Third night

It has become a habit of mine to spend Friday nights at my flat. The first couple were rather unsettled and restless but last night was much better, with a couple of odd exceptions.

I woke up suddenly around 3am, convinced I'd just heard my front door open (or close). This was highly unlikely, but I went to check anyway. Either I was dreaming the sound, or it came from one of the other flats, because all was quiet.

When I finally got back to sleep, I had a strange dream involving an ex-colleague, but set at my parents' house, in the lounge.

Not a perfect night's sleep by a long shot, but the bags under my eyes are much reduced.

Work last week wasn't much fun. I've been getting a little behind in some flatplans (though steaming ahead on others), and my boss - what with her husband in hospital and everything - hasn't been doing a great job of keeping things moving along.

Friday's magazine went out quite late and, since I was in the office late trying to arrange an 8-page cut to my Monday (now Tuesday) magazine, I helped out a little and uploaded some of the last few pages.

Today, I've managed to pick flooring for the kitchen at my flat and make a tentative decision on carpet for the lounge - assisted by the guy who runs the shop, who advised against a dark carpet, as it would show up dirt, dust, etc. While the lounge is not high on the 'To Do' list, it's nice to have a good idea of what I'm going to do with it.

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Edging closer

Getting everything done that I needed to do shouldn't have been a problem... but we left late - almost 3pm - ended up going by bus because the trains were in a mess, and cut the day's excursion short because I was starving by the time we'd sorted out the tiles.

It should have occurred to me to have something for lunch, considering all I'd had for breakfast was a bowl of cornflakes.

Because I didn't, hunger had developed into a headache in the short walk between the station and home. That really buggered up my evening. I managed to watch Merlin (still pretty tepid, but Michelle Ryan is a very watchable villain even when the dialogue fails to convince), then fell asleep in the hour between the end of that and the beginning of the repeat of Sanctuary, which hadn't recorded during the week either for my mother or my boss.

One might almost suspect that eldritch forces were conspiring against me.

It may be that I'll go out in search of flooring tomorrow, or I may stay home and photograph my TFCC goodies... Depends on weather and timing.

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Hurdles

It could never be said that this last week went without a hitch.

While I had three designers for most of the week, one left early on Thursday feeling unwell and was sent to hospital for an ECG on Friday. Turned out his heart is fine, but they had to be sure. It seems that stress has a very adverse effect on him... but it's not work stress. Looked as though he wanted to talk about it on Thursday, but not in public.

Another of my team is almost consistently late. This bugs me mainly because she had stopped calling to say she was going to be late, and why. I had a little chat with her and cleared that up, but this last week she was late and belligerent. When it was pointed out to her that she'd made a total hash of six pages of estate agent advertising, she tried to prove she hadn't. Because she had failed even to use the correct style sheet - very strange, considering how fiercely she fights to get others to use them properly, and how much she complains when they don't - she just made herself look stupid, lazy and belligerent. I suspect some influencing factor outside of work that I'm not aware of... but then, she also wanted to take time off before Christmas, despite our departmental rule that there's no holiday time in December, and the fact that she's already taken more than her annual holiday allowance.

My new designer is working out quite well, though. She's able to communicate with her editors well enough, and is gradually learning what they like. While I was worried about having a chatterbox on the team (that's self-avowed chatterbox), it's all working out quite well, because the work is getting done. The trays are never full, and generally only have three or four jobs in them at any time, unless the copy controllers are slacking off and doing things in bursts.

Our trainee has now been in hospital for about two weeks... but hopes to be back to work on Monday.

We have one new copy controller already - on trial right now, but she made the right impression (except outside the department, where all anyone can say is that she's gorgeous or "so fashionable"). We have another in the pipeline but three more interviews to go before we can safely make a decision.

The upshot is that my boss won't be my copy controller for much longer. Good for me, because everything should run smoother. Good for her, because she'll be able to deal with all the other shit instead.

During the week, I got my 2008 Exclusives from the TransFormers Collectors' Club - Nightbeat (from the Energon Hotshot mold) and the Seacons. While repaints of G1 figures aren't high on my priority list, this set are pretty cool (read: I hated them at first, but they slowly won me over and I had an almost complete set of the G1 version until I finally got Snaptrap on eBay this year, and I wanted to support the Club), and will make a neat contrast to the brightly coloured G1 version. I've been reading about quality control issues on the Club forum and my set is not without them. There are a couple of stress marks in the plastic of one figure, certain parts don't fit well - Targetmaster weapon modes are affected, rather than combined Piranacon mode - and some joints are a little on the loose side. Then again, this is a 20-odd year old mold that's been re-released at least once. The Club's colour scheme was due to be a Wal-Mart exclusive some years ago, and no-one quite knows how far through production they'd got - if at all - before the idea was canned.

Nightbeat is made from one of the most mediocre molds Energon had to offer, and yet manages to be a decent enough figure. Poseability is limited, only partly due to the Powerlinx gimmick and it's quite simplistic overall... but it has its charm.

I spent another night at the flat last night - still quite restless, but I'd been sleeping in my usual bed all week, so that's not necessarily surprising. I popped into the shop that's redoing my kitchen to finalise the worktop and came away with samples of my top two choices. Now all I need to do is finalise my choice of tiles (I have a good idea of what I want, but need to see it in person) and pick some vinyl flooring. Should be no problem...

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First Night

Once the bedroom was sorted, it was my plan to spend a night over there, just to get the feel of it. The aim was to drop by Ikea or something during the week and pick up everything I'd need to turn the bed into something I could sleep in.

I normally get a lift home from my boss, and she's only to happy to make such diversions (not least because it helps propel me out of my parents' home), but this week she's been rushing home early because her husband has been in hospital all week with breathing problems which turned out to be heart-related.

So when it looked like I wasn't going to get to Ikea, my mother offered to take a few things over there. I rather snappily refused, insisting that I'd take whatever I needed myself, and started drawing up contingencies...

After all, what does one really need to make a bed? There's a sofabed already there, and I could make do with the cushions from that as pillows. My mother's suggestion that pillowcases from home would somehow make them "more hygienic" was promptly laughed at, not least because the average pillowcase is made of fairly thin fabric and, let's face it, I've already dozed on the sofa.

I reasoned that all I truly needed was a sheet to put on the mattress and a blanket. With much reluctance (and having to be torn away from the TV) my mother agreed and helped me find suitable things.

Part of my stupidly large collection of t-shirts also came with me, because there's way more storage space at the flat than at home (how long will it take for me to refer to the flat as 'home', I wonder?), with a five-drawer unit for the clothes that won't fit in the wardrobe, which is much larger than the fitted one in my bedroom at home.

So I went to work with a stuffed backpack, expecting to have to haul it to the flat after work.

But, of course, one of my designers is still in hospital and my boss had been talking about paying her a visit with flowers and a card, but hadn't got round to it. This proved rather fortunate for me as she suggested I tag along, and she'd deposit me at the flat on her way out of town.

Visiting hours at the hospital turned out to be rather awkward, so we ended up leaving at only 2pm, much to the surprise of my team...

It turned out very well for me, though, as we stopped off at a Tesco along the way, intending to pick up flowers (or a plant, as my boss was sure flowers wouldn't be allowed on the ward), but also picking up everything I needed to make the bed - mattress protector, fitted sheet, duvet, pillows and a duvet/pillow case set... as well as a new dustpan and brush, because I'd noticed my parents had managed to break the one that was already there.

The hospital visit was a bit grim. My designer is looking fairly well, but it seems she has Lupus and the joint infections may be related to that. While she kept talking about being back at work next week - aiming for Monday - our boss pointed out that it would be better to get well before even considering returning to work.

Oh, and the plant wasn't allowed. It had to be set aside to be collected by her mother later.

On the way over to the flat, my boss mused that it was strange the girl wore so much makeup when she looked so much better without. It's possibly just a personal thing - many girls do - or it may be related to the Lupus, if it manifests itself with skin inflammation.

Once at the flat, I quickly unloaded everything and dashed back down to the car, as my boss had further offered to drop me off at a tiling shop so I could look into tiles for my new kitchen. Everything there looked great for bathrooms, but not so good for kitchens. Their brochure helpfully labels all the tiles with icons indicating suitability for bathroom, kitchen, flooring, etc... but that didn't seem to affect this.

The bizarre thing, as my mother pointed out yesterday, was that I was offering all kinds of interior design suggestions when she was redecorating the house... but now it's my space that needs designing, I'm coming up blank all the time.

I left the tile shop with their catalogue, intending to read it thoroughly back at the flat.

The evening was fairly dull, the tedium interrupted only by a phone call from my boss (husband back home having finally had the ultrasound scan of his heart that revealed the true - containable but sadly incurable - malaise) and the hour and forty minutes of Kiki's Delivery Service - a movie guaranteed to raise one's spirits.

I headed to bed and had a terrible time getting to sleep in a bed that, while about a foot wider than my wallbed, kept making me think I was about to fall out of it.

Eventually I dropped off - though I'd spent several hours cursing that I'd not brought a book along - and slept fitfully, waking up early enough to do a bit of tidying up and watch some terrible kids TV before heading off to the chiropractor.

So far, the rest of the weekend has been fairly idle. That said, the weather has turned rather cold and when, so I'm not well inclined to go out anywhere... and there's not really enough light to do any worthwhile photography.

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