Monday 13th March 2006: "I tell you it's Bill Oddie!!!"....

Hello and welcome to the first installment of my latest blatherings. This week I've been sent on a weeks training, so should be fun.

Last week finished with Cazakstan LargeBelly, completing her final day before going on maternity leave, with the immortal words "don't worry I'll be back...".
Well, first thing to say on that is; no, she won't...

If the obliviousness of the pain that is about to hit her doesn't kill her or the pain itself doesn't, then she'll bond so madly with her new born enough so that she'll to want to endlessly bring in the little brat and won't be able to bear to be without him / her so much so that all the women, in the office who are unlikely to have children, unless rohipnol becomes legal and they spike prospective males drinks, will all insist on having "a hold". They'll come up to her and say things like "can I have a hold" and the poor bastard will be so fed up by the end of it that he'll scream for the next 20 nights just out of spite..... It serves her right...she was a bit too enthusiastic, insisted on using the disabled loo...(talk about labouring a point)...and maybe I'm just a bit jealous that she's managed to escape (on a technicality), this god forsaken monotony, I call work....perhaps...perhaps.

Taking over from her is Leer Walkapast (spelt Leah but I know what I mean). Now not that she's completely unpleasant on the eye, but she seems to spend most of the day walking past my desk, and she seems to be carrying a pair of jelly's in her bra, which can't help but catch your eye....I try not to look but I mean sometimes it's just sooo in your face that you can't actually look at your screen...I'm thinking of moving mine to the other side just so I can get some work done....Why does she insist on walking past my desk all day long...Up and down the corridor, it seems relentless..maybe she's discovered that she only needs to do this all day and then she doesn't have to do any actual work !!! Her boss is Vanessa ? When talking about Vanessa ? I have to end every line with a question mark ? Because Vanessa Australian, and of the generation where every sentence ends with a question ?.

They're the two new recruits in purchasing. The centre of Excrement is still just past where I sit on the edge of mediocrity, my very own department, some call 3rd line, some call sys admin, I call plain crap....

But to business...like I said I have a week of training (fanfares playing the background, this is a moment like in 2001 when the apes finally understood that they could beat the living crap out of each other)..... It's SQL Server Training Special week...(oooh my favourite subject SQL server...yummy)

07:00: Up with a thud (that'll be me falling out of bed!!) My stomach feels like it's got a bag of marbles rolling around in side it, I'm not best placed to be doing training....I check my mobile has enough charge and hey guess what..it hasn't and there's no sign of my charger....I could ask Mandy but since she has become mumified once again (Tea in hand, sleep in face, note to self, good title for chinese film), that could be tricky. Somehow, she has managed to inject life in to the speaking part of her brain (well she is a girl after all) and has shouted to Ryan that he needs to get ready.

Mandy has to take both the kids this week, since I have to drive (and I really do have to drive) to Reading, which means I have to leave home before 8am (who am I trying to kid, at 8am would be closer and at 08:10am nearer still!!)

08:10: I'm on the road, I know that I will need change for parking, so I take the £5 note on the side knowing that I need to break in to it somehow...to cap it all, and in order to save some money I'm taking the Mondeo, which means I also have no washer bottle fluid....A stop at the sainsbury's garage is in order.

08:20: Finally I'm actually on the road, and in the queue...to the first roundabout...I just know this is going to fun...

09:10: Finally made it to Reeling where the corse is at Quadroplegic taining services, so I park up in the station car park, thinking this will be a real good thing to do. I take the little token thingy that comes out of the machine, drive around for what seems like an eternity and find the one free space there is there....I lock the car up and make my way towards the exit, noting to myself that if I'd ventured up one more ramp I'd a. be closer the exit and b. realise that the car park is 3/4 empty...I carry on past the tariff board, noting....£13.00 BLOODY QUID !!!! ??? I turn around, go back to the car and with reckless abondment drive like a nutter down and around so many times I'm now dizzy...to the exit...I insert the coin in to the exit barrier machine, certain that I'm not going to pay anything even if it means bending their brand new barrier....but luckily it lets me out without the need to pay (handy)....So now I have to find a new car park...I see the little P sign and follow it to a "car park" that's consists of 20 spaces and two broken ticket machines (and no working ones..)

09:30: I simply don't have time to worry about it so I make my way in the general direction of the training centre, which like so many training centres I've been too, resembles a squat in a disused building...still at least I've made it. I ripped out a page of my notebook and wrote BOTH MACHINES OUT OF ORDER and my mobile number and left that on my dashboard just in case....I'm still convinced that the car will have been towed by lunchtime, but we'll see....

09:35: I manage to make it to the desheveled building that Quadroplegic training are squatting in and I even get given a pass..woohooo...the value of this is somewhat questionable I hasten to add since there's literally no one else in the building..but still.

09:40: I find my way to the office where I'm greeted by the receptionist who informs me somewhat forecably that I need to sign their register. Odd I think someone has written my name against my name already...but I sign it and think nothing of it.

09:45: We're called into the training room by Richard our trainer, who I swear is the elder brother of Bill Oddie, they even sound the same. The only slight difference is the huge bushy moustache that Richard has, one of those one's that scream SHAVE ME OFF NOW !!!!. Training begins....zzZZZZZZ

13:00: Somewhat to my dismay lunch is not provided...this means somehow I now need to find some cash from somewhere. First things first I need to go and see if the car is still where I left it.

13:05: I make it to the car park...no one has obviously been and clamped or towed the car away but I just can't leave it there and besides it takes an age to walk there. I hop in and drive back the way I came and this time finding the NCP car park that is literally behind the building where our training is....Note to self tariff's not cheap but not £13.00 either.....

14:00: Managed to grab a baguette from the train station and a packet of sweet chilli crisps and I make my way back to training.

16:40: Kick out time for training...so I drag my weary brain back to the car...I have to pay for the parking first, and I've cleverly noticed that I can pay by credit/debit card so this I try...I insert my ticket it tells me I owe £5.00...and there's another slot that try as I might I don't seem to be able to get my card in to. The guy stood behind me somewhat patiently suggests I slide it in to the same slot as the one I pushed the parking ticket and voila ! it works !!....All fairly painless I make my way back home...More of the same tomorrow.....can't wait !!!......