I survived......

.......what is traditionally the most manic pre-Christmas weekend in retail and believe me, it was manic! Try and they might they didn't get me, winge and moan as they may, complain and abuse as they do 'Joe Customer' didn't beat me, I survived it all.....sanity almost intact.

What is it about Christmas that turns those who are presumably perfectly normal, civil adults in every other aspect of their lives into something approaching screaming, rude, obnoxious spoilt children as soon as they enter a retail outlet? Would they wish their mother/daughter/child/wife to be treated in such a manner, would they find that acceptable?......I think not, so why do they feel they have a right to take their frustrations out on us in such a way? I am paid to take the 'flak', to deal with the problems and to find the solutions, I accept it's not all going to be a walk in the park but there are degrees of acceptable behaviour, even under the stress of the festive rush....not that Joe customer seems to agree on that point. Sure, if something breaks, is out of stock, if the service received is not up to scratch etc. etc. let the complaints come, I will deal with them to the best of my ability, but please Mr/Ms/Mrs valued customer, understand that I can't force maufacturers to open on a Sunday, and produce just for you the item you desire, I am not an electrical engineer, I cannot know the full specification of 32.000 products off the top of my head, I can't always 'mend it' or change it's colour and no I won't carry the cost of a courier from Cornwall to have your heart's desired item instore within the hour!

And understand if you will, I will bend over backwards to help you achieve ownership of your dreamed of item, I will move heaven and earth where I can, I will deliver service above and beyond the call of duty....if you are reasonably polite to me and my staff but if you are rude to us, shout, swear or threaten you have already lost your battle, for no matter how justified your complaint may be all that is in my head now is 'get the hell of out of my face you to**er...go sort it yourself!

So when those that deem it appropriate to abuse shop staff begin their rantings, maybe they would do well to remember that manners and civility will get you our best shot, rudeness will get you absolutely damn all more than we can do to retain our jobs!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In solidarity this post is dedicated to Bert, who I think probably tolerated more than myself this weekend and who understands only too well! ;o)

Yule be lucky!

Ok, so it's Christmas and in an effort to get into the swing of things ( I may not have a tree but I can still do chocolate cake!) as I perused the local supermarket at speed during my lunch hour yesterday, my eyes alighted on a 'yule log'. Ha! thought I, that looks kinda good, maybe I'll have me one of those....and I duly did.

Now in years gone by a yule log was a yule log, it looked like a log, it had snow on it, maybe at a push it was adorned with a plastic robin, a snowman or a sprig of faux holly...... and it had 'bark', it's chocolate coating was rippled, really, it looked like bark! It was a yule log, that's what they look like!

Upon opening, my 2005 version of this traditional treat was investigated and found to be left horribly wanting. What? No robin? No holly? Nope, not a thing sat atop this sorry offering...... and worse was still to come. It's snow, an extremely meager dusting of icing sugar, had long been taken over by atmospheric moisture and reduced to a thin slick of syrup, and the bark? There was no bark just am almost imperceptible 'wrinkle' in a chocolate covering so thin as to barely cover it's modesty.

For covering it needed, this was no yule log, this was no more than a sorry looking Swiss roll in a fancy package, though of course the EU won't allow us to refer to it as such, for it doubtless was produced in a city factory nowhere near to Switzerland!

Did I mention this was Kwik Save? No? oh silly me!

Saturday silliness

Will Tilly ever grow into these ears?!

Growing up

The tiny wee baby kitten, barely weaned, that we bought home with us not yet even two months ago now known deservedly as 'Tornado Tilly' among the more polite 'handles' she acquires from time to time, is most definitely no longer such a baby!

Tiny!

Yesterday saw her penultimate routine visit to the now dreaded vets for her final vaccination. Her attitude to these visits has changed radically since the time she first attended when in her naivete she assumed this was just another place of play! Three hypodermics later and she is well aware that an escape route should be sought at all costs! That said she is still small enough to wrestle relatively easily into the required position for the onslaught of the dreaded needle.

The vet is particularly fond of her, always enamored of her white tail tip, always threatening to kidnap her and never missing a chance to have a cuddle before duly getting on with the technical nastiness.

When we first bought her home she weighed 0.6 kg, two weeks later 0.9, a little after that 1.1 and yesterday 1.6, she is growing rapidly, her obs. are good and she is now fully vaccinated allowing her medically safe access to the great outdoors.......not that she is going to be getting over the threshold for some time yet!

Adolescent and catching up


We have an ongoing 'discussion' on this topic here in gemmak's-ville, for the first part I think she is too tiny still to be out alone in the big bad world, yes I know, I'm a worrier but this is my 'baby', we childless women eh? and for the second part I don't wish to encourage an 'oh, we're expecting kittens accident'! Thus far and for a time yet it is not a concern but I would hate to miss the signs that things are 'afoot' in her little body and discover too late that some old tom cat has 'violated' her!.

This is were there is a difference of opinion, PG would love to have 'Tilly kittens' and whilst the prospect has it's attractions for me, he seems to be rather less than realistic about the fact that we live in a one bedroom flat, I would never be able to give them up and it would doubtless be me carrying out most of the 'practicalities' anyway!

In the meantime I have taken a leaf out of Joanna's book and acquired a tiny harness and lead in an attempt to give her a little taste of the bigger picture. I have been this route before but unlike Joanna and Willow, without success, and it's looking dangerously like it will be a less than a successful solution again on this occasion, for despite all attempts at persuading her to walk when bound in this contraption, all she wants to do is practice her Houdini impression.......... or lie on her back playing with the lead!

Tampon Tilly

As the title suggests this post is not for the faint of heart nor for those men among you who are a little delicate where the 'feminine situation' is concerned, can I suggest that if you fall into one of these categories you click the little red cross, top right, at this point and save yourself the trauma of what is to come. Don't say you wern't warned!

For the sake of decency and family audiences I have considered for days on whether to share with you this tale of madness and mayhem but with a little push from a fellow blogger, who has already been privy to it, we was decided that in retrospect it just had to be told. I will however endeavor to choose my words carefully!

This is of course another a tale of Tilly-ness, thought she has on the occasion I speak of exceeded all expectations of madness and proved beyond doubt she lacks any understanding whatsoever of the basic rules of decency!

I will set the scene for you.

It is Saturday morning 5.30 am and I am in my usual state of bleary eyed-ness preparing for a pre-Christmas day in retail. I am alone, PG is working nights, I have already breakfasted, fed the cats, made the bed and spent half an hour disentangling one manic kitten from computer wiring and detaching her from curtains. I am feeling a little harassed!

So I proceed onto the stage of daily ablutions, I shower and attend to the drying process.

It is here, those of you with a weak constitution but who carried on reading regardless should consider making your exit.

I am 'blessed' on this cold, dark morning with the 'monthly feminine but seems like bi-weekly delight' we woman all so look forward to, I am feeling a little delicate and not entirely compis mentis, my mind is wandering as I continue onto the next stage of the ablutions, I am not paying attention....I should have been, for had I done so I may well have noticed Tilly lurking with intent!

I am naked, straight out of the shower and cold and I have adopted the usual somewhat inelegant and unstable but necessary pose, as I progress to the er.....appliance of 'protection', which as you know involves a piece of string.

Kittens....String....can you see where this is going?

I am no more than half way through this procedure when apparently from nowhere Tilly, having caught sight of the tempting looking string launches herself at it and makes a successful grab for her quarry!!!!!

I promise you this is not a good situation, in fact it is very un-good. Her aim, not yet honed with years of practice, is not all it could have been, only one claw makes contact, though yanking horribly as it does, and in a split second she scrabbles wildly for a better purchase on her goal, fails dismally and slides, claws still drawn down my inner thighs!

Please, I assure you you don't need further details, for the sake of decency I will leave you to your own imaginations at this point but suffice to say the incident woke me up , minor 'injuries' were sustained and you will understand why it is only in retrospect that I find the incident amusing!!!!

How not to save £15!

A small incident at work yesterday left me reminded of just how stupid some people can be but thought it is unkind to find amusement in the misfortune of others, I have to confess myself highly amused in this case!

A lady customer early in the morning, made a large purchase, both in the physical and monetary sense. This lady is well known to us, she shops at the store fairly regularly and nothing is ever straightforwardccccccc *<------- thank you Tilly* where she is concerned. She is not an unplesant individual she is just an aggravation on a busy day, seeming to posses an ability at all times to cause our dealings with her to become overly complicated and protracted.

And so, she made said large purchase which we duly took to the warehouse to be loaded into her car via our back door, it being easier for all than dragging the item the length and breadth of the store. Not surprisingly her purchase wouldn't fit into the car, you would not belive the number of times we deal with this scenario, purely because having bought something immense, customers don't want to pay a delivery charge.

We set about suggesting alternatives, we could hold the item for her until such time as she could arrange to have it collected by someone with a suitable vehicle, we could refund her for the item or we could offer her same day delivery at a cost of £15. Utterly determined, as many are, not to incur a delivery charge and not knowing anyone who could collect her purchase for her she found another solution. There was guy with a van hanging around the back of the stores at the time, we assumed he must be making a delivery to another of the number of outelts on the site, delivery drivers loitering in the warehousing area are usual but this one, having witnessed this carry on, offered to take it to the customers home free of charge, claiming he was 'going her way' anyway.

You will guess of course what happened next. Not knowing this man from Adam, having no idea whatsoever who he was and we having explained to her that he was nothing to do with us, she took him up on his offer, gave him her address, watched him load her item into his van.....and that should have been the end of the situation. Not!

Six hours or so later I took a phone call from this lady wanting to know where her delivery was. I explained that I had no idea and that the delivery driver was nothing to do with us. As ever protracted she rambled on and on about him being at the back of the store and hence we must know who he was. I explained that the area is the back of 6 stores, not just ours and it has public access, a fact that should be patently obvious to anyone. I suggested that she maybe call him....she had of course not asked for his number. I apologised that I couldn't resolve her problem but re-iterated that as we had no idea who he was there was nothing more we could do to help.

Determined as ever some customers are not to take responsibility for their own actions she commenced trying to lay the blame at our feet. This is reasonably standard practice in these these days of the 'sue culture', we have an unending number of customers for instance who buy a product, drop it in the car park and then return expecting us to replace it free of charge, like their clumsiness ormisfortunee is somehow our responsibility!

I had by this time a long snake-like queue of other customers forming, all equally entitled to my attention, enough was enough so I put into play, despite her resistance, polite but firm call endingtechniquess.

I am still, regardless of so many years in the business, amazed at just what extremes some people will employ merely to avoid spending a few quid. This lady certainly is not 'financially challenged' judging by her spending habits and the school her children attend and yet in her desperation to avoid a £15 charge, which includes the fact that the responsibility for her goods is ours until they arrive at her doorstep, she handed over a £200 purchase to a 'man with a van' about whom she knew absolutely nothing!

I know we live in a relatively crime free area but get real lady! I doubt she will ever see her purchase again and I apologise for my unkindness but I can't help but feel she got what she deserved..... and see a rather large dollop of amusement in the situation!

Maybe I am a skeptic, maybe the guy was genuine and just running late but I doubt it, a six hour window seems a little extreme from someone who apparently said "I'll be there soon"!

Snap!

I'm not now and never have been, a great believer in reincarnation and other similar odd theories but PG mentioned a few days ago the fact that Tilly was born just a few days after Poppy cat died and that he had noticed just how similar their markings are on their backs.

Now I know that all tortie and white cats obviously have great similarities but Ditto for instance, is very different, her 'patches' are very defined, both Poppy and Tilly have a more 'marbled' effect and I have to admit, on looking at these pictures I can see where he's coming from!

Poppy

Tilly

So this is Christmas......

....and what have we done?

Well in my case to date still very little and as I rush headlong toward the appointed day the stress levels are rising. How on earth do people do all that has to be done for a family of say six and remain sane?

I have made a little headway, I have at last bought cards, though they remain as yet unwritten, I have managed to track down a few gifts and I have purchased wrapping paper and the other assorted paraphernalia for correct presentation of said gifts....though here in gemmak's-ville I think Tilly may well have destroyed most of it way before any recipient lays so much as an eye on a parcel!

Now Tilly, Tilly is the cause of another Christmas 'discussion', the 'do we or do we not have a tree' discussion. Madam of course would love one and so would I, though the idea of her and a tree in one room, even for a few seconds, fills me with dread. Hells bells, she only has to be given a twig to be rendered manic so heaven knows the results if presented with a whole tree. There is then the issue of the decorations to be considered, here in gemmak's-ville tree decorations have to be hand-blown colour co-ordinated and glass, plastic, machine churned out, glitter ridden, 'baubles' will not be tolerated, another minus, Tilly and glass?? I think not.

And so, for the first Christmas in my life it was decided by mutual consent that a tree would be forgone in the name of Tilly safety and our sanity. I was convinced it would not be a problem, after all we won't even be here on the 'big day', so the decision was made.

But this is Christmas and as time marched on I decided we just had to have something, we couldn't be completely un-decorated so I set about hunting for Tilly-proof alternative and given the very limited outlets here I knew I was riding for a fall. What did I come up with?....really, you don't want to know, for it seems that Christmas circa 2005 is reduced to gaudy, singing, dancing tat where decorations are concerned and the very best I could do was one of those damnable 'candle bridges' and a faux antique 'pot' santa clause!! To add insult to injury the holly and ivy decorating this delightful *cough* item are plastic and the 'candles', that have of course nothing in common with real flame, 'flicker'....well, if I'm being forced to 'do kitsch' I might as well go the whole route and hope that I can bear to look at it long enough to get me to Christmas day.

Really, this is not good and it is certainly not a beautiful blue spruce bedecked with delicate glass ornaments! I'm not sure if I will resist the temptation to hurl it at the wall and go buy a tree at the last minute!

My apologies if you have a passion for these things but I just don't seem to share it, Christmas needs a tree, not a plastic bloody candle!....anyone want a candle bridge...free to good home, postage paid, hell I'll deleiver it personally if I have to! :o)

Hemel hempstead explosions

The initial low key panic of this morning's post when I woke bleary eyed, to the news that the Buncefield oil terminal had suffered a series of explosions, has given way to a strange mix of emotions and thoughts.

My initial worry was that a member of my family or a friend may have suffered, at the time I was first aware of the incident the news was carrying only very sketchy information and the BBC was still waiting for it's reporting team to arrive at the scene. When they did at approx. 8am, having had to make their way from central London, their words and images did little to put my mind at rest but a few phone calls and texts later I had news of all those closest to me who either live or might have been in the vicinity were safe and well.....if in some cases a little shocked.

The news reports state that at this stage the police are ruling nothing out but with the information they have the cause would appear to be accidental, early in the morning, woken but something of such force one can imagine some of the scenario's that were racing through the minds of those living locally.....and I think that is where I feel quite odd because four years ago I was living with my now ex husband in one of the closest residential properties to this site.


Buncefield terminal was built originally on farmland, there was nothing around it, then came the M1 and as Hemel Hempstead grew, so did an industrial estate on the closest road, Maylands Avenue. As time passed many national and international companies like Kodak, Epson, Dixons and BSI based their world or UK headquarters there and gradually, a piece of land between the industrial estate and the oil terminal began to be developed for housing. It was one of these properties I bought.

At the time and subsequently, I occasionally made reference to the fact that I wouldn't like to be there if 'the depot ever went up', I'm not good at distance measurement but only maybe 300-600 yards of fields separated our home from this potential threat of 20 or so petrol storage tanks each with a volume of 300 million gallons....... there were only one or two residential buildings any closer.

Well now we know, as images have flashed around the Western world, what would happen if 'it went up' and whilst I don't want to detract from the horror and pain for those close or involved I am amazed that it wasn't even worse and thankful that this happened early on a Sunday morning, when the the majority of the thousands of people, my ex husband included, who work on the industrial estate and in the offices of Maylands Avenue were at home and not at work.

On a personal and selfish level I am just glad I wasn't there at all. I would now be evacuated, I am given to understand that ex-home currently has no door, windows and only part of the roof, the picture below was taken two roads away.


© Getty Images
Finally I can't help but think of something that given the number of casualties shouldn't really have even entered my head at all but did anyway. When I left that home I also left behind the real gemmak's little grave which I hated to do...... and I keep wondering at how peaceful it will be now with the windows and rubble scattered about it. On the scale of things it's not important I know but I can't help thinking about her there a tiny bit.

Buncefield oil depot explosion

OMG...... the Buncefield oil terminal in Hemel Hempstead, where it is reported this morning three massive explosions resulting in casualties took place, is only 300 yards from the home I shared with my ex-husband ...... many of my friends still live in the vicinity :o(

EDIT: My parents, eight miles away heard and felt this explosion, which was powerful enough to move items in their house......

Saturday silliness

This Saturday's silliness is something we gals know is complete silliness ;o)

PG 1

Among all the ailing, stress and unpleasant snottiness of the last few days one more agreeable happening occurred.......PG finally picked up his new car! What a relief, no more jump starts at 6 am, no more paddling whilst driving, no more leaking doors and hopefully no more massive garage bills, almost bi-monthly, just to keep it on the road.

Ok, so this purchase was forced upon us, despite our being able to ill afford it, by the sudden death of the old one in the face of an MOT inspector, but it's not before time and I can't help but be oh so glad to see the back of the old one.

When I say 'new car' it isn't actually new, it's a few years old but everything seems as it should be, aside from it being a Mondeo........no Mondeo-man jokes please I've done 'em all, and unlike my little car it has all the bells and whistles, though for me, at such a ridiculously small stature, it feels like driving a bus!


The collecting of it went all to hell courtesy of our poorliness. It was intended to be today that we went to collect it and then onward to Edinburgh to 'test' it and finally do some Christmas shopping, but it was ready a day early and we just knew we weren't gonna make it to retail hell today, so PG collected it in the fog and ice alone late yesterday afternoon. Much to my chagrin I was feeling too bleugh to accompany him and consequently have yet to drive it more than twenty yards down the road.....hells bells it's big, thank the Lord for electrically tipping-up seats!

There is a plus side to this size business mind you. Future journeys to London will no longer be in my very small and not particularly salubrious car and if I'm ' conveniently uncomfortable' driving the new one as a result of it's size...... PG will just have to do the driving!

Deep breath....count to ten

Arghhhhh......I still feel like crap, though I am a little tiny bit improved and I'm having 'one of those days'! I know it's only a cold but it's a bitch of a cold and my head feels like it's about to implode.

I'm as stressed as hell trying to catch up with everything I should have done yesterday and didn't, I'm supposed to be at the day job tomorrow but don't feel well enough and daren't call in sick again having experienced the usual arrogant, uncaring and off hand attitude kindness and sympathy when I called in yesterday, I've put the paddle for my bread making machine somewhere I can't locate despite turning the place upside down and PG is working nights which I hate!

oh and it's dismal, pouring with rain and I've spent most of the morning trying to work whilst repeatedly extracting Tilly from the top of the curtains, the back of the computer or from sitting on the keyboard!

Deep breath....ommmmmmmm........

Upright at last

Well I have made it out of my bed though I can't promise you anything bright or witty, no change there then I hear you say.

Having made somewhat of an amusing 'faux pas' with my earlier use of the word 'hooter', (I was referring to my nose I hasten to add and I have to confess to not having heard it used in the manner suggested in my comments) the best I can do for a post today is this:

Tilly's idea of 'love' and one very patient, if somewhat exasperated, Ditto!

It started innocently enough as a cat cuddle......


...Until Tilly decided that whilst sitting on her, Ditto might also require a little 'wash'.....


....though really it was just an excuse to attack by means of stealth......not a paw did Ditto lay on her, though she may well have been excused in doing so under the circumstances!


(Clickable)