something awful to herself, or someone else, but we are limited in what we can do, and we just have to judge if there is an immediate risk.

The only other people I saw (other than officers that is) was the inevitable taxi dispute. Drunk lads get in a taxi with two girls they claim not to know, that the taxi driver claims they do know. Drunk lads have £2.50 in total and apparently tell the girls they don't have any money, so the girls that they reckon they don't know, say they will pay the majority of the fare. Girls get out first and give lads a handful of loads of change, which when the boys count out is about 80p! Taxi fare is nearly £10 in total, which drunk lads can't pay, but they agreed to come to the police station with the taxi driver as they thought they were in the right!! Oh, the arrogance of youth, especially drunk youth. So, after we established that technically this was not a police matter as it is a civil dispute, and that by getting in the taxi, the drunks lads had entered into a contract with the taxi driver........ie he provides ride home, they pay money; I suggest to the lads that 1. they must be pretty silly to believe that the 'large' handful of change (80p) was going to be the girls share of the taxi fare and 2. as the girls share was £5, they still did not have enough money to pay the rest of the fare.

Of course, the lads then claim that they had no more money, bank accounts at £0 and no possibility of getting any more cash. The taxi driver agreed that the lads could pay him at a later date and so they all exchanged details and off they went, though the lads did seem to think that the taxi driver should take them again, for free!!! But was that the end of it..................no! About ten minutes later the lads were back saying they had a problem.......and guess what that was? Correct, no way of getting home, so could I sort something out. No problem lads, you can walk. Well that suggestion went down like a lead balloon.............but it's five miles and it is raining. Bollocks was it five miles, about three at most........and guess what lads, you are going to get wet. Then I get the comment 'So this is how the law works is it?' Yes lads, the police service are here to deal with crime, not provide a taxi service for those who had decided to drink all their money. More satisfied customers..........I await the complaint.

Well, one down, three to go..................more surfing the internet then!

Sunday is a day of rest - ha ha!!

I think I mentioned in yesterdays post, that hubby and I were both going to work for the hotel that we both used to work at in order to earn a bit of extra dosh. So yesterday, at about half three, off we trot (well we got in the car actually) the 4 miles from where we to live into Marlow, where the hotel it situated. I hasten to add, this was done through the monsoon like conditions that appear to have become the English summer..............I remember the days when it was actually warm and sunny during 'summer'...........but I digress. Anyway, we spent nine hours helping look after a wedding of approx 100 people, serving their food, drinks, evening buffet and all the clearing up that comes with it.

Now it is now just over 10 months to the day since I found freedom (left hospitality), but in my many years in the industry I worked in almost all departments - apart from the kitchen, and even then I have been know to help plate up, even if I did not cook. For hubby it was exactly two weeks and I should also add that he used to be the C & B (Conference & Banqueting) manager at this particular hotel until he left for pastures new last November. Now, I have been back a few times since I joined the 'government agency!!!' to help out when an extra pair of hands has been required. It is quite good fun going back as a casual, no responsibility, no stress, just do the job, get paid, go home. The hours are still long, though at least as a casual you get paid for the hours you work. As we finished at about 1 am this morning, hubby did mention that although he had enjoyed going back, seeing everyone and being part of the team, he knew he had made the right decision to leave hospitality.

As the weather forecast promised that we would be without the wet stuff today, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to carry on with the stripping and painting of the woodwork around our garage roof. It has been threatening to require doing for a year or so, and the snow we had at the end of 2009, beginning of 2010 made sure that this was to be the year (see picture above!). Monday this week dawned fair - hot and sunny actually, like summer used to be - so as I was on a rest day I took the opportunity to make a start. Not wishing to over exert myself, I contented myself with the short bit from the garage door to the house and this was duly sanded and painted. Ok, I didn't have undercoat, so the wood soaked up the one coat gloss, but never mind I thought, I'll do another coat tomorrow. WRONG!!! Tuesday and the rest of the week it pissed down. Never mind, Sunday was the day.

First we had to make the dreaded trip to B&Q (every time I go there I seem to spend an amount equivalent to the national debt...........I thought DIY was supposed to be cheap?), to purchase undercoat and more thingys for the sander. £50 later I was ready to begin. Hubby did entertain me during the trip there and back by showing me what it was like to drive a bus, where you have to start turning etc, now we were in the car at the time, which of course made it slightly odd.........big difference is car drivers sit behind their front wheels while bus driver sit in front - by about the length of your average size car!!!

So I added an extra coat of paint to the bit I had started and then spent about three hours sanding down the bit at the front, over the door. I have managed to use £25 worth of the thingys for the sander - they don't last long - but I have at least got the undercoat on. Now have to hope that tomorrow is fine so I can add the gloss. I am now typing this with very sore arms and wondering what has happened to my rest days and so much for Sunday being a day of rest!. I did also have planned for today to clean the bathroom and clean out Amber, but they will have to wait. Amber will be pleased anyway as she takes it as a personal affront when I destroy her nest, despite the fact that I am giving her a nice clean bed..........oh that and the fact I also chuck out her food store!

I have added the picture below of my foot with the DIY evidence. I always tend to do my decorating / DIY bare foot, unless of course what ever I am doing could result in the loss of toes, in which I case I do wear shoes. While I was showering I discovered that I have dripped paint on my feet..............nice!

Anyway, apart from ironing mine and hubbys work trousers later, I think the rest of today is going to be spent doing not a very lot!!

Weekend off

Well we end this week with me and the hubby having a weekend off together!!!! Not sure when this last happened without one or both of us taking annual leave, but hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

I work a shift pattern which repeats every eight weeks, and in that eight weeks we have three and a half weekends off (the half being a Sunday on its own). Unfortunately, the three full weekends are back to back, but after hospitality at least it is weekends off!! Anyway, in the pattern we have earlies, middles, lates and nights, plus what we call spares, which can mean you do anything that needs covering, or if no-one if off, you do a cross between a middle and a late! Anyway, I am currently on week one, which is a short week - Monday, Tuesday off, work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, then have the weekend off. Goody, three day week...........pay back is four nights next week. but at least that is followed by three days off including another weekend!!!

Cannot say my week has been incredibly taxing.............it's August, and it would appear that the criminal elements of society must take holidays too, so our days are not as busy as they have been. One thing we do have is all the foreign students................the disadvantage of working in a well known university city (I'll see if you can work it out from where I live, the fact that I work for the police force that covers the area in which I live in and it's not Cambridge - got it??). Anyway, the disadvantage of working in such a well known place, apart from the tourists, is all the foreign students who come to the city for the summer to learn / improve their English. Unfortunately, the language schools insist that they all wear various items of corporate branding, which to them is advertising, but to the local criminal element (those who are not on holiday) it reads 'I am a foreign student, mug me'. Unfortunately many of them fall victim and we spend much of our day dealing with the fall out.

However, not all of these foreign students are the victims they seem. We unfortunately have to deal with an increasing number of students who want to partake of the 'insurance scam'. That is, they claim to have had cash, ipod, camera etc stolen, usually from their room where they are staying with a host family. Now, a lot of these host families live in some of the less nice areas of the city, but you cannot tar everyone with the same brush, and a bit of persistent digging - something along the lines of 'I don't believe you. I think you lost your cash, camera, ipod etc, if you report it stolen we will come round to your host family and they will be arrested etc, etc' usually elicits the truth - 'yes, I lost it, spent it etc'. It is all done to get the magic number - that'll be a 'crime number' and hey ho, your insurance company pays out! Now most insurance companies are not going to bother checking the details in another country and just pay out - and then we wonder why our premiums are so high!! Sad thing is, most insurance will cover you for loss, and we will take a loss report, give you a loss number, and no-one is blamed, accused or arrested!!!

Well, back to the weekend off. As I said, I am on the first of my three back to back weekends off and hubby has started the new job!! I think I explained in my previous post, he had enough of hospitality and decided to retrain as a bus driver. So this Monday he joined First Group, one of the UK's largest public transport companies as a trainee bus driver. Day one was induction into the company, day two was the dreaded Health and Safety - quite important in a bus depot apparently...........human versus 10 ton bus.......you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out who will come off better (wish someone would explain that to the pedestrians in Oxford!!). Then day three he had to pass his theory test for driving and CPC (another money making scam by the government, supposedly making professional drivers even more professional), and his hazard perception test. I am pleased to confirm he passed all three, so Thursday and Friday he has actually been driving a bus - all 12 metres of it!! Anyway, while he is a trainee, they only work Monday to Friday, so hence our first weekend off in ages together.

We are actually both working at the hotel that we used to work at (Macdonald Compleat Angler in Marlow) on Saturday so as to earn a bit of extra cash. The downside of being a trainee bus driver, is the pay is pretty crap, though at least they do pay him, as it costs nearly four grand (that's £4,000) to train a bus driver from scratch. As soon as hubby passes his test, his pay rate will increase quite dramatically, but until then every little extra helps. Also, after spending so long in one industry, it is nice to keep your hand in so to speak. We don't start until 3pm, though no doubt it will be a late finish - probably 2am, but we have then got Sunday off together.

We obviously not to sure what things will be like in the time off department once hubby is actually on the driving rota, though it does appear he gets a long weekend about once a month - now I am not taking bets on the possibility that his weekends off and mine will actually coincide, but you never know! And whatever happens, at least hubby will be working a lot less hours and this should certainly help on the being able to see each other front.

Life Begins at 40 - or so they say!

Well today is hubby's 40th birthday, and supposedly life for him has now begun. I have to wait another 2 1/2 years, so I have no idea what it is like...............if I'm still doing this blog then, I'll let you know!!!!

So, as it was a significant 'one' I thought that we had better mark the occasion, and so after various plans and ideas were considered (New York, posh dinner at one of our ex employers) it was decided that we would have a small 'do' at home. Various reasons - we wouldn't have far to crawl to bed, it's August so it will be nice weather (ha ha!), we could invite all our friends and people are always up for a good piss up! So planning swung into action - well I created an event on FB and a few texts (that's sms's for the non English) later and the party was born. The booze was procured, the ribs are marinade, the dips are opened and off we swung.

The day dawned dry, it didn't last! By midday it was hammering down and we cast anxious glances skyward all the time telling ourselves it wouldn't last. Well it did clear up, then about 2pm, hammered down again, which did mean that the garden was slightly soggy, but at least the evening stayed dry! A few dedicated friends arrived early (well, I collected them) and gave a hand with the preparation and by about 5pm we were ready to go. We had had another bit of excitement, which necessitated the opening of a bottle of champagne during the preparations (more of that later), but we were now able to settle down to the serious business of drinking those two barrels of beer, plus all the other alcohol!

I believe that a good time was had by all, initial reports are favourable! Everyone turned up who said they would, plus a few who had said they couldn't make it, which was nice. The food was eaten (do so love it that I do not have to take cold BBQ food for lunch for the next five weeks), sizable inroads where made into the beer and we finally went to bed at about 2.45 this morning. A few people stayed over, and the more unfortunate amongst them had to leave at about 7am, followed by the next batch at 8am - I saw neither times I hasten to add, but hubby did make the 8am departure and said he felt surprisingly well. Bugger, I had a banging headache, but I shall put that down to the diet and the fact I don't drink so much anymore, nothing to do with the amount I actually consumed!I also at this point have to thank our friends who turned up early to help get things ready and prepared the burgers and the bruscetta as well as those who helped with the washing up and clearing up throughout the night. Meant the house looked so much more presentable this morning.

Well I suppose I should also let you all in on the bit of excitement that came our way in the middle of the preparations. Hubby had his driving licence returned by the DVLA. Yes, I know they are not always the most efficient of organisations, take ages to do anything, lose things, etc, but the return of a licence is not normally a reason to get the champagne out! As I said in my first post, I escaped from the hospitality industry into the real world, and we were working on hubby making that bid for freedom too. Well, he was actually in the middle of his escape attempt as I started blogging and finally it has all come to fruition. After 24 years working in hospitality he has a new job, starting on Monday as.....................wait for it..............a bus driver! Well, okay, trainee bus driver, he has got to learn to drive the damn things first, and pass a test (scary) before they let him lose on the poor unsuspecting public. So, the return of his driving licence with the provisional entitlement to drive a bus was exciting as he was able to phone his new employers to arrange a start date (you can't start until you are allowed to drive!). So start date is this Monday, so for hubby I think we can say that a 'new' life certainly does begin at 40.

Well time to sign off I suppose. My poor body is crying out for sugar - that'll be the hangover then - and I suppose that just this once I will have to give in to its selfish demands. That'll be me not eating again between now and next weigh in! And aside from that, I have said I will help hubby study for his theory test, so very soon I am going to have vast knowledge about the driving rules and regs concerning buses - well at least that might help me in my job!!!