And ...

... relax.

What a week!

What.

A.

Week!

I am very lucky to have a great job again. A job that reminds me why I chose this career which is, if I'm honest, a bit nerdy, but which I am good at and which I have an instinct for and which I love.

My old job sucked. The actual role was the same as that in my current place, but the job? Well that was poles apart. I spent my life smiling at people I knew bitched about me behind my back (well ... they bitched about everyone else, so I assume they did about me too), pleading with people to tell me what they were doing before I heard it from a third party, repeating myself, being sworn at by my boss, and dealing with an overwhelming apathy from my colleagues. Every day was like walking through mud. Every week was agonisingly exhausting.

But you know how it is. When you do something every day, you don't notice that it's not normal anymore.

This week has been frantic. I had a "to do" list (I do like a list) of eight things that, whatever else happened, I HAD to get done this week. Well. Lots else happened. Loads of things came to a head this week, so there were letters and letters and letters, notes to clients, emails and phone calls and more letters, and each thing went to the top of the list and the eight things dropped down it. And to boot, we are working on a really exciting project with a client which, if it comes off, will be a-maz-ing, but which, in the mean time, is a black hole for time.

So today I found myself dealing with things for our big exciting project, dealing with the things that came in, dealing with the "to do" list (still seven items long this morning), answering the phones, and generally chasing my tail.

And in the midst of it, when I was having a little banter with my colleagues in a spare thirty seconds, it struck me how much more fun it is to be busy beyond compare at the new place, than it was to fight fire at the old, and how lucky I am to be there, and be able to enjoy the thrill of the chase again. I celebrated my half-anniversary there this week. And I can't wait to enjoy the next six months. But in the mean time, BOY am I ready for the weekend!

More Tea Vicar?

We are a fairly diverse office.

Six boys and two girls. Three fathers, and one stepfather. Two husbands, three co-habitees, and three singles. One marathon runner. An ex-military man, an ex-husband, and an ex-sailor. Four homeowners, two renters, and two multiple-home owners. One in his 20's, four in their 30's, two in their 40's, and one about to turn 60.

We are all very different. Different lives, different backgrounds, and different outlooks. But we've discovered a common ground.

We are all obsessed with tea.

Someone will do a tea round about six times a day, and each time, the reaction is as if everyone is on the brink of dying of thirst. Enthusiasm abounds. The steaming mugs are brought back through to us, and each one is grasped and slurped from, and everyone gives a pleasing, "aaaaah". There is nothing like a new cuppa tea.

One of our lads joined the company as a hardened coffee drinker. He would arrive and head straight for the Nespresso machine, with one of the little black capsules, and a small cup, to get a short sharp shock of caffeine, and go back, and back five and six times a day. Then one day he was accidentally given tea instead. And now he's one of us. We converted him. Lured him in and snared him. With tea.

But we're diverse in our tastes. PG Tips, of course, gets the popular vote. But I'm an Early Grey drinker myself, so I took a box of that in on my first day. One of the boys was given a sample of Redbush, and that's become a popular mid-afternoon tipple. And mint tea (or "lesbian tea" as it's oddly known between the boys) of course, for the return to the office from an indulgent lunch.

Then one day there were hangovers, and I introduced them to the wonder that is Twinings Morning Detox. Knocks all hangovers dead. Official. But it convinced us of the medicinal qualities of tea, and now we look to it to fix everything. Stress, hunger, digestion, hayfever. Everything.

This afternoon I discovered that there are no fewer than eleven different sorts of tea in the cupboard. I think that we've become obsessive. We have reached the point where we really only go to work to drink tea. I think that maybe we need to ween ourselves off.

I wonder if there's a tea for that ...?

Electric Dreams

I have a big report to get out this week. A Big Report. The first draft is all done, and I think, on the whole, it's ok, but it does need proof reading and editing and tidying up before it goes in the post on Thursday.

So, I decided to stay in the office this evening and go through it with my favourite editing pink pen so that tomorrow it can be assembled (I do so hate all that appendix and divider shit that crops up just when you think you've finished). I made a nice strong cuppa, I put on my Emergency Cardigan (the heating goes off and 6pm, and by five past you can see your breath), and settled myself in.

Then the power went off. The lights went off. The printer stopped mid print. All the computers went off apart from mine; the only laptop in the place, leaving three people blinking at one another in a dull blue gloom.

A voice came across the room, "email Hannah" (our secretary). Another voice said, "what's Hannah going to do about it?" "It means we'll have a note of the time when everything went off." I looked at my watch. "It's six thirty." There was a pause from one quarter and a snigger from another. "I think you should email her anyway."

So I wrote an email to Hannah (sometimes it's easier to do a pointless thing than explain why it's pointless) and pressed send. It went nowhere. "It won't go if there's no power." "But that's a laptop." "Yes, but the server's gone off hasn't it." "Your computer's wireless." "I don't think that matters if it's connected wirelessly to something that's off." There was another pause. Another snigger. We all decided to leave.

So on the way home, I was thinking about electricity. I don't mean in a physics teacher way. I'm not going to start talking to you about alternating currents and wattage. Largely because I don't understand those things. If it has an "on" switch, I expect it to turn on. But, in a slightly over dramatic way, I was wondering where we'd be without it. What if Messrs Ampere and Watt were passionate about textiles instead of current flow? Where would we be?

Well, for a start, you wouldn't be reading this. I mean, I know that I could write with a pen and ink on paper (oh, how quaint!) but how would the word get to you all? I'd have to copy out and post my inane chatter to you every day, which would be dull for all concerned.

In any event, I wouldn't have the time. If there were enough steam engines to get me back to south London, obviously that would be a help, but otherwise I'd be walking the seven miles home, then have to lay a fire to boil the kettle for my dinner, then wash my clothes in a pan with some bicarb. And of course I'd be doing that in candle light, which would mean that my poor eyes wouldn't be able to see to write to you at all.

And my chocolate wouldn't be chilled.
And I wouldn't be typing this whilst watching Eastenders on the telly.
And I wouldn't be able to talk on the phone.
And I wouldn't be able to charge my ipod.
And the clock radio wouldn't go off in the morning.
And the hot water would come out cold.
And I'd be cold (because my fire would have gone out by now).
And ... and ... and ...!
Oh WOE WOE!

So, have encountered about three minutes of powerlessness this evening, I am now feeling a vast gratitude towards Mr Faraday and Mr Edison and Mr Graham-Bell (or was Graham a middle name?) and all of their clever 'lectric friends. For it is they who made the great "on" switch of life work for us all.

I'm off to put the kettle on.

Blind Faith

"She asked me what my five year plan was, and I said 'I don't know.'" Amelia came over for a dirty curry and to set the world to rights on Friday night, and relayed a conversation she'd had with a particularly successful artist friend. She looked slightly wide eyed when she said it.

And with that, I realised that I've never had a plan.

Certainly I plan on a small scale. "Today I MUST push the hoover 'round", or "tomorrow I'm meeting Cat for breakfast", or "next weekend Kelly and Nathan are coming to stay". Even as far away as "my parents are coming for Christmas" (which, I suspect, will be another post, another time).

But the real stuff? The big things? Nothing.

I did a pretty vocational degree. We were all, apart from an astute few, who noticed what what was happening to them, going to be fed out of the education system and into the non-glamorous world of property, conveyor belt style. I went to a series of interviews and had an offer of a job which was conditional on a certain result in my finals. Which I got. So I went there. Not so much a plan, as a solution.

My next job was secured in a bar during the December Christmas Party Rush. The one after that I was head-hunted for, just at a time when I was feeling a smidge disillusioned. And now this job move - the result of a chance conversation at an opportune time. All of my career moves have been based on good luck rather than good management.

As for accommodation, I lived in a house share which was, in retrospect comedically dreadful (again ... for another time, I think) and which came to a mercifully swift end. I had two weeks to find somewhere to live. I walked past an estate agent's window as he was putting a new ad in the window, asked him if I could look at it, took it, and moved in within the week. I lived there for four years. Then one day an email about a flat to rent nearby was accidentally sent to me, so I moved there.

Buying my current home wasn't even something that I entirely planned to do. There was an incident relating to a drunk and slightly pervy landlord outside my front door in the wee-small hours, looking for a bed for the night. It was a one bed flat. I started looking for somewhere to buy the next day.

Even Loulou Workshop wasn't so much planned, as fallen upon. After a particularly miserable couple of weeks (work trouble, boy trouble, ill health, wallowing, self pity, woe, woe ...) a friend suggested that I could work part time and try to bring a little balance to my life. That was on the Sunday. On the Monday I spoke to my boss and asked if I could stop working on Fridays.

Friends can tell you about boyfriends that I've accidentally dumped. I once went for a drink at Kings Cross, and ended up in Lille. Just this weekend I went into the hairdressers for a trim and came out with a whole new look.

So no. I don't have a five year plan. I don't even have a one year plan. To quote a popular American sitcom, I don't even have a "pl". I have got this far though my life reasonably successfully, without ever having any purpose or direction. I bowl from one project to the next. From one opportunity to the next. From one chance happening to the next.

I just can't decide if that's beautifully impulsive, or dangerously reckless.

In Which Some Stuff Happens #2

1) My journey to work this morning was a series of perfections. I got to the station just as the train was pulling into the station, and got the last seat in the carriage (admittedly half under a particularly broad man), then got to the bus stand just as a fresh new bus was pulling up. Perfect!

2) I've been spreading my exciting news at work. Some people have been surprised, but supportive and happy for me. Some have been oddly stern and disapproving. Some have entirely ignored me, leaving me feeling like something of a social leper (mother has suggested I ring a bell as I walk through the office, calling out, "unclean!"). One was, I believe, a little jealous.

3) I got an impromptu invitation to lunch with some old friends. We went to a good old fashioned boozer up the road and all had pie and mash for lunch. It was wicked, but terribly, terribly good. Over lunch, one friend started a story with the phrase, "it all started to go wrong with the plaster on that bathroom wall. It's a long story ..." and the rest of the story was drowned out in our snorts of laughter. It's a wonderful feeling to spend time with friends good enough that we can all fall into the same jokes so quickly.

4) Regent Street's Christmas lights were turned on this evening. (Might I be the first to wish you all a very merry Christmas.) I had intended to run out of the office promptly and join the fun, but I got held up. Then, just as I was finishing up, the firework display started, and my desk turned out to be the prime spot to watch it from. What a lovely surprise!

5) I have all the bits now to make the headdress for my friend, the lovely Angela, for her wedding, so am about to setting in with pearls and crystals and wire, and create something lovely. At least, that's the intention ...

Going, going ...

Today has been a big day.

I have been feeling fidgety and dissatisfied with my working life for a while. A lot of it is itchy feet, pure and simple. Some of it is more irksome.

It's a strange thing, is the "9 til 5", when you think about it. I don't think my office is any different to any other. It's a strangely false environment.

I spend more hours in the office, than I have waking hours at home each day.

I sit at a desk with three close colleagues within six feet of me. Honestly ... if three people spent the day in my house, within six feet of me, I'd be jumping up and down shouting "get away, get away, get away!" within half an hour. But in the office it has to be OK. Because that's the way it is.

The only thing that we all have in common that we're all hired to do the same job. There is no personality test. There is no prerequisite that we are all friends. There is no requirement that we all have the same sense of humour. And yet, if we don't see eye to eye, we take it personally and are vexed by it.

I work in a company of 30 people which means that there's always something going on that no-one is meant to know about, but everyone actually does. The politics are enough to make Betty Boothroyd squirm.

And the love triangles! My life! Is every firm like this? There's always someone secretly chasing / flirting with / sleeping with / dating someone. Again, no-one is meant to know about these things, but everyone always does.

Recently, it's all just felt a bit like ... well ... school. Cliques galore and being picked last for netball. Really. I'm surprised I've not had an onset of adult acne to complete the experience.

But sometimes all these things resolve themselves without your really trying. I've had a couple of casual chats recently with another firm, and today they offered me a job! Hooray for me!

When I handed in my notice this afternoon, I was shaking. Now, I feel like with world is my oyster.

By Christmas I'll be working in a new office with new people. There will be new bits of top secret gossip, scandal and rumour. There will be new office politics, and new oddly familiar relationships with people I hardly know. And I can't wait!

Have you got the time?

time /taIm/ noun - the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future, regarded as a whole.

When I was a student, we went on a field trip. Imagine it. Thirty or so like-minded, bright, optimistic young things being shuttled away on a day trip. When you're studying property at Reading University, trust me, a day out is a fine and glorious thing. I imagine that we all hopped out of bed that morning with the giddy excitement of a child on Christmas morning, put on the uniform appropriate to our social set (jeans, trainers, and a holey jumper for some, chinos, deck shoes, and Ralph Loren with the collar flipped up for others) and skipped onto campus to pile onto a coach and hit the M4. In my mind, the sun was shining and there was Cliff Richard style singing in the aisle.

Oh yes. You can't beat it. The open road. The route set for an educational, but light hearted day out to see a case study in the flesh. That's right folks. We were going to a new housing estate in Essex.

Oh dear.

I don't recall much about the housing estate in question. I don't even remember what it was called now, or why it was a relevant that we were shipped there to loaf around carry out important research all day. I don't believe that, as housing estates go, it was in any way exceptional (which makes a girl wonder why we were driven through four counties to this particular specimen).

What I do remember is that, in the middle of said estate, there was a green, and around the edge of the green there were nine huge boulders. Each one had a smooth side, and in large, foot high letters, a word was etched into the face. Standing in the middle of the green, and reading around, they said "take time while time is, for time will away".

Something about the phrase resonated with me. I googled (is "google" a verb?) it today. It's an old Russian proverb. Quite a nice sentiment, don't you think?

And never has it been more pertinent than recently. Time is in short supply!

My office days are flat out at the moment. I don't know if you've heard, but there's this recession thing going around, and it makes my work doubly hard and half as financially rewarding. I'm not complaining. I've got a job, which is more than a lot of people can say, so please consider me grateful to be over worked and under paid (well, perhaps not grateful exactly, but you know what I mean). But it doesn't half take a lot of time.

And there's this new house. It's great! My own little set of walls, and I love them! But MY WORD! they take a lot of loving! As we all know, just the cleaning, cooking, washing, ironing is enough to keep a girl busy, without the sanding, wallpaper stripping, hole filling, hole drilling stuff too. Time, time, time!

Then there is Loulou Workshop. It's my passion. I would give my arm to spend more time on it, but the time it takes is already significant. I always have a hundred more ideas for pieces, than I have time to make and I really want to have the time to be a bit more creative. I'm bursting with inspiration at the the moment, but you know what inspiration takes? That's right. Time.

And now there is a new project. With a group of friends from the Open House event, we are planning a BIG local contemporary art project. I think that I'm too much of a craftsman, and not enough of an artist to be an exhibitor, but there's talk of management committees and workshops and educational projects. It'll be a long term commitment. Yesterday, at the latest meeting about it all, I heard myself saying "I'm happy to dedicate time to this," and wondered as I said it where I thought this time would come from.

This weekend was the first one in four months in which I had nothing in my diary. I didn't have to be anywhere with anyone doing anything, with the exception of the quick art project meeting yesterday. Three days to myself. Heaven!

So, I went to the supermarket, viewed a shop for the art project, had friends for lunch, viewed another shop, had an impromptu brainstorm about the project, went into the West End for a leaving do, had the planned art project meeting, went back to the supermarket for all the things I'd forgotten, bought and hung curtains in the spare room, baked cakes, went to a friend's house on a tea-and-sympathy basis, dropped some books to another friend, went on a fruitless boot shopping mission (more about this another time I think), cleaned the house, did three loads of laundry and spoke to my mother.

Isn't it nice to have a bit of spare time?