All Things Cheesy

Having just realised my last few posts were me moaning about work, I have decided to steer clear of that subject for a while.

Had a flying start to the day today. Mr S had kindly switched off my alarm this morning, thinking I'd set it accidentally seeing as it is my day off. Too bad he'd forgotten I had a massage appointment at 11.30. Woke up at 10.30 and had a mad dash from the coffee machine to the shower to the wardrobe and into the car. I'm sure I looked a real state arriving at the salon. Not to worry, I felt so relaxed just getting under the towel and waiting for my trusty masseuse to arrive I think I fell asleep just a bit.

I baked a cheesecake yesterday because I promised a friend I would feed her today. She's not answering her phone which is either due loss of signal because of the stormy weather or another one of her electronic lifelines has died. Main problem now being the presence of cheesecake in my fridge. It's a whole cheesecake and I'm very very tempted to bury my face in it. In case my friend resurfaces at some stage I better leave her a slice. I also saw Mr S's lusty looks thrown in the direction of the cheesecake this morning, maybe best save him some, too. Although he very thoughtlessly ate all the Snickers ice cream from the freezer the last night, not to mention last week's Viennetta "incident". Maybe I'll just have the whole thing to myself, then.

I've booked flights to go to Finland for my cousin's wedding in July. I now face the eternal "what to wear" problem. Times like these I could easily turn an advocate for nude weddings, funerals and christenings. I have found some nice dresses online but I really need to try things on properly and for some reason the delivery times are anything up to 4weeks. I cannot possibly buy something, wait for a month to get it, try it on and then realise it doesn't suit me which leaves me with a wasted month out of my shopping time and the frustration of being back to square one after having thought I had everything sorted.

This Friday marks the May Day celebrations in Finland. Before strictly speaking a communist holiday, the students of Finland have since adopted the day as their own. Parties usually kick off on 30th of April with plenty of white hats (you get one when you graduate from secondary school) teamed with some ridiculous outfits wandering around cities and towns en masse. Picnics, song, dance and plenty of drink all night long. As a nations, Finns don't do lunch as such. Apart from 1st of May that is. Many a May Day I have trekked to a friend's house or a restaurant or some other establishment serving food (and preferably alcoholic beverages) sporting my white hat and a hangover the size of Greenland just to take part in May Day Lunch. I miss that and can't quite understand how the Irish have missed out on an opportunity to get sloshed and then go and have a boozy lunch the day after. I should probably start a petition to declare May Day a national holiday in Ireland, too. That, and Midsummer.

I really miss Finnish booze holidays...

Moan alert!

I know, I know. Moaning about work when so many people would be grateful to have any kind of a job at all, but right now I'm quite fed up with everything I'm going to be egocentric for a bit.

There's just too many changes and I feel like I can't keep up. Our head chef handed in his notice two weeks ago and finished work yesterday. I quite literally bawled my eyes out saying goodbye to him. I really and truly enjoyed working with him. We had our rows, some of which escalated into screaming matches in the office but at the end of the day neither of us were stubborn enough to hold a grudge and any differences were quickly solved and business as usual resumed.

His replacement started on Tuesday and I'm trying so hard to establish some kind of co-operation with him but I feel like I'm talking to a wall. He keeps telling me how he's been thrown into the deep end (which he has, truth be told) but when I offer to help he's not really responsive. God, I hate change!

And that bloody volcano. So many cancellations, problems with deliveries and all that jazz has me pretty much tearing my hair out. Our owner is having a canary and probably a kitten, too when he's comparing profit reports from this time last year to what we're doing now. And obviously all of us need to do everything in our power to make it better. Because we do have the power to stop volcanic ash from spreading everywhere, we just didn't feel like doing it before this.

Okay, moaning over. On a positive note, we're getting some of the old staff back and in that respect it does feel like old times. The water fights and cheerleader impressions using mop heads as pom poms. The dirty innuendos flying around and general merriment. I'll be okay again tomorrow...

Oh, dear...

...where have the days gone? And not just days, weeks, too!? Work has been manic to say at least. Trying to finish the renovation work while it's getting steadily busier by the day if not the hour. I've been doing 10, 11 hours every day and it really started to show after the first week.

My old friend insomnia has been visiting me more frequently of late and I can only put it down to stress. You know there's something wrong when all you can think about is the amount of work waiting for you the following day when you really should be sleeping seeing as it is 3.00am now and you need to be up at 7.00am. Two weeks with 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night is not healthy, I can tell you that much. On the plus side I'm really catching up on my reading.

Easter weekend was crazy. So many people and so little staff. Thankfully our GM was there to witness the chaos and really stepped up to the plate by doubling the staff numbers for the rest of the holiday week. Result!

I'm sitting here now, sipping coffee out of my new Cadbury's Mini Eggs -mug that held my massive easter egg (half of which is still untouched, way to self control!) and I'm quite content in the knowledge that for the next three days I don't need to do anything I don't want to. I am expecting a phone call from the optician's to tell me my cooler than cool (and a little bit too expensive) designer glasses are ready to be picked up.

I'm pretty sure I'm the optician's worst nightmare when I'm trying to choose glasses. I tried on literally every pair they had. Finally the poor man gave up and told me "I'll be there in the corner when you're ready." I am serious. In the corner. Waiting for me. Poor man. I'm very happy with my choice, though. I hope I'm still happy when I go over to pick them up. It has been known to happen that I have suddenly developed a complete new sense of style in the space of time it takes them to thin down the lenses, add the different coatings etc. I'm not an easy customer.

I'm off to enjoy the do-nothing-ness of these days off...