Feeling the heat!

Sophie woke me from a vivid dream this morning in which an old neighbour was taking us to an Airbnb before we went on holiday. I realised I had no luggage with me, just a big bag of stir-fried vegetables. Perhaps the heat is finally getting to me! It took a while to shake off the dream; it was so real!

Sophie and I went to see my Mum at 11:00am, and I bought her a box of chocolates. When we arrived, she was lying in bed, and I found it difficult to wake her. She then didn't seem to realise it was us, which was a bit worrying. Eventually she came to fully, and we chatted, but she didn't seem right. I said I would take her for a drive and an ice-cream on Wednesday, and then popped into the lounge to speak to one of the carers about Mum. She assured me that yesterday, at the Fun Day, she'd been fine, but sometimes in the morning, she didn't want to get up.

Sophie and I said goodbye to my Mum and gave her a hug. Her room was hot, so maybe she was a bit dehydrated. We drove home, with the air conditioning full on as it was another warm day. I am fed up with this heat now and the terrible dryness affecting us in this part of the country.

Back at home, Sophie spent ages preparing tonight's dinner of Hainanese chicken and Basmati rice. She had so much to do, bless her! I helped out with what I could, and then we did some housework before having lunch of fish finger sandwiches and the last dregs of a bottle of white wine that had been languishing in the fridge.

The afternoon was spent relaxing after the housework, and I had enormous trouble submitting the first five hundred words of a novel I'd like to write to a competition. Our home PC is on its way out, and I needed to access Microsoft Word on it. In the end, Keith finally got it going for me!

Sophie and I played Scrabble in the early evening, and after a promising start, Sophie overtook me and won! We drank some more dregs of wine - a sweet Vouvray - before opening a bottle of sparkling wine from the same village. Sophie put the finishing touches to the meal, which was delicious! Her hot chilli sauce certainly made its presence felt!

After dinner, we watched a new French crime comedy called Carpe Diem, which is on Channel 4 on a Friday night. It was funny, and the setting of Nice was especially good. It's a worthy successor to Panda!

Changing plans

Sophie went to Daventry this morning to do a 5K run with her work buddy, Becky, and I had a relaxed start to the weekend. She achieved her fastest run yet, but had a disappointing breakfast afterwards, which made her feel queasy all day.

I pootled about, did a load of laundry and caught up with some jobs, and at 2:00pm we drove to The Tollemache (or Tolly) Arms in Harrington. The plan was to go and see my Mum first as I hadn't visited last week, but then I realised it was the care home's family fun day and we didn't fancy joining the hordes!

We sat inside the pub, in a little nook, and I kept getting told off by Sophie for people watching! There were so many staff that they were almost falling over each other! We had two drinks - I stuck with Guinness Zero - and had a good chat. At about 4:00pm, we left and drove via the A14 to the care home, but the family fun day was still in full swing with loads of people milling about, so we decided to visit my Mum tomorrow instead, when it would be quieter!

At home, we relaxed and then decided to watch Single White Female at 6:00pm. This is now becoming an enjoyable tradition! Sophie was adamant she hadn't seen the film before, but then realised a quarter of the way through that she had... we still enjoyed it, though, even though it was a bit far-fetched!

As Sophie still felt queasy, she didn't fancy dinner of beefburgers, so we made do with some tortilla chips and dip and then toast. Keith was equally happy not to eat and made himself some boiled eggs and toast.

After the film, we watched, in its entirety, Quantum of Solace, one of the most confusing Bond films I have ever seen. I read the plot but still didn't have a clue what was happening, and this was perhaps the third time I had seen it! However, it was nice to sit and watch Daniel Craig for over two hours!

Coffee? Sorted!

I was delighted to use a Tassimo coffee machine in the kitchen at work today! What a bonus! While Sheila made herself a cup of strong tea, I used the disc I'd taken in with me to make a coffee. This is more like it!

We had a very interesting and varied day today, tackling things like block bookings, invoicing, and contracts of employment. The job is certainly more interesting and varied than what I used to do, so I feel a lot happier.

We left just before 4:00pm, and I was home way before 4:30pm. It feels like I have some of my life back, as I'm not leaving until 7:30am in the morning. When Sophie arrived home, we cracked open a bottle of French white wine from near Carcassonne and indulged in some tortilla chips with a dip. We watched a very interesting episode of Fake or Fortune, which was about fifteen Lucian Freud etchings discovered in the garage of a printworks. There was no real conclusive answer, but each etching was still worth about £6,000-£8,000!

After Fake or Fortune, we watched the last Scandinavia programme with Simon Reeves. It was another eye-opener!

Feeling better!

Keith dropped me off at work this morning, and I had a much better day. We tidied up the timesheets and tackled the sickness spreadsheet, so that was all done. By mid-afternoon, we had submitted everything, which was a relief. Starting when I did, right at the beginning of the month, I was thrown in at the deep end, excuse the pun! I felt a lot happier, thank goodness!

It's a novelty getting home before 4:30pm, but that may change when the large school next to us resumes in September. I remember it took me a while to get out onto the main road, but it will be better than where I used to work!

Dinner tonight was a delicious cottage pie, and I was grateful that it felt a little cooler today. However, this is short-lived, as we are due yet another heatwave next week, with temperatures set to be in the mid-30s on Wednesday and Thursday. This is turning out to be one scorcher of a summer, and outdoor attractions must be loving it! It's not so good for indoor play places or the cinema!

Getting things done

Sophie was working from home today and had set up her laptop at the kitchen island. Outside, it rained heavily, but only briefly, which was disappointing. We were hoping it would set in for the day and make a difference to the garden!

I had a coffee and then tackled some overdue jobs, one of which was colouring my hair, and it really needed it! The sun over the holiday had lightened it, and lots of grey was showing through, so I couldn't wait to apply the colour and go back to a brunette!

I still felt a bit mopey about work, and I was glad I had today off to sort out a list of things I had to do. I managed to annoy Sophie while writing the blog, so she put her headphones on and listened to John Mayer! At lunchtime, we drove to Broughton and sent off three parcels; I was glad she came with me as I would have been easily confused with the different QR codes! 

Need I say that after the morning rain, the sun came out and it was another beautiful day? I had an appointment in the afternoon for an eye test and asked Keith to come with me so he could do a little shopping.

I arrived early (as usual) and had to go through a series of tests before I saw the optician. I had a photo taken of my eyes, a pressure test and a peripheral view test, all of which I passed. The optician reminded me of Sophie's ex-boyfriend, Vikesh, and was quite quirky. He pronounced everything was fine with my eyes, and that was that for another two years!

Walking back to the car was a depressing experience. I try to avoid the centre as much as I can and noticed that NatWest was now no more. How many years had we been visiting that almost every day when we had the business?

Back at home, I was delighted to find that Sophie had prepared my porridge for tomorrow, and offered to make me a sandwich for lunch. She also hoovered! I wish she could work from home every day!

A little wobble...

I didn't sleep well last night and woke up feeling a bit down this morning. The change in Sheila had been worrying me, so when I went into work this morning, I asked Sheila exactly how stressful the job was. She had been in very early again, and I mentioned I'd hardly seen her drinking or getting up from her desk. She admitted it was stressful, and I said there was a fine line between being nicely busy and being overwhelmed with work. However, she did say that entering the timesheets would soon be a thing of the past, as this was becoming digitalised, thank goodness! I even found out I need to ask for holiday on a paper form!

I spent the rest of the day entering hours, and we had another Teams meeting at 11:00am with the payroll department, which nearly sent me to sleep. I was beginning to wonder if I'd made the right decision... What was also worrying was whether my contract had been received by the payroll department so that my wages would be sorted out by the next payday. I had a niggling feeling my contract hadn't been submitted in time, which could mean no pay this month, a very worrying prospect.

We worked through lunch again, and tried to sort out some of the problems on the timesheets, which had engulfed our desks again. I absolutely cannot work in a mess, or with loads of bits of paper everywhere. It just feels like I'm being overwhelmed!

I left at 4pm and felt even more miserable than this morning. When I got home, I burst into tears and said to Keith that I wished it was how it used to be... working for my old company, in my old office (not where we moved to) and doing my old job. It was an impossibility, but I needed to vent!

When Sophie arrived home, we sat in the kitchen and talked about my day. She quite rightly said that I had a history of getting tearful in a new job, but I admitted honestly that I really didn't want to work anymore; I'd had enough! I also said that I felt like I'd had no choice but to leave my old job, so I was trapped.

It felt good to let it all out, and by the time we had dinner, I felt a little better. To cheer me up, we watched an episode of Best Medicine, which was excellent. I've almost forgotten about Doc Martin now, as this new series is just as good!

Being the "newbie"!

It felt very strange indeed to be going back to the place I used to work this morning. It was the same, except it wasn't, if you know what I mean...

I said hello to Amanda, who was working on reception, and made my way upstairs to my new office. Our old office is being made into an extension of the gym, and we weren't allowed in there as it's a building site. Sheila was already in (she gets in at some unearthly hour), and we had a chat before making a start on my training. We had the office to ourselves today, but we still had a lot of people popping in with questions. One of the first things we did was gather up the timesheets to enter people's hours onto the computer. This turned out to be a time-consuming job that I really thought needed modernising! Surely, people could enter their own hours onto our payroll system and then get them checked by their supervisor? An app on their phones would work well!

We had a Teams meeting with two members of staff and spent the rest of the day sorting out the payroll. There were reams and reams of paper, and lots of them had to be checked again with a supervisor. This meant there were loads of sheets of paper everywhere with scribbled notes on some of them. I can't work in a mess! I'm hoping that things will improve when I work on my own, as Sheila can be a little disorganised!

I went to get a coffee mid-morning and was horrified to be charged £3.80 as I hadn't yet received my staff fob! I definitely won't be doing that every day! Can you imagine how much that would amount to every month?

Sheila doesn't take a break for lunch, so we both worked through, which I wasn't keen on. An eight-hour shift needs a break! She also didn't go and get herself as many cups of tea as she used to and hardly left her desk... hmmm!

At 4pm, I went to re-join Keith, who was waiting for me, and we had a much shorter commute home. I was parking on our driveway before 4:30pm! That was definitely a bonus!

Dinner tonight was an easy supper of fishcakes with mash, and then we watched World War II with Tom Hanks, which made for uncomfortable viewing. Sophie had wanted to watch the episode because it was about the resistance, but immediately wished she hadn't!