If only...

...I could be as disciplined and single-minded as my husband.

We've been re-arranging the house - well, the stuff in the house - getting rid of long-unused things and moving things about because we were getting crowded out by our possessions which seemed to have multiplied quite aggressively over the years. Well, I say "we", but it's really been Pete who's done the lion's share of work... with some help here and there from his son and a friend of ours.

Okay, so most of the heavy stuff (computers, electronic equipment, computer books, all sorts of cables and and other assorted junk, hundreds of surprisingly heavy LPs and vinyl records and so on) was all his. I couldnt have helped move it about or sort it all, even had I wanted to... (Hmm, that last statement inadvertently revealed more of the truth than I wanted, but I'll leave it in, in the interests of said honesty.)

Left to me, I guess the moving-about would have taken a few weeks. I would have done it a little at a time, because housework is so bloody BORING! Boring work, I've found, is very tiring. Cleaning rooms and sorting things and humping cupboards and boxes about is not what I want to do, even if it's for my own house. The main room I re-arranged and sorted was the kitchen, possibly the one place that's more my domain than Pete's - if only because an Indian kitchen stocks WAY more stuff than British ones! :)

It's taken a few days of solid work from Pete to get the rest of the rooms in shape with everything where he wanted it to be. I would have ended up saying "That will do" or "enough for now" - but not Pete. His single-minded determination is not just for his programming, it extends to whatever he sets out to do. It all had to be just right. He might have been tired out, but he still found the energy to keep going until the work was done. I wish I could be like that. Hats off to my husband who's most definitely my better half, because whatever his real thoughts about my lack of input, he didnt once grumble about it. Not once.

And oh yeah, in case y'all think I'm a really lazy so-and-so, I have exempted him from any and all kitchen and laundry duties for the next 6 months. :)

'Tis the season for office parties

And I'm keeping away from them. I've heard enough and read enough about these office Christmas parties (not just our company ones) to be wary of them and what goes on. Plus, in any case I'm not a party person - especially the kind of party where there are 90-odd people of whom I know about 8 (all from my office), and of which 8 I get along comfortably well with only 4, with the only certainty being that there's no way I'll get to sit next to any of those four.

One of the guys in our office gets - shall we say, "overexcited", when there's alcohol on offer. He's basically harmless, I guess, but he does tend to make uncomfortably suggestive remarks and also stand a little bit too close for comfort. (Sometimes I wish I had a force field that would stop people getting within 2 feet of me - particularly those people I dont want any closer than that!) That encroachment on my personal space, especially by someone who smells like he's swallowed a distillery, is not what I'd call a pleasant experience.

Multiply this by about 70 guys (give or take the odd teetotaler and/or the degree of unpleasantness) and the whole party thing simply doesnt hold any appeal. Especially as I dont much care for alcohol either.

Not that the women in the company are a shy retiring bunch. My colleagues were talking about a few of them from the parties of Christmases Past - a lady who got a little too up close and personal with some of the married men and had to be cautioned; another who clambered up onto a table and did some bump-and-grind routines which might have been appreciated at the time but earned her an official reprimand later; the gentleman who danced too many times with - and possibly too close to - his secretary and who faced a divorce action in the new year... many stories, all of them not quite of the inspirational variety!

Anyway, this party next week being a Christmas party, booze there will be aplenty, and a disco after the meal. Plus of course lots of back-biting and bitching and speculating and gossiping (and those are only the men I'm talking about!)... so, on the whole, the Office Christmas Party is one thing yours truly will not be seen at, especially alive.

However, our office branch has a nice tradition - the partner in charge takes us out for lunch on the day we break up (sounds like school, doesnt it?). That's next Thursday and I'm quite looking forward to it. Mainly because no more school - er, work - till January 2, 2007!