Sniff

 Sniff sniff... yeah I thought so.  

It's here.. The great smell of .. nicotine...

Other ex smokers have promised me that at some point I will hate the smell of nicotine, that the merest whiff of blue smoke will turn my stomach.

I am a long way from this promised state.

It's been nearly four months, and look I'm still not smoking, but I sure am sniffing. I am inhaling passively every chance I get.

The front of Haymarket station is surprisingly smoke free. Tesco's megastore out on the far edges of Cheesetown is much better. There seems to be a constant stream of traumatised shoppers, needing a calming cigarette whilst they check their receipts. Stopping off at the cashpoint down wind from the front door can be a heady experience.  But best of the lot is Morrisons at the Gyle. I don't know if there are more dedicated smokers there, but the front door heating seems to ensure that there is a constant stream of blue smoke through the slide doors and down the concourse.

But now, here inside Ikea, I'm getting great deep whiffs of continental tobacco, whiffs of, is it Gauloise? Djarum? Maybe Marlborough at the outside..

The source is obvious; it's that nice young  man. The one with the long dark hair, dark sun tan, and Spanish accent.  He's checking out wine glasses.  With his girlfriend.

I'm sidling closer to carry on inhaling.
He's moving off to look at storage jars.

I'm moving off after him.

I'm still inhaling,

Does he notice? Or has he come to expect that, since moving to Britain, random strangers will inhale deeply  behind his back?

How much longer is this phase going to last? And can I follow him all the way through kitchenware to curtains and soft furnishings....?

Right.
Stuff it.
I've had enough.
I have had enough of setting records for the longest running string of bad luck recorded on an English language blog.
(New readers please note,  there's  been three deaths, one redundancy and one heart attack within the past 18 months.)
 
And I'm telling you, something has to be done about this.
Something.


I've decided it's the Feng Shui. 

 Not the most obvious conclusion I know, but bear with me. I have read widely on this and stiffed shui  would explain it all.  You don't believe me, I suggest you check out some links.

Apparently your  environment needs to be arranged so that the laws of heaven and earth supply you with a positive life force.  That's all.  You just balance  the yin and the yang - the two principles of the universe no less.
You do all this, and luck follows.

Previously I would have dismissed this as just so much guff.  I might have learned my lesson now though.
Not having aligned my yin or yang lately, would explain why luck hasn't followed.   Indeed some further research has shown that not content with merely failing to attract positive flows, I have found a home which is actively repulsing them. I have, for example, read and considered the following.

*Living near a graveyard means blocked chi. I live opposite a graveyard
*A straight road leading to your door invites evil energy.  I live at the top of a straight road.
*Bathrooms have a bad energy.  I have a bathroom!

From my readings to date it seems that  Cheesetown could be the Cherobyl of all Chi. No wonder things have been going wrong hey?

Something needs to be done. In my previous existence I happily ignored the laws of Feng Shui as so much mystic guff.  Now I'm ready to give anything a go.

What thinks you? I like these voting thingummies.  Have a vote and pass on advice why don't you!

That's us burling down the backroad to the CAR PARK where I needed to drop off the Cherub ten minutes ago. He has an urgent appointment with the Duke of Edinburgh Team. Not satisfied with an earlier attempt which was rained off (Scottish summers... fill in your own thoughts here...), my baby is off camping again. A bus with him and twenty of his dearest pals is off to Aberfoyle for the weekend. Last time they tried this they were flooded out and had to return home at 2 in the morning.  This time they will get that Bronze award or... or I dunno develop some kind of fungal rot in the attempt.

He's nagging me. It never works.  I'm taking revenge by SINGING to KANYE WEST.

I'm also threatening to HUG him before I let him go on the bus.  Even if I don't get to hug him, it's fun threatening, just to see him change colour at the very thought....

The bus is already there when we get to the car park.... so I have to let him off sharpish so he can catch up with his mates whilst I park. I can catch up. I have time to embarrass him.

Except when I do get to catch up I can't find him.  And I can't find any of his pals either; wee Cam and Stu are not there. Forrie I know had dropped out, but where were Mark and Malc?

And The Cherub??

The car park is just full of swarms of youth. Not all of whom have hoodies, but y'know... they're all Big Kids.  Great big hulking teenagers, with great deep voices and matching attitude.  And that's the boys.  The girls??
Frankly the girls scare me even more.  The Cherub should not be heading off with twenty or so FHM supermodels.

But wait, one of the big tall lads is waving at me and giving me a thumbs up. It's not... wee Cam.....? But before the summer wee Cam was wee enough to be officially smaller than me. Now "Wee" Cam looks like he's not far short of six feet. So the blonde haired guy behind him is... Stuie??? Even wee Stu's filled out enough to at least look like he could carry a rucksack.
Well that's my baby - the one with the ginger blonde hair.  The one with the broad shoulders and big shy smile.  He's one of the  big kids now.

If it's Monday, it means that it's cardio rehab!

And over in St James' they take cardio rehab seriously enough that an hour of cardio exercise, is followed by half an hour of relaxation therapy.

We are learning to relax.
We are to sit in a circle
Wea re to sit comfortably with eyes closed whilst Kate our cardio nurse  talks us through a scenario which we are to imagine.
Whilst breathing deeply.

I'm good at imagining stuff.
And I'm getting better at breathing.

Today's scenario is A Walk by the Loch

This might not be a good idea.... all my walks were with....






We are to imagine the ripples on the surface of the loch.
We are to imagine the birds flying overhead.

And I'm just trying really hard not to think that any ripples on the loch would be caused by the dog drinking from it.


And I'm trying really hard not to cry.
And failing.

I think it's fair to say that I'm crap at relaxation classes.

The vigilant amongst you may have noticed a seismic decrease in my blogging activity lately. The truly perspicacious of you will have sussed that this has been the week I returned to work.

For those of us working for Eminent Institutes, work is very definitely a hindrance to blogging.

But there have been changes.
There has in fact, been a very significant change.

First thing I knew about it was when I went into work and there was an empty desk.

Let's have a recap. When I last left the office, Penny was in charge. Silent, brooding Penny. Penny who only communicated by e-mail. Which was disconcerting if you sat within three feet of her.
Penny who needed to control, and amend, and delete and correct. Endlessly. Penny who would take a ruler to measure the margins on reports, but who was unable to recognise the meaning of the content.
Penny who had seen off two of my predecessors in the previous two years.
Since she had been issued with a Blackberry, Kurt and I had got used to receiving e-mails sent at midnight or later.
From last year-end onwards I had been starting to have my own problems with Penny. Problems I may not have blogged about because, well really, how could I have fully conveyed the angst of the sales ledger reconciliation, the grief generated in the posting of deferred income, never mind the full horror of the great year end reserves reconciliation debate of 2010.
Sigh. To summarise. Through the last week in April Penny and I were in the midst of yet another difference of opinion. This time it ws around whether to post member numbers on a cumulative or absolute basis.

I'll let you form your own opinions on that.

At our last meeting, Penny stormed out - whilst I went home and had a heart attack.
Which changed things.

A Lot.

Kurt had long threatened to have a nervous breakdown, two people had resigned in the past two years, but the possibility that members of the finance team would now be leaving the building on stretchers meant senior management had to act.
They held meetings with every member of the finance team.
They have listened.

Penny has been physically removed.  Responsibility for team management is now shared between Macy and Kurt.

And we have all agreed that member numbers should be posted on a cumulative basis in line with other journal postings.

See what happens when you think you know it all? See what happens when you start joking about spending a night at Cheesetown Towers, emptying the gin bottle and belting out classic rock ballads?
See what happens when your blog is open to comments?
Just when you're in the mood for a great big wallow in self pity  someone, maybe someone called lx, points out that there's a different version of the tune.

Eh? Yes.  It seems that our repressed schoolteacher, Bonnie Tyler, has had another life as a lesbian dog trainer.
Yes you read that right.  Although since she is apparently a french speaking lesbian dog trainer something might have got lost in the translation so to speak.

What do we think?

Here's Bonnie as we know her, along with her school chums and assorted pet doves in the middle of a power cut. "Once upon a time she had love in her heart, now she's only falling apart....."


 Here's Bonnie rescuing lone hitchhikers and bringing them back to her doggie ranch....I have no idea what they're singing what with it being in French and all



I'm going to canvass opinions here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They told me stuff, and I knew they were right.

I mean obviously you grow older.
Obviously things change.
Obviously at some point I was going to have to face the empty nest syndrome.



I just didn't think it was going to be like so soon. Nobody said it would be the 2nd August this year FFS!

Tonight the Cherub has gone off to stay with a pal for a couple of days.
Tonight for the first time in 17 years, (count them!) I got home to an empty house.
Check it. No dogs, no kids, nobody.

Nobody!

I used to quite like the idea of having a place to myself.  Things change.






Heh heh... I might have an empty nest, but I still got the photos....





Newsflash.  For anyone worried about the ongoing situation at work.  Penny has been selected for jury service. The ongoing joke at work is it could be worse.  She could be sentencing the poor bugger.