The Works Christmas Party

Monday December 8^th

An aalii is an Australian shrub, so you’d have thought Dad would have known my scrabble word was correct. If he hadn’t chuntered on so much I wouldn’t have used a variation of those words towards him this morning. He sulked. If you can picture a 61 year old sulking, he did that this morning. I was sort of worried that when we got back from worked he’d have trashed the house and left. Luckily he hadn’t. In fact he’d got a meal ready for us prior to our trip to the City Hall. If Fasta Pasta is my ‘go to’ dish, then his is Curry in a Hurry. I do a variation of it but it doesn’t taste quite the same as Dad’s in the same way that his FP doesn’t taste the same as mine.

Our day at work was much of a muchness, it seems that at both Uni and XXX & Y everyone is already thinking of Christmas. There is a wind down feeling in the air and yet we are still three weeks away from the modified Saturnalia festival. What is wrong with these people?

Felice is still here but she is definitely going back down to the south of France on Friday which makes me wonder if we ought to wander up Dad’s this coming weekend and stay there?  We did a fair amount of tech. stuff this morning with the casket as though Feli is making up for a tawdry effort earlier on so she can skip off. I may be unfair.

I told all my worries about Christmas spirit to Mrs Briggs and she thought it was endemic. Not just here but across the whole country. She was particularly scathing about lights outside houses, I had to agree I think they are, first of all, common as muck and secondly I have a feeling that these people are sort of accusing those who don’t put out any decorations as being Scrooges! I have no proof of that latter statement, of course, but that is way it seems to me. The way our society is going, we are becoming more like Germany after Hitler was pronounced Chancellor than good old tolerant UK. Mrs Briggs was critical of UKIP for this as they seem to have swapped blaming the Juden for Immigrants, but the next step down UKIP’s road is bound to be the final solution.

I told her my history teacher started her GCSE course with these two statements on the board: History Teaches Us Nothing. (because) People Are Stupid. She thought this was really funny and so true.

Dad’s choice of concert has to be the worst of all the ones I have been to this year. I suppose it is my own fault for believing Dad when he said they were really good, and I must remember them from when I was a toddler. Well, Durr Dad! I didn’t. If I had I would have declined your offer of tickets! I suppose it is different when you don’t wear the rose tinted specs of nostalgia. I thought even Louisa was getting fidgety at one point or that could just have been my new sister playing up!

OK, to be fair they were OK. They played some rousing enough and melodic enough tunes to raise a smile from time to time and I did remember a tune called Dignity. Otherwise I wouldn’t actually have had them on my list of things to see this year. It appeared not a lot of people did either as the Hall wasn’t exactly bursting at the seams. Still, bonding with your parent is always good regardless of the circumstances, so that’s all right then!

Trevor was very good about swapping his day to Tuesday so we could go and see Deacon Blue, he did say “Who?” in a really surprised voice apparently, which should have made the alarms bells ring.

Tuesday 9^th December.

Dad and Louisa had made us breakfast when we got back from the pool today, which was unexpected, but very nice. They were heading straight to Lancaster for the day as Dad was sorting stuff out and then on Friday Errol is driving them to the airport. Good old Errol, say I. It means the Aged P. hasn’t roped yours truly in for both airport journeys. Yes, that’s right, muggins here has said she’ll collect them when they get back. They fly back on the 12^th, too. So we’ll get about three and a half weeks at the house by ourselves, which isn’t too bad really. By January there should be some decent snow for sledging and the like.

We left at the same time as D & L and I know we got to our destination first! LOL A full library day for Laura and a full cache day for me, but with a little aside; we’ve found a locksmith who knows the lock on the casket and is able to replicate a key. That is pretty neat. It will mean the lock will need some oiling so there have been lengthy discussions on what we should do. In those days mineral oil was unheard of it was all vegetable or animal. The upshot is we are going to do some tests of all three kinds of oil first on some odds and sods of metal and wood from that period to see what effect it will have before going ahead.

Now call me cynical but I cannot see the point in this exercise. It sounds like conservation disappearing up its own rectum to me. Naturally I didn’t put it like that but I did ask what difference it would make what oil we used? The answer I received was long winded, obfuscatory and didn’t actually shed much light at all. My interpretation of the answer was, they didn’t know and although best evidence suggests there’ll be no problem they aren’t going to run the risk. It seems the buzz idea in conservation these days is we must only do something which can be easily reversed in case a better method of conservation is found in the future. Now call me Mrs Tine’s Daughter (Phyllis), but even without a degree in chemistry or conservation or talking gobbledy gook to confound the listener, I cannot see how any kind of oil would pose a threat. I suppose it means someone in authority’s backside is covered if it goes belly up!

Olivia as the same question as Trevor. Although to be fair, and not to diss Olivia, she does think One Direction are good. Teenagers, eh? Totally lacking any musical discernment at all. LOL

There is no point in railing on at me about my musical discernment as a teenager. I was already loving Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at 13. So yah boo to you!

Olivia and Trevor weren’t affected by the let’s shirk it’s nearly Christmas bug and I got a lot done with Livvy, so much so that I am convinced she’ll do well in her GCSEs. It is way too early to let her sail solo yet but she will be fine by the time June comes round. Both she and Trev are amazed at how much time we get off at Christmas, so I kept quiet about the amount of ‘holidays’ we get throughout the year. It will only make them envious.

Wednesday 10^th Dec.

The buffet meal was more meal than buffet really. In a function room somewhere out Ecclesfield way. In fact it was very tastefully done and the disco bit was in another room through two sets of doors, so you can guess what happened… A hard-core group of disco enthusiasts decamped in there as soon as they had scoffed (not perhaps a good idea to shimmy round like that after cramming all that nosh down your neck) and the more discerning gannets stayed put to pick at the carcase of the buffet like a flock of vultures. You can have more sausages on sticks or salmon fancies after you have eaten your dessert. We proved it!

We circled some of the tables, like wagon trains against the red Indians and had a major gossipy, boozy, cat-calling chat. It was great fun. My partner and I don’t know all the people at work yet as they are so many of us all in the same building. The Scampi Tails are drawn from over four different departments, for example. But we all knew enough office intrigue to interest everyone else.

There was a minor embarrassing moment as a girl from accounts started recounting a tale about a love struck member of their team who was besotted with a former full-timer who had gone part-time to do a degree at the Uni. I let her warble on like this for a while before I piped up, “Actually, I know all about Christopher and his crush but we are OK about it now.” Ground swallowing time. Kate was quite upset that she’d been talking about one of us round the table, but I was cheered by three others saying, “We knew you were on about Chris and Maia, we just wanted so see how deep a hole you’d dig…”. I wandered round and sat next to her and assured her that I was fine with her tale as I had come to terms with it three years ago. I went to explain in details which she didn’t know how it had all come about.

She did ask why I had spurned his advances and I pointed out Laura at the other end of the corralled tables, sharing a giggle with Sumira and Anita. “She is why…”

“Do you mean that….” Unfinished question time.

“Yep, we’re a pair of lemons. Don’t fret though, I am not after a new partner. In fact, before Laura my partner was male…”

We then embarked on a long and detailed chat about sexuality and how she had always been intrigued but had never had the nerve to do anything… She moaned about the men in her life and how they were all so boringly, mind-bogglingly dull (and predicatble).

I told her that her New Year Resolution ought to be ‘giving lesbianism a chance’. All of my immediate colleagues knew, and my line manager (even Mr Carr. She gasped at that!) and none of them had a problem with it. In fact once they met the object of my desires (and lusts and fantasies and ….) they were all blown away by how unlike a stereotypical lesbian she is. We ended up engrossed for quite a while until someone suggested we ought to show our faces through in the disco bit.

Grudgingly I collected the blonde bombshell at the other end of the table and we trooped through into the other room. The noise was really over powering. I mean very very loud indeed. It had been loud at some of the concerts I have been to (with Dad) but this was off the scale. Plus the excuse for music that was being played was execrable. We made a show of shuffling around for a bit and smiling and nodding to other people. After about five or six tediously repetitive numbers I shouted in the Lollster’s ear, “Are you enjoying this?”

“Not really…” was her reply. I gestured back to the doors and we sidled off back to the buffet room. Judging by the activity in the disco itself that bit was proving quite popular and if you looked at the ones still in the buffet room you could discern a noticeable gender and age split. We were now back in a largely male and older demographic than next door. For some reason it made me feel incredibly old. We snagged some more drinks from the side table, free wine and beer here, spirits had to be bought at the bar two rooms in the opposite direction (and different beer and wine too if you wanted). As we sat down we were joined by Tim Carr. He pulled up a chair and asked if we had danced out, or were we refortifying ourselves for a fresh onslaught. We told him we had ‘danced out’ and that we suddenly felt really old. He said that it happens to us all, except my Dad, perhaps. We went into a detour about Dad & Louisa and how he was either having a midlife crisis or was in his second youth. They have known each other since Harrow, so I guess not much is off limits. I told him I didn’t think Dad had ever left his first youth and that was probably why he and Mum had split up.

He asked what she thought of the new impending arrival. I answered honestly when I said she was shocked at first and then pleased for Louisa. I didn’t tell him she’d also said, “It means he’ll probably stick around until it’s 16 at least. That’s what he did for you!”  That is one of the most hateful things I have heard Mum say about Dad. She usually never lets her old emotions surface. I know enough not to ask questions when she says things like that, it makes her clam up. An encouraging or sympathetic grunt can often provoke even more revelations. We did have a big chat about it in Australia when we got sozzled at Margaret River. That was a wonderful night as I got to know more about what Mum really felt about things than I have before.

Even Mr Carr rolled his eyes upwards when I said Dad had gone to see Deacon Blue on Monday. He asked “Why?” with such feeling I just had to laugh in agreement.

He finally wobbled away to the next table and Loll and I decided that discretion was the better part of Valerie and we snuck off into the night. This was after I had the presence of mind to order a taxi for us; there were some benefits to the venue being in Ecclesfield. It was only two miles and £10 for us to get back home. The taxi driver disputed where we lived saying he had never seen our house number on Tractor Lane. I pointed out we were on the little private road off to the left, up the hill. He then wanted to drive along it to drop us at our door, I had to tell him it would be easier if the dropped as the end because if everyone is in, their cars would line the lane and there would be no place to turn round so he’d have to back out, about 80 yards on to the road again. He did as we asked.

When I took Callie for her last walk, in my party frock but with trainers and a duvet coat on, he was still sitting in his taxi, pointing back down-hill. He wound down the window and joked about my attire. As if on cue Callie jumped up at the door, put her front paws on the open window frame and licked him! I have never seen her do that before ever. She gave his cheek and ear a swift swipe. I don’t think he was amused. I was though!

Thursday 11^th December.

I think that parties mid-week are not a good idea for some people. We met several at XXX & Y when we arrived after Uni this arvo who still looked a bit worse for wear. This didn’t happen after we went to the theatre last year. LOL

Today was business as usual for the two blondes from up north, we hadn't drunk to excess and were bright eyed and bushy tailed and quite probably annoying as hell. I guess that is always the way when you've stayed relatively sober and others haven't. To be honest I have seen the phenomenon from both sides and I certainly know which of the two I prefer!

Plus staying sober means you don't wake up with a sore vagina and half of the campus football team lying next to you in bed! Not as though that has happened to me, you understand.

Jenny-Leigh, Sally and Bobbi all put in sterling work this evening and we got Christmas cards from all three of them, bless! The amount of trouble they had spelling my name was a joy to behold, I was a Mia, a Maya and a Maja (no idea of the provenance of the last one). It does sort out the Classicists from the common herd, I have discovered. Even little Laura didn't know how to spell it, but she had the nonce to ask.

A parcel from Aus. should have arrived by now, according to an e-mail from my sister. I will Skype her in the morning and see what's afoot. Assuming she isn't working afters this week, that is.

We spent a lazy relaxed post lesson chill out, just having a cuddle on the sofa and listening to Dad's burned The Endless River again. It actually isn't as mindlessly noodley as I first thought. It is good to snuggle up to. Laura decided that it would be good to make love to, so we got heavily into that just as it finished. She moaned that was just typical of men, giving up before the climax! We just giggled for ages.

Then continued where we had left off, with the same CD left on repeat...