PracticalVirgin

19:01:27 o'clock BST
Feeling Angry

http://practicalvirgincontinues.blogspot.com/

The above is the address of my new blog.

Thank you, AOL, for deciding to discontinue all blogs with effect from 31st October.

Thank you for deciding to delete all blog content from that date as well.

Thank you for telling us we need to copy our blogs and paste them into a word document if we want to save what we have written. There may be another way, but I don't know what it is! I have been blogging for 3 years this month and my blog runs to something like 600 pages!

I have had to split it into 6 seperate documents - thank you once more AOL!

And I hope to God it is saved after all this effort.

If anyone knows how I can preserve the content of this whole blog, please email me before the end of the month!!!!

So, I am moving off to Blogger......Hope to see you there.

 

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17:51:11 o'clock BST
Feeling Mischievous

Yup, we've all been to this.

Well, what can I say?? Do the High Ups really think the lowly toilers will be inspired by it all, hmm??

It actually wasn't as bad as we all feared, but then that isn't saying much. The CEO stalked magestically to the podium while M People's "Moving On Up" was played over the sound system. Not the best choice in the world, if you listen to the lyrics ("You done me wrong/Your time is up.......Move right out of here, baby, go and pack your bags.....Take it like a man, if that's what you are/Cos I'm moving on up..." etc etc), then we all had to leave at the end to strains of "What have you doen today to make you feel proud" - yuk, cheesy!

All the departmental heads had to stand up and wave, and then we were all invited to give them a round of applause - cue a polite smattering of clapping from around the hall. We saw the staff film, and then in groups of 10 had to say what we could do to add value, save money, and please our "customers". Nobody quoted Dilbert at this point "I barely have the energy to pity them", but it was a close run thing.

Anyway, all the comments will be pored over by the Directors, we are all supposed to see the final report, but we all know they will pick out the bits that seem to support what they want to do anyway.

Morale is low because job evaluation still has not finished - more than 2 years down the line - and by now people's jobs will have changed anyway (ours certainly have in our section) so what we are doing will no longer match what we said over 2 years ago. The organisation has been warned to brace itself for a flood of appeals as a result. There's no word on when it will be finished - they now say next April - and everyone thinks it's going to be used as an excuse to cut pay. Several departments are being restructured and no end of people are finding they have not been job matched under the new structure, so people are not very happy....then we had to have this nonsense foisted on us!

On the plus side, we all got a very nice reusable cotton tote bag with a slogan on the side, and a cheap plastic pen with the word "Transformation" on the side.

And you can't say fairer than that, can you??

As for me, I did not get the secondment, but it's just as well. One member of the Gang leaves in 2 week's time, and another has broken her foot while on holiday, so is off sick. She cannot get a shoe on to walk, the bones had to be pinned, and she has stitches in as well! We are struggling now to cover all the work, so it is a good job that I am not leaving them too.

We survive. Somehow!

 

 

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17:36:04 o'clock BST

Yes - I've had my baloon ride at long last!

This may sound grumpy, but I am not sure it was worth the wait. It was fine whilst we were in the air, but what a palaver getting up there! We - the passengers - were expected to help them errect the balloon, which in my case meant acting as ballast in the basket while the balloon was being filled. Ihasten to add that I was not the only one, the basket lies on its side while the balloon fills, then it suddenly rocks upright (throwing you in a heap in the bottom), whereupon everyone else has to clamber in and away you go.

Nice view, but you are at the mercy of the wind, and the landing was nerve-wrackingly bumpy. Then, we all had to help them pack away - the support team of 2 followed on in Land Rovers - before we had a glass of cheap champagne while standing in a ploughed field in the twilight. They then take you back to the starting point, where you can collect your car and then drive home. It cost me over £6 to park (bloody money grabbing Council!) as well.

Grumble, grumble.

Maybe I am an old grump, but I didn't feel like the rest of the passengers who were all saying "Ooh, brilliant, fantastic". Anyway, I have done it now. It was an experience but I won't be repeating it.

It was OK. I suppose that is "damning with faint praise", isn't it?

I don't think I'd do it again

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17:26:37 o'clock BST

Well, after quite a long break away from the blog......I am back!

The wedding was great, a really good "do". I was so happy for my old chum. She has got married - for the first time - and is as happy as can be; and he seems a really nice chap. She looked lovely in a very plain, oyster satin gown and a small veil, it was a church wedding, her aged father (81) gave her away, and the sun even shone!

I took The Infamous R with me. Well, it's nice for him to have an outing, isn't it? I even got him, not a natural suit wearer, into a suit. He has exactly 2 suits. One is a dark pinstripe that makes him look like Don Corleone's right hand man, and it is so old that the trousers are flared, for heaven's sake; but the other is a more respectable light grey; so I got him into that one. And I made him buy a new shirt and tie!

We staryed overnight in a very lovely B&B, then went to the wedding the next day.

My chum was 20 minutes late - the groom had started to pace about a bit - but she arrived, and everything went off smoothly afterwards, albeit rather later than planned. The reception was about 45 minutes drive from the church, but it was great. Gorgeous canapes and champagne on arrival, a 4 course meal (salmon, lamb, lemon syllabub with summer fruits, cheese and biscuits), endless wine or soft drinks, coffee, you couldn't fault it. Then we had about an hour to waddle about before the evening do - more food and wine and dancing to a jazz/salsa type band. I didn't know anyone there, except the bride and her immediate family, but everyone got chatting and it was fine.

It was a joyous day. The bride and her sisters worried about their father who kept wandering off for a cigarette; the three teenage boys who all departed the evening reception in horror the minute their parents hit the dance floor; the French guest who seranaded the bride in a French dialect (I think Occitan) while playing a small guitar which made him look a dead ringer for this year's Spanish entry in Eurovision, the sun coming out when we all emerged from the church; it's these things that build memories for everyone and are just a joyous part of life!

And aw, the way they looked at each other at the altar, brought a tear to even my eyes (and I don't cry at weddings).

So well done MM - who is MM no longer, but has another name!

 

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22:40:26 o'clock BST
Feeling Excited

Well, my old chum's wedding is this weekend!

Am going to another part of the country for it, and really, I am quite excited. Haven't been to a good knees up for absolutely ages!

Just hope that the weather remains dry, although I suspect it will rain at some point. It's done so every day this week, sometimes heavily, so I doubt that will change.

I've got my coat, fascinator, shoes, bag etc etc and am all ready to go. And even more blissfully, I have booked a couple of days off work each side of the weekend, to make more of a break out of it.

Speaking of work, I am being considered for an internal secondment, which I am quite happy about. I will still have contact with my gang at work, which is good, but will be doing something different albeit linked to what I normally do. Whether I get it or not remains to be seen. Whether the gang can take the strain of another one of us dropping off the perch, albeit temporarily, in the face of an increasing workload also remains to be seen! As I said before, our colleague PD is leaving - now in his last month - and we have no confirmation how he will be replaced or even if he will be replaced. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to pick up his work. And then another chum, B, has said she might retire next summer, so that will be something else we have to worry about.

The Dreaded P is sniffing about, as she would, asking who is going to do PD's work when he goes. We are manouevering to give back to her some of the crappy work she dropped on our section, and with several changes afoot are crossing everything that we've got that we will be able to do this. My colleague C, who unfortunately has to work closer with her than I do, is finding her a real struggle. He did some work, and she has gone through it with a blue pen, and has actually ticked some bits and written "wrong" by others; and in one place has written that he must use more "professional" language! I mean, what is this?? We've tried to make a joke of it by saying things like: "five out of ten eh, must try harder," to cheer him up, but we are all seething at her sheer bloody nerve. We have a group seethe on behalf of the one of us who is injured by her.  Who the hell does she think she is? She's some two bit, jumped up mare who everyone hates!

I've never known anyone so unpleasant as her before. Ruthless, bullying, hectoring, demanding, rude, power crazed, hard........pick your description!

She is havingtrouble with her hip these days and we are all hoping she will have to have a hip operation that will keep her off work for months, and hopefully hurt a lot at the same time - oh yes, we are wicked sometimes, but we have cause!  As I said, maybe her rivets are a bit rusty and she needs to have them oiled and loosened. God, anything to keep her away from us.....except she'd probably email into work from her sickbed.....Mind you. I'd ignore her on the grounds that she was off sick and therefore not in a position to issue orders - not withstanding that she isn't actually our boss.

Hmm, better get the wax dummy and the pins out again.....

This next bit is serious, mind you. One of the lawyers, actually a very quiet and nice one, was assualted near our workplace only last week - at 4.30pm. He wasn't robbed or hit or punched, but he was assaulted in the back with a thin sharp weapon which the hospital has told him may have been a hypodermic syringe. He's had to have blood tests. The Police, typically, would not do anything until he had a hospital report stating what the weapong might have been, and only after that did they take a full statement from him and take all his clothes away. He's pretty calm about it all, only concerned that he gets his trousers back from the Police as they were quite a good pair.

Now, this "stabbed by a syringe" story is a bit of a modern myth, I'll admit, but I have spoken to the lawyer concerned myself and had the story straight from him.

As we all said afterwards, if it had happened to the Dreaded P, the weapon would have bounced off or just snapped!

Ah well, must get off to bed now.

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22:14:43 o'clock BST
Feeling Fabulous

Last weekend, I went to see the new film "The Duchess".

It's had mixed reviews, I know, but I enjoyed it and in fact found it very moving.

True, I don't rate Keira Knightly much as an actress, but I thought she did quite well in this. The camera loves her and she can look luminously beautiful, which helps I suppose. But I thought she turned in a restrained, but touching at times performance.

Lovely costumes and settings too, if that is your kind of thing!

I won't spoil it by telling the story, but I found it quite sad for everyone - they were all so confined by custom and tradition and the time they lived in. It must have been even harder for women, particularly those of spirit and intelligence who had to live so completely under the rule of men.

So yes, I recommend the film heartily.......but be warned, it is more of a girly film than a manly one!

 

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10:46:01 o'clock BST
Feeling Mischievous

A few days ago The Infamous R suggested that we visited a dogging site that we had read about on a website, not to participate in any shape or form, just out of curiousity.

This site, although not far away from where I live, was new to us, although apparently people drive miles to visit it  - not just for dogging, but because, being quite high up, it is said to have a fantastic view. The local plods are supposed to be fairly tolerant of activities in the area, provided that there is no nuisance or damage that is going to upset the locals or the Council. Generally speaking, the Police would rather have dogging than drug dealing, although it very much depends on the attitude of the plod-in-charge at the time and it isn't something that you can rely on!

We arrived at around 10pm, and I'll say this for the site.......yup, it has a great view over the lights of a certain Cathedral city.The lights twinkled very prettily below us, and being quite high up and away from street lights, you also had an excellent view of the stars.

However......

The site itself was a bit of a dead loss. It is in fact a quite well known viewing point, and as such has loads of car parking spaces in a long, long line looking out across the view (as you would expect). But there is constant traffic up and down the line of parking spaces as people - mainly single guys, ho ho ho - drive up and down the line of parked cars. TIR and I were only there to observe, and as he said, it was like being parked on the side of a motorway.

The couple in the car nearest to us were placidly munching on bags of chips while they looked out; and a few yards away, a pair of guys hovered hopefully. One or two guys drove in and fashed their headlights - I have no idea what this means, no longer being au fait with dogging etiquette, - and several flashed their interior lights on and off before lighting up a cigarette. How pretty the little red cigarette ends looked, glowing away in the dark! I think they were all out of luck though, unless they were gay, as the chip-eating woman and me were the only females in the place; she had a face full of chips and I wasn't on the market for fun (and never have been with strange men in car parks)!

Dogging always send me into fits of giggles anyway, and this was no exception - the whole concept always seems pretty bizarre to me - after about 20 minutes, we left. Just as we drove out, a police car drove in, so I suspect that that was the end of the night's activities anyway.

I really don't see how that site could lend itself to dogging. The layout was wrong, there was very little tree cover by the parking spaces, and it was far too busy with cars going in and out. True, it was well away from houses, being down a long lane and on a steep hillside, and true there is a lot of space, but it would not appeal to me. And despite what people have said about it - and it has had some glowing recommendations - the police are clearly still keeping an eye on it, so you would have to exercise caution if you used it. That's true of any site, of course.

I'm not sorry I went and had a look, mind you. All part of life's rich pattern, as they say.

And finally......I didn't get a new outfit for the wedding, but I did get a "fascinator" to stick on my head!

 

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14:20:41 o'clock BST
Feeling Exhausted

My oldest friend, MM, is getting married next month, and I'm invited to the wedding.

Whilst I am thrilled and delighted for her, I am also in a state of panic about what I should wear!

I have dug around in my wardrobe and tried several items on. One dress I have flung out in disgust - it's too big for me and an awful blue and green pattern that makes me look like a badly upholstered sofa, what on earth was in my head when I bought it? - so that is off to the Oxfam shop. Pity, as it was expensive and only worn once (admittedly 7 years ago).  Two dresses I have hung back in the wardrobe as I cannot bear to get rid of them, even though they are now too small across my tits, although they fit fine everywhere else. Silly, I know, as I cannot go out with them straining at the leash, but there you go - we women are not always reasonable when it comes to clothes. Maybe I could sell them, rather than just give them away??

One outfit that I wore for a wedding two years ago is perfectly acceptable. It fits, it looks nice, I could get some new shoes and a bag to pick it all up, and everything would be hunky-dory were it not for the blasted weather!

This outfit is a lovely, floaty blue dress with matching cardigan/jacket, and really looks great; it also looks very summery. I wore it in June 2006, when the weather was very nice indeed, but that cannot be guaranteed in September 2008. If it is cool, or even worse, rains, I am going to look and feel a fool - a rather chilly, wrongly dressed one at that.  I want to look nice for MM's wedding - she has never been married before or even lived with anyone, so this is a BIG event for her; but the thought of having to shop for clothes fills me with horror!

When I MUST buy something, my mind goes blank, I cannot think what I like and I don't know what to get. Most women like shopping,  I do myself from time to time although I am not a label queen or a fashion victim (I hope), but when I HAVE to do it, I get all panicky. Specially if there is a time limit, as there is here. Gulp!

I have a great coat, bought earlier in the year, that would be perfect, but I need something to go under it. Oh dear, oh dear.....just what will go, will suit, will fit.....

And a hat. It is a hat-job wedding. Hats are said to be out of fashion now, everyone is into "fascinators" I'm told. My chum at work, C, said his wife got one for an event she went to, and he nearly fainted at the cost of what he described as "two feathers and a bit of wire". Yup, I know! He offered to go to the local park and find some old bird feathers, and knock her one up with some wire from the shed, but she wasn't having it. Odd, that. Having looked at some gorgeous ones in a hat shop, I am almost fainting myself at the thought of paying £45 for what C rightly described as "two feathers and a bit of wire" - but there are cheaper places, mercifully. You just have to look round. But will you be able to get the colour you want? I know others will be wearing them and I want to look as though I know what I am doing too, getting dressed properly for this do, however if it does rain all our feathers will be wet and we'll look like bedraggled sparrows, not the birds of paradise we think we are!

Being me, of course, I have left this all to the last minute and am now starting to panic. I have at least got her a wedding present - thank you nearby shopping outlet village thingy that sold it to me at a knock-down price!

I don't want to have to spend the money, but I can see I am going to have to. But if I pick my outfit carefully, I should be able to wear it again.

If anyone invites me to another wedding, of course.

Someone once said "Beware of all enterprises  that require new clothes", and I know just how he felt!

Tomorrow, I have to hit the shops.

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17:33:54 o'clock BST
Feeling Cheerful

But if anyone can recommend a club, please let me know!

Something with "couples only" nights preferred.

And not somewhere that demands to vet a photo of you, before they'll take you as a member,  or only wants "young, trendy and beautiful people" (yes, they do exist and in my view take themselves far too seriously) to come along either.

All suggestions welcomed! 

 

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17:29:20 o'clock BST
Feeling Adventurous

The Inafmous R and I are sure that "the club" which we used to go to has now ceased to exist.

We have scoured the internet for another one, but without success so far. We don't want to hook up with anyone else, we just fancy an occasional naughty night out.

We don't want one of these "spa" clubs where you spend all evening wrapped in a towel, unless it is a naturists club, and that is a different thing entirely. A few years ago, we went a couple of times to a naturist's club at a leisure centre, but that was pure naturism and not a swinging venue.

There are some swinger's clubs which operate like a naturism club with swinging thrown in, but that it not what we want. Neither of us fancy spending all evening in a jacuzzi, and we don't think that getting your kit off straight away is at all enticing - we prefer to keep clothes on when at swingers' clubs as we both find that far sexier (and I think it covers your wobbliest bits as well!).

We'd also prefer a venue outside London; but there seems to be no rural clubs in my area, and those that exist in other areas within travelling distance we just don't like the look of.  There seems to be quite a few in East Anglia, but that is further to travel than London, so that rules that out!

It's not an urgent matter. We have Our New Friend, and that is working out very well; but sometimes, you just feel like a change of scenery and some light hearted entertainment with like minded folk in safe and sexy space.

We will just have to keep looking round.

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