2014 and all that

Well, that's been a rum old year. Luckily nothing too untoward this time; I hope the same can be said for yourselves.

Still working at Helminthdale; seriously considered jumping ship in this year's bloodletting but it works out that there's a considerable financial advantage to hanging on for next year's bonfire of the public services. I've survived it this long I should be able to survive another year, though it's hard work not to be extremely despondent with it all. Many of my friends have jumped ship from their respective local authorities; I can only envy them. I have my list of stuff I'm planning to do when I get paid off.

Helminthdale has been Helminthdale, except perhaps a bit more so: a shrill, last-minute lurch into insanity before the inevitable winding-up that must be in the offing in a year or two.

The Small Object of Desire has had a good year, being involved in a quite spectacular bit of new development for one of this year's quite spectacular new library developments (the number of these is ironic in a year where libraries are being closed or offloaded onto press-ganged volunteers but only the churlish couldn't take some positives from a visit to any one of them).

At home all is cluttered and messy and cheerful. The Cat I Do Not Have has discovered the joy of howling fearfully at the cat from next-door-but-one early on a Sunday morning. The Small Object of Desire has commandeered the dining room as The Sewing Room. Most of the sofa is piled eighteen inches deep in Books To Be Read.

Take care and be nice to each other.

Gladness

The Small Object of Desire is in that mood where she needs to have been drawn by Leo Baxendale.We'd been round to my parents' for lunch and they'd had "Pollyanna" on the telly, the one with Amanda Burton as the auntie. We were back at mine with pots of tea when she asked:

"That film your mum and dad were watching..." 

"Pollyanna?" 

"Yes. Pollyanna. What was that all about?" 

"It's a timeless classic. Haven't you seen it before?" 

"No. What was it about?" 

"Well... Gladness and the redemptive power of positive thinking. And that." 

"What a lot of toss. I'm going for a poo."

Everybody say: "Ahhh..."

Stung by reading yet another bit of thin blather, I turned to The Small Object of Desire and said: "I should become a library consultant. I can write a pile of weak bollocks like this."

"No you can't," she said. "Besides, you're not capable of kissing enough arses to get the work in the first place."

This is easily the sweetest thing she's ever said to me.

Jolly

2014 set out its stall on day one: more dark and dismal at noon that during the midnight celebrations. The Cat I Don't Own has been bored silly: punctuating periods of mad tear-arsing up and down the stairs with moody longueurs at the doorstep. When I suggest that she may want to go outside for a romp in the garden (or at least a crap) she gives me a look, mutters something about it pissing down then goes to have a kip on the pile of books on the spare bed. (There's a pile of books on the spare bed because the bookcase in the living room fell to pieces again, irreparably this time, due to overloading.)

Strangely enough, it's been mild enough outside for there still to be some bumblebees floating round the garden. There's thin pickings at the moment: just the Mahonia and a few primroses. The cyclamen finished a couple of weeks ago and the snowdrops are only just above ground level. I keep meaning to do something about the Winter flowering in the garden. If 2014 pans out the way I'm hoping it will I should have slightly more time for sorting these things out.

Hope

Happy 2014. Hopefully it won't be as shitty as 2013.