Home Wrecker

The business has moved out of my home which is great, the problem is that where there used to be people and desks there are now sad shabby spaces. For example I can now see carpet, a carpet that I've hated forever - I knew the carpet was hiding horrible, slightly damaged ceramic tiles and we couldn’t afford a new floor. A week ago I finally cracked and attacked it.

I became a thing possessed, ripping up the carpet, leaving shreds of stringy fibres stuck under the skirting, crumby carpet tape residue remained stuck round the edges of the room - it looked a lot worse.

On Friday I came home after a movie and a bottle of wine, I stood in the room and observed how my efforts had emphasised the way the wallpaper was peeling away from the walls. I picked at it and Lo! strips came away in my hands. I went at the walls as enthusiastically as I’d gone at the carpet. At 2am I stood back and surveyed the wreckage.

On Saturday I tried to escape the horror, I wandered into town, saw a linen tablecloth in a charity shop - sweet but a bit weedy, I bought it home and threw it in the washing machine with some dye to liven it up.

I went out again but when I came back the walls and floor still hadn’t repaired themselves, I took the linen tablecloth out of the washing machine - its delicate beauty was completely ruined, something had to be better by the next time I woke up - I found some rolls of lining paper.

By teatime yesterday I had painted over my badly hung wallpaper and the floor was scraped clean enough to throw a rug over it ... the tablecloth still has to be rescued, I’m feeling loads better but a bit tired now.

Immaculate Conception

My posts are getting too angst-ridden, I need to lighten up and share things that I find funny about the universe

Today a young man was doing some building work, he told me a long and involved story about why he was driving a 'poxy car' rather than a van - this was the punchline;

I had to swap it with my brother because his girlfriend went and got herself pregnant

His words inspired me to look for images imagining the annunciation - I found the one above here

Trying Not To Kill People

Once upon a time our business consisted of two Camera Boys, Miss Whiplash and a big pile of kit, our main concern was to insure against bad men running off with a camera or the film stock getting eaten by tigers.

Now that we have a proper grown-up out-of-the-house building and lots of people, the responsibility for not killing people is mine all mine.

Paperwork about Regulations and Compliance rain down on me. I’ll have just filled in a stack of forms for security arrangements or arranged fire warden training, when another hazard looms. I dream that a giant rabbit is living on my lap, every few minutes it burps and gives birth to several kittens and I have to keep them all within my capacious skirts - they keep dropping on the floor and some of them break and I have to scoop them up and hide the bits in my pockets and try and glue them back together when no-one is looking.


I’ve just subjected myself to some intensive coaching about how to be a good employer, my coach is patient. To deal with different situations, he suggests scenarios where I imagine putting on a succession of different coloured hats or confronting a series of doors, there are diagrams too - one looks like a hairdryer.


Yesterday afternoon I had set up a broad range of policies and contracts and insurances, I thought I had it all covered...

I had forgotten the rogue fourteen year old who I rashly said could come and do a week’s work experience with us in the summer. Today I got a phone call from the child labour inspectoriate demanding an interview, they want to come and grill me and my premises and look at my policies ...

Naughty Foxes

Having poured my efforts into sorting out the new offices, my home got totally neglected. Over Christmas I managed to attend to the insides of home, but its outsides are now a bit of a wasteland.

I didn't think this mattered much, I thought the plants would welcome a break from my pruning and grooming.

Wildlife has always passed through our garden; someone has been leaving it's fur-filled marker poo by the bins and I've often disturbed a mangey old fox who likes to sleep his hangover off in the daffodil patch, he clearly brings his chums over for mad parties now and again, they leave trails of licked-out-chicken-fried-box debris in their wake but now things have escalated:

This afternoon I came home early, put some coffee on and went out to see if spring was starting, instead of lovely crocuses I saw burnt out fireworks stuck in the flowerbed and our back gate is broken.

Have foxes developed opposable thumbs or do I now have a pest problem?