In The Spotlights...

Having now gone through the obligatory end of year/start of year entries, I can finally return you to our regular service.

So, I went back to work. This was obviously somewhat complicated by the fact that my car was in no fit state to commute in, but luckily I had arranged with my boss to get lifts in with him. First however, I dropped the car in at the local VW garage.

The most awkward bit of the morning ended up being a little faux pas I made just before Christmas. On the Thursday before Christmas, the penultimate day I was working before my holidays, I found myself at a loose end towards the end of the day and started sorting stuff out ready for my break, on the grounds that I'd probably forget to do them on the Friday. This included setting my Out-Of-Office message on my email and switching it on. Then, on the Friday, the cold I'd been fighting all week took hold to such an extent that I went off sick. Needless to say that these two events, being unfortunately coincidental, did not look good. Bit of talking required there.

Also waiting for me at work was the news that an ex-colleague who had retired about a year ago had died as a result of the heart attack he'd had about a week beforehand. He was a pain in the arse, but in a good way. By that I mean that he was a pain in the arse because he was always doing his job properly, when most of the people around him (myself included) were more of the JFDI mentality. Somewhere, on consideration of the whole thing, I found I had a lot of respect for him, and thus felt I should go to the funeral, which was on Friday.

I always find funerals strange. Of the four I have been to now, I find there's always something totally bizarre about the proceedings - something different every time that in some cases leaves you wanting to snigger. For instance, at my Grandad's funeral I found it hard not to laugh at the sight of his coffin just from the fact that it was around 7 foot long, when I remembered him being barely over 5 foot. It just seemed totally ridiculous that my small stocky Grandad required a box that big.

On Friday, it was the vicar who was odd. There was something about his voice that seemed to bely the proceedings. It wasn't what he was saying, because the content of the actual service was very well chosen, it was just his tone as he said it. It was perhaps like he was trying to put sincerity into his voice, but achieving the opposite. I can't explain fully, but making comments about it afterwards, other people who were present knew what I meant.

It was a burial. I've never been to a burial before, only cremations. What's more, it was a burial in the church grounds, so there wasn't really any avoiding it. It didn't seem right my being there. In terms of the people who knew him I was only on the periphery, and it seemed wrong that I was there watching him lowered into the ground, and watching his family watch him lowered into the ground. I did my best not to look at all, without actually seeming disrespectful.

The other thing that happened on Friday was that we finally got round to watching my Wild Things DVD from Anne. Anne has often said that Alison has an eye for picking out particularly fucked up books in bookshops, Oops Daisy's Bad Hair Day being a specific case in point. If Alison is good at picking out fucked up books, then Anne is good at picking out fucked up films. Yes, it was the first time I'd seen Wild Things. By the end of it I was a little freaked by how fucked up it was, but at the same time was laughing at each additional twist that popped up. There's one bit of it we still can't agree on, but other than that my head is still spinning from time to time.

Oh, and also on Friday I got an email from Lego advertising their new toys for 2003. In particular this caught my eye, as I'm sure will come as no surprise to regular readers.

Then yesterday it was a DIY day. When we moved in we'd already planned to do some ink stamping on the walls in the bedroom, but until this point we'd never quite got round to it. We'd opted to stamp the wall with creamy neutral coloured daisies, and then with navy-ish bumble bees. The resultant effect was something along these lines, although both shapes were sparser than in the example.

The other task was putting the new lights into the kitchen. This would've been fairly straightforward but for the need for the lights to be earthed. There was no earth wire dangling out of the ceiling, you see, which meant I had to go under the floorboards and find one. The one stroke of luck was finding out that the wires would be beneath the bedroom, since the bedroom had already been cleared to give us access to all of the walls to stamp them. However, it still meant pulling up the carpet that my Dad had so carefully fitted when we moved in, and it still meant we had to get the fucking floorboards up in the first place. In the end, I think the floorboard bit took way longer than the rest of the job. Still, now we're rid of the horrible old spotlights and we have a funky horseshoe of cool new spotlights in the kitchen.

I don't think I mentioned that we'd bought and fitted new lights in the living room too. I fitted them on Wednesday night while Alison was watching Tea With Mussolini.

And we still haven't got round to going to see Die Another Day. Maybe tonight, maybe not. There's also Star Trek: Nemesis to go and see. It's an even numbered one, so it should be good.