Yes, Friends, is there any single workplace 'nightmare' than when your boss is trying to "psyche you up" for some footling catalogue project or something similar!
And don't think it only happens in big multinational corporations in London! It happened round this "neck of the woods", at a small local firm just this week, and the story is making all the headlines in this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire, a front-page "splash" which makes pretty grim reading - you have been warned!!!!
However, reading the story this morning, here in semi-precious Liphook, Hampshire, this morning does bring a feeling of a kind of "amusement-fuelled anxiety" to the faces of me and my wife Lois, that's for sure!!!
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
To try to calm our nerves, we go for a walk this morning on the grass around Liphook's iconic Millennium Centre, but have to abandon the walk after 15 minutes (again!) due to driving rain (again) (!), which sends us scurrying back to our car - what madness !!!!
And then, to keep our minds occupied, we pop into Liphook's flagship supermarket, the "Big" Sainsbury's, to get Lois some special bread for Sunday, would you believe!
(above) Liphook's iconic "Millennium Centre, where Lois and I try to walk around this morning,
only to be sent scurrying back to our car due to the driving rain (again!!!), and
(below) the town's flagship supermarket, the Big Sainsbury's, to get Lois some special bread
Going to the Big Sainsbury's "to get Lois some special bread for Sunday" sounds weird, I know, but Lois has just joined her church's rota for providing the communion bread and wine for the Sunday Morning Meeting, and she's down to do it this coming Sunday. That will mean we'll have to get up super-early, because she'll have to be at the village hall, where the meetings are held, by 10:30am, so she can get everything ready before the meeting starts at 11am.
Busy, busy, busy!!!
the village hall, where Lois's church holds its Sunday meetings
Only the "sisters" can apply for this job, as far as I know, but if you apply, it's a "shoo-in", and you don't have to run in the church's annual elections if you want to be accepted. By contrast a lot of the "brethren's rotas" - like the preaching rota or the presiding rota, or "doorkeeper", are subject to an annual vote - it's very democratic, so you might get voted off a rota if nobody likes your door-keeping, for example. Something like that, anyway!
13:00 We're still psyching ourselves up for "tonight's event" over lunch, and it even creates a bit of tension in bed this afternoon during "statutory nap-time".
Tonight is going to be a fun event, however, that's for sure, but Lois and I are a bit nervous, because we don't usually go out after dark, sorry to confess!!! Luckily, our daughter Alison, who lives 10 miles away in Churt, over the county line in Surrey, is going to be taking us in her car, so I'm sure our nerves will settle down as soon as she rings our doorbell and settles us two "old codgers" down in two of her comfy car's comfy car-seats, at the unearthly hour of 5pm, would you believe!
Yikes - we're becoming real "late birds" in our old age, that's for sure !!!!
a patently nervous Lois and me, being picked up this evening - 5 pm !!!! -
in pouring rain for a rid to our grandson Isaac's school to hear one of
his "performing arts" monologues - yikes !!!!!
The occasion tonight is going to be a fun thing, happily, because our grandson Isaac (15), together with a bunch of his fellow-students are performing monologues and dialogues in his school's theatre etc under the auspices of the London Academy for Musical and Dramatic Arts, or LAMDA, as it's known.
We find we're not allowed to take photographs during the performance, which is a pity, but here's a shot of Lois waiting anxiously for the performance to begin, outside the entrance to the school's iconic "Hatfield Theatre", while our daughter Ali scans the pictures of the school's previous productions, like "Wizard" (The Wizard of Oz), in which Isaac played the Tin Man.
(left) Lois waiting anxiously outside the Hatfield Theatre at our 15-year-old grandson Isaac's
school, and (right) our daughter Alison scanning the pictures outside the theatre entrance,
including one of the school's production of "The Wizard of Oz", in which Isaac played the Tin Man
Kudos, Isaac !!!!
And exactly what "DNA" (!) is young Isaac drawing on, to get his thespian skills?
Not mine, that's for sure! I have never acted 1956, when as a 10-year-old I caused a kerfuffle at my school's Christmas Play, hanging up my Christmas stocking but then getting into my stage bed at the wrong end. And when my stage "mummy" (10-year-old Jill G.) came to tuck me in with a goodnight kiss, she was confronted with my feet, which at least got me a laugh, although ending my thespian ambitions at a stroke, and for all time, which was a pity!
flashback to my 1956-57 class photo, Mr Spicer's class, with me (ringed, centre of next-to-back row)
before my "growth spurt" (!), and (back row extreme right) Jill, who played my "mummy"
in the school play which ended my dreams of becoming a world-famous actor, tragically enough!!!!
Almost certainly Isaac gets his thespian talents from his dad, Edward, a debonair hotshot London lawyer, who nevertheless finds time to infuse both his addresses to court, and his work presentations, with an incredible dramatic flair and humour.
(left) flashback to 1996: our daughter Alison, with Edward, a fellow Cardiff University student,
just after they had become an "item", and (right) the two of them last year, now married
for 26 years, enjoying the last night of their Mauritius holiday at their beach hotel
And by coincidence tonight, Lois and I find ourselves watching an amusing retrospective on Hugh Grant's career, on the free-to-view Sky Arts Channel, which is nice!
It's very relaxing tonight for Lois and me, after a potentially stressful day which turned our so "dramatically" right in the end (no pun intended !!!!!), to look-back at Grant's career in romcoms and other productions.
In the programme's opening sequence we see him here taking a stroll with fellow thespian, actress Liz Hurley, later Grant's wife.
One of the things Lois and I like most about Hugh Grant is his unfailing politeness. How many film-stars do YOU know would thank a reporter just for asking a question about his latest film - in this case Grant's big hit, "About a Boy" (2002) ?
Another thing we like about Grant is that he's also always very honest and open about his emotions, as seen here in this joint-interview with actress Liz Hurley, his then current "squeeze" and, later, his wife.
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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