Old people and nervous breakdowns

Image by cobalt123 via Flickr

Sometimes I love my job. Sometimes I hate it! For quite a small salary I have quite a responsible job which I certainly don't do for the money!
In addition to making sure all the tenants are ok and have what they need, I am responsible for the buildings and grounds. You know, making sure they're kept clean, tidy and in decent repair.
What I didn't know that I had signed up for was keeping my tenants sanity intact around our wee hunter - Sparky the cat! Bless, he is a very good hunter of our other furry visitors. He would catch them, play with them, kill them and bring them back to his owner like a wee trophy! Of course, his owner doesn't see the good side of this because she is terrified of any wee furry creature that's smaller than a cat!
So, this morning, I had to go and pick up my fourth dead rat. Oh the joys! This one was the biggest of them all and you could have heard my freaked out murmurings a mile off!
Thankfully, though, I got there before Sparky's owner or I'd be dealing with a nervous breakdown by now!

Why does it always rain on me?

You know that in Ireland it rains 300 days a year, right? Perhaps that will explain why none of our BBQs are ever dry!

We went with family and friends to the Antrim coast last week and stopped along the way to have a bbq. We had everything you'd ever need - burgers, sausages, mushrooms, onions, ribs, potatoes, crisps, chocolate, cake........Everything, except dry weather! It was dry until we tried to light the bbq and then it rained! Picture the scene - 4 people with umbrellas up trying to protect the bbq from the rain and of course the sea breeze! 1 box of matches and a lot of laughter later, we had fire!!

This reminded me of another time where we ended up having our bbq in a lay-by of a main road. In the rain. As we were merrily munching on soggy burgers the drivers passing by were beeping their horns and laughing at us. Of course, we were laughing at us as well!

Or the time we went up to Scrabo tower in October. Stormy night and the beans and sausages were actually blown off our forks! I can still see the ribbon of kitchen paper as it was blown off the tower and onto the golf course next door!

Or, the New Year's Eve when we went to near Newcastle for a campfire. Hubby got out of the car and announced that it was "a bit breezy!". We got out of the car and straight back in again before the doors were ripped off by the near hurricane winds! We ended up at Helen's Bay with our wee fire!

Memories are made of this.....

Wonderfully supported, but by more than a bra!

I haven't written in a while, but that is mainly because so many wee things are happening it's difficult to know what to write about!

Things have been rather busy - but I suppose that's a good thing! The weeks, and more importantly, weekends are flying by and it's all a bit scary. I met a woman, once, who said that time is like a roll of toilet paper - the closer you got to the end the quicker it seems to go!

I've been thinking about the tail-end of my teenage years. I worked 7 evenings a week, but Fridays were the best. A couple of friends would come out to work with me (I was a care assistant in the community and had to drive to the client's homes). Inevitably the album in the car would be REM's 'Automatic for the People'. After driving all over North Down to do my job, we'd then head up to another friend's house for our weekly Friday night sleep-over. This would involve watching really, really bad films, playing poker (badly) with monopoly money and occasionally trying to play a joke on one another! Great times!

Lately, things have been good for us, if a little more serious. We've been having to rely on our leadership at church, and I just wanted to acknowledge them for all the help and support they've given us lately, and always. Hopefully things'll turn out the way we wish them to, but if not, it won't be for lack of trying on everyone's part!!!

So, it's safe to say that we feel very loved and supported. The first person to make a wise-crack about supportive bras gets a diggin'!!!!

Pandering to my oddity

I couldn't think of anything to write, but being on entry 21 was driving me nuts so here is no. 22! Refer to last entry!!

My weirdnesses

I have many oddities, weirdnesses or personality quirks. You choose which description suits best. Personally, I know I'm weird, I accepted it many years ago and now I fully embrace it.

Weirdness number one is this - I despise odd numbers. Seriously. The volume on the tv has to be an even number, the temperature in the car must be even as with the stereo volume. As a child, I even divided the days of the week into odd and even, with Sunday being neither because it was the Lord's day!!

So, you can imagine the pressure I put on myself to think of something to write in this blog when it's left at an uneven number, as it will be by the time I've finished today! Perhaps I'll let out some more of my......foibles!!

Happy Friday!

Holidays - waste of time?

The past few months have been pretty stressful for us in one way or another. Come to think of it, there always seems to be something going pear-shaped or some narrowly averted catastrophe! It's just how my life is. It has always been that way and will most likely continue in that fashion.

It's hard, but also can be fun, thanks to the twisted sense of humour my entire family has which enables us to get through just about anything - and we have, believe me! There are stories within my family that are very, very true, but at the same time make us all out to be fantasists because things like that just don't happen in ordinary families, do they? Is your curiosity aroused? Well, I could tell you, but I would actually have to kill you!!! ;)

April came around and we were off for a week in England to see family and friends. Do you know, we had a great time! The ice hockey was good craic as always and the family were fantastic. We even visited an aunt I haven't seen since my teenage years and it was fantastic to get to know her a little. We went ten-pin bowling, cinema, out for lunch etc. You know how it is.

Then, today, I had to go back to work. I'm as stressed as I have ever been and am wondering if the last couple of weeks was a dream. Was it? Or was the holiday itself a complete waste of time? The only reason I know it wasn't was that I got to catch up with some people from my mission days. Oh, how I love them!

Gallavanting!

Sometimes we get unfairly accused of always gallavanting around! Well, not wanting to disappoint, we're away again. This time we're going for a week. The trip started out as a weekend to see the ice hockey Playoff finals (which the Belfast Giants regrettably aren't in) and we thought we'd extend it to spend some time with family and friends that are dotted all over the midlands.

So, I'm looking forward to a fun-filled weekend and an interesting week as we catch up with people we haven't seen for a few years!

So, to anyone who reads this blog, I wish you a very Happy Easter! I know it's early, but it's unlikely I'll update this blog before then!!

This is the last trip we have planned...for now!