More of the usual bollocks from me. Enjoy!
There’s a couple of new poems, at least one new “Cooking with Taff” episode, but fortunately no new music this month. Yet again I’ve blocked it up into sections, and given subtitles to the blocks, so you can ignore the bits you… why do I bother….
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Dealing with idiots.
At work the other night. I’d just seen a client at 6.30 pm.
Team Leader, (TL): “You know I’m not normally in the office now, So I was shocked to see you having a client in the office for interview. There’s no one else here apart from me. What if he’d attacked you or something? You’d have been on your own here. I’ll have to make a report of this .”
Me: “We always have clients in the office after hours, we choose them based on our clinical judgement and their history. Tom has no history of violence, but does self harm.
TL: “Yes, but you never know what could happen, do you?”
Me: “We’re an extended hours team, the whole point of the extended hours is that we see people outside of their work/school times, isn’t it?”
TL: “Yes, but if an incident had happened here, who would have been able to help you?”
Me: “So I should see him at home then?”
TL: “Err..mmm.. yes.”
Me: “Ok, so next week I’ll agree to see him at home, out in the rural area he lives, miles from other people.”
TL: “Ermmm..”
Me: “He’s got a great collection of Japanese Katanas at home, I love discussing them with him.”
TL: “Katanas?”
Me: “Japanese ceremonial swords.”
TL: “Oh.”
Me: “So that’s ok then. I’ll see him at his house, alone. Rather than here with the CCTV and alarm systems”
TL: “I see your point.”
Me: “By the way, the only reason I’m working alone here tonight is that for the past six months our team of four people has been a team of three people. Normally there’d be another clinician in the office, wouldn’t there?“
TL: “Yes.”
Me: “Well you’re the person in charge of clinical recruitment for our team, aren’t you?”
TL: “Uumm….”
Me: “We’ll leave it at that shall we? I’ll take it you won’t be reporting this “incident”.”
TL: “Goodnight Taff.”
Nice way to start the week; I’m walking into the office on a Monday morning, when I spot our shrink, Rebecca, coming out. I thought I’d take the opportunity to catch up with her, and what had happened on my days off. But she beat me to it; “Glad I caught you Taff, there’s a bit of a problem, your client Joe X stabbed someone in the face on the weekend.”
You can tell she’s a Pom can’t you? “A bit of a problem” FFS!
Ok, so one of our kids has been deteriorating, which is a shame. So I get her in on an emergency appointment, and our shrink starts her on a new medicine. These have to be titrated (gradually upped,) in doses of 50 mg until she’s on the full dose of 300 mg. She’s known as a bugger for stopping taking them, so we warn parents they are going to have to be extra vigilant. They agree that she will be full time monitored by them.
The next day, I get a phone call; “Can you keep an eye on her, we’ve decided to go to a party in Sydney for the weekend.”
Fuck me pink! So I do her meds over the weekend as I’m rostered on. Parents come back on Sunday night. I give her the last of the titration doses. The next day I pop round to make sure they get the dose right.
Me: “Ok, so she only needs one of these tablets a night now.”
Mother: “But she took five yesterday.”
Me: “Yes, but those were 50 mg doses, this one is the full 300 mg.”
Mother: “So why have they changed her meds?”
Me: “They haven’t, it’s the same stuff she had before in a 300 mg tablet.”
Mother: “So she gets how many?”
Me: “Just the one every night at around 6.0 pm”
Mother: “But she was on five before.”
Me: “Yes, but those were 50 mg doses, this one is the full 300 mg.”
Mother: “So why have they changed her meds?”
Repeat until the cows are home, milked, shot and made into burgers. Mother is a teacher BTW.
At the Post Office.
For some weeks after moving into the new gaff, as well as our own, we had other people’s mail redirected to us. Which was odd, and pissed me off a treat, as they got better stuff delivered than we did. So, being brave or stupid, I decided to help out by taking them into the post office to get it sorted. Why did I bother?
Me: “Hi there, we keep getting someone else’s mail redirected to us.”
Stupid Post Office Bint: “So where would you like the mail to go to?”
Me: “Whoever it belongs to.”
SPOB: “Who are they?”
Me: “I haven’t the foggiest.”
SPOB:“So how come you’re getting their mail then?”
Me: “I don’t know, I want it stopped though. They have a redirect to our address”
SPOB: “Why is that happening?”
Me: “I don’t know, but can you put a stop to it?”
SPOB: “I’ll go as Wendy if she knows…”
So she buggers off for 10 minutes, has a cuppa, and comes back with another stupid bint.
SPOB2: “What’s the problem?”
Me: “We keep getting someone else’s mail redirected to us.”
SPOB2: “How come you’re getting their mail then? Who are they? That shouldn’t be happening!”
Me: “Should we swap sides of the counter?”
In the end they took the mail off and, I don’t know, maybe they put a fucking curse on it or something, but at least it stopped.
I’m not the only one dealing with idiots, had this email from Lee-Anne recently;
I had a run in with one of our ‘beggars’ earlier today.I think he came off worse. He come up to me and said something. (I dunno what. Sounded like “We need a witness”.)
I said – “I am sorry, could you please repeat that, I am quite deaf.”
He then started making excessively loud “spastic” noises and mimed some kind of idiots sign language.
I stared at him, lent in and shouted; “FUCK OFF!!”
I then turned and walked away, hoping he didn’t follow. He didn’t. I do wish the Beggar-Be-Gone spray would work!
That’s my girl!
My own fuck ups;
We saw Ross Noble, he’s always good value.
One of the things I love about his act is he always does a Q&A session with the audience at the end, which he “improvs” wonderfully during. Of course, what with me being a complete comedian groupie/whore, I had to chip in.
Ross Noble; “Right who has a question?”
Me: “Who you voting for next week Ross?”
RN: “Not bloody Plaid Cymru, that’s for certain!”
(He then went off on a great rant on how he had got Green Party policy on motorbikes changed a week before the election. It’s true. He did!)
RN: “Who will you be voting for?”
Me: “Mebyon Kernow*!”
RN: “Maybe the Colonel?”
Me: “The Cornish nationalist party.”
RN: “Great. So when the Cornish international pasty industry fails, the Cornish tin industry goes tits up, oh hang about, it already has hasn’t it?, and the Cornish groat is in recession, and the Cornish national parliament is selling Cornish virgin daughters at a discount rate to prop up the economy, will you be siding with the national army of Cornwall against the invading Breton army who are coming over the border?”
Me: “Yup!”
RN: “You really haven’t thought this “Cornish nationalism” idea through have you?
* TBH; I wouldn’t vote for those arseholes if they were the last party available, I just wanted to throw him a curve ball.
Ok, before going to see Ross Noble we’re in the pub. Lee-Anne goes to get the beers, and I perch on a high bar stool in the window, to do some people watching. She comes back with a beer for me and a wine for herself. I start giggling. Of course, being Lee-Anne she has to know what I’m chuckling about, she gave me hard time before I gave in. But even then I had to text her;
“I didn’t see that someone had sat on that low stool behind me. The poor cow, her head’s level with my arse. I had dried fruit with my lunch, and I’ve been letting off “silent but deadly” farts for the last ten minutes, farting like a fruitbat in fact. I doubt she’ll enjoy her meal!”
This of course started Lee-Anne giggling, and we were soon rather helpless.
One night at work when it was due to piss down with rain, according to the Met radar, I noticed the gate to the director’s car park was open, and was obviously stuck. It’s one of those which opens automatically, when a director swipes a card.
“Great”, I’ll stick my the car under there, and I’ll not get soaked when walking to it”, I thought. “Why should the directors get all the luxury?” I informed my colleague Steve, who was working with me that evening, of my cunning plan. “Good thinking Taff, I’ll go stick mine under.”
So come the end of the shift (9.00 pm,) we walk out to find….Some kind person had pulled the gate shut, and chained and padlocked it. There were only two cars in there. Mine and Steve’s, no fucking expensive poncey directors cars at all, so why did they bother locking it?
Steve phones his missus, she came and picked us up and drove me home. It didn’t rain at all that night.
We had to get back into work at 7.45 am to remove our cars before the directors, those whose parking spaces we had nicked, got in and had us clamped. The worse of it was we were both on evening shifts, and didn’t need to be there until 12.30 pm. Arse!!
Doesn’t end there. Lee-Anne had a plan, she’d get Mary to come and collect us, drop me off at the office to rescue the car, then drop her into work, and then drive herself home. This is the most efficient way, roughly three sides of a triangle.
Mary of course had other ideas. She insisted she drove to our place, Lee-Anne dropped her back home, then Lee-Anne dropped me off at work, came back to Mary’s place to pick her up, then the two of them drove into Lee-Anne’s office, from where Mary would drive home.
This is roughly six sides of the same fucking triangle. There’s no rhyme or reason there at all, is there?
Mate Hate.
I just got this (edited) mail off someone who shall remain anonymous. Envy much?
I finish work for good next Friday. We pick up our new motorhome- a Swift Bolero 680 fb the following day. That gives me a week to sort it out – fit a solar panel etc and then we are off for two weeks touring around Wales or the Peak District. When we get back Jen goes back to work and I pick up gardening work about two days a week and go flying. We go out to Slovenia for a weeks paragliding early September and then mid November we head to Spain and Portugal for 3 months.
Don’t begrudge them …much…
Corporate stupidity.
Why do you have two photos of “Glad Wrap” packaging in the gallery Taff?
Look closely, do you see the warning about dangerous sharp cutting edges? Notice anything?
Yes, you don’t get to see the warnings until you’ve opened the packaging, which tears just where the hidden sharp edge is. Neat eh? Lee-Anne cut herself a treat on that.
I wrote to them on twitter. They said they’d change it, and asked if we needed any further help. I let them know we could cut ourselves up without further help.
This is a doozey! Read the small print.
I damn near wet myself. Though at least their logic cannot be faulted.
Bethy Stuff.
Bethy’s been canyoning with these people. Yep, just to give her poor mother and myself heart failure, she told us that her and two mates had decided to throw themselves down deep canyons and into water. I don’t know where she gets them sorts of ideas from, you wouldn’t catch me doing anything risky.
I’ll let her tell all in her own words.
The night we got there we set up the tent while a wind train was pulling into station. Three tents nearby were torn to shreds. One was completely flattened, and another was being taken down hastily by their owners. We were advised to maybe go to a hostel and not camp. We decided, Cape Diem.
I have never more diligently set up a tent before in my life. That night we ate cheeseburgers in the tent, with ample chips. Great burgers I must say. As we fell asleep, you could hear the wind rushing up the side of the plateau, loud. Then a three seconds gap before it hit our tent. *Bam bam bam!*.
The next day we were told by the instructor, Marty, that we’d do a dry canyon (too cold), so no wetsuits. Which is why in the pictures I am wearing trackydacks. Set out with all the packs packed. My pack was called Porter, ironically I was carrying all the ropes. Sowon was Gladstone and Stephanie was Kedumba (she is a #keduma sometimes).
First abseil was a 15m, steady easy drop. To test our skills, which were great. Beautiful views, but windier than you (Taff) after beans. The second abseil 30m, almost entirely free drop, spinning around I could so the entirety of the blue mountains range, out toward the pastures and Jenolan caves.
Before this abseil I asked Stephanie, who’s one assigned was to bring the camera (which she had and was water and shock proof) at the bottom of the drop we all walked back up together. It was at this time stephanie told me we could only take 3 photos because we (she) forgot the memory card.
Then we went to a place called Juggler canyon. Abseiled down into the canyon and went scrambling through the canyon. Had lunch and Billy tea (sourced from the stream). The next abseil was tricky, and ended with the three of us abseil in down the wrong path following the waterfall, and getting a bit wet and cold. Trackie pants got soaked, thank good for my skins. Two more abseils out, one around a fallen tree, this is where the picture of Sowon was taken. Real Tolkien imagery.
The last was another 30 m drop, free swinging, with a view into the fern gully, the photo of me abseiling was taken in this drop. We walked out of juggler and walked up and out of grand canyon (me sans sodden track pants), which again amazing views. A bit of a steep walk and a lolly break and one incredible view later we were done. The photo of all of us was taken at the van before we left. Marty speculated at the start of the day we’d be done by 5, 4:30 if we were good. We finished at 3. Because we are great.
Will definitely be doing it again. This time with a memory card.
Eating Out
I had my first ever proper Japanese meal at this place. I have had lunch at this place, and I now get Sushi for dinner here, but this was to be my first “Dining out” Japanese meal. I hadn’t eaten proper Japanese food before as, as most of you will know, up until a couple of year ago I was a vegetarian. I now eat fish, but not meat. The setting is good, it actually takes you away from the fact that you are in a shitty inner-city central Canberra block, and feels authentic. (I have had vege meals in Japan.)
The service was prompt, pleasant and friendly. The waitress in traditional dress, though Caucasian, was excellent.
Meals were served quickly and efficiently. The variety of food was superb, and there was ample choice for most tastes. I had the “Spirit of Tasmania”, which was a play on Salmon, presenting it 5 ways, plus sides. It was excellent. Others in our party had varieties form Beef to sashimi, all thoroughly enjoyed. (I wish I’d had sashimi as a side.) The portions were good but not generous. It is obviously very popular, and rightly so.
The only reason I’m not giving a better review is that it is fucking pricey for the portions, most of which is just raw fish, served. Four of us, one course each, with two beers and a wine, $200, (and muggins here was paying natch!)
I had cheese on toast when I got home.
A real game of two halves this one.
On the plus side; our waitress/waitperson/whateverispoliticallycorrect, a lovely Indian lass, was great, (and earned a good tip.) The food was good, just good, nothing earth shattering. Reasonably but well cooked, if a little hastily presented. The choice of dishes was small, but varied enough. The drinks were…ok…..
On the down side; the restaurant is noisy, cramped and they have very odd payment and billing things system. It’s NOT authentic Italian, and there was no atmosphere, it all seemed pressured. If I want fast food I go to …well…. actually I never eat fast food, but still, you get my drift?
It’s bloody odd. It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong. If you want a quick, reasonably tasty meal, at a reasonable price ($120 for two people, starter plus mains, including drinks) then it’s fine. But dining out? Nah. Romantic meal? Nope. Authentic cooking? Nup. Evening out? Forget it.
I cannot see the target audience for this place. People who are scared of, too skint for, fine dining?
Anyway. Not bad, not good.
Odds and sods.
Remember the little sign I bought for the car as a silly “Santa stocking ” gift for Lee-Anne? Well Ginger has been working on it, and it now looks rather more apt!
The weather has been good (i.e. fucking foul,) for a couple of weeks, but we’ve yet to have snow. It’s given my landscape images a boost though.
The one below we’ve had printed up big, (24 x 16 inches) on canvas, for the mother in law’s birthday gift.
My Facebooking has come on a treat, so much so that someone suggested it should now be called “Taffbook”. My “Cooking with Taff” sessions are eagerly anticipated the world over.
I just realised I’ve seen three choirs, but no bands at all, this year for far. I’m getting stale.
TTFN old chums, why not leave me a note below?
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