Lunch Hour thoughts
I don't have a proper job - as in paid employment. When people ask me if I work I reply "Yes, I work very hard, but I'm not in paid employment, if that's what you mean". So what I do is what is starting to be called Portfolio voluntary work, which sounds pretty posh I think.
I'm Chair of Governors at my daughter's Infant school - I don't know how to explain this for non-brits, but it's a committee that has a sort of strategic responsibility for the running of the school, so that takes quite a bit of admin and reading (unless you work in the public sector you will not believe how much paper has to be read, and to what little effect!) I was only elected Chair in November so I've got only my second full meeting tonight and I wanted to be fully "au fait" so I don't end up looking a complete chump. So I've spent all morning going through all the papers and the agenda for the meeting - and my brain is now numb.
I also work at the local Yoof centre, hanging out with the village yobs and trying to pretend that I'm too old to know what marijuana smells like (!), when actually I'm nearly fainting from the wafts coming in the door (they are not allowed to smoke anything in the building) I think I stunned the Team leader and one of the yoofs by saying I hadn't smoked any since I spent a night at the CND festival at Glastonbury (That was back when it was the CND festival - 1982 were you there scarletdemon ?)and had so much I couldn't stop throwing up - not a happy memory, and one that forever associated the smell with the sensation of vomiting for me. The language is hilarious - they use the F work like a kind of spoken comma, so it's totally without context and means that every sentence might contain at least two if not more utterances of it. They also use a local word which has the equivalent of shit, which is Bob. So they might come in and say "Uuugh it's bob in 'ere" Or "you're full of bob you are" The thing is, I don't come from round here, so I have to be careful around not to suggest that if they bob down they could get under a low doorway! They might hit me, and some of these kids are very big! There aren't many babie that get called Robert in this area - ha ha ha ha.
So now I'm on my lunch hour, eating hot cross buns, and feeling like I've done a good mornings work. Except that I discovered that the sticky liquid all over the bottom of the fridge is in fact the juice from a pack of defrosting chicken breasts, which means I have to thoroughly clean out the entire fridge so we don't all go down with salmonella. Pants! That's all I've got to say about that. Just Pants!
I'm Chair of Governors at my daughter's Infant school - I don't know how to explain this for non-brits, but it's a committee that has a sort of strategic responsibility for the running of the school, so that takes quite a bit of admin and reading (unless you work in the public sector you will not believe how much paper has to be read, and to what little effect!) I was only elected Chair in November so I've got only my second full meeting tonight and I wanted to be fully "au fait" so I don't end up looking a complete chump. So I've spent all morning going through all the papers and the agenda for the meeting - and my brain is now numb.
I also work at the local Yoof centre, hanging out with the village yobs and trying to pretend that I'm too old to know what marijuana smells like (!), when actually I'm nearly fainting from the wafts coming in the door (they are not allowed to smoke anything in the building) I think I stunned the Team leader and one of the yoofs by saying I hadn't smoked any since I spent a night at the CND festival at Glastonbury (That was back when it was the CND festival - 1982 were you there scarletdemon ?)and had so much I couldn't stop throwing up - not a happy memory, and one that forever associated the smell with the sensation of vomiting for me. The language is hilarious - they use the F work like a kind of spoken comma, so it's totally without context and means that every sentence might contain at least two if not more utterances of it. They also use a local word which has the equivalent of shit, which is Bob. So they might come in and say "Uuugh it's bob in 'ere" Or "you're full of bob you are" The thing is, I don't come from round here, so I have to be careful around not to suggest that if they bob down they could get under a low doorway! They might hit me, and some of these kids are very big! There aren't many babie that get called Robert in this area - ha ha ha ha.
So now I'm on my lunch hour, eating hot cross buns, and feeling like I've done a good mornings work. Except that I discovered that the sticky liquid all over the bottom of the fridge is in fact the juice from a pack of defrosting chicken breasts, which means I have to thoroughly clean out the entire fridge so we don't all go down with salmonella. Pants! That's all I've got to say about that. Just Pants!