Milk no sugar please

It’s hard to concentrate at work at the moment (not that I usually need an excuse, as the internet is always at hand to provide one), as the building’s electrics are being overhauled and there’s an ever present danger that the computer will turn itself off, along with the lights, the radio and the phone system. We’ve been without proper electricity downstairs since June, which means that only about 50% of the sockets on the ground floor actually fulfil their purpose in life. It also means that we have no fridge, no microwave and no kettle. The kettle is camped out in the end office (where mercifully sockets do work), but the milk is kept in a jug full of water (very Girl Guide camping) and I’ve been deprived of lunchtime jacket potatoes for nearly two months.

Making a cup of coffee for everyone in the building has become an epic task, and our consumption of hot beverages has reduced drastically. The end is in sight, thank god, as I am starting to get cranky without a constant supply of coffee.

Coffee is a battle royal that has been raging ever since I started this job in January. Because we work in a “fairtrade town” (although someone please define that one for me) all our coffee and tea is meant to be fairtrade too. Now, in theory, I’m totally for that. The problem is that I find all types - and I do mean all - of fairtrade instant coffee to be vile. I cannot drink them. Co-op, Cafedirect, Clipper – you name it, I’ve tried it and hated it. Ground coffee is fine, but there’s something about instant that just doesn’t sit well with me.

So I started buying my own personal jars of coffee to bring into the office. The first mistake I made was buying Alta Rica, which as many of you will know, is made by Nestle. Cue horrified intake of breath from boss, and accusations of supporting evil multinationals who abuse little African children. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware of Nestle’s reputation and the actions they have done, and I am not condoning them in any way. I do, however, feel that Nestle has become a scapegoat and that there are plenty of other companies who are just as bad in other ways. People virtuously boycott Kitkats and don’t touch Shreddies, but happily buy clothes from Gap and wear Nike trainers.

Anyway, rant aside, I took the jar of Alta Rica home so as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities, and brought in Carte Noire instead. Again, cue horrified reaction from boss. Now Carte Noire is owned by Kraft, and as far as I am aware there is no major issue with them (apart from being a huge multinational, of course, which intrinsically is beset with problems), so I couldn’t see that it would provoke such a reaction. But ANY coffee that isn’t Fairtrade is going to be A Very Bad Thing in my boss’ eyes.

By sticking to my guns, I managed to be allowed to keep the jar, with the proviso that it stayed hidden under the sink and the large vat of Fairtrade granules would be on display and freely available. Fine by me, I said.

What I couldn’t understand, though, was how I was getting through so much coffee when it was just me using it. Until one day, I went in to find another member of staff bent double, surreptitiously transferring a teaspoon of my Carte Noire to their mug. Looking shamefaced, they confessed that they, too, HATED the Fairtrade and ever since there had been an alternative available, they’d been using it, but had been too scared to admit it.

That was four months ago, and since then, we’ve got through numerous jars of Carte Noire. And the Fairtrade stuff? Still at the same level it was back in March.

It's all about me

I thought it was about time we got to know each other better.

Well, as you can probably guess from the blog’s title, I’m originally from Somerset, now living on the fringes and working deep in the heartland. I cross three counties/unitary authorities on a daily basis. I’m very proud of my West Country origins – after all, this is the county that has given the world cheddar cheese, cider, the Wurzels and Glastonbury Festival. I don’t have a Somerset accent though, so if you’re reading this and trying to get an authorial voice, don’t give me one that sounds like a feminine version of Justin Lee Collins. And I definitely don’t have a beard.

I live in a large city with my boyfriend (who, to preserve his anonymity, will be referred to as “S”). I would like to increase our household by getting a cat, but the responsibility is huge and I’m not sure we’re ready for that. My job is in the arts, and in a five year “career” (and I do use that term loosely), I’ve racked up working for three theatres, a concert hall and a circus school. The latter was always an interesting topic of conversation at parties. What it’s left me with is a deep appreciation of not having to work in finance or insurance, a dislike of Arts Council statistical returns and a belief in the transformative power of the arts. Also a love of hanging upside down, as even though I quit working for the circus, I still take trapeze classes there on a weekly basis. I also like the fact I can wear trainers to work – in fact, if I turned up in heels and a skirt I would be stared at strangely – and that I can see shows for free a lot of the time.

Life is not worth living unless there is a book by my side. I love a wide variety of authors and genres, although there are a few tried and tested favourites I come back to time and time again. These include Possession by AS Byatt, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niefnegger. As I write this, I realise that all these authors are female… I do read male authors, honestly!

Other things I love… coffee, red wine, sleeping, Chinese food, dancing, Frasier and soppy films. Punctuation is important to me - yes, I am one of those people who will judge you for putting an apostrophe in the wrong place, or not knowing the difference between “your” and “you’re”. This anal behaviour, however, earns me some extra cash as a freelance proofreader for magazines.

People.com is one of my guilty pleasures. Please don’t judge me.

It's raining, it's pouring...

In the midst of this glorious sunshine, the heavens opened last night and we had about 4” of rain in twenty minutes. S and I were at Ikea, buying picture frames, bickering about the merits of wood coloured v. silver, when our argument was interrupted by the sound of very angry rain on the skylights. By the time we were driving home, the rain was over the kerbs in a lot of places and there were a lot of very disgruntled people walking around in very soggy shorts. We drove into our street to find half our neighbours clustered at the bottom, which is the most people I have ever seen out at the same time. It turns out that the drain at the end was clogged up, couldn’t take the sheer volume of water pouring down, and so flooded the bottom end of the road. Two people’s houses had water in their hallways, and someone else’s car was submerged in water up to the wheel tops. By the time we got there, one neighbour had donned his diving suit (what resourcefulness!) and climbed into the drain to unblock it, so the water had drained away. One of the guys had taken photos though, and it was quite amazing to see how much water had collected, and then disappeared again, in such a short space of time.

We offered help to the neighbours, but unless we could magically dry carpets with a flick of our wands, we weren’t really much use. Their two children seemed quite excited by it, anyway, so at least someone enjoyed the experience.

All I could think of, though, in the midst of our neighbours having wet carpets and cars that wouldn’t start, is that our house is having a valuator come round today to assess it for our remortgage, and if we’d been flooded then it wouldn’t have gone down too well. Doreen two doors down says that this has only happened in the street twice in 52 years, but I bet they wouldn’t have believed it. Selfish, yes, but I did praise our foresight (well, we can claim we had some anyway) in buying at the top of the road. Otherwise we might have been sitting around last night, wearing our wetsuits, watching as a friendly duck or two floated past the TV.

I think I ate my body weight in charred food this weekend, as the UK finally seems to be having a summer and so the barbecues have been happening with a vengeance. Saturday's was to celebrate my friend's birthday, and then we had an impromptu one last night to mark the fact that S finished his cycle race without major injury (which in his book is pretty good). I also drank my body weight in red wine, beer and Pimms, but managed to escape hangovers, hurrah! At least there won't be a repeat of last week, when I was hungover at work, went to the dressing room to have a quiet ten minutes, and managed to fall asleep on the table. By the time I woke up (40 minutes later!) I had been seen by, and smirked at, all the staff present in the building. To top it all, I had a lovely river of dribble running all over my chin and arms, and crease marks in my forehead from lying on my jumper. Classy.

The Very Difficult First Post

I'm new to all this, so I'll keep the first one brief. What's made me start a blog? Well, mostly because I find that I write a lot for work, but not for myself. I've been keeping a diary since I was eleven but write in it less and less. So I thought that since I'm in front of a computer for most of the day, I'd put it to good use and write things that weren't to do with projects, or fundraising, or board reports. I'm writing it for me, so even if no-one else reads it (which, quite frankly, with the number of blogs out there, I suspect will be the case) I'll have an outlet for random thoughts and ramblings. So here goes...