Travellers, Chocolate Spread and the Random Photographs

Saturday 16.05.09 – Today I feel really popular as I have an invite to three parties this evening, can it get any better, yes it can because I win a tenner on the lottery. So which party did I decide to go to? Well I decide to go to two of them; the first is ex wifey’s house warming, it was chance to catch up with all of the ex-in laws: I just realised how weird this may seem, hob knobbing with the exes. A couple of glasses of wine and a bowl of wifey’s homemade curry later I go to make my farewells and head off to party number two, which is an 18th birthday bash. I am halfway through the obligatory hug and a squeeze as I exit, when a small child wants a hug too, I bend down allow said child to hug me and say goodbye, I stand up and notice small child has left a huge chocolate imprint on the front of my shirt. So I nip home to change the shirt, just as the Eurovision votes are being reeled in, upshot being I watch them and completely forget party number 2. As predicted Norway win with 387 votes setting a new record for the most votes ever in the history of the contest. The UK get fifth place, which most people seem happy with; I can’t for the life of me figure out why Azerbaijan came third. I’m pleased for Estonia getting sixth, but what happened to Greece? Poor Sakis, seventh place, and that ranking came only towards the end of the voting as early on the voters overlooked the Greek entry.

Sunday 17.05.09 – Not much happens today at first, I download a few songs and add them to my iPod, I’m in a painting mood so set up my easel and look through my ideas book, I sketched a scene whilst I was last in Italy, it’s just random houses and so I decide to use this sketch as the basis of my new painting. Now considering that I usually paint abstracts rather than landscapes it’s an unusual subject choice for me. I sketch out the buildings randomly, part imagination and part memory, my aim is to have something that encapsulates the region rather than is a direct copy. Everything is going swimmingly, the pods belching out tunes and the sun is streaming in through the window, only one thing lets down this perfect moment, I run out of white paint, so I have to make a trip to the local supermarket to purchase some more. The queue to get into the car park stretches for about 400 yards; rows of cars full of eager occupants all ready to worship at the temple that is Tesco. To pray to the gods of ‘buy one get one free’. Sunday when traditionally the churches should be filled with the pious, are now different as the congregation’s head out for cut price groceries and reward points. Maybe this is what the church should do to attract more people, give reward points that can be redeemed in heaven, maybe even extra points for all prayers that are recycled. Sunday evening is a relaxing affair with a couple of glasses of red wine and more catching up on Dynasty episodes. Yes, camp but who cares?

Monday 18.05.09 – How quickly the start of the weeks comes around again, the first task of the day in the office is a dissection of Saturday’s Eurovision, we all agree that Greece should have come higher, then we promptly download the album and have it playing, the only problem is every track begs the question: ‘Which one is this?’ or ‘is this so and so?’ Coming to work today I decided to come via a different route for a change, I was listening to Rose Royce sing ‘I’m In Love (And I Love The Feeling)’ as I watched a cyclist on his way to wherever he’s headed. Now here comes the Monday moan, what is with cyclist’s who think they don’t have to observe the Highway Code? This particular one rides through a red light with no regard for the traffic coming towards him, he then turns right into a street clearly marked as a ‘no right turn,’ and oblivious to everyone around him he cycles the wrong way up a one way street. Lunacy, moan over. Wednesday 20.05.09 – I’m listening to the Arctic Monkeys play ‘Mardy Bum’, sat wondering what’s holding up the traffic today, then as the track fades and the Dead Kennedy’s begin to play ‘Police Truck’, I see the reason for the delay, it’s a police truck, or rather two of them full of officers. As I come around the corner I see the reason for the police, we have on the spare land adjacent to our office a camp of travellers. They must have forced the gates and settled last night.

Today I briefly considered joining Twitter, however with my O.C.D. I decided it probably wouldn’t be a good thing, what with this blog, Abruzzolutely and Facebook to keep updated I think I’ve enough to cope with.

There’s been some activity with the travellers, the police arrived, walked up and down for a while and left, and a small child dressed in pink fell off her bike; yes I did laugh, mind you I was paid back for laughing, by having to check the fax numbers for every primary school in Essex. Mind numbingly boring, but has to be done. Later in the day as Strawberry Switchblade sing ‘Beautiful Day’, we watched the traveller’s children running amok, throwing rubbish all over the place, no wonder these people get such a bad press. Today in the office we were perplexed as my inbox contained an email with 4 photographs of the interior of what looks like an antique shop, with the message “Hi, some pics of the shop, M x”, Rachel got me to e mail the sender back asking them who they are as my work email address is quite specific, so watch this space. Tomorrow is Rachel’s birthday and she’s having the day off, so being a caring boss I gave her, her gifts today, and being a good person one of them was something she can enjoy with her boyfriend, you guessed it, yes, chocolate willy spread, hours of fun.

Thursday 21.05.09 – I spend the day alone in the office doing tedious jobs with music in the background. I escape early only to be stuck in traffic as the A500 is snarled up. I divert into the Tesco to purchase 2 courgettes and a jar of mustard, whilst waiting at the checkout I find myself staring at the back of the head of the man in front. The penny drops and I realise I’ve been transfixed by a badly fitting toupee. The rug is a chestnut colour but doesn’t match the greying real hair around the edges; it’s too small which makes me wonder if it was someone else’s rug first. “Do you need help with your packing?” the checkout operator asks me, bringing me back into the real world; I just hope I wasn’t smiling like a moron; more than likely I was. I watch as she scans my jar of mustard and the 2 courgettes, she looks up at me and smiles, and at once I assume she thinks I’ve purchased the vegetables for unspeakable acts. Friday 22.05.09 – As I drive into work for the last day of this week Gloria Estefan finishes singing ‘Si Voy A Perderte’ and is replaced by Enrique Iglesias with ‘Dimelo’, and I realise for the first time that I have quite a lot of foreign language music on my iPod, most of it is Italian featuring artists like Tiziano Ferro and Gianna Nannini, who’s voice I fell in love with back in September 1988, some Spanish and of course odd tracks from Eurovision over the past few years; particularly the Bulgarian entry from 2007 and the Ukraine entry from 2004. I think it doesn’t matter if you can’t fully understand what’s being said; the act of listening to someone sing in a different language can evoke many emotional responses.

I look out of the window at our traveller friends who are still camped on the derelict land opposite, I see two ladies walking along in what appears to be black shoes, a closer look proves that these are not shoes, but both are barefoot, their feet are coal black with dirt as they trudge through broken glass and dog excrement. Oh well another bank holiday weekend looms, so as the shuffle brings forth Gwen Stefani with ‘Cool’ I’ll upload this week’s entry and shuffle off home.