Tag Archives: honesty

The birds and the bees

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Be Careful Now...It probably isn’t as prevelant as it once was, but in bygone days quite a lot of guys had to undergo a rite of passage…normally with their father.  There were a number of these rites…first beer, first live sporting event and so on.  None of these things though, could prepare you for “The Talk”.

Obviously these days, most kids/teens are more aware of STDs and how to put a condom on a banana than their parents are, mainly due to school lessons…but it wasn’t always the case.  I was unfortunately caught in that time when kids were becoming more aware, but parents weren’t.  A bit like when the government switched from O-Level to GCSE in schools…only somewhat more embarrassing.

Picture the scene; A 16 year old Laughing Wolf arrives home at sometime before noon…having been out the entire night at his girlfriends place.  Dad is in the kitchen as I grab something to eat and drink…small talk ensues.  Football is discussed, schoolwork is discussed, would I take my brothers with me on Sunday to blah blah.  I remember feeling a little confused…sure, Dad and I regularly nattered about little and nothing, but there seemed to be some sort of unspoken uneasiness.  I couldn’t quite place it, nor could I work out why Dad was refusing to make eye contact with me.

I took my food into the living room, sat down and put the TV on.  A few minutes went by and Dad came in, sat next to me and said “I think it is about time we had a talk son”.

I, of course, shit myself was curious as to what he wanted to discuss.  I racked my brain, searching for what indiscretion had transpired…that I could have been caught for.  Maybe he had noticed the missing Apple Korn bottle, found my stash of smokes at the bottom of the garden…that my tape deck had been broken for months and I had wired up a walkman to the stereo to hide it.

Dad turned the TV off and looked distinctly nervous.  He ummed and aahed for a few moments, and I remember thinking that I was in serious trouble…Dad is never lost for words you see, so his discomfort was instantly passed onto me and I didn’t know what to make of it.  He put his hand on my shoulder and started to say the almost timeless “Son, there comes a time in…” and was cut off.  At the moment he began to speak, Mum walked into the living room..sized up the situation, realised what was going on and said “I wouldn’t worry about it Gordon, I have just been putting his washing away and saw a load of condoms in his drawer”.

The realisation of what Dad wanted to talk to me about hit me…the relief in Dads face was visible.  He patted my shoulder and said “Good we had this talk son” and he was gone.  I couldn’t believe it…my Dad, for just a few seconds, was a walking talking cliché.  I put my uneaten food in the kitchen, and legged it outside for a smoke.

You see, I have never been to war…but I really felt like I dodged a bullet there.  That said, as I sit here now, I kind of wonder what he was going to say…after all, it could come in handy in the future.

Did any of you dodge this bullet, or were you forced to endure the torture that is “The Talk”?

Cruel to be kind

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Oh my God I look Cute!!Firstly, apologies for the password protected post.  Maybe I will open it up in the future, but right now…that one is for me.

Anyhoo, I was chatting to DS yesterday and was reminded (I forget how) about something that happened a few years ago.

I was walking through a shopping center (mall to you non Brits) when I noticed, some way in front of me, a parent caring for a child in a pushchair…as I got closer I could see that the child was in some distress and was coughing a lot.  Obviously, as a parent myself I was concerned for the little mite, and was even a little relieved when I got close and saw that he had calmed down and was no longer in clear distress.

However, I noticed something…something far more insidious and I recognised it immediately as the possible cause of the poor childs coughing fit.  It was an allergic reaction, and it was so obvious to me that I had to mention it to the father.  I guess that, as a parent, you can’t always notice the dangers around your child, especially from something so innocuous.

So, being the kind hearted parent and good citizen that I am, I leant in close to the father and mentioned..”I think I see what caused your son to choke, I am pretty sure it is an allergic reaction”.  The father looks up at me, somewhat quizzically now, but not dismissive of this strangers advice.  “What is it?” says he.

I take a deep breath, almost a sigh really and point my finger in the direction of the child…pointing directly to a mark on the childs chest.  So obvious now that I come to think of it, I almost felt sorry that this father was so clearly blinded by the love for his child and the distress that he had felt.  He followed my gaze to the offending mark and that’s when he realised and I saw a look of understanding….it was the Manchester United crest on the childs shirt.  A glimmer of recognition flashed across his face and he turns to see me nodding sympathetically.

“That’s close to child cruelty right there” says I, “You are lucky I don’t report you to child services mate” as I back away from the loving fathers swinging fist.  Such a strangely angry reaction for such a random act of kindness from a stranger.

As I rapidly accelerate away, I think to myself:

“There is just no helping some people”

Distraction…

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Exit st. Laz.Haven’t posted for a little while as I have been somewhat….distracted by recent events, most of them good.

I have a question though, escalators are stairs that move, right?  So why, when they aren’t moving (which, by definition, just makes them…well… stairs), do people look like bambi on ice when they try and walk up them.  I am fortunate in that, with my 2 remaining braincells, I can work out to just take the normal stairs….that are right next to the escalator.  Do these people think that the escalator with the STOP sign lit up will magically start moving as soon as they set foot on it?  Are they in some sort of trance like state that forces them to perform that same little jig that they do to moving escalators…you know, the one that you hope stops you from falling over but actually makes you look like the worlds most indecisive triple jumper.

Also, in the UK, trains are not reknowned for being on time all that often…so when a train finally pulls up, the whole station seems to want to get on it.  I can understand that as, let’s face it, you seriously don’t know when the next one will actually show up.  However, here in Germany a late train is anything over 2 minutes late…and they run ALL of the time.  A quick glance at the arrivals board the other day showed that the next 3 trains were coming no more than 4 minutes apart…and that continues all day.  So with that in mind, why did I find myself faceplanted into the window opposite the open door by an influx of people so severe…I thought that someone had announced a 99% off shoe sale at an expensive ladies shoe shop.  People were so close that I would normally expect that they buy me dinner…or at least provide some lube.  On top of that, my face was pressed up against a sign that announces the seating/standing limit for the carriage, which is clearly not set with any sense of reality…who the hell enforces these things anyway…I feel violated and dirty.  Alternatively, I could have wandered into a Guinness World Record attempt…I have been distracted somewhat after all.

Anyhoo…back to my week of distraction….to say that I have had the most amazing week is something of an understatement.  I normally blog when I see something that just grabs me…or reminds me of things that have happened in the past…but what happens when someone is happy and has pretty much lost his cynicism as a result…..no posts for a while is what.  Sorry 3 people… Wink

Actually, that should probably just be sorry MH…seeing as he has been putting all the pressure on me to write something.  So what could have distracted me and been so amazing?  Well, you may have read my last post about running the gauntlet of dental pain, that was fixed finally with a 3rd root canal to permanently fill the tooth.

I am no longer scared of the dentist and frankly just waltzed into the place pointing and winking at people in a Fonz’esque manner, jumped into the chair, threw my head back with my mouth open and said “Screw the anaesthetic, let’s do this shizzle”.  Ok, so maybe I wasn’t quite so relaxed about it, but for me it was pretty good.  Cue four hours slightly upside down with a dental assistant trying to help the dentist by being so close I thought she was looking for somewhere to sit in there.

I must confess to one moment of sheer bowel emptying terror though…picture the scene; I have had my mouth open for almost 2 hours, the dentists hands in there for most of that time and a dental assistant so close that I didn’t know if I should enjoy it or sue for sexual harrassment… Something is said in German, I don’t recognise these strange alien words of which they form.  I do however recognise a propane torch being fired up in front of my eyes and close enough to feel the heat…Fonz’esque Dave exits stage left, to be replaced by shaking like a shitting dog’esque Dave as panic sets in.  The dentist then starts heating up an instrument with the torch and I am desperately trying to dislocate my jaw to ensure this thing doesn’t touch anything that had not been numbed.  Relaxing eh Smile

After 2 and a half hours, the dentist tells me that they can now begin to fix my nasty front teeth…which they do…really well…to my utter amazement, and I get the hell out of there after a mere 4 hours….and I haven’t stopped smiling since, although that isn’t entirely to do with the teeth….

The day after the dentist, I get my new phone from my brother in the mail, a spangly N95, which is a frickin’ great phone with a ridiculously loud set of speakers, as MH and NB discovered to their near heart failure when my text message alert sounded, to that memorable scene from “A Few Good Men” where Cruise and Nicholson are ranting at each other about answers and truth in the court room.  Also, I couldn’t possibly confirm that, this morning, with the phone on silent and in my pocket….whilst I was in the little boys room….that I discovered that my phone was not in fact on silent, but may in fact have been on Outdoor…when the phone rang and it was probably the best location to be in…as I pretty much shi….nah, will leave it there Wink

As you can see…quite a hectic and distracting week right?  No you say?  Fair enough, I can’t lie to you internet so I will tell you the rest…I met CW a few weeks ago in the bar and we hit it off, although, as it usually does for me, I thought I had just made another good friend.  Which was nice in itself.  Then we started chatting on Facebook for a while, which progressed to phonecalls..but still, all very friendly.  Then came IPs schoolgirl/boy themed party and, along with lots of others, CW came in costume.  We were getting on great and then it happened…the first kiss (but not in the pet food section), and thus began the nicest week of distraction I can remember.  Neither of us knows where it is/could be going and we are just enjoying spending time together..but I have to say, I already know that that I want to know more and for the first time in a year, I am happy it isn’t just a one night stand.

I will probably be writing about CW more in the near future…but I have rambled enough for one post Grin

How was your week??

The pain…the paaaain!

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Smile!I think that the title is a quote attributed to the Hunchback of Notre Dame, which is quite appropriate seeing as I look like him at the moment. Either that or a hamster with loads of food in his left hand mouth pouch thing.

I haven’t slept in a while, thanks to what I believe to be an abscess.  There is nothing I have experienced that is more frustrating than toothache.  It is so focussed and there is nothing you can do to relieve it.  Cold irritates it, warm pisses it off, direct contact makes it fight back – This thing is the surly teenager of teeth and it is determined to let me know how much it hates me.  So I have to go to the dentist today, one of the few places that will make me regress to a scared child.  I already mentioned my fear of dentists before, so you can probably imagine that I am heading there with no small amount of trepidation.  That said, I have researched this guy on the internet and he is undoubtedly not Australian, so fingers crossed.  This is the guy that I used to take the kids to when they lived out here with me…so if I am a good boy, I may get to choose a cool toy to take home.

It is such a bizarre psychological response though, I am sat here typing, with just under an hour before my appointment, and I can barely type I am shaking so much.  I have smoked almost half of a pack of smokes since I made the appointment and I keep irrationally praying for the pain to stop so that I can avoid going.  I am a rational, almost intelligent man..yet I can’t stop this involuntary panic.  I know it needs to be done, I also know that he may remove the tooth…he will most certainly comment on the state of my teeth, but I will at least be able to get a quote to get whatever teeth I have left after today (you never know) fixed.  Maybe I should download a Paul McKenna self hypnosis thing to stop the fear?  Damnit, why didn’t I think of this when I was booking the appointment….I could be happy and oblivious right now….you know, my usual state of mind…

I will finish this off when I get back..providing I can type of course.

Ok, so I am back now and now I feel like Quasimodo…I can’t feel the left side of my face…or my lower lip.  Had to have a root canal done, which was about as nice as you can imagine.  2 things though, firstly fair play to the dentist who made sure it didn’t hurt too much, although he did manage to lose a piece of one of his instruments in my tooth…it’s ok, he “hopes” that it won’t cause any problems before I go back to do it all again.  Secondly, they gave me a free professional clean afterwards, which was great except it hurt more than the frickin root canal…what the fuck is that all about?!?

Still, it wasn’t an abscess although it would probably have become one.  The whole experience has confirmed my suspicions though, after having instruments in my mouth by multiple people….I could never be a prostitute.

I better look for another fallback career..I’ll start doing that as I try to smoke out of the only part of my mouth I can still feel.

Now where can I find those hypnosis downloads?…I have to go back on Friday.

Scared of the dentist…me?

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Uros Petrovic - RevengeThis post dedicated to MK, who had quite a substantial dental op yesterday and came through it with flying colours Smile

I have quite bad teeth, I will freely admit that and I am currently trying to pluck up the courage (and the money) to get them sorted out.  A brief checkup revealed that fixing them is not a huge job, but it will cost a bit.

That said, the main sticking point is not really the money…it’s the fear.  I have had a number of bad experiences with Dentists in my life, but one really sticks out.

Oh, did I mention that I seem to have an immunity to the numbing agent that they inject you with?  No…glad I cleared that up then.

A few years ago I woke up with toothache.  Nothing particularly unusual there really…lots of people get toothache.  Me being me, I choose to ignore it and hope it goes away.  It doesn’t.  Why does ignoring it rarely work…anyway.  Two days later and I wake up in ridiculous pain.  I head to the bathroom for some painkiller and catch glimpse of the Elephant Man in the mirror.  Essentially, I look like a cartoon version of myself…a cartoon version of myself that has stored a football in its cheek for the winter.  In short….not good.

I go into the bedroom and wake Sarah up with a pitiful “Help me, it hurts” and we head off to the dentist.  They agree to see my right away and tell me that it is an abcess.  I have since learned that with this type of dental issue, they must treat the infection with antibiotics before they can remove the affected tooth.  Enter Dr Australia.  I call him that not because he had won best doctor in Australia, but because he was Australian and frankly I can’t think of another suitable nickname without being abusive.

This guy takes one look and tells me that he has to extract the tooth immediately, abcess and all, as…and I quote… “If that thing bursts, you will be in serious trouble”.  He gives me two injections around the area and leaves me for a few minutes for them to take.  As he is prodding and I am still yelping, he gives me two more.  This goes on around 5 (I think) times.  So I have now had around 10 injections and can still feel everything…determined to work through the pain, Dr Australia gets to work (what a trooper).  The pain was unbelievable and I am shaking as a result.  He stops and informs me that I have to be still.  I lean under the chair, grab hold of the metal struts underneath and tense for all I am worth in an effort to stay motionless.  Dr Australia is still struggling to get the tooth out and after a few minutes (I am quite literally crying at this point), he stops and moves away.  Whereupon he chooses to basically shout at me to stop moving, telling me that I could die if it bursts etc etc.  I nod, defeated, and tense so much that I am practically breaking through the struts underneath the chair.  Eventually, he manages to get the tooth free.  It wasn’t alone, a golf-ball sized abcess (I shit you not) came out with it, and I practically pass out from the pain.  Free of the tooth pain and now only dealing with the aftermath, we stagger to my Nans house so that I can sleep it off.  I glance in the mirror and it looks like I just lost a fight in the UFC.  Bruises over my face where he was leaning and pushing and generally trying to get leverage, everything was swollen and my eyes were bloodshot.  It was a good look.

A few hours later we head home and I go to bed again.  Unfortunately, just as I get to the top of the stairs, I black out and tumble down them.  Sarah calls a doctor who checks me out and then informs Sarah that it would appear that the anasthetic had finally taken hold…which was enough to knock out a large waterbuffalo….and before you say anything, even my ample size only accounts for a small waterbuffalo…

Not all Dentists are bastards…just small Australian ones working in North Nottinghamshire

The dating game…

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DesireOk, so getting back in “the game” is a little more difficult than you realise.  Especially when you haven’t been in said game for quite some time and you are not quite the same person as you were when you were having moderate success.

So I have taken to trying to get inside the minds of women...not just inside them*.  How have I done this?  Easy, by making lots of female friends and quizzing them.  Also, by stealthily reading blogs..written by women who are in the dating scene.  Unfortunately, neither of them live anywhere near me, nor have they written expansively on why Uncle Fester is a much overlooked superstud…so I will continue to use their thoughts read with interest their take on the whole dating malarky….and learn some things along the way.

So far I have learned that Online dating seems to be considered as an ok option, providing you pay attention to some ground rules.  You have to make your first contact interesting, avoid using txt spk, don’t IM unless invited to, make your profile relatively interesting.  If given a phone number, call it…if they wanted to read something from you they would stick to IM or email.

See, us blokes can learn things occasionally.  Only occasionally mind…

The biggest lesson, that was delivered most recently, try and pay attention….especially if you have an unwavering desire to talk about your feelings incessantly, and the person you’re with does not.  Oh, and if ignored….TAKE THE HINT.  Do not, under any circumstances, write an email explaining how patient you were and try and lay the blame for you own failure to listen to them.

How am I doing so far?

I like it.  Admittedly, I can no longer count on stealth in my pursuit of knowledge regarding the female mind (damnable mind and it’s lack of blog imagination)…at least that part of the female mind that deals with dating.  It’s a start though right?  Plus, I get the feeling that they might find it akin to guys trying to read Vogue or Cosmo in the 80s Wink

See though, here’s the thing.  I am perfectly comfortable talking to someone on IM.  I am even perfectly comfortable walking smack into the “Friend Zone”.  So I am waiting for the information to start flowing from these lovely ladies on the “signs”.  I am great at body language at work, in meetings and presentations etc.  I can tell you if a member of my team is paying attention to whatever I am saying.  I can even see if people need more comfort, agression, compassion…whatever.  However, put me next to women in a social situation and I see them as foreigners…making no movements I can understand…it’s a bit like being an English bloke living in, say, Germany…and not speaking the language.  You know that what they are “saying” means something, you just don’t know what that something is.

So I make a lot of friends…and the encounters I do get into are not the ones I want….either they have a weird stalker thing going on, or they are friendships that I don’t want to risk for the sake of being “in the moment”.

What is a character from an old black and white gothic TV show to do?  Other than electrocute myself for kicks or have a shower set to scalding.

Maybe this post will drag out some helpful hints in the comments….subtle eh?

So…are you fluent in body language?

EDIT:  Since posting this I have been thinking and let’s face it, it doesn’t happen often enough.  I am no longer a child… I should be mature enough to deal with things in such a way that I won’t allow a friendship to be ruined by an attempt to alter the relationship towards the romantic.  Short edit, but an important revelation nevertheless.

* Sorry…no, really

Close encounters..

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Stalker.. of the stalker kind.

It is interesting to me what makes people tick.  It is also interesting to me what goes through peoples minds sometimes.

Let me explain…and whilst I do I am aware that some of you reading this might consider this a good thing and others will think of me as an arsehole….you are probably all correct.

I had an “encounter” last Friday night.  It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t sought, it just…happened.  The entire “encounter” lasted under 4 hours from the conversation starting until she left the apartment.  One of “those” nights I suppose (although they rarely happen to me).  I alluded in my last post to a mysterious note that was left on my computer.  The note basically gave me her phone number telling me to call if I wanted to see her again, and then ended with “Thankyou for opening so many doors for me”.  It is this last bit I am confused about.

I don’t recall being particularly chivalrous, and even if I was…there are only 3 doors that are in the way of the route that we took.  Does 3 count as “so many”?  I suppose it depends on your outlook…if you live in a building full of windows and get into your apartment through a catflap…I suppose 3 could be quite a lot.  I tried to think back over the night for any door related activities…I know I opened the pub toilet door an a number of occasions…possibly even on many occasions….but I can say with (some) certainty….I wasn’t with her during my trips to the toilet.  The door to the Anglo is permanently open whilst the pub is serving, and is in fact held open with some kind of futuristic hook device…so I know I didn’t need to open that one.  Clearly we are referring to some form of metaphorical door, which is far too deep for a hangover to deal with…so I did the next best thing and went back to bed.

After waking up in the same amount of confusion, and after spending most of Saturday wondering about doors, I failed to phone her and went out again.  During my evening of consuming “Jugs of doom ™”, I recieved a phonecall from the Anglo….telling me that someone had called to ask if I was there, every hour…for around four hours.  Thankfully, S resolutely refused to give out my number and instead said that they would pass her number onto me.  Having dodged that bullet…I continued with the drinking and thought no more of it.  Again, I failed to call on the Sunday, although this time it was as I was somewhat scared that I might return to my apartment one day and discover a bubbling pan filled with a bunny rabbit that I don’t own.  The situation was discussed on Monday night with JW, where the options were weighed up:

Option 1
Call her..explain that it was a spur of the moment, one night thing.  Apologise if necessary and move on

Option 2
Don’t call her..risk her visiting the Anglo on Friday or Saturday night this week and take the inevitable slap that will head my way at this point.

It was decided in a fit of macho bravado and testosterone/beer fuelled decision making, that I would take the slap.  The reasoning being that it might not happen…and if it did, it might gain me some kudos points.  Let’s face it, the world loves a bastard.  It also stopped me from having to admit that I can’t remember what she looks like.

Then yesterday…I get home as usual after work, check my mailbox and discover a letter addressed to me.  People generally don’t send me letters…well they do, but they are rarely handwritten and are generally asking for money.  That said, I knew immediately who it was from.  Sure enough, it was from my ‘encounter’….again, getting very very deep for someone that knew me for less than 4 hours…and the “me” she met was hammered on copious amounts of German Beer and Jagermeister.

Now I know that it is possible to feel a connection with someone pretty quickly, we have all of us (at some point) been speaking to someone that we feel like we have known for years after 5 minutes.   Knowing these things, however, does not equip me with the tools to understand what is happening here.  How do you form an obsession with someone you don’t know.  I can only think that she is one of those “Superfans” of the Addams Family and has an unhealthy Uncle Fester fixation.

Have you ever stalked or been stalked?  What caused it or how did you deal with it?

Oh…and does anyone want to rent a flat above an Irish bar?  One careless owner…

Eek!

Wombats, alcohol and beds

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warsteiner macroSo that pretty much sums up last weekend, thanks to German unification day, that started on Thursday night with a trip to watch The Wombats live.

Scousers singing…German beer – What more could a man want.  Apparently he would want Calvados aswell as the beer….before the frickin’ gig.  He would also want to be fashionably late…say..oh I dunno 30 minutes to an hour and a bit long show!! (Thanks Z)

He might also like to take his life in his own hands by doing terribly stereotypical German accents on a train filled predominantly with Germans…  At the gig, this theoretical man may decide that purchasing a T-Shirt was more important than purchasing a T-Shirt that has the slightest hope of fitting and would also be somewhat disturbed to think he saw his daughter on more than one occasion during the gig.  There may be some showing off on the train back, in front of a group of 14 year old German kids who were clearly of the cool bunch as they spoke English and had aquired a bottle of white wine…classy.  There was quite possibly a water fight, Z stripping and doing press-ups on the bar in O’Dwyers, a close encounter of the M kind and an arrival home of around 5am.

So that was Thursday.  Friday was spent in rapid recovery mode where lots of vitamins, coffee, tea, water and very little food were consumed.  Until around 10pm when it all began again.

Friday was a bad night for me, when the usual shots started to arrive….they were Jagermeisters…my alternative option was Glennfidich, which meant I had little choice but to drink the Jagers.  J bought 2, M bought 2, P bought 2..I tried to turn it around and bought Apfelkorn…but to no avail, the Jager had already taken hold.  I distinctly remember S asking if I was going to the Club Keller….I remember saying yes and I also remember that it was around 03:30 at the time.  The next time I saw a clock, it was 06:30 and there was an interesting note on my computer…

Cue waking up at 08:00….drinking a pint of water….feeling instantly drunk again and going back to bed.  11:00 and I awake to the realisation that I have arranged to borrow the car from Z for a trip to Ikea to pickup my bed.  I have been waiting quite some time for it, and am now officially a grown up again.  No longer do I sleep on a mattress on the floor..although since Saturday…I get a bout of vertigo whenever I get into bed.  After Ikea, I swore there would be no drinking that night…until I remembered the planned evening.  So I thought to myself, I know…shandy (Radler)…that’s the ticket…I will drink Shandy and all will be fine.  So imagine my surprise at walking into Schöne Aussicht…and ordering a jug of beer…with straws…. apparently my willpower and decision making skills got together and decided that I was wrong in my earlier preference and that they would get me shitfaced to punish me.

I do remember a fantastic birthday cake that A made for N…that N was looking for a birthday shag, but she settled for a Turkish Pizza…and no, that isn’t slang for anything sexual….I don’t think anyway.  I was chastised for saying congratulations to someone else before their birthday actually started…damnable foreign cultures.  I spent a long time talking to a guy from Wakefield….which was pretty surreal now I come to think of it.  I kind of remember staggering back home around 04:00, getting a Kebab…taking 2 mouthfuls and throwing it away.  I will never, however, forget how I felt on Sunday….a day where I did not leave the apartment…and survived by drinking coffee, smoking and chewing Ibuprofen/Paracetemol like smarties.

Then, on Monday, with an evening of relaxation planned…JW turns up from Iraq on a flying visit.  Suffice to say I got home around 2 and am regretting it as I write this…I just want my spangly new bed.

Also..is it somewhat dodgy that I got the bed and camera that I have been waiting for…..at the same time?

How was your weekend?

Working from home…

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2008AUG121652So over the last couple of weeks I have just been completely unable to get anything done at work.  Either I have spent entire days in meetings, or when I am actually at my desk, operational things get the better of me and I don’t manage to get anywhere with my tasks.

I suppose these are the trials and tribulations of my job really, but the other day I managed to get approval to work a couple of hours from home.  Surprisingly enough, in 2 hours I had achieved what had taken me weeks to get less than a quarter of the way through.

I am one of those people that benefits from being able to have a smoke, drink coffee and avoid the phones.  I stick my music on and get into a groove of writing…unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work for writing the blog Frown  Maybe I am just picking the wrong music for that…the Benny Hill theme tune is probably more appropriate.

If I am going to work from home though, I can’t get into my usual routine of getting out of my work clothes and sticking a pair of shorts on.  I have to stay in my work clothes or I actually start to relax and nothing gets done.  Which is not normally a problem, unless I am on a mad deadline…like the other day I suppose.

It is dangerously easy to get distracted though.  Despite getting everything done in 2 hours, it is fair to say that the 2 hours were not entirely contiguous….

Things I definitely did not do (in case my boss is watching):

Watch the latest Prison Break
Go to the shops to buy stuff
Check things out on Ebay
Watch the latest Heroes
Watch Dylan Moran
Surf and find new and interesting diet methods… and then ingest my bodyweight in snack foods
Exercise

Things I definitely did do:

Work solidly the whole time I was at home until the work was complete.

See…aren’t I good Smile

I think the mistake was becoming half-relaxed.  I knew that if I got out of my work clothes, nothing would get done…so I kept my trousers on, but took everything else off.  Lending itself to this state of half work/half relaxed.

I also couldn’t help thinking of the Simpsons episode where Homer gets to work from home.  Ok, so I wasn’t wearing one of those “big guy” dresses, and my failure to concentrate wouldn’t cause a potential nuclear meltdown and cause me to become a human plug to save everyone…but still…

I suppose on reflection, my innate British fear of being caught doing anything wrong, led my working from home experience to be somewhat dull…

What would you have gotten up to?