Me Myself and I

I think that I've alluded in the past to the fact that I work in property. In fact, I'm a chartered surveyor. Sorry ... that should read "Chartered Surveyor". Please note the capitals. It's not like being a heart surgeon or a barrister, I realise, but it took a lot of work and needs some maintaining and is something that I'm pretty proud of.

To be passed off by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, you have to sit an interview. One hour of grilling on anything that you (a) claim to have done in the course of your training, and (b) anything that you ought to have covered in the course of your training. A favourite way to trip up the slightly wobbly candidate is to ask them to explain the difference between "price", "value" and "worth" without using those three words. It's tricky. Try it now. Go on ...

OK? Now try this. Explain "isolation", "solitude" and "loneliness" without using those three words.

I know, it's really just semantics. But maybe that's what matters? The minute difference and the detail. I get chastened regularly for using the word "nice" in a positive way, when really it's so very dismissive. And just this evening, we were teasing a colleague for saying that he wanted to be "fresh" for an openly gay client. The interpretation of a word. The way we choose to define a particular word is critical.

So to that end, I should confess, partly to The Readers (yes ... that's all of you), and specifically to one particular reader (and neighbour and friend and role model ...) that I recently deliberately interpreted her question to enable me to tell a half truth. I seek forgiveness.

When asked by said friend recently if I liked my life, and if I liked being on my own, I said yes. I have a good life. I have a nice house, good friends, a job (nay, a career), good health, a family who love me and who I love. I have a car and long legs and hair that (usually) goes where it's put. I have a good life. And do I like it? Yes. I like all the elements of my life. I'm fundamentally lucky and I appreciate that. So it wasn't a lie. I like my life.

And do I like being on my own? Well I guess that's where the semantics comes into it all.

Isolation. Technically, according to the OED, "the process of being isolated ... for patients with infectious diseases ..." Well maybe that's a little extreme. But I would say that isolation is very factual. I am not alone. I have, as I've mentioned, a lovely group of friends, plus colleagues I can socialise with, plus nice neighbours. I'm not isolated. I'm surrounded!

Solitude. OED offers the following: "the state or situation of being alone: she savoured her few hours of freedom and solitude." which I rather like. The example drawn paints solitude as a positive, which I wholeheartedly approve of. Solitude is a lovely and fulfilling thing. It's all about being able to come and go as you please. Solitude is being able to wear your jarmas all day on a Sunday. Solitude is being able to wee with the door open. I love it!

And loneliness? "Unfrequented and remote" apparently. I'd go further. It's when you wake in the morning and the emptiness of the other side of the bed makes you feel agoraphobic. It's hearing the empty seats in the lounge screaming at you. It's the bursting feeling of unspoken words churning in your head and loitering on the tip of your tongue. It's saying goodbye to a friend at the end of an evening and resenting the fact that they are going home to a share of the sofa or a pre-warmed bed. It's a void that feels incapable of being plugged. It's endless. What is loneliness? It's being in the house now, alone, and being aware that I occupy one corner of the sofa in the corner of one room, on the ground floor of the house and the rest of the house is full of emptiness.

So so I like my life? Yes, I do actually. The up side of singledom is that I can please myself all the time, so to not like my life when it's all mine would be a waste, don't you think? I like my life.

And do I like being on my own? No. I loathe it. It's not how we were designed and it's not how we're meant to be. It's not good for body or soul and it's something that clings to me always. But it's a hard habit to shake, so I hope you understand why I told a small pork pie.

And, my lovely friend, remember this - never envy someone else their life, because you never know what it's really like. And however overwhelming you feel your life is, it beats life being underwhelmed, Trust me.

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!

How to be hot

It always strikes me as funny, in these first few days of a new season, that everyone forgets what to do with the new clime.

Today, inevitably, the temperature in the office started creeping up until, around mid morning, it was decidedly sticky. "I'm so hot I can't think," moaned one of the partners. "I don't know what to do with myself. I need to do something to cool down." There was a pause. We all looked at him, waiting to see what he was going to do. He looked at his watch and said, "oh look! Time for elevenses. I'll put the kettle on! Tea all 'round?"

An hour later, it was hotter. We all slouched at our desks fanning ourselves with property journals and leases. (Well ... they have to be useful for something!) Having not yet done a full 12 months in our office, I still find, from time to time, that I don't know where things are, but I assume my longer serving colleagues do. I caught the eye of one, and wondered whether we ought to dip into petty cash to buy some fans. "Oh, we've got loads of fans," he said, hopping from his seat and darting around the office pulling desk fans from cupboards and drawers that I didn't even knew existed. When five fans were propelling a clammy breeze wafted through the office, he pottered back to his desk explaining that he'd forgotten that we had the means of cooling down.

People's general attire is also a bit wonky still. I went for a short walk at lunchtime, and spent my time gawping (perhaps in an indiscreet manner) at people's clothes, and realised that I wasn't the only person to wake up this morning and realise that I couldn't remember what to wear on a hot day at work. People in the queue ahead of me at the sandwich bar distractedly tugged at the hems of skirts too short for non-tight-wearing legs, and hot feet were slipped out of heavy shoes. Men, used to putting on their suit jackets to leave the office, fidgeted awkwardly, not yet used to the more causal dress code which we can enjoy for the next few months. Summer skirts and winter jackets, floral frocks and big boots, or ... worst of all sins ... open toed shoes and tights! AAAGGGHHH!

No-one seems quite comfortable enough to fully embrace the summer yet. But this afternoon, as I cast my eyes around an office of people all sitting at their desks devouring ice-lollies, I got the feeling that it wouldn't take us long to get the hang of things.

This Weekend (8) ...

It. Has. Been. Glorious!
I have basically fallen from food to sun to food in sun to food and sun, so this post might get a bit samey.

1) Thursday was a write off. The Boss turned 60 last week, so we went for lunch to celebrate, and that was really the end of the day. It was good to all let our hair down together, in the knowledge that the only people expecting us to go back to the office were also letting their hair down. Everyone around the table had a story about drunkenness turned bad. One involved naked sleepwalking in a hotel. Another involved sitting on a lumpy sofa at a new girlfriend's house, only to discover that he was actually sitting on the (now deceased) family cat.

2) Friday morning dawned bright and sunny, and my mood with it. I had a tentative plan for coffee with a girlfriend which didn't materialise, but being as I'd made an effort to wear clothes that were not just clean, but also fitted (a rare treat) I took myself to a favourite cafe for brunch, with a good book and no mobile phone, and only felt slightly guilty that I wasn't doing something more productive.

3) On Friday night I had some girlfriends around for a curry and a gossip. Living here has given me the chance to meet some fabulous ladies and make some great friends. As the fabulous Amelia observes, we're turning into a right little local gang! (By the way, you can sign up for her next experimental art e-course here) All was going well until a friend of hers popped around as we finished dinner to collect something from her, stayed for a quick drink, and left at 4am, by which time the wheels had well and truely fallen off. Of deary me!!

4) So if goes without saying that Saturday started slowly. Plans to go to the local school boot fair and plant sale went to pot, whilst I wallowed, hungover, in my pit and felt sorry for myself. A cocktail of nurofen, Twinings detox tea, and two more hours sleep was enough to prize me out of bed and into the shower, which in turn was enough to get me into the kitchen and making a jug of coffee, and after about a litre of that, I was able to face the day.

5) By that point, I'd pretty much decided that the best way to spend the day was to sit in the garden with a book and a bottle of diet coke, so that's exactly what I did. I didn't make the jewellery that I was meant to make, or clean my car, or put away my winter clothes, or paint the dining room furniture, or write to my friend or anything. I just sat. And read. And sunned. And enjoyed it.

6) Lovely Sophie and Lovely Steve (a lovely couple) invited me and three lovely friends around for dinner on Saturday. It was, as you might glean, lovely. We sat in their garden, eating barbecue and the salads that Jules and Lewis had brought, then the Eton mess that I took, and drank the pink prosecco that Matthew took (well ... I drank more coke ...) and nattered the night away.

7) With an existing arrangement to see my oldest friend in the world for lunch today, on impulse I sent a message to another old friend from our gang to see if he'd like to join us. Ten minutes later he called to say that he was on his way. I was still in my pyjamas, eating my breakfast, and got ready at break-neck speeds!

8) Sitting in the garden with Andy, reading the papers, and waiting for Angela to join us, we chatted about mutual friends, plans for forthcoming social engagements, and sometimes, nothing at all.

9) And later, with Angela, we sat around talking about her newly announced pregnancy, the terrible terrible names some people give their babies, new houses, knitting patterns and the market for maternity bridesmaid dresses. And sometimes we talked about nothing at all.

10) So now, here we are again, at Sunday evening. Slow, easy films on the telly, a warm breeze chasing through the house from the open lounge window to the open kitchen door,and a cup of tea by my side. And now ... to bed. G'night.

This weekend (4) ...

... has been a bunch of poo.

But you don't want to hear about that. And I've been getting into a bit of a "this weekend" kind of a grove on a Sunday evening, so I think we should continue, setting aside the poo, and instead picking out some poo-less highlights.

And so we begin ...

1) I met up with some old colleagues after work on Thursday. They are from two jobs ago, but walking into the bar to meet them, it felt like no time had passed. We fell straight back into the old patter immediately. "I am a very important person." "Well ... fairly important".

2) Fridays are normally Tooting based, or for escaping the city entirely. But this weekend, I headed into the West End as a lady-wot-lunches. It's a rare treat to be a tourist in my own city, and to amble without purpose or timetable.

3) Lunch with my friend Abi was, as predicted, highly entertaining. She has been internet dating on E-Harmony (as seen on TV) but complained that no man they matched her with was attractive. "Abs, isn't that the site where they match you on a deeper level?" "Yeah, but bugger that!"

4) I stopped my drifting mid-afternoon to sit down for a cuppa. Casting my eye around the other customers in the coffee shop, I spotted a "lady" who must surely be a man. It's the wig that first gave it away (it was a tad skew-wiff), but the square jaw and lack of waist completes the look. But I realised, when looking at him (her?) I was really thinking, "I'd kill for legs like that."

5) The late morning train to Dorking involved changing twice, which was far less trouble than I feared. As I got off the train at Deepdene station my friend, who had travelled from Brighton, got off the same train and we discovered that we'd inadvertently done the last leg of the trip together.

6) We wandered into a dress shop, selling beautiful things that neither of us could afford. Part of the window display was a lovely carved hand mirror which I pointed out to my friend. The shop assistant says, "that's not our display. That's for sale." It's now hanging in my bathroom.

7) The sunny morning woke me up bright and early, and I was uncharacteristically keen to hop out of bed. After a spot of breakfast and a few chapters of a pleasingly trashy novel, I set to, blitzing the house, hoovering into all the corners, scrubbing the floors, wiping down every surface, and the house feels so much bigger for it.

8) A late Sunday lunch in the pub with friends. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, red cabbage, carrots and ... the mystery vegetable (turnip, we thought. Or maybe celeriac. Or mashed parsnip. Or a combo of all three). A board on a shelf had a strange message on it, which no-one could understand. None of the staff even knew who Dave Legge was. But we all agreed that he's probably a bit big for his boots.

9) A pot of flowers was on the reduced counter in the supermarket, but I couldn't see why. A red primrose, some bright yellow narcissus, and a hyacinth waiting to burst, are now sitting on my kitchen windowsill bringing a bit of the springtime inside. I've already had my 99p worth!

10) I've promised banana cake to a colleague, who doesn't believe that it's the best cake in the world ever, ever, ever (the Nigella recipe from Domestic Goddess. I think it might be the ample measure of rum that does it ...). The house is full of a deliciously fuggy loveliness which is making me wish I hadn't promised it at all, but could keep it all to myself.

Hidden Surprises

As a part of my job I have to visit shops. I know that sounds like a ruse that what I actually mean is that I "go shopping", but it's not nearly as decadent as that. I inspect the building rather than the merchandise.

Of course, sometimes the merchandise gets in the way and I have to give it a passing glance ...

The customer facing bit of a High Street shop - the actual SHOP bit of a shop - is usually pretty slick. It's all co-ordinating corporate brainwashing. Wall colours that co-ordinate beautifully with the flooring which is accentuated by the clothes rails, which is emphasised by the music, which make you aspire to wear the clothes which will make you part of this beautiful world. Oh yes! The front-of-house is usually a glittering display of loveliness.

When I was young, I was always desperately curious about doors in shops that say "staff only" or "do not enter" or have those number pads on the doors. Well now I get walk through those doors. And you know what? I was missing nothing!

I've been in basements that have ceilings about five and a half feet from the floors (I'm six feet tall). I've stood in cellars that are apparently damp, to be told later that sometimes the sewage pipes back up. I've stood in kitchens and staff rooms in which listeria must be rife, judging by the way the mugs are fused together in the sink. I've walked up staircases in which every other step is rotten (and some of the others in between). I've walked into attic rooms and had to duck as a flock of pigeons make for the broken window. I've knocked on a wall to see if it sounded solid and had to jump back when a lump of it dropped off. I've leaped holes in floors and come face to face with mice. Take it from me. Back of house is Not Nice.

Today I had to visit a shop where, on arrival, I explained that I'd need to see the whole building. "Would you like to go to the first floor?" Yes. Everywhere. "What about the second floor?" Yes please. I'd like to go everywhere. "The basement?" YURRRS (It sounds like that when you say it through gritted teeth). But my heart sank - the more floors there are, the less pleasant it's likely to get.

The ground floor was typically neat and clean. The basement was, inevitably, damp and spider infested. The staff room on the second floor was knee deep in back issues of Heat magazine and empty coke cans. The kitchen was a food poisoning scare waiting to happen. The back room which "we never really go in" was inch deep bird shit. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

But the first floor stock room was quite, quite fabulous. (Forgive the slightly grainy photos - I only had my phone with me).

It was the ceiling that I noticed first. I don't think I've seen anything as lovely, in the most extravagant stately homes of England. It was a lovely duck-egg blue, and covered with the most fabulous designs. Curlicues and twiddles stretched from the central rose, and radiated to lovely vases of flowers and bowls of fruit and deer and dogs and birds. It was just beautiful.

Then I noticed the fireplace! I hadn't seen it at first because boxes and crates were leaning against it. But there, standing about six feet tall, on the back wall, was the most lovely carved fireplace.

This was a fabulous room, designed

to be used by grand people for a grand purpose. This room was showing off. It was sticking two fingers up at other rooms and blowing raspberries at them. This room was magnificent!

And just when I thought that it was the antithesis of the stock room, a mouse ran across the floor, and I came back to earth. A stock room, it seems, is still a stock room, however romantic the setting.

The revolution

Today I was away on business.

That makes me sound quite grown up and important, doesn't it? In fact, I was on the 9am from Kings Cross, destined for Harrogate, where I spent four hours walking around shops, then got back on the 16:05, and came home. Which I was paid for.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

Naturally a jam-packed day like today requires a girl to take a load off at lunchtime and sit in a French cafe for a croque-monsieur and a few pomme frites. It was over said lunch that I realised I was vexed.

The observant amongst you will, by now, have realised that I do get a little vexed from time to time, and not always rationally. Given the range of things that was making me twitch today, I thought that today was a typically Tooting-esque complex fume. See if you agree ...

1) As I looked around the restaurant, I noticed that not one person ... NOT ONE ... was holding their knife correctly. There were a range of techniques being used. The "dagger", the "fountain pen", the "feather duster". But none of them using the more traditional "table knife" hold.

Grr!

2) The waiter who showed me to a table using an ambiguous wave of his arm then stoically refused to make eye contact with me for some time. He then wandered over looking at me as if I might be an immigration officer and asked if I wanted anything else. "Yes. A menu would be a start". He then forgot me again for a time, before taking me order which, when it came, was wrong. To be fair to the poor young thing, there were as many as twenty other customers, and only the four waiters to deal with them ...

Fuuuuuuume!

3) A family arrived. Five adults with a toddler in one of those three-wheeler buggies (just the toddler. The adults were walking), which they laboured to get through the doors (whilst being ignored by the above four waiters). They moved tables, they rearranged chairs, they swapped places, they moved back, they got up, they sat down. And all that time, the buggy was immediately inside the door, where they ditched it. (Yes ... still with the toddler in it).

Mumble-mumble-mumble

All very different things to be irked by. Or so I thought ...

In fact, I've realised that there is one thing above all others, that irritates me, and that actually all of the above fall under the same banner. That thing is laziness.

Bad service, bad manners, it's all the same. It's all just not being bothered and THAT is what bugs me. I find it so tedious that there are so many people who coast though life doing the absolute minimum.

Today, I'll admit, I was rather over zealous, but it is a bit of a theme. I come across people through my work who do the least possible to get through the day, and essentially wait for the answer to come to them. I know people who turn up at work and stay until they can leave and do something more interesting (then gripe that they are passed over for promotion).

I see shop assistants ambling around and gazing into space, or standing in huddles chatting, whilst customers struggle to pay for things. I see waiters and waitresses gossiping behind the bar, whilst food goes cold and customers go hungry, then stand with their hand out when it's time to pay the tip.

AND IT VEXES ME!

The thing is, that I don't DO anything about it. It irks me and I just walk away irked. I decided today that I'm going to start tackling it head on. Are you with me?!

Next time you're in a shop and see a gum snapping gormless looking teenager being paid to do nothing, go over to her and say, "excuse me, but do you have this in a twelve?". I don't care if you don't WANT it in a twelve. It'll get her moving!

If you're in a restaurant and you think the waiters are being more than a little slack, drop your knife on the floor (I only hope you were holding it correctly first ...) and ask for a new one. Or ask for a glass of tap water, then another and another, until they are really shifting!

If you see a street cleaner walking past rubbish, tell him he's missed a bit! If the estate agent doesn't bring anyone 'round to view your house, get a friend to act as a stooge and demand to view your house! If the guy on the barriers at the station is reading the paper, give the barrier a shove so the alarm goes off! If the bank only has two of it's eight desks open, whilst six people in matching uniforms stand behind the glass and work out when they're going to take their lunch breaks, then carefully take out £5 from one account, transfer it to another, then take £5 out of that account and transfer it back, and so on, until more tills are open.

It's childish, but I think it's necessary! We need to get these lazy little buggers moving!

Come on people! Let's tackle the bone idle head on!

So Long

Well, thanks, folks, for your sage advice on how I should spend my week.

Suggestions of getting away from it all, making the most of The Capital, spending quality Tooting time, and creating something beautiful were all taken on board. Baglady's suggestion that I take time to eat a lot of cake has been taken very seriously indeed.

In fact, I realised that, if I went away, coming home to a still-not-decorated dining room would vex me, and so the decision has been made to stay here and decorate my socks off, and then get a day or two out to do something more ... indulgent. And, Baglady, I'll be taking your advice, and eating cake, cake, cake!!

Thank you also for the one personal message sent, volunteering to keep an eye on me at my leaving drinks on Friday. In fact I was the epitome of sober control and grace.

Clearly that was a lie. I drank white white until it was all but coming out of my ears, and then I drank a little more. I danced in a bar that doesn't have a dance floor. I told a partner, "I bloody love you." I talked a lot (A. LOT.) of shit. Then I drank a bit more wine. And then ... I cried!

I cried! Oh, the shame, the shame! I shed actual tears.

The strange thing is that it wasn't when the most obvious people left.

I've been at that company for nearly six years, and despite that time there were people that I was entirely ambivalent about saying goodbye to. People who I don't much care for, and won't much miss. People who have skimmed past my life without really disturbing the surface of the water. They were not the people who got the teary farewell.

There are also people who have become good friends. As one former team-mate observed, we'll probably have lunch together and actually get to natter far more now than we ever have before. I already have a plan to meet up with four of the girls for dinner in a couple of weeks, and have spoken to a couple of people on the phone. I didn't need to shed any tears about no longer working with these people. They are friends. Good ones. That won't change because I'm working in a different building.

It was the others. There are people who I have really enjoyed working with, and who I've enjoyed the company of. People who, if I found myself sitting next to them at the Christmas party, I'd be happy. People who I've shared a joke with from time to time. People who I'd be quite happy to pop for a drink with after work. But realistically, these people aren't my friends, they are just good colleagues. We have never sent one another Christmas cards, or called one another at the weekend, and we never will. These are people who have been a influence on my life, but who I'm realistic enough to realise I have now said goodbye to.

This is what hit me as I tucked into my ... I don't know ... twentieth or so glass of dry white. I suddenly realised that I was actually saying "goodbye" and not "so long" to some people, and I'm afraid I broke.

I think of the number of times that I've been irritated by the fact that there is ALWAYS a crying girl in a bar at the end of the evening. I'm mortified that, on Friday night, that girl was me.

And ... relax

Eugh! Enough of the emotions, already!
Now I've got all THAT off my chest, let's move on.

So, today was my last day at work! I've gone. Vamooshed. Escaped. Left the building.

It was a bit of a non-event really. Got to the end of the day, turned off my computer, and left. My leaving drinks are tomorrow night, so I've to go back to be plied with booze. Hell! I fear that's when I might get tearful. Especially after the fifth G&T. I worry I might come over either a bit "you know I love you", or, worse, "I'll tell you what I think ..." Someone please keep an eye on me!

And then I have a glorious week off before I start at the new place. Seven glorious days to myself. No calls on my time. Nowhere I have to be. Nothing I have to do.

So what shall I do?

Let's start with the dull and tedious. A few weeks back, I stripped all the wallpaper off my dining room walls and realised that to make it look nice was going to take a lot (A. LOT) of work. A clear week of graft would get it licked. I'd be done and be able to have it all straight for Christmas, which would be lovely. It's not interesting, but the idea of having that room sorted this time next week is heaven.

Or, I could enjoy being a tourist in my own city for a while. I've lived in London for ten years, and seen only about this much (*holds hands very close together*) of it. I could go to galleries and museums. I could walk to the top of things, and along the side of things, and around things that I've never yet seen. How much of London could I see in a whole week? Americans do the whole of Europe in ten days, so surely I could cover most of it!

I could go away. I could get online and book myself a few days somewhere. Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Blackpool. A nice little last minute mini-break would be good. And, after all, what's the point in being young, free and single, if I'm actually middle aged, bound to the house, and living on takeaway pizza? I could TOTALLY order takeaway pizza in Paris!

What do you think, folks? I'm throwing it open to the group. A clear week of zero obligation. What would you do?