Time Warp?

What happened to June? Seriously, I seem to be missing a whole month. I was at work, signing off something and dating it 1/7/11 and then realised I seemed to have by-passed June entirely. If I was in an episode or Doctor Who, there would, no doubt, be some fantastic explanation as to where my month of June 2011 disappeared off to and we would probably find out that it was indeed the Cybermen who were to blame. Alas, not quite.

Where I work is now open until 7pm, and usually being the last one out of the building after cashing up and locking up, it means that I don't get out until about 7.30 the earliest. Factor in a stop at the local shop and the drive home, I'm usually not home until well after 8pm. Shower, dinner, washing, feeding the cats, ironing, some telly and off to bed. See how I have no time for blogging and it annoys me. I've had so many ideas floating about in the incoherent mess of my mind, but forgetting to write them down on the spot means I lose them almost as fast as I think of them.

It hasn't all been work and no play, mind. We've had some great nights out, some even enjoying warm, sunny weather (gasp!). On one of these nights, we hammered out a Murtaugh list for one of my friends, Teresa. She also has a blog here, but is even more sporadic in her writing than I am. Anyway, the list started out with about 20 items on it, this was at the start of the night. Oliver brought in the list and a pen. As the level of intoxication rose, the items on the list multiplied and got more insane as the night went on. Few examples of said items

• camp outside by yourself in a tent
• dye your hair a crazy colour
• get something pierced

And these are the ones that are somewhat printable. Others involve things that play into Teresa's fear/dislike to men in white vests, for example. You can tell a lot of thought went into this. The list deserves it's own Facebook page, we think. Or maybe a blog. Watch this space.

So, you can tell my June was very productive. I try to mend my ways in regards of blogging in July. I'm not making any promises, though.

Paddywhackery

Did you see that? No? I suppose you blinked and missed it. Well if you must know, that was my St Patrick's weekend. It passed in a blur, work was slightly mentally busy. I didn't get to go and drown the shamrock, I was working the whole weekend, in fact as I'm writing this I've just finished day 6 of 7 before I get my two days off.

I didn't feel left out or felt like I was missing something awesome by not heading out on Thursday night decked out in green and downing pints of Guinness. I think I was out on Paddy's night only once and decided it was more that enough to last me a lifetime. I think I would enjoy it more outside of Ireland, the Yanks seem to know how to throw a good St Patrick's party (even though some of them still call it St Patty's which really annoys me but on that maybe another time, eh?). A Finnish blogger who lives in Amsterdam tells me they have the best night out of the year on Paddy's night.

So what it is about St Patrick's celebrations in Ireland that I find so hard to get swept away with? It's the general messiness of it all really. It seems like nothing more than an excuse to act like a total eejit (one of my favourite irish-isms there), getting too drunk and generally not knowing where you're coming from, where you're going to and shouting how proud you are of being Irish before getting sick on your own shoes. Even driving through our local village on the morning after made me depressed; half-drunk pint glasses of Guinness and Bulmers left on walls and windowsills, broken glass, plastic Irish flags and shamrock hats littering the ground. And this is only a small village we're talking about here. I can only imagine the dread filling the street sweepers' minds on the morning after Paddy's day before heading into work.

So, I spent my Paddy's weekend safely at work getting into the festivities in another way. Here's a few photos of what we got up to.

Larry the Leprechaun

Mmm, green sponge

Yup. It's a leprechaun sitting on a pineapple

Larry was very popular among italian girls and nuns

Dressed for Distress

It seems to be that time of year again. Time for the Christmas Party. Ours is being very generously organised by our boss at one of his hotels, free of charge to all staff members. Pretty good deal considering so many companies have cancelled theirs. In fairness we had a very good season, so it seems only appropriate to treat everybody to a night out after all this years' hard work. And work hard we did, but it has been well worth it I must say. Let's see if I still feel the same way after Monday's monster do at my work but more on that later. Let's just say I have so many paper cuts, hay fever and other hamper-related injuries I think I need to take some time off just to recuperate before I start again.

Anyway, Christmas Party. And I have no idea why I've felt the need to capitalise Party, either. The usual panic has started to settle in. The Dress Issue. I have a vague idea what to wear, I've even found this lovely dress on Marks & Spencer website and was thinking of wearing that with black tights and grey ankle boots. The problem is that I don't know if they have that dress in the M&S in Galway, so I really don't want to get my hopes up too much. I had planned on going to Galway on a little shopping spree on Tuesday with Teresa, but the roads were still like an ice rink, we postponed it to next week. Another possible issue is that I will end up looking like a bag of spanners once I put the dress on. Has happened before, folks, just to let you know. Morto. I found the perfect pair of boots in the New Look website but once again, it's the UK website and I have no way of knowing for sure whether of not they stock them in Ireland before I actually get there. Please please please, get your asses into gear and get your Irish sites up and running, I have a credit card that is in need of abusing!!

So, ideally I would walk into the shops, pick up those items and they would look good, yes? Obviously the dress needs accessorising, I'm thinking sparkly black and silver; clutch, belt, and all the cheap jewelry Penneys has to offer! That is the plan and the ideal situation for me to find myself in. However, these things usually never go to plan so I need a plan B. Which I don't have. So the "bag of spanners" may well be the look I'm going for on the night. I suppose after a copious amount of Morgan's Spiced rum and coke (the drinking kind, not the snorting kind) I won't care what I look like. There's also going to be karaoke, I hear. Awesome.

There are a few people at work I haven't seen on a night out. I cannot wait to see our Finance Manager let her hair down. She recently told me she'd been to a christening and had had a good 20, maybe 25 bottles of beer on the night. She'd gone home, gotten to bed and felt the room spin faster and faster as she laid down on the bed, beside her snoring husband. She had quite unceremoniously leaned over the side of the bed, gotten sick on the floor and flopped back down thinking to herself "I'll clean that up tomorrow". She woke up the next morning to a particularly hideous hangover and a smell wafting up from beside her bed so bad, she nearly got sick again. The smell was in no way made any better by the fact that the house has under-floor heating. I'm gagging as I'm typing this.

This was just to illustrate the type of people we're gathering together into a secure hotel environment, plying them with free food and wine, and making them sing karaoke. My boss said she wants cameras and camera phones banned from the party. She didn't particularly like the photos I put up on Facebook last year. They weren't even that bad, if I'm truly honest. Majority of them was taken early on in the night when everyone was still in a relatively clear state of mind. At least my drunken singing and trying to talk Kevin the Barman into joining me was never caught on any type of a camera. Not even a CCTV. I checked.

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...