Work phrases and severed heads

Back at work today – on a Friday, arrgghhh!! – looking at the last of our website providers and also minuting the Student Induction Group over lunchtime. I hope to goodness they don’t say too much, or at least nothing that’s complicated, as I don’t have the emotional energy for complexity today. It’s been a heck of a busy week.

So much so that when I rushed into the kitchen last night to see if Lord H wanted help with the dinner, I found myself saying, as a kind of automatic work response: can I help you or shall I take a message? He stared at me for a few moments, blinked, and then said in his best, slow baritone, Reeee-laaax. Reee-laax. At which point, I flopped over like a rag doll and rested on the breakfast bar until light dawned in my brain. My, what fun we have in Godalming.

I must also admit that post-the website meeting, the providers have flummoxed me by their constant use of the word, “taxonomy”, which for me conjured up visions of stuffed animals in museums in a quite charming way. I looked it up the moment I got back to the office – and then thought, so what exactly is wrong with “classification” then??

Anyway, this afternoon, my fingers shall be dancing – or possibly dragging themselves – over the keyboard to make a hole in these darn minutes. (Once I get over the huge irritation of one of the Group members at the meeting – who must remain nameless – who insists on sitting next to me and pointing out what he thinks is wrong in the way I take the minutes, and then butting in on perfectly reasonable explanations I give to members afterwards of what they missed. The words: out, butt and loser come to mind!!! It’s just hugely rude!!) But I’d better try to get as much of the stuff (which turned out to be very complex indeed, sigh …) typed up as I can, as I have yet another wretched meeting on Monday, and I will soon be drowning in papers. And with only a two-day weekend ahead (pause for agonised screams from the rest of you – sorry …). Honestly, it’s shocking!

And, talking of shocking (SPOILER ALERT HERE!), I was much taken with a scene in the book I’m reading at the moment – Gyles Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders – where a glorious New Year party at Oscar’s, described in tight but wonderful detail, is interrupted by the opening of a box which is thought to be a present for Mrs Wilde. Instead, the severed head of the man murdered on the first page rolls out across the dining table, and Conan Doyle (who’s also in the book) leaps up to fling his napkin over it and calm the ladies. Utterly fab!!! What a fantastic scene!! I wish more than anything that I’d written it.

Tonight, I shall be videoing “Ugly Betty” (Mark & Cliff are sooo sweet!) and “My Name is Earl” for later and watching comedy shows with Lord H. Bliss.

Today’s nice things:

1. Laughing at my hyped-up work brain
2. The severed head scene
3. TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers