I spoke too soon

Not 5 minutes after I wrote the last post Loco called me to inform me that an inspector from the council had been round to the apartment to inspect the building work as some bastard neighbours had complained.

So now we have to stop the building work until such time as an architect presents a plan of the intended works to the council and we pay 5% of the cost of the building work to the greedy sods. Considering it's Christmas next week this could take some time.

I am absolutely fucking livid that some nosey neighbour from the depths of hell is sticking their nose in when it's absolutely none of their business and causing us all this unecessary hassle. May they burn in hell.

Anyway, we are going to carry on with the building work and fuck them all.

The neighbours are about to find out what an annoying neighbour really is.

(Yes I know it's stooping to their level, but hell, I don't give a damn)

That flatzilla - she outta control

So the God of Interior Design didn't answer my prayer but the good news is I have nearly all the tiles chosen! And a bath! And two toilets!!!!!!!!!

People, it doesn't get more exciting than this.

Yes I may have changed my mind 3 or, erm, 11 times with regards to tiles and driven the shop assistant crazy. I especially may have pissed them off when I decided to scrap all the tiles I had chosen there and go somewhere else, but hell, who can argue with the 25% discount the new place is giving me. I may even be pissing off the new shop assistant as I still can't fully decide on one particular tile but, BUT, the good news... the kitchen tiles have been bought, delivered and are nearly all up and they look AMAZING. I never thought I would say that about a kitchen tile.

Things are coming together - aside from the neighbours complaining ALL THE BLOODY TIME including to the police and local council and giving each other a run down on the building work in OUR APARTMENT when they have NO IDEA and it's NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS - things are looking good. Who knows, I may even publish a photo of my new tiles. Crazy eh.

Flatzilla alert

Renovating an apartment is hard work. I don't mean physically, hell I have builders to do that (yes I do and yes they've started, woop woop). I mean mentally, totally exhausting.

Take floor tiles for example, they're all the same right? Wrong. In one shop we went to there were 4500 different samples of floor tiles. How am I meant to pick one? I may hvae mentioned before that I am about as creative as, oh, a floor tile. My brain is not taking kindly to all the extra space I am needing in my head to store, compare and rate different floor tiles. I have reached the point where I am so sick to the teeth of looking at floor tiles that when the shop attendant says "what about this one?", I just say "yeah fine, that'll do". But I can't do that - I have to live with this damn floor tile and it some how has to match the kitchen units (no I haven't chosen - don't even want to think about it) and then, THEN, there's the wall tiles, not to mention all the tiles needed for the bathrooms.

AGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and open my eyes to find everything done beautifully.

What will I do when I have to choose furniture? Or paint? Tonight I have to choose a bath..

Oh God of Interiors, Furnishing and Fittings please send me divine inspiration. PLEASEEEEEE

Ring and ting

This weekend I was back in the UK stocking up on quintessentially British products, difficult to find in Spain, such as wispa bars, and stuffing myself full of roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. I now have, what the Spanish would call, an “empacho” – basically I ate so much I am now feeling sick sick sick. Last night I ate an apple and a jelly for dinner and it was still too much. Plain white rice seems to be the order of the day – bleugh.

In UK Loco and I went on a little shopping trip, it was productive, I ended up with a new coat. During the trip the subject of rings came up and how one I had been recently given (not by him) was too big for me

“So rings come in sizes then” said Loco
“Of course they come in sizes – not everyone has the same size finger”
“Oh.”

A few minutes later
“Well how do you know what size is your size”
“At the jeweler they have a device that measures your ring, or you can just do it with a bit of string and compare it to a chart”
“Oh right. So what ring size are you then?”
“Me? I don’t really remember – N I think. Ring sizes come in letters”
“Oh” Loco replied before going quiet.

What does this mean???

Santa baby.. will you be bringing me a ring this christmas?

I hope so :)

Snitch

Thanks for your comments. I’m now officially a snitch, and not the Harry Potter flying golden ball type.

In the end I had a little word in the ear of Bully’s superior who is already aware of Bully’s domineering nature but will have another word with her.

I also spoke to Bully’s victim to let her know it wasn’t all her fault that she couldn’t do the work for as well as being a bully, Bully is an anal perfectionist who needs everything done just so – making archiving a week long marathon instead of the 20 minutes it should take. She was so relieved to know it wasn’t just her and she explained to me how the Bully hadn’t liked her from the start but that she just dealt with it – poor girl.

She’s leaving at the end of the week, I won’t be here, but nobody has organised a collection as per the norm when people leave, have babies, get married etc. She has one good friend in the office and I would have thought that he would have organised something but as yet nothing, then again she is fairly new so maybe does not have enough loyal office service time under her belt to merit a present?

God I hate office politics.

Bully

Recently at work I was asked to help a girl who was not performing so well, she was pretty badly organised and took ages to do stuff so I was sent to see what I could do to help her improve. What I wasn't told was that she was dyslexic - I found that out for myself watching her write down letters in the wrong order etc. and then had it confirmed by my boss. To be honest her job really isn't suited to someone with dyslexia but apparently at interview she told them that she could handle it so they employed her. Then she couldn't handle it and the shit hit the fan.

Without going into too much detail, she is the assistant on a project and has a lot of admin work to do - sending letters, chasing up documents, filing etc - no big deal - only she is on the biggest project of the whole office and there is a LOT of work. By the time I was called into help she had months of filing to do, hundreds of pending tasks and was in quite a mess.

Anyway, to better understand I sat in on some meetings between the team and her to discuss the tasks she had to do and what had been completed(before I came along the people in the team had been writing out each week all the tasks that had to be completed for that week) and she pretty much hadn't done any. Every meeting was pretty much the same - she hadn't completed anything and justified it by saying she had been doing "little things", what little things nobody managed to find out. I tried to help but it didn't go so well and in the end, after a few more weeks, she resigned.

That's just background - the point of the post is the way that one of the team members spoke to her. Obviously I understand that this project team are having a hard time if their assistant isn't getting the stuff done but seriously, the way one of them spoke to her, let's call her the Bully, was incredible. I really felt uncomfortable in these meetings but the assistant handled it really well - if it was me being spoken to like that I would have cried. really.

When she resigned it was decided that I would do her job until they could get someone new - so we had another meeting to discuss the tasks left over and that kind of thing. At the end of the meeting the assistant was called in just to clarify a few issues - I felt so bad for the poor girl - she was trembling as she explained and at one point the team bully asked - "Did you complete the task, well did you?" over and over, the poor girl couldn't speak as she was clearly about to cry. "Well that's just great" sighed the bully sarcastically.

I just sat there like, fucking hell, should I say something? Should I say, "Hang on a minute, don't speak to her like that, you're not her fucking boss". But I didn't. I just sat there in silence.

The bully is looking to get a promotion - she works really hard but still - if she was promoted she would have to explain things to people, and delegate more work to others. If that's the way she treats the team assistant, I really don't think that she deserves a promotion. In fact i think she needs a bloody good bollocking.

I don't want to be a grass - but I really didn't like what I saw. Should I tell my boss? I'm not concerned that she would speak to me like that, I don't think she would dare, but the assistant is very timid and a little geeky and an easy target for the "cool" bully. It feels like being back at school.

Gah. What to do?

Early

The other day Loco and I woke up very early. We could have got up and gone into work and maybe arrived at a respectable hour for once, but instead we stayed in bed chatting, for an hour.

It was really nice and in a way I wish we woke up extra early every day so we could do the same, but I suppose the novelty would wear off.

At one point Loco was looking particularly pensive,

"What are you thinking about?" I asked

"Oh nothing" he replied

"You must be thinking about something..."

"Um, well, just about Dorc's wedding.."

"DORC'S WEDDING? Have you suddenly realised that you are secretly in love with her and are now lamenting her forthcoming nuptials??"

"No, I was just thinking if we get married on our preferred date will it give it enough time to go on a nice long honeymoon before we have to go to her wedding"

"Oh. Well yes, there'd be a month so plenty of time.."

and then as my brain whirled into action I exclaimed

"Ha! So you DO want to get married!"

Loco just smiled

Happy days.

Dorc

Oh God. It's been 3 days, I'm slipping into those bad habits again - although I do have an excuse, kind of.

Somehow I managed to .. do.. "something" to my back, in my sleep. Something that means a lot of pain when I move my head. This has happened before - I guess it happens to everyone once in a while but my problem was that I was in greatest pain when lying down or sitting on the sofa. I held out for one day then went straight to the Doc for drugs.

I'm now feeling much better and hoping that my private healthcare decides to pay out for the 10 sessions of physio the Doc has said I need. I'm booked in for tomorrow night but still haven't heard anything so fingers crossed.

In other news, a friend of Loco's is getting married in 2009. This friend, let's call her Dorc, used to fancy Loco when they were younger and spent their summers together, although he denies any mutual feelings. What he failed to mention was that at a wedding they both went to last summer (I didn't go - he hadn't told his family about me at that point) she was throwing herself at him. Loco's mum informed me of that little snippet...

Re-wind. Last Summer Loco was with me so obviously not interested in her, but hang on she's getting married in 2009 so when did she meet her man, oh! before the wedding. So she was after my boy when she already had one... HO!

Can't say I'm looking forward to meeting her.

Loco's mum told me not to fret - he's never shown any interest in her ever.

And what about the fact she's getting married in 2009... thunder - stolen - hmmph.

Note: Yes I know nothing is official but I really think it soon might be... ;)

Er.. ermm.. d'oh.

As per the agreement hereby start my attempts at regular posting:

Ahem. I suppose it would help if I had something to post about..

A big row with Loco perhaps? - no, not this time.

Something amusing and embarrassing that happened to me? Nope, for once I have managed not to shame myself in public.

Something that's bothering me about the apartment renovations? NO, NO, NO! - flat-zilla get back in your box!

Well what then?

Hmm..

Hmmmmmmmmm...

Oh sod it... Here is an amusing video

PS - I apologise for my lack of technical skills - don't know how to get that video in my post...

Financial ruin

First of all a big shout out to whoever searched for "horny tree huggers" and found me! Not quite sure how you managed it but welcome anyway.

We got our first quote for the building work on the apartment last night... I think I may change the title of this blog to financially ruined hussy. I understand that we're having a lot done (i.e. everything electrics, plumbing, new floors, doors, bathrooms, kitchen etc) but 9000 Euros just to rip stuff out? Come on! I think Loco and I will be taking out the kitchen cabinets ourselves.. how hard can it be (please don't remind me of this when I moan and whinge about it being very hard indeed). Not to mention the rest of the quote which eats up nearly our whole budget and doesn't even include the most expensive things like the kitchen, bathrooms and doors. It's the most expensive half-quote I've ever seen.

Anyway we'll just await the next one and hope for the best...

If it is anywhere near as expensive then I can forget any weddings in 2009 oh and 2010 and 2011 and probably for the rest of my life because dear friends, weddings in Spain are HUGELY expensive - we're talking 180 Euros a head average (for 2009)- and with big families like Loco's and medium size families like mine even with wedding funds we're still gonna have to save a shit-load of money before that can happen. sniff sniff. That will serve me right for getting ahead of myself ey.

A secret

I have a kind of secret.

It's do to with this post.

Loco and I have a lucky number - it's my family house number, his b'day, my mum's b'day, my dad's b'day and the day I was supposed to be born had I not been a few days late.

I mentioned to Loco that I would like to get married on this day, he laughed, I wasn't joking and out of interest looked up all of the Saturdays in the next few years that this date falls on.

One in particular stood out in 2009 as it would be my dad's b'day. I think it would be a nice tribute to my dad (deceased- don't know if I mentioned that) to get married on his b'day. But again 2009 - earlyish 2009 - and the next one doesn't come around until 2015. This is a bit soon considering we're not even engaged.

I told Loco about this date anyway and, well, I still don't have any diamond on my finger but - Loco and me - we looked at venues, prices and stuff on the internet and wrote up a "theoretical" list of people to invite - together! We even have our first dance song!

The best thing was later when we were laying in bed Loco said - "oh no, I forgot to put so and so on the list".. I don't think Loco can hide behind his "oh I never want to get married" thing any longer.

This is exciting stuff people and definitely not the behaviour of someone who does not want to get married.

But remember - it's a secret.

Mañana Mañana

I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty bad at blogging and I think this is due to a number of reasons

a) I never get round to it, I always think of something to blog about, decide to do it later and then just never get round to it... before I know it a month has flown by. Has the Spanish mañana mañana syndrome taken over my brain?

b) I am never really as frank in my blog as would probably make for interesting reads. Although I'm pretty sure there is almost no-one I know reading.. or no-one in general reading I fail to blog about embarrassing or upsetting issues, which let's face it make for much interesting reads than what colour I'm gonna paint my living room (when I finally move in - when when when)

c) I'm not convinced my blog is actually worth reading at all. Not that I should care - I should write it for myself right? Why then do I edit, edit, edit bad things out...

So here I am again promising that I will do better and write more candid posts more often.

Fuckwit

So - you're seeing a guy for a while, it's good and you kind of like him and you're pretty damn gutted when he moves away and still think about him sometimes for quite a while afterwards.

You know you didn't really have anything but you liked him all the same and are pretty convinced that for at least the month before he left you were the only one he was sleeping with.

You stay friends and you get over your little crush and convince him to join facebook.

You then see him tagged in pictures taken on the last day you saw him, the day you slept together for the last time making out with the annoying little german bitch who had been trying to get her hands on him the whole time you were seeing him. You question whether he was with her the same time he was with you. It makes you rage.

Who could I be talking about?

Men. grr.

Suegra issues

Although I count myself very lucky when it comes to suegra, no mother-in-law’s from hell here, which is especially good considering I live with her.. last night she left me a bit miffed.

I can’t remember how the conversation started out exactly but I do remember the lecture that continued for at least an hour. Suegra is convinced that when Loco and I move into the apartment we are going to find ourselves facing a variety of problems regarding issues such as housework. She thinks that as she spoils us at home by doing the cooking, cleaning and washing (I'm very lucky, I know!) when we move to the apartment we are going to find it very difficult to do it for ourselves and hence we will have arguments. I tried to explain to Suegra that I have been living away from my mother for near on 8 years and do know how to wash, iron, cook and clean and so did Loco. But she was not to be convinced and went on and on and on. I personally didn’t think it was very nice of her to assume and inform me of all the problems I would be having with Loco over housework as if we were 5. It just makes me feel a bit shit even though I don’t think she’s right.

She also told me how couples that worked never went out alone and those couples who did there own thing on a Saturday night were destined for doom and gloom.

After she had finished I went straight to bed and stayed there.

Rant over.

Ding dong the bells are gonna chime

Last night I had a very peculiar dream that I had been forced to dump Loco in order to marry my gay cousin.

There was a huge engagement party with all my family and friends where my cousin presented me with a box in the form of a frog and the ring formed the part of the eyes. It was unspeakably ugly. And all the time I cried because I didn’t want to marry my cousin and Loco wouldn’t have me back.

The chances of this particular dream coming true are highly unlikely but I woke up a bit traumatized.

Loco and I have had little chats about getting married lots of times and it’s no secret (to him) that I would like to get married before I hit 30, a couple of years before 30 preferably (apart from my own selfish reasons - I don’t want any wrinkles or fine lines in my wedding photos, I would also like my grandparents to be able to see me get married and time is definitely running out for those guys) I also want a good 18 months to plan. That would mean he would have to propose sometime in the next year for things to go to plan. (Ha! All this says the girl who always said she was never gonna get married and that marriage was for losers, how things change)

He generally skirts around the issue especially when his family members ask if we’re going to get hitched he generally replies, “No, I don’t want to get married ever” and the like. I just like to assume he’s joking (Please God, let him be joking) and that he says these things to wind up his mother who is just gagging for us to get married and like any boy he likes to go and do the opposite to what his mother would like. Gah.

However, on Saturday we decided to get a nice bottle of white to have with our lunch at home and as we raised our glasses to clink them, I asked what we should toast to

Note Loco’s reply:

“To the wedding!”

Me: “What wedding? OUR WEDDING??”

Loco just sat there grinning…

Maybe you need to start watching this space… Maybe I need to start buying Bride magazine. Agh! Maybe I'll secretly start planning just in case he thinks he can get away with less than 18 months preparation. I read an article about women who plan their weddings without even having a boyfriend! Well at least I'm past step 1... Agh I'm bridezilla already and it only took one comment from the Loco.

Anyway more strange comments from Loco insinuating that he does in fact want to get married to come shortly.

Ugly Betty

So being in Spain I don’t have much access to English TV especially now I’m living with Loco and I no longer have digital and the FOX channel. Sob.

However, I have found ways to get round this such as www.tv-links.co.uk, www.youtube.com , buying DVDs from www.play.com (free delivery to Spain if you pay in Euros) and of course downloading the odd program from my old friend who wavers on the line of illegality, emule.

The latest show I’ve been hooked on is Ugly Betty – I know, I know I’m so behind – but anyway I watched the season finale last night and completely unaware of what was going to happen, (what? I don’t get Heat out here) and oh my – I cried for so long. With my earplugs in watching the final scene sobbing my heart out little did I realize Loco had been observing me for a good 5 minutes and was absolutely pissing himself while I wailed “it’s just sooo sad, so sad” which in turn made me snort a half laugh/half snotty sob and just made him laugh all the harder.

I am now excitedly awaiting the return of UB on US TV on the 27th September and I hope to be the first in downloading it for my viewing pleasure.

In other news only 3 more sleeps until my holiday!!

Loco's girlfriend is a twat

Finally we have had the builders come round to look at the apartment and give quotes for the refurbishment of the apartment. It still probably won’t be done until some time next year but it’s a start and while that goes on I am purchasing things to fill said apartment.

I so far have a whole array of useful items including an icecube bucket and a spaghetti measurer, not to mention useful things such as plates and saucepans.

The whole planning the design of a house thing is very exhausting for my poor non creative brain so I’m glad that next week I am off on holiday to (insert secret destination here). Yay.

Last weekend I bought my first ever pair of walking boots and an anorak, sexy. Loco bought a basket ball – he says if I won’t play sport he’ll bring the sport to me, eugh. Luckily I got out of this one – because I fell over at work. AGAIN. Flat on my knees. Now they are very sore. On top of this I have to live with the humiliation that I fell so hard and made such a bang that everyone ran out from their desks to see what elephant had magically fallen from the sky. I am such a clumsy twat at times.

Butterflies

I always wondered how I would I feel when I saw Ireland again.

Well now I know. After a few days of fretting I decided that I would go for lunch with Ireland, nice and innocent, middle of the day, limited time visit. Perfect.

When I received a random one word message from him at 09:45 in the morning I suspected my plans had gone awry. I bet he’s just going to bed after having been up all night drinking I thought, no matter, he’ll just be a little hung over. I decided not to leave the office until I was sure he would be waiting for me if he was there at all. This turned out to be an excellent plan as when I rang a sleepy, still in bed voice answered..

“Hello?”
“Hello. Where are you?”
“In bed. What time is it?”
“13:30”
“shit shit shit. Didn’t you get my text?
“The random one word text at ten o’clock this morning?”
“Yeh.. it was meant to say.. can we meet after work instead?”
“I can’t today. I’ll get back to you later about tomorrow”

I called him back later that evening and arranged to meet the following day after work along with a mutual friend

Walking to meet him there were thousands of butterflies in my tummy, it had been a good 18 months since I had last seen him and I really didn’t know what to expect from myself when I saw him. I arrived a couple of minutes early and he managed to be on time (amazingly). We hugged a biiiig hug and then we headed down to an Irish bar for a drink (where else). Who else should I come across in the bar but Kaiser chief guy, so typical.

My friend turned up a little late and we all gossiped about old times, it was nice. No desire to kiss him, sleep with him or move to Ireland. Three good signs.

When it was time to leave, we hugged twice, and I felt a little teary eyed, but then I cry at wedding videos of people I don’t even know, so don’t take that to mean anything.

And so I am pleased to announce I am over my Ireland phase. I hope that we keep in touch but I no longer harbor secret desires to have little Irish babies. Result.

Wearwolf

So I was right.. it has been around full moon these last few days which more than explains my brazen behaviour.

Loco also got his mojo back so everything is hunky dory.

Ireland is in town - I still haven't told Loco - I am contemplating going for lunch with ireland and telling Loco about it afterwards.

Agh! On one hand I want to see him, he's my friend and I haven't seend him for a good year and a half, on the other hand I don't want Loco to be mad at me (even thought it's unreasonable for him to sulk he still will)

What to do...

Filth

I think it must be full moon or something. All I can think about is tearing off Loco’s clothes… not that I seem to be getting anywhere, he just isn’t really interested. Last night my attempts to lure him to bed early failed abysmally.

Yeh so he injured his leg running and can hardly walk, meh… What man turns down lovin’? My one. Darn.

Today I packed him off to work laden with anti inflammatories and other drugs in the hope that his damn leg stops hurting him and I can get some action.

Other than that everything is grrrrrreat :) I can’t wait for our holiday and he makes me so happy :)

What a bundle of joy I am today :) lalala lala