The holiday ends

So, the morning will roll around soon enough and with it work. After an extended Christmas and New Year break, I really don't want to go to work. I have got used to not having to. Don't get me wrong, I am glad I have a job and all, but going to work at it is an entirely different matter.

At the best of times, jobs are precious commodities. It is rare that they can be simply chopped and changed below the high-risk, high-return bracket, so we foot soldiers of the economy like to have something settled to go to. In these days of reported economic uncertainty, a job is more than precious: it is priceless. Invaluable. It is my opinion that like other things of great worth, it should be hidden away safely and only looked at on special occasions. We shouldn't play with them five days a week and not expect them to break.

Oh well.

I have decided that I do not like wandering around looking in jewellery shops. Looking at the shinies is one thing, but you have to pick your area and level. This is not something that has weighed heavily on my thoughts in the past, except to accept instinctively that Argos is the bottom of the heap. Hatton Garden, on the other hand, is at the pinnacle of the heap. Sadly, many of the shops there do not treat me as if I may be an eccentric billionaire and I do not wish to have to stand on tip toe to see the eyes looking down on me from above the nostrils that are being aimed at me like double-barrelled Purdeys.  Especially when those nostrils belong to dull grey middle aged men wearing shiny but expensive elderly suits and who spend the periods between 'interviewing clients' standing outside on the street smoking woodbines and peering myopically at passers-by as if deciding it is worth deploying a billy.

Not all of them are like that; some are very helpful, as in the jewel craft place suggested by bibliogirl but even there the chap's heart didn't quite seem to be in it. Perhaps it was the time of year, three days after Christmas and not yet New Year.

The High Street jewellers, by contrast are staffed energetic by young men in suits one size too big for them, and who are clearly on a commission. Simple browsing is not always possible, except through the shop window. 

Nonetheless, we are beginning to sift out the (reassuringly wide number of) options in our price range and as soon as the stone and style have been properly nailed down, we will either buy it off the peg, as it were, or perhaps get something a little more bespoke, if the finances hold up. 
 

The holiday ends

So, the morning will roll around soon enough and with it work. After an extended Christmas and New Year break, I really don't want to go to work. I have got used to not having to. Don't get me wrong, I am glad I have a job and all, but going to work at it is an entirely different matter.

At the best of times, jobs are precious commodities. It is rare that they can be simply chopped and changed below the high-risk, high-return bracket, so we foot soldiers of the economy like to have something settled to go to. In these days of reported economic uncertainty, a job is more than precious: it is priceless. Invaluable. It is my opinion that like other things of great worth, it should be hidden away safely and only looked at on special occasions. We shouldn't play with them five days a week and not expect them to break.

Oh well.

I have decided that I do not like wandering around looking in jewellery shops. Looking at the shinies is one thing, but you have to pick your area and level. This is not something that has weighed heavily on my thoughts in the past, except to accept instinctively that Argos is the bottom of the heap. Hatton Garden, on the other hand, is at the pinnacle of the heap. Sadly, many of the shops there do not treat me as if I may be an eccentric billionaire and I do not wish to have to stand on tip toe to see the eyes looking down on me from above the nostrils that are being aimed at me like double-barrelled Purdeys.  Especially when those nostrils belong to dull grey middle aged men wearing shiny but expensive elderly suits and who spend the periods between 'interviewing clients' standing outside on the street smoking woodbines and peering myopically at passers-by as if deciding it is worth deploying a billy.

Not all of them are like that; some are very helpful, as in the jewel craft place suggested by bibliogirl but even there the chap's heart didn't quite seem to be in it. Perhaps it was the time of year, three days after Christmas and not yet New Year.

The High Street jewellers, by contrast are staffed energetic by young men in suits one size too big for them, and who are clearly on a commission. Simple browsing is not always possible, except through the shop window. 

Nonetheless, we are beginning to sift out the (reassuringly wide number of) options in our price range and as soon as the stone and style have been properly nailed down, we will either buy it off the peg, as it were, or perhaps get something a little more bespoke, if the finances hold up. 
 

Weighty Matters

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions as such. I only ever made one that I kept and that was to make no more.

That said, it now being past 1 January, it is reasonable to attempt a target or two and we in the Gin Palace¹ have decided to have another go at weight reduction. My first thought was to try the Atkins Diet. I am sure, in theory at least, that I could keep to that for a while, except that I would end up having no breakfast as the chances of me getting up and cooking bacon and/or eggs every morning is quite remote and cereals and bread products would be off the menu. So that leaves me with counting points, which works if you can be arsed to stick to it.

It started to work 18 months ago, the last time I really gave it a go, but then I fell off the wagon and pulled it over on top of me. Since moving, the daily walk to the station and back (and more recently, from Westminster to Victoria in a morning) took an inch off my waist, but indolence and Christmas has put it back.

So. Counting points is where we’re at. I was very good this morning: I weighed my breakfast cereal. The amount was so puny that I allocated more points and poured more in. I shall compensate by eating a couple fewer peas with my evening meal.

I guess it will be good for me in the long run.




¹Peers at pax_draconis: I fear the name has stuck, damn you!

Weighty Matters

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions as such. I only ever made one that I kept and that was to make no more.

That said, it now being past 1 January, it is reasonable to attempt a target or two and we in the Gin Palace¹ have decided to have another go at weight reduction. My first thought was to try the Atkins Diet. I am sure, in theory at least, that I could keep to that for a while, except that I would end up having no breakfast as the chances of me getting up and cooking bacon and/or eggs every morning is quite remote and cereals and bread products would be off the menu. So that leaves me with counting points, which works if you can be arsed to stick to it.

It started to work 18 months ago, the last time I really gave it a go, but then I fell off the wagon and pulled it over on top of me. Since moving, the daily walk to the station and back (and more recently, from Westminster to Victoria in a morning) took an inch off my waist, but indolence and Christmas has put it back.

So. Counting points is where we’re at. I was very good this morning: I weighed my breakfast cereal. The amount was so puny that I allocated more points and poured more in. I shall compensate by eating a couple fewer peas with my evening meal.

I guess it will be good for me in the long run.




¹Peers at pax_draconis: I fear the name has stuck, damn you!