Bad Dogs

The past few mornings have been total hell getting up for work. Yesterday I woke up with a cramp in my leg and fell on the floor. This morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and moaned angrily at my alarm. Jamie, sensing my unhappiness at waking up, told me I was lovely and I told him to shut up. I then squealed when I saw a spider in the bath and made Jamie get up and remove it. He let it fall on the ground and I yelled at him. He called me a mentalist and I called him a bastard. It's not that I don't like spiders I just don't like them in the bath with me.

Tomorrow morning I'm for having a super duper long lie in, maybe sleep for 10 or 12 hours. My body needs it. I can feel it. I've been told it's gonna be 23 degrees tomorrow so I'll persuade Jamie to take me somewhere nice. Maybe kidnap a dog or two from Nelly's, stop them from trotting down the Dreen Rd. on their tods. Jamie told me he saw them scunging down the main road with not a care in the world, cars swerving to avoid them. I reckons they got bored of the fields and were away down for a dander along the river path.

Hurray For Pirate John!

Pirate John, also known as John of the Wild, and his crew will be coming to visit us soon. This means fun times. John has an amazing sense of adventure and is very brave, although not as brave as Jamie The Brave, (aka Jamie from Wolstanton). John is the guy who takes me and Jamie on holidays to Scotland and Wales and the Lake District. He is the one who organised a treasure hunt for us in Manchester. And he is the uncle of Mandark, a horrid and depraved creature but whom John loves anyway cos he's like that.

When Pirate John and his crew come to visit we will climb mountains and swim lochs. We will not need to fear the loch monsters as John and Jamie are well versed in battling them. I have told John there are polar bears in Ireland, only in the North of the North of Ireland. He will want to see them. So he can scare them away for us.

He'll be bringing Captain Tor with him so we'll go to Torr Head and Tor can stand proudly as a captain would and scream into the waves of the crashing sea. After that we might go to Barry's at Portrush and take Pirate John on the Pirate Ship.

Perfect Melancholy

Yesterday I got sent home from work early. The reason being that I lost the head with an irate customer and told her to fuck off! Of course I didn't though. No, the store isn't meeting targets so they're desperate to cut hours. I could've said 'No, my contract clearly states that I am to work 35 hours a week and I am entitled to work them' but the sun was shining and I could think of a million better ways to spend the day. Like chairty shop shopping.

Me and Butter Face did the rounds with me whinging the whole time for him to hurry up. He could spend hours in a charity shop whereas I can spend no longer than 5 minutes. It's the same in TK Maxx. Jamie can trawl through their rails all day while I look at 3 things, hate them all and decide that everything in the shop is crap. I just don't have the patience to seek out the one good thing in amongst all the toot.

Jamie did well. He got himself a new shirt, trousers, shoes and a tie and some books for his mum that she'd already read. I also got a book called Personality Plus. It's one of them books that gives you lists of words and asks you to choose what one is most like you and then all the words you choose determine which personality type you are. You know the type of book that claims there are only 4 different types of people in the whole world and you will all fall into either one of these categories. I am a Perfect Melancholy: The Introvert The Thinker The Pessimist. Imagine how chuffed I was to find this out. This basically means I am an uptight moody cow who is insecure and has high standards for myself and for others. The book also says that a typical Perfect Melancholy will say things like that. On the other hand, I am faithful and devoted, sensitive to others and appreciative of beauty. So I'm not all bad.

Moonboots and Louie

That last post was meant to show a picture of the scunge dog square pants herself but alas! I am no good. Just a while ago I mentioned a character called Ernie Moonboots, or The Sheriff, as others know him. We hadn't even been living in our brand spanking new house for a week when we received a letter through the post that read:

Mr. Hornblower

Please stop playing your trumpet or we'll be calling to see you.

Tony will be calling with the boys and he'll stick that trumpet up your English arse.

You'll be little boy black and blue when we're done with you.

I'm an old man that's why I've reported you to the boys. Liver Lip Louie will see to it.

Me and Jamie were surprised considering he'd hardly played his trumpet and all the neighbours seemed to be quite nice. The girl next door told us it was Ernie Moonboots and that he'd sent letters to other people in street. He's just a mad old man who lives with no electricity. He's got a malicious streak but Tony and the boys won't be calling to stick Jamie's trumpet up his arse. I always see him hanging about broadway with Liver Lip Louie and I always make sure I look really happy as I'm passing him so he knows that his ridiculous letter doesn't bother us.

Scunge Dog Square Pants

If you've been over at Nelly's garden you will know that poor oul Rosie has been suffering from dental problems. Her and Jamie Half Smile are bonding over this . We were out to see her the other day and the poor wee thing wasn't herself. Paddy of course was revelling in this and took the role of Top Dog upon himself with great authority. We'll go and visit her a spell today and I'm sure she'll be back to her old scunge dog square pants self.

My Ongoing Feud With Natwest

Moms would be so proud of me. I phoned up the nasty Natwest credit card people today to dutifully pay off some of my bill and was told that I couldn't make a card payment over the phone. Well then, says I, why was it I was given this number to make card payments in the future? I don't know, says the lackie, but it was incorrect. Me and the lackie debated a while until I called his company corrupt and he took exception to this and passed me to a manager. The manager told me the exact same bullshit as the lackie, telling me that even if they took a card payment today it would still be a late payment as it takes 3 days to process and my due date was today. I informed him that I'd phoned up 2 weeks ago to make payment over the phone and was told it was too soon to take payment, not that they couldn't take payment over the phone but it was too soon. So after ranting and raving about how poorly trained their operatives are and how there was no other way I could make payment he finally gave in and accepted a card payment. And when I huffed about how it didn't matter as they would still charge me for late payment he said he would block the fee as well. It pays to be a pain in the arse.

Fitting Rooms and Runny Noses

Jamie Half Smile is back on line which means I'm back on line too. Yippee. This means being able to stay in touch with my friends, playing literati, updating flickr and most importantly, watching Neighbours. Even though it's poor quality and a bit fuzzy. Half Smile is so chuffed he's almost got a full smile.

Now that I'm back on line I can share some of the delightful things I've been hearing about recently. A girl who works down in the ladies department walked into one of the fitting rooms and found that someone had left a used tampon there. Not only that but she'd wiped her hand on the curtain. I'm sure in all other parts of the country the clientele in Next are a lot less disgusting but you can be sure in Ballymena there's always some dirty bitch who's sense of humour or downright laziness has be be seriously questioned. Another girl told me that she once found pooh in the men's fitting rooms. When I asked her if it was adult's or kid's pooh she said, 'Kid's pooh. I hope!'

I was telling this to a couple of people in the pub and this guy was like, cool, that's a good idea, shitting in the fitting rooms. So there are people out there who's minds work in dark ways. That same guy told me the most horrific story about someone being disgusting. So horrific he was almost sick when he was telling us. You know how kids get really runny, snotty noses? Well his mum knew a lady who would suck up the snot from her kid's nose and then spit it into a hanky. That's proper stomach churning behaviour. Probably the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. Yet.

It's been so long since I last updated i don't know where to begin. I live in a new house, I'm a year older and a year wiser, I got a promotion, I've developed an obsessive compulsion over cleaning products, I've got drunk with friends old and new, Jamie Half Smile shaved all his hair off and I have been on a never ending mission to find the perfect jeans. Our new house is fantastic. All our neighbours are lovely except for Ernie Moonboots. But that's a story for another time.

Me and Jamie are surviving without TV and the net. Living without TV isn't so bad but poor Jamie is finding it hard without his beloved broadband. We joined the local Extra Vision but that turned out to be a bad idea as Jamie became addicted to renting DVDs. Everytime he left one back he'd bring home another one. I fell alseep through every one of them. Apart from Kung Pow which I highly recommend. The lead female role's voiceover sounds like Miss Piggy.

The sun has been shining in Ballymena for a whole week now. It's made everything seem a lot fluffier and even though I've been working most days I've been making good use of the evenings. On Monday we dogsat Gracie and took her for a walk. The poor thing was expecting a pleasant walk by the river but I couldn't find my way and she ended up being taken down a horrible alleyway hootchin with midgies and then across a horrible bridge that was hootchin with midgies and with broken glass all over the ground. She didn't even get to chase a ball across the green by the fire station because a horrible big dog was running at her. I bet her mummy never lets me look after Gracie again.