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!

Making plans

Today has been spent catching up with housework and preparing tonight's dinner of chicken casserole and dumplings. It's been another sunny, dry day, and I'm certainly not having any trouble getting the laundry dry at the moment!

In the afternoon, we made an effort to sort out Keith's birthday celebrations. He is celebrating a special birthday this year and insisted on going to the coast so he could have fish and chips. But it had to be the coast in this country!

Sophie and I searched and searched, and I even went all the way around the coast of England to try to find somewhere suitable! Most houses were lacking in some way, and a lot were very expensive! I tentatively explored France, but he said he wasn't going to France; he wanted somewhere on the north-east coast! We eventually settled for an inland village near Alnwick and booked for his birthday weekend. From the cottage we booked, it's about forty minutes to the sea, so not too bad!

We also, sneakily, booked a few days in Antwerp in November (just Sophie and me) and a short weekend break to France in October for the three of us. Well, you have to have something to look forward to! I have to say that the bookings of these trips coincided with a little peach vodka cocktail! Life is to be enjoyed as much as possible!

We enjoyed the chicken casserole for dinner this evening, and I made some hearty dumplings to go with the dish, as well as roast potatoes and an array of vegetables. This weekend has been immensely enjoyable, and I started to feel a bit nervous about tomorrow!

Saturday indulgence

Sophie and I, after a lovely relaxed start to the day, drove to Market Harborough this morning for lunch and some shopping. We went to Just So Italian first and enjoyed a coffee and pastry each. As usual, the ambience was great and the food delicious.

Sophie didn't want to visit any charity shops today, as she felt she had enough clothes, so we concentrated on bookshops instead. Outside Waterstones, she ran into a friend from work, and they had a good look at the books on the ground floor, while I went up to the second floor and mooched about there. Sophie ended up buying several interesting-looking books, and we headed for the Oxfam next. On the way, we spotted a new art gallery, and we were drawn in! There were some beautiful works of art, and we spotted one by Damien Hirstent! A lot of the artwork was priced in the hundreds of pounds, but we saw a couple that were tens of thousands! I know that Market Harborough is an affluent town, and Leicestershire a rich county, but the gallery looked like it would be at home on any elite London street (and in fact, later, when I looked them up, they do!).

In the Oxfam shop we both bought books, and I picked up a great hardback book by Bill Bryson, "The Road to Little Dribbling." It was only £2.99! 

From the bookshop, we popped into an old-fashioned bedding/towels/carpet shop as I was on the hunt for king-size pillowcases, something I find difficult to find. I did find some, so I'll make a note for future reference. My pay this month has been dire, as I owed the company holiday pay (well, we did go for it in the first six months of this year!) and the expenditure will have to be carefully watched until I get paid again!

It didn't stop us from having lunch at the little Thai, though, and we enjoyed prawn crackers, fishcakes and chicken moneybags followed by Mussamun curry with chicken. We chose a small glass of wine each and a bottle of sparkling water. After we'd paid the bill, we called in to see Duncan, had wine tasting, and bought a bottle of wine each. It was great to chat with Nick and Duncan and catch up with their news.

Our last stop before going home was The Wine Shed, and we sat outside enjoying the lovely afternoon sunshine. It was relaxing to sit and natter and do some people watching!

Minutes before our parking ticket expired, we returned to the car and drove home via the scenic route (Maidwell and Draughton). Along the way, we stopped to take some photos of the sun-baked countryside:

Sophie and Olive

Back home, Keith was out watching Sileby play and Sophie and I pootled about before deciding to watch the film Copycat starring Sigourney Weaver and Dermot Mulroney. We don't normally watch films so early in the evening, so it made it a bit of a treat! While watching, we later enjoyed a plate of garlicky doughballs, and I made a strawberry Eton Mess. Delicious!

We finished our evening with The Proms and the beautiful Concerto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo! It was so gorgeous, it brought a tear to my eye!