An accident waiting to happen

Lovely walk this morning in beautiful, calm, early Spring weather that apparently is not going to be repeated tomorrow.
Then I was invited by Keith to accompany him to Manchester to buy stock for the shop. He really knows how to give a girl a good time, that man! So off we went. I hung around trying not to look terminally bored while he agonised over computer cables, padlocks and other such delights, before whisking him off to Borders for some book-spotting - proper shopping, you see!
Back in Wales, we called in at the shop to unload the booty, and here's where the day went sharply downhill.
"Are you only opening the shutter half-way up?" I enquired as he unlocked the door.
"Well, if I open it all the way, people will start coming in," was the reply.
Funny, I thought the lack of customers had been the big cause for concern during the week. However, mine not to reason why.
So, Keith toddled off into the back with some things while I charged, at my usual pace, back outside to unload more boxes...at least, that was the idea, but I got distracted by a broken sign to my right and failed to percieve that I had not lowered my head before attempting egress. Hence the reason for my sitting here for the last couple of hours feeling extremely sorry for myself and clutching an ice pack to the ostrich egg on my poor, bruised head.
And after the initial care and concern, what conversation do I get?
"Did you have duck for lunch today Ha, ha, ha."
(You'll be ducking yourself, my lad, when I get hold of you!)

New style blog

Well, this is it. I'm taking Yorkshire Pudding's advice (well some of it, or maybe just the general gist of it) and spicing up this blog, in eager anticipation of a money- filled book deal. So, here goes...

He was waiting for me in the living room. His head turned towards the door as he heard my key in the lock. I closed the door, making sure I locked it and sashayed towards him.
"Alone at last," I breathed as I leaned forward and caressed his beard.
For a moment I stood there, immobile, my eyes drinking in the hunk of manhood before me. Slowly, deliberately, he stood up. The computer chair rolled back as I gazed on the coiled spring of masculine pheromones before me. He moved closer and I could feel his breath on my cheek as he bent his head to mine.
"I want to whisk you away to paradise," whispered the throaty voice, "Just let me sort out this hard drive first."

He groaned as he lifted his throbbing head from the smashed remains of the monitor...

(Next episode will be about me molesting one of my clients in the new downstairs loo and calling him The Fling. How's that, YP? How would you like to be my agent?)

Fame and fortune?

I've just seen the interview on BBC with fellow-blogger Petite Anglaise aka Catherine Sanderson whose blog was subsequently transformed into a book. She works in Paris and, two years ago, was ignominiously sacked when her employers discovered her blog and although she had mentioned very little about her worklife, took exception to what she had written.
This is something which happens on a regular basis to bloggers and there have been one or two high profile cases over the last few years. When I was in my last full-time teaching post, I was in the habit of letting off steam on my blog now and again about the negative aspects of the world of education and although I too did my best to avoid getting personal, my head teacher at the time did not like what she read and reacted by choosing to ignore me whenever she didn't have to speak to me. This lasted for the last couple of months of my time there, culminating in her complete avoidance of me on my last day and refusing to supply references for me when I signed on for supply teaching where I now live.
However, all that is well and truly in the past but what I would like to know is, does that qualify me for a book deal?
(Maybe I need to spice this blog up a bit first....a few mentions of .....knickers?) Think I might need to work on this....laters, folks. :)

Deadline

I now have a very pleasant counselling room, with blinds and a downstairs lavatory nearby in case clients need to 'wash their hands.' As this space under the stairs was previously the home of the vacuum cleaner, ironing board, brushes, mops etc, a new storage space had to be created.
Step forward Superman Keith who has built me a very smart, while unobtrusive broom cupboard in the corner of the conservatory. I say he has built it, and so he has, right down to the last few screws...
"So will it take very long to finish off?" I enquire guardedly as he sits in front of his computer instead of getting on with it.
Sharp intake of breath: "Oooh, difficult to say..."
"Well, do you think it will be finished before 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, when my client comes?" I persist.
"Aaah, well, possibly.... but then....."
So I am left with a dilemma.
Should I just put everything in for now and shut the door on it all or, if I do that, will the whole damn thing collapse?
And the other question occupying my mind:
What is it about men that they find it so difficult, if not impossible, to FINISH a job???

Z cars part deux

Well, the police car has gone. Where? Who knows? On Thursday afternoon another police car came down the road, turned opposite our house and sped off again. By yesterday afternoon, the abandoned one had gone.
Questions spring to mind:
Did the police in the car which turned opposite the house, do so because they wanted to check out who had made the phone call? ("Ve are votching you. Ve know vhere you live!")
Did they know that the car had been sitting there for three weeks before my phonecall?
Did they care?
Am I becoming one of those paranoid, nosey neighbour types with too much time on my hands?
And the biggest one:
WHY was an empty police car sitting in our road for three weeks???
Are they going to tell me? No!

Depression

There is an interesting post on Ellee Seymour's blog which I read this morning and replied to. Coming on top of a comment by a GP on Radio 4 earlier that he had lots of patients with mild depression whom he would like to refer for counselling but knows there is an eight or nine month waiting time 'for CBT counselling', I decided to add my own penn'orth to the debate.
I have had many clients suffering from mild to moderate depression who have been considerably helped by counselling. My counselling approach is integrative humanistic and I use Person Centred and Gestalt as appropriate to the individual client. The humanistic bit means that it is important to build up a good working relationship with the client and it annoys me that the NHS generally focuses only on CBT, in which the client/counsellor relationship is not seen as a priority as other counselling approaches can be equally and often more helpful.
CBT works well short-term as it gives the client a range of strategies to help them in specific areas of their life but does not usually address underlying issues. This means that, in the short term, the client is indeed helped but this does not necessarily last. However, the client finishes the allotted six sessions of therapy and is counted as a success - a tick in the box for the NHS and when the client comes back 18 months later, needing help again, he/she is counted as a new patient.
Humanistic counselling relies on a positive therapeutic relationship with the client, in which client and counsellor work together to help the client regain control of his life, which tends to have a long-term effect.
Although I don't know what the situation is nationwide, another cause for concern in my area is that GPs are now referring clients for counselling at Mind rather than providing a counselling service at their surgeries, which seems to me very much like counselling on the cheap. Strangely, it then no longer seems important that most of the counselling there is non-CBT, but of course, the GP is saving money.

Z cars

There is a police car further down our road. Nothing special, just an ordinary North Wales police patrol car with 'Heddlu' written on it. (That's welsh for police, Dale.) What is unusual is that it has been there, without turning a wheel for over three weeks now and Keith is beside himself to know why. He has even considered opening it up (he is a locksmith and car security person, you see), turning it to face in the opposite direction and then locking it up again - just to see if anyone would notice.
So, in an attempt to put him out of his misery, I rang North Wales Police the other day.
"I was just wondering," I said, "whether you know that we have an empty police car in our road which has been there for three weeks and doesn't seem to have moved in that time."
"Ah," said the voice at the other end of the phone, "Well, I don't personally know about it but I'm sure there is someone who does. It's bound to be there for a reason."
He didn't sound too sure, though.
"I'll look into it," he said. "Can I have your name, address and telephone number, please?"
Ooh, I thought, he's going to get back to me and tell me what's going on.
But he didn't.
The car is still there and now there is no way Keith can open it and turn it round as they have all our details.
They probably wouldn't think it was very funny anyway.