Tuesday Bluesday

Does anyone else feel their office is akin to a prison cell sometimes?

I'm just tired and grumpy today ("plus ca change!") after innumerable days spent covering other staff members absences. The final irritant - and irony - is my boss denying my holiday request for the April holidays due to others pre-booked holidays.

Well, not irony as such (it's about as ironic as the un-ironic examples Alanis Morrisette sang of in her 1995 hit "Ironic". "Isn't it ironic" she sang "rain on your wedding day". That's not ironic, it's merely bad luck) merely aggravating and a little dispiriting too.

What it means is that Carole and Luca will be visiting Lincoln alone between 7th and 11th April, while I stay home and live off a diet of "All Day Breakfast" in a can and "Fray Bentos" pies.

Aye, Mike knows what I'm talking about.

Joking aside this will be longest I've gone without seeing Carole and Luca in Luca's lifetime. In fact March will bring a similar event, as Carole flies to Manchester for a three day course for work. As such Luca will be in my sole care. An interesting development certainly, and one which I am feeling a little trepidation toward. In preparation I've booked half days at work for that week in order to give me sufficient time to walk dogs, cook, shop, etc, etc. I will, of course, photograph and post pictures on the blog of myself in my pinny.

I feel a little left out right now, as my diary presently shows no such trips away. I have a 3 day managerial course due in February but with that being based in Aberdeen my need to travel - at least in the interim - is non-existent.

I'm not the greatest traveller - my car sickness and perenial habit of falling asleep minutes into any journey don't exactly make me the ideal travel companion - but I do intend to investigate our little country a little more fully with my equally little family as the year progresses.

First intended destination? Edinburgh zoo. I wonder whether the Luca or the snarling, carnivorous animals will be more alarmed by the prospect.

I ended Sundays blog rather prematurely, without having mentioned Carole and my visit to the wedding band showcase. To call our visit brief would be accurate, as the bands on show were not of premier standard. Indeed, the first almost had the room in stitches with their cover version of "Run" by "Snow Patrol" as the singers larynx somehow failed to hit a single right note. You'd think by accident he'd luck out at some point in the song, and we so willed him on but our hopes were not fulfilled and an eerie silence followed the songs last bars.

On a more positive note, the event had a chocolate waterfall in the corner of an adjoining room with all manner of delicacies ready to be showered underneath - marshmallows, fudge and mini donuts amongst them. Carole was surprised by my show of restraint as I ate only one, but I will use this blog as a confessional post. At the end, as Carole had a cigarette outside before we embarked on our journey home, I told her I had to go back inside to use the toilet. This was technically correct as I did visit their facilities, but only after I'd paid another pilgrimage to the chocolate fountain......

As Dad has already blogged about Sunday evening, I'll instead move onto Monday night, where after Luca improbably spent the day behaving like an angel (honestly) we put him down to bed and relaxed with a movie and one of my experimental meals. Yes, it's been a while since my last!

It was pretty good (a meaty beany soup that gave me hiccups), but our accompanying movie of choice split opinion. It was called "Triangle", and was a horror/thriller loosely revolving around the Bermuda Triangle myth. I thought it was thought provoking and quite ingenious at points - even evoking memories of "The Shining" during many scenes on board the vessel - but Carole was less impressed by it's lack of logic.

Mum is babysitting Luca today while Carole and I do our exercise thing - Carole bouncing around at her fitness class while I illogically attempt to turn back time on the football pitch - although word has come through, via text, that due to weather she won't take him home and instead take him to our house in Inverurie.

Hopefully the snow will let up later and allow her to return home. Otherwise she can experience the pleasure of an overnight stay followed by a morning call provided by a slobbery kiss from Isis.

**Useless fact of the day - The first known documentation ofstrange anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle was recorded by the famed explorer Christopher Columbus in October 1492, when he and his crew was said to have passed through the area. On the eleventh of October of that year, Columbus recorded in his log book that his crew had seen “strange dancing lights on the horizon”, “flames in the sky”, and later recorded that he had observed bizarre compass bearings in the area**